Chapter 549: The Ming-Portuguese War (III)

Following Regional Commander Cao's pointing finger, the onlookers all turned their gaze toward the nearby sea surface.

The waters around Macau Island were now dotted thickly with large ships. With the billowing black smoke and blue-black seawater trailing from a few of them, to the Portuguese at this moment, it must have felt like dark clouds pressing down on the city, about to crush it.

These ships came from a motley assortment of sources. There were the white-sailed high-speed patrol boats the Ming people were already familiar with, wide-bellied transport ships, and on the periphery, civilian boats that had come to watch the excitement and skiffs that had come on their own to sell farm produce. Of course, the blue-and-gold great gunboat, squarely blocking the outer harbor of Macau with its dense cannon muzzles extended, was forever the most dazzling and eye-catching kid on the block.

However, the great cannon Regional Commander Cao spoke of was none of the above vessels, nor was it that great gunboat some people assumed. For the Portuguese Fortaleza do Monte was situated on the island's western high ground, and the battleship on the sea east of the island did not have that kind of range.

The next moment, the answer appeared.

Out on the sea not far away, two transport ships belching black smoke were laboriously making their way toward the dock. The reason for their staggering gait was the uniquely shaped rectangular unpowered lighter they were towing behind them.

The three ships, moving in a Y-shaped formation, soon reached the vicinity of the dock. After this, the hawsers were cast off and the two tugboats pulled away. Another tugboat following behind then began using its bow to push against the lighter's stern, slowly nudging it forward. Half an hour later, after a series of fine adjustments, the lighter finally docked smoothly with the prearranged landing point near the pier and began dropping anchor to fix its position.

As mentioned earlier, for this war, the Transmigrators' primary objective was demonstration.

The demonstration was not just the sea of cannon fire and troops; logistics, transport, medical care, and other capabilities ahead of this era were also within the scope of the display.

As the saying goes, the connoisseur sees the skill, the layman sees the spectacle. The native elites who came today were from all trades and professions; many among them might not understand warfare, but other aspects could bring them shock all the same.

Furthermore, setting aside the native factor, this war was also a self-assessment for the Transmigrators.

Adhering to the principles brought from before the Crossing Over, strategically, the Portuguese in Macau City were not taken seriously by the Transmigrators, but tactically they were given considerable attention: since the Crossing Over, the Portuguese entrenched in Macau with their comprehensive artillery were, without a doubt, the most "regular," most "modern" enemy the Transmigrators had encountered, and they needed to be treated seriously.

This was a "high-tech war."

Therefore, the Military took it quite seriously. There were two reasons: first, this was the troops' first assault on a proper barbette; the Military wanted to use this opportunity to test the troops' fortification-breaching capability and gather experience for uprooting the barbettes colonizers would build around the world in the future.

Second, this was a joint sea-land operation. With the advantage of logistics right on their doorstep, the troops could conveniently drill amphibious landing and transport — there could be no better opportunity than this.

So for this war, the Military had done a great deal of preparatory work. It is worth mentioning that the bigwigs of the Army and Navy were unprecedentedly united this time, jointly wrangling quite a few resources from the Cabinet, and thus came today's scene of the lighter docking at the shore.

Of course, the lighter docking was only the first step; many follow-up actions remained.

With heavy anchor chains dropped all around, the lighter, now moored steadily at the shore, served as a temporary pier.

At the same time, some engineering personnel who had long been waiting on the shore boarded the lighter. These men wore yellow or red vests; some went to the lighter's engine room to start the machinery, while others, wearing woven-bamboo red engineering helmets, held signal flags and had whistles hanging from their chests, ready to direct the next wave of transport ships docking.

Strictly speaking, the lighter was not unpowered — it was just that its power could not be used for navigation. This lighter, named "Lancet 04," had been fitted beforehand with a single unit of coal gas powered traction equipment.

The coal gas power system was now something the Industrial Party played with great proficiency. Derived from primitive 19th-century coal gas internal combustion engines, with simple parts and crude workmanship, the vast majority of its components could now be "self-produced" in the factories of the Kiln District. What limited the number of these internal combustion engines was only a small number of parts that required import.

Although the thermal efficiency of these early internal combustion engines was still under 10% and their power output did not exceed 10 kW, in the plane of the Transmigrators, this was a well-deserved divine artifact. One must understand that the present Ming Dynasty had no supply of liquefied gas, much less higher-grade gasoline or diesel, so the coal gas power system — "coarse of palate," not picky about its fuel, able to use the vegetation ubiquitous in the seventeenth century to generate power anytime, anywhere — was the machinery most suited to the current age.

After entering the ship's engine room, the engineering personnel first filled the coal gas generator, shaped like an iron cylinder, with previously stockpiled power coal, then lit it. Before long, as faint black smoke rose, the system began operating.

