"Three rounds of fixed shot loading and pre-firing, target Laizhou battlements, self-adjusting angle..."
"Prepare...release!!"
"Boom boom boom——"
On February 22nd of the second year of Jianwen, when the artillery terminology dedicated to the Bohai Navy appeared on the land of Shandong Peninsula, the first one to face the bombardment of the third battalion of the Bohai Shenji was the one between Qingzhou Prefecture and Dengzhou Prefecture. Laizhou Fucheng.
Outside the city, Laizhou City was surrounded by Bohai elites with three thousand divine machine battalions, one hundred field artillery pieces, and two thousand Jurchen horse infantry.
Within a few days, the entire Dengzhou Prefecture was captured by the Bohai Horse Infantry, Cavalry and Mabu Shenji Battalion who subsequently landed.
The more than 200,000 people who were "ravaged" by the bandits in Zhu Yunwen's mouth have been successfully expanded to more than 787,000 people, and the number is still increasing.
For example, right now, when a hundred field artillery shells are launched, the Laizhou County defenders, who were originally composed of garrison soldiers and rural warriors, began to lose their position.
The battlements of Laizhou City were shelled from a distance of less than half a mile. Many of the hit wall battlements exploded and debris flew out.
Although no harm was done, the psychological pressure was unbearable for the defenders.
"Lighten all the battlements, then suppress them with matchlocks and shells."
"The last general takes command!"
In the Bohai Navy outside the city, Meng Zhang used a telescope to look at Laizhou's city defenses, and after confirming that field artillery could destroy the battlements, he began to give orders.
The artillery Qianhu who received the order continued to direct the artillery bombardment, and the artillery of the Shenji Battalion began to pour artillery shells on Laizhou with a bombardment process of one round every hour.
In Shandong, they didn't have to worry about running out of gunpowder and shells.
The amount of gunpowder seized in Dengzhou Prefecture alone amounted to more than 400,000 jins. In the early Ming Dynasty, Shandong was a major iron-producing province. The government-run iron works alone produced more than 3 million jins of iron, ranking first in the country. third.
Even for the lead bullets used in matchlock guns, Shandong can produce more than 320,000 kilograms per year.
Therefore, in addition to gunpowder, there were also many iron materials and lead materials seized from Dengzhou Prefecture.
These materials are enough to support the Bohai Navy to attack the city all the way.
"Brother Meng, do you think it is necessary for His Highness to ask us to attack the city?"
"Shouldn't we just attack the capital with cavalry right now?"
Beside Meng Zhang, Zhao Mu, who had followed him, looked at Laizhou City and was very curious in his words.
Meng Zhang also thought about this, and after a moment he said: "After all, there are still some troops stationed in the land of Huaihe River and Si River, just like Shandong."
"Although they are stationed troops, in the early years when Emperor Taizu Gao was here, they would also train them, so they also have considerable fighting power."
"Of course, they are much worse than us, but if they are used to defend the city or harass the wilderness, they can still cause a lot of trouble to our army."
"What's more, the millions of people outside the Pass now only have enough food to last for a month. The journey from Dengzhou to the capital is at least 1,300 to 400 miles."
"If we cannot take Nanjing within a month, what will the millions of people outside the customs eat?"
"Besides, it will take another month for the brothers to land, so what His Highness wants to do is to use this month to transport food and people to Liaodong as much as possible."
Meng Zhang said and motioned to Zhao Mu to look towards Laizhou City.
"There are at least hundreds of thousands of people in that city, and millions of stone officials and people's food."
"If we capture Laizhou City and even the entire Laizhou Prefecture, we will have nothing to worry about."
Taking down Deng and Lai Mansion was the task Zhu Gaoxu left for Meng Zhang before setting off.
Denglai Second Prefecture has a population of 1.6 million and more than 6 million acres of arable land. It is a proper grain-producing land.
Taking Denglai will solve Bohai's urgent needs and free up Bohai's hands.
Thinking of this, Meng Zhang continued to look at Laizhou City and said with a cold face: "Continue the bombardment, either they surrender or we attack the city."
