To the west of Shanhaixiong Pass, the Red Turban Song Army soldiers who had arrived in advance marched westward along the official road for more than 20 miles, from Dashi River to Datang River!
Countless soldiers lined up to wait for each other. Everyone was wearing Luoyang cold-forged armor or cheaper Cizhou hot-forged armor. They had iron or copper helmets on their backs, and their heads were wrapped in red scarves. They just looked westward. And look. Yue Fei, Li Shifu, Huang Wuji, Xiang Ke and other senior generals crossed the newly completed Tanghe Stone Bridge early and led their staff outside a post on the west bank of the Tanghe River to greet His Majesty the Emperor of the Song Dynasty. 's arrival
In the eyes of countless soldiers, they saw a group of cavalry galloping in the distance. Under each person's crotch is an extremely powerful Qinghai Cong, flying like a horse on the official road leading to Shanhaiguan. At the front, a soldier is holding a flag fluttering in the wind, and above it is a blue dragon with teeth and claws!
This is the new recognition flag that Zhao Kai designed for himself. The dragon with its teeth and claws was drawn by himself, stroke by stroke!
The soldiers already knew that their emperor had changed his flag, so a burst of earth-shaking cheers suddenly broke out on both sides of the Tang River!
The arrival of the emperor means that the attack on the golden thieves is about to begin!
Everyone knows that this battle to destroy Huanglong will be the final battle for Zhao Kai to reopen the Song Dynasty. After this battle, I don’t know when there will be a conquest of millions of people? At least in their lifetimes, it will be difficult for them to see such a war again.
And the battle to destroy the country with millions of people also means unprecedented military success! And military merit means huge rewards!
The soldiers who were lucky enough to get one or two points were all excited now, and they all cheered the loudest.
"Long live Long live Long live"
The roar spread from near to far, sweeping across the plains in Shanhaiguan and reaching the nearby Bohai Sea. The news reached countless ships at anchor on the sea, alarming the officers, soldiers and sailors on board. Most of them are southerners, either former naval officers and soldiers of the Southern Song Dynasty or sailors from Southeast maritime merchants. Now we are all fortunate enough to participate in this largest conquest since the "first opening" of the Song Dynasty. Our emotions are really exciting and complicated!
The reason for the surge is that the golden thief who has brought disaster to the Song Dynasty for more than ten years and turned the peaceful and prosperous times into the chaotic times of the Warring States Period is finally finished, and they can still participate in this battle to destroy the gold! Well, and there’s no risk of being beaten to death by a gold thief!
The emotions were complicated because the emperor commanding this epic battle was not their Emperor Jinling, but the Emperor Luoyang.
The emperor of Jinling worked hard, worked diligently and loved the people, and managed the southeast to such a prosperous and prosperous state. How could he let the militaristic emperor of Luoyang seize the country?
Is this world really about building bridges and roads without burying them, killing people and setting fire to gold belts?
The ships that covered the sea near Shanhaiguan were all under the jurisdiction of the Navy Department of the Song Dynasty - some ships were the property of the Navy Department, and some were rented.
The Southern Song Dynasty attached great importance to the navy (water force), juxtaposing it with the army, and placed it under the jurisdiction of the left and right privy councilors of the Privy Council. Zhao Kai's Northern Song Dynasty did not attach much importance to the navy. The navy's status was only alongside the army's horse, infantry, artillery, supply, and engineering departments. It was a "arms" rather than a "service". Moreover, the size of Zhao Kai's navy was far inferior to that of the previous Southern Song Dynasty navy, and even inferior to that of the Southern Emperor Zhao Chen.
Now Zhao Chen's navy still has 60,000 to 70,000 officers and soldiers and thousands of large and small warships. It is still the world's largest navy that dominates the oceans.
Zhao Kai's navy only had 15,000 officers and soldiers, and it owned 65 warships, which could not be compared with Zhao Chen's navy.
However, Zhao Kai's navy has four advantages that the "Southern Emperor Navy" does not have: the world's largest shipbuilding capacity, the world's largest maritime trade, the world's largest gunpowder production and quality, and the world's largest copper production and Cannon casting capabilities.
With these four world firsts, it would not take many years for Zhao Kai to build a world-dominating navy from scratch.
Before he owns this navy, he can still rely on his "private fleet" to maintain sea power.
Yes, it is a "private fleet". There is not much difference between merchants, pirates and the navy these days.
And in some cases, private merchants and pirates often have better navigation and naval warfare technology than the state-run navy.
For example, most of the warships that helped the English and Dutch fight against the Spanish Armada in history actually belonged to English and Dutch maritime profiteers.
In order to use the power of Southeast maritime merchants to help him transport troops and grain, Zhao Kai has implemented a "cannon-for-ship" plan since last year - that is, using "eighty-two cannons", "one-pound cannons" and These light artillery pieces, "Liangjin Cannon", plus a certain number of artillery pieces, as well as artillery usage training, were exchanged for merchant ship leases from Han merchants.
Yes, only merchant ships owned by Han merchants and manned by all Han sailors can exchange leases for artillery.
