Seagulls don't fly far from the coast, and seeing them means that the coast is close. Of course, Zheng Sen also knows this. He nodded and said, "It seems that in another hour or two, we should be able to reach Jinghai." ”

Sure enough, more than an hour later, the high white of Jinghai Harbor appeared in Zheng Sen's field of vision. The fleet began to slow down, and Zheng Sen's ship did not enter the port directly, but took the lead and turned to the right, where it anchored for the time being. In recent years, Jinghai Port has been an important port for the Zheng family's goods to be sold to the north, as well as the Zheng family's most important stronghold in northern China, and has always been highly valued by the Zheng family. In terms of port size, at least in the Bohai Sea area, it must be the first. But even so, in the face of the fleet arriving today, the berths in Jinghai Port are still very tight, and the pressure of loading and unloading is also very high, so the wind resistance is strong, which is more suitable for ocean voyages, and the escort ships that are not loaded with many items are arranged to temporarily anchor in this water. lest they crowd out valuable berths.

Several of the escort warships rolled up their sails and lowered anchor, and at this time, several clippers coming out of Jinghai Harbor had also sailed close to the battleships, and one of them approached cautiously.

"Major General, I'm here to pick you up ashore." Zhang Haisheng said. By this time, the sailors had already lowered the rope ladder. Several of Zheng Sen's guards had also disembarked on the clipper ship first.

"Captain Zhang, are you going ashore today?" Zheng Sen asked.

"Major General, today is the first day in Jinghai, and as the captain of the ship, of course Director Zhao and I have to stay on duty on the ship. Probably by tomorrow, Zhao Xundao will be able to go ashore, as for the lower officials, find a time to go ashore before the return trip. Anyway, Jinghai is actually nothing fun. ”

Zheng Sen nodded. Jinghai is really not much fun, at least far less than Taiwan, and far less fun than Luzon.

At this time, Officer Zhao also came over from the other side of the deck, like most officers of the Model Army, he was not very old, only eighteen or nineteen years old, but because of the sea breeze blowing too much, the black and red skin was very rough, which made him look almost ten years old, only a pair of bright little eyes, but full of the vitality of a young man.

"Major General, it's time for you to get off the ship, and I wish the Major General a victory!"

Zheng Sen walked to the side of the rope ladder, and several sailors immediately stood up and raised their hands to salute Zheng Sen. Zheng Sen also returned the courtesy: "Everyone has worked hard along the way. ”

"Fight for China!" The sailors responded loudly. In the Model Army, this is a fixed pattern of answers. And this mode of answering, in a sense, is also a kind of brainwashing and indoctrination. In conjunction with the teachings of the instructors of every warship of the Navy and every company of the Army, it has a great effect on improving the morale of the soldiers.

Zheng Sen smiled and nodded, and then followed the rope ladder and went down to the clipper. He waved at the sailors on the cruiser, and the clipper turned around and headed for the town harbor.

At this time, some other transport ships are also entering the port one after another, and the whole port area is busy. Under the guidance of the pilots, the transport ships docked next to the trestle painted with different colors. One of the trestles, painted green, was intended for troop carriers. Because soldiers were allowed to disembark with their own belongings and weapons, this type of trestle was relatively simple and the most numerous. On this type of trestle, as long as there is a ladder or a springboard. Even, if you don't have these, it's not a big problem, and the ship has its own net ladder for getting off the boat.

Another type of trestle, painted in blue, was specially used for ships transporting horses and artillery. These trestles are double-decked, the height of the top trestle is almost the same as the height of the first deck of the horse transport ship, and the lower level of the trestle is exactly the same as the height of the second deck of the war horse transport ship. In this way, the horse carrier can open the side door on the side of the ship, and the horses and heavy guns can be directly walked up or pushed onto the trestle through a gangplank with a small slope, thus greatly increasing the speed of unloading. Of course, opening the door on the side reduces the structural strength of the ship to a certain extent, but this kind of ship is not a battleship after all, and this is not too much of a problem.

There is also a kind of trestle that is painted yellow, which is for transporting general materials, such as armor, gunpowder, food and other materials, and on this kind of trestle, there are some lifting pulleys, which can be quite convenient to lift these things up.

This time on the shore of the Jinghai Sea was the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the Model Army, with more than 3,000 officers and men, thousands of horses, and various supplies, loaded with a full hundred ships of all sizes. It will take some time to get them all ashore. According to calculations, it would take about two days for the 1st Cavalry Regiment to fully disembark. Then, because of the long sea trip from Jeju Island to Jinghae, some of the horses were not in good condition either, and it took several days to recover. And in these days, according to the plan, the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Regiments will also arrive one after another.

