"The other party slowed down."

Luo Jiuhe muttered, somewhat regretful in his tone.

At this distance, the other side has not yet made preparations for battle, and it seems that this battle cannot be fought.

In the past few years, Luo Jiuhe's military rank has been constantly rising, but he has seen his old brothers, especially a group of old subordinates, fighting vigorously on land, and they have made more contributions than him, and the number of medals hanging on the chest of the Tiger Guard Army at this year's Spring Festival party is one-third more than the chest of his seat in the Fishery Bureau, which makes him envious and embarrassed. It was not easy for the navy to catch up with a few decent battles, such as the assistance operation on Phi Island at the beginning of last year, or the naval battle of the Seto Inland Sea from the end of the tenth year to the beginning of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, which destroyed the naval army of the Japanese shogunate to aid Kyushu. This made him a little anxious.

He is not as eager as Huo Yan, but among the tasks assigned in the naval exercise, there are projects with the Zheng family as an imaginary enemy.

"Don't worry, Jiuhe, sooner or later there will be your battle." Yu Guozhen said with a smile.

"When are the officials going to do it?"

"Now is not the best time, you know our family background, and besides, the enemy is outside, and the wall is inside, which is not appropriate."

Yu Guozhen said that the family background is the strength of the Xinxiang Fishery Administration Navy, with Xinxiang's current shipbuilding capacity, it can build six battleships, 12 frigates, and 24 merchant ships every year, but considering the pressure of transportation, so between February last year and February this year, only two other battleships "Haixiong" and "Kunpeng" were built, and three other troop transport and supply ships were built, that is, "Penglai", "Yingtai", and "Abbot". However, 10 frigates with a total displacement of about 800 tons with 24 guns and a displacement of about 1,200 tons were built, and 12 armed merchant ships with a displacement of about 1,200 tons and eight guns were built. In this way, Yu Guozhen could guarantee that each battleship could move together as a formation with two frigates and two merchant ships used as supplies. For example, when he returned from his visit to Tamna Island, he brought four merchant ships, all of which added up, to transport a total of 8,000 people south.

These 8,000 people are the fourth batch of Ming people from the original Dongjiang Islands who went south this year, and if they sailed to the sea, four merchant ships could not carry these 8,000 people, but because by the first north wind of the year, it only took five days to get from Tamna Island to Zhen'hai, and there were supply points along the way, so there were slightly more people.

From last year to now, there have been six groups of ships heading south, and a total of more than 30,000 people have been transported to Xinxiang.

As the boats on both sides approached, they both began to slow down, and then the Zheng family's ship turned around and marched in tandem with Xinxiang's fleet. Immediately afterwards, a loud voice came out of the other party's boat: "Guerrilla General Zheng Gong Zhilong's Shi Fu and Zheng Cai, greet Nanhai Bo!" ”

There is also a loud voice here, but the big voice is also carrying an iron horn in his hand, although there is no credit for the megaphone, but when shouting at sea, this thing is better than blocking it with his hands: "Luo Jiuhe, the Fishery Administration Bureau under the command of Nanhai Bo, is here, General Zheng is good?" ”

The two sides greeted each other painlessly, but Yu Guozhen muttered a few words to Luo Jiuhe at this time, and after a while, a small sampan was released on the Huaqing, and several tiger guards leaned towards the other party's boat.

"What do these newcomers want to do?"

Shi Fu and Zheng Cai discussed, the other party sent a messenger, there should be something to explain, the two of them were not easy to refuse, so they asked the messenger to put on the boat.

"A small gift is not a tribute."

The messenger who claimed to be Xu Sanduo smiled and offered gifts, but they were two newly produced Japanese Miao knives. Because Xinxiang's steelmaking technology is unique in the world, the knife made of steel made of heavy water forging is better than the so-called famous sword of the Wa Kingdom, and with exquisite decoration, it is indeed a good gift that the warriors like. Shi Fu and Zheng Cai received the gift and didn't say anything, and a young man next to Shi Fu said: "I heard that Xinxiang's musket is good, why don't you give a few muskets as gifts?" ”

Xu Sanduo turned to the young man, still with that grinning look on his face: "This young general is heroic and extraordinary at first glance, and he is definitely not an ordinary person, he is really a sword-eyed, tiger-eyed, jade-faced, and red-lipped...... I don't know what to call your surname? ”

His large number of compliments loosened the knots on the young man's face, and his expression softened, and he arched his hand: "Don't dare to be a false praise, under Shi Lang." ”

"Oh, in Xia Xu Sanduo, in fact, in the next real name is not called Xu Sanduo, it was originally Xu Zhong, but friends say that there are many words, courtesies, and friends, so the gang changed its name to Xu Sanduo. My favorite thing is to make friends, especially a young hero like Brother Shi......"

Shi Fu's uncle and nephew and Zheng Cai, of course, didn't know that this Xu Zhong was Jiang'an's deputy, or rather, he was assigned to Jiang'an's side by Yu Guozhen. This person is famous for his nagging, but his talent is excellent, and after being pulled out by Jane, he is famous for his eight-sided exquisiteness, which is just right for diplomacy. Yu Guozhen sent him to help Jiangan, but he stayed in Tamla for half a year, dealing with Korea and the Japanese state, especially when dealing with the Japanese state, together with Qin Shengqin, he moved Amakusa Shiro Shizhen to plunder the population under the shogunate everywhere, and used it as a goods exchange for food and military supplies provided by Xinxiang, thus making a great contribution. Then Jiang'an recommended him back to Yu Guozhen, saying that Xinhang and Zhenla had a tense relationship recently, and he could give full play to his strengths, but in fact, Jiang'an was also annoyed by his nagging, and sent him to Ye Wuya's cold-faced man.