"Boom boom boom——"
The dull sound of artillery sounded, and it hit the wall stacks at the head of Laizhou City again.
At a distance of less than half a mile, even the short-range field artillery of the Bohai Artillery can hit seven out of ten shots.
The wall stacks in the east of Laizhou City began to collapse in sections under the constant bombardment of the Bohai Navy. The defenders could only rely on other wall stacks that had not been destroyed to escape.
From Chen time to noon, there were fewer and fewer wall stacks that the defenders could rely on, and finally they were simply squeezed into the arrow tower.
Seeing all this, the commander of the Laizhou Guard was on the verge of tears. He could only catch the commanding officer who ran up to the archery tower from the city and asked: "When will Dusi's reinforcements arrive?"
"No... there are no reinforcements..." The commander was also on the verge of tears: "Du Si wrote back and said that Qingzhou was besieged by the rebels with cavalry. The guards could only defend themselves and there were no reinforcements to rush to Laizhou."
"It's over..." When he heard that there were no reinforcements, the commander of the Laizhou Guard felt as if he was struck by lightning. His legs went weak and he sat directly on the ground.
At dusk, nearly 70% of the east wall of Laizhou City was destroyed by the Bohai Navy's artillery. The Laizhou Guard commander Fang Hui, the magistrate Wang and Kaicheng surrendered and presented the Guard's "Military Camp Register" and Laizhou Prefecture's "Fish Scale Atlas" ”, “Yellow Book”.
Seeing the surrender of Laizhou, Meng Zhang immediately asked the county magistrate Wang He and the commander Fang Hui to write a letter to the thousands of households, hundreds of officials and various counties and towns in Laizhou, and they were sent by the Bohai Cavalry.
For a time, the various county and county guards in Laizhou Prefecture looked at the wind and descended.
At the same time, Zhu Gaoxu also led 3,000 cavalry to cut off the main transportation routes from Qingzhou City to various prefectures and counties, and personally led 3,000 cavalry to surround Qingzhou Prefecture, creating a plan to capture Qingzhou step by step and advance towards Jinan and Dezhou. , Cangzhou three places of illusion.
Such news was spread to various prefectures and counties in Peiping via carrier pigeons. The troops led by Li Jinglong began to march directly from Jinzhou to Dezhou. Wu Gao and Xu Kai led their troops to retreat to the Zhuozhou and Dong'an defense lines deployed by Li Jinglong respectively.
Anlu Hou Wu Jie received Li Jinglong's military order and divided 50,000 troops from Xu Kai and rushed south to aid Cangzhou.
Yu Tongyuan, Pingan, Chen Hui, Teng Ju and others personally led 20,000 cavalry south and arrived in Cangzhou first.
In order to prevent Zhu Gaoxu from cutting off the supply line, he mobilized 300,000 people from the Southern Army. This confused Zhu Di, who had just led the team out of the Yanshan Mountains and was preparing to show off his skills in Peiping.
"You said that the second brother crossed the sea and captured Dengzhou, and now he has reached Qingzhou?"
On the 24th, when the Confederate Army rushed to rescue the canal, Zhu Di walked out of Yanshan and learned the good news as soon as he arrived in Changping.
Not only he couldn't believe it, but Zhu Neng, Qiu Fu and Zhu Gaoxu's old subordinate Wang Yi couldn't believe it.
They detoured to raid Yuzhou and surrounded Datong, and then mobilized Li Jinglong's 100,000 troops. As a result, Zhu Gaoxu directly staged a cross-sea landing, as if he wanted to cut off the canal, forcing 300,000 Southern troops to withdraw south for defense.
"My second brother is almost as courageous as my father..."
Even Zhu Di couldn't help but sigh.
Not everyone has Zhu Yuanzhang's courage. Moreover, even Zhu Yuanzhang only commanded ten thousand people to cross the sea to attack Liaonan. This difficulty is not the same as Zhu Gaoxu's crossing the sea from Liaonan to attack Shandong.
