With Zheng Zhilong's surrender, it meant that the Chu Empire had completely eliminated the threat from the south, and could then use most of its power on the Northern Expedition.
Many people can see this.
It can be seen within the Dachu Empire, people from the Ming court can also see it, and even Dongdu can see it.
That's why Zheng Zhilong's surrender caused such a big response.
Before Zheng Zhilong surrendered, even though Zheng Zhilong had already retreated in Fujian, he was still entrenched on many coastal islands and Damuan Island.
Chongming Island, Zhoushan Islands, Nan'ao Island, Xiangjiang Island, Penghu Islands, Damuan Island and many other islands are all under the control of Zheng Zhilong.
Although its ground forces suffered heavy losses, its fleet was still huge, with dozens of large warships and hundreds of medium-sized warships. Although these ships were all lucky ships and bird ships, they were equipped with no more than twenty or thirty cannons, and as few as Most of the more than ten ships in Europe are not even considered sixth-class battleships.
However, it is still considered an important force in the East Asian waters, especially in the coastal areas of China. Even the more powerful foreign fleets such as the Dutch and others come from afar, even if they rope in Liu Xiang, a local pirate. They fought together, but it was difficult to compete with Zheng Zhilong's fleet.
A single ship cannot defeat you, but Zheng Zhilong's ship has many people.
It doesn’t matter whether the beating is ugly or not, as long as the Dutch can lose their temper.
Zheng Zhilong, who possesses such powerful water power, even if he is defeated on the mainland, can still cause great trouble to the Chu Empire by raiding coastal areas such as Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangsu.
How to put it, even if it can block the attack from the sea by Zheng Zhilong's troops, the Chu Empire will inevitably spend a lot of manpower and material resources to deploy coastal defense lines. Various coastal and riverside forts need to be intensively built, investing hundreds or even thousands. Gate artillery is used to build the defense line of coastal and river forts.
At the same time, it is necessary to deploy garrison forces in various coastal cities and deploy the main force for mobile operations.
Just these two items will contain at least a hundred thousand or more troops of the Chu Empire, and at least a thousand artillery pieces of various types.
And these forces will inevitably crowd out the Chu Empire's resource investment in other directions.
The military expenditures of the Da Chu Empire were limited, as were the money and grain, and the production capacity in the arsenal was also limited. When a large amount of money, grain, and factory production capacity were invested in the coastal defense line, the money, grain, weapons and other investments used in the Northern Expedition would inevitably decrease.
And these are the reasons why the Chu Empire has been trying to recruit Zheng Zhilong's troops.
Even after conquering Fujian and seizing Quanzhou, Zheng Zhilong's home base on the mainland, Zheng Zhilong was offered more favorable recruitment conditions, allowing Zheng Zhilong and the others to continue to share in the huge capital by taking shares in the new maritime trading company. maritime interests.
All this is to completely resolve the threats along the coast and free up our hands to carry out the Northern Expedition.
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The Northern Expedition was something that was already discussed last year, but the Northern Expedition plan has been postponed many times.
At the beginning of the third year of Chengshun, the senior officials of the Dachu Empire originally planned to officially launch the Northern Expedition this fall. No matter what happened, they would first attack Jiangbei and capture the three cities of Yangzhou, Huai'an, and Xuzhou.
But in fact, so far, the Chu Empire Army has not even captured Yangzhou. To be more precise, the Chu Empire has not attacked Yangzhou City at all!
All this is because the ongoing Guangdong-Guangxi Campaign and the Fujian-Zhejiang Campaign have squeezed out a large number of resources from the Chu Empire, and the various strategic resources for the Northern Expedition were insufficient.
After such a fight, the military brass would rather wait until they are more fully prepared, and then wait until next year to attack the north in one go.
Recruiting Zheng Zhilong is one of the many preparations.
After Zheng Zhilong accepted the recruitment, he quickly took many of his main subordinates and his son Zheng Sen to the north on ships. They first went to Zhoushan Islands and Chongming Island, and presided over the reorganization of local Zheng Zhilong's troops.
According to a series of plans in the recruitment, Zheng Zhilong's troops surrendered anyway as part of the overall uprising and were not among the ranks of prisoners of war, so their treatment was better.
Zheng Zhilong's troops, ground combatants, those who meet the conditions and are willing to volunteer will be organized into the garrison, with a total of three garrison divisions. The rest who do not meet the conditions or are unwilling to join the army will be organized into the reclamation camp or transportation camp. , construction camp, etc. for a period of transition, and half a year later, decommissioning will also be arranged on a voluntary basis.
