In the twenty-seventh year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1394 AD), Dongguan Shouyu Thousand Households and Dapeng Shouyu Thousand Households were established in Bao'an, Guangdong Province today, which were under the jurisdiction of Dongguan County. In order to become the outer guard of Humen and the screen of the provincial capital. In the first year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1573 AD), the imperial court divided Dongguan County into a part and set up Xin'an County, which means that "the revolution is solid and the new is turned into safety". In addition, the foundation site of the Dongguan Shouyu Thousand Households Office was expanded to establish Xin'an County, which included today's Shenzhen and Hong Kong areas

Hong Kong Island, across the sea from the county, has always been a place for fishermen to take refuge from the wind and go out to fish, and there are also some smugglers and pirates who stop here for a short time. Or refill with freshwater vegetables, or finish trading here and leave. In this regard, Xin'an County is also well aware, but adhering to the principle that more is better than less, as long as those pirates do not go ashore to harass and plunder, everyone will be safe.

However, from the first year of Chongzhen, this desolate island began to become lively. I don't know where the wealthy merchants came from, they bought land here to build houses, set up stacking warehouses, dredged waterways, and built wharves. Immediately after that, countless large ships shuttled back and forth, unloading boatloads of rice, sugar, refined salt, ironware, and cotton cloth from the ships, and carrying away boatloads of people, or other things, even those tea oil that looked like waste.

When Xin'an County tried to send someone to the island to find out, the parents of the county magistrate in his hometown had a letter from home, claiming that the silver sent by the people had been received, as well as the silk, pearls, coral, and the like. The letter also said that the shroud sewn from the silk of the South China Sea for his parents was very decent. The second elder was very pleased.

Seeing this family letter, Xin'an Zhixian was like a deflated ball, and they sent you the silver and gifts to your hometown, which is the first half of the so-called first salute and then the soldiers, as for the set of shrouds sewn for his parents, it is the subtext.

"If you plan to spoil me, I've prepared all your father's and mother's shrouds!"

As a result, Xin'an County counted the silver sent by the month with peace of mind, and watched as the red single boats sailed from the mouth of the Pearl River into Hong Kong Island, transporting shiploads of goods to Guangzhou. Or even more distant places.

But. Since September this year, it seems that the autumn breeze has risen, and large ships from the direction of the South China Sea have been coming to Hong Kong Island and setting up camp here. It seems that he wants to plan something big. Look at the white sails that cover the sea in the distance. I couldn't help but feel uneasy in Xin'an County's heart. prayed vigorously to the gods from all walks of life, "Don't let these bandits come ashore to make a nuisance!" If they want to stay on a desert island, stay there! ”

It turns out that it seems that all the gods and goddesses have heard the prayers of Shin'an Zhi Prefecture.

"The bay is nice. What is your name? ”

On the beach on Hong Kong Island, Shouhan took his daughter Hua Mei's little hand and left a series of large and small footprints on the beach, followed by Hua Mei's bursts of silver bell-like laughter.

"My lord, the local people in our current place are called Liyumen, and the water here is deep and wide, which is an excellent passage for our sailors to enter and exit."

Zhang Xiaohu, the commander of the left wing of the sailor, who was familiar with the hydrology and geography of this area, used the saber on his waist as a tool to guide the country, and introduced the geographical environment here to Shouhan and Huamei one by one.

On the fifth day of the ninth month, the left wing of the sailors stationed in Yulin Port set sail and anchored, and marched eastward to this anchorage selected by the Han Dynasty to assemble and stand by. After arriving, they quickly blocked the waters in this area, and the ships could go south, but it was absolutely impossible to go north.

On the ninth day of September, Shouhan led a training fleet, with the Chang Sheng as the flagship, and more than 20 ships of all sizes arrived on Hong Kong Island.

This time, Shouhan didn't bring too many land battalions with him, only two guards and a battalion of Xuanwu battalion soldiers, but to everyone's surprise, they could barely hold the binoculars in their hands because the lord actually brought out the eldest lady Huamei.

