Chapter 957: Zheng Sen Is Anxious (Please Subscribe)

"What? Attack Manila Bay?" Zheng Sen was startled by his brother's words. "Second Brother, are you serious?"

"What's the matter?" Zheng Jiangong looked at his elder brother Zheng Sen's shocked expression and laughed. "Afraid I can't fight?"

"That's Manila Bay!" Zheng Sen's face darkened, looking extremely grave. "Second Brother, your foolish elder brother has spent quite a few years probing Manila Bay's defenses, so I know it's not easy to attack. Not just us — even the Dutch aren't confident they could take Manila Bay!"

"I know. How could I not know? I'm the Navy Commissioner!" Zheng Jiangong laughed. "So I don't plan to take Manila Bay — I plan to strike and run.

To take Manila Bay you'd have to capture Fort Santiago, and without twenty thousand men and several months there's no way to take that fort. And to ship twenty thousand soldiers to Manila Bay, keep them supplied for months, and carry all the heavy equipment, you'd need at least two hundred great bird ships. Right now we're about to reinforce Siam, so we can't spare that many great bird ships for troop transport."

Fort Santiago, that half-finished project, wasn't much of a problem for the Ming army that had just finished the Northern Expedition — the problem was projecting twenty thousand soldiers across the sea in one lift and sustaining their logistics. Ships could certainly be scraped together, but there were too many people and too much cargo to move right now: troops to send to Siam, grain to ship home, and ships to prepare for the run to the New World.

The New World's America Prefecture was the top priority of all! The moment the Henan brought back good news, the navy had to organize ships in the shortest possible time to carry a second wave of settlers!

And to besiege Fort Santiago by digging parallel trenches, you couldn't do it with too few men either! Without ships to carry men and supplies, what would you attack with?

"Striking and running isn't easy either," Zheng Sen still shook his head. "The Spanish fleet's anchorage is under the cover of the Cavite battery. Can your gunboats stand up to Cavite's heavy guns?"

"Losses are unavoidable," Zheng Jiangong said. "But we have a trump card!"

"A trump card? What trump card?"

Zheng Jiangong laughed. "It's for your great bird ships. Don't all the great bird ships in Xiamen Harbor carry 24-pounder short guns?"

"They all do. All twenty-two ten-thousand-dan great bird ships carry four 24-pounders each," Zheng Sen nodded. "But those guns aren't much use — they can only handle pirates."

The 24-pounder short-barreled gun was actually an army gun, officially designated the Hongxing Year Six Model 24-pounder short-barreled gun — a large-caliber cast-iron smoothbore with a short barrel. Because it was cast iron, its heat dissipation was rather poor — iron's thermal conductivity is far below copper's, several times worse — so cast-iron guns cooled slowly, requiring a long cooling period after firing, which slowed the rate of fire.

Moreover, cast-iron technology was nowhere near as mature as bronze casting. Bronze melts at only eight hundred degrees, pure copper just over a thousand, while iron's melting point reaches fifteen hundred degrees. That was why mankind had mastered bronze casting very early, and by the seventeenth century bronze-casting technology was already quite mature. Cast iron was far more difficult, and to this day only a few countries in the world — England, Holland, Sweden, China — had mastered the production of cast-iron cannon. China's cast-iron craft had developed early, so it had been able to cast iron cannon from quite early on.

But lacking the support of scientific research, handicraft technology could only go so far, so the iron cannon cast by the Ming dynasty were good one batch and bad the next. And without hydraulic boring mills, the bores were poorly finished (iron is harder than copper, after all), so Ming cast-iron cannon were on the whole not very mature.

By the sixth year of Hongxing, however, having absorbed some technology introduced from Europe, the Ming's major arsenals could already cast serviceable large-caliber iron cannon. Still, cast-iron guns remained inferior to bronze guns in performance; their only advantages were lighter weight and lower price.

