At this time, Yang Xuan had already led the guard town back to CD), after Li Dingguo killed Luck Dehun, Yang Xuan ordered Li Dingguo to lead the town's soldiers and horses to garrison Wugang, Yuanzhou, and Jingzhou, and Liu Weiming Town to garrison Guiyang, Zunyi and other places.

The 7th and 9th towns went down the Yangtze River to attack Kuizhou, capturing Yiling, Yiting and other places, in order to open the way for the volunteers to advance eastward.

After everything was arranged, Yang Xuan immediately led a thousand cavalry to rush back to the CD).

On this day, passing by Chong (Qing), Chen Huaixi came to report that after a year of supervision, he finally built a huge ship, so Yang Xuan rushed to Jiangjin in order to review the most important naval army in his Xingzhong.

Since its establishment, the Volunteer Army has attached great importance to the construction of the navy, and in recent years, Yang Xuan has always regarded the navy as the food route of the army, and has built a large number of transport ships, sampan ships, and flying tiger warships.

After several years of development, based on practical experience and lessons

Most of the transport ships are medium-sized sand ships, each ship is equipped with 10 transporters, and can carry 500 quintals (80,000 catties, 40 tons).

The sampan boats are mostly small sand boats, each ship has 10 soldiers, can install 60 quintals (10,000 catties) of cargo, and is equipped with 2 No. 3 Furlong cannons.

The Flying Tiger Battleship is a kind of vehicle and ship, large in size, each with 30 soldiers, can be equipped with 200 loads of cargo (30,000 catties, 15 tons), equipped with six large Furlong cannons,

Compared with transport ships or other naval vessels, the ships of the Volunteer Navy are smaller in tonnage and suffer more in battle.

Therefore, on the occasion of the Eastern Expedition to Yunnan and Guizhou, Yang Xuan planned to build a large surface ship to crisscross the inland rivers and ensure the safety of the navy.

From a distance, looking at this kind of gunboat, it is about 11 zhang (36 meters) long, 1.8 zhang (5.94 meters) wide, 0.8 zhang (2.68 meters) deep, and the total weight of the full load and water can reach 140 tons. (Some of Zheng He's treasure ships are estimated to be more than 20,000 tons, and although there is a boasting component, no one denies that the ship is more than 1,000 tons.)

The main sail is 15 meters long and 12.5 meters wide, the head sail is 9 meters long and 6 meters wide, and behind it, there is a spinnaker, which can change the wind direction by adjusting the direction of the spinnaker.

In addition to these traditional designs, considering that some warships are lighter and need to press heavy objects such as stones in the cabin to ensure the stability of the ship, a layer of iron sheet more than half a centimeter thick is wrapped below the water level.

Each piece of iron sheet is cast and hammered several times into a square meter of iron sheet, and then loaded under the bottom of the ship.

The whole ship hammered a total of 100 iron sheets, and the iron sheets alone weighed 5 tons.

Now Longquanyi Iron Smelting Bureau began to operate, using coke and iron ore to smelt steel through blast furnaces, which can smelt 100 tons of steel and 500 tons of wrought iron every year, although the output is lower than that of Changping Iron and Steel Workshop, but the amount of steel is quite sufficient.

In addition, the ship adopts the traditional Chinese watertight bulkhead device, that is, the bulkhead is used to divide the cabin into a number of small cabins of different sizes, if one cabin is damaged, it is impossible for water to flow into other cabins by isolating it with a bulkhead.

Five 5-pound redcoat cannons were installed on the left and right sides of the middle deck, and a large Furlong cannon was installed on the bow and stern.

The hull has three decks, with the lowest deck for ballast, the second deck for crew rest and gunboats, and the top deck for observation and command platforms for hard sails

In addition, because the lower two decks are all sealed, except for the gun ports on both sides, they are all sealed, and it is very unfavorable for climbing, and the upper and lower ships need special cables to climb up, which is very unfavorable for the other side to connect and fight.

Looking at this ship, Answen vigorously claimed that the ship was better than the British Golden Hind.

(The Golden Hind is only 150 tons, and the British have used the Golden Hind to circumnavigate the world.) )

The ship included 4 officers, 26 sailors, 40 gunners

Each of the cardinal cannons was staggered, separated by partitions from each other, to avoid affecting each other.

Since there was no need to carry artillery as on land, each gun only needed 6 people, including 1 gun commander, who were responsible for observation, command and ignition.

There is 1 gunpowder man, who is usually responsible for putting gunpowder and projectiles into the muzzle.

1 cleaner, responsible for cleaning the barrel with a brush, and loading the cannon together with the gunpowder hand.

2 gunners, responsible for the reset of the cannon and the operation of the cannon.

In battle, it is common to fire only one-sided, front-to-back and front-to-back guns, so the number of gunners equipped with five Furlong cannons is sufficient.

Due to the advantages of both the car and the Galen ship, the normal sailing speed of the ship in the inland areas of the river is about 10 miles/hour, and the maximum sailing speed can reach 20 miles/hour.

But there is no doubt that the cost of the ship is more than 40% higher than that of a vehicle ship of the same displacement, and the ship relies entirely on the Franco's cannons for combat, so if 10 red-coated cannons are added, a stiff sailing ship costs more than 4,000 taels of silver.

