"Father, you see, this is Bailuoji, located on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and more than 20 miles on the west bank of Honghu Lake. The son has ordered Shijue to build a fortress in Bailuoji and set up dozens of red-coated cannons and red-coated cannons to block the passage of the river and land attacks, in order to be foolproof! ”

This is Chengling Rock, on the south bank of the Yangtze River, is a three-forked mouth, the Yangtze River and Dongting Lake meet here, here is not only the gateway of Jingzhou, but also the gateway of Hunan, or the gateway of Baling, the capital county of Yuezhou, is absolutely not lost! So his son asked Wei Wanchu to lead his elite guards to guard Chenglingji, and also expanded the castle in Chenglingji, and also deployed dozens of red-coated cannons and red-coated cannons. ”

The person who was looking inward in the Pingxi Palace, pointing to a map hanging on a screen, and reporting to Wu Sangui the deployment of the Yuezhou Mansion that had been assigned to the Wu family was Wu Sangui's adopted son, General Jin Wuwei, and Wu Guogui, the governor of Hunan.

Now the exchange of land between Wu and Li on the Huguang side has been completed under the auspices of Li Fuchen, an enthusiastic person who is good at resolving the fighting, and the Yuezhou Mansion, which controls the entrance to the Jingjiang River and Dongting Lake, has become Wu Guogui's defense area.

In order to concentrate on passing through Shaanxi and the Central Plains, Wu Sangui assigned a section of the riverbank area on the north bank of the Yangtze River belonging to Jingzhou Prefecture to Yuezhou Prefecture, so that Wu Guogui could fortify on both sides of the Yangtze River, completely jam the Yangtze River waterway, and cut off Li Zicheng's westward journey.

And Wu Guogui's actions were also very fast, but in just a month or two, he had already turned the Bailuoji fortress in Jiangbei into a fortress, and at the same time strengthened the defense of Chenglingji in Jiangnan.

"Well, the soldiers at the beginning of the end were all left to him by Qi Sansheng, the most elite, and he will be foolproof if he guards the Chenglingji. But let's only defend and not attack. How's the sailor doing? When will you be able to compete with Li Zicheng, the traitorous Yangtze River sailor? ”

Wu Sangui obviously hasn't given up his plan to go down the river, but his naval army is really a little bit inadequate-Wu Sangui, a "thief collector", only accepted thieves and western thieves when collecting anti-thieves, and didn't pay attention to collecting pirates, and when he reached the Yangtze River Valley, he found that none of his subordinates were good at water warfare. What's more, Li Zicheng, who was supposed to be a landlubber from Shaanxi, has lived on the edge of the Yangtze River for a long time, and actually pulled up a decent Yangtze River water division.

Therefore, Wu Sangui also had to go down the steps given by Li Fuchen, so as not to be beaten by his sworn enemy Li Zicheng on the Yangtze River!

However, Wu Guogui still found a talent for Wu Sangui who really understood the navy, that is, Lin Xingzhu, who originally belonged to the pirate camp, and later jumped to the Qing Dynasty as a second minister, and was left in Hunan as a general.

This is a professional pirate, and he is also an amphibious, who can not only drive a boat to fight a water battle, but also lead a rattan soldier to fight a land battle.

So Wu Guogui handed over the heavy responsibility of running the Yangtze River Water Division to him!

However, running a naval division is not a land division, and although the "century-old navy" has an exaggerated element, it is inevitable that it will take a few years to run a "Jiang army".

Not to mention anything else, but shipbuilding is in a hurry. Li Zicheng had a ready-made Hankou shipbuilding industry to use, while Wu Guogui and Lin Xingzhu had great difficulties. Although Changsha and Yuezhou can build ships, they are still a lot worse than Hankou, which is surrounded by the world.

Wu Guogui shook his head: "Father-in-law, this naval army is difficult to train, and it is even more difficult to build warships. I can't wait. He had already ordered Lin Xingzhu to set up a naval battalion on Junshan Island in Dongting Lake, and also opened a naval shipyard in Changsha, and also hired a group of highly skilled shipwrights from Guangdong through Xiaosu's connections, preparing to build some gunboats that could go freely on the Yangtze River, Xiangjiang River, and Dongting Lake. However, in order to build a high-quality warship, it is necessary to use the best wood, which must be dried before it can be used. ”

The shipyard still has to be opened, the shipwright has to go to Guangdong to recruit, and the wood for shipbuilding has to be cut and dried

Wu Sangui also sighed, groaned, and asked again: "Do you understand the 'magic spear technique' of the living Lu Bu family and Xiao Su?" ”

"Understood." Wu Guogui nodded and said, "There is no magic spear technique at all, Li Zhongshan invented a special 'Zhongshan gun', and with a rifled gun, it can shoot long-range, there is no problem with two or three hundred steps, and the loading is also very fast." ”

"What is Zhongshan Gunzier? What is a rifled gun called? Wu Sangui frowned, "Can we make it ourselves?" ”

"Yes!" Wu Guogui said, "Xiao Sutuo sent me a sample, and I will have someone send it to you to see when I go back." Also, I've asked the gunsmiths below, and they can all be crafted, but"

"But what?"

