Chapter 209
"Didn't you already report to the court? Let the court punish the lawless Zheng Zhilong!"
In fact, Sun Chengzong was not completely worried that Cheng Shijie could not defeat Zheng Zhilong. Although Zheng Zhilong was invincible at sea, Zheng Zhilong's foundation was on land. Quanzhou, Fujian, Taichung and Xiamen, these three places were Zheng Zhilong's must-defend places, as long as Allowing Ning Haijun to attack the place he must save, Zheng Zhilong can only fight a land war that Ning Haijun is not good at in the war set up by Cheng Shijie.
Sun Chengzong personally witnessed the war between Ning Haijun and Jiannu. It is no exaggeration to say that Jiannu is still the same Jiannu. He is fierce, well-equipped, and has a good fighting will. He is a very formidable opponent.
Although Zheng Zhilong's army is said to have more than 200,000 troops, the elites among them are probably only 60,000 to 70,000, and they are definitely not as strong as Jiannu.
If there is a land battle, Ning Haijun can completely crush Zheng Zhilong. Sun Chengzong still has this confidence.
The crux of the problem is that the people of Fujian are already poor and are often hit by storms, as well as plundered by Japanese pirates and Western barbarians. Otherwise, it is not easy to get a chance to breathe because of Zheng Zhilong's relationship. But once Cheng Shijie and Zheng Zhilong fight, and the war breaks out, many people in Fujian will lose their families and their families.
Cheng Shijie smiled lightly and said: "Let the imperial court punish Zheng Zhilong? If the imperial court can punish him, why bother recruiting people and giving him territory in Quanzhou, Xiamen and other cities? Zheng Zhilong has 200,000 subordinates, so he doesn't take the imperial court seriously at all. On the contrary, the imperial court is afraid of him! What's more, Zheng Zhilong dared to send troops to rob Liaodong's transport ships without the support of some high-ranking officials in the imperial court. It is simply fanciful to expect the imperial court to punish him! "
Seeing Cheng Shijie's resolute attitude, Sun Chengzong tried his best to persuade Cheng Shijie to change his mind: "Are there no other ways to solve the problem except military means?"
Cheng Shijie said seriously: "There is no other way but to use military means to solve it! If I take this step back, those mad dogs will think that I am easy to bully, and they will pounce on me and tear me into pieces! As the saying goes, I will be beaten to pieces. Open your fists to avoid hundreds of punches. Complaints cannot bring you peace. Compromise cannot bring you peace, you can only fight!"
"Do you have any chance of winning?"
Sun Chengzong was thinking about it, but what Cheng Shijie said actually made sense. When he was stationed in Liaodong, faced with the backlash from the DPRK, he always considered the overall situation and did not hesitate to wrong himself. But the problem is that Sun Chengzong's concessions only resulted in the other party's intensification, which made Sun Chengzong very hurt.
Cheng Shijie is willing to fight now, he is just worried that Cheng Shijie will lose.
Cheng Shijie smiled and said: "There is no absolute certainty. When two armies are fighting, the battle is not to be smarter than the other, but to see who makes fewer mistakes. Ning Haijun is a professional army no matter how hard it is. If we can't win, A group of pirates..."
Sun Chengzong also knew that his student had his own advantages in the military. It could be said that he never fought an uncertain battle. The only time he was in danger was the Dengzhou mutiny. That time was extremely dangerous. If he was negligent, All will be lost.
Zheng Zhilong is the Fujian Commander-in-Chief and Navy Admiral. He is actually a pirate. He dominates the sea, plunders and extorts wantonly, and makes tens of millions of taels of profits every year. He is really a great scourge. If he can be eliminated and the profits of the sea can be recovered, every year An extra ten million taels of silver would be a great benefit to the country and the people.
Sun Chengzong looked at Cheng Shijie and said: "If there is really no other way, we can only solve them through military means. Beiping, what are you going to do?"
"I am going to recruit officers from the Ning Navy who are familiar with water and form them into an army with 30,000 troops. They will conduct a month-long sea crossing and landing training on Jeju Island!"
Cheng Shijie pointed to the huge map on the wall and said: "When this army can adapt to the ocean crossing, then this army will be led by Changyu, go south from Jeju Island, attack Dadan, and land in the Taipei area of Dadan!"
Speaking of senior officials, this is the real reason why Cheng Shijie is unhappy with Zheng Zhilong. Now Spain has entered a stalemate with the Thirty Years' War in Europe. In order to win the Europa War, the Spanish Empire has shrunk its troops from colonies around the world. On senior officials , there are less than 2,000 Spaniards in total, and even if you include the Dutch in the southern part of Dazhan, there are only more than 6,000 people.