Yang Xuan named this kind of ship Jingjiang-class gunboat, which will be mainly used for artillery battles in rivers and lakes in the future.

In addition to this schooner, a schooner is now being built at the suggestion of Ellswin.

Yang Xuan was quite interested, regardless of everyone's opposition, boarded the ship, personally helmed the helm, personally hung the sails and sailed with the soldiers, after four days of hard work, Yang Xuan basically mastered the knowledge of navigation.

Yang Xuan seriously summarized the difference between the cloth sailboat and the hard sail, and felt that the oriental hard sail was too heavy, and it was not easy to raise and drop the sail, while the western cloth sailboat was not like that, the cloth sail was lighter, and the sail only needed to hang up the canvas and roll up the canvas, which was very convenient.

Comparatively speaking, large boats are more suitable for schooners, while smaller boats are more suitable for traditional canny sails.

In addition, An Siwen was also quite happy to look at the Nanmu cut from the Yunnan-Guizhou region, and vigorously claimed that the wood was far superior to Western Europe, and that it could build ten times as many warships in the future, so that it could sail in the rest of the sea.

In order to avoid a recurrence of the tragedy, Yang Xuan ordered Chen Huaixi, He Dou and others to lead gunboats to conduct confrontation drills with Flying Tiger warships and sampan boats every ten years.

In order to better grasp the combat of the navy, Yang Xuan left the cavalry and personally led the navy along the Yangtze River and the Min River.

After ten days of sailing, in this year (the 4th year of Yongli, 1650 AD), Yang Xuan had just arrived, and the escort regiment was already waiting on the shore.

Before Yang Xuan turned over and got on the horse, he saw Zhu Zhilu, the king of Fushun, Zhu Zhijun, the king of Deyang, Wu Zhaoyuan, the governor of Sichuan, Yan Ximing, the political envoy, Chen Jichang, the commander of the capital, Fan Mingshan, the governor of the city, and Wang Guangxian, the governor of the city, went out of the city to greet them.

Looking at Zhu Zhilu, the king of Fushun who was obviously emaciated and had only skin and bones, Yang Xuan arched his hand and said: "Second uncle (the younger brother of the last king of Shu in the Ming Dynasty), you, you are sick, it is important to recuperate, you don't go out of the city to meet your son-in-law." ”

Zhu Zhilu shook his head and said, "You are the king of Shu, the old man is just an ordinary county king, and he has just defeated the Tartars, of course he needs to come to greet him." ”

Speechless for a while, he didn't know what the other party meant, and Yang Xuan didn't know how to answer.

Yan Ximing, the political envoy next to him, arched his hand and said: "After the news that the soldiers supported the prince as the king of Shu, some people talked about it, and the king of Fushun overrode the public opinion, and frankly said that there is no dynasty that will not perish since ancient times.

Since the middle of Wanli, the people have been living in war every year, and the imperial court does not know the pension but adds three salaries, so there is today's difficulty.

The prince is loyal and benevolent, starting from the military, leading the righteous people in Shuzhong to quell the local riots, so that the local party extinguishes the disaster of the military revolution, and the people have a pure land in this troubled world, and they can live and work in peace and contentment.

The court is a traitor, ignorant of people, and actually makes a farce of true and false holy decrees, why is the prince so humiliated?

The generals were anxious to be indignant and supported the Lord as the king of Shu, but it was just to conform to the righteousness of the world."

Yang Xuan bowed his head to express his gratitude, and Zhu Zhilu, the king of Fushun, struggled to get up from his chair and said to the people around: "The family of the King of Shu has suffered this catastrophe, and there is only one county lord left in the huge Shu Palace.

As the saying goes, the son-in-law is also half a son, and the soldiers support the prince as the king of Shu, which is in line with the principles of heaven and the righteousness. ”

Yang Xuan was overjoyed, holding Zhu Zhilu, the king of Fushun, tightly with both hands, and was grateful in his heart.

During the Song and Ming dynasties, no matter how many storytellers were in the streets and alleys, everyone's favorite thing to listen to was of course the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Water Margin, the Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties and other popular romances.

After establishing himself as the king of Shu, although he was not worried that someone under his rule would rebel, he was also worried about the villains in the market.

Zhu Zhilu, the king of Fushun, is the younger brother of the last king of Shu, and if he can say so, of course it will be easy for others.

Zhu Zhilu, the king of Fushun, got rid of the big hand stretched out by the other party, and suddenly knelt down and said: "Lord, since ancient times, there has been a difference between the princes and the princes, and now the prince has become the prince, and he should be the queen and the prince." ”

When Zhu Zhijun, the king of Deyang, Wu Zhaoyuan, the governor of Sichuan, and Chen Jichang, the envoy of the inspector, heard this, they knelt down one after another to admonish.

Yang Xuan stood there dumbfounded, and now he suddenly realized.

These people are making a deal with their feelings, that is, they admit the fact of support, but the trading conditions are that the county lord Zhu Shuying is the queen, and the second son Yang Wu is the son.

No one wants to be persecuted by others, and now Yang Xuan has the power of life and death in his hands, but in the face of everyone's hard work, there is no way to do it, so he has to promise them one by one in public.