In the waters of southern China, the current main force is the Chu Empire Navy (including the original Zheng Zhilong fleet), followed by the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish.
The Portuguese stronghold was in Macau before, but it was expelled by the Chu Empire last year. Now they don't even have a place to stay.
Then there is the Spaniard. This Spaniard actually has a good relationship with the original Zheng Zhilong. Many of Zheng Zhilong's trades were with the Spaniards, and the Spaniards and the Dutch also had many conflicts.
The reason why the Spaniards had conflicts with the Dachu Empire was because the Dachu Empire wanted to regain the entire Dayu Island after accepting Zheng Zhilong's control area on Dayu Island.
However, the Spaniards had already established a colonial settlement in the northern part of Damuan Island more than ten years ago, mainly to intervene in the Fusang trade route and the trade with China in the Jiangnan region of Fujian and Zhejiang.
The Da Chu Empire wanted to regain the northern area of Dayu Island, which naturally attracted a backlash from the Spanish.
Finally, there is the Dutch. Not to mention the Dutch, they were originally the biggest competitors of Zheng Zhilong's army. After the Great Chu Empire accepted Zheng Zhilong, their competitors naturally became the Great Chu Empire.
In recent months, armed merchant ships belonging to several sea trading companies controlled by the Ministry of Industry of the Da Chu Empire have recently competed with Dutch merchant ships for the Fuso trade route, and they have fought several times at sea.
The armed merchant ships are all fighting... The navy will naturally not sit idly by and is already preparing to mobilize warships to go south to fight the Dutch and threaten the Portuguese and Spanish.
Because the situation at sea in the south is also relatively tense, the Navy's only marine regiment with rich combat experience will have to be transferred south soon.
The follow-up battle on the northern coast can only be handed over to the 23rd Mixed Brigade.
In response to this, Army Major General Bai Yangrong, commander of the 23rd Mixed Brigade, scolded his mother every day...
It's a pity that he really didn't want to take his troops to land on a boat, which made him and his soldiers vomit and have diarrhea.
That's really not what humans do!
But there is nothing you can do if you don't want to. The navy is not the nanny of the army. It would be good if the navy can provide sea transportation and fire cover during landing. You can't expect the navy to take over the task of landing or even garrisoning coastal cities.
It's not impossible to wrap things up, so let's expand a few more marine regiments. In this way, when it comes to the allocation of military expenditures, the Navy will have to talk to the Army properly.
It doesn't matter whether the mission is a task or not, but when it comes to the distribution of military expenditures, the organization behind military expenditures, promotion and wealth, etc., then this problem is big.
In this regard, the top brass of the Army would rather let the 23rd Mixed Brigade, a landlubber, continue to float on the sea and play landings than let the Navy find excuses to obtain a larger proportion of military expenditures.
Strictly speaking, some conflicts on the sea are not wars. They are not administrative affairs between countries, but conflicts of interest between their respective maritime trading companies.
In fact, Luo Zhixue did not pay too much attention to this!
Although Luo Zhixue also attaches great importance to the ocean and pays more attention to subsequent maritime trade and overseas colonization, these are all subsequent matters.
At least for the current Chu Empire, maritime trade is a thing, but in fact it doesn't have any impact on the overall situation.
Besides, the Chu Empire was the same as the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty prohibited the sea, but the Chu Empire could not prohibit the sea...
Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Fuzhou, and Ningbo have been opened as trading ports before. In the future, Jiangnan Shanghai, Jiangbei Haizhou, Guangdong Lianzhou and other places are also planned to be opened as trading ports.
For the Da Chu Empire, as long as you honestly conduct overseas trade in the ports designated by the Da Chu Empire and pay import and export duties in accordance with the rules, then you can do business however you like, and the Da Chu Empire officials will basically ignore it... …
But many maritime merchants today may be merchants today, and pirates tomorrow... and most of them are unwilling to pay taxes and want to engage in smuggling.
Why were the Portuguese so resistant to the Chu Empire taking back Macau? Even when the Chu Empire opened up Guangzhou for them to trade, they were unwilling...
Because you have to pay taxes!
The Great Chu Empire's import tariffs on some goods are very high, especially high-value goods such as spices and useless luxury jewelry. They are all subject to high tariffs. Only saltpeter and sulfur are subject to low tariffs or even exemptions. tariff.
Similarly, the same applies to exported goods. For example, raw silk, tea and porcelain, which are currently important exports from China, are also subject to export tariffs, and the export tariffs on raw silk are not low.
Some maritime merchants, whether they are barbarians or ordinary merchants, often want to engage in smuggling in order to make higher profits...
As a result, this led to strong dissatisfaction with the Chu Empire.
In addition, the Dutch wanted to take advantage of the civil strife in China to monopolize the Fusang trade, which also aroused strong dissatisfaction from the Chu Empire.
Fuso chose to close the country early in order to prevent European countries from causing trouble when they came to trade and instigating support for other daimyo to engage in rebellion.
The Tokugawa shogunate currently only allows Zheng Zhilong's fleet and the Dutch to trade with Fuso.
In the past two years, Zheng Zhilong was busy fighting the Chu Empire, which allowed the Dutch to occupy a large amount of the Fusang market, and even gave them the idea of expelling Zheng Zhilong's power and monopolizing the profits of the Fusang market.
