In 1626, the inertia of history continued, and the Thirty Years' War in Europe ushered in a more complex stage, and the biggest variable was probably France.

As the initiator behind the second phase of the Thirty Years' War, France, under the careful planning of Cardinal Richelieu, the old fox prime minister, has always played the role of a flattering image of not working.

Except for occasional border skirmishes, tens of thousands of French troops did not really fight Spain, but dragged a group of younger brothers to choke a number of passes in the Alps in the north of the Italian peninsula, so that the Spanish Apennine Legion, which owned most of the territory of the Italian peninsula in the 17th century, was unable to go north to reinforce the Holy Roman Empire.

The focus of the few military clashes between the two sides was on the Valtellina region, which bordered the northeastern border of Switzerland and the northern border of the Italian province of Lombarda, in a fertile river valley in the Alps. The French had always wanted to use the war to take control of Valtellina from the Spaniards, and the Kingdom of Spain had always used it as a base for advancing northward.

Just when the French thought they were holding on to the Kingdom of Spain and were waiting to pick the fruit, the religious conflict in the south of the country, which had already controlled the situation, suddenly took a big turn, and a civil war that was even larger than a few years ago quickly heated up. At the beginning of 1626, the Protestant Huguenots in southern France, following a riot in the previous year, once again launched a larger-scale military rebellion to resist the increasing discrimination and persecution of Protestants by the French crown since the issuance of the Nantes Amnesty.

Thousands of Protestant rebels occupied the port of Rochelle on the southwest coast of France, and quickly routed several French royal Catholic armies that came to quell the rebellion.

In desperation, French Prime Minister Richelieu could only transfer back the main French army from northern Italy to participate in the domestic counterinsurgency. For this reason, he did not hesitate to ask Pope Urban VIII to intercede. Peace with the Kingdom of Spain. Announced withdrawal from the second phase of the war.

As a Catholic country, it was naturally a good consultation between brothers, and the historical "Peace of Monzon" was thus promulgated. France gave up Valtellina's claim to sovereignty with hatred, and the Swiss, who had been trying to become independent, was drawn by France and withdrew from Valtellina in disgrace. Returning to the glorious and neutral traditional path of providing high-quality cannon fodder for both sides of the war, the Kingdom of Spain was also greatly relieved.

But what Richelieu didn't know was that his difficult decision not only prolonged the Thirty Years' War for many years. It also hurt England, which had reached a military alliance with France despite its religious antagonism, and "felt that it would not love anymore".

The rapid changes in the war situation and the diplomatic situation annoyed the royalist faction in the Kingdom of England, led by Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. But now that the Kingdom of Denmark is in a fierce war between Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, in order not to let the early investment fail, the English royal family has to grit its teeth and continue to send large sums of money to Denmark.

The conflict between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians in China has intensified because of an attempted assassination of Villiers last year, with many low-level radicals of the Parliamentary Party being arrested, and even a large number of sympathizers being exiled under the pretext of "potential terrorists" and sent to the mines of China and the United States to do perfunctory work. It's at this stall. Once again, the strategic idiot Villiers had the whims to plot a war to intervene in the Protestant civil strife in France from the sea. Prepare to send the English Navy to support the French Protestants in Port Rochelle. Villiers planned to use the French Protestant rebellion to teach the treacherous French a good lesson, and by the way, to save some face for the Kingdom of England, which had been repeatedly defeated in foreign wars in recent years.

……

Wednesday, May 13, 1626, 100 nautical miles east of Long Island off the east coast of North America.

On the wind-blown sea, the sail training ship Enterprise is riding the wind and waves at a high speed of 17 knots, the snow-white sails are bulging and trembling like the belly of a pregnant woman before giving birth, and groups of Chinese Navy sea training cadets are doing many practical subjects under the guidance of instructors.

The hollow bow of the flying shear cleaves the waves at high speed, pitching rhythmically, and the howling sea breeze makes everyone on deck feel like they will be thrown out at any moment. Looking around, the fear and loneliness of the empty sea quickly amplify the sense of loneliness that people feel away from land. Under the combination of the harsh subjective artistic conception and the objective environment, the cruelty that longs to vent and the despair and self-isolation of the subconscious are probably the spiritual and character portrayal of every sea drifter in the Age of Sail and Discovery.