"My lord, this is too spoiled Miss, right? This is a war, not a tour. How should a nine-year-old girl be on board the sea? ”

Slander is slander, surprise is surprise, everyone still has to admit this status quo, besides, since Shouhan took charge of the family business, isn't that incident shocking at first glance? But wasn't that incident extremely conducive to the development of the South China Army?

"Forget it! Mazu is also a woman, maybe the eldest lady is the reincarnation of Mazu! "Someone remembered the legend that Shouhan was the chosen figure of the Emperor of Heaven, and found the next step for himself.

Seabirds roll around a dinghy trying to get some food from it, and next to the dinghy, a few sailors clear the nets of prey from the seaside reef for the night's cooking.

"What kind of fish did you catch?"

Led by Hua Mei's cheerful footsteps, Shouhan and his party came to these sailors.

These sailors are young men from Chu Tianlei's training fleet, and at first glance they were quite nervous when they saw Shouhan and Zhang Xiaohu, who had two stars on his cuffs, "I've seen the lord, I've seen the commander!" ”

"The boat is small, you can't go out of the bay, you can only go to the vicinity of the islands of Qingzhou and Xiaoqingzhou. I caught some grouper, yellow croaker, crab, shrimp and the like. Add food to the brothers in the evening! ”

"It's a pity! If only the big boat had been on board, we had met two dolphins, and we had seen a group of whales, and if the big ship had gone out to sea, we would have a shot and hunt a few of them, and the whole army would have fresh whale meat to eat! ”

Several sailors were relieved from the initial tension and began to talk about their experiences of going out to sea to fish.

The waters here happen to be near the whale migration route, and a few sailors met by chance to see those giant beasts of the sea, but if they want to hunt them, they don't have that ability. You can only shoot some grouper, shrimp and crab in the water.

"The bottom of the sea here is mostly rocky, there is little sediment, there is no siltation in the channel, and the water surface is vast and deep, so that ships can enter and exit freely, rain or shine. There are three bays and two typhoon shelters that provide shelter for boats. Lei Yue Mun to the east and Kap Shui Mun to the west are the two access routes to and from the harbour, which is surrounded by the Kowloon Peninsula and the hills of Hong Kong Island on the opposite shore. The terrain that forms the harbor is surrounded by mountains on all sides, and strong winds rise from the sea. It will also be blocked by the mountains. In addition, the climate here is warm, the port does not freeze all year round, and the ships of our army can enter and exit at will all year round. ”

As the highest figure of the Nanzhong Army on the ground in Guangdong, Li Peiting arrived here in early September to welcome the arrival of the fleet. As a landlord. He also put a lot of effort into the anchorage chosen by Shouhan, and told the story of the important places.

"Where is Yashan?"

Shouhan suddenly came out with such a headless sentence.

When he arrived, Li Peiting, Zhang Xiaohu, Chu Tianlei and others present felt a little strange, why did the lord ask about that inauspicious place at this time?

"What the lord is talking about, but the cliff mountain where 'Zhang Hongfan destroyed the Song Dynasty here'?" Although he is a gentleman, but for things like historical classics. Li Peiting is much stronger than Zhang Xiaohu and Chu Tianlei, who have succeeded in eradicating illiteracy in the Nanzhong Army.

"Not bad. This is it. ”

"That's not far. It's on the Xinhui ground to the northwest. Yashan, because there is a mountain in the east and a soup bottle mountain in the west. Extending into the sea, it is like a half-open door, such as a door to tie the water mouth, so it is called the cliff gate. This is only a hundred miles away from Xinhui County, and the former Song monarchs and ministers made a final fight with Zhang Hongfan in this place, until the defeat of the army, Lu Xiufu carried the Song Emperor on his back and threw himself into the water. Since then, the Central Plains has officially been reduced to fishy flesh. Until a few decades later, Emperor Taizu Gao carried a three-foot sword, started from Huaisi with cloth clothes, and drove Mongolia north. ”

"When it comes to the founding emperors of all dynasties, the dignity of winning the country is no better than my Taizu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang!"

