"Father, you see, this is Bailuoji. It is located on the north bank of the Yangtze River and more than 20 miles on the west bank of Honghu Lake. Although it is surrounded by plains, the water network is dense and the rice fields are scattered all over. It is very unfavorable for the army to launch an attack from the land. Son Shijue has been ordered to build a fortress in Bailuoji and set up dozens of red cannons and small cannons to block the river and land attack channels, so as to ensure no risk!"
"This is Chenglingji. It is a three-fork intersection on the south bank of the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River and Dongting Lake meet here. It is the gateway to Jingzhou, Hunan, and Baling, the capital county of Yuezhou. It is also the gateway to Wanzhou. There must be no mistakes! So the son asked Wei Wanchu to lead his elite rear armed forces to guard Chenglingji. He also expanded the castle in Chenglingji and deployed dozens of red cannons and small cannons. "
The person who was looking inside the Pingxi Palace in Xiangyang City, pointing to a map hanging on a screen, and reporting to Wu Sangui the defense situation of Yuezhou Prefecture that had been assigned to the Wu family was Wu Sangui's adopted son, General Jinwuwei, and Wu Guogui, the general manager of Hunan. .
Now the exchange of land between Wu and Li in Huguang has been completed under the auspices of Li Fuchen, an enthusiastic person who only likes fighting. Yuezhou Mansion, which controls the entrance of Jingjiang River and Dongting Lake, has become Wu Guogui's defense zone.
In order to concentrate on managing Shaanxi and the Central Plains, Wu Sangui assigned a section of the river bank area belonging to Jingzhou Prefecture on the north bank of the Yangtze River to Yuezhou Prefecture, so that Wu Guogui could fortify both sides of the Yangtze River, completely blocking the Yangtze River waterway and blocking Li Zicheng's westward advance. the road.
Wu Guogui also acted quickly. In just a month or two, he had already fortressed Bailuoji in the north of the Yangtze River, and at the same time strengthened the defense of Chenglingji in the south of the Yangtze River.
"Well, the soldiers at Wachu were all left to him by Qi Sansheng. They are the most elite. He can definitely guard Chenglingji. But we only defend but not attack. How is the navy doing? When will we be able to fight with Li Zicheng? How about a contest with this traitorous Yangtze River Navy?"
Wu Sangui obviously hasn't given up his plan to go down the river, but his navy is really a bit underwhelming - Wu Sangui, a "anti-thief collecting enthusiast", only collected intruders and western thieves when collecting anti-thiefs, and didn't pay attention. After collecting pirates, he found that none of his men were good at water fighting until they reached the Yangtze River Basin. What's more, Li Zicheng, who was supposed to be a landlubber from Shaanxi, had lived on the Yangtze River for a long time and actually raised a decent Yangtze River Navy.
So Wu Sangui had to go down the steps given by Li Fuchen to avoid being beaten by his mortal enemy Li Zicheng on the Yangtze River!
However, Wu Guogui still found a talent for Wu Sangui who really understood the navy, Lin Xingzhu, who originally belonged to the pirate camp, but later moved to the Qing Dynasty as a second minister, and was left to become a general in Hunan.
This is a professional pirate, and he is also amphibious. He can not only fight water battles in boats, but also lead rattan soldiers ashore to fight land battles.
So Wu Guogui gave him the important task of running the Yangtze River Navy!
However, setting up a navy division is not a land division. Although the so-called "hundred-year navy" is exaggerated, it is inevitable that it will take several years to build a capable "Jiang's Army".
Not to mention anything else, but shipbuilding is one thing that cannot be rushed. Li Zicheng had a ready-made shipbuilding industry in Hankou that he could use, but Wu Guogui and Lin Xingzhu had a very difficult time. Although both Changsha and Yuezhou can build ships, they are still far behind compared with Hankou, where the world gathers.
Wu Guogui shook his head: "Father, it is difficult to train the navy, and it is even harder to build warships. There is no need to rush. My son has ordered Lin Xingzhu to set up a navy camp on Junshan Island in Dongting Lake, and also opened a navy camp in Changsha. The shipyard also hired a group of highly skilled shipwrights from Guangdong through Xiaotu's relationship, and planned to build some gunboats that could freely travel on the Yangtze River, Xiangjiang River, and Dongting Lake. However, in order to build high-quality warships, there is still a long way to go. You have to choose the best wood, and the wood has to be dried in the sun before it can be used.”
The shipyard has to be opened now, shipwrights have to go to Guangdong to recruit, and the wood for shipbuilding has to be cut and dried now.
Wu Sangui also sighed, pondered for a moment, and then asked, "Have you and Xiao Tu understood the Lu Bu family's 'sharp spear skills'?"
