Seventy-two crossbow arrows with grenades like seventy-two meteors shot straight at the crumbling Galen ship. Six long arrows with grenades were fired into the Galen ship, and a terrifying explosion rang out again in the Galen ship. The cabin was blown to pieces, two large holes were blown out in the second deck, and two heavy guns weighing several tons fell from the second deck and smashed into the third deck.

Three large holes were blown out of the side of the ship by shells below the waterline. Under the pressure of the water, the water gushed into the hull of the ship and began to devour the battered wooden sailing ship. This time, the surviving sailors on board were in despair. They jumped off the Galen boat and swam towards the other Dutch ships behind them. The Galen ship, which was hit by a shell, sank little by little.

The Dutch woke up from a dream and knew that they couldn't catch up with Yang Peng's boat jumping gang, so they had to turn the bow of the ship and start an artillery battle with Li Zhi. Sixteen ships from both camps formed two straight lines, and they all aimed their sideways at the enemy ships, competing for crossbows at a distance of one mile. The flames and smoke emitted by the crossbow with the grenade were like flowers, constantly igniting in the vast sea merchants. The rumbling sound of shelling dominates the sea, making it impossible to hear anything else. The long arrows were like meteors, shuttling back and forth between the gunboats on both sides. Most of the arrows hit the water, causing a huge splash. But sometimes, there were also individual long arrows with grenades fired into the ships.

Yang Peng stood on the deck and looked at the Dutch gunboat opposite with a telescope. More than a dozen powerful crossbow arrows suddenly shot from the Dutchman's flagship, and fired in a volley towards Yang Peng's Tianjing. Most of the machine bolts missed. But a long arrow smashed into the second deck of the Tianjing. The long arrow broke through the hull and slammed into the barrel of a powerful crossbow with a loud metal crash. The cannonball smashed into the cannon and then changed lanes and hit the ceiling, slamming into the first deck before losing speed and landing on the ground.

A strong crossbow was smashed by a Dutch arrow, but there were no casualties. The Tenkyo retaliated against the Dutch flagship, firing eight crossbows with grenades. A long arrow hit the enemy ship and landed on the bow deck of the Dutch ship, setting off a storm of blood. The long arrow with the grenade killed three sailors before it exploded, and when the grenade exploded, the iron projectiles that burst out swept across the deck like a storm, killing more than a dozen Dutch sailors.

The Dutch sailors, who were still alive, fled with their heads in their hands, hiding only behind the masts and buckets, and became a mess. Blood and minced flesh were sprinkled on the deck of the Dutch ship, mixed with the screams of the shot-victims, and the scene was like Shura's hell. Every powerful crossbow arrow of Yang Peng's fleet with a grenade hit the enemy ship, sending out a huge explosion inside the Dutch ship, blowing up the fragile internal tissues inside the hull. If a long arrow with a grenade landed on the densely populated first deck and the second artillery deck, it was a massacre.

If it lands on the side of the hull and explodes, the shell can blow a large hole in the hull. After firing the crossbow, Yang Peng's eight ships only broke a few holes, and the losses were very small, but the Dutchman's ships were severely damaged. Not to mention the sailors who were killed, even the crossbowmen on the second deck suffered heavy losses. Many ships have already broken into the interior of the ship and exploded to kill and injure a large number of crossbowmen, and there are no longer enough personnel needed to fire the guns. The Dutch shot fewer and fewer long arrows.

Several ships were blown out of large holes under the waterline, and it was only thanks to the sailors who plugged the holes with wooden planks that barely sank. The temporary nailed planks are not perfect, they will leak constantly, and the sailors will need to pump water from the bilge to keep the ship afloat.

Looking at the increasingly unfavorable situation on the battlefield, Forreston's face turned a little pale. Yang Peng's ship was faster than the Dutchman's ship, and the Dutch could not rush up to engage in the battle. And Yang Peng's grenade will explode, and the Dutch combined fleet in crossbow battles is not Yang Peng's opponent.