Not all of the more than 6,000 people are soldiers, most of them are employees and managers. The Spanish and Dutch people combined are estimated to have less than 2,000 troops.
It’s not that there are no people in Spain and the Netherlands. Of course, it’s also true that there are few people in the two countries. The main reason is that both Spain and the Netherlands want to use it as a trading base. But later the Spaniards discovered that this stronghold was actually of little use. The Ming Dynasty was closed to the country and could not trade. Later, even in the early days, it was closed to the country and could not trade.
The role of this stronghold is gradually diminishing. It is precisely because the Spanish and the Dutch do not pay attention to it that this is Zheng Zhilong's opportunity. If Zheng Zhilong wants to seize the top officer, he only needs a combination of sea and land to drive the Spanish and Dutch out of the top officer. It will not be Zheng Zhilong's turn to regain the top officer. .
However, the problem is that Zheng Zhilong acquiesced to the existence of Spanish and Dutch forces in Danguan.
There must be a certain amount of benefit transfer here. Zheng Zhilong took the benefits of the Spaniards and the Dutch. It may also be that Zheng Zhilong is also playing a trick to support the invaders. After all, the Dutch East India Company does not have many senior members, and there are only fifteen warships over one thousand tons.
After hearing Cheng Shijie's deployment, Sun Chengzong frowned slightly: "It's a good idea to seize the senior officer and force senior officer Zheng Zhilong to fight Ning Haijun, but the question is, can our navy defeat Zheng's fleet at sea? The Zheng family has more than 3,000 ships!"
Mentioning Zheng's huge fleet, a trace of worry flashed across everyone's brows.
Zheng Zhilong started out as a pirate. He climbed up the ladder step by step from a small leader, and eventually became the overlord of the South China Sea. He accumulated extremely tyrannical strength. The navies of Guangdong and Fujian provinces made him lose his temper. In the end, he was forced to The imperial court had no choice but to hold its nose to recruit him and let him continue to do pirate work in the name of the imperial court!
There is no strict distinction between warships and merchant ships these days. In other words, all of Zheng Zhilong's more than 3,000 ships can be used in naval battles. With such terrifying strength, the army has only been established for more than two years, and there are only more than 30 new warships. Does the Ning Navy have any hope of winning?
Cheng Shijie smiled faintly and said: "Whether it will succeed or not will only be known after fighting it. Before the Battle of Haizhou, who could believe that our Ning Navy could violently defeat Jiannu? Military strength cannot only depend on how many ships and troops the opponent has? We The Ming Dynasty still has more than two million troops, so when facing the Jiannu slaves, won’t they win less and lose more?”
Sun Chengzong didn't say anything more, but looked at Cheng Shijie and said: "Beiping, I will recommend you a naval talent!"
Cheng Shijie asked: "Did the teacher mean Mao Yuanyi?"
Mao Yuanyi once served as the staff of Yang Hao, the right minister of the Ministry of War, who was responsible for the Liaodong strategy, and was later reused by Sun Chengzong, the Minister of War. Together with Sun Chengzong's colleagues Lu Shanji, Yuan Chonghuan, Sun Yuanhua and others, he inspected the terrain inside and outside Shanhaiguan, studied the enemy's situation, and assisted Sun Chengzong in the battle. , resisted Hou Jin's attack, and went to the south of the Yangtze River to raise warships to strengthen the Liaodong Navy and improve the combat effectiveness of the Ming army.
Under the command of Sun Chengzong, the Ming army recaptured the Nine Cities and Forty-five Forts in Liaodong, and Mao Yuanyi was recommended to the Imperial Academy for his merit. Due to the monopoly power of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, Sun Chengzong was excluded from office, and Mao Yuanyi was also deregistered. In the sixth year of Tianqi (1626), he complained of illness and returned south. In October of the following year, Zhu Youjian ascended the throne and subsequently killed Wei Zhongxian. The power of the eunuchs was greatly reduced. Mao Yuanyi rushed to the capital to present the "Wu Bei Zhi" to the new emperor. Because he was slandered by powerful ministers Wang Zai and others in Jin, he was sentenced to death for the crime of arrogance. He was exiled to Jiangcun, Dingxing (now part of Hebei Province).
In the winter of the second year of Chongzhen (1629), the Hou Jin cavalry attacked Beijing, and Sun Chengzong was once again ordered to supervise the division. Mao Yuanyi and dozens of other cavalrymen guarded Sun Chengzong and broke through from Dongbianmen to Tongzhou (today's Tongxian County, Beijing). They repelled the attack of the Jin army and relieved Beijing's crisis. Mao Yuanyi was promoted to deputy commander-in-chief due to his meritorious service and supervised the navy at Juehua Island (now Juhua Island, Xingcheng, Liaoning).
