At the beginning, Emperor Tianqi wanted to organize his military equipment to deal with the threat from Liaodong. Through the Dutch, we obtained the blueprints and production techniques of the Red Barbarian cannon, the Suifa musket, and the Galen warship.
However, the cunning Dutch only provided drawings of medium-sized Galenic warships. As for the Dutch technicians, their guidance for Ming Dynasty shipbuilding was not very good. In fact, they did not hope that Ming Dynasty would soon master the construction technology of Galenic ships.
In addition, there were no large shipyards in Fujian, and there was no reserve of wood for building giant ships, so the construction progress was very slow.
The Fujian Shipyard has been established for more than 2 years, but it still has not produced a Galen warship.
A group of officials in the Ming Dynasty, led by Xu Guangqi, advocated strengthening cooperation with the Portuguese.
As a disciple of Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua naturally firmly supported this strategy.
Sun Yuanhua was fond of reading and martial arts since he was a child. Later, he became a teacher of Xu Guangqi and introduced Western mathematics. He was elected in the 40th year of Wanli (1612). Entering Beijing in the second year of Tianqi (1622), Sun Yuanhua submitted two strategies to the imperial court: "Beijing Preparation" and "Border Defense", and was later promoted to head of the Ministry of War.
He can be regarded as an official with both civil and military skills.
After Chongzhen overthrew Wei Zhongxian, the Donglin Party regained power, and Sun Yuanhua quickly served as the censor of Youqiandu and the governor of Denglai under Xu Guangqi's recommendation.
Sun Yuanhua himself was proficient in Western learning, especially artillery, and he also had a deeper understanding of the Dutch drawings.
He independently researched and wrote a series of scientific monographs such as "Usage of Geometry", "On Geometry", "Essays on Western Studies", "Miscellaneous Works on Western Studies", etc., and made important contributions to the dissemination and popularization of Western studies.
Since taking office as the governor of Denglai, he hired Portuguese technicians and vigorously built a new artillery factory. In just a few months, he successfully copied the 18-pound Hongyi cannon, and its performance was superior to that of the Dutch.
So Sun Yuanhua was commended by Emperor Chongzhen.
We strongly support Sun Yuanhua’s idea of building Galenic sailing ships and strengthening the Denglai Navy to cope with future changes in Liaodong!
Denglai's shipyard was built one year later than Fujian, but it built the Spanish Galen earlier than them.
Li Xianzhong was even more surprised when he learned that Sun Yuanhua built a fort in Dengzhou and built two 500-ton Spanish galleons in less than a year!
The straight-line distance between Dengzhou and Lushun is less than 200 kilometers.
Although the 500-ton old Spanish Galenic sailing ship is impossible to pose a threat to the Liaodong Navy's 1,820-ton new light Galenic sailing ship.
However, Sun Yuanhua's move will definitely affect Li Xianzhong's next move.
The fastest way for Liaodong to send troops to the Central Plains is to take Dengzhou directly from Lushun.
Now that Yanzhou officers and soldiers control the waterway, it is becoming more and more difficult for the Intelligence Department to provide material support to Wang Xifan.
The island has sufficient food and ammunition reserves, but there is no more firewood.
The few trees on the mountain had been cut down long ago. Although the Intelligence Department had been transporting coal and briquettes, Wang Xifan said that his White Lotus Teaching Army might not be able to survive this winter.
Ask Li Xianzhong to directly send troops to Shandong.
In addition, it was reported that Chongzhen was going to use the main force of the Yulin Battalion to go to Shanxi to wipe out Gao Yingxiang and other 36th Battalion rebels.
Li Xianzhong was forced to send troops to Lai.
However, after all, Liaodong has not officially fallen out with the Ming court, so it is not appropriate to directly use the main force of the Liaodong Army.
So Li Xianzhong handed over the 20,000 new troops recruited by Liaodong to Zheng Zhilong and asked him to send troops to Denglai in the name of Dongliuqiu Company.
Previously, Zheng Zhilong took over all the men and properties of the great pirate Li Dan.