The Ministry of Industry of the Da Chu Empire, which accepted Zheng Zhilong's fleet this year, successively established three maritime trading companies, namely Dongyang Trading Company, Nanyang Trading Company, and Shiba Trading Company.
Among them, the name of the Eighteen Trading Company may sound strange, but it is taken from the previous Eighteen Zhi Maritime Alliance. Although this trading company is controlled by the Ministry of Industry, Zheng Zhilong and the original senior generals of Zheng Zhilong They all have the right to dividends (limited to dividends only).
After these three maritime trading companies started overseas trade, they encountered many obstacles from the Dutch, especially on the Fuso trade route, and were attacked by Dutch armed merchant ships transformed into pirates.
Naturally, the Chu Empire couldn't tolerate this. The Ministry of Industry quickly informed the navy, so the navy planned to work with the Dutch to ensure the Chu Empire's absolute monopoly in the Fuso trade.
In this regard, Luo Zhixue's instructions to the navy were: Just figure it out!
Anyway, it is impossible to have additional military expenditures, and it does not require your navy to fully regain Taiyuan Island and control the entire East Asian waters now.
Let your navy figure it out for you. It’s okay to engage in a naval battle, and it’s okay not to engage in escort.
Anyway, in a few years, when the Chu Empire frees up its hands and expands its navy, sooner or later the entire Western Pacific will be completely under its control.
Now, it doesn't matter.
For Luo Zhixue, and for the Chu Empire, the most important thing now is the Northern Expedition.
——
On June 16, the 10th Division of the Third Army of the Dachu Empire successfully captured Liaocheng and pushed the battle line further north.
On the 19th, the 11th Division of the Third Army also successfully captured Jinan City after many days of siege.
Almost on the same day, the Fourth Division of the First Army successfully reached Penglai, Dengzhou Prefecture, and captured this important city along the Yellow Sea.
After capturing this city, the Da Chu Empire Navy immediately regarded Penglai Port as an important strategic transit point for maritime transportation. A large number of ships transported supplies to the port and provided them to various departments of the First Army for replenishment.
On June 23, the 11th Division of the Third Army moved north from Jinan and attacked the Shanghe and Deping areas.
At this time, the three main divisions of the Third Army, including the 2nd Guards Division, the 10th Division, and the 11th Division, together with the 1st Cavalry Brigade, the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, and a temporary heavy artillery brigade, were already formed. They divided into two groups and attacked Beizhili.
Behind the Third Army is the Second Army, which is following closely. The Second Army's attack direction is slightly northwest. It is currently attacking from the Daming Prefecture area to Guangping Prefecture and Shunde Prefecture.
The First Army is still sweeping across Shandong, waiting for them to capture and control many other small and medium-sized cities in Shandong one by one.
The Fourth Division will be stationed in the local area to continue the suppression and consult local deserters and illegal landlords to arm themselves.
The First Guards Division went north to Dezhou and even to Tianjin to ensure the strategic security of the frontline canal and the security of logistics supplies for the 100,000 troops heading north.
By the way, we also consulted local illegal armed forces and acted as strategic reserves.
From this point of view, the Chu army has successively invested troops on the northern Zhili front line, including two and a half corps, three new divisions, three old divisions, three cavalry brigades, three mortar artillery regiments, and one heavy artillery regiment. .
Taken together, the above-mentioned ministries have more than 100,000 troops. This number still does not include the transportation groups organized by the Logistics Department.
As for the Jiliao border troops commanded by Hong Chengchou, they only had more than 60,000 soldiers. In addition, there were more than 20,000 people from Xuanda who went south.
Adding the two armies together, there are only more than 80,000 people in total. In addition to the tens of thousands of civilians recruited to transport baggage along the way, the total number is about 112,000 people. It is known to the outside world as an army of 200,000 people.
Not to mention the differences in the quality of soldiers, tactics, and firepower, the Ming army alone does not have as many front-line combat troops as the Chu army...
There is a very interesting situation here, that is, the Ming army that went south to face the Chu army were all frontier troops, except for the Beijing camp...
Because the capital camp has long been in disrepair and can hardly be used to defend the city. If we really drag them out to fight the Chu army, I am afraid they will have to run away if they are still dozens of kilometers away from the Chu army.
Therefore, the big bosses of the Ming Dynasty simply did not move these wastes and went south, leaving them to garrison in the capital.
After Hong Chengchou led his army to Tianjin Guard, he did not continue southward!
On the one hand, the army was short of food and grass, and it would consume too much to continue marching south.
On the other hand, Hong Chengchou had already judged that these Chu thieves must have gone north along the canal.
After leaving the canal, with the huge material consumption of the Chu bandit army, it was difficult for them to even eat, let alone the artillery shells for fighting.
This Tianjin is the only way for them to kill Youzhou City!
Hong Chengchou planned to deploy a defense line here to block the Chu thieves, or even severely injure the Chu thieves.
Not blocking... It's actually possible, but the Youzhou City behind will be captured by the Chu army in minutes. By then, Chongzhen and a group of Ming court officials will be finished.
Therefore, it was impossible for Hong Chengchou to avoid the war!
He could only bite the bullet and place an army here to stop the Chu thieves from going north!