There is another reason why Sun Chengzong recommended Mao Yuanyi. This may not be known to Cheng Shijie. Mao Yuanyi's wife, Shen, is from the same clan as Shen Boyun of Chongming. When Sun Chengzong was in charge of Liaodong's strategy, Mao Yuanyi had united with Shen's Shachuan Gang to send people and ships. , to help strengthen the Liaodong Navy.
Although it is said that Cheng Shijie and Shen Boyun have certain interests in each other, Shen Boyun will never show his heart to Cheng Shijie and will not be truly loyal to him.
The difference is huge.
Mao Yuanyi arrived in Jinzhou with more than 30 people including Shen Boyun, Shen Huandong, Shen Huanbing, Shen Shangwang, and Shen Shangping, and begged Cheng Shijie to take them in.
Cheng Shijie has nothing to refuse. With the help of the Shachuan Gang, Cheng Shijie's transportation power on the sea will be doubled. Although the Shachuan Gang's ships are dilapidated and there are only 780 ships, this is not because the Shachuan Gang has no strength. , but their financial resources limit their behavior.
The ancestors of the Shachuan Gang are descendants of shipwrights from the Nanjing Shipyard. What they are best at is not fighting or maritime transportation. What they are really best at is shipbuilding.
With the participation of the Shachuan Gang, Cheng Shijie suddenly gained more than 8,000 outstanding shipbuilding craftsmen. These craftsmen arrived in southern Liaoning in batches, bringing with them a total of 50,000 to 60,000 people with their families.
The arrival of these people greatly improved the productivity of Lushun Shipyard, Jinzhou Donggang Shipyard, and Jinzhou Xigang Shipyard. Ning Naval Shipyard suddenly gained a lot of experience in manufacturing large ships. This was considered a gain for Cheng Shijie. an intangible wealth.
At the same time, Cheng Shijie's tentacles can also reach as far as Chongming. Although the Shachuan Gang's Chongming Island is only indigenous and has no official power, and some have bribed some low-level officials, Cheng Shijie is thinking about how to take control of Chongming Island. With On Chongming Island, when Ning Haijun faces the Zheng family, he will shorten the distance.
Just when Cheng Shijie felt embarrassed, Zhu Weiti smiled and said, "What's so difficult about this?"
"What can the princess do?"
Zhu Weiti said: "I am going to write to the emperor to make Chongming Island a resort!"
"Your Majesty probably won't agree!"
"Don't you have some property in the capital? In exchange for these things, my husband has a good relationship with Eunuch Gao. With his help, this matter should be possible!"
Zhu Weiti's self-confidence came from the fact that Chongming was a useless place for the imperial court. The island shore was unstable due to the rising and falling of the island, which had forced the county government to move to its location five times. Every time the city was built, tens of thousands of taels of silver were spent, but the output was very limited, and it was basically impossible to make ends meet.
Soon, Zhu Weiti wrote a letter, which was a private letter, telling Emperor Chongzhen that Cheng Shijie gave her a large ship worth 2,500 yuan, which she named "Eight Princesses". Now the weather in Liaodong Cold, she wanted to go to Chongming Island for vacation, and hoped that Emperor Chongzhen would give Chongming Island to her.
…
Emperor Chongzhen naturally received Cheng Shijie's memorial first. After Cheng Shijie's memorial was delivered to the capital, Wang Chengen immediately delivered it to Emperor Chongzhen.
The current Emperor Chongzhen is in constant trouble. These troubles do not come from the outside, but from the inside. Although he has stolen the wealth of the eight Shanxi merchants, Emperor Chongzhen has a large sum of money and is much more comfortable.
God seemed determined to make things difficult for Emperor Chongzhen.
On June 14, the sixth year of Chongzhen, Miyun and Huairou encountered hail weather;
On June 18, hailstorms hit Cangzhou and hailstorms in Taiyuan. The vegetation in Yuncheng was completely wiped out by hailstorms overnight;
On June 19, Jinan encountered hail weather;
On June 21, Handan encountered hail weather;
On June 24, Kaifeng, Weihui, and Zhangde prefectures encountered widespread hailstorms. The fields were covered with hailstones overnight, as numerous as pebbles by the river, and all the grain and wheat rotted away;
On June 26, Fengyang encountered hail weather;
…
After a long drought, there will be hail. Last year, Henan, Hebei, Shandong and Shanxi were all extremely dry, so it is not surprising to encounter hail disaster this year. The problem is that this hellish hail weather is too fierce and affects too wide a range. It seems that it will destroy all the farmland across the country!