If this continues, the warships of the Combined Fleet will only be sunk by Yang Peng one by one. Foreston was an old captain, and he quickly understood the predicament he was in and made a final decision. He shouted: "All ships turn the rudder, we run!" ”

"But Yang Peng's ship is faster than ours, and our fleet cannot escape," said Forreston, "The fleet separated, fled separately in eight directions, and after throwing off Yang Peng, they joined up at Geranza." ”

Forreston is going to stage a great escape for the entire fleet, and he doesn't even expect the formation to retreat. The fleet fled separately, hoping that Yang Peng would not pursue in eight directions, so that the Dutch could escape a few boats. The first mate, Caron, turned pale, nodded, and ran to the flag commander to give the order. The eight battered Dutch gunboats, seeing the flagship of the flagship, abandoned the increasingly unfavorable artillery battle and turned around and fled in eight directions.

Seeing that the red hair turned the bow of the boat and fled, Yang Peng's fleet resounded with deafening cheers. The victorious sailors raised their hands in celebration of victory. Even the more than 3,000 peasants on the ship breathed a sigh of relief and applauded loudly one by one!

"Good! The lord of the city is powerful! "The Great General has won the battle against the Red Hair!" "It's right to follow the Metropolitan Governor!"

Seeing that Yang Peng defeated the red hair so easily, Lu Hu looked at Yang Peng with admiration and said, "The city lord's is too powerful!" Yang Peng looked at the Dutch ships with binoculars, sneered, and said to Lu Hu: "The Dutch want to escape, our eight gunboats are divided into four routes, pursue the four largest ships of the Dutch, sink the enemy ships and converge in Hsinchu." ”

The artillerymen on Yang Peng's ship are all veterans drawn from the selection regiment, but many of the shipwrights on the new ship are novices and are not very skilled in operating the ship. Yang Peng was worried that the sailors on a certain ship would go wrong in the pursuit of the troops in eight directions, so he retreated and divided the troops into four routes, each of which pursued one ship of the Dutch with two ships.

Ten ships divided into four lines and pursued the four large ships of the Dutch. Yang Peng led two crossbow ships and two steamers without guns to pursue the Dutch flagship. The flagship of the Dutch fled in a south-westerly direction in the southeast wind at this time, and the speed was not fast. Yang Peng's steamer was powered by steam, and drove a high speed of nine knots in the south wind, which could easily bite the flagship of the Dutch, and from time to time chase the Dutch a mile above the round of shells.

Constantly shooting into the stern of the Bredan, exploding in the belly of the Dutch flagship, blowing the huge warship to pieces. The Tianjing and the Dagou took turns firing on the left and right sides, firing more than 100 rounds of strong crossbows, and finally beat the Dutch warship to surrender. The Dutch hoisted the white flag, collected the sails, and begged the Song people to let them live. Yang Peng asked twenty artillerymen to go up and tie up all the Dutch, and then boarded the ship himself to inspect the Dutch flagship.

Yang Peng boarded the big ship of the Dutch as a conqueror and inspected it on the flagship of the Dutch. Yang Peng hopes to find some useful technology on the ships of Westerners to supplement his fleet. But the results of the inspection made Yang Peng very disappointed.

"Trash!" "Rubbish, how can the technology of the Dutch be so rubbish in this era."

The Dutch did not have much technology ahead of the Song people in this era. Whether it was their bow and arrow or their strong crossbow, they were all very crude and could not compare to Yang Peng's skills. The only thing that intrigued Yang Peng was the Dutch's ballista, which used pulleys and hemp rope to cushion the recoil of the guns, allowing the Dutch's 36-pound crossbow to fit into wooden sailboats.

The sailors turned the ship upside down, turning out more than 10,000 taels of silver. Yang Peng looked at the strong crossbows and said, "The materials of these strong crossbows are worth some money, drag this ship to Hsinchu, and melt the strong crossbows for copper!" ”

On 13 May, Yang Peng took Zheng Hui and his guards to ride a horse to the edge of the new field in Hsinchu, looking at the farmers who were sowing seeds and raising seedlings in the field, and he was in a happy mood. After Gao Ligong contacted 2,000 veteran rice farmers in Taiping County, Zhejiang, Li Zhi sent a boat to pick them up. Today, these 7,000 old farmers in Taiping County and 8,000 farmers in Tianjin are planting more than 70,000 mu of paddy fields that have just completed irrigation canals according to the quota of 20 mu per adult or strong girl, and they are the first batch of farmers in Hsinchu.

