Although the Donglin Party and the local forces in the southeast were prepared, they did not expect that the nobles and eunuchs behind Zhu Daolin would react so strongly, be so bold, and use such ruthless methods, coupled with the delay in communication and the panic caused by the assassin's arrest, they did not send the message to the capital in time to defend themselves, causing heavy losses in the officialdom.

What's even worse is that the Navy Division, the Five Cities Soldiers and Horses, and the Jinyi Guard's swift martial law set up a search card for three consecutive days, dealing a huge blow to the transportation lines and commercial markets controlled by local forces in the southeast.

In just three days, 12 ships of 3,700 stone of illicit salt were seized, most of the convoys, grooms, boatmen, and escorts were arrested, and more than 40 ships of sulfur, spices, tin ingots, precious timber, swords, and other commodities imported from the East and South Seas were confiscated by the East Factory under Wu Jingxian's command because they did not have tax payment certificates from the City Shipping Division.

The total number of shopkeepers, men, escorts, and boatmen who were detained and detained by the major families was as high as 2,300.

Among them, the shopkeepers of the two major families of Ningbo and Hangzhou quietly brought to Nanjing 12 widows and more than 70 young widows, were arrested and imprisoned by Jinyiwei.

Under the torture of Jinyiwei, several shopkeepers of the family confessed that the two families had been smuggling at sea for many years, paying money to buy bandits to harm business opponents, bullying men and women, and other illegal activities in the country.

On the morning of the next day, when it rained heavily in the gloomy sky, two 500-ton Galen ships purchased from the Portuguese Far East Chamber of Commerce loaded 120 large and small artillery pieces for the emperor, 1,000 pairs of rubber-soled leather boots from the Zizhuyuan shoemaking workshop, 500 sturdy and wide two-wheeled carriages, two splendid four-wheeled luxury carriages specially made for the emperor, and 2,000 horses of three-foot wide dyed cotton cloth woven by new looms, slowly sailed away from Shangyuan Wharf under the escort of two warships of the Jiangnan Naval Division. Started the first voyage from Shangyuan Port to Tianjin Port.

Wu Jingxian and Xu Hongji stood side by side on the dock to see them off, and did not retract their eyes until the fleet disappeared at the end of the Mengmeng River in the distance. ”

Zhu Daolin comforted again: "They can drive a sea ship from thousands of miles away to the West to cut the waves and come to Guangzhou Port. How can the East China Sea and the Bohai Sea be difficult to find them? ”

"What's more, the two 500-ton sea ships are more stable than the warships, and the new steering wheel system is installed to be easier to control, Brother Wen Tao with 450 fully armed sailors and veterans distributed on the two large ships, I also gave him a hand-drawn coastal shipping map, two short-barreled flintlock pistols, 100 long-barreled flintlock pistols and a pair of binoculars, and spent a day and a half teaching him how to use a sextant and a compass, if this is not possible to reach Tianjin Port safely. Don't come back at all. ”

Xu Hongji was happy, he didn't know what a sextant was, and he wasn't interested in nautical charts, only blushing at telescopes, compasses, and flintlock pistols:

"Daolin, can you help me bring back a few binoculars and compasses next time? There is also a long-barreled flintlock pistol, which is much stronger than the three-eyed firearm made by my Da Ming, and can penetrate an inch-thick plank from 50 paces, and I guess the best Sanwen armor can't stop it. ”

"Didn't you give each of you Lao and Xin Chengbo 100 Captain Franco's flintlock pistols? What about the telescope that was sent to you? Zhu Daolin asked deliberately.

Xu Hongji shook his head again and again: "How can 100 flintlock pistols be enough?" Only two new 300-ton ships can be equipped with soldiers, as for the pair of telescopes. Hey! You ask your uncle, is he reluctant to take it out? ”

Wu Jingxian smiled embarrassedly: "It's really reluctant!" Our family originally wanted to give it to the saint, but we were worried that the saint would be confused by the Chinese martial arts of the dynasty one day, and instead gave it to Xuanda or Liaodong's group of useless things, so they hid it. ”

Zhu Daolin couldn't help but smile: "Okay, next time I'll buy some and give them to you...... There aren't many telescopes, at most you can get a few, and if you have more, you have to spend a lot of money to book in advance. It will not be delivered until half a year later, and the compass is fine. It's easy to buy a few dozen taels of silver, but a flintlock pistol is expensive......"

"The flintlock pistols made by Tianshu Pavilion are much easier to use than the Franc Machine, and the material is tougher, I tried it once, and I gritted my teeth and ordered 3,000 pieces of what to shoot within 100 steps. It cost me 41,000 taels of gold, plus 200 custom cast steel guns with steel wheels, and another 73,000 taels of gold, adding up to almost 114,000 taels of gold, and it hurts me to think about it! ”

Xu Hongji and Wu Jingxian were all taken aback. That's a huge amount of money in the millions!

No wonder Zhu Daolin dared to boast that he had easily defeated twice as many cavalry as himself with an all-firearms army of more than 4,000 people.

Xu Hongji's mind spun quickly, and he calculated that the flintlock pistols of Tianshu Pavilion were as high as more than 130 taels of silver each, which was nothing compared to the long-barreled flintlock pistols of 80-120 taels of silver each, but the steel-cast artillery was too expensive, what kind of cannon was this? Originally, he wanted to ask for half of the 94 large and small artillery pieces intercepted by Zhu Daolin this time, but after listening to Zhu Daolin's words, he was embarrassed to speak.

Zhu Daolin pretended not to see it, and continued to talk to Wu Jingxian: "Don't worry, most of the wind is blowing now, and the fleet goes fast with the wind, even if there are wind and waves, it is not a big deal, and after the Jiaodong Peninsula, you don't have to be afraid of wind and waves......"

"Bohai Bay is very comfortable to sail this season, but I'm worried that a few fathers-in-law in the capital can't buy so many horses, I have to explain to Brother Wen Tao, it's really not good to buy a batch of mules back, and it's good to bring back a cart and pull a cannon."

Wu Jingxian is not worried about buying horses: "You haven't been to the capital, you don't know that in addition to the border horse market, there are many places where you can buy good horses. Mongolian war horses can help you buy them! Maybe Gonggong Cao can get a few good horses for you from the Imperial Horse Supervisor this time, even if the Imperial Horse Supervisor doesn't have it, he can help you bring a few thousands of miles back from those noble horse pens in the capital. ”

Xu Hongji saw Zhu Daolin's puzzled look, nodded and explained: "That's right, we are like this tomorrow, when the army has no good horses, those big families and those big businessmen who specialize in mule and horse business are not short of good horses at any time, they would rather use good war carts than sell them to the army, the further north this situation is, no one can do anything!" ”

"As long as the garrisons in various places dare to forcibly buy horses from merchants or large families, they will immediately be reprimanded by the imperial history and civil officials in various places, and it is still light to come directly to the door to find out and hit the board, alas!"

Zhu Daolin had seen some similar records from the history books, but he did not expect that the status of the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty was so low, and the reality was even more cruel than the records in the history books.

Originally, Zhu Daolin wondered if half a year later, he would lead 12,000 officers and soldiers who had completed training and equipped with flintlock pistols and field artillery to fight a battle inside and outside the Great Wall, but after listening to Xu Hongji's words, Zhu Daolin was no longer interested. (To be continued......)