Zhu Yuanzhang dared to send Ma Yun and Ye Wang across the sea to Liaonan because Liu Yi in Liaonan surrendered to the Ming army and the Ming army had the manpower to respond.
On the other hand, Zhu Gaoxu, judging from the information in the letter, completely relied on the strength of the Bohai Sea Navy to repel the Southern Army's proud navy, and then bombarded Dengzhou City.
"This kid, the second brother, is getting more and more amazing."
Zhu Di sighed. As someone who liked Tang Taizong Li Shimin very much, Zhu Di looked at the current situation and couldn't help but think of Li Shimin and Li Yuan.
"I won't follow in Li Yuan's footsteps..." Just like what Zhu Gaochi said to Zhang, he fell into a moment of tangle.
But he is Zhu Di after all, the King of Yan who was praised by Zhu Yuanzhang as the man who cleared the desert.
Scratching his beard, Zhu Di smiled again and said, "It's not bad, I'm still a little behind."
His confidence was back. Faced with the complicated situation, Zhu Di also got off his horse and motioned to Zhu Neng and the others to follow.
With Zhu Neng and others, Zhu Di spread the map on the ground, then pointed to Beiping, Cangzhou, Zhuozhou, Dezhou, Qingzhou and other places and said:
"Right now, the second brother has relieved the siege of Peiping. Wu Gao and Xu Kai of the Southern Army are relying on the Huliang River and Lugou River to confront us. Coupled with the trenches and earthen cities built by Li Jinglong earlier, it will be unfavorable for us to fight them head-on. .”
"Wu Gao is a thoughtful and timid person. He was like a bastard when he was against the second brother. He will definitely not come out to fight with us."
"It's easier to deal with Xu Kai's side in Dong'an, and there are only 50,000 people."
"Dongan is two hundred and fifty miles away from Cangzhou. Even if Yu Tongyuan, Pingan, Chen Hui, and Teng Ju lead their cavalry to help, it will take at least two days."
"Besides, Xu Kai is impulsive and timid. Even if he leaves the camp, he will ask for help from Cangzhou."
"My idea is to capture the Cangzhou reinforcements first, then set up an ambush to defeat Xu Kai when he comes to reinforce him, then get behind Wu Gao, and use the fastest speed to make a surprise attack in the early morning before he gets the news of Xu Kai's defeat. .”
Zhu Di dared to think that he would use 60,000 horse, infantry and cavalry to defeat Cangzhou's reinforcements, then defeat Xu Kai's 50,000 elite troops, and finally attack Wu Gao, who was more than 130 miles away.
As long as this plan succeeds, Wu Gao, Xu Kai, and Wu Jie's 200,000 troops will be defeated and abandoned. Li Jinglong can only take the 100,000 infantry in hand to reorganize the defeated troops who fled south.
However, there is also a problem with this, that is, they need Zhu Gaoxu from Qingzhou to attract Li Jinglong's main force to Texas as much as possible. This requires Zhu Gaoxu to further threaten Jinan and put more pressure on Li Jinglong.
"Wang Yi, you sent Babaili to rush to Yongping and take a boat to Dengzhou. Send the news to the second son and see if the second son can do it."
Zhu Di did not give the generals time to think, so he took pictures of the case on his own.
Wang Yi did not refuse after hearing this, but bowed obediently. After all, this matter did not threaten Bohai's interests.
If Zhu Di can really defeat Wu Gao and Xu Kai's 150,000 troops, Li Jinglong's remaining 170,000 troops will soon be defeated as long as he cooperates with his Royal Highness in a pincer attack from the north and south.
Therefore, under Wang Yi's instruction, a group of accelerated horse infantry from Bohai rushed to Yongping. After clearing his thoughts, Zhu Di decided to lead his army back to Peiping to rest for a night and plan carefully when to launch troops.
At dusk, he led his army to the gate of Peiping City. Zhu Gaochi brought Zhu Gaosui and Zhang Yu to greet him.
"Dad, the second brother captured Denglai and attracted the southern soldiers."
"I heard about it this morning."
