Chapter 1489: Sturdy Ships, Powerful Guns

Inside the vast Temasek naval base, the shrill wail of suonas suddenly rang out from outside every sailor's barracks. The piercing suona notes were the emergency assembly call, and countless sailors instantly dropped whatever they were doing and rushed like lightning toward the naval docks.

The suona sound also woke Ibrahim ibn Urdin, who was taking an afternoon nap in the officers' building. He was an observer from the Ottoman Empire's navy — the Great Ming Empire under Zhu Cilang's rule had always adhered to an open-door policy!

Not only did it uphold the principles of free, open, and low-tariff trade, but it also maintained exchanges with countries around the world, chiefly the Western nations, in military affairs, education, science and technology, and every other possible field.

These "Western nations," of course, also included such Muslim powers as the Ottoman Empire and the Timurid Empire of India.

Especially after Sino-French military exchanges were severed as the two countries moved step by step from allies toward hostility, military exchanges between the Great Ming and the Ottoman Empire grew increasingly frequent — the Ottoman Empire of this era was no sick man of Europe, but still a military power capable of making at least half of Europe tremble. Its military strength might not match France's, but it was absolutely above that of the Holy Roman Empire.

Historically, in the 1683 Battle of Vienna, had it been a one-on-one contest between the Ottomans and the Holy Roman Empire, Austria might well have become "Austristan."

Therefore, after the Great Ming Army could no longer draw lessons from the French Army's experience on European battlefields, it shifted the focus of its exchanges to the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire, for its part, was extremely interested in the miraculous rise of the Great Ming Navy. The Great Ming Navy could now be counted as a force that overshadowed England and Holland! To the Ottoman Empire, whose maritime power was declining by the day, this held an intense attraction.

Thus, Ibrahim ibn Urdin, a reis (captain) born into a Barbary corsair family who had served the Ottoman navy for more than twenty years, had two years earlier received orders from the Kapudan Pasha (supreme commander of the Ottoman navy) to go to the Great Ming Navy as an observer — the Kapudan Pasha hoped he could observe carefully within the Ming's Malacca Grand Fleet in order to discover the secret of the Great Ming Navy's revival.

And this Ibrahim ibn Urdin needed only three months to discover the greatest special skill behind the Great Ming Navy's revival — money!

The Great Ming Navy had in fact developed by outspending everyone on armaments. The "wooden-body explosive shells" and "spike-headed explosive shells" they devised had as their chief effect the obsolescence of the world's main naval capital ships — twice over!

Under such circumstances, money was naturally all-powerful!

The cash-strapped Ottoman Empire, of course, could not learn the special skill of "having money," so Ibrahim ibn Urdin still had to remain with the Great Ming Navy and continue observing — until he discovered the most economical warship development path for the Ottoman Empire.

And actual combat was, without doubt, the sole standard for testing whether a warship development path was good or bad.

So the moment Ibrahim ibn Urdin heard the suona call signifying "emergency sortie," he scrambled out of bed as fast as he could, put on his uniform, and took up the waist tally the Ming army had issued him. With this tally, he could board the flagship of Admiral Shi Lang of the Malacca Fleet — if this time he truly got to witness a fierce naval battle, he might soon be able to return to the Ottoman Empire and work toward the naval revival dream of His Majesty the Sultan.

When Ibrahim ibn Urdin reached the docks of Temasek naval base, eight majestic "Malacca Type C" oar-and-sail ships of the line lay quietly at anchor on the azure sea.

This class of "Malacca warship" had begun entering Great Ming Navy service in successive batches three years earlier. As far as Ibrahim ibn Urdin knew, ten had been built in total. Eight belonged to the Malacca Fleet, and two belonged to the Northern Ocean Fleet — the Northern Ocean Fleet was in fact the Great Ming's "home fleet," responsible for guarding the home waters of the Great Ming, including the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Each had a burden of 800 tons and could carry as many as 24 twelve-catty bronze long guns, and each bronze long gun could be provided with its own separate large gun room.

