The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Peter is a Portuguese who came to Macau more than 40 years ago. At that time, Portugal was still the maritime overlord and had not been annexed by Spain.

The Jesuits did not want to offend Spain, but Peter did not care about this. The old man was over seventy years old, and his memories of Portugal were still the most glorious of Portugal more than forty years ago, and he hated the Spaniards who annexed Portugal. itch.

"This time, I have been entrusted by Mr. Xu, Deputy Chief of the Fujian Coast Guard. I want to come and see the operation of the Bugalao Cannon Foundry."

Hearing Wang Wenlong's words, Peter nodded and stretched out his hand in an inviting gesture: "I'll accompany you to visit."

Wang Wenlong took several officers under Xu Xueju, followed the Jesuits, and Peter into the artillery factory. To his surprise, the scale of the artillery factory was much smaller than he had imagined.

It is estimated that there are no more than twenty employees in the artillery factory that he saw. Wang Wenlong also visited the military depot in Fujian when he was working in the Fujian Chief History Department. He saw the process of craftsmen making hot weapons in this era. The famous Bo Jialao The scale of the cannon foundry is not even comparable to the number of craftsmen in a large county under the jurisdiction of Fuzhou.

Wang Wenlong expressed his doubts, and Peter sighed.

"Actually, the operation of the Bugalao Cannon Foundry is not good," Peter explained. "There is no shipyard in Macao, and we do not have stable orders for ship cannons. We only undertake the maintenance and manufacturing of some ship cannons, and in addition, we provide Those captains made some cannonballs, gunpowder and stuff like that.”

After listening to Peter's introduction, Wang Wenlong finally understood.

Although Peter had been operating in Macau for more than 40 years, the scale of the Bugarao Cannon Foundry was still very small at this time. The main reason was that Macau had not yet been developed into a true colony by the Portuguese at this time.

Historically, the Bugarao Cannon Foundry could not be considered large-scale until more than ten years later. By that time, the Portuguese had sent the Governor of Macao to Macao, and a series of city defense work in Macao was also launched one after another. City defense cannon casting and The subsequent maintenance work gave the Bugalao Cannon Foundry a large number of orders.

However, Peter was already in his seventies now, and Peter would have probably died by then. Later, the Bugalao Cannon Foundry recorded in history books should have been run by Peter's son.

At this time, the production scale of the Bugalao Cannon Foundry was indeed small, and the products produced were quite mixed and fragmented.

Among the officers sent by Xu Xueju were cannon-casting experts. After entering the cannon factory, his eyes were directed towards the blast furnace for smelting copper water and the molds on the ground. Wang Wenlong looked at Peter next to him and saw that he was very concerned about this. The behavior was not at all defensive.

Wang Wenlong simply walked towards the working area, and several people arrived at the model where the copper water was poured. Not only did Peter not take it seriously, he also took the initiative to help introduce the casting process.

Wang Wenlong couldn't help but asked curiously: "Mr. Peter, aren't you afraid that we will secretly learn your skills?"

Peter laughed loudly: "What is the skill of pouring copper water? In terms of casting, Chinese craftsmen are no worse than us."

At this time, Wang Wenlong saw that a furnace of copper water had just been poured. Two workers took off their protective masks and gloves. Wang Wenlong and others discovered that both of them had Chinese faces.

The two Chinese were not distracted while working just now. Now after the pouring was finished, they all came over to greet Wang Wenlong and others as a gift.

Wang Wenlong was speechless for a while.

Just before he was about to pour the copper water, he asked the Jesuit to translate for him and asked the two for technical details. The other party did not answer, and he had to wait for Peter to introduce him to what kind of work the two were doing.

Just now, Wang Wenlong thought that they wanted to keep it a secret and dare not say much. Then he realized that the other party was probably from Huizhou, and he did not answer because he did not understand the official dialect.

Peter said with a smile: "Chinese and Portuguese workers account for half each in the Bugalao Cannon Foundry. The Portuguese have mature experience in making copper cannons, while the Chinese cannon foundry recruited from the Zhaoqing area brought with them the Ming Dynasty tradition." The iron cannon casting method is more difficult to cast than the bronze cannon."

After Peter explained it, Wang Wenlong realized that bronze cannons were popular in Europe in this era, and the cast iron cannons that were a specialty of the Ming Dynasty were rare in Europe. The pouring and casting process of cast iron was more troublesome than casting copper. Even Peter It was only after arriving in Macau that I slowly figured out how to make iron cannons.

No wonder he said that the skills of Chinese foundries are no worse than those of Europeans.

The reason why cast iron cannons are not popular in this era is because the performance of cast iron cannons is not very good. The casting of iron cannons is prone to problems such as trachoma and hollowing, which makes the iron cannons easy to explode. However, the cost of large-scale production of iron cannons is far higher. Lower than a bronze cannon. Wang Wenlong asked curiously: "Mr. Peter, isn't he afraid that we will also learn how to cast bronze cannons?"