Now he is a true maritime overlord. His East Ryukyu Company owns 50 large Galenic warships and more than 300 large merchant ships, completely monopolizing maritime trade in Japan, North Korea, Taiwan and other places.
And it has already reached out to Macau and Manila.
However, due to the presence of the Dutch, Zheng Zhilong's current trade in Southeast Asia is still difficult.
At present, the annual trade volume of Dongliuqiu Company is tens of millions of taels, and the profits handed over to Liaodong every year are 5 million taels.
This is also the reason why Li Xianzhong dared to engage in deficit finance.
At this time, there were four 1,820-ton and eight 1,200-ton light Galenic warships off the coast of Dengzhou.
There are also more than 30 800-ton and 500-ton Galenic warships!
Of course, the 1,820-ton warship belongs to the Liaodong Navy and was borrowed by Zheng Zhilong.
Zheng Zhilong's development momentum was a bit too rapid, and Li Xianzhong had to take some restrictive measures.
For example, all the shipyard supply ports of the East Ryukyu Company are controlled by his cronies.
Limit the tonnage of the East Ryukyu Company's warships. If necessary, the Liaodong Navy will send larger warships to cooperate with the East Ryukyu Company.
Zheng Zhilong's eldest son Zheng Sen was taken to Kaiyuan and asked to serve as a companion to accompany his three sons to study together and receive military training.
In addition, he did not interfere too much with Zheng Zhilong's actions, and the East Ryukyu Company still had considerable autonomy.
Faced with so many giant ships, the two 500-ton boats Sun Yuanhua had were not enough.
Soon they were sunk in the port of Dengzhou.
The Dengzhou Fort that Sun Yuanhua worked so hard to build was eventually destroyed by Zheng Zhilong's powerful naval guns.
Facing the countless giant sails on the sea outside the city, Sun Yuanhua seemed a little overwhelmed.
Although the 18-pound red cannon he produced was no less powerful than his opponents, the number was unfortunately too small.
A large enemy warship is equipped with hundreds of artillery pieces. Even if only half of the artillery pieces on each side can be fired, the firepower is quite amazing.
It's just that this giant battleship is a "gold-swallowing behemoth." How much money does the opponent have to support such a huge fleet?
With the arrival of a letter persuading him to surrender, the answer was finally revealed.
Zheng Zhilong wrote arrogantly in the letter: Dongliuqiu Company has chosen the Denglai area as a base, and has given Governor Sun three days. You must move the place quickly, otherwise I will bombard Denzhou City in three days, and everyone in the city will be destroyed!
Not to mention the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that no pirate in thousands of years would dare to directly ask a central dynasty to directly cede the two prosperous coastal areas?
But Zheng Zhilong does have arrogance, and his naval guns are sharp enough.
However, Sun Yuanhua did not intend to give up the resistance. No matter how powerful the bandits' naval artillery was, they would eventually land.
At most, he would abandon the city wall near the sea in Dengzhou. Three days would be enough time for him to mobilize surrounding armies to fight these pirates decisively.
While Sun Yuanhua secretly mobilized the soldiers and horses of Laizhou Prefecture to the vicinity of Dengzhou, he also asked Shandong General Liu Zhaoji for rescue.
Zheng Zhilong was so powerful that Liu Zhaoji had no choice but to give up the containment of Wang Xifan and the White Lotus Sect, and instead went north to support Dengzhou.
In addition, Qingzhou Prefecture also sent some reinforcements.
For a time, tens of thousands of Ming troops had gathered near Dengzhou, and Sun Yuanhua was confident that he would fight the pirates like Zheng Zhilong on land.
Unexpectedly, the bandits' target was Laizhou at this time.
Dengzhou is located at the easternmost end of the Shandong Peninsula, and Laizhou connects Dengzhou with the entire Shandong. As long as Laizhou is captured, the more than 10,000 Ming troops in Dengzhou will be the turtle in the urn.