Gao Ligong also contacted a group of ploughing cattle in Fujian, which Yang Peng transported to Hsinchu by steamer and lent them to the farmers. At this time, farmers are planting late rice, which is sown in May and is expected to be harvested at the end of October. Hsinchu burns a thick layer of plant ash here in the new field is extremely fertile, if properly managed, it is estimated that this season of rice will have a harvest of one stone and five buckets per mu. Although these paddy fields can only be planted for one season this year, the harvest is far more than the dry fields in Tianjin.

Yang Peng looked at the lush grass seedlings in the paddy fields and asked towards Guan Shan, "How many people are there in Hsinchu now?" Guan Shan replied: "City Lord, there are more than 15,000 people of all kinds in Hsinchu today. Of these, 12,000 peasants and 3,700 divided their fields and began to plough. The remaining more than 8,000 peasants have no land, and these peasants are building irrigation canals for two taels of silver a month. In addition, 1,000 soldiers from the Trap Regiment were also helping the peasants to repair irrigation canals. There were 2,000 masons who were building houses for the peasants. Finally, there are craftsmen who burn lime and bricks. ”

Yang Peng nodded and asked, "How many rooms have you built now?" "More than 6,000 brick houses have been built today. Except for the 2,000 newly arrived peasants who are still living in tents, all the others have already moved into brick houses. Yang Peng nodded and continued to ride forward.

Zhao Laosan was the first batch of people who signed up for the reclamation of Xiaoliuqiu. When he signed up, he didn't know what kind of place Xiaoliuqiu was, but he heard that it was a big island in the south with wild people on it. The officials of Tianjing New City who signed up said that the people who opened up the wasteland were tenant farmers who were the governors of the capital, and each person was divided into 20 acres of tenant land.

Zhao Laosan knew how rich the tenant farmers of the Metropolitan Governor were. One of his cousins planted the private land of the Metropolitan Governor in Jinghai County, and now he is very rich. My cousin is in his thirties, and he already has a son and a daughter under his knees, but he still wants to have another son, saying that he can afford it.

Zhao Laosan used to want to be a tenant farmer of the city lord, but that required the old tenant farmer to be a guarantor. Zhao Laosan's cousin has a lot of relatives to protect, and he doesn't know that it will be his turn to help Zhao Laosan in the Year of the Monkey. Zhao Laosan had a hard time, he rented thirteen acres of dry land in the landlord's house of the Guo family, lived in two earthen houses with his daughter-in-law, lived a tight life, and could not earn a new piece of clothing all year round, and had to eat bran for one or two months every year. After three years of marriage, Zhao Laosan didn't dare to share a room with his daughter-in-law, for fear of starving to death after giving birth to a child.

He looked at the wealth of his cousin's family and was very envious. But this year's opportunity came, Zhao Laosan heard from people in the village who had read books that day that the city lord recruited people to open up Xiaoliuqiu, and he didn't need anyone to be a guarantor. He didn't think about it, and was the first to rush to the registration point and press his handprint. Zhao Laosan and the Tianjing New Town official who was in charge of signing up had a good talk, saying that if it started, he would definitely bring himself first.

I don't know if Zhao Laosan's enthusiasm moved the official who signed up, or whether Zhao Laosan and his daughter-in-law were young and strong and met the standards of the Dadu Governor, the city lord really brought Zhao Laosan to Xiaoliuqiu in the first batch, and now it is called the big island of Taiwan by the city lord. The ship to Taiwan was very bumpy, Zhao Laosan vomited three or four times, and Zhao Laosan's daughter-in-law also vomited several times. However, neither of them complained, and finally had the opportunity to follow the metropolitan governor, and Zhao Laosan would not retreat because of this bump.