At this time, the identity of the cadets is no longer that of a baby on the shore, but a soldier who may be ready to fight at any time. The instructors of the Enterprise training ship led by Zhang Chunrui, the director of naval training, just lined up some of the most basic maritime operations, which made these children who only had book knowledge tired half to death.

Since the trainees on the ship were divided into two sets of training teams and rotated for training, Yan Xianping and other girls who were in the stern gun crew were huddled in the cabin at this time to "stand by and rest".

The frequency of the battleship sailing at full speed with the wind made the other four girls except for Tang Hannah pale. Yan Xianping still boasted that she had often sailed with her father Yan Siqi by boat, but now, she was holding a basin, her face was blue, and she was about to vomit bile.

"Hannah, I'm not in the Navy anymore...... Don't ......" A girl holding her chest and spitting up, with tears on her haggard face.

"Spend a few more days at sea, and I'm used to everything. This is not small, if you encounter strong winds and waves, you will feel that you don't even belong to your body. As Tang Hannah, who had experienced strong winds and waves at a young age before the crossing, she comforted her classmates nonchalantly, while secretly looking at Yan Xianping, who was silent and vomited.

"Hannah, why don't you ask the instructor, when are we going to go ashore?" Another girl shrunk on the bed and shook her hands weakly, "I can't sleep well if I shake and shake like this." ”

"It's only been a week to go to sea, and it seems that according to the sea training arrangement, it will be a few days before we can change the place and go to Qingcheng to stop and replenish." Flipping through the training manual in his hand, Tang Hannah's eyes flashed with excitement, "Rest there for two days." Then do artillery training in Qingcheng Bay. Hey. We also have a chance to fire! ”

"I don't want ...... It must be scared to death, we are logistics professionals, okay! The third girl opened the hatch and squeezed into the hallway with a frightened expression on her face. Not much. Except for Tang Hannah and Yan Xianping, the other 3 girls all left the cabin one after another, and it seems that this closed cabin is more likely to make people lose their sense of direction and aggravate the symptoms of seasickness.

Looking at the empty cabin after the "mourning is all over the wilderness", Tang Hannah slowly showed a disappointed expression. I can only lie on the bed alone and carefully turn over the study materials.

"Sister Hannah, why did you want to join the Navy?" Yan Xianping vomited enough, finally wiped the corners of his mouth, leaned weakly on the side of Tang Hannah's bed, and muttered weakly.

"I love the waves, I love the sea breeze, I love the smell of the sea." Tang Hannah let go of the book, stared at Yan Xianping's eyes and said word by word, "What about you?" Does it feel any different from the Ming Dynasty Navy? ”

"I don't know...... I miss my mother...... Miss my daddy...... I want to ...... Ming" A tear appeared in the corner of Yan Xianping's eyes. Crying, she buried her head in Don Hannah's military uniform and clutched at the sheets with both hands.

Hear the words "Daddy" and "Mother". Tang Hannah was stunned for a long time, and it took a long time before she pulled up the sheet on the bed, covering Yan Xianping's body, and at the same time covering her face, so that people couldn't see her expression at the moment.

"Alright, girls, get ready, it's time to go to deck! Broadside Combat Lessons! ”

The cabin door was opened, and Lieutenant Katerina, with a saber and revolver hanging from her waist, stood heroically in the doorway, breaking the dull atmosphere of the cabin. Tang Hannah and Yan Xianping hurriedly jumped out of bed and began to arrange their military uniforms, and after a while, the other three girls who ran out to breathe in the wind also returned to the cabin with aggrieved expressions.

……

On the undulating deck, Tang Hannah and Yan Xianping were carrying sailor knives, but they fell down, weak, and the male cadets around them couldn't help laughing. Then the broadside battle instructor, Lieutenant Katarina, made a dozen N in an extremely dashing manner, and threw a young male cadet who thought he was in the prime of life......

In the midst of strong winds and waves, groups of naval cadets desperately pulled the cables to prevent damage to the mast or sail under the scolding of the instructor. A few delicate girls who were firmly tied to the gun position were even soaking wet and lying on the ship's guns, tortured by the wind and waves to almost unconscious......

In Qingcheng Bay, the girls wore thick earmuffs, but they still couldn't stop the rumbling cannon sound from penetrating the eardrum. The inflated muzzle flame, the huge sound waves, the girl who was holding the training warhead and the cartridge responsible for loading the ammunition was so frightened that she screamed again and again, her face was discolored, and Yan Xianping, as the gunner, trembled slightly......