Turning over and dismounting, Zhu Gaochi greeted him and talked about things in the south. Zhu Di also nodded and smiled to express his understanding.
Then he turned his attention to Zhang Yu, nodded and said hello, and then turned his attention to the third child Zhu Gaosui.
Because he was the youngest son and he was overly pampered, the third child, Zhu Gaosui, was pampered and pampered.
After going to the capital, Zhu Di originally thought that he could change his temper, but unexpectedly, he got worse.
At this critical moment in Peiping, both Zhu Di and Zhu Gaochi were wearing mandarin duck jackets, and even the eunuchs were wearing uniforms. Only Zhu Gaosui was conspicuously dressed, wearing a satin round-neck robe.
Zhu Di didn't want to preach to him in front of everyone, so he just said to Zhu Gaosui: "Third brother, listen to your brother in Peiping. I have to continue going south tomorrow."
"I know." Zhu Gaosui didn't take it seriously. He just felt that his second brother had already reached Qingzhou Prefecture. He might be able to break into the capital at some time, and by then he would be able to become a prince.
Looking at his appearance, Zhu Di couldn't help but frown. Zhu Gaochi saw that something was wrong and quickly stood next to Zhu Di to smooth things over.
"Dad, mother is still waiting for you in the back house."
"Well..." Zhu Di nodded and told Zhang Yu who was standing beside him: "Zhang Yu, you lead people to set up the camp outside the city, replenish horse feed, kill pigs and sheep for the soldiers, and get some meat to eat. I will go back to the house first. I’ll come back to accompany you later.”
"The last general takes orders..." Zhang Yu agreed, and Zhu Di returned to Yan Mansion with Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Gaosui.
On the way back, Zhu Gaochi also said to Zhu Di: "Three days ago, I allocated 120,000 shi of food to Liaodong, but the food in Beiping and Yongping can last until September, so you don't have to worry."
"It's good to allocate it to the second child. He has a lot of people there. Besides, I heard that after he captured Denglai, he moved some of Denglai's population to Liaodong."
Zhu Di was very well-informed, and even Zhu Gaochi didn't know about these things.
"Liaodong is bitterly cold. I'm afraid the people will be very reluctant to move so many people there." Zhu Gaochi's understanding of Liaodong is still full of the prejudice of Jiangnan scholar-bureaucrats.
Zhu Di didn't like it very much after hearing this. Instead, he spoke for Liaodong: "Although Liaodong is colder than Peiping, it's not that cold."
"Speaking of the bitter cold, when I arrived in Peiping, there were only one million people in Peking. Now there are more than two million, and it has become more prosperous."
"Now the number of people in Liaodong exceeds one million, and it will only be a matter of time before it becomes prosperous."
"What's more, the second child's political management methods are also favored by your grandfather. I think he has done a good job in Bohai. Otherwise, it would be impossible to recruit 40,000 to 50,000 troops with the help of barren Bohai."
"With this amount, even Liaodong, which has a population several times that of the Bohai Sea, cannot be raised. As long as the second child is managed a little, Liaodong may become a good place in the future."
Zhu Di couldn't tell specifically what methods could be used to bring prosperity to Liaodong, but having seen Jilin City, he firmly believed in his second-in-command's ability to govern.
Even Jilin, which is so barren, can become comparable to some prefectural cities in the south of the Yangtze River in just a few years through his methods. Now that Liaodong, Daning, and Denglai have millions of people, the lands outside the customs are bound to prosper.
"I'll wait and see." Zhu Gaochi smiled, but it was not a mockery, but a joke.
Zhu Gaochi is aware of Zhu Gaoxu's political ability and his ability to see the mountains and mines.
He didn't believe others who said they wanted to make Liaodong prosperous, but if the second person was in power, he would believe it.
The father and son were chatting happily, while Zhu Gaosui, who was following them, looked jealous.
"It's not like you follow my second brother when he makes meritorious deeds. How can you show off?"
He muttered secretly in his heart, but he didn't want to blame others if he couldn't participate in this topic.
