Chapter 111 Section 5 "Don't be afraid of the red-haired artillery"

Born in such a "pirate" family, Zheng Chenggong certainly knows all kinds of forces in the Far East waters like the back of his hand.Therefore, he knew that the Dutch were really not that easy to deal with. The upcoming Battle of Zhenghe will be the first large-scale maritime collision between China and the West before the Opium War. One hundred and eighty years before the Opium War, the gap in weapons and equipment between China and the West was already huge.The Dutch army has entered the era of hot weapons, while the Chinese army is still in the era of cold weapons. Everything is similar to that during the Opium War.Even the reports of the ministers reporting the situation of the Dutch to the Ming emperor can easily be mistaken for documents from the Opium War.When Fujian governor Zou Weilian reported the situation of the Dutch army to the emperor, he said:

Hongmao traveled forty thousand miles to China, and the morning and evening are the same day and night... He has deep eyes and a long nose, red beard and red hair.The boat is fifty feet long and six to seven feet wide. It is called a splint. There are three layers inside. All of them are equipped with large guns facing outwards. They can penetrate the city of cracks and shake for dozens of miles. People and boats can be crushed. There are those who do. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the position of maritime supremacy was not yet the turn of Britain, but was firmly occupied by the Netherlands.At that time, the Dutch army was famous all over the world for its sophisticated weapons. At that time, the Chinese called Dutch warships "iron ships" and "plywood ships".In the words of Zheng Jun: "The plywood ships are tall, with strong covers on both sides, and powerful artillery." ([Qing]

Jiang Risheng's "Taiwan Wai Ji") These Dutch warships had a draft, load, and the number of artillery loaded on board, which greatly exceeded all the wooden sailing ships of the Zheng army. On the waters of Taiwan at that time, the Dutch battleships "Hector", "Sgrafland", "Winck", "Maria" and many small boats were moored.In addition, the Dutch also built a series of strong castles and forts on the coast of Tainan, with powerful mortars and cannons installed on them.Ordinary Dutch soldiers had advanced rifles, pistols, grenades, and even sights.

Zheng Chenggong's army was basically armed with bows and arrows, Guandao, and halberds.dutch says: "The enemy soldiers used all kinds of weapons. Some hung bows and arrows on their backs, some held shields in their left hands, and swords in their right hands. Many soldiers held broadswords on long handles in both hands." Zheng Chenggong also owned some hot weapons. , but China's hot weapons are still in the initial stage, and the production is very rough. "Guo Xingye has a large amount of gunpowder and heavy artillery. Although the Chinese knew how to make gunpowder and cast cannons many years before the Europeans, their power cannot match the Dutch products." ([Netherlands]

Kui Yi, "The Neglected Formosa") Therefore, Zheng Chenggong knew that the enemy he was about to face was far from being comparable to the Manchus with bows and arrows. Therefore, knowing that there were only a thousand Dutch people on Taiwan Island, he still mobilized more than 20,000 soldiers for an expedition across the sea.On the first day of March in the fifteenth year of Yongli in the Southern Ming Dynasty (AD 1661), Zheng Chenggong worshiped the river in Xiamen and prayed to God: This feudal clan is determined to recover, and is eager to rejuvenate... Therefore, it is not for greedy overseas, to prolong peace and happiness.Since then, we should pray to the emperor wholeheartedly, and reach out to the ancestors, pretending to be my tide, and sailing my boat.

He called on his subordinates not to be afraid of the Dutch artillery, and promised that he would take the lead and prove to everyone that the Dutch were not invincible. When you enlist the generals of the generals, towns, and battalions, don't be suspicious of the red-haired artillery. You should observe the direction of the head of the vassal from a distance, and advance with your tail. As a history reader of later generations, when I read Zheng Chenggong's impassioned speech, I was sweating for him.Because numbers are no guarantee of victory in war.The thread of history sometimes overlaps and intertwines, and diverges.Many of what we think of as firsts are actually nothing more than history repeating itself.

During the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty had a standing army of more than 2 million, and directly mobilized more than 100,000 troops to fight against the British, while the largest number of British expeditionary forces was no more than 20,000.However, "the British army is already in the era of initial development of firearms, while the Qing army is still in the era of mixing hot and cold weapons." The comparison of the number of people and weapons and equipment is strikingly similar to the battle of Zheng He.As a result, tens of thousands of troops were used as cannon fodder for the British, and the Qing Dynasty suffered a crushing defeat.