Chapter 62: Threats from within the Empire
A large number of Jurchen cavalry on the shore rode their horses and galloped wildly, chasing the naval warship in the center of the river, waiting for the small boat to catch up with the battleship in front, and after hitting the hull of the ship and overturning and leaking out of the fire oil, this group of cavalry would shoot arrows with fire, igniting the warship. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. biquge。 info
After paying the price of six warships and more than 10,000 people, the sailors of the Ming Dynasty finally got rid of the sea of fire in the rear, although those small boats went down the river at a very fast speed, but the river was turbulent, many small boats were overturned, and more were ignited after floating through the sea of fire, and the hull was burned and scattered, and the oil leaked on the river to form a small fireball, and then was dispersed by the river.
Now there are only a few small boats left behind the fleet, although it is a little troublesome, but it is not much of a threat to the sailors.
"This group of Jurchens really has to inch in, let the trebuchets on the deck prepare to launch fire oil bombs" The so-called fire oil bombs are clay pots filled with fire oil, ignited and thrown out, smashed into the crowd, the clay pots are broken, the fire oil is scattered, and the nearby people and horses who are drenched with ignited oil can be imagined, this was originally used in Chongzhen's secret decree to deal with those defecting warships, but I didn't expect the Jurchens to come up with such a plan to break Lu Xiangsheng's sailors.
A large number of clay pots were thrown out by trebuchets and hit the Jurchen cavalry on the shore, and the clay pots with fire hit the helmets of the Jurchen cavalry, and the scattered fire oil soaked many nearby cavalry and their war horses under their crotches. The fire was vigorous, and the fire bombs kept falling, and a large number of war horses were on fire, and the burned Zama went crazy, and kept hitting the other war horses, igniting the hair of many other war horses, and greater chaos came.
"Order the ships to approach the shore, the artillery is in place, and after approaching, the free shelling" encountered such an unfavorable situation in the first naval division, which made Lu Xiangsheng very annoyed, after all, it was an unfavorable situation for the division, no matter which general encountered, he would not be in a good mood.
The original cavalry, attacked by the oil bomb and messed up the formation, now by the artillery bombardment, more like a frightened beast, leaving a corpse, scattered and fled, there is no nearby cavalry to follow the rockets, even if there are some small wooden boats full of fire oil hit the big ship, it has no effect, no one ignited, whether it is the fire oil floating near the warship, or the hay down the river, it will not cause any damage to the battleship, with the flow of the river, whether it is oil or hay will soon disappear along the river.
"My lord, do you want to let the sailor take the opportunity to attack back and kill the Jurchens" Qin Hui suggested to Lu Xiangsheng on the side, for the Jurchens, the first time he came into contact with Huang Taiji, he cheated him of the money he burned and plundered along the way, but now that he didn't even see the enemy, he was so miserable that he couldn't swallow this breath.
"The fire just now, the ships that stayed in the port of the Jurchens, have been burned, and now the sailors are attacking back, there is no point in it, as long as the enemy is far away from the shore, the sailors can't do anything about it, the most important thing, no one knows, there are still those boats full of fire oil upstream, such a pay is too disproportionate to the gain, there is no need for the sailors to take this trap" The target of this battle is the battleships that the rebels took when they left, since the battleships were destroyed, it can be said that their goals have been achieved, So for the proposal with Qin Hui, Lu Xiangsheng directly refused.
"My lord, can we just swallow our anger and go back" Qin Hui said a little unwillingly.
"The emperor attaches great importance to the expedition of the sailor, the current war situation, after going back, the official will ask the emperor for guilt, the most important thing now is to treat the people who fell into the water, go back to guard the Phi Island, and then wait for the emperor's holy decree to arrive" He was young and sat on one side with heavy troops, and many officials in the DPRK and China had opinions on all this he obtained, but all these opposing voices were suppressed by the emperor, and now he is not in a good position, it is estimated that there will be a resurgence of turmoil in the court, and his fate is not optimistic.
"My lord" Qin Hui just wanted to say something more, but was interrupted by Lu Xiangsheng.
"The matter has come to this, there is no need to say any more, now what I have to do is to stabilize the current situation, order to put down all the small boats carried by the warships, let people drive the small boats, and go upstream to rescue the soldiers who fell into the water" The small boats are not as clumsy as the big ships on the river, and the soldiers with long weapons in their hands are still easy to push away those small boats filled with oil, the spring in Liaodong is still very cold, and at such a temperature, the survival of the soldiers who fell into the water is too small, and what he is doing now is just to obey the fate of heaven.
In the morning of Beijing City, Chongzhen got up under the service of the queen when it was still on the fifth watch, this time was also at 4 o'clock in the morning according to the algorithm of later generations, out of the queen's Kunning Palace, Chongzhen looked up and found that the sky was still dark and dull without a trace of light, and his mood was the same, although it was spring, but the weather in Beijing was still relatively cold, but there was no way, the early dynasty was about to start, outside the palace gate, the ministers who came to the court were already waiting, and the emperor was embarrassed to continue sleeping.
Early in the morning, Chongzhen dealt with the folds submitted by the ministers of these ministries step by step, discussed with the courtiers for a long time, and finally dealt with all the twists and turns caused today, and the sky was already bright at this time.
Chongzhen picked up the tea on his dragon case and took a sip, just sat on the dragon chair and waited for something, because Chongzhen did not say to retreat from the court, these ministers did not dare to leave, so they could only stand in place and wait.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I found a little eunuch who peeked at me some time ago, and then I asked people to investigate, and finally found the Hou family of the Jin merchants in Shaanxi, but they were stopped by Gao Qiqian, the celebrant and some adults in the court, it seems that many Aiqing in the court are still full of concern about me, and even the little eunuchs around me have been bought" said here Chongzhen smiled and looked at the ministers below.
Hearing Chongzhen's words, many ministers began to chatter and discuss, peeking at the emperor's recitals, bribing the little eunuchs in the palace, although many people are bribing the eunuchs, but no minister dares to be so crazy, and actually instructed the eunuchs to secretly watch the emperor's recitals, which guy is not dying, and you can't play like this, how do you let me wait for the future. 、
"Come on, bring Gao Qi and sneak up" Soon, the two attendants dragged a miserable old eunuch who was tortured to the palace.
"This old eunuch as my house slave actually carried me to eat inside and out, which made me feel very bad, so I let people send this old eunuch to Beizhen Fusi overnight, under repeated torture, so that I didn't expect it, I actually took out a lot of things from the old eunuch's mouth, those things I took first, and now this matter is over, as for whether I will pursue it in the future, it depends on the performance of your family, come on, drag this old eunuch, drag it out, behead," Hearing that Chongzhen was going to cut Gao Qidive, Many ministers in the DPRK and the central government glanced at each other and breathed a sigh of relief, even if Chongzhen saw the things that Gao Qiqian explained for the first time, they were a little frightened, and now they had to stabilize the other party first, while they quietly prepared.
Gao Qiqian explained that in this court, there are actually many ministers and border generals who collude with each other to have some unclear relationships with the Jurchens through the Jin merchants, and those who even Chongzhen do not dare to act rashly and easily order to arrest people, that is because those people include border generals with heavy troops, eunuchs sent by the imperial court, eunuchs guarding the town, and many high-ranking officials in the court. Chongzhen doesn't intend to fool the past like this, those who go against me and dig into the corners of their own Ming Dynasty, when I am ready, will use thunderous means to cleanse the entire empire of internal threats, and when the time comes, I will scrape these people alive.