At this time, Lu Xiangsheng had led 20,000 new Liaodong troops to land in Ye County, Laizhou Fucheng. At this time, Ye County was empty of troops, and soon the Liaodong Army occupied Laizhou Fucheng.
Then Lu Xiangsheng divided his troops and went south to occupy Gaomi, Jiaozhou, Jimo and other cities, directly controlling the entire territory of Laizhou.
In the past few years, Lu Xiangsheng had been training troops in Pinglu County (formerly Hetuala), and his hands had long been itchy.
At the same time, Sun Chuanting, who joined Liaodong with him, had already made a name for himself in Taiwan, but he could only train in Liaodong.
These new recruits were all trained by him, so he volunteered to lead the battle this time.
Although there are many famous generals in Liaodong, this time they were fighting in the name of the Zheng family pirates, so of course they couldn't use acquaintances, so Lu Xiangsheng got such a big advantage.
At this time, Shandong General Liu Zhaoji's troops just arrived in the Jiaozhou area in the south of Laizhou.
As a result, the pirates who held high the banner with the word "Zheng" used 6-pound Folang machine field cannons to fight with Lumi guns, and returned in direct defeat, losing more than 3,000 horses.
Sun Yuanhua, who heard about Liu Zhaoji's defeat, could no longer sit still. He didn't expect these pirates to be so powerful on land, so he quickly asked the capital for help.
After receiving the urgent report from Sun Yuanhua, Chongzhen was also the first and the second.
While the more than 200,000 peasant troops in Shanxi rebelled against the Ming Dynasty in a high-profile manner, the pirates in Shandong actually openly occupied the second mansion of Denglai.
He could not care about Sun Yuanhua's life or death, but Dengzhou was his artillery and warship base. If it were lost here, the consequences would be disastrous.
It was finally decided to split the Yulin Camp into two. Cao Wenzhao led 20,000 Yulin Camp to Shanxi to quell the rebellion, while Zuo Liangyu also led 20,000 to Shandong to relieve the siege of Dengzhou.
Lu Xiangsheng took advantage of the gap when Zuo Liangyu went south to occupy Weihaiwei, Chengshanwei, Jinghaiwei, Fushanwei and Ninghai Prefecture outside Dengzhou.
They even occupied the gold mine in Zhaoyuan.
As for Dengzhou City, the Zheng family's warships only bombarded the North City of Dengzhou from time to time to intimidate Sun Yuanhua.
After all, we still have to use the "bait" of Dengzhou to catch the big fish Zuo Liangyu.
Now that the fish has not taken the bait, naturally it cannot swallow the "bait" of Dengzhou.
Zuo Liangyu has been rising through the ranks since he joined the Yulin Camp, dyeing his official robe red with the blood of a large amount of peasant soldiers.
Except for a little loss from Yanzhou Wang Xifan, everything has been smooth sailing.
He wanted nothing more than to suppress bandits.
The bandits in Shanxi are very powerful. Many of these people were originally powerful frontier troops. The government troops suppressed them for a year or two, but the result was that more and more people were suppressed. Naturally, he refused to go to Shanxi.
As for Denglai, although Sun Yuanhua said it was quite scary, he estimated that the pirates had sharp warships and land warfare would definitely not work.
Moreover, the terrain in Shanxi was too easy to be ambushed by the peasant army, so he wisely chose to go to Shandong.
Now the Yulin camp under Zuo Liangyu is the elite among the elites of the Ming Dynasty. Not only is it well-equipped, but its food and salary are never in arrears.
They followed Zuo Liangyu to suppress the bandits and received a lot of silver rewards.
They were all eager to go to Shandong to fight pirates this time and were eager to try.
It took them only seven days to reach the road city that was supposed to take about ten days.
After arriving at Qingzhou Prefecture, Yulin Battalion quickly launched an attack on Laizhou.
Their morale was high and they fought and won consecutively. They conquered Wei County and Changyi all the way, and soon arrived at the foot of Laizhou City.