Ships of non-Han merchants were prohibited from being equipped with artillery!
It is self-evident what having artillery means to the maritime merchants who "operate honestly and legally". Today's ocean is a "free world" where no one cares about the sky, no matter the earth, and no king's law can control it!
It would be fine if no one had cannons, but if some ships had cannons and some ships did not have cannons, so under the lure of cannons, the Song Dynasty Navy took control of Li Bao's command, and thousands of "private warships" were gathered.
Of course, most of these "private warships" have not yet received artillery and gunpowder. Only dozens of merchant ships that arrived earlier have been equipped with artillery and have become armed merchant ships.
These armed merchant ships are now following Li Bao's flagship "Luoyang" in patrolling the sea outside the Dashi River port to prevent the warships of the Jin Navy from sneak attack on the more than a thousand ships anchored on the sea west of the Dashi River mouth loaded with grain, grass and Supplies ship.
The cheers on land had cut through the sea wind and waves at this time and reached the "Luoyang" on which Li Bao was riding.
This naval commander, who was almost a veteran under Zhao Kai but had no great achievements to boast about, could not suppress his excitement. He really had no chance!
As a naval general, how useful can he be in a landlocked country? But this time he finally waited!
In this battle to destroy gold, the navy of the Song Dynasty will have to show its talents!
They not only have to undertake the tasks of landing in Fuzhou, occupying Phi Island and landing on the west coast of Goryeo, they also have to be responsible for the logistics and transportation of the "million-strong army"!
A million-strong army's expedition to Liaodong would not be possible under any circumstances by relying on carts pulled by civilians and animals to handle logistics. The distance from the Jinzhou front line to the commercial city of Tianjin alone was more than 800 miles.
Tianjin is just a port and commercial port and does not produce grain itself. If this Northern Expedition lasts for several years, the food and fodder required will cost tens of millions of stones!
It is simply impossible to rely on land transportation that consumes a lot of money because the mules, horses and people have to eat (both back and forth), so the farther the land transportation is, the more time it takes, and the mules, horses and people have to eat. The more food and grass is eaten, the less food and grass can be sent to the front line.
The consumption of maritime transportation is much less. Sailors need to eat, but ships do not eat and shipping mainly relies on "blowing". Chinese-style hard sailing ships do not require many sailors. A wooden ship carrying a thousand stones and twenty or thirty sailors is enough. Their consumption is simply insignificant compared to the transportation capacity of a thousand stones.
If the battlefields of this war between the Jin and Song Dynasties were limited to western Liaoning, eastern Liaoning, and the coast of Goryeo, the amount of food and grass consumed by the hundreds of thousands of Song troops who came from afar would probably be less than the amount of food and grass consumed by the Jin army fighting locally. This is unreasonable. !
How could Li Bao be granted a title of Marquis for his contribution to transporting grain and fodder for the "million-strong army"?
Thinking of the good thing about being granted the title of Marquis, Li Bao looked around with a smile and found that all the officers around him were smiling from ear to ear, so he laughed and said, "When the officials come, let's set off a salute to greet them." Home!"
The "Luoyang" is a real gunboat, belonging to the "Little Shenzhou" type, which is a smaller version of the Shenzhou class, the first-generation running ship of the Southern Song Dynasty Navy. When Zhao Kai was pacifying the southeast, this ship was still being outfitted at the port of the Southern Song Dynasty Naval Shipyard in Shanghai. So this ship was directly returned to Zhao Kai's navy and became Li Bao's flagship.
However, the "Luoyang" was not the largest warship obtained by the Northern Song Dynasty Navy from the Shanghai Shipyard. At the same time as the "Luoyang", there were two other "Shenzhou D-type" battleships that fell into the hands of the Northern Song Navy. Zhao Kai named them "Liaoning" and "Shandong"!
When the roar of the 3-pound cannon on the "Luoyang" reached the Tanghe Bridge, Zhao Kai was chatting and joking with Yue Fei, Li Shifu, Huang Wuji, Xiang Ke and others!
Hearing the sound of cannons coming from the direction of the sea, Zhao Kai knew that it was his warship firing a salute - he "invented" the salute system, and the salute to greet Zhao Kai was of course the highest standard of 21 gun salutes (a total of 21 gun salutes were fired on the Luoyang). 21 3-pound cannons)!
Hearing the roar, Zhao Kai asked Yue Fei, Li Shifu, Huang Wuji, Xiang Ke and others who came to greet him, "Are it my Liaoning and Shandong that are firing?"
Yue Fei smiled and replied, "Officials, the Luoyang, Liaoning and Shandong that fired the guns are not in the sea outside Shanhaiguan."
"Not here?" Zhao Kai asked, "Where are my Liaoning and Shandong?"
Yue Fei replied, "They should have arrived in Fuzhou. The west wind happened to blow in the past two days, so they were led by Zhao Buqiu to escort Dong Jingang's troops to land in Fuzhou and Pi Island!"
Zhao Kai nodded, "Okay! King Kong has probably conquered the land outside the customs in Fuzhou, right? I will go to Shanhaiguan to wait for the news of his victory!"
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