As for maritime personnel, most of the armed merchant ships and ordinary merchant ships were organized into three maritime trading companies. These three trading companies are controlled and managed by the Ministry of Industry. The original middle and senior leaders of the Zheng Group are They occupy different shares in it. To a certain extent, they can be regarded as taking shares together, and the Ministry of Industry? They take a 'maritime trading license' to invest.
There is no doubt that the maritime trade license is the most important. Without this thing, no one can trade in the ports of the Da Chu Empire.
More than a hundred warships were integrated into the Great Chu Empire Navy, and then mixed with the navy's original fleet.
Zheng Zhilong's fleet, coupled with Zhao Xinhou's who had surrendered one after another, and the original warships of the Chu Empire, were finally reorganized into two ocean-going fleets, the Nanyang Fleet and the Beiyang Fleet.
The Nanyang Fleet, with Xiangjiang as the fleet headquarters, is responsible for the South China Sea waters south of Taiyuan Island.
The Beiyang Fleet, with Wusong Port as the fleet headquarters, is responsible for the vast sea area north of Da Yuan Island.
Each ocean-going fleet consists of the first and second frigate squadrons, the first and second cruiser squadrons and other subordinate squadrons.
In addition, there are two inland river fleets, the Pearl River Fleet and the Yangtze River Fleet.
The Pearl River Fleet is fully responsible for combat missions in the inland waterways of the Pearl River system.
The Yangtze River Fleet is fully responsible for the combat missions of the Yangtze River water system.
In the end, the Chu Empire formed a structure with two oceans and two inland rivers, and a total of four fleets.
Currently, there are nine large battleships equipped with more than thirty guns and classified as second-class cruisers. They are all from the original Zheng Zhilong fleet, four are old-fashioned Fu ships, and five are newer large-scale bird ships.
There are thirty-seven warships equipped with twenty to thirty cannons and classified as first-class frigates. More than half are old Fu ships and half are new bird ships.
There are more second-class frigates carrying more than ten and less than twenty doors. There are hundreds of them, and most of them are medium-sized bird ships.
There are also dozens of sailing paddle boats used for offshore and inland river operations.
Judging from the classification of these ship types, it can actually be seen that the previous Zheng Zhilong fleet was in the midst of a ship type change.
The old Fu ships, Cangshan ships, sand ships, etc. could not adapt to the naval battles of the gun era, so the bird ships with better maneuverability and more artillery became the new choice for Zheng Zhilong's fleet.
But after Zheng Zhilong's fleet was merged into the Da Chu Imperial Navy, the Da Chu Imperial Navy would no longer continue to build these bird ships.
Because the Dachu Empire Navy has more professional Daye-class first-class frigates and Xiangyang-class second-class cruisers that are specially designed for naval battles.
In addition, the Naval Ship Affairs Department of the Dachu Empire is also designing and preparing to build larger battleships, such as first-class cruisers and even third-class battleships.
The top brass of the Dachu Empire's navy were still very ambitious.
Of course, this ambition is for the future. Now, all the resources of the Great Chu Empire are preparing for the Northern Expedition. There is no big threat from the navy, so there will not be too much resource investment in the short term. It would be good to be able to maintain the current scale of shipbuilding efforts and add a few large warships to the construction.
It is worth mentioning that with the surrender of Zheng Zhilong’s troops, the maritime trade of the Da Chu Empire became completely smoother. A large number of various strategic raw materials from overseas, such as saltpeter and sulfur, began to enter the control areas of the Da Chu Empire in large quantities, and The price is much cheaper than before.
This directly reduced the ammunition production cost of the Dachu Empire by several levels, which was another great benefit for the subsequent Northern Expedition.
In addition, when the Navy is preparing for the future Northern Expedition, it will directly provide certain material supplies to the Northern Expedition troops through sea transportation, such as directly transporting materials to Shandong and even Tianjin to provide supplies to the Northern Expedition troops nearby to supplement the lack of canal transportation capacity.
As for the safety of maritime transportation, there is no need to worry about pirates. After all, most of the existing warships and soldiers of the Da Chu Empire Navy are pirates... As for sea storms and the like, as long as you sail along the coastline honestly , the problem won’t be too big. If you really encounter it, you can only consider yourself unlucky.