When he arrived in Taiwan and got off the boat, Zhao Laosan saw that this island of Taiwan is a very rich place. Patches of woods, herds of wild deer, a small river running through them. Standing on the hill where the camp was encamped, there was an endless plain on both sides of the river. This is obviously a good place to plow the fields, and when you burn those woods, it is the best farmland, and the crops grown in this place will definitely have a good harvest. On the night of arriving in Taiwan, Zhao Laosan and his daughter-in-law jumped and jumped in the tent.

The farmers who came together were infected by Zhao Laosan, and they all jumped up and down that night. Everyone gathered around the fire, looking forward to a better life in the future, and they were all elated. Later, things went very smoothly, and the commander made Guan Shan command everyone to burn the wasteland and reclaim the new fields, build irrigation canals, and also repelled a shengfan and a red hair. After all, the island of Taiwan is so rich, and there are still many people who covet it.

When the commander was fighting Shengfan and Hongmao, Zhao Laosan told the commander several times that he would give himself a knife and fight with those soldiers. The commander ignored Zhao Laosan at that time and asked Zhao Laosan to go aside, but then he glanced at Zhao Laosangao. When the house was divided, the commander gave the first one to Zhao Laosan.

Zhao Laosan arrived in Taiwan for two months and was assigned two brick houses. This is a house that does not leak in the wind and rain, Zhao Laosan has only entered such a house in the house of the gentleman Guo when he pays rent every year, and slept in this kind of brick house in Jinghai County Uncle Tang's house for one night. Zhao Laosan didn't expect that he would live in such a good house so soon.

There is also a toilet outside the house, which is very convenient. On the night of the house division, Zhao Laosan and his daughter-in-law hugged each other and cried profusely. The daughter-in-law has lived a hard life with her for more than three years, and now she is finally looking forward to a better life.

Zhao Laosan's daughter-in-law wiped her tears at the time, saying that the good days were all given by the city lord, and she wanted to provide the city lord with an immortal tablet. Zhao Laosan went to find those masons who could do carpentry and helped him make the immortal tablet of the city lord. Those masons heard that Zhao Laosan was going to provide the city lord with an immortal tablet, and confiscated Zhao Laosan's money and helped Zhao Laosan do it. It didn't take long for Guan Shan to list Zhao Laosan as the first batch of farmers to divide the land. Zhao Laosan had paddy fields that could be cultivated.

Forty acres of fertile fields with irrigation canals are not far from Zhao Laosan's village. Zhao Laosan saw the forty acres of paddy fields at that time, and he was speechless for a long time. He pressed his handprint to the clerk, and ran back to his house crying, kowtowing thirty times to the Governor's tablet of immortality.

Zhao Laosan knew that it wouldn't be long before his family would become rich. Richer than my cousin's family. On May 13, something even more surprising was that Zhao Laosan was weeding in his field and actually saw the city lord. The lord of the castle was young and looked about the same age as himself. But the lord of the city is the lord of the city, and he has a majesty and honor, which is completely different from a small person like himself. Zhao Laosan was kneeling on the ground at that time, and he didn't dare to make a sound.

At that time, the lord of the city actually walked up to him and questioned him. "What's your name?" Zhao Laosan stammered at that time and replied: It's called Zhao Laosan. "Zhao Laosan, have you learned to grow rice?" Zhao Laosan raised his head proudly and said, "Back to the city lord, the little one has learned." The rice farmers in Taiping County taught me how to sow seeds, how to plant seedlings, and when to irrigate. When I planted rice this year, I would give a stone of grain to the master in Taiping County to pay for tuition, according to what Commander Guan said. ”

The city lord nodded, as if he felt that Zhao Laosan's speech was quite clear, so he asked Zhao Laosan a few more words: "How much millet can you produce this season's late rice?" Zhao Laosan replied: "I heard the master of Taiping County say that one acre of land can produce one stone and five buckets of rice. The city lord listened to Zhao Laosan's words and pondered for a while, as if he was calculating something.

After a while, the city lord said: "Okay, you will only receive fifty percent of the rent for this season's late rice." Next year, two crops of rice will be planted, and another 60% of the land rent will be harvested. Zhao Laosan was stunned, but he didn't expect that in a few words, the city lord would reduce the land rent by one percent.

