After the battle of Liaoluo Bay, the ocean east of the Manchurian Raga Strait became an inner lake of the Southern Chinese Army. The Dutch East India Company navy, which had been severely damaged in this battle, had no choice but to retreat to the city of Chichi, Dayuan, and the city of Batavia on the Java islands, fearing that the Ming Dynasty sailors would take advantage of the victory and pursue the Dutch power in the East Asian seas.

Fortunately, the officials of the Ming Kingdom were just busy playing the inscription, asking for merit, rewarding, sealing officials, and being promoted. I was so busy that I couldn't talk about it, but I forgot the four words of chasing after the victory.

However, in the panic and confusion of the Western people, the fleet of the South Chinese Army sailed through the waves and returned to its home port.

"Auntie!"

As light as a little swallow, Xiao Huamei rushed into the back house with her arms open, and Liu Guidan, who was behind her, didn't see how fast she walked, and she was actually close to Xiao Huamei, but it was only one or two steps away.

I haven't seen it for more than a month, Yan Mei'er and Meishan sisters' stomachs are getting bigger and bigger, Xiao Huamei is very curious to look at Ah Niang's belly, "Ah Niang, are there little brothers and little sisters inside?" ”

"Yes! Tell me, do you like your little brother or your little sister? ”

"I like it both! Younger brothers and sisters! ”

Daoist Liu Guidan stood in front of several ladies, still with a cold face and ignorant look, and singled out, "Immeasurable Tianzun, I have seen a few ladies." ”

"Miss, who is this?" Mei Shan saw that Liu Guidan's dress was a little strange, but she was full of love for Xiao Huamei, so she was a little surprised, and couldn't help asking.

Mrs. Burau asked, in the next monk. I have some fate with the eldest lady, she calls me a few times, Master, and I want to teach her something, which is nothing more than a way to strengthen the body. ”

"Master, can you help my aunt take a look, see if it's a little brother or a little sister?"

On the way back, Xiao Huamei was already impressed by Liu Guidan's inadvertently revealed ability.

"This? That's good! Madame, please reach out. ”

Seeing the look of anticipation in the eyes of the disciple in front of her, Liu Guidan couldn't bear to refute her face, and carefully examined the pulse of Yan Mei'er and Meishan sisters.

"Congratulations to the two ladies."

After speaking. Leading Xiao Huamei's hand. "Take me to see your house." walked away, leaving Yan Mei'er, Mei Shan, and Shi Lin confused.

However, a few mothers-in-law on the side reacted quickly, and hurriedly knelt down to say hello to Yan Mei'er and Mei Shan, "The female Taoist chief just said. Say hello to the two ladies. That's not what it means. Are the wife and the third wife pregnant with the little master?! ”

"I hope so! The old man does not have many heirs, and I hope to give birth to a son for him this time. She prayed secretly in her heart, but Yan Mei'er's face was as usual.

"Go to the front and have a look. If you are not busy with business, please show me how to eat dinner in the evening. ”

Shaoqing, the mother-in-law who went to the front to listen to the news and asked Shouhan for dinner came back.

"The lord is discussing with the lords in front of him, and I am afraid that he will not be able to finish his business for a while, so let a few wives and orchids eat first. Don't have to wait for him. ”

Strange, after winning the battle, I have come back, and I still have a lot of business to do? Busy with no time to go back to the house for dinner? Yan Mei'er wondered in her heart, but when her daughter gave her share of the spoils to her mother and several aunts and younger brothers and sisters one by one at dinner, she suddenly felt quite bright on her face.

"Do the math, if we send five thousand troops, about sixty percent of the musketeers, and the rest are swordsmen. In addition, there are more than 1,000 mules and horses, more than 100 artillery pieces, and at least one month's supply of ammunition during the battle, how many ships are needed to support it? ”

In the council room, Shouhan gave a problem to the civil and military officials.

After returning to Hue, he didn't care about inspecting the fruits of victory, and left the troops to Chu Tianlei and others to manage, while Zhang Xiaohu was handed over to Bao Zhongchen of the Law Enforcement Department for detention. Shouhan immediately convened a civil and military meeting. He came up and threw this problem to everyone.

If there is only one mathematical calculation problem, it can be calculated easily by finding a student in the school. However, this is undoubtedly the next strategic idea of the lord, how can this be taken lightly?

So according to the division of labor of each department, the calculation began.

Musketeers were required to carry at least 150 rounds of ammunition for a month, with more than 200 rounds of ammunition to be delivered, as well as spare firearms as replacements.

The artillery team, which carries ammunition and propellant according to the standard of an eight-pounder gun, is also a massive number.