The navy is trying to add drama to the future Northern Expedition, lest China be unification and the navy will be idle and then become marginalized.
As for the navy being proactive, Luo Zhixue would naturally not attack.
Although in his opinion, the current sea transportation is not very reliable and has great limitations, but since the navy has offered to share the worries of the Northern Expedition, there is no reason to refuse, so he also ordered the logistics department to do the follow-up part. Material transportation can also be given some tasks to the navy.
However, in Luo Zhixue's opinion, just material transportation cannot fully play the role of the navy.
If possible, Luo Zhixue also wants to use the navy in his hands to conduct a wave of landing operations to attract and contain the enemy. Maybe it can also have miraculous effects.
For example, a landing in Tianjin at a critical moment... Even if Chongzhen is frightened to death, he will force him to mobilize troops to serve the king... Or he can go to Liaodong and land in Liaodong. It is estimated that Huang Taiji will not be able to sleep well, let alone enter. closed.
Thinking of this, Luo Zhixue called several generals from the navy to discuss the feasibility of directly crossing the sea to land in Tianjin or Lushun.
It's just that the answer given to him by the Navy did not satisfy him.
The navy believes that there is no problem in simply attacking Tianjin or Port Arthur. It is feasible to organize a huge fleet to flee, land directly with thousands of troops, or even directly capture the Tianjin Acropolis.
But the problem is that it is difficult for the navy to maintain the operations of the landing force for a long time, especially when the ground troops are directly landing on the mainland and are facing a large number of enemy ground troops attacking. When ammunition consumption is extremely high, it wants to protect the landing force. Continuous operations require high levels of transportation and supplies.
Vice Admiral Lu Xingye, after seeing that Luo Zhixue was not satisfied, proposed a compromise plan and ran directly to land in Tianjin and Lushun, which was not very reliable.
But it would be much easier to land on an island and occupy an island in the north. With the strength of the Chu Empire's navy, it is completely possible to capture an island and then protect it with a fleet.
In the future, this island will be used as an advance base. After hoarding a large amount of strategic materials in advance, a landing operation will be launched nearby, so that long-term operations can be maintained.
The overall model is somewhat similar to the previous model in which Zheng Zhilong's troops relied on Nan'ao Island and then sent troops to occupy and defend several coastal cities in Chaozhou Prefecture.
After hearing about this model, Luo Zhixue thought it was feasible and immediately said: "The Navy will study a specific feasible combat plan!"
"Becoming an Immortal in One Step"
After Vice Admiral Lu Xingye, the Minister of the Navy, returned to the Navy, he found a group of senior navy generals to discuss, including Zheng Zhilong, who had just defected.
But in the conference room, Zheng Zhilong didn't say much among more than a dozen senior navy officials, and looked like he was keeping a low profile.
He knew very well that he had just defected, and even though he had the rank of rear admiral and the title of Lord Zhenhai, no one dared to say that he had gained the trust of the emperor Luo Zhixue and the trust of other senior officials in the navy.
He had anticipated this before defecting.
A defeated general wants to continue to maintain his glory and wealth, and he must return to the mainland to maintain his glory and wealth and give his family a better future. This always requires paying a price.
Handing over the fleet was the price he paid.
After handing over the fleet, he had no hope of continuing to control the real power.
To be honest, it was beyond his expectation that he, the so-called senior adviser of the Navy, could still participate in high-level meetings of the Navy.
Naturally, he didn't know that the reason why he was called to today's meeting was not because of how much Lu Xingye and the others trusted Zheng Zhilong. It was simply because His Majesty had given him the task of capturing an island in the north and using it as a transit base to land in the north. Some are beyond their capabilities.
The senior naval officials present were actually the same as Lu Xingye. Many of them were from the army, and a few were from the Ming Army's inland navy. There were not many who really understood naval warfare.
There used to be a few, but now they have all been sent to serve in the Nanyang Fleet and Beiyang Fleet. Now, more than half of the dozen or so senior navy officials staying in Gyeonggi have never even seen the sea...
It's really embarrassing for them to plan a long-distance attack on an island.
Therefore, Zheng Zhilong was brought to this meeting. After all, Zheng Zhilong was a senior adviser to the navy, and he was an old pirate who knew a lot about naval warfare. It was right to ask him for his opinion.
Ever since, Zheng Zhilong, who originally just wanted to go through the motions, heard Lu Xingye ask himself shortly after the meeting started: "Consultant Zheng, what's your opinion?"