The largest hailstones were as big as oranges, and they crackled and smashed wildly. The wheat that was growing happily was smashed to pieces. Many prefectures and counties suffered heavy losses, and many people were even killed by the hailstones.
Countless farmers cried bitterly when they looked at a ball of smashed wheat seedlings. This meant that this season's wheat was finished. How could they live?
The most tearful thing is that in the face of such a terrible natural disaster, the first reaction of those civil servants who had an infinite love for committing suicide was not to try to provide disaster relief, but to force Chongzhen to issue a self-incriminating edict. They said plausibly: "It's because Your Majesty used sycophants and jesters, allowed him to act illegally and angered God, so God sent disasters to warn Your Majesty! For the sake of the common people in the world, Your Majesty, please hurry up and punish the common people of the world. God admits his mistake and promises to be a good minister and a villain. Only by asking for forgiveness from God can he save all the people from the fire and water!"
Emperor Chongzhen was extremely annoyed by this. Why is it always my fault every time there is a natural disaster? I spent so much money and suffered so much jealousy to support you, just to let you find faults in me and force me to review?
Of course, Emperor Chongzhen would never admit that he was wrong. The two sides went back and forth and quarreled for more than three months. Emperor Chongzhen saw Cheng Shijie's memorial.
Emperor Chongzhen had no doubts about the memorial written by Cheng Shijie, because what Cheng Shijie said was true. He said that the eight Shanxi merchants were rich and had a fortune of tens of millions, right? Tens of millions of taels of silver have been confiscated. Of course, the news about Cheng Shijie comes from folk rumors.
Everyone has the problem of bragging. He obviously doesn't have ten thousand taels of silver in his family, but he dares to boast that his family fortune is hundreds of thousands. Now Zheng Zhilong actually collected so much money by collecting protection fees.
Emperor Chongzhen was jealous.
Emperor Chongzhen did not express his position on Cheng Shijie's memorial. Of course, not expressing his position was also an attitude. In any case, Zheng Zhilong was a pirate that Emperor Chongzhen agreed to recruit, and two dozen Dutch people also made Emperor Chongzhen feel proud. '
But the problem is that Emperor Chongzhen didn't know that there were such huge profits on the sea. For the first time, he felt that he was being played by his officials. No one told him about such a huge thing. If someone told him that he could make tens of millions of taels of profits a year on the sea, The money is nearly twice as much as the Liao salary. Does he need to make people angry?
These ministers deserve to be killed.
He really wanted Cheng Shijie to teach Zheng Zhilong a lesson, but he was also worried that Cheng Shijie could not defeat Zheng Zhilong. It would be great if Cheng Shijie killed him first, just like Yuan Chonghuan killed Mao Wenlong. As long as an established fact was created, Emperor Chongzhen was willing to endorse Cheng Shijie. Of course, If Cheng Shijie is defeated, Cheng Shijie will definitely be guilty.
Just like in history, if Yuan Chonghuan was killed by Mao Wenlong when he was killing him, was Mao Wenlong guilty? Yes, but does Emperor Chongzhen have any solution?
In fact, there is no way, because the Dongjiang Army can hardly get military pay from the imperial court, so the imperial court has extremely weak control over the Dongjiang Army. This is also the current situation.
At this time, Zhu Weiti's private message also arrived, and Emperor Chongzhen also saw Cheng Shijie's true intention. To deal with Zheng Zhilong, Cheng Shijie needed an advance base, and this base was Chongming Island.
Emperor Chongzhen immediately issued a decree, naming the eighth princess Zhu Weiti as Princess Chongming, and Chongming Island as her fief. Zhu Weiti could arrange the officials, taxation and other rights of the Chongming fief on her own, and allowed Princess Chongming to recruit soldiers to defend her fief.
Officials had no objection to the withdrawal of the county from Chongming Island, because it was a big hole. In the Ming Dynasty, Chongming Island had not yet been formed, and it belonged to Sansha, Yaosha, Liusha, Changsha, and the Wu family. The tidal flats such as Shasha, Yuanjiasha, and Xiangsha were not formed until the 16th year of Wanli, but they often collapsed and were often hit by floods.
Not to mention production, even self-sufficiency is difficult, and it also needs financial support from Suzhou Prefecture and Taicang Prefecture. This makes Suzhou Prefecture very unhappy. The other places in Suzhou Prefecture are extremely rich, and only Chongming Island is a barren land. Only a group of boatmen and sand boat gangs live here.
