Song Gexing

Chapter 236
"The distance is further!"

Yan Jidao was surprised and asked: "Don't we have tiger squatting cannons from a distance?"

Zhao Fang nodded and said: "The Crouching Tiger Cannon is inconvenient to place on a warship. We lack firearms in naval battles. Those rockets, fireballs, poisonous smoke, and kerosene are not powerful enough."

In fact, the tiger squat cannon can be boarded. It is actually very simple to solve the damage to the deck caused by the recoil. Just use teak as the deck.

If you want to increase the durability, you can also lock a layer of iron plate on the teak. Not to mention the squatting cannon, even the later red cannon is still used on wooden sailing boats.

It's not that Zhao Fang hasn't thought about this, but the amount of teak produced in the Song Dynasty is too small. It was originally used for keels and underwater parts. If the deck is replaced with teak, the demand will be too great.

Teak is not only hard, but also resistant to corrosion. This has been verified by history. Any sea-going ship made of teak can last for 50 to [-] years, which is comparable to later iron ships.

Other woods can only be used for three to five years. Even European oak can only be used for five or six years, which is incomparable with teak.

European sailing warships only discovered the preciousness of teak after colonizing Asia and began to use teak for shipbuilding.

Teak grows in the tropics. The best one is Myanmar. It is called golden teak with golden threads. It is only found in Yunnan, Guangdong and Guangxi, Fujian and Taiwan, and cannot be grown in other places.

At this time, Yunnan was the country of Dali, and Taiwan had just been developed. Many deep mountains and old forests had not been entered at all, and they did not dare to enter.

Therefore, the Song Dynasty was extremely short of teak, and could only be replaced by harder woods such as ironwood. As for fir, pine and other seemingly high-end woods, because the wood is soft, it is far inferior to teak for shipbuilding.

Merchant ships don't matter, warships must use hard wood, especially in the age of firearms, because hard wood will not produce too many sawdust after being bombarded.

Don't underestimate the sawdust, it is a good thing for igniting fire. If a fire occurs in a naval battle, it will not be lost. If you are not careful, the whole ship will be destroyed.

When Yan Jidao heard that Zhao Fang wanted to do this, he thought about it seriously and shook his head: "This is not feasible. If the fuse burns for too long and is thrown rapidly, it is impossible to guarantee that it will not go out in the strong wind."

Zhao Fang was dumbfounded, and after thinking about it, he understood that the speed of throwing it by hand would not be too fast. If it was thrown with an instrument, the kinetic energy of the air flow would be extremely strong, and it would be impossible to prevent it from being extinguished with current technology.

"Forget it, let's drop this matter. It's more practical to study artillery."

Yan Jidao laughed at this moment and said: "Have you ever thought about it, we can just throw it with our hands, and it can be used in naval battles during boarding battles."

"Yes! Look at my brain."

Zhao Fang came to his senses now. He was caught up in the fantasy of naval battles in later generations, forgetting that before the emergence of large-caliber artillery, boarding warfare was actually the most commonly used method of naval warfare.

In fact, not only before the emergence of artillery, even after the emergence of artillery, boarding battles still occurred frequently in naval operations around the world.

It wasn't until a warship used dozens of cannons to attack enemy ships from a long distance that boarding battles gradually disappeared from history.

At least in the era of Zheng Chenggong's battle with the Dutch, boarding battles were still the mainstay. At that time, the Dutch warships already had more than a dozen cannons, but they still couldn't stop being approached and boarded.

The most iconic change in naval warfare was in the British sailing battleship era, when the battleships lined up facing the enemy from the side and then opened fire and bombarded the opponent.

In the previous naval battles, warships did not face the enemy from the side. This was due to the changes in combat methods after the weapons were updated, resulting in this iconic combat method.

In naval combat in this era, after firing one side of the cannon, move forward, draw an arc, change direction, and engage in another artillery battle with the enemy from the other side.This kind of fighting method is very similar to the fighting method of knights in ancient times. Any fancy means are useless under the strong firepower.

This is probably why Western military writings lag far behind those of the East, because they have not experienced the diverse wars in the East.

The ancient West had always been aristocratic in combat. Until the end of the Middle Ages, knights were still the main force in wars, and civilians were not qualified to participate in wars.

The aristocratic wars in the East ended in the Spring and Autumn Period, and were swept into the trash can at the beginning of the Warring States Period. This is a significant dividing line in China's military books.

That is "Sima's Law" and "Sun Tzu's Art of War". Sima's Law is a military book summarizing the nobles' war, and Sun Tzu's Art of War is already a program of civilian war.

"By the way, Shuyuan, pay more attention to those people who love miscellaneous studies. There is too much resistance in the court. You can recruit them yourself. You can't give them an official position, but you can give more rewards in money to encourage those people to study new inventions, especially It’s about what changes will happen after various items are fused, record them, and find the rules.”

Zhao Fang lamented that it was too difficult to explain chemical changes to the ancients, and many words could not be used at all, because the Chinese words of later generations had completely different meanings from those in ancient times.

Especially those nouns related to physics and chemistry. Everyone knows every word, but they just don’t know what they mean.

Because many Chinese words in later generations actually originated from Japan. The Japanese translated European science and technology and created many words.

At that time, almost all Chinese people learned the knowledge of Japanese translation. Most of the people sent by the Manchu Qing Dynasty to study abroad went to Japan.

Most of the early generals until the Republic of China returned from studying in Japan, including Lao Jiang.

Yan Jidao has been here for several years, so he naturally understands the significance of these knowledge. Besides, he has followed Zhao Fang since he was a child, so he will definitely be affected.

Hearing this, he nodded hurriedly and said: "I have been working on this matter. Don't worry, officials. The so-called strange skills and tricks are just for fun. Other technologies that help people's livelihood are not in this scope. I have heard this since I was a child. You said it."

Zhao Fang was delighted to hear that, and patted him on the back with a smile: "Okay, I feel relieved with you here."

As soon as he finished speaking, a man came over from the other side. He was dressed like a marriage officer in the Imperial City. He came panting and whispered to Gao Jujian.

A look of surprise appeared in Gao Jujian's eyes, and he immediately took the letter in his hand and walked towards Zhao Fang.

"The official family, Duke Ying has gone."

Zhao Fang was startled, "Where have you gone?"He immediately understood what this meant, and his eye circles instantly turned red: "Didn't you say we were fine last month? Why is it so sudden?"

"The official family expresses condolences, the Duke is also 76 years old..."

"I know how old he is. This bastard old man clearly promised to wait for my 30th birthday!"

Pang Ji passed away. This news immediately wiped out Zhao Fang's previous joy. This ruthless old man would even give up the face of a scholar-bureaucrat for him.

Perhaps among the famous officials of the Northern Song Dynasty, he was not even ranked in the top ten, but to Zhao Fang, he was the best prime minister and assistant minister, better than Fan Zhongyan, because he was the only one who supported him regardless of right or wrong.

(End of this chapter)