"I understand." Wu Guogui nodded and said, "There is no such thing as magic marksmanship. Li Yat-sen invented a special kind of 'Zhongshan Spear'. When coupled with a rifled gun, it can shoot at long range, two or three hundred paces." No issues and refilling was quick.”
"What is a Zhongshan gun? What is a rifled gun?" Wu Sangui frowned, "Can we make it ourselves?"
"Yes!" Wu Guogui said, "Xiao Tu asked someone to send me a sample. I will send someone to send it to you later. In addition, I have already asked the gunsmith below, and they can make it, but"
"But what?"
"But it's very slow to make!" Wu Guogui said, "Making guns is inherently slow. It takes more than half a month to make a barrel, and then you have to cut rifling on the inner wall of the iron tube. This makes our guns even more difficult. There are only a few craftsmen, so it may be impossible to mass-produce rifled guns.
In addition, the rifling of this rifled gun will be polished, and after polishing, it will be the same as a smoothbore gun. It’s really easy to use but hard to make, and the price is too expensive! Errang Xiaotu calculated that the cost of training and equipping a fusilier rifleman can be used to build a small red cannon that can fire six kilograms of shells! "
Precisely because the flintlock rifled gun is easy to use, but difficult to make and more expensive, Li Zhongshan asked Wu Xiaotuo to send samples of the rifled gun and minie bullets to Wu Guogui - the rifled gun was compared to the metallurgy and forging handicraft industries. scale!
The craftsmanship of rolling a rifled gun is not difficult to say. Historically, the craftsmen of the Kangxi Yangxin Palace Manufacturing Office were able to roll it out (Mini bullets definitely did not exist). You can see them in museums in later generations, and they are still matchlock rifles. gun. But you can't get a few of these things in a year. It's enough for Kangxi to fight white rabbits for fun, but don't expect to equip the troops.
To produce enough rifled guns to equip the army, only one town in Foshan in China has this kind of production capacity.
Therefore, Li Zhongshan was not afraid of the spread of the technology of rifled guns and minie bullets at all. He was not even worried about Wu Sangui and Wu Guogui secretly buying a batch of rifled guns from Foshan Town to equip the troops.
Because this hand-rubbed rifle is really expensive. A flintlock smoothbore gun produced in Foshan Town is sold to the Guangdong Navy Yamen for five taels of silver. A flintlock rifled gun is sold on this basis. Double it, which is ten taels of silver!
If an outsider wants to buy from Foshan Town, he needs the approval of Dai Zi, the general quartermaster of the Guangdong Navy, through legal channels. The price will at least double through illegal channels, which is thirty taels! At this price, Zheng Jinglai could still afford a lot, but where did Wu Sangui get so much money?
To train a qualified rifled rifleman, at least one brand new rifled gun must be destroyed!
For the Guangdong Navy, the cost of training riflemen, including guns, gunpowder and bullets, is at least twenty taels of silver!
In addition, after completing the training, you must be given a brand new rifled gun, which must be equipped with a certain amount of ammunition, as well as a helmet, breastplate, bayonet and other various equipment for five taels of silver a month." "Deputy Chief" military pay (this is preferential pay for veterans and technical troops), and an additional reward will be given at the end of the year.
Therefore, the Guangdong Navy is so rich and still guards the town of Foshan where it can produce a large number of hand-made rifled rifles. It has only trained a thousand and hundreds of rifled riflemen, and all of them are like treasures.
Because Li Fuchen was Li Zhongshan's father, he also hired 300 riflemen. The number of riflemen Li Zhongshan brought to the Huaixi Army was also 300. Chen Yonghua and Lu Sanhao had a relatively strong relationship with Li Zhongshan, and they each also had one or two hundred riflemen.
As for other forces in China, there are currently no organized riflemen. When Wu Sangui heard that this rifled gun was really more expensive than a cannon, he was not interested at all. Wouldn't it be nice to buy more artillery if he had the spare money?
"This rifled gun is more expensive than a cannon, so what are you doing here? Let's get more cannons. We didn't have enough draft horses in the past, and even the cannons couldn't be used. Now that the second brother has captured Gansu, he can buy horses from the Western Regions. Finally, we can build more artillery teams.”
"My father is wise!" Wu Guogui said with a smile on his face, "As long as we get more cannons, we can blow open the city wall of Xi'an and capture Xi'an. My father will have three points of the world, and we won't have to give him any more in the future. Then Prince Zhu San will become a minister!"
This is persuading!
There are a lot of people trying to persuade Wu Sangui to join these days, and auspicious signs appear every three days!
