Chapter 213

In the age of sailing, seagoing ships generally sailed along the coastline of the mainland. Cheng Shijie set off from Xigang, Jinzhou, Liaodong, and when he arrived in Dengzhou City, he visited his former boss Sun Yuanhua.

Rest in Dengzhou, all the way south, but when arriving at Haizhou Bay, Haizhou Bay (Lianyungang) was called Haizhou in ancient times, also known as Haizhou Bay.

More than a dozen pirate ships appeared on the sea surface in the south bay of Haizhou Bay, and these pirate ships were mainly more than a dozen small gunboats of 400 or 600 materials, and the leader of them was a black-tailed ship.

Although these pirates did not hang their flags, they didn't need to look at it to know that this was a small day samurai, and the unique moon hair sideburns, as well as the katana in their hands, and the bamboo armor, were really obvious.

"Xiao Ri actually dared to provoke Ben Shuai, I'm really tired!"

Around Cheng Shijie's Eighth Princess, there are four Seawolf-class 2,000 warships, of course, they are also the four King Kongs of the Ning Navy, the four King Kongs in the past can be regarded as the main warships of the Ning Navy, but it is a pity that in just over a year, the four King Kongs have become Mrs. Niu.

They have withdrawn from the sequence of the main fleet of the Ning Navy, as Cheng Shijie, the chief soldier of the Ning Navy.

Cheng Shijie was about to give an order, and Shen Boyun, the former sand boat gang leader who followed Cheng Shijie back from Liaodong, said: "Dashuai, why do you need to use a knife to kill chickens, a little bit of widows, without the brothers of the Ning Navy Marine, our Shen family can also clean them up!" ”

In all fairness, the strength of the Sand Boat Gang is actually not weak, otherwise, Zheng Zhilong would have swallowed the Sand Boat Gang a long time ago, don't look at Zheng Zhilong's more than 3,000 ships, and the Sand Boat Gang only has seven or eight hundred, but the problem is that there is actually a wall-riding faction behind the Sand Boat Gang who sits on the mountain and watches the tiger fight, this is the Jiangnan Maritime Business Group.

They didn't allow Zheng Zhilong's family to dominate, so when Liu Xiang fought against Zheng Zhilong, they contributed money and efforts to help Liu Xiang. When Zheng Zhilong dealt with the Sand Boat Gang, the Jiangnan Maritime Group also helped the Sand Boat Gang.

The reason is very simple, the lips are dead and the teeth are cold. If the Shachuan Gang is killed by Zheng Zhilong, and Zheng Zhilong is the dominant family at sea, their Jiangnan Maritime Group will be suppressed to death by Guangdong Maritime Merchants and Fujian Maritime Merchants, in comparison, Zheng Zhilong is closer to Fujian Maritime Merchants and Guangdong Maritime Merchants.

The Sand Boat Gang was nominally a maritime merchant who specialized in shipping and transportation, but in fact, there was a blurred dividing line between pirates and maritime merchants in this era. When you can do business, do business well, and if the other party is too weak, then grab it.

When the Sand Boat Gang did business with Liaodong, if it weren't for the strong combat effectiveness of the Ning Navy and the deterrence of Haizhou's victory, the cooperation between the Sand Boat Gang and Liaodong would probably not be so harmonious.

Cheng Shijie also knows very well that Shen Boyun is not joking, the sailors of the Sand Boat Gang do have this strength, and they can easily eliminate the small pirates of these dozen ships.

It's a pity that Shen Boyun doesn't know that Cheng Shijie's attitude towards small days is different from that of the Ming Dynasty, and the small days of the Ming Dynasty are actually different from the small days of later generations. Compared with the national character, the little days belong to dogs, and whoever subdues them, they will wag their tails at whomever they want.

Da Ming is a behemoth who can easily press Xiao Ri to the ground and rub it, many Xiao Ri participated in the Korean War, and they have a deep fear of Da Ming. Don't look at Zheng Zhilong as a Ming person, but the warriors of Xiaori are not disgusted by Zheng Zhilong, who is loyal to the Ming Dynasty, but is proud of it.

"Shen Boyun, you are now a member of the management committee of Liaodong, the governor of Haizhou, as a civil official, you must have the cultivation of a civil official, and you don't want to do anything like fighting, killing and killing!"