And Zheng Sen, the Military Governor of Dongning, had his eye on those two advantages and purchased several hundred Hongxing Year Six guns to mount on the Southern Ocean Fleet's ten-thousand-dan great bird ships. Each ten-thousand-dan ship carried four, and they were very effective against pirates — pirates were after profit, not sinking; their goal was to seize the great bird ships, and to seize a ship you had to close in first. Most pirate ships weren't very sturdy, and one or two 24-pound shot would finish them.

But using these 24-pounders against Spanish warships was hardly enough — not because the 24-pounder lacked power, but because too few were mounted: only four guns per ten-thousand-dan great bird ship, and those fired in three different directions.

Zheng Jiangong, however, had it all figured out. He smiled at his elder brother. "Having them is enough. Twenty-two ships will do! There are also eight ten-thousand-dan great bird ships on their way to Xiamen, and with the Feixiang and the just-delivered Fujian and Jiangnan, that should be enough for a raid on Manila Bay!"

The Fujian and the Jiangnan were also eight-hundred-ton warships, and like the Feixiang, each carried forty 12-pounders and was very strongly built, constructed with a great deal of Siamese teak.

These two ships had finished fitting out nearly a year later than the Henan, and their sea trials were scheduled to end only in early Hongxing Year Ten, but with the situation urgent, they had been pulled in to make up the numbers.

"What? Only three eight-hundred-tonners?" Zheng Sen was stunned. "Two of the three haven't even finished sea trials — how much fighting strength can they have?"

Zheng Jiangong smiled. "Enough. They'll do!"

Zheng Sen asked again, "Then what about the rest of the main battle fleet?"

"Twelve ships are out at sea and can't be contacted at all. The rest are in the Dinghai anchorage refitting. Once the troop transports arrive, they'll escort them to Siam."

"Why not pull those twelve ships in first?"

"Most of their officers and crews aren't aboard!" Zheng Jiangong shook his head. "Ships refit, and men refit too. They're all off in various places reuniting with their families — how easy do you think it is to round them up?"

"And you can still attack Manila like this?" Zheng Sen was somewhat speechless. This brother of his was too unreliable! Even he, a navy layman, knew you couldn't be this reckless!

No! Zheng Sen, born of the jinshi class, had already made up his mind: he had to send a secret memorial to the Zhu Emperor at once. He had to stop his second brother's reckless command!

Zheng Jiangong watched his elder brother's anxious, agitated look and merely smiled. "Elder Brother, let's go take a look at your great bird ships. We still need to inspect and test-fire the guns — inspect them one by one, test-fire them one by one!"

Zheng Sen nodded. "Fine, fine. I'll arrange it right away — guaranteed to your satisfaction!"

While Zheng Sen was fretting, over on the Spanish side Admiral Garcia was completely confident!

At that moment he was leading the "Invincible Armada of the East," twenty-eight warships strong, across the boundless Pacific!

Before he led his force out of Manila Bay, he had sent de Velasco with a two-hundred-ton small galleon flying Portuguese colors to reconnoiter the Dinghai anchorage.

Dinghai was actually not well suited as a fleet home port, because Dinghai was not a bay but an archipelago, with the islands enclosing a sheltered anchorage. The shelter was not very good — Dinghai lay near the mouth of the Taiwan Strait and often met typhoons! And an archipelago could not compare with a bay; it leaked wind everywhere!

But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was that the Dinghai anchorage was close to the Ningbo trading port, and far too many merchant ships came and went! Stationing the fleet there meant putting it on public display every day!

But the Ming Navy Department had no other choice. The Wusong River at Shanghai was even busier than Dinghai — it was practically a water highway!

And west of Jiangyin the Yangtze's hydrography was extremely complex and unsuitable for seagoing ships to anchor, while east of Jiangyin the river was too broad, hard to defend, and just as hydrographically complex. So the Ming Eastern Ocean Fleet could find no suitable home port on the southeast coast and had to make do with the Dinghai anchorage!

After studying the terrain and hydrography of the Dinghai anchorage, Admiral Garcia was fully confident of victory!

Clearly, the Chinese could not handle a navy. They were far too careless — actually placing their fleet in a home port so vulnerable to attack.

As long as their fleet was still there, the Spanish Invincible Armada of the East could annihilate it completely!

(End of Chapter)