Listening to Li Peiting's endless narration, Hua Mei blinked her little eyes and was a little puzzled.

"Second uncle, why do you say that he is the most upright?"

"Miss, the founding emperor of the past dynasties, or took advantage of the chaos in the world, stood out from the crowd, swept away the princes and seized the world. or conspiracies and tricks to usurp the wealth of other people's orphans and widows. Only Taizu, who started from a begging monk, started step by step, drove out the alien races who stole the Central Plains, and then became the emperor. ”

Hua Mei listened to the story told by the uncle in front of her who loved to groom, love gorgeous clothes, and even like to make a fragrant appearance on her body and face, her eyes couldn't stop blinking, and suddenly, a shocking question popped up in her little head.

"Second uncle, then, when will Daddy be able to become the emperor?!"

These words made people speechless for a moment. Although it is a child's saying, it is too shocking.

"When I listen to the stories of the old people, when I talk about this naval battle, it is said that the commanders of the two sides are still a family?" Zhang Xiaohu began to interrupt, trying to change this awkward and tense atmosphere, God knows if someone taught the eldest lady and used the eldest lady's mouth to test everyone?

"That's right! Right! Yeah! As if awakened from a nightmare, the crowd hurriedly echoed in a hurry.

"The commander of the Yuan army is Zhang Hongfan, who is known as Jiubadu, and Zhang Shijie is on the Song army's side." Shouhan relieved the siege for everyone. "Both of them are Han people from Zhuozhou, and they are both so-called Liaodi Han'er, because the Song Dynasty has never had jurisdiction over the sixteen states of Yanyun. There is a kinship between the two. ”

"So, how did that naval battle go back then?"

Li Huamei is worthy of catching ships and guns when she was catching Zhou, and she has always been very interested in things at sea. She didn't care to hear about the kinship between Zhang Shijie and Zhang Hongfan, she just wanted to know how the big battle was fought.

In early February of the second year of Song Xiangxing, the Battle of Liuyashan broke out, and the opposing Song and Yuan sides invested more than 300,000 troops and mobilized more than 2,600 warships. It can be described as an unprecedented naval battle!

It's just that the Song army is already at the end of its rope, and it just happened to meet a commander Zhang Shijie, who is good at commanding horse infantry soldiers. He anchored the boats of the Empress Dowager Xie and the little emperor in the sea of Yashan, and took this as the core, forming a boat village with various ships, and the outermost ships of the sailors shuttled back and forth as escorts.

Zhang Hongfan's battle at sea started from the land. Li Heng, a member of the Western Xia Party, was ordered to cut off the Song army's land water source and cut off the fresh water supply of the fleet. A few days after the Song army was cut off, the Yuan army took advantage of the rising tide of the sea, and the fleet rushed into the cliff gate with the fireship as the lead.

"As I said just now, the Song army used ropes to connect all the big ships into a village, which is like Cao Cao's iron cable chain technique in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, although this method makes the fleet stable and can resist the wind and waves, but the ships cannot move. You can only be beaten passively. Although the Song army claimed to be 200,000 and the Yuan army was more than 100,000, it seemed that the Song army had a slight advantage in terms of strength. But most of them are officials at all levels, palace maids, eunuchs, military dependents and ordinary people, and only tens of thousands of people can really go into battle to kill the enemy, and the water source is cut off for several days, people can barely survive without eating, and if they don't drink water, they will soon lose their combat effectiveness. ”

Hua Mei picked up a branch that floated from the sea and made a gesture on the beach, and soon, a very young and clumsy picture appeared on the beach.

"Daddy. Second uncle. Uncle Zhang, Uncle Chu, isn't this what it looks like? ”

On the damp sand, there is a square in the middle, and a Song character is written in the middle. Surrounded by small circles and squares. It represents the military ship of the Song army guarding the perimeter. Not far away, two squares are drawn that protrude obliquely from the side, representing the two mountain gates of Yashan.