"It's slow to build, though!" Wu Guogui said, "It is slow to make guns, and a barrel has to be tossed for more than half a month, and then it is necessary to cut rifling on the inner wall of the iron pipe, which is even greater.

In addition, the rifling of this rifled gun will be smoothed, and after smoothing, it will be the same as a smoothbore gun. It's so easy to use and hard to make, and it's too expensive! Let Xiao Su calculate, the cost of training and equipping a flintlock rifled spearman can cast a small red cannon that fires six catties of cannonballs! ”

It is precisely because the flintlock rifled gun is easy to use, but it is difficult to make and more expensive, that Li Zhongshan asked Wu Xiaosu to send Wu Guogui samples of rifled guns and Minne bullets - rifled guns are compared to the scale of metallurgy and forging handicrafts!

The craftsmanship of rubbing rifled guns is not difficult to say, and the craftsmen of Kangxi's Yangxin Palace Manufacturing Office in history can rub it out (there are definitely no Migne bullets), and they can be seen in museums in later generations, or arquebus rifled guns. But this thing can't rub a few pieces a year, it's enough to play with Kangxi as a white rabbit, don't expect to equip the troops.

And to rub out enough rifled guns to equip the army, only Foshan town in the whole of China today has such capacity.

Therefore, Li Zhongshan was not afraid of the technology of rifled guns and Minne bullets spreading out at all, and he was not even worried that Wu Sangui and Wu Guogui would quietly buy a batch of rifled guns from Foshan Town to equip the troops.

Because this hand-rubbed rifled gun is really very expensive, the price of a flintlock smoothbore gun produced in Foshan Town to the Yamen of the Guangdong Navy will cost five taels of silver, and the price of a flintlock rifled gun will have to be doubled on this basis, that is, ten taels of silver!

If outsiders want to buy from Foshan Town, they need the approval of Dai Zi, the chief quartermaster of the Guangdong Navy, to go through legal channels, and the price will at least quadruple through illegal channels. That's thirty taels! This price makes Zheng Jing can afford to buy a lot, but where did Wu Sangui get so much money?

And to train a qualified rifled gunner, at least a brand new rifled gun must be scrapped!

For the Guangdong Navy, the cost of training front-line rifled gunners, including guns, gunpowder and bullets, is at least twenty taels of silver!

In addition, after completing the training, they had to be given a brand-new rifled gun, a certain amount of ammunition, helmets, cuirasses, bayonets, and other various equipment, and a "deputy chief" salary of five taels of silver a month (this is a preferential salary for veterans and technical troops), and an additional reward at the end of the year.

Therefore, the Guangdong Navy is so rich, and it still guards a Foshan town that can rub rifled guns by hand, and a total of 1,000 or hundreds of rifled spearmen have been trained, all of whom are like treasures.

Because Li Fuchen was Li Zhongshan's father, he also hired 300 rifled spearmen, and the rifled spearmen that Li Zhongshan brought to the Huaixi Army were also 300. Chen Yonghua and Lu Sanhao had a relatively strong relationship with Li Zhongshan, and each of them also engaged in one or two hundred rifled spearmen.

As for the other forces in China, there are no formed rifled spearmen at present. And when Wu Sangui heard that this rifled gun was really more expensive than a cannon, he was not interested in it for a while, wouldn't it be nice to have that spare money to engage in more artillery?

"This rifled gun is more expensive than a cannon, so what are you going to do here? Let's get more cannons, we didn't have enough horses in the past, and we can't use them if we cast cannons. Now that the second child has won Gansu, he can buy horses from the Western Regions, and he can finally get more artillery teams. ”

"Father is wise!" Wu Guogui said with a smile on his face, "As long as we get more cannons, we can blast open the city wall of Xi'an, take Xi'an, and my father's three-point world will be in hand, and there will be no need to be a courtier for the third prince of Zhu in the future!" ”

This is persuasion!

There are a lot of people who persuade Wu Sangui these days, and there are auspicious people at both ends in three days!