What's more, the forage and transportation capacity required for more than 1,000 mules and horses are needed.

For the artificial insemination and breeding of imported horses, as well as the continuous introduction of horses from the Tianzhu area, the entire Fulang Mountain area has become a large pasture for the Southern Chinese Army. Thousands of horses can be supplied to the army and civilians every year. As a result, the mobility of the horse corps and artillery corps of the South Central Army has been greatly enhanced. However, if these horses are transported by sea, they will require at least three tons of capacity per horse, and these hybrid breeds of Arabian horses and fruit horses are accustomed to eating concentrated feed based on corn grass, and they must also carry forage, which is the so-called straw of the horses.

"We calculate the daily consumption of horses, at least dozens of catties of hay a day. If you add soybeans and other concentrate feed, it is a massive number. ”

Therefore, more than 1,000 mules and horses, the capacity required by themselves alone is more than 3,000 tons, which is the full capacity of several Daifuku ships. Counting the massive amount of forage and fodder, I'm afraid it will take more than ten Dafu boats to ensure that these more than 1,000 mules and horses?

"Moreover, we don't know where the operation is going. There is no destination, and it is difficult to calculate the voyage and time, so it is impossible to talk about the amount of ammunition carried in a month and the consumption of the journey. ”

Several staff officers dropped their pencils and rulers, stood up straight, and expressed their opinions.

"My lord, but what big moves are you going to make?"

ordered these people to retreat to eat first, Pei Lin and Fu Bo accompanied Shouhan to drink tea and rest in the study, waiting for the kitchen to bring the dinner of the three of them.

Shouhan pulled off his turban irritably and threw it aside. I didn't expect that the operation of 5,000 soldiers and horses would be so difficult! Why are other people's expeditions halfway around the world effortless? When you come to me, but it's hard to get along?

"Have you read all the Tang newspapers?" Shouhan made a fuss out without a head.

The two ministers exchanged glances with each other, and both saw the surprise in each other's eyes.

In the five years and six years of Chongzhen, the mainland can be regarded as a bad year.

First of all, in the fifth year of Chongzhen, Kong Youde and others raised troops to rebel in Wuqiao, and conquered Dengzhou under the response of Geng Zhongming, and then the peasant army invaded Shanxi from Shaanxi, wandering in various places, and conquering prefectures and counties one after another.

The Yellow River broke in the Mengjin area. It caused a huge disaster. The imperial court was unable to carry out disaster relief activities, resulting in the displacement of the victims in all directions, from disaster victims to displaced people, and from ordinary people to forced to become rogues who plundered and survived in all directions.

December of the fifth year of Chongzhen. The Ming army besieged Dengzhou under the command of Zhu Dadian. A wall was erected to besiege the rebels of Kong Youde's army. On the terrain that is separated from the mountains on three sides and faces the sea on one side, a wall of thirty miles has been built. The east and west ends are against the sea. Each ministry will be divided into regions and divided into sections. Kong You's German army was compressed in this narrow area and could not get out, so it could only suppress the officers and troops with its own artillery superiority. The rebel leader Li Jiucheng went out of the city to fight the Ming army and was beheaded by the Ming army. Kong Youde was about to abandon Dengzhou and flee to sea, but was intercepted by Gong Zhengxiang and other sailors in Haikou. Although Kong Youde defeated the Ming army and captured Gong Zhengxiang, the goal of escaping from the sea was not achieved.

In the turn of the year, there was a series of mixed news.

The peasant army, known as Liukou, crossed Shanxi to what is now the Hebei region, which was then known as the Zhending Prefecture. Zhaozhou, Xishan, Shunde, Zhending and other places have been conquered successively, and in the Wu'an area, the Zuo Liangyu army was defeated. This later Zuoping thief was leveled by the thief at this time.

After a long siege of the city, Kong Youde's rebel army ran out of food, and was conquered by the generals Wang Zhifu, Zu Kuan, guerrilla Liu Liangzuo and others to conquer the outer city of Dengzhou, and then used the guerrilla Liu Liangzuo's strategy to blow up the city wall of Shuicheng with gunpowder, the rebel leaders Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and others fled, and Dengzhou was recovered by the official army. This rebel force seems to have been suppressed by the official army.

However, the peasant army in Hebei, Henan and other places was defeated one after another. Although the early leader Zijin Liang was shot and killed by the Sichuan army Deng Yu in Jiyuan; However, Yang Yuchun, who was pursuing the peasant army in Linxian County, was ambushed and died. The rebel army used its banner to trap and kill other officers and soldiers, and the Sichuan army was defeated, and the famous white-pole soldier Tusima Fengyi was also defeated by the peasant army in this battle.

