Tianjin Wei, March 27, 17th year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty.

The sudden southeast wind brought a torrential rain to Tianjin's Wei side, pouring everything around it. The Wei River, which leads to the sea after bringing together many rivers, is no longer as calm as it used to be, but is rolling in the wind and rain, and it seems to be about to wash away the heroes of this year of sudden changes in the world.

This sudden wind and rain came with an extremely ferocious momentum, and it seemed that we should do our best to wash away the gunpowder smoke and blood shrouded in the area of Tianjin Sanwei.

Twenty or thirty miles east of Wei, Tianjin, on the rolling waters of the Wei River, more than 100 sand boats are sailing into the wind. The leader was a large centipede warship ten zhang long and two zhang wide, with forty long oars paddling on both sides of the ship. On the bow of the boat, a middle-aged man dressed as a Confucian scholar stood, holding an umbrella, but could not hide the rain carried by the strong wind. The silk robes were already soaked, but he himself was at a loss.

This Confucian scholar's name was Shen Tingyang, a civil official of the Ming Dynasty, who worshiped the Guozijian and was in charge of shipping and Liaodong payroll. However, he is not an ordinary civil official, because in addition to his official body, there is also a special identity, he is the chief helmsman of the Beiyang Sand Boat Gang!

And the Shen family of the Sand Boat Gang is also a famous existence in the shopping malls and rivers and lakes of Nanzhili. In the words of later generations, he was a red-capped merchant. In the Ming Dynasty, there was no "red top", and there was no such thing as a red-top businessman. However, the nature is almost the same, they are all officials, businessmen and rivers.

If there is any difference between the officials and businessmen of the Ming Dynasty such as the Shen family of the Shachuan Gang and those of the Qing Dynasty, it is that they have a fairly high degree of independence, and they are not handled by the court and officials casually.

Because the stage where the Shen family is active in the sand boat gang is the Beiyang sea, it is a wealthy businessman on the sea. Similar to the Eighteen Zhi (Zheng Zhilong's gang) group based in Fujian, they are all armed businessmen with guns and cannons, and they are also businessmen, thieves and officials.

The prefect who broke the house and the county order that destroyed the door couldn't deal with the Eighteen Zhi and the Shachuan Gang. Even if a serious Daming sailor (not counting a Zhao'an sailor like Zheng Zhilong) goes out, he will definitely not be able to defeat the current Shachuan Gang.

In a sense, maritime groups such as the Shachuan Gang and the Eighteen Zhi, like the Manchurian military groups that rose in the northeast, were emerging forces in the world of great controversy in the late Ming Dynasty.

However, they did not oppose the rule of the Ming Dynasty, nor would they compete with the ruling group of the Ming Dynasty for land, population, and wealth, but supported the rule of the Ming Dynasty and provided wealth to the new forces of the Ming ruling group.

Their goal now is to use the sea power in their hands as capital, serve the Ming Dynasty, and become a member of the ruling group of the Ming Dynasty. Eighteen Zhi and the Shachuan Gang also got their wish and became an alternative existence in the Ming officialdom.

The Shachuan Gang became officials and merchants earlier than Shibazhi, as early as the Wanli Korean War, they were transporting grain for the Ming Dynasty army. As a result, the Sand Boat Gang has become a wealthy merchant group that crosses the North Ocean and travels between the Ming Dynasty and North Korea.

Later, when Mao Wenlong opened the town of Dongjiang, the Shachuan Gang also made great efforts, otherwise Mao Wenlong, who was alone overseas and couldn't get much food, didn't need Yuan Chonghuan to kill, and he collapsed - according to records: Mao Wenlong was an army, with an annual salary of 800,000 yuan, all from Dengzhou Dapi Island, and all the mink in Liaodi, those who were in the middle of the city, were also lost from Dengdi.

And the Korean Li Dynasty also has the same record: Mao Dudu took over merchants on the island, and the tax revenue for a year was more than a huge amount of money.

After the collapse of Mao Wenlong's Dongjiang Town, Shen Tingyang continued to dominate the Beiyang sea by undertaking the transportation of grain and wages in Liaodong and the shipping of grain. It has become a maritime powerhouse that can compete with the Nanyang Eighteen Zhi Maritime Business Group.

Of course, the strength of the Sand Boat Gang cannot be compared with Eighteen Zhi. The reason why they were able to divide the North and South Oceans with the Zheng family in Fujian was because the Beiyang Sea was shallow, with many rolling waves, which was suitable for sand boat activities; The second is that the Shachuan Gang contributed more to the imperial court and received official support from the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, the territory of Beiyang and North Korea is not touched by the Eighteen Zhi Maritime Business Group. Zheng Zhilong refused to go north before, and there were also reasons for this.

And now, with the destruction of Beijing and the crisis of the Ming Dynasty, the Sand Boat Gang, which has always relied on the Ming Dynasty to support the Beiyang, has also reached a crisis juncture.