However, the Yulin Camp suffered a defeat here. The Liaodong Army took advantage of the range of the Lumi gun and caused great damage to the Yulin Camp.
After two days of attack, Yulin Camp suffered nearly 2,000 casualties.
As the most elite force of the Ming Dynasty, Zuo Liangyu's Yulin Battalion was naturally equipped with cannons, but they did not use the lightweight 6-pound Folan cannons like the Liaodong Army, but the heavy 12-pound and 18-pound Hongyi cannons. cannon.
The Yulin Camp had moved so fast before, so the Hongyi Cannon was naturally still on the road at this time.
Just when Zuo Liangyu was at a loss what to do, a sentry rider came to report: "Report to General Zuo, the bandits have escaped. Thousands of bandits rushed out of the north gate and ran towards the seaside."
This group of pirates clearly has the upper hand, why do they want to run away? There may be some fraud involved!
The pirates' fire cannons had a farther range than his own. He didn't dare to ask Zuo Liangyu to attack the city at this moment. Who knew if this was a ploy by the pirates to lure the enemy?
However, these pirates leaving the city now are all infantry and should not be able to run fast. There is not much risk in using the cavalry in hand to cover them up.
Soon Zuo Liangyu sent five thousand cavalry to hunt down the bandits who left the city.
I thought it would be easy for the cavalry to chase the infantry, but I didn't expect that these pirates would throw iron caltrops all the way.
Although their war horses are equipped with horseshoes, the U-shaped horseshoes cannot protect the center of the horseshoes, so the horses will still be stung by the thorns, which will affect the speed of pursuit.
As a result, they could never catch up, and were finally lured to a place six or seven miles away from the coast without knowing it.
At this time, the warships on the sea were firing, and the Yulin camp did not expect that the pirates' naval guns could actually exceed 7 miles. Their 18-pound Hongyi cannon usually fired at most 4 or 5 miles.
Moreover, the pirate warships used explosive bombs, and they suffered a fatal blow almost instantly.
Hundreds of 18-pound Hongyi cannons from more than a dozen battleships fired in unison. The sound was like the earth shaking, and even Laizhou City, more than ten miles away, felt the vibration.
Of course, the thousands of shells fired are also a considerable expense.
However, the results of the battle were also very brilliant. Most of the Yulin Camp's cavalry suffered casualties, and in the end only more than 2,000 people escaped.
But at this moment, the Liaodong cavalry in the city had blocked their way.
Where can these frightened birds still have the will to fight?
After a while, they lost their will to resist, and eventually half of them surrendered directly to the pirates.
At this time, Zuo Liangyu had no cavalry in his hands, and he brought a total of 5,000 cavalry with him this time when he went south to Shandong.
Who would have thought that water bandits not only had sharp firearms, but also had cavalry?
In this battle, the Yulin camp was frightened by these water bandits, and Zuo Liangyu hurriedly hid in Qingzhou Mansion.
After "repelling" several sentries of the pirates, Zuo Liangyu lied about "a great victory in Qingzhou".
Claiming that the bandits numbered 50,000 and were equipped with Western-style muskets and artillery, his Yulin battalion had to pay the price of 7,000 dead before repelling the bandits.
He also sent his subordinates to massacre the village and collected tens of thousands of "bandit heads".
After repelling Zuo Liangyu, the Zheng family's warships began to bombard Dengzhou City. Finally, Lu Xiangsheng commanded tens of thousands of Liaodong troops and launched an attack on Dengzhou with the cooperation of naval guns.
When Yu Hualin, the commander-in-chief of Dengzhou, saw something was wrong, he quickly kidnapped Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, and surrendered to Zheng Zhilong.
Technical talents like Sun Yuanhua were sent to Liaodong.
At this time, Wang Xifan, who had been dormant for several years, resurrected in Yanzhou and raised tens of thousands of troops to kill Dengzhou.
At this time, Zuo Liangyu from Qingzhou did not dare to leave the city, and could only watch the White Lotus sect members rendezvous with the pirates.
After Zheng Zhilong occupied the two states of Denglai, the capital was shaken.