The so-called "large gun room" combined the gun room and the magazine into one! It looked like an extremely dangerous design, but for an oar-and-sail ship there was no alternative — beneath the gun room of an oar-and-sail ship lay the long-oar deck, so there was no way to build a separate magazine deck, and thus they had no choice but to make do with the "large gun room."

However, the Great Ming's master shipwrights were still very clever, and came up with a method that looked clumsy but worked quite well: they fixed sandbags to the deck and bulkheads of the large gun rooms, so as to use the sandbags to absorb the force of exploding shells. In addition, the ammunition chests holding the explosive shells were also wrapped in paper sandbags, and the insides of the ammunition chests were stuffed full of sandbags as well — this was not only to absorb the force of shell explosions, but also so that after an ammunition chest was hit, the sand would cut off the air and smother any open flames.

When Ibrahim ibn Urdin boarded the Temasek, flying Admiral Shi Lang's flag, the naval commander was together with his chief of staff and captain of the Temasek, Zhang Wanqi, inspecting every gun room on the ship — besides outspending on armaments, the Great Ming Navy also had to outdo others in management. And the way to outdo others in management was to formulate regulations as detailed and strict as possible. The captain's inspection of the gun rooms (magazines) was one of the most important of these regulations!

After finishing inspection of the last gun room, Shi Lang and Zhang Wanqi, a naval academy alumnus a few classes his junior, returned together to the command hall at the stern, where they waited for the captains of the various ships to arrive while beginning to discuss the coming battle.

"Eight Type C ships, eight Type B ships, eight Type A ships — twenty-four in all. Not many in number, but all large ships with heavy guns. Even the smallest Malacca Type A has a burden of over 400 tons and carries 14 guns, all twelve-catty long guns as well. The only unsatisfactory thing is that their speed is a bit slow."

Shi Lang was clearly brimming with confidence in the strength at his disposal, for he commanded a rather formidable fleet!

Did a force of 24 ships count as formidable?

Before those damned explosive shells had gone aboard ships, a fleet of 24 capital ships would not have counted as very large, but neither would it have counted as small.

But in this present age, when even the 104-gun Sovereign of the Seas had been reduced to an "armed merchantman," 24 "bombardment ships of the line" absolutely counted as a powerful force.

"As long as we don't leave the calm or light-breeze zone of the Strait of Malacca, our speed can't be called slow, and with our firepower added in, we're basically invincible."

As Zhang Wanqi said this, his brow furrowed slightly. This subtle change of expression was caught by the highly perceptive Shi Lang.

"Chief of staff, do you think Li Jicheng's behavior is abnormal, and that there may be some trick in it?"

Zhang Wanqi had a refined, scholarly appearance and was a "dark-faced scholar" (there were no pale-faced scholars at sea). He was the son of the current Vice Minister of the Ministry of War, Zhang Huangyan, and like his father, was known for his resourcefulness, so he thought a bit more than Shi Lang did.

"All's fair in war! There's certainly some trickery involved!" Zhang Wanqi said with a frown. "I'm not worried about the roving bandits' navy — no amount of trickery will do them any good. But the Dutch and the French..."

"But we can't just not go to the rescue of the Prince of Luo!" Shi Lang said with a laugh. "And besides, we're the navy, not their army, which doesn't fight properly and only thinks of trickery and schemes. We in the navy don't go in for that sort of thing. Naval victory is won by sturdy ships and powerful guns! As long as our ships are sturdy enough and our guns powerful enough, we won't fear even the Dutch!"

"Well said!" Zhang Wanqi was just nodding when footsteps sounded outside the door, followed by the announcement of the personal guards standing watch outside.

The commanders of the other ships were beginning to arrive. The military conference would soon begin.

Shi Lang glanced at Zhang Wanqi, who had already taken out a red envelope and placed it on the conference table. Shi Lang knew that inside was the pre-battle directive from the Naval Department of the Marshal's Office — the directive would contain a list of countries that could be attacked!

It should include Holland, France, Portugal (the Regent faction), and others!

(End of Chapter)