But Wu Sangui is quite modest, saying that his virtue seems to be a little lacking. Therefore, you can't be called emperor in a small place like Xiangyang or Jiangling, you have to occupy an ancient capital with a strong imperial atmosphere, and then you can become an emperor.

This ancient era with a strong imperial atmosphere seems to be Xi'an and Luoyang! And Xi'an's royal spirit is obviously stronger than Luoyang, Xi'an is not only the former capital of the Fourteenth Dynasty! Moreover, the Dashun Dynasty, which recently established its capital in Xi'an, was still destroyed because of Wu Sangui, and the royal spirit of this Dashun should have been transferred to Wu Sangui.

Therefore, Wu Sangui felt that he should ascend the throne in Xi'an, and the country name should be Zhou, so that it could last for a long time.

Wu Sangui stroked his beard, and was thinking about leading his troops to fight Xi'an after handing over the defense of Huguang to Wu Guogui, when he suddenly heard someone shouting in the distance: "King, king, great joy!" ”

"Congratulations to the king, congratulations to the king!"

"Congratulations to the king!"

Wu Sangui was stunned, because he heard that the voice seemed to be Liu Xuanchu, Fang Guangchen, and Wang Shirong, why did these three come to "congratulate and congratulate" today? Could it be that they have also discovered auspiciousness? But they've never done anything auspicious before, so now they want to open it?

In addition, Liu Xuanchu has been in Nanyang, why did he come to Xiangyang today? Could it be that this auspicious rui is in Nanyang?

Thinking of this, Wu Sangui turned around and walked a few more steps, sat on his throne, and then ordered the guards guarding the door: "Please come in!" ”

Not long after he finished speaking, he saw Liu Xuanchu, Fang Guangchen, and Wang Shirong coming in from outside the door together, but there was one more person, it was Wu Shifan. The four of them all looked like they had hit the luck, walked up to Wu Sangui together, bowed, and said in unison: "Congratulations to the king!" ”

"Flat, sit down. Shifan, are you here too? Sit down, too. Wu Sangui waved his hand, motioned for the three military advisors and his grandson Wu Shifan to sit down, and then said to Wu Guogui: "Third child, you can sit down too." ”

"Yes, Father."

Fang Guangchen, Wang Shirong, Liu Xuanchu and Wu Guogui all sat down, but Wu Shifan did not sit down, but took out an envelope and handed it to Wu Sangui with both hands: "Grandpa, look at this!" ”

"It's." Wu Sangui took the envelope and looked at it, and was also stunned, "Aixin Jueluo. Xuan Ye is this, Kangxi? ”

"Kangxi's handwritten letter!" Wu Shifan said, "It was sent to Nanyang by Kangxi's Hanlin attendant Li Guangdi, and the prince found some of Kangxi's excerpts and corrected the handwriting, which is indeed Kangxi's authentic handwriting!" ”

"What was written?" Wu Sangui stretched out his right hand while asking, and Wu Guogui quickly stood up and went to a desk on the side to find reading glasses for him.

"Grandpa, Kangxi said in the letter that there was a traitor in his country!"

"Huh?" Wu Sangui's eyes widened, a traitor? Do you mean me?

"Grandpa, don't get me wrong, the traitor Kangxi said this time is his brother Yuwang Fuquan, the one who forged Shunzhi's edict and named himself as the regent!"

"Oh, so the Manchus are going to kill each other?" Wu Sangui had already taken out the letter paper and looked at it carefully.

"Grandpa, you Shengming," Wu Shifan said with a smile, "Kangxi really can't bear Fuquan, and is ready to raise an army to fight against Fuquan, because he is afraid that we will take the opportunity to stab him in the back, so he wants to stabilize us first, so he proposed in the letter to follow Shi Jingjiao, to cede the land of Guanzhong to us, and to recognize my father as a father-in-law, in exchange for our reinforcements!" ”

"What, what? Think of your father as your father-in-law? Won't he become my grandson? Wu Sangui was taken aback, and hurriedly read the letter at a glance, "The letter didn't say that I wanted to recognize my father, but I just wanted to cut the land and hand it over, and borrow the help of the teacher." ”

"Father, it is estimated that this Kangxi really can't wipe his face and write it in black and white, right?" Wu Guogui also looked happy and smiled, and interjected, "But as long as we can get the land of Guanzhong, who cares about him as a little pockmark?" ”

"The third master is bad," Liu Xuanchu interjected, "It's not enough to just cut the land!" ”

Wu Sangui said with a smile: "Military advisor, the old man can't look down on this pock-faced Kangxi!" ”