But Wu Sangui was quite modest, saying that his virtue seemed to be lacking. Therefore, he could not proclaim himself emperor in a small place like Xiangyang or Jiangling. He had to occupy an ancient capital with a strong imperial atmosphere before he could become emperor.
This ancient time with rich imperial aura seems to be Xi'an and Luoyang! Xi'an's royal aura is obviously stronger than that of Luoyang. Xi'an is not only the former capital of the 14th dynasty! Moreover, the most recent dynasty that established its capital in Xi'an, the Dashun Dynasty, was destroyed because of Wu Sangui. The royal aura of Dashun should have all transferred to Wu Sangui.
Therefore, Wu Sangui felt that he should ascend the throne in Xi'an, and the country's title should be Zhou, so that it would last for a long time.
Wu Sangui was twirling his beard and was thinking about handing over the defense of Huguang to Wu Guogui and then leading his troops to attack Xi'an. Suddenly, he heard someone in the distance shouting: "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, I am so happy!"
"Congratulations, Your Majesty! Congratulations, Your Majesty!"
"Congratulations to your Majesty!"
Wu Sangui was stunned, because he heard that the voices seemed to belong to Liu Xuanchu, Fang Guangchen, and Wang Shirong. Why did these three people come to "congratulate and congratulate" today? Did they also discover Xiangrui? But they have never done anything auspicious before, so now they are thinking too much?
In addition, Liu Xuanchu has been in Nanyang, why did he come to Xiangyang today? Could this auspiciousness come from Nanyang?
Thinking of this, Wu Sangui turned around and walked a few more steps, sat on his throne, and then ordered the guards guarding the door: "Please come in!"
Not long after he finished speaking, he saw Liu Xuanchu, Fang Guangchen, and Wang Shirong coming in from the door together, but there was one more person, it was Wu Shifan. The four of them all looked happy as if they had had great luck. They walked up to Wu Sangui together, bowed to Wu Sangui, and said in unison: "Congratulations to the king!"
"Pingshen, please take a seat. Shifan, are you here too? Sit down too." Wu Sangui waved his hand, motioning for the three military advisors and his grandson Wu Shifan to take a seat, and then said to Wu Guogui: "Third brother, you can sit down too. "
"Yes, Father."
Fang Guangchen, Wang Shirong, Liu Xuanchu and Wu Guogui all sat down, but Wu Shifan did not sit down. Instead, he took out an envelope and handed it to Wu Sangui with both hands: "Grandpa, look at this!"
"This is..." Wu Sangui took the envelope and looked at it, and was also stunned, "Aixinjueluo. Xuanye, this is Kangxi?"
"Kangxi's autographed letter!" Wu Shifan said, "It was sent to Nanyang by Li Guangdi, Kangxi's imperial chamberlain. The prince found some of Kangxi's notes and checked the handwriting. It is indeed Kangxi's original letter!"
"What did you write?" Wu Sangui asked and stretched out his right hand. Wu Guogui quickly stood up and went to a desk nearby to find reading glasses for him.
"Grandpa, Kangxi wrote in a letter saying that there was a traitor in his country!"
"Huh?" Wu Sangui's eyes widened, traitor? Is that me?
"Grandpa, please don't misunderstand that the traitor Kangxi is talking about this time is his brother Yu Wang Fuquan, the same Fuquan who forged Shunzhi's edict and named himself the regent!"
"Oh, so the Manchus are going to kill each other?" Wu Sangui had already taken out the letter and read it carefully.
"Grandpa, you are a wise man," Wu Shifan said with a smile, "Kangxi really couldn't stand Fuquan anymore and was preparing to launch an army to attack Fuquan. He was afraid that we would take the opportunity to stab him in the back, so he wanted to stabilize us first, so he proposed in his letter that he would follow Shi Jingtang's example and Cede the land of Guanzhong to us, and also accept my father as your adoptive father in exchange for our reinforcements!"
"Wha, what? Recognize your father as your adoptive father? Then doesn't he become my grandson?" Wu Sangui was shocked and quickly read the letter at a glance, "The letter didn't say that I wanted to recognize my father, it just wanted to cede the land. Make good friends and borrow the help of my teacher to suppress them."
"Father, I guess this Kangxi really can't save his face and write it down in black and white, right?" Wu Guogui also looked beaming and interjected, "But as long as we can get the land in Guanzhong, who cares about this little pockmarked guy?"
"The third master is in trouble," Liu Xuanchu interjected, "just ceding land is not enough!"
Wu Sangui said with a smile: "Military advisor, I don't like this pockmarked Kangxi!"