"Yes, Dashuai!"

Cheng Shijie said: "Besides, the lion fights the rabbit, you should do your best, these little pirates are just used to sacrifice the flag!" ”

Seeing that the war was about to break out, Zhu Weiyuan couldn't help but feel a little nervous when standing beside Cheng Shijie.

It's just that Cheng Shijie is very relaxed.

Naval battles in the era of sails, that is, the two sides seize the upper hand, because the warships of this era rely on the sails as the main power, so the wind direction is very important.

The ships of the Ning Navy also occupy the upper hand, and in terms of wind direction, pirates are actually disadvantaged, whether it is archery, or shooting, firing cannons, the range is affected by the wind direction.

These pirates saw that Cheng Shijie's fleet was divided into two parts, and the two were getting farther and farther apart, and these pirates understood that Cheng Shijie didn't take them seriously at all, but left a small fleet alone, ready to directly surround them.

When the pirates found out that the battleships of the Ning Navy were speeding up, they began to want to run, but the problem was that it was too late for them to run now.

"How could their warships be so fast? You see, their sails weren't even full, they were nearly two knots ahead of us, and if they were all full, they would have been able to run faster, how the hell did they do that? ”

The pirates don't know how fast the Ming warship is, the answer is actually very simple, because of the effect, in the era of sail warships, in order to pursue a huge carrying capacity, the maritime merchants will make large ships according to the ratio of about three to one, so that the ship has good wind and wave resistance, and also has a strong loading capacity, so that the speed of sacrifice has been sacrificed.

However, the warships of the Ning Navy, especially those of several specifications of more than 2,000 materials, are completely different from the 400 gunboats, this kind of battleships are specially used for fighting, so their hulls are more slender, and they are faster in the state of full sail. The fastest clippers can run faster than the first coal-eating steamers.

Of course, this kind of battleship is not without disadvantages, because the hull is slender, and when facing side headwinds, it is easy to have problems.

There are still more than 2,000 steps away from the pirate ship, and these pirates are actually not panicked, because in this era, even if it is a Westerner warship, the shelling distance is within 400 meters, and the best distance is 300 meters or even 200 steps, otherwise, Zheng Zhilong would not be able to defeat the Dutch by jumping gang.

"Boom, boom, boom......"

The sound of the cannon was like a midsummer thunder, exploding above the waves of thousands of miles, and a large black cloud instantly rose on the blue sea, and the fire of the cannon erupted, and hundreds of shells roared out from the cannon and smashed into the pirate's ship.

The lack of artillery in the Ning Navy is that it cannot be like the artillery of later generations, which can hit the first shot, at least within a range of two thousand meters, and firing the cannon belongs to the era of luck. Whether you can hit the target or not depends only on luck.

Cheng Shijie did not rely on luck to live, the way he adopted was a covering bombardment, if a shell misses the target, then ten cannons will fire a salvo, ten cannons, then a hundred cannons.

Cheng Shijie's use of three-inch naval guns and four-inch naval guns is like the rocket artillery of later generations, proficient in not enough quantity to make up for the number, the naval guns of this era dare not use the number to make up for the accuracy, there are two reasons, the first is that the front-loading smoothbore gun has a slow rate of fire, the barrel needs to be cleaned, and two shells cannot be shot in a minute, and the second is that the shells are expensive.

This is not a problem for Cheng Shijie at all, first of all, the naval guns of the Ning Navy, whether it is a three-inch gun, a four-inch gun, or a five-inch gun, are all rear-loaded, and they are metal shells, this kind of artillery in addition to the detonation method and the power of the shells are far less than the artillery of later generations, in fact, it has reached the level of the fifties and sixties of the nineteenth century.

The effect of the first shot was not very good, it can be said that the hit rate was extremely poor, only one shell hit a pirate ship, and it belonged to the blind cat hit the dead mouse, and most of the shells hit the sea, stirring up rows of high columns of water.

However, just this one cannonball that hit the pirate ship, although it was a three-inch cannon, directly blew the pirate ship to pieces.