"Lord Wang," Liu Xuanchu said, "It doesn't matter if Kangxi recognizes you as a grandfather or not. Shunzhi still called the foreign monk Tang Ruowang Tang Mafa, which is the meaning of Grandpa Tang. In history, Shi Jingjiao's nephew Shi Chonggui said in the letter to the Khitan after his accession to the throne that Sun is not a minister, it can be seen that it does not matter whether he is called Sun or not, and the key is to be a minister! ”

Fang Guangchen also nodded and said: "King, Kangxi only said that he recognized his father and cut the land, and did not mention the title of minister, nor did he mention Nagong, in fact, he just wanted to play tricks with you. I want your support for nothing! ”

Wang Shirong also said: "Lord, if Kangxi pays tribute to you, then the Qing Dynasty is your vassal, and you can recover the lost land in the north in terms of name, and Kangxi is the emperor, you are the emperor's suzerain, it is not appropriate to be called the king, of course you have to take the throne and become the emperor!" ”

"That's right!" Wu Sangui touched his beard, "If the old man becomes the sect master of the Qing Dynasty and recovers the capital of the Fourteenth Dynasty, he will obviously have the mandate of heaven!" ”

"Yes, yes! Grandpa, when the time comes, you should obey the mandate of heaven and ascend the throne as emperor! ”

Wu Sangui touched his beard again, "But the old man wants to be the emperor, what about the third prince Zhu?" ”

"Of course the third prince of Zhu can't be the emperor! Anyway, he hasn't been crowned emperor yet. Wu Guogui said with a smile, "Father, as long as you crown Li Fuchen, Li Zhongshan, Liu Jinzhong, Li Laishun, Geng Jingzhong, Zheng Jing, Lu Sanhao, Chen Yonghua and others as kings, the third prince of Zhu is naturally a bare pole, and you will also crown him a king, so that he can enjoy glory and wealth from generation to generation." ”

Wu Sangui nodded, his third son's method was quite good, he had a few more kings, and absorbed all the military leaders who supported the third prince of Zhu. Then when Kangxi and Fu are finished, they will pull the bunch of vassal kings in the southeast to go on a northern expedition to completely eradicate the remnants of the Qing Dynasty, and the Great Zhou will be able to dominate the world perfectly!

Thinking of this, he looked at his three military advisors again.

Liu Xuanchu said with a smile: "The third master's method is good, although there are a little more vassal kings in the world, but as long as the king can expel the Tartars, restore China, and then smash the Yellow Dragon, you will always be able to slowly cut these vassals in the future." ”

I've already thought about cutting the domain. I don't know if there will be another rebellion of the Nine Feudatories?

Fang Guangchen smiled: "Xuan Chu thought too far. Let's take care of the present, this Kangxi hasn't said that he wants to be a minister, and this Guanzhong land hasn't been cut into our hands yet. ”

Wang Shirong has been an envoy to Wu Sangui for the past two years, of course, he will not let go of this opportunity, and immediately said to Wu Sangui: "King, the minister can go to Xi'an!" ”

Wu Sangui shook his head with a smile: "Shirong, this time you can't do it just by relying on your three inches!" ”

"Lord Wang, you want to." Wang Shirong's eyes rolled, "Send troops to Guanzhong, force Kangxi to cut land, pay tribute, and call ministers?" ”

Wu Sangui said with a smile: "That's right, this king is going to send troops!" Kangxi sent an envoy to say this, which shows that he is about to reach the end of his rope, and there is no other way to come except to agree to our request.

As long as the prince mentions 100,000 troops to come to the city of Xi'an, this Kangxi will definitely be subdued!

Xianting, Xuanchu, Shirong, the three of you go to discuss with Li Guangdi a covenant called Kangxi to cut the land, pay tribute, and call the vassals, and let Li Guangdi bring the covenant back to Xi'an first, and then the old man will lead a large army to the city, which can be regarded as a salute before the soldiers! ”

His covenant actually has a more accurate name, "unequal treaty"!

That's quite unequal, the Qing Dynasty not only wants to cut the land, but also pay tribute, but also call the ministers, which really bullies Kangxi to death!

But now Kangxi has no choice, he is already going to be Shi Jingjiao, can he still rely on an unequal treaty that betrays the country?

Therefore, Li Guangdi did not theorize with Liu Xuanchu, Fang Guangchen, and Wang Shirong, and directly drafted a treaty with these Wu family military divisions according to Wu Sangui's intentions, and then returned to Xi'an with the draft of this treaty.

The first unequal treaty of the Qing Dynasty was put in front of Emperor Kangxi in this way!

(End of chapter)