So this guy followed Yu Guozhen south with great interest, he didn't think that others couldn't stand him, but thought that he was an important person who couldn't be needed anywhere.

gave him a lot of words, and when he got down to business, the Shi family's uncles and nephews and Zheng Cai forgot about asking him for Xinxiang's Huwei C-type musket as a gift.

"In short, seeing you come to escort, we are very happy and very grateful, our family Nanhai Bo has already said that although General Zheng does not have the Lord of the East China Sea, he has the truth of the East China Sea, and the safety of the East China Sea is handed over to General Zheng, if something happens to our Xinxiang ship in the East China Sea, others don't know, General Zheng must know. Since General Zheng presided over the situation in the East China Sea, it was really peaceful, where there would be a sudden accident, so this time our Xinxiang Fishery Political Bureau did not send ships to escort, but encountered a group on the way, naturally they formed a formation, you see, we Huaqing such a big warship, used to bombard enemy ships is a serious matter, escort will inevitably kill chickens with a knife, not I Xu Sanduo boasted, or Shi and Zheng's two masters' ships, can not carry a few cannons ......of Huaqing."

Listening to his chatter, Shi Fu and Zheng Cai's foreheads were both bruised.

The backer of the Zheng family is Prime Minister Xiong Wencan, and Xiong Wencan and Nanhai Bo are not on good terms, and the Zheng family already knows about it, which is also one of the reasons why the Zheng family and Xinxiang are estranged and vigilant.

Fang Cai Xu Zhong's words, which seemed to be nagging, actually completely exposed their intentions of preparing to secretly attack the Penglai this time, and there was also a threat hidden in the words, if something went wrong with Xinxiang's ship on this waterway in the future, then it must be Zheng Zhilong's doing, and what the Zheng family had to face was the revenge of Xinxiang, the cannon on the Huaqing.

It was clearly a threat, but they couldn't refute it yet.

"This, what's the accident at sea...... It's going to happen. Shi Lang next to him felt that something was wrong, he was still young after all, and his face flushed for a while before he could hold back such a sentence.

"Yes, at sea...... Anything unexpected can happen. This time, Xu Zhong's words were short.

It's just that when Xu Zhong spoke, he still looked at Huaqing, and it was obvious that Xu Zhong meant that Huaqing could also create some accidents.

Compared with Yu Guozhen, who has a large base, especially Yu Guozhen, who has the ability to trade directly with Europeans from Hoi An, this northbound route does not hurt the fundamentals, on the contrary, the Zheng family, who only has a route to the Japanese state, if there is any accident on this route, it will be too troublesome.

Shi Fu and Zheng Cai were really speechless, because until now, they still couldn't figure out whether the sudden appearance of the Huaqing formation to escort the escort was a coincidence or Xinxiang's intentional arrangement. If it is a coincidence, it can only be said that Xinxiang is lucky, if it is deliberately arranged, it means that there is an internal annihilation in the upper echelons of the Zheng family's forces, and their operation is leaked to Yu Guozhen!

The two of them were still speculating about another thing in their hearts, if Yu Guozhen got the news, why didn't he take the opportunity to start a war with the Zheng family?

Although when it comes to the number of warships and the number of naval soldiers, the Zheng family is still far superior to Xinxiang, but the advantage of the Zheng family is not too great, and when the two sides fight, Yu Guozhen can completely drag down the advantage of the Zheng family little by little by cutting off the route from the Zheng family to the Japanese state.

Thinking about it, the only reason is that Yu Guozhen is unwilling to fight a protracted war of attrition for some reason.

They don't know that Yu Guozhen has two other reasons, one is that he can develop his maritime power freely now, a big reason is that the Zheng family is in front of the boots, and some people in the court may still think that the Zheng family can balance Yu Guozhen, so the Zheng family should not move for the time being; The second is that Yu Guozhen can't spare his hands, he still has more than 100,000 people on Tamluo Island who have not been transported, and according to his understanding of the history of the Ming Dynasty, in the later period of Chongzhen, the people in the east and north of the mountain were displaced countless people, and he also needed to transport a large number of people from the north in the future.

Even if the Zheng family temporarily helped him raise a group of sailors.

Shi and Zheng could only send Xu Zhong away, and the people on the Penglai also saw the envoys on both sides of the ship, but no one knew how many swords and swords were hidden in the nagging of the envoys.

The next few days of sailing were extremely normal, and the ship anchored at the Wen' Prefecture to replenish supplies, and then continued southward. Whether it is downwind or not, the impact on this fleet is not very great, which makes the Zheng family boat who followed the "escort" feel a big headache, because the difference in sails and ship types between the two sides makes them try their best to keep up, so outside Wen'zhou, they have to send a messenger to see Luo Jiuhe, only to say that there is still something else to do, and they can only leave temporarily.

On the 30th day of July, 14 days after leaving Jinling, they arrived at the capital of Fuzhou.

(To be continued)