In the port of Singapore, Zhang Yukun stood on the podium, looked around at the navy officers in white military uniforms under the stage, and shouted loudly: "Brothers! After four years of training, we were finally able to play! This battle is a fatal blow to the Tartars of our Nanyang Navy! The Tartar Sailor will be mercilessly crushed by us! ”

"Wan Sheng! Wansheng! There was a thunderous roar from the audience. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Five majestic battleships set sail from the naval docks, accompanied by four hexagonal fast cruisers, sixteen fourth-class cruisers, twenty-four fifth-class cruisers, and fifty-six sixth-class privateers, and slowly sailed out of the harbor. The white sails were blown by the wind, and the fleet sailed to the far east.

Zhang Yukun stood on the helm tower of the Nanjing battleship with excitement, and it was Zhang Yukun's long-standing dream to be able to command the battleship to fight. Now his dream has finally come true and he can command a large fleet of five battleships. When he heard the news, he was so excited that he didn't sleep for two nights.

All five battleships were captured or salvaged Dutch provincial battleships, but they were all heavily modified with additional compartments. Because of the increase in its own displacement, the number of guns was slightly reduced, the original 68 guns in the door were reduced to 60, and the two 64-pounder mortars on the deck were removed, two rotating batteries were added to the original mortar gun emplacements, and two long-barreled 32-pounder cannons were installed.

The long-barreled 32-pounder cannon, which weighed more than 6,000 catties, had a long firing range and much higher accuracy than ordinary cannons, just because the barrel was longer and the reloading speed was slower.

Due to the improvement of gun barrel processing technology, the inner wall of the smoothbore gun can be polished to be very smooth, and the manufacturing cost of the smoothbore gun is low, the casting cycle is short, and the loading speed of the shell is much faster than that of the front-loading rifled gun, so the navy of the Ming Dynasty did not vigorously promote the front-loading rifled gun, or use the smoothbore gun.

As the battleship slowly sailed out of Singapore Harbour, it passed by the Singapore shipyard. Inside the shipyard, two 2nd and 6rd class battleships are under construction, one of which is 2nd class and two 3rd class battleships have already been launched.

The third-class battleships built by the Ming army themselves were built according to the British Ark Royal-class battleships, but the number of guns was also reduced to sixty-two, the compartments were increased, the survivability of the battleships was improved, the short-barreled guns were canceled, and two long-barreled cannons were installed in the original position of the 64-pounder short-barreled guns, with a displacement of 800 tons.

The second-class battleship was named the Shanghai-class battleship, the first ship was the Shanghai, and her sister ship was named the Beijing. The Shanghai-class battleships had three gun decks, armed with one hundred broadside cannons in the gun doors and four forward-mounted long-barreled sixty-four-pounder cannons on the upper deck, for a total of one hundred and four guns with a displacement of 1,200 tons.

In addition to the Singapore shipyard where battleships were built, the Coconut City Shipyard, the Hindu Shipyard, the Qiongzhou Shipyard and the Shanghai Shipyard were all working at the same time, building large quantities of merchant ships and small and medium-sized warships below the cruiser.

The large-scale construction of ships is to plan for the future, to deal with the Qing army, and the current Ming Navy is more than enough. The newly built warships were used to compete with the Western colonizers for sea power, and when they were used against the Qing army, it was simply a knife to kill the chicken.

Zhang Yukun's northbound fleet is expected to take a month to reach Shanghai, and then take advantage of the season when the south of the Yangtze River is still the southeast wind to go upstream, straight to the bottom of Jiangning City. When the time comes, Zhang Huangyan's Zhejiang army will also cooperate, and the Ming army will advance by land and water, and take Jiangning City in one go.

The commander of this fleet is still Albert, who was hired by Wang Xinyu.

"I never imagined that I would one day be able to command such a powerful fleet!" Albert sighed.

Zhang Yukun didn't get too carried away: "But our fleet, if it is taken to your Europe, I'm afraid it can't even compare to the weakest French fleet, right?" ”

Albert replied, "Not comparable!" Far inferior to France! Our people from the East India Company say that France has been building ships like crazy in recent years, and more than fifty battleships have been built alone! Although it is not as good as our England, it is not the weakest in Europe, after all, there are already weakened Mediterranean countries, and they are far inferior to the countries of the North Atlantic coast! If you want to say that the weakest European navy is now, it is those small countries in the Mediterranean. ”

"Didn't the navy of a Mediterranean country be very powerful before? They have to face the Turkish threat. How is it the other way around now? Zhang Yukun asked again.

"Ever since the rise of the Ottoman Turks, the Mediterranean countries have been suffering every day! Originally, Venice had a monopoly on trade in the Mediterranean, and Venetian glass products were very popular in Europe, and the Venetians traded with the Arabs and established a powerful Mediterranean navy. However, when the Turks came, they destroyed the Eastern Roman Empire and then continued to advance westward, trying to threaten our Europe, and were defeated by the combined forces of France, Spain, and Venice. However, the Venetian navy suffered heavy losses and has since plummeted. France and Spain have also set their sights on the North Atlantic from the Mediterranean. ”

"Why did everyone crowd into the North Atlantic?" Zhang Yukun asked.

Albert said, "Because of the discovery of the New World, everyone wants to colonize the New World!" The African continent in the south of our Europe, where the climate is hot and there are too many tropical rainforests, is not suitable for human life, so everyone goes to the American continent to develop. This necessitates the scramble for the North Atlantic. In addition, the North Atlantic is too stormy to imagine! Do you think the waves in the Pacific Ocean are already big? Compared to the North Atlantic, it's nothing at all! It is precisely because of the harsh climate and the high wind and waves that everyone is building bigger and bigger. ”

"I see!" Zhang Yukun nodded lightly knowingly.

The Ming fleet sailed through the Strait of Malacca, and the fleet sailed slightly from eastward to northeast, heading straight for the South China Sea.

As the saying goes, a century-old navy, the current Ming Navy has only used Western-style warships for six years, not even ten years. But the predecessor of this navy was the pirate army from Yan Siqi to Zheng Zhilong, and it has a history of more than 60 years, although it does not meet the standards of European navies, but it is a symbol of invincibility in the East.

Battleships and cruisers were the main forces used to shell targets on shore, and privateers played the role of small ships in the navy, mainly to protect battleships and cruisers from Qing arms attack ships. As for the pole and mineboat troops, there is no need to use them in this attack on Jiangning, and it can be said that the Anqing Navy Division of the Qing Army is vulnerable in front of the Ming Army.

In the fleet, every naval officer and soldier is gearing up, waiting for the upcoming battle of Jiangning. They knew that they were about to go to fight the Tartars, and it would be as easy as chopping melons and vegetables to crush the Tartars with their powerful fleet!