Peter shook his head, pointed to the workshop where materials were piled up, and said: "It took me five years to build the first cannon in Macau. Most of the copper materials required for the casting of our copper cannons were purchased from Japan. Other minerals include Sulfur, red copper, and even charcoal are all obtained from specialized sources. All the recipes took many years to figure out. The composition of these things will be completely different in another place. Even if I want to go to Fujian to cast cannons , it will take another five or six years of exploration before it is possible. How can you learn it just by looking at it?"

Wang Wenlong finally understood that the purity of metal and mineral raw materials these days is too low, and the casting formula needs to be changed accordingly if the raw material channel is changed. No wonder the Bogarao Cannon Casting Factory can lead in East Asia for hundreds of years because they have adapted to the local formula. and raw materials, there is a set of casting methods that can only be done locally.

No wonder Peter didn't guard against them at all, because in these days, the same cannon-casting workers would not be able to do anything if they were shipped to other places.

It was obviously impossible to capture Peter to Fujian to help cast cannons. Wang Wenlong finally understood why the Ming court had to send people to Macau to buy cannons later, even if Peter himself wanted to produce high-quality cannons. Stable cannons can only be made in this bamboo forest in Macau.

Since there was no way to recruit people, we could only talk about purchasing. Wang Wenlong and Peter walked around the foundry area together, and then Peter invited him into a Portuguese-style stone wall hut. Wang Wenlong and Peter Sitting across from each other, with a Jesuit serving as translator next to him, Wang Wenlong took a sip of tea and asked: "What is the current production status of the Bugalao Cannon Foundry?"

Peter was very honest. He smiled bitterly and said: "It is almost unsustainable. Our main business now is even bell casting."

Since the local artillery orders were not large, although the Bugalao Cannon Foundry was called a gun factory at this time, it was mainly engaged in repairing and repairing supplies for merchant ships from various countries that came to Macau for supplies. The Bugalao Cannon Foundry even undertook Ordered a bronze bell.

Several large bronze church bells of the Jesuits in Macau were cast by the Bugalao Cannon Foundry. The copper casting technology of this factory is indeed unique in the Ming Dynasty. The bronze bells cast are complete and strong, with a loud sound and a high success rate. , has become so famous that even some temples and Taoist temples in Huizhou, Guangdong came to the gun factory to customize bronze bells.

Wang Wenlong thought for a while and said: "The navy in Fujian is planning to form a fleet with ocean-going offensive capabilities. What does Mr. Peter think of this?"

Peter smiled and shook his head after hearing this: "With all due respect, the ships commonly used by the Ming Navy are too cumbersome. Whether it is the design of the ship or the mast, it may have been OK a hundred years ago, but it is no longer a match for European ships today." , if the Ming Dynasty’s navy wanted to have the ability to truly control the ocean, it would be better to go to the Spaniards in Luzon to order a large sailing ship.”

Wang Wenlong also sighed after hearing this. European shipbuilding technology has improved rapidly with the development of ocean trade in the past hundred years. The ships Columbus used when exploring America were far inferior to the large sailing ships used by Zheng He, but when compared to more than a hundred Years later, whether it was the Manila galleon built by the Spanish or the Galen ship built by the British, they were all successful designs that could dominate the oceans. However, the traditional Chinese hard sailing ships were much inferior. When encountering battles at sea, they were often Either you can't catch up or you can't run away.

Historically, Zheng Zhilong controlled the oceans of Fujian decades later, relying on Western-style sailing ships ordered or plundered from the Spanish.

However, it was almost impossible for the Fujian navy to switch to European ships at this time. I don’t know how many people can get kickbacks in shipbuilding. Even Xu Xueju was not able to snatch this business.

Wang Wenlong could only say politely: "For the time being, Fujian does not have the funds to change the ships."

Peter said: "Then we can only change the firepower configuration of the existing ships. Sir, do you have the Ming army ship design drawings?"

The types of ships used by the navy of the Ming Dynasty are basically the same. If anyone wants to know more about them, it will be clear if they go to the dock and take a look. Ships before the steam age did not involve much high technology, and there is really nothing to keep secret.

Wang Wenlong directly called an officer who was familiar with shipbuilding. The man took some paper and roughly drew the appearance of the ship, and then added various specifications and details.

After reading it, Peter commented: "Look at the design of Ming Dynasty ships, which are basically arranged for French cannons. They only have this kind of main firepower."

He shook his head as he spoke: "In my opinion, although the Franchi cannon has the advantage of firing quickly, the design of the sub-cannon and the main cannon will inevitably cause a large amount of air leakage at the connection between the sub-cannon and the main cannon, resulting in the range of the Franchi cannon. Unsatisfactory.”

Peter said bluntly: "The range of this kind of cannon is half less than that of bronze cannons of the same caliber. If you encounter an enemy equipped with bronze cannons, the opponent can fire and destroy the Ming naval forces if they are outside the range of the Ming warships." What’s the point of sinking it, no matter how fast the rate of fire is?”

"Fifty years ago, the French cannon was a common equipment on European ships, but due to such shortcomings, it is now rarely seen on major merchant ships and warships in Europe."

(End of this chapter)