The corners of Cheng Shijie's mouth lifted, and he made a very objective evaluation of this round of powerful but ineffective shelling: "Bad! ”

But the problem is that the pirates who were being shelled did not think so, although most of them did not hit directly, but a row of displacement columns lifted off the sea inadvertently overturned two pirate ships, which means that they lost three ships in one round of shelling.

What made the pirates of Xiaori extremely desperate was that they had not yet recovered from the violent shelling, and the second round of naval guns from the Ning Navy came over.

Cheng Shijie didn't mind whether the gunners of the Ning Navy were accurate or not, anyway, it was purely a practice, anyway, they were idle or idle, with the three-inch guns and four-inch gunboat guns making a heart-palpitating roar at the same time, the muzzles of the black holes spewed out thunderstorm-like fire, and each battleship fired a salvo of twelve guns, and the huge recoil made the battleships a little uncomfortable, and the battleships seemed to retreat.

The distance was even closer, about 16,700 meters, and more than 100 shells hit the sea, stirring up high columns of water on the sea, which meant that more than 1,000 taels of silver were lost.

Cheng Shijie doesn't care about the loss of more than 1,000 taels of silver, once he defeats Zheng Zhilong, even if it is a thousand-fold or 10,000-fold investment, he can easily return to his capital.

Shen Boyun finally understood where Cheng Shijie's confidence was, because in this round of shelling, four shells directly hit the pirate's warship, this kind of four or five hundred warships, even if it is a three-inch gun, can blow up a big hole with one cannon, and the sea water poured in instantly.

In Cheng Shijie's opinion, the hit rate of the Ning Navy's naval guns is too low, less than three percent, however, in Shen Boyun's eyes, the Ning Navy's warships actually have such a high hit rate, you must know that with only two rounds of naval artillery bombardment, more than a dozen pirate ships have been lost half, and the combat effectiveness can only be described as terrifying!

With the shelling of the Wulunning Navy, the entire sea surface was completely cleared.

At that time, the tranquility was only temporary, starting from Haizhou Bay, the small pirates that appeared were only Zheng Zhilong's vanguard, however, immediately after, there were more than a dozen, or dozens of pirate ships.

Now Cheng Shijie understands that this is Zheng Zhilong's desire to test the true strength of the Ning Navy.

"Dashuai, it looks like they want to test the combat effectiveness of our sailors!"

"Real gold is not afraid of fire, let them see!"

"But!"

If you follow Li Zhixiang's idea, it is absolutely impossible to let the main battleships go into battle now, but to use a large number of small gunboats to fight with the Zheng family.

In the past, the naval division of the Ning Navy was overcrowded and had few ships, and when the Dongjiang Army surrendered to the naval division of the Ning Navy as a whole, more than two-thirds of the officers and men of the naval division did not have boats, and they could only serve as infantry on the dock to protect the dock.

However, with the production of the three major shipyards of the Ning Navy at full speed, and Cheng Shijie, who has deep pockets, has prepared a large amount of wood, not to mention the preparation in Liaodong, even if it is the wood reserved by Sun Yuanhua in Dengzhou, it is enough for Cheng Shijie to use it for two years, and now the wood used in the new ships of the Ning Navy is all prepared by Sun Yuanhua at the beginning.

The speed of warship production is getting faster and faster, and the warships are getting bigger and bigger, and the officers and men of the Navy are faced with fewer people and more ships, you must know that now the main battleship Sea Shark class, each ship is 343 people, and ten ships are 3,430 people, and the main force of the Ning Navy Naval Division, the Sea Shark class, is now 37 ships, which is more than 12,000 soldiers.

What's more, there are 5,000 Giant Shark class, and 242 Seawolf class, as for the 37 people on the 400 gunboat, most of them are drawn from the sailor soldiers who did not have a battleship in the past, and more are filled with recruits from the naval division training team of the Liaonan Navy.

These small gunboats and old gunboats also require a lot of training, so that they can participate in the battle and are also good training opportunities.

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "Our warships are all new, and the soldiers are not very familiar with them, this needs to be run-in, there are pirates, isn't this the best training opportunity?" What's more, no matter how well we train in peacetime, it is still different from the real battlefield, and now we have such a good opportunity, but it is hard to find! ”

Cheng Shijie is actually most afraid that Zheng Zhilong will not test him with a small group of pirates according to the old routine, even if Zheng Zhilong knows the combat characteristics and strength of the Ning Navy Naval Division?