Just when Emperor Chongzhen was busy dealing with the enemies inside the pass, Houjin outside the pass also came to cheer him up. Under the leadership of Kong Youde and others, who had already surrendered to Jin, they captured Lushun with a partial division and defeated the Ming army Huanglong stationed here, and Huanglong himself killed himself.

By the way, everyone knows that Kong Youde's department was built by Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua and others at great expense to build a unit with Western firearms as the main combat weapon. From then on, artillery was no longer the magic weapon of the Ming army. And Xu Guangqi's death in the sixth year of Chongzhen has nothing to do with this matter.

"The lord sees that now the inland soldiers are in trouble, the officials and troops of Baoding, Henan, and Shanxi are besieging the thieves on the north bank of the Yellow River, and the Jiannu outside the gate are making a big mess, and they intend to be the king?"

"Not bad!"

After listening to Pei Lin's words, Shouhan leaned his head back on the bamboo recliner and tilted his head back very comfortably.

"Today, our army has covered an area of 10,000 miles from south to north, from west to east, with more than 100,000 armor soldiers, and no less than 1 million soldiers who have been trained and can be mobilized at any time. Why does the lord need to be diligent to the king? Go directly north and take the throne! ”

Although Fauber is old, he is still as enthusiastic as the young.

"No, you can't!"

The two of them almost unanimously objected to Fauber's suggestion.

"Just now, I asked the people in the military division, household division, battalion office, arsenal and other places to calculate that the soldiers and horses going north are ready to be used when the king is at the right time! Unexpectedly, it was very expensive. ”

"King Qin? What does the lord mean that there will be something going on in the city of Beijing? However, I read that Di Bao said that although there were rogues in various places, the officials and troops were still able to pursue and suppress them. The Jiannu outside the gate are also only active at the gates of the Great Wall. may not be able to break the border wall and enter the customs to loot, let alone have any ideas in the capital. ”

Fu Bo's words made Shouhan disagree.

"Don't forget the changes in Chongzhen's second year, Jiannu was led by Hong Tai to plunder the Jingshi."

"But that time it was led by Yuan Reverse Chonghuan!"

Fu Bo still stubbornly believed that the siege of Jingshi was just an accident.

I saw that the old man's gray beard was curled up one after another. I can't help but Shouhan and Pei Lin can't bear to argue with his old man again, if they get angry, wouldn't it be a sin?

"My lord, in the opinion of my subordinates, the matter of going north to King Qin, you can order the division to prepare, the so-called preparedness. Food, weapons, provisions, ships, and horses were to be prepared slowly. Pei Lin began to play the role of He Mud, mediating the conflict between the two.

"The new victory of our army in front of us is precisely the high morale. When the army is eager to fight. Several places. It seems that it is time to use soldiers! ”

The places Pei Lin pointed to were not Batavia, the old nest of the Dutch, but they were also places where Han Nianzi was guarded.

"A few days ago, the seal came from Trench Mirror Ao. The Portuguese there announced that they had joined the Restoration. Attributed to Gonzalez Command. ”

"Huh?"

Hear this. Shouhan was surprised that he had previously sent people to Macao in the name of Gonzalez to ask the Portuguese there to accept the command and dispatch of the Restoration Army. Unexpectedly, he was politely sent out by that group of guys. What's going on today?

"Two reasons. First, not long after the lord led the boat division north, Alfonso and others sent good news, and they had basically controlled the Goa region and were searching for the remnants there. ”

Hearing this, Shouhan couldn't help but snort, this group of guys fought for a long time before they knocked down a Goa city, and they also bought two eighty-pound mortars from themselves to go to the city wall of Goa.

"We sent an envoy to Macao to publicize this good news. I think this good news was to destroy the first line of defense of the Portuguese. ”

"And the second?"

"The second is the battle of Nan'ao Island of the Lord, which completely wiped out the sea power of the Dutch, and from then on, if the Portuguese want to trade on this sea, they can only rely on us or Zheng Zhilong."

"So, they declared their attachment to the Restoration?"

"Yes, they know very well that the Restoration Army is supported and supported by the lord, and if they defect to the Restoration Army, they can justifiably travel freely in the waters within the jurisdiction of our South Central Army."

I have to admit that the Portuguese are indeed very clever in this hand, and they announced on the political board that they are part of the Restoration Army, and they have no losses at all, and they don't have to go to India to fight, just make money in Trench Jingao and enjoy life.

"Gonzalez sent people to say that they had gone deep into the inland areas to buy cotton, wheat and other materials for our southern Chinese army, and horses, precious stones, gold, etc., were also brought in with the ship, and they intended to ask the lord to allocate another batch of weapons to them, and they would march west after establishing a foothold in Goa."