Once the coal gas entered the internal combustion engine, it provided power. After this, the internal combustion engine began to do work, and as the power gradually increased, the thick iron wheel on the outside of the engine began to turn slowly.

Meanwhile, the lighter dock was also formally "receiving guests": a square-bowed, square-sterned, slow-moving transport ship was slowly pulling into port.

As of now, over an hour had passed since Regional Commander Cao's earlier sweeping gestures. Yet the onlookers atop the gate tower did not feel bored; whether the rough-voiced, loud-talking military officers or the wealthy merchants silently crowded into the corners, all were watching the dock operations close at hand with fascination.

People of later generations, stepping out to streets full of cars, looking up to see cranes building towers, looking down to see excavators demolishing, have long grown accustomed to the power of industry.

In this era, however, the natives had never experienced the baptism of industrialization, so whenever people beheld that immense and mysterious power, they were always captivated at the very first moment.

Although the natives had previously heard tales of the barbarian island's iron machinery, how could words ever match the shock of witnessing it in person? So the moment the long lighter was pushed to the shore, it captured the interest of the military officers, the merchants, and the civilians spread all around at that moment. The natives were all watching excitedly, anticipating the next move... The natives were not stupid; the natives knew very well that building a dock was only the first step, and there were sure to be more shows to follow.

After the square-bowed, square-sterned transport ship docked at the pier, anchors were likewise dropped at bow and stern. Once the hull was stabilized, something that made the onlookers gasp appeared: the tall transport ship's hull suddenly split open with a gap.

Soon people saw clearly: it was an outer wall panel slowly opening. Looking more carefully, this panel gleamed with a metallic luster — it was a large iron plate! The iron plate was enormous, the size of a carriage compartment. As time passed, through the widening gap, people could even see the crewmen inside the hold slowly turning a capstan.

As the capstan turned, the iron chains on both sides were slowly paid out, and finally, the iron plate landed with a "Clang!" on the far end of the lighter dock, forming a de facto ramp.

Immediately after, from the lighter's engine room, the engineering personnel pulled out two thick ropes and hauled them all the way into the transport ship's hold.

Theoretically, steel wire rope should have been used here. However, the Transmigrators could not yet self-produce such a high-end item as steel wire rope, so oiled rope had to serve as a substitute.

After the ropes were pulled into the hold, quite a while passed before a green flag was waved at the hold opening. With the appearance of the flag, the power machinery in the lighter's engine room began outputting at maximum power, and thus the ropes were pulled, slowly retreating.

The next moment, a large-caliber cannon appeared under the gaze of the crowd.

Strictly speaking, what appeared at the movable hatchway was the cannon's rear end — this was a 24-pound long-barreled naval heavy cannon gleaming with a black sheen.

The heavy cannon was mounted on a gun carriage. Dragged by the ropes, the cannon slowly slid backward down the steel plate ramp, and then, just like that, under the gaze of thousands upon thousands of eyes, continued its slow backward progress, pulled all the way to the other end of the lighter and onto the shore.

Next, another set of long ropes took over the previous position, hooking again onto the gun carriage and beginning to pull... During the time the lighter was docking, two sets of mobile traction systems had already been moved into position between the dock and the artillery emplacement.

The so-called mobile traction system was actually no different from the components on the lighter — it was still a single unit of coal gas power equipment, except the system on shore was transported to the site in separate pieces by cart and then assembled.

Thus, through the relay traction of three mechanical systems, this naval heavy cannon, weighing 2.8 tons, was, half an hour later, under the direction of flag-waving, whistle-blowing engineering personnel, smoothly pulled across the floating dock and the temporarily hardened dirt road to the rear of the prearranged artillery emplacement.

The final step of getting the cannon into the emplacement could only rely on manpower. A large group of young soldiers surged forward, pushing and shoving, and settled this colossal object into the circular artillery emplacement surrounded by hemp sandbags.

At the same time, the native audience, which had been utterly silent — perhaps because they had been holding their breath watching the show — burst out in excited shouts the very moment the cannon was in place. For a time, from the top and bottom of the gate tower to the nearby sea surface, tidal waves of cheers resounded, as people gave full vent to their reverence for power.

From the moment the first great cannon was successfully emplaced, several transport ships began taking turns "unloading cargo." And this unloading continued for an entire day.

By evening, a total of twenty 24-pound long-barreled cannons and fifteen 18-pound cannons had been emplaced. The smaller-caliber cannons transported overland were numerous and not even counted among these.

In the short span of a single day, the artillery emplacement prearranged between the Gate Barrier and the enemy fort had been filled to the brim with upward-tilted great cannons.

This vast metallic emplacement, constantly reflecting a black luster, not only threw the Portuguese on the opposing fort into panic, but also brought an expression of terror to the faces of the Ming natives who saw it, even the military officers: the Ming people had never seen so much steel and iron gathered together. That cold sense of industrial slaughter, built up by sheer scale, was shaking the hearts of all who witnessed it at every moment.