In the end, the capital sent another 10,000-feather battalion, and Emperor Chongzhen and Sun Chengzong also repeatedly asked Zuo Liangyu to march in and regain Denglai.
However, Zuo Liangyu was already frightened by this time, and Zheng Zhilong also took the initiative to send someone to contact him.
Zheng Zhilong said that his Dongliuqiu Company only wanted the two states of Denglai as its base and had no intention of invading Qingzhou. As long as Zuo Liangyu did not come to attack him, he would not take the initiative to cause trouble for him.
In the end, the two armies engaged in a tacit battle, and the sentries occasionally caused "small frictions" on the border between Qingzhou and Laizhou.
But soon Chongzhen was no longer in the mood to care about Denglai, because King Chuang Gao Yingxiang made another big move.
After Cao Wenzhao entered Shanxi, the rebels fought more than ten battles, winning consecutive battles!
"Cao Cao" Luo Rucai and several other rebels were forced into Mopan Mountain.
The cavalry of Yulin Camp are really powerful, and Cao Wenzhao is unstoppable. The rebels were no match for the official army in the plains and could only rely on mountainous areas to resist.
Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, understood that although the rebel army had a large number of people, it would be difficult for him to defeat Cao Wenzhao's Yulin camp from the front to relieve Luo Rucai and others.
Finally, at the suggestion of military commander Guangdao, the rebels carried out a major strategic shift.
The rebel army abandoned Zezhou, Shouyang and other places, and Gao Yingxiang led his troops southward across Taihang, attacking Jiyuan, Qinghua, and Xiuwu; then they surrounded Huaiqing, sneaked into Xishan, attacked Shunde and Zhending, and invaded the capital.
Cao Wenzhao's main force was encircling and suppressing the rebels in Mopan Mountain. He did not expect that Gao Yingxiang actually gave up his territory in Shanxi and fought all the way into Beizhili.
At this moment, Zuo Liangyu was fighting Zheng Zhilong in Qingzhou, and only the last 30,000 Yulin battalion's new troops were left in the capital.
Originally, Chongzhen was planning to send Jizhou's frontier troops southward, but at this time there was news that the Liaodong Army was making frequent moves outside Shanhaiguan, and there might be big moves.
Chongzhen did not dare to take the risk of being "stealed" by Li Xianzhong, so he mobilized Jizhou's border troops to go south.
He quickly summoned Chengguo Duke Zhu Chunchen and British Duke Zhang Weixian and asked them to lead the "three major battalions of the capital" to go south to suppress the bandits.
Although the two were extremely reluctant, given Chongzhen's temper, if they refused to go south, they would probably beat them to the end.
In the end, after the two begged for a batch of military supplies, food, grass and money, they led 50,000 horses south to defend the enemy.
However, due to fear of fighting the main force of the rebel army, their advance was very slow.
Gao Yingxiang quickly judged that the two men intended to avoid fighting.
So he simply gave up Zhending Mansion to them.
Sure enough, after Zhu Chunchen and Zhang Weixian occupied Zhending, they immediately reported their victory to Chongzhen, and then stood still and watched the rogue bandits move freely.
Although Chongzhen urged the two to march several times, they thought they were bandits and deliberately gave up their true determination, which must have been to lure the enemy deeper. Once they give up their true determination, they are likely to encounter an ambush by the bandits in a field battle.
If true concentration is gained and lost, then the capital will lose its barrier.
Even Sun Chengzong believed that Gao Yingxiang probably thought so, and that the fighting power of the Beijing camp was not strong.
Although Zhang and Zhu did not defeat the enemy at this moment, they at least stabilized the situation and consolidated the safety of the capital.
If you take risks, you may lose more than you gain.
In the end, Chongzhen had no choice but to order Cao Wenzhao to leave Taihang eastward and enter Beizhili to pursue Gao Yingxiang!
Although the bandits in Mopan Mountain are not all the main force, there are still as many as 40,000 to 50,000 people. It would be a pity to give up at this moment.