"To the west? What is it? Do you really want to fight him back, then Portugal can't be done? ”

Today's European continent is full of wars, and Gonzalez's team of thousands of people will soon become cannon fodder when they arrive in Europe.

After searching the map for a while, Pei Lin's fingers found a location on a certain continent and tapped it vigorously.

"It's here!"

The location that Pei Lin refers to happens to be the island of Madagascar today.

It spans almost the entire Indian Ocean from Goa and Ceylon, which was sold to the South Central Army by the Avenger Army. On the outer side of the African continent, an island more than 100 miles from the coastline.

"Nonsense! What could be here?! Also, what about the ships that want to capture this place and cross the sea? What about the soldiers?! Where did it come from?! ”

Madagascar is a resort in Shouhan's mind, but it doesn't seem to make much sense strategically.

"Instead of bothering to attack here, I might as well kill all the Spaniards in Luzon and Dayuan, and include Luzon in our army's territory, so that Zhang Cheng can naturally become the prefect of Luzon, provide us with gold, silver, copper, sugar cane, and plant some tear trees or something!"

Nearly ten years have passed since the last attack on Manila, and Shouhan has changed from a young boy to a man in his thirties. Do you want to revisit the old place?

According to the constant news from Zhangcheng who had been reclaimed on the island of Cotton, as the war in Europe continued, the Spanish galleons, which had been almost annual in previous years, had not brought silver and gold from the Viceroyalty of Peru for two years, and most of the gold and silver were used as military pay to recruit soldiers and buy weapons. Manila at the moment has only a few hundred Spanish soldiers.

How can such a troop allocation be able to withstand the South Central Army that has revisited its hometown? When the Nanzhong Army was still a fledgling hairy boy, it was still powerless to stop, and now it has grown into a big man, and it is the Spanish girls in Luzon who are powerless to resist, since they have no strength to resist, then enjoy it than the eyes!

Heading south, hooking up with those passionate Spanish girls is a foregone conclusion.

Whether to go west and go to that magical resort made Shouhan very entangled.

"There is no need for our army to send a soldier, a soldier, a ship, and a cannon. All that is required is the payment of salaries and weapons to the Restoration Army. They had incorporated thousands of troops from the former Spanish Empire in Goa, and now they have nearly 10,000 soldiers. If the salary is sufficient, they can recruit local natives here again, and they can get tens of thousands of soldiers. And here, "Pei Lin's index and middle fingers crushed the island of Madagascar on the map, and the island on the paper let out a groan of pain under his crush. "It is still a wild land, with no country or city, and the people live together with beasts. Only gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, coal and other materials are very numerous, and there are minerals that can be used to refine iron and steel. Mountains are full of gems, and the fields are full of vanilla and sisal. According to Gonzalez and others, the herbs produced here, if spun with cotton yarn, will produce a strange fragrance. One piece of cloth can be worth dozens or even hundreds of pieces of cloth! ”

In this way, it seems that expanding to the west is also an inevitable goal. For the sake of raw materials, for plunder, no, more to occupy raw materials and market share, for the sake of industrial and product upgrading. This military aid for the Restoration Army must be paid.

The rest is much simpler.

Shouhan captured thousands of prisoners on the sea surface of Nanao Island, as well as more than 3,000 sailors recruited on the island, which greatly alleviated the problem of insufficient manpower in the naval division of the Nanzhong Army. In addition, there were hundreds of Dutch captured by Zheng Zhilong and the Nanzhong Army, who reciprocated the peach, and in the face of the huge interests that the Han Dynasty gave up for Zheng Zhilong, Zheng Zhilong generously handed over all these people to the Nanzhong Army, in exchange for more than 100 Dutch corpses for retribution.

Regarding the use of these people, Shouhan also has his own ideas.

Most of the Dutch who were able to escape their lives from Zheng Zhilong's arson ship in Liuluo Bay under Zhang Xiaohu's intensive artillery fire were relatively good guys, even if their skills were not good enough, they were extremely lucky.

Since it took a lot of effort to replace them from Zheng Zhilong's hands, he can't support them with rice for nothing. Even if you can't continue to go to sea, you can throw it into the sailor school to pass on your decades of sailing experience and experience to novices. Or go to various technical departments and workshops to contribute professional knowledge, such as shipbuilding, such as the manufacture of sail ropes, etc.

At this time, sailors basically had no concept of national nation, especially the Dutch, during the Thirty Years' War, the Dutch sold weapons and food to the enemy, and whoever gave money sold to whomever they wanted.

As a result, the sailor began to expand. (To be continued......)