But while he was always thinking of using Zhu Gaojiu to suppress Zhu Gaochi, Zhu Gaojiu, who was thousands of miles away, was busy settling accounts.
"Your Highness, we are all here. How many things each Xiaoqi borrowed and how many white slips were made are all calculated here. The total is seven hundred and twenty-four shi and fifty-six kilograms of beans, and one thousand three hundred and forty-two kilograms. rice and seventy-two pigs, and three hundred and forty-five sheep.”
Outside Qingzhou City, when three thousand Bohai Jingqiu cut off the road and put up a posture to attract Li Jinglong, Xu Sheng walked in with a pile of account books and spoke a lot of data.
These things were all borrowed by the three thousand fine cavalry of the Bohai Navy and the common people in the past few days.
Sitting in the handsome tent, Zhu Gaoxu was eating roasted leg of lamb with a knife. When he saw Xu Sheng coming, he said:
"The villages that have borrowed things must be registered and let Meng Zhang lead people to organize their migration to Deng and Lai Prefectures, and use local cultivated land to repay."
"This work is cumbersome, so before going south, I have asked Yi Shiha to go south with a thousand officials. You need to send the account book to Dengzhou and tell Yi Shiha my requirements."
"Okay!" Xu Sheng grinned and sat on the ground, leaning on Zhu Gaoxu's desk with one hand.
In the eyes of the literati of this era, his appearance was disrespectful to Zhu Gaoxu, but it was the norm in the Bohai Sea. The Bohai Navy was strict in discipline, but also full of humaneness.
"The people don't believe that we will return it." Xu Sheng said carefully, but Zhu Gaoxu calmly cut off a large piece of meat with a knife and handed it to Xu Sheng: "No one has treated them like this before us, so they naturally don't believe it."
"But after us, they believed it."
"What's the point of doing this?" Xu Sheng wolfed down the large piece of meat, but Zhu Gaoxu chuckled:
"The purpose is to let the people know that we are the soldiers, and the Southern Army is still the Southern Army they know."
Is the discipline of the Confederate Army good?
Of course it's good, but that's compared to other armies in the feudal era.
If you want to compare the Southern Army with the Bohai Navy, which has received modern training, the Southern Army is no different from a ruffian. At most, the officers and soldiers in the mainland have better military discipline, but not the border troops in Ganliang, Liaodong, Shaanxi and other places.
This is not discrimination, but reality before our eyes.
The composition of the border soldiers was complex, including Han Chinese, Mongolians, and Westerners. The education they received was naturally incomparable with that of the officers and soldiers in the interior, and the ideas they developed were also very different.
From their point of view, their heads are hanging on their waistbands, and they might die at some point, so they can get some benefits or something.
It is this kind of thinking that makes them and the Bohai Navy become representatives of two eras.
Zhu Gaoxu advocated that soldiers must receive education, even if they pay a price.
Soldiers who receive education, especially military education, are very valuable, just like the old Bohai Navy now.
The old Bohai navy could accept tasks such as measuring acres of land, simple drawings, registering and registering, which could only be done by subordinate officials in the past.
Once the army needs to be expanded, the 40,000-strong Bohai Navy can be immediately expanded to 400,000 people, and the soldiers they bring out must have better discipline than the Southern Army.
These 40,000 veterans of the Bohai Navy will be Zhu Gaoxu's confidence to control the Ming Dynasty's army in the future, and the more than 30,000 students in the Bohai Sea will be Zhu Gaoxu's confidence to control the economy of Jiangnan.
Of course, it would be too difficult for 30,000 students to control the economy and taxation of 30 million people in Zhili, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, so Zhu Gaoxu also needed to continue to train students outside the customs.
If he had 100,000 students from outside the customs, he would dare to provide them with guards and carry out an inventory of cultivated land in Jiangnan to ensure that there would be no arrears in taxes every year.
Jiangnan has been in arrears with taxes all year round. Isn't it because the imperial court cannot provide so many subordinate staff to maintain local operations and can only rely on the connections between the gentry and wealthy households to collect basic taxes?