What Cheng Shijie needs is time, and he needs time to familiarize the soldiers with the battleship.

Because of the use of a large number of machinery, under the modular operation, the warships of the Ning Navy can be mass-produced, and one batch is the next wave of dumplings.

But the problem is that these warships are built, which does not mean that there is enough strength, in order to increase the combat effectiveness of the naval division, Cheng Shijie has already transferred gunners from the artillery division Yuan Shiliang, of course, these artillery not only need to be accurate in artillery, but also need to be able to be water-based, at least not seasick.

In this way, the sailors of the Ning Navy still lack the last link, that is, running-in.

If Zheng Zhilong came up directly to Stud and led Zheng's more than 3,000 warships to fight a decisive battle with the Ning Navy, Cheng Shijie would definitely have no other way but to fight hard.

Fortunately, Zheng Zhilong sent a small group of pirates over, so that although Zheng Zhilong could clear himself of the charge of attacking Cheng Shijie, the problem was that it gave Ning Haijun enough time to train.

Under the cooperation and training of the pirates of Xiaori, the combat effectiveness of the Ning Navy has risen in a straight line, from the very beginning of the salvo, even the results of zero eggs, and slowly the Ning Navy sailors have mastered a certain amount of experience, they will increase the frequency of waves and fluctuations, and play in advance.

This is to calculate the amplitude of the wave fluctuations and the angle movement of the naval guns, and fire the guns at a specific time so that they can hit the target.

A sharpshooter needs a lot of bullets to feed, and a sharpshooter also needs a lot of shells, the main battleship of the Ning Navy is in front, firing at the pirates, and the Liaodong Gun Bureau behind will continuously transport the produced shells and bullets.

From Haizhou Bay to Hangzhou Bay, the sea distance is equivalent to more than 900 miles, however, Zheng Zhilong, a considerate enemy, sent more than 200 small pirate ships and five or six thousand small pirates, Ning Haijun naturally will not be polite, and all of them are sent to the bottom of the sea.

……

Daheng Island in Hangzhou Bay, which is a large island located in the Zhoushan Islands, is a large island that is long and narrow from east to west, narrow from north to south, extending nearly 20 miles wide from east to west, and the westernmost point is four or five miles deep from north to south.

Daheng Island was originally occupied by a group of pirates, but when Zheng Zhibao arrived on Daheng Island, Tian Shiwan, the pirate leader of this island, took the initiative to surrender to Zheng Zhibao, and Tian Shiwan was sent by Zheng Zhibao to attack the Ning Navy Sailors.

But where did Tian Shiwan dare to provoke the Ning Navy, he just watched from afar, and directly more than 200 small pirate ships, as well as more than 6,000 small pirates under Taro Yamamoto, were all wiped out, so he dared to go back to Zheng Zhibao to report the news.

"What?"

When Zheng Zhibao on Daheng Island heard that more than 6,000 fierce Japanese samurai under Taro Yamamoto were hung up like this, it was a big loss for the Zheng Group, which made Zheng Zhibao frown.

It wasn't that he felt sorry for those Japanese samurai, but that Ning Haijun's combat effectiveness surprised him. According to the information he had, there were about 500 ships of the Ning Navy that went south this time.

Although there are a lot of warships in the Ning Navy, the problem is that most of them, like the Zheng Group, are old and broken ships, which are used to fill the number, and most of them are small boats of three or four hundred, or even five or six hundred. Its main warship is about less than thirty ships.

Although there were only more than 200 Kohi pirates under Taro Yamamoto's command, there were 31 blacktail ships, which were medium-sized ships loaded with 24 guns, and there were more than 6,000 brave Kori samurai.

You must know that the warriors of the small days are not those soldiers of the Ming Guards who are like Hanako, but have been practicing martial arts since they were young, and they all have good martial arts, and they are ruthless, not to mention that these small days of warriors are particularly tenacious in their will to fight.

The ordinary guards of the Ming army, if 10,000 people die in a few hundred, they will be frightened to retreat, but the samurai can fight to the end, so Zheng Zhibao himself will not be so easy to kill Taro Yamamoto and his subordinates.