Commander Zheng next to the city lord did the math and said loudly to the peasants kneeling on the ground: "The metropolitan governor collects fifty percent of the land rent, and in the first year, each male peasant can collect fifteen stone of grain into his own house, which is equivalent to thirty taels of silver. "This is only the income of more than half a year's hard work, which is equivalent to every man or strong woman can earn three or seven dollars and five cents of silver every month!" The couple earned seven taels of silver a month. ”

When Zhao Laosan heard Commander Guan's calculations, he was so excited that his blood poured into his face. Help the governor to be a tenant farmer, and the couple can earn seven taels and five dollars a month? I used to work as a tenant farmer in the Guo family, and I couldn't earn seven taels of silver when I worked to eat and drink all year round.

Zhao Laosan knelt on the ground, raised his head and looked at the Metropolitan Governor and smirked. The good days have finally come. Guan Shan looked at Zhao Laosan's excited face and said, "My lord, you can make these farmers very excited. ”

Yang Peng smiled and said to Guan Shan: "The farmers who crossed the ocean and came to Taiwan with us to develop new fields, naturally we want to give them some sweetness." When the first batch of peasants benefited, the peasants who followed them would follow in an endless stream. After that, it was settled. If you can catch up with the early rice planters, you will receive 60% of the land rent. If you can't catch up with the early rice, you can only plant one season of late rice, and you will only receive 50% of the land rent. ”

Guan Shan arched his hand and said: "The city lord is benevolent, and his subordinates admire him." Yang Peng nodded, stopped inspecting the ground, and rode back on his horse.

Guan Shan calculated along the way, and said to Li Zhi: "My lord, there are more than 60,000 acres of paddy fields that have begun to be cultivated now, and it is expected that 90,000 stones of rice will be harvested by the end of this year. The lord of the city received fifty percent of the rent, which was forty-five thousand stones. Taiwan's paddy fields do not need to pay tuntian grains, so the land rent of these 60,000 mu of paddy fields for half a year is more than the land rent of 200,000 mu of dry land in Tianjing New Town for one year. ”

Yang Peng nodded when he heard this. I heard Gao Ligong say that the income of Taiwan's paddy fields is several times that of Tianjin's dry fields, but this is just a concept. I really opened the field, and I actually felt that the result here was twice the result with half the effort. For most of the year, the income is 45,000 stones, which is equivalent to 90,000 taels of silver, and in eight months, it is equivalent to more than 10,000 taels of silver per month.

And that's just the beginning. With the expansion of the fleet, Taiwan's subsequent expansion will be faster and faster. This development of Taiwan is really lucrative. The follow-up development is promising.

In mid-May, Yang Peng returned to Tianjing New City with the fleet. For example, today, the city wall of Beijing New Town has been repaired, and the area of Tianjing New City has doubled. The wall between the two cities, the original southern wall of Tianjing New Town, was demolished. The new city and the old city are connected.

However, as soon as the new city was built, it was occupied by the new army barracks and the expansion of textile factories. In particular, the textile factory is expanding every month, and now that Yang Peng has a Japanese market and can dump his own cheap fine cloth, Yang Peng is ready to expand the textile factory to 15,000 people.

The factory of 15,000 people will bring huge profits to Yang Peng, and it is estimated that there will be tens of thousands of taels of silver every month, which can support Yang Peng's other businesses. However, the expansion of the textile factory could not be achieved overnight, and the expansion required not only the construction of machines, the construction of factories, but also the construction of villas for the workers to live in. Almost all of the masons near Tianjing New Town were hired by Yang Peng, and they worked day and day to carry building materials, drive piles and lay bricks, paste mud and paint, and turn the south of Tianjing New Town into a large construction site.

The expanding textile factory has produced a lot of fine cloth in recent months, and all of it is piled up in the warehouse, almost filling the warehouse. Fortunately, since the end of May, Yang Peng's fleet has begun to run the flat route. Yang Peng didn't buy Cha Yunke and Cangzhou Zhangjia's six sea boats, and those small boats also needed a set of boatmen, which was really inefficient. But Yang Peng hired all the skilled shipwrights of these six small boats and let them go to sea on his newly built ships.

After all, what happens next, let's see how it will be broken down next time.