In the leakage operation of simulated bilge water ingress, both male and female students soaked in waist-high seawater, struggling to shake the manual water pump, and competing with the "Grim Reaper of Friendship" for every minute and second......

On a calm night, the battleship slowly floated on the sea covered with the shadow of the moon, like a galloping horse walking leisurely. Cadets sit in piles on deck, some listening to music on the radio, some silently drinking low-alcohol cider from rations, others playing classical six-stringed guitars, and everyone is trying to learn to relieve the pressure on their hearts......

……

The USS Enterprise reappeared on the turquoise waters of Manchester Bay, and the Inner Bay Fortress fired a salute to the returning naval warships as usual, and on the deck of the Enterprise, rows of naval cadets saluted the officers and men stationed at the Inner Bay Fortress in a neat procession.

The more than 20-day training at sea finally ended at the end of May, and for the naval cadets who were on board for the first time to practice, this kind of training was only a "superficial" experience, and it was still far from the navigation operations that the navy would face in real combat duty. But even then, it made a big impression on everyone. Those who are still unfinished do not exclude those who resist fear and are discouraged.

Yan Xianping, who stepped on the shore again, couldn't help but look back in the direction of the military port on the way back to the academy. Under the barrier of the port building, only a little hazy shadow of the mast was left in the sight of the Enterprise at this time, and like most male students, a reluctant expression appeared on Yan Xianping's face.

At this time, in the far east, the heart of the Ming Empire, Beijing City, a catastrophe left to future generations with "endless reverie" suddenly burst out.

On Saturday, May 30, 1626, on the sixth day of the fifth month of the sixth year of the Ming Empire's Apocalypse, an earth-shattering explosion occurred in a street in the southwest corner of Beijing. The vigorous power of thousands of tons of black powder swept across the sky, and in an instant, the sky was full of earthquakes, smoke and dust obscured the sun, and the flames soared into the sky, and tens of thousands of surrounding houses collapsed and damaged, and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed and injured.

"History of the Ming Dynasty" contains: "In May of the sixth year of the Apocalypse, Wang Gongchang disaster, the thunderclap in the ground was endless, the gunpowder self-immolation, the smoke and dust obstructed the sky, the day was obscure, and it was four or five miles."

"Ming Ji Beiluo" contains: "The earthquake sound is from Hexi in the south, to Tongzhou in the east, to Miyun and Changping in the north, and the changes are the same, the houses in the city are all cracked, the whole country is running wildly, and the elephant house is collapsing and the elephant is escaping. Looking at the clouds from afar, like a messy silk, like a five-colored person, like a black Ganoderma lucidum, rising to the sky, dispersed over time. ”

"The Scenery of Dijing" contains: "Four miles, thirteen miles wide, the earth collapses, wood, stone, people and birds, rain from the sky."

Such a tragic scene of the Big Bang disaster is comparable to the blockbuster shots of Hollywood in later generations. And the exaggerated and bizarre writing methods in various history books have made future generations can't help but add branches and leaves to put on more mysterious coats.

In view of the fact that the writing of "one shot erodes several miles" is endlessly in the pen of scholars, and is filled with almost all literary books from official history to wild history, we have reason to be conservative about many bizarre records and inferences, but it is undeniable that this explosion did break a tooth of the Ming Empire.

In the context of the classic party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty, such an earth-shattering explosion case will definitely be used by the bureaucrats like previous natural disasters, and the Emperor of the Apocalypse, who is at the center of the whirlpool of party struggle, has naturally become the biggest "victim" of the incident.

In the eyes of the ministers, the emperor's virtue was lacking, and natural disasters fell from heaven. Whatever the cause of the explosion at Wang Gongchang, it "should" and "inevitably" be "paid" by the emperor. This kind of atmosphere is the inevitability of the struggle of the central government in the late Ming Dynasty, and the exaggerated expression of the explosion of Wang Gongchang as much as possible has become the best way to "crusade" against the emperor from the side, which is the most classic theme of "political packaging" in the history of the late Ming Dynasty, and also opened the prelude to the more intense political and military turmoil in the last eighteen years of the Ming Dynasty.

The rumbling loud sound started from the heart of the Ming Empire, and layers of invisible ripples spread out, sending out a heavy cry like the dying of the Ming Empire and the Chinese people, calling for the redemption of history.

(End of Volume III) (To be continued.) )