However, the emperor's order was difficult, and in the end he was able to leave a small number of soldiers and horses to guard and lead the army eastward from Taihang.
Luo Rucai and others seized the opportunity to break through the official and military blockade and escaped from Mopan Mountain.
Now that the situation in Shanxi is very unfavorable to the rebels, Luo Rucai and others decided to go south to Henan.
At the same time, Gao Yingxiang and others also received news that Cao Wenzhao was about to leave eastward.
This means that they can no longer stay in Beizhili.
Although they could attack Huanglong by going north to the capital, the capital of the Ming Dynasty was extremely strong, and Gao Yingxiang knew that they were unable to break through the capital.
So in the end we have to go south. There are two options for going south.
The first is to go to Shandong. It is said that Zheng Zhilong's pirates occupied Denglai.
However, Denglai was a dead place and could easily be blocked by the imperial court, so he gave up the idea of going to Shandong.
Zheng Zhilong is a pirate. When the time comes, they can retreat by boat. What will happen to the more than 100,000 brothers under his command? Obviously Henan is more in line with their goals. It is mostly plains and the rebels can come and go freely.
The most important thing is that northern Shaanxi and Shanxi have been almost robbed by the rebels, but Henan has not been robbed yet.
Moreover, there are many vassal kings in Henan, and the vassal kings of Ming Dynasty are all very fat. If they can grab one or two, the rebel army will have all the money and food!
In order to distract the attention of the officers and soldiers, Gao Yingxiang sent two groups of suspicious soldiers to bypass Zhending and attack Cangzhou. They had great momentum to go north to the capital.
The other route leads eastward from Hejian Prefecture into Shandong. It is obvious that the rebel army wants to join the Zheng Zhilong pirates in Denglai.
No matter which of these two goals the bandits are allowed to achieve, Chongzhen cannot accept it.
He quickly ordered Cao Wenzhao to lift the siege of Cangzhou to ensure that the capital was safe; then he ordered Zuo Liangyu to enter Jinan to prevent the rogue bandits from joining the sea bandits.
In November of the second year of Chongzhen, Gao Yingxiang suddenly turned from Hejian and entered Weihui Mansion in Henan Province. Then he threw away all the officers and soldiers all the way west and went straight to Huaiqing Mansion to join Luo Rucai and others.
They also took advantage of the freeze of the Yellow River to fly from Maojiazhai into Henan, and defeated the three counties of Mianchi, Yiyang and Lushi.
The rebels soon surrounded Luoyang.
Luoyang was the place where King Fu became a vassal, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that King Fu was the first vassal in the Ming Dynasty.
The governor of Henan did not dare to fail to rescue him, so he quickly ordered Kaifeng's deputy general Mao Yong to lead 7,000 people to support Luoyang. Finally, he encountered the main force of the rebel army in Xingyang, east of Luoyang.
The army was defeated, and Mao Yong led more than a thousand people to escape.
The rebel army took advantage of the situation and occupied Xingyang.
At this time, the Yulin camp led by Cao Wenzhao had arrived at the edge of the Yellow River and would soon cross the river.
So Gao Yingxiang held the "Xingyang Conference". In order to avoid being annihilated by Cao Wenzhao, they finally decided to break up into pieces and attack from all sides, causing the court to lose its target.
Ma Shouying, the "Lao Huihui", led the "Fiveth Battalion of Zuo Ge" to fight north back to Shanxi.
"Cao Cao" Luo Rucai and others headed west into Shaanxi, "Eight Kings" Zhang Xianzhong headed south into Huguang, and Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and others headed southeast into South Zhili.
This trick worked as expected, and the court was unsure of the direction of the rebels.
Defenses are everywhere and loopholes are everywhere.
Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and others marched all the way to Zhili in the south, approaching Fengyang, the central capital of the Ming Dynasty.
Thank you to all book friends for your support with monthly tickets, recommendation tickets, and follow-up subscriptions!
Sorry, something happened late today!
(End of chapter)