It's dangerous, but it's also organic!

A man with bare feet and a robe walked quickly to Shen Tingyang, who was deep in thought, "Chief helmsman, look there!" ”

Only then did Shen Tingyang come back from his contemplation and looked up in the direction that the man was pointing. I saw that on the embankment on the south bank of the Wei River, a group of soldiers were walking in the rain, dragging two small wooden boats. This group of soldiers were all dressed in robes and could not see the uniforms clearly, but they were wearing a military flag with the word "Chuang" in black letters on a red background.

"It's a rogue!" Shen Tingyang smiled coldly, turned around and strode towards the cabin. This sand boat of his is not an ordinary sand ship that transports goods, but a war ship! On the deck there is a deck of cabins enclosed by thick wooden baffles. There were no ordinary windows on the baffle, but there were many black holes in the shooting holes. It's pouring rain outside, and the musketeers hiding in the cabin can also fire!

……

"Master Qian, there is a ship! What a boat! ”

When the shouts sounded, the general manager of the Dashun army named Tang Laosi was hurrying with his head bowed with a stick. He is a subordinate of Tang Tong, and he is still a family. However, Tang Tong's life is good, and he has a world position to attack, and Tang Laosi's life is hard, so he can only follow Tang Tong, first as a family member, and now as a thousand presidents. After Tang Tong abandoned the Ming Dynasty and returned to Shun, he was always stranded by Li Zicheng's faction, and his subordinates were also taken by the old camp of the Dashun Army as cannon fodder, and there was no oil and water at all, and there were complaints from top to bottom.

Tang Tong, the chief soldier, is not as good as before, and many officers who are not Tang Tong's descendants are unwilling to work hard, so Tang Da's general soldiers can only support their own descendants to suffer and be tired.

Therefore, Tang Laosi, the master of Qian, can only work in the rain now, and take three or four hundred subordinates who are angry because they have not received the reward for a long time, and look for ships along the Wei River.

The errand to find the boat was sent to Tang Tong by Li Guo to build a pontoon bridge in order to completely trap the Tianjin Acropolis.

More than 10,000 soldiers and horses of Li Guo and Tang Tong drove outside the Tianjin Acropolis on 26 March. Because of the heavy rain, there was no battle with the defenders. And the Ming army didn't know if it was to avoid the rain or to be afraid of the Dashun Heavenly Soldiers, so they all retracted into the Tianjin Acropolis anyway.

So Li Guo decided to besiege while waiting for reinforcements - always surround first, don't let Chongzhen, Zhu Cihong and Wu Sangui escape!

But he and Tang Tong soon found that the Tianjin Acropolis was not easy to besiege, and it turned out that the city was built on the water, on both sides of the main stream of the Wei River leading to the sea. There are two cities in the north and south, the south city is the main city, and the north city is the auxiliary. Standing between the river and communicating with a pontoon bridge.

The channel of the Wei River is relatively wide, flowing into the sea, and sea boats can also go against the current. If troops were deployed on both sides of the Wei River, relying on bows and arrows, fire guns, and tiger squatting cannons, it would be impossible to stop the sturdy sea ships from entering and leaving Tianjin Wei through the Wei River.

If you want to besiege the Tianjin Acropolis, you naturally have to find a way to block the Wei River, otherwise as long as the Tianjin sailors of the Ming Dynasty come against the current, they will be able to take Chongzhen, Zhu Cihong, Wu Sangui and others away.

So Li Guo ordered Tang Tong to look for wooden boats and build a pontoon bridge downstream of the Tianjin Acropolis to block the waterway.

Donald's fourth ministry is now carrying out this drudgery that has little oil and water...... After looking for a long time, I found two fishing boats. Because Donald Laosi's subordinates were all landlubbers, no one knew how to steer a boat, so he dragged the wooden boat with a rope.

"It's a merchant ship, right?"

"It's heavy, it should be transported from Dagu to Tianjin Wei."

"Now it's ......"

"Boss, stop them!"

Tang Laosi also laughed, this is really effortless!

He waved his hand and said loudly, "Can the fire be fired?" ”

"Yes."

"Damn, hit them first, scare them......"

"Woo Woo ......"

Tang Laosi had just given the order to fire, and here there was a series of dense guns! Of course, it's not the soldiers under his command who are firing guns, there is only one bird gun in his team, how can he hit such a burst of fire?

Of course, it was the gang of the helmsman Shen who opened fire, and forty Guangdong turtledoves fired together, and one volley knocked over Tang Lao's four, seven or eight subordinates.

"Rogues!" Tang Laosi exclaimed, and suddenly felt that something was wrong, and now that the rogue had turned to the imperial court, he hurriedly changed his words, "Damn, it's a pirate!" There are firecrackers on board, brothers, get down quickly......"