"Your Majesty," Liu Xuanchu said, "it doesn't really matter whether Kangxi recognizes you as his grandfather. Back in Shunzhi, the foreign monk Tang Ruowang was called Tang Mafa, which means Grandpa Tang. In history, Shi Jingtang's nephew Shi Chonggui In the letter of credence given to the Khitan after he ascended the throne, he said that he was called "Sun" but not "Cimin". This shows that it doesn't matter whether he is called "Sun" or not. "Professing himself is the key!"
Fang Guangchen also nodded and said: "Your Majesty, Kangxi only said that he recognized his father and ceded territory, but did not mention professing his vassal status or paying tribute. In fact, he just wanted to play tricks on you. He wanted to get your support in vain!"
Wang Shirong also said: "Your Majesty, if Kangxi pays tribute to you and declares himself a vassal, then the Qing Dynasty will be your vassal, and you will be able to regain the lost land in the north. Moreover, Kangxi is the emperor, and you are the emperor's suzerain. There is no need to become king." It’s appropriate, so it’s natural that he should ascend to the throne and become emperor!”
"That's right!" Wu Sangui stroked his beard, "If I became the leader of the Qing Dynasty and regained the land where the fourteen dynasties were the capital, I would obviously have received destiny!"
"Yes, yes! Grandpa, when the time comes, you should comply with destiny and ascend the throne as emperor!"
Wu Sangui touched his beard again, "But I want to be the emperor, what will happen to Prince Zhu?"
"Of course Prince Zhu can't be the emperor! Anyway, he hasn't proclaimed himself emperor yet." Wu Guogui said with a smile, "Father, you only need to grant titles to Li Fuchen, Li Zhongshan, Liu Jinzhong, Li Laishun, Geng Jingzhong, Zheng Jing, Lu Sanhao, Chen Yonghua If you are a king, Prince Zhu will naturally be a bachelor, so why don't you make him a king so that he can enjoy glory and wealth from generation to generation."
Wu Sangui nodded. His third son's method was quite good. He granted a few more kings and absorbed all the military leaders who favored the third prince Zhu. Then when Kangxi and Fuquanhuo are finished, they will pull the vassal kings in the southeast to join the Northern Expedition, completely eradicate the remnants of the Qing Dynasty, and the Zhou Dynasty will be able to dominate the world perfectly!
Thinking of this, he looked at his three military advisors again.
Liu Xuanchu said with a smile: "The third master's method is good. Although there are a little more vassals in the world, as long as you can expel the Tartars, restore China, and then attack Huanglong, you can slowly eliminate all these vassals in the future." "
I have already thought of cutting down the vassals. I don’t know if there will be another rebellion among the nine vassals.
Fang Guangchen said with a smile: "Xuanchu, you are thinking too far. Let's take care of the present first. This Kangxi hasn't said he wants to become a vassal yet, and the land in Guanzhong hasn't been cut into our hands yet."
Wang Shirong has been serving as Wu Sangui's envoy for the past two years. Of course he would not miss this opportunity. He immediately said to Wu Sangui: "Your Majesty, I can make a trip to Xi'an!"
Wu Sangui smiled and shook his head: "Shirong, you can't handle this matter just by relying on your perfect skills!"
"My lord, do you want to..." Wang Shirong rolled his eyes, "Send troops to Guanzhong to force Kangxi to cede territory, pay tribute, and become a vassal?"
Wu Sangui said with a smile: "Yes, I am going to send troops! Kangxi sent envoys to say this, which shows that he is almost at the end of his rope and has no other choice but to agree to our request.
As long as the king personally brings 100,000 troops to the gates of Xi'an, this Kangxi will definitely submit!
Xianting, Xuanchu, and Shirong, the three of you go to discuss with Li Guangdi a covenant about ceding territory, paying tribute, and becoming a vassal to Kangxi. Then let Li Guangdi take the covenant back to Xi'an. I will then lead a large army to the city. It can be regarded as a courtesy first and then an army! "
His covenant actually has a more accurate name, called "unequal treaty"!
That was quite unequal. The Qing Dynasty not only wanted to cede territory and pay tribute, but also claimed vassal status. This really bullied Kangxi to death!
But now Kangxi has no choice. He has already become Shi Jingtang. Can he still get away with a traitorous and unequal treaty?
Therefore, Li Guangdi did not argue with Liu Xuanchu, Fang Guangchen, and Wang Shirong. He directly followed Wu Sangui's wishes and drafted a treaty with these Wu family military advisors. Then he quickly returned to Xi'an with the draft treaty.
The first unequal treaty of the Qing Dynasty was placed in front of Emperor Kangxi!
(End of chapter)
