Not only the cannon shells and the wear and tear of the gun barrels need to be paid, but also the hard work of the fleet sailors must be paid.
Although Zheng Guoqi said he had no money, he considered that after capturing Hue Prefecture and unifying Jiaozhi, money should not be a problem, so he issued an IOU.
The fleet heading south then went up the Xiang River and formed a battle formation at Hui Long Tan, two kilometers away from Hue Province.
Zheng Guoqi, who was invited to visit the ship, felt extremely envious when he saw the huge warships.
When will our Grand Cochin be able to have such a powerful fleet?
However, Zheng Guoqi also knew that with the current situation of the Zheng regime, it would be a fool's errand to own such a fleet.
You must know that the Zheng regime does not even have a few wooden ships now. Since the failure of the last southern expedition and the last fleet was defeated by the Nguyen navy, the Zheng regime has basically lost its water control rights.
Well, for Jiaozhi at this time, there was no such thing as sea control. After all, even the Ruan regime, which was relatively powerful on the water, did not have any big ships, but only ordinary river boats floating on the river.
In the previous battle across the river, the navy of the Ruan regime was baptized by a burst of gunfire from the frigates of the Xinghai Kingdom, and the entire army was destroyed before they could even get out of the dock.
The main force in the bombardment of Hue this time was the two first-class battleships and six second-class battleships led by the fleet heading south.
The current fleet of the Star Sea Kingdom Navy is mainly divided into three fleets.
The Northern Fleet went to the Chaozhou area to monitor the movements of the Qing army, the garrison fleet stationed on the South China Sea Island, and the southward fleet heading towards Malacca.
Among them, in order to open up the route to the Persian Gulf as soon as possible, the strength of the southbound fleet is the strongest among the three major fleets, with two first-class battleships, six second-class battleships, as well as frigates, medical ships, logistics ships, and more than ten ships.
It can be said to be powerful.
However, since the southward fleet was established, it also bombarded the main camp and dock of the Ruan army during the battle to cross the river, and the frigates also opened fire.
Facing Hue, the strongest city in Cochin this time, the fleet heading south sent all its battleships to collect data on the bombardment of the city. After all, on the subsequent voyage, they would also encounter Putaoya, the colony of the Helan people. castle.
When the first-class battleship's 88-meter secondary gun and the second-class battleship's 88-meter main gun fired in sequence, Zheng Guoqi felt as if he was standing at the entrance to the noisy hell. The constant roar and the vibration of the deck made him feel inexplicably. There is some distension and pain in the lower abdomen, just like the delusion that I had when I was a child and was about to wet the bed.
No way, in front of the art of iron and fire, it was difficult for the ancients to watch all this calmly and without wavering.
88mm artillery shells continued to fall around the city wall of Hue, and the roaring fire quickly peeled off the city wall.
The 125mm main gun that fired afterwards dealt a heavy blow to the city wall.
In just ten minutes of rapid shooting, the thick city walls could no longer hold up and collapsed one after another.
As the artillery fire subsided, Zheng's army launched a charge with great excitement, rushing into the capital city that had existed for three hundred years along the collapsed walls.
The defenders, who had been frightened by the fierce artillery fire, could not muster the will to resist at all, and they knelt down and surrendered.
Only the imperial guards in the inner city were still resisting.
However, in the face of their stubborn resistance, bullets and shells were fired from the air.
Even if the Royal Forest Army hides in the house and fires cold arrows, it will soon be blasted into ruins by the cannons dragged in.
The resistance in Hue ended after three days.
The Ruan family's imperial city also fell into the hands of the Zheng family's army.
As the head coach, Zheng Guoqi immediately issued an order not to allow private possession of property, and personally went to the palace with his own soldiers to search for the wealth accumulated by the Ruan family.
No way, although Lord Ruan has been caught, the IOU he paid is still there. If he can't keep the wealth in the palace, he will be in misery if the Xinghai Kingdom's fleet turns against him.
It has to be said that in this situation, people can lose their face.
The first batch of payment delivered by Zheng Guoqi to the Xinghai Fleet was more than 50,000 Ruan's troops.
Well, Xinghai Kingdom will not refuse to take in prisoners of war.
The reason is very simple. The people of Cochin in this era basically speak Chinese, and their appearance is no different from that of the Xinghai Kingdom except for being slightly darker.
In this way, if these prisoners of war can be transformed, it will be of great benefit to the Star Sea Kingdom.
After all, these prisoners of war were actually the most elite members of the Ruan regime. They had a high level of education and most of them were vassals of the Ruan family. The Zheng regime felt that it was not safe to keep these surrendered troops, so it might as well sell them out.
The second batch of payment was the gold, silver, jewelry and various cultural relics, calligraphy and paintings from the Ruan family's palace. Even a lot of the rosewood wood used to build the palace was dragged out and sold by Zheng Guoqi.
After all this trouble, Zheng Guoqi not only offset the IOU, but also offset the one million loan.
Of course, if the entire Hue Prefecture were searched, the wealth would be more than this, at least more than three to four million.
But the problem is that if the Zheng regime continues to rule here in the future, it will not be able to break the hearts of the people.
However, after passing Hue Prefecture, there are still more than twenty counties and cities loyal to the Nguyen family that can be searched, so there is no need to worry about the loan not being cleared.
But after this battle, Zheng's army could no longer enjoy the artillery fire assistance from the previous fleet, and could only gnaw on those tough bones bit by bit.
Because the Xinghai Kingdom’s southbound fleet is leaving early.
They will go to Da Nang and unload an infantry regiment they are carrying. After capturing Da Nang, the southward fleet will end the voyage and return to the newly established Sanya Naval Base on Nanhai Island for maintenance.
To be honest, sailing so far for the first time is a test for the warships and sailors of this fleet.
Depart from Xinghai City and arrive at Black Coal City, then go down the coast to Da Nang, then turn around and go straight to Sam Ya Base.
The total range is 1,300 kilometers!
In fact, the battle to attack Da Nang was very easy, even though Da Nang was only 25 kilometers away from Hoi An, the most prosperous commercial port of the Nguyen regime.
But in this era, 25 kilometers is already a long way, and with the commercial aggregation power of Hoi An, the current Da Nang is just a shabby water village of the Nguyen regime.
The reason why the southbound fleet captured this place was because it valued it as a natural port and planned to use it as one of the sub-bases of the southbound fleet in the future.
After all, in later generations, this place could barely be considered a battleground for military strategists.
As Da Nang fell into its hands, the infantry regiment began to build forts and other facilities, and the fleet heading south then turned and returned to Sanya base.
The move of the infantry regiment stationed in Da Nang frightened the officials of the Nguyen family, but it did not affect the marching speed of Zheng's army.