Outside the mountain gate. It is another huge square, in the middle of the square there is a Yuan character, which means that this is the fleet of the Yuan army, and before that, there are triangular logos, "This is the Yuan army's fireships and warships!" ”

"This is clearly putting yourself to death!"

Li Huamei flattened her mouth and expressed her disdain for Zhang Shijie, the commander of the Song Army more than 200 years ago.

Zhang Xiaohu and Chu Tianlei glanced at each other, and they both saw a touch of surprise in each other's eyes. "Is this what a nine-year-old girl can say?"

On the one hand, it was to make Li Huamei happy, and on the other hand, it was also to hear this little girl's understanding of naval warfare, Zhang Xiaohu deliberately bent down and squatted in front of Li Huamei, "Miss, do you know what we are doing this trip?" ”

"Know! Fight! ”

"Now that you know, tell me how we should fight this battle?"

"Uncle Zhang, you are the left-wing commander of the Sailor Division, why do you come to ask me?" Hua Mei glanced at Zhang Xiaohu's scarred face very proudly, her little face was tense and tight, and her eyes were full of smugness.

"Uncle doesn't know! That's why I asked you! ”

Chu Tianlei, the commander of the practice fleet on the side, also came to have fun, looking at the smiling appearance of the Shouhan, Pei Ting ordered his soldiers to fetch a few horses and sit on the beach to listen to Li Huamei "teach" how the two naval generals should fight naval battles.

"If it were me, I would never be a turtle in the urn in the place of death in Xinhui, no matter how good the terrain is, it is not prepared for the sailor. The best place for a sailor is still to be able to sail away and attack the water, otherwise why is it called a sailor?! ”

"Even if you have a fleet here, it's better than having all of them nest in that cliff. At least there's still water here. It won't make everyone thirsty to death. If there is something, just lift the anchor and lift the sails and go! The Yuan army in the north, at most, like the uncles of the Xuanwu battalion, was an infantry on a ship, and did not know how to fight water battles. And the Southern Song Dynasty army has been in Jiangnan for a long time, so he is naturally familiar with water, why should he leave his strengths behind and use his weaknesses to touch others' strengths? The Yuan army is a lot of soldiers, and it is also a soldier who waits for work, at this time, he doesn't think about how to break through, but waits for death in this place of death, isn't this a dizzy? ! ”

"Just for this, the Zhao official family of the Song family is also destined to be like this!"

Listening to Xiao Huamei's immature but firm voice, she couldn't help but let Zhang Xiaohu put away her contempt, and continued to ask in a gentle voice.

"Then Miss, let me ask you, what do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of our sailors compared to others, for example, Zheng Zhilong's sailors and Dutch Hongmaoyi's sailors? How to make the most of your strengths and avoid your weaknesses? ”

"Daddy! Look at Uncle Zhang! He always asks me! How did he become the commander of the left wing of this sailor?! Xiao Huamei coquettishly coquettishly told everyone.

"It's okay! Just say, if you say something good, let this little six son be convinced, and when you grow up, Daddy will let you be the commander of the fleet! Command dozens, hundreds of warships! ”

Li Shouhan, whose mind is full of many place names related to the land under his feet, such as Causeway Bay, Handles, Temple Street, Twelve Youths, and Tigers of Tsim Sha Tsui, said casually.

"That's it!" Hearing Shouhan say this, Hua Mei ran to Shouhan with a smile and hooked Shouhan's finger with her delicate little finger, "Hanging on the hook for a hundred years is not allowed to change!" Whoever becomes a puppy is a puppy! ”

"The Dutchman's plywood boat, it is said that it is fifty zhang long, six or seven zhang wide, there are three layers inside, each layer is placed with cannons outward, can penetrate the cracked stone city, earthquake dozens of miles, think to come and Daddy's flagship is similar, but listen to the people who came back from Manraka, the gunpowder used by the Dutch in Batavia City is far inferior to our gunpowder, and the cannon power is insufficient."