Zheng Sen's clipper boat has a shallow draft, and they have their own small dock. The water at these piers is not deep enough for large ships to dock here. The oarsmen on the fast boat rowed their oars neatly, and soon arrived at the small pier, Zheng Sen saw that Zheng Zhihu and Zheng Zhixiong had already taken Guo Huaiyi and others with a few carriages and were waiting here.

"Second uncle! Uncle Bear! As soon as he got off the boat, Zheng Sen hurriedly went up to salute.

"Arsen, I've finally waited for you." Zheng Zhihu laughed and said, "Seeing that you have come with so many model soldiers, I have a bottom in my heart." Well, it's windy here, so let's get in the car first. ”

Zheng Sen and Zheng Zhihu Zheng Zhixiong got into the carriage, and as soon as they got in the car, Zheng Sen asked, "Uncle Xiong, how is it in Jingshi now?" ”

"There's nothing new." Zheng Zhixiong said, "Li Chuang continues to search. Official, I guess he got tens of millions of silver. Then he was still trying to find a way to recruit Wu Sangui. He also promised Wu Sangui that if he was willing to surrender to him, he would be crowned as the 'king of one word and one side'. The situation of several princes is also fine. However, we can't get out of the Beijing Division for the time being, but we are well prepared, even if we hide in the Beijing Division for another year and a half, there is no problem. ”

"I don't need to hide for so long, Li Zicheng won't stay in Beijing for a long time." Zheng Sen said, "But let's not go to Jingshi first, let's go and wait for King Fu first, and when he comes, we will go to meet Huang Taiji's Eight Banners, give Jianji a lesson first, and then we will go to Jingshi." When the Jingshi is taken, let King Fu ascend the throne. ”

"Let King Fu ascend the throne?" Zheng Zhixiong said, "What about the princes of Chongzhen Heavenly Son?" ”

"Huh." Zheng Sen just smiled and didn't answer immediately.

Zheng Sen knew that those Donglin Party people on the Jiangnan side would not be idle, and now that he had deceived King Fu to Jinghai, the Donglin Party people would definitely make a time difference and preemptively let King Lu ascend the throne in the name of "the country cannot be left without an owner for a day". Zheng Sen estimated the speed of the spread of the news, and by the time the news came, he had probably repelled Huang Taiji's army and achieved a great victory, and then he could instigate King Fu to ascend the throne, and then turn the gun around and take the opportunity to truly control the Jiangnan region. While turning his head to seize the Jingshi, he snatched the silver that Li Zicheng grabbed by the way.

When Jingshi is recovered, King Fu, as the theoretical leader, will naturally contribute to Sheji, so that if Chongzhen's sons are released, it will be impossible for them to compete with King Fu for the throne. But their existence is in itself a threat to King Fu. Zheng Sen can use these princes to contain and control King Fu. When necessary, he can even pretend to be King Fu and do something "no one" to make his reputation infamous, and then logically turn the Ming Dynasty emperor into a rubber stamp like the emperor of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Of course, this kind of consideration, even in front of his two uncles, is not something that can be said casually.

"Is there any move on the Jianshen side?" Zheng Sen asked again.

Compared with my Daming, Jianxuan has done a lot better in secrecy work. In addition, at this time, Jianshen is on the rise, and the internal unity is still passable, so it is not easy to get directly information from within Jianxuan. However, due to a lack of understanding, Jianxuan has no sense of secrecy about some economic information. Therefore, a study of the changes in the price of goods in the Jianzhi control area can reveal a lot of things.

"Recently, in Shanxi, the Mongolians have purchased a lot of grain pig iron, and I will ask people to show them to Asen in a while." Zheng Zhixiong said, "In addition, the gunpowder and saltpeter purchased by Jianyan have also increased significantly. Based on this, we deduce that the Jangs should have expanded their artillery unit. However, the amount of copper that Jianzhou bought did not increase much, so we estimate that they may have obtained a lot of ready-made cannons from Jinzhou. ”

Zheng Sen nodded, he felt that this inference should be reliable. Back then, Zu Dashou still put a lot of effort into his hometown Jinzhou. In addition, Zu Dashou also bought some cannons from the Zheng family back then, so Zheng Sen estimated that after the battle of Songjin, the Qing army should be able to get at least forty or fifty artillery pieces of various types, plus Zu Dashou's artillery workshop was also completely captured by the Qing army, during this time, most of them also helped me cast some artillery in the Qing Dynasty. However, Zheng Sen didn't care too much about this, because whether it was cast by Zu Dashou himself, or the artillery sold by the Zheng family to Zu Dashou, they were all powerful and long-range, but they were too heavy and difficult to move, and could only be used for siege and defense of the city. These guns were too heavy and difficult to carry to keep up with the speed of the army, so in the field they were almost impossible to use. This time, Zheng Sen's plan was to seek and build a field battle, and in the field, these cannons naturally did not need to be considered.