Six thousand warriors who are not afraid of death are a powerful force, such a force is enough to turn Jiangnan upside down, but it makes Ning Haijun pinch to death as easily as ants, what does this mean?

It shows that the combat effectiveness of the Ning Navy is definitely not low, and it is seriously inconsistent with the rumors.

Ning Haijun is too strong!

This made Zheng Zhibao gasp uncomfortably!

I'm afraid this battle will not be easy to fight, and if I don't get it, I will kick it to the iron plate.

In fact, Zheng Zhibao missed the best opportunity to eliminate or create the Ning Navy, starting from Haizhou Bay to Hangzhou Bay, this short sea route of more than 900 miles, the Ning Navy officers and men have been training in battle, and each artilleryman has fired at least twenty or thirty shells, which has significantly improved their skills.

Now Zheng Zhibao has decided to pour his army north.

With Zheng Zhibao's order, the Zheng Group warships entrenched around Daheng Island began to move, and the seven or eight hundred warships with white sails seemed to be attached to the white clouds on the sea. In the bow and stern of the ship, on the port side and on the starboard side, the muzzles of the black holes were raised high, like a bloody mouth, ready to devour people.

……

At night, the moonlight is slightly dark, and the Eight Princesses also do not have the ability to sail at night, so in order to avoid accidents, they will drop anchor and drop sail at night, and will set sail after dawn during the day.

There is no need to be on land at sea, although Zhu Weiyuan will not be seasick, but she does not sleep very steadily, in just ten days, Zhu Weiyuan is a lot haggard, and there are blisters on the corners of her mouth, I don't know if she is in a hurry or on fire.

Cheng Shijie will still be considerate in the end, so he asked Shen Boyun to find a few craftsmen from the Sand Boat Gang, and according to Cheng Shijie's intentions, he built a soft couch similar to a swing and placed it on the first and topmost deck of the Eighth Princess. After Shen Boyun understood Cheng Shijie's needs, he actually asked people to find some golden silk nanmu wood, which was actually the bedroom in Shen Boyun's own cabin.

Shen Boyun's Qiangong Babu bed on his Jiqiu was dismantled, and Zhu Weiyuan made a soft couch that could be shaken with the golden silk nan wood on this bed, which was finely carved and carefully polished on the surface, and it looked exquisite and elegant.

Zhu Weiyuan lay on this soft couch, but slept very peacefully, but the problem was that the sea was windy, in order to avoid being blown by the sea breeze, she built a small wooden house on this swing couch, and when she slept at night, she used to burn the brazier, which was not too cold.

Seeing that Cheng Shijie was not sleepy, Shen Boyun said: "Dashuai, we are about to go to Chongming Island, and when we arrive at Chongming Island, we can attack and retreat!" ”

"How does it feel to be home?"

Cheng Shijie is right, Shen Boyun is returning to his hometown this time, originally as the leader of the Shachuan Gang, Shen Boyun has a family fortune of one million, and there are tens of thousands of people under him, but the problem is that he has no official identity, even if it is a small Chongming county order, he has to be careful to accompany the smiling face.

Even the military attachés who are most despised by civilian officials, especially those chaotic inspections, can still make businessmen without a background want to die.

It's just that after taking refuge in Cheng Shijie, Shen Boyun was added to the Liaodong Management Committee, and the members of the Liaodong Management Committee were appointed by Cheng Shijie and were not recognized by the imperial court, however, in fact, the members of the Liaodong Management Committee were more or less part-time.

For example, Song Xiance, the director of the management committee, also had a four-rank official position in the Ning Navy who commanded affairs, and when Cheng Shijie served as the pacification envoy of Liaodong Jingluo, he became the minister of pacification, and now he is the secretary of the Liaodong Governor's Mansion, and Lin Xuzong is also a minister, and he is the fourth grade.

Like Zhou Yandong, Chen Guodong, Shen Mingyu, Zhang Yu, Zhao Wencai, Shen Shikui, Li Zhixiang, and Yuan Shiliang held military positions in the Ning Navy.

Xie Zongze's official position is Liaodong Xuezheng, Xie Jinglin and Zhang Huaize each have official positions, and Shen Boyun has become the governor of Haizhou, and he is the fifth product.

(End of chapter)