Chapter 938 The fleet goes south and moves inward

The night is like a curtain, shrouding the sky, the bright moon hangs in the sky, the stars in the sky twinkle a little light, and the silver-white moonlight sprinkles on the sea, sparkling waves.

Under the night wind, the waves crashed against the shore one after another, and in the darkness under the moon, suddenly a black shadow broke through the dark curtain, revealing its hideous body, and the hard bow of the ship split the angry waves, like a large sea beast in this night.

The limited lights on the warship were lit as a signal to prevent any ships in the fleet from leaving the fleet, but this large fleet was the sixth and seventh land and water divisions in the Xuanwu Legion, which were led by Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou respectively.

Qi Jiguang came to Hangzhou Mansion in advance to prepare for the arrival of the fleet, and then, after the two divisions handed over the defense area, they packed up their belongings and entered the East China Sea along the Tianhe River, and then turned the bow of the ship and headed south to Hangzhou Bay.

Although nominally this is only the protectorate of the Great Chu Kingdom, a large number of people have joined the Great Chu household registration, and as time goes by, this number will become more and more, as the empire rules locally, it is almost in name only.

However, although Yangzhou is fixed, but the sea off Yangzhou is unstable, the Penglai Islands off the coast of Suzhou Prefecture have now been stationed in a large number of pirates, thousands of warships, this news is still Leng Zhuo decided to form the Great Chu Navy, let Zheng Chenggong's giant whale ghost go to investigate.

The Penglai Islands are located offshore, which is the sea barrier of Yangzhou Qingzhou, and has always been used as a naval base in the south of the empire, but it was occupied by the Japanese a few years ago, and the internal strife within the empire is endless.

If you want to solve the trouble of the Japanese raiding the coast, the Penglai Islands are the place that you can't help but face, the Japanese people can attack the Yangzhou coast unscrupulously with the supply of the Penglai Islands, and if you recapture here, the Japanese people lose this foothold, and it becomes much more difficult to attack the coastline, at least within a radius of 500 nautical miles, there is no more suitable island than the Penglai Islands.

However, Zheng Chenggong's discovery cast a shadow on the Great Chu who had just occupied Yangzhou, and the Qinglong Legion under Zhou Yu had begun to move to the coastal counties to guard against the attack of the Japanese people, and Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou's troops stationed in Hangzhou Bay originally planned to build a naval base, but now they are also shouldering the heavy responsibility of guarding Hangzhou Bay.

However, the two marine and land divisions moved to Hangzhou Bay, but they had to pass through the waters between Haizhou and Penglai Islands, and if they traveled during the day, they were likely to provoke Japanese warships to intercept them, and the number of warships and the ability to fight at sea were obviously very lacking in the two divisions.

"The situation is not optimistic, but the information sent back today, the Japanese have more than 300 warships to transport a large number of soldiers to the Penglai Islands, as far as we have found out the situation, there are at least 3,000 naval warships on the Penglai Islands, and there are no less than 10,000 other small boats, in addition, the Japanese have successively transported a large number of soldiers and horses, and now there are no less than 200,000, this is going to be a big fight!"

Liu Renliang stroked his beard, with the help of the animal oil lamp, and on the map on the table, a few small flags were planted on the top of the Penglai Islands, and dozens of flags were densely planted there, and at the same time, on the coast of Yangzhou, there were also a lot of flags, but compared to the dense flags of the Penglai Islands, these flags representing the defense of the coast are sparse and pitiful.

"Brother Dongfang, remember that three years ago, you fought against this group of Japanese people on the sea off the coast of Yunzhou, you should be very familiar with the strength of this group of Japanese people in naval warfare, right?" Yu Dayou also had a heavy face, the coast of Yangzhou is too long, although the Qinglong Army has reached the full strength of the ten divisions after absorbing a large number of Taicang landlords' soldiers, but compared with the thousands of miles of coastal counties in Yangzhou, these soldiers and horses are still stretched.

Only this thousand days as a thief, how can there be a reason to guard against thieves for a thousand days, if you defend passively, this war against the Japanese will be protracted.

Dongfang Yulong, the leader of the younger generation of the Dongfang family, participated in the naval battle off the coast of Yunzhou three years ago, that battle caused the navy led by the Dongfang family to be almost wiped out because of the sudden Japanese fleet, and only a few people in the entire Dongfang family fought their way out of the encirclement, but Yunzhou Port was captured by the Qingzhou naval army ambushed by Situ Hao, and it can be said that the reputation of the Dongfang family was ruined.

"My Oriental family has dealt with the Japanese people not once or twice, a hundred years ago, the Eastern Expedition to the Japanese Island, that is, led by my Oriental family, the Japanese Island is composed of a series of archipelagos, because it is surrounded by the sea, so the Japanese are especially good at naval warfare!"

"But the naval battle three years ago can be said to be a disgrace to the empire, my Dongfang's fleet is not this rotten navy in the south, although because of the peace for too long, the fleet has little experience in naval warfare, but in the face of the Japanese navy, it still surprised us!"