"The Dutch were superior to the many sailors in their department, who were skilled in water and in handling ships, and who came to China from tens of thousands of miles away, and whose seafaring skills were naturally profound. The Dutch are stronger than us, and our sailors are trained one by one. And those red-haired ghosts, almost an adult man, are qualified sailors. ”

"We are better than the Dutch in that Daddy has made more cannons than them, gunpowder can shoot farther than them, and each captain has a telescope, and the ship uses flags during the day and lights to communicate with each other at night."

"Moreover, our artillery is cultivated by Daddy for many years at the expense of money and food, and has spent countless manpower and material resources, I don't know anything else, I only know that the uncles on the Changsheng can complete a salvo in one breath, and complete the entire process of loading and firing within one minute."

"This is the training standard of the whole army, it's all the same!"

Shouhan saw his baby daughter talking eloquently in front of everyone, although some words were not so fluent, but for a nine-year-old girl, it was extremely rare! He had already seen shock, shock, shame and many other expressions in the eyes of Zhang Xiaohu, Chu Tianlei, Li Peiting and others.

"There are two other things that the uncles have not noticed."

Xiao Huamei saw that the eyes of others looking at her had changed, and she also proudly straightened her small waist and stood straight in front of everyone.

"One is the reading literacy and arithmetic that Daddy has implemented in our Nanzhong Army for many years, and if officials at all levels want to be promoted, they must be able to read, write papers, and calculate. At present, the gun commander on the Chang Sheng can calculate the distance between the ship and the target according to the protractor and quadrant on the bow of the ship, the difference between the different angles displayed in the bow and stern of the ship, and then calculate the shooting yuan according to the dense position and wind speed, etc., one cannon can be worth dozens of cannons of the Dutch! ”

"And what about the other one? The lord's ship is the elite and top of the whole army, and you can't treat the good hand on one ship as the good hand of the whole fleet! Pei Ting consciously hit Xiao Huamei's enthusiasm.

"Second uncle, Daddy has a killer feature! I just won't sue you! Xiao Huamei was also not to be outdone, pursed her red and glamorous little mouth, and sneered at each other.

This aroused Li Peiting's curiosity, although he did not serve in the army, but the temper of the son's brother gave him an almost pathological habit of searching for secrets and loving new things. couldn't help but make his index finger move and yearn for it.

"I won't sue you! I'm going to kill you! ”

Xiao Huamei naughtily hid behind her father and grimaced at Li Peiting.

"Good Erya, sue Uncle Sù, Uncle will go back and buy you dolls and beautiful clothes."

"Erya has it! Not uncommon! ”

Xiao Huamei firmly resisted the sugar-coated cannonball sent by Li Peiting with ulterior motives.

"What!? In this way, when you grow up, how about the second uncle give you a ship that is bigger than the Chang Sheng? Come to think of it, it's bigger than the Everwin Horn! The ship is equipped with hundreds of cannons, and that one salvo is fired, which is called spectacular! ”

This seems to have hit the key point of Xiao Huamei, this little girl has always liked the giant ship on the sea, Li Peiting said that he would give her a big ship that is bigger than Chang Sheng, and has dozens more guns, how can a nine-year-old child resist it?

However, Xiao Huamei is also quite educated, she turned her head and looked at her father with a pair of dark eyes, trying to get some advice from Shouhan.

Shouhan seemed to be deliberately testing his daughter, and his eyes were just looking at Xiao Huamei with a smile, but he didn't have any information that his daughter was trying to get.

Unable to get support from her father, Hua Mei had to make a painful decision by herself, "Mr. Xuetang said that the family is the father and son, and the affairs are the king's ministers. Ah Niang also told me that I am not allowed to ask for other people's things when I go out, and I can't break Daddy's military order for the sake of my own boat! ”

That night, Li Peiting, who had never written a diary, opened a delicate book, dipped it in ink, and wrote a few lines on the book.

"It's a pity that it's a daughter, if it's a man, the great cause of the lord will be inherited by this son, but the grandeur of the head has been revealed." (To be continued......)