If this is the case, then I will replace their role with students from outside the customs, and firmly control the tax revenue in my own hands.
Of course, this is not enough. The way to relieve the pressure on the people is to divide the people into the acres. However, what Zhu Gaoxu wants to do is different from what Yongzheng wants to do.
Yongzheng’s system of sharing land and living space was nothing more than an upgraded version of the integration of land and land into one in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty.
This measure objectively loosens the personal control of farmers at the bottom, but this reform cannot fundamentally solve the problem of farmers' heavy burden.
Whether it is the sharing of land between peasants and farmers, or the integration of officials and gentry as errands to pay grain, or the elimination of lowly status and the equality of landowners and tenants laws... none of these things can fundamentally solve the burden on farmers.
Because they are essentially policies aimed at exploiting the people to enrich the national treasury, and Yongzheng's philosophy is also to enrich the national treasury rather than improve people's livelihood.
The spread of land between small households and farmers has caused great disasters. Landlords and rich peasants can still maintain their livelihood, but poor peasants who own barren land cannot make ends meet, and instead create refugees.
The return of fire consumption to the public was a means to increase the fiscal revenue of the state treasury. The burden on the people was not relieved, but instead became heavier.
The abolition of lowly status is essentially to collect taxes from this group of lowly people who do not have to pay taxes.
As for the government and the gentry working together to pay the rations, this policy is very good, but how to implement it and can it be realized?
At least in Zhu Gaoxu's impression, even Yongzheng himself only implemented this policy in some areas for a period of time, and then quietly disappeared.
Regarding tax collection from farmers, Zhu Gaoxu still has the same view. Taxation must be collected from the land, but at the same time, different tax thresholds must be set according to different local conditions.
In this regard, Lao Zhu has done very well in both the north except Shanxi and the south except Jiangnan.
Where the yield per mu is high, it is natural to harvest more; where the yield per mu is low, it is natural to harvest less.
It's easy to say it, but very difficult to actually do it.
If you want this system to operate well, you must have enough grassroots tax officials. Therefore, the development of education is a prerequisite for maintaining the operation of the national tax system.
While promoting education, we must also firmly control the education system, otherwise we will end up like the Imperial College.
In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di were able to rely on the Gongsheng students from the Imperial College to dismiss and replace non-commissioned officials at will, but this was not possible in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.
After all, the Imperial College has been infiltrated into a sieve, and most of their backgrounds are in the Jiangnan and Huguang areas. Naturally, they are not willing to offend the wealthy gentry in their hometown for the sake of the imperial court.
"My head is big..."
When Zhu Gaoxu thought about how he would govern a country in the future, and how he would govern the country well, thoughts kept pouring out of his mind.
If he wanted to maintain a feudal system in Ming Dynasty, it would be easy to govern Ming Dynasty.
But he can't, because he knows the background of the current era.
Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Western Regions, Qinghai-Tibet, Southern and Northern Mongolia, overseas...
The era of great navigation is about to begin. Since Ming Dynasty has the qualifications to seize the opportunity, why should it give up for nothing?
As long as the population of 30 million in the three provinces of Jiangnan can be transported out to 10 million, the Ming Dynasty can achieve actual control of the Northeast and Western Regions and half of Southeast Asia.
How to use 60 million people to govern this huge country and achieve historical leaps? This is Zhu Gaoxu's idea of governing the country.
"Your Highness!"
Zhu Gaoxu was still thinking about how to govern the country in the future, when the voice of Tang Qi came from outside the tent.
Xu Sheng stood up and walked out of the tent. After a while, he returned and bowed to Zhu Gaoxu:
"Your Highness, the butangs have been released towards us in the direction of Jinan. It is probably Li Jinglong's 100,000 Southern troops who have arrived in Dezhou."
"Are you here?" Zhu Gaoxu took back the thoughts of governing the country in his mind and devoted all his thoughts to how to deal with the Southern Army.
He cast his eyes on the map hanging in the tent and already had an idea in his mind.
(End of chapter)