"In the family account of my Oriental family, my ancestor once wrote that Wajima is surrounded by the sea on all sides, and most of the people live by the sea, so it is a natural navy, but the culture of Wajima is far behind the mainland, and it still maintains the Tang style, and even the warships are mostly influenced by the Tang Dynasty, and in some technologies are far inferior to the empire, and in the battle to conquer Wajima, our imperial navy almost destroyed the navy of the Wa people and dismembered the Wa country at that time with its strong strength!"

"But who would have thought that in less than a hundred years, the thirteen-masted giant sea ship that is rare in our imperial navy actually has several in the Japanese fleet, and even the Japanese warships are not inferior to our imperial warships in terms of speed, flexibility, and sturdiness, and even surpass them in some aspects!"

"In that naval battle, we became the weak side, although my uncle led the fleet to fight stubbornly, but in the end we could not escape the fate of defeat, and the Japanese fleet also paid a heavy price, but compared to the Japanese people, we have fallen behind!"

"In the past, our pride has now become a sharp weapon in the hands of the Japanese people, and it is ridiculous that the empire has been sparing no effort to weaken the navy, believing that there is no threat at sea!"

"It seems that we are going to be in trouble, the Japanese obviously have a stronger shipbuilding capacity than we are now, General Qi's side has gathered shipwrights everywhere in the past two months, only to know that the Japanese have plundered in the past few years, but most of the shipwrights and shipwrights along the coast have been plundered, and those experienced old shipwrights have died because of this plague, although we have also found some seagoing ship construction drawings, but we are too far behind compared to the Japanese people!"

"It seems that we will be beaten passively for a long time in the future! Hangzhou Bay, this sea area deep inland, is particularly important, we must defend this place, in order to use this place, to build our navy, which can always defeat the Japanese fleet. ”

"This is really not easy, the Japanese have stationed a large number of warships, soldiers and horses in the Penglai Islands, it is estimated that it will not be long before there will be a large-scale landing operation, and the Japanese will not give us a stable development time!"

"Don't be so pessimistic, although we do not have any advantage in the face of the Japanese people, but if the Japanese land, who wins and who loses, after all, the Japanese people come from an expedition, do they have to rely on moving the Japanese island to transport all kinds of materials, can they toss up!"

"So they can only rely on plundering us to achieve the purpose of fighting to feed the war, the coastal area, has issued an internal relocation order, except for the area of Hangzhou Bay, other coastal residents in other places have moved inward, the implementation of the scorched earth policy, and at the same time there are beacon piers built everywhere, where there are Japanese attackers, it will light the beacon fire to warn!"

"And along this line, a number of war zones have been divided, and the various departments of the Blue Dragon Legion are stationed in some big cities and towns, nailed to the place like nails, and in the rear, the Suzaku Legion has also had divisions that have been stationed in Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Fuzhou, and the rear places can reinforce the front at any time!"

"As long as we can hold on to this year and survive until next year, the offensive momentum of the Japanese will be frustrated after all, and if we can't get the slightest benefit, it will be difficult for the Japanese people to hold on to the attrition of hundreds of thousands of troops fighting outside!"

Liu Renliang obviously has great confidence in defeating the Japanese people, the Japanese island is just an overseas island, how strong can it be, a hundred years ago, the expedition to the Japanese island, the empire can support the great war with the power of Kyushu, and the Japanese can hold out for half a year?

On the coastline of Yangzhou, the Qinglong Legion has set up a posture, as for the internal relocation order, the relocation of a large number of coastal people to the interior, Leng Zhuo is not afraid of what impact it will cause.

Because Yangzhou Mansion and Taicang Mansion need a large number of people to fill in, because most of the land of the landlords in Taicang has been owned by the officials of the Great Chu Kingdom, there is a large area of land here that needs to be planted.

The land of Taicang, that is the most fertile paddy field, in Yangzhou, this inch of land, that is something that money can't buy, now can allocate some acres, how can anyone be unwilling, and in many places, there is an urgent need for a lot of labor to restore the place, which not only needs tens of millions of people, but dozens, millions of people.

For example, Yancheng, which was directly destroyed by the forbidden spell, has now been opened out of a canal, although it is not far from the mouth of Taihu Lake, but the value is still not small, if the city is built along this canal, it will become the lower reaches of the Tianhe River, the largest river port.

Just to rebuild Yancheng, it takes hundreds of thousands of labor, Yangzhou City was destroyed by fire in many places, and it also needs to be repaired, and there are more villages and towns in the place, the city needs to be repaired, and young and strong labor is needed almost everywhere, Chuzhou, Yangzhou was originally a populous state, but at the moment there are also some manpower shortages.

A large amount of gold and silver was scavenged from Yangzhou, which can be used as a guarantee for issuing more Ping An gold and silver tickets, and with the thriving situation of the Great Chu Kingdom, the credit problem is almost not a problem, it can be said that the Ping An gold and silver tickets are unusually strong, and even some semicolons have been opened to Qingzhou and are widely circulated.

And the reason why Liu Renliang and others are so firm and believe that the Japanese people will be defeated, but they have been affirmed by Leng Zhuo, and they will spare no effort to invest in the navy in the future, and ask for money to give money to people.

The navy is a bottomless pit, and they can't afford to play without money, but the worst thing Leng Zhuo is money now, and if he smashes it, he will smash a navy out, Leng Zhuo has such courage, and they are naturally full of confidence.

! #