At this time, Cheng Shijie had been busy preparing for war. The most important thing was shipbuilding. In the original plan, Lushun Shipyard and Jinzhou Donggang Shipyard produced warships, while Jinzhou Westport produced merchant ships. With the advent of the Shachuan Gang, this problem has fundamentally changed.
Shipbuilding is very expensive. To build a Sea Shark-class warship with 3,000 materials, not counting the guns, it costs about 7,000 taels of silver. If you include the guns and other equipment, it will cost nearly 20,000 taels of silver. .
However, the Shachuan Gang had a large number of outstanding boatmen, but they suffered from lack of funds. After taking refuge with Cheng Shijie, they immediately produced a type of warship that had long since disappeared in the long river of history.
This kind of ship is made of 5,000 materials, with a length-to-width ratio of six to one, which is very rare in the era of sailing battleships. For example, the British Sea King super battleship was just launched in 1637. Its length is 51 meters and its width is 14.7 meters. meters, with a depth of 23.17 meters and a draft of 6.8 meters. The ship weighs 1,683 tons and has 4 decks.
Sea King's aspect ratio is 3.46.
According to conversion, the displacement of this new type of battleship is equivalent to 1,625 tons, which is slightly smaller than the Sea King. It is expected to be equipped with 48 three-inch guns and 36 newly developed guns. Four-inch gun, the four-inch gun is also the 126 mm caliber of later generations.
Because Cheng Shijie adopted the Ming system, he did not copy the dimensions of later generations, but adopted Ming characteristics.
"What's the speed of this battleship?"
Cheng Shijie was most concerned about the speed issue. He turned to the director of the Jinzhou Xigang Shipyard who accompanied the inspection. This was a talent who had come to work for the Shachuan Gang. As expected, this person's surname was not Chen, but Chen Wanshun. Of course, he is one of Shen's sons-in-law, which is also the big family's way of retaining talents.
Chen Wanshun said proudly: "It's very fast! If the wind is strong enough, it will only take half a month from Jinzhou to Guangzhou. It's really fast!"
In fact, Cheng Shijie is still not used to the way workers speak in this era. He prefers intuitive numbers. Of course, it does not prevent Cheng Shijie from calculating. The distance is more than 2,200 kilometers. Since there is no night navigation capability in this era, all ships In fact, the sailing time was only seven and a half days, which is equivalent to nearly 300 kilometers per day.
Cheng Shijie asked in confusion: "If we want to reach Guangzhou within half a month, the speed must reach 14 knots at least, right? Can the hull bear the burden of traveling at such a high speed for a long time?"
Chen Wanshun said with a smile: "Our battleship is made of fine steel as the keel, and the hull is riveted with thick rivets. It is extremely strong, and it is also covered with a series of steel plates to act as armor. It is extremely strong and can withstand the torment!"
Cheng Shijie said with great satisfaction: "This new type of warship is named the Jusha class. It is the main warship of our Ninghai Navy. But what is the shipbuilding speed of this kind of warship?"
"With enough wood and materials, we can build six ships a year!"
"One year is too long, can you hurry up?"
"Unless... you use the kind of machinery from the woodworking factory!" Chen Wanshun has seen the water-powered and animal-powered machinery in the woodworking factory. With a large number of wooden parts, under the operation of this kind of machinery, the growth rate will increase more than ten times.
"If you get all the machinery, how many battleships can you build before the end of December?"
Chen Wanshun said: "We can build up to six ships, including large ones and four medium ones!"
The medium-sized ship that Chen Wanshun mentioned was actually a 3,000-material Haisha class battleship. In the past, Cheng Shijie thought that the Haisha class would become the main battleship of the Ning Navy for a long time, but he did not expect that Sun Chengzong promoted Shen Boyun's sand ship. Thanks to the help, Ning Haijun not only has a large number of sailors, but also has a large number of excellent shipwrights.
If two giant sharks and four sea sharks are added, Ning Haijun's new navy warships will be more than sixty. Of course, it is not enough to fight the Zheng family, but it has the strength to severely damage Zheng Zhilong.
After encouraging Chen Wanshun, Cheng Shijie told the craftsmen of the Shachuan Gang that in southern Liaoning, their monthly salary was the same as that of Ning Haijun soldiers. Ordinary craftsmen received one or two or eight taels of silver a month, and they were guaranteed to eat and drink. Eat as much as you like.
These craftsmen of the Shachuan Gang are very grateful for the wise decision of the gang leader Shen Boyun.
(End of chapter)
