Chapter 214

Shen Boyun was in a pretty good mood.

The boss is actually not the one who is easy to be, although the boss can eat more and occupy more, and there are not many responsibilities and risks that should be borne at all.

When the Shachuan Gang was suppressed by the Zheng family, he didn't eat well, slept well, and had a big head. Although this is still the case, the problem is that these troubles are no longer Shen Boyun's, but Cheng Shijie's.

Now Shen Boyun no longer has to worry about the Zheng family's more than 3,000 warships, and he doesn't have to worry about being touched by the pirates of the Zheng group and cutting off his head in his sleep.

Don't worry, in the face of the sand boat gang family members crying and wiping tears, the most important thing is that he can see how Cheng Shijie deals with the Zheng Group.

At this time, the northeast wind rises and becomes a tailwind, and with the wind to take advantage of, the speed of navigation is greatly increased.

Shen Boyun sprinkled a handful of colored sawdust from the bow of the boat into the water, counted silently in his heart, waited for the sawdust on the water surface to move to the stern, calculated the speed, looked at Cheng Shijie and said: "Dashuai, the wind does not change, in another hour, how far can we reach Chongming?" ”

Cheng Shijie looked at Shen Boyun and said, "Boyun ......"

Cheng Shijie's governance concept is still based on the rule of law, but as the territory gets bigger and bigger, especially after the Shachuan Gang takes refuge, it means that the personnel composition of the Liaodong forces is more complex.

Cheng Shijie originally wanted to deal with it with thunderous means, but the problem is that if this is the case, other forces will not take the initiative to take refuge in him in the future, and may even stand on the opposite side of Cheng Shijie.

If it is said that Cheng Shijie does not have a psychological burden to deal with those gentry by thunderous means, but the problem is that the essence of the Shachuan Gang is actually the same as the Cao Gang, they are a group of bitter haha.

"This marshal has always ruled the army with military law and governed Liaodong with military law, you must understand that there is something that cannot be done, and the Shachuan Gang cannot be above the law!"

Cheng Shijie said with a serious face: "Ben Shuai hopes that you will personally deal with the affairs of the Sand Boat Gang, don't leave trouble, Ben Shuai is afraid of trouble!" ”

Listening to Cheng Shijie's words, Shen Boyun's cold sweat flowed down.

The crux of the matter is that he still doesn't know what's going on, Shen Boyun hurriedly returned to his Jixian, and Gu Siyuan, as Shen Boyun's long-term entourage and confidant, hurriedly greeted him: "Master! ”

"Siyuan, there is something I want to ask you, what happened to the Sand Boat Gang, which made the handsome man very dissatisfied!"

"No?"

Gu Siyuan thought about it carefully: "Could it be ......?"

"What is it?"

"Master, the people under your hands will inevitably have unclean hands and feet!"

Shen Boyun reacted: "You mean Chongming Island?" ”

Chongming Island is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, which is about 80 kilometers long from north to south and about 13 to 18 kilometers wide from east to west. As the largest sand island in Daming, the rainfall here is very abundant, and it is a good place to Tuntian. It's just a pity that the weather in this era is not friendly, there are often strong winds and heavy rains, and life on Chongming Island is not easy.

At this time, Chongming, and the later generations of the prosperous, drunken Oriental magic capital is not comparable at all, Shanghai at the end of the Ming Dynasty is still a rather poor place, such a large piece of land, the real development of a little bit, is nothing more than a small piece of Huating.

There is no way, coastal cities such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Macao have developed under the background of close exchanges between the East and the West, and they will either become distribution centers for import and export trade, or become windows for exchanges between the East and the West, or become financial centers.

However, at present, Chongming's business has begun to flourish, the silk weaving industry is gradually developing, and some of the cotton cloth and silk produced in Jiangnan are also resold to foreign countries from here, which are real benefits.

In fact, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, if the Ming Dynasty could open its doors to trade with Europe, the financial crisis of the Ming Dynasty was believed to be resolved soon. The landlord's annexation of land will also become unprofitable, and the common people will have one more way to live because of the rise of industry and commerce.

However, the problem is that the rulers of the Ming Dynasty are civil officials, and as a group of carnivores who make rules, they have never considered the life and death of the people at the bottom, and they only represent and safeguard their own interests.

Now Chongming ushered in the spring, in fact, as early as when the Sand Boat Gang took refuge in Cheng Shijie, Cheng Shijie began to arrange on Chongming Island.

Because Cheng Shijie will not change his strategy because of Emperor Chongzhen's holy decree, such as fighting Zheng Zhilong, even if Emperor Chongzhen strictly ordered Cheng Shijie not to fight, what should Cheng Shijie do, or how to fight. Chongming Island became Zhu Weiyuan's fiefdom, and Cheng Shijie regarded Chongming as his own territory.

It's as simple and crude as that.

At this time, Chongming Island originally had a population of only 1440,000, and more than eighty percent of them were members of the Sand Boat Gang or their families, but now Chongming Island has become a huge construction site, and a large number of people wield hoes and shovels to build warehouses, expand docks, and build trestle bridges.

Chongming Island as the largest sand island in the Ming Dynasty, can be used as a wharf in fact, there are not many places, the huge Chongming Island, compared with the later generations of 1,200 square meters, is only one-third smaller, the land area is only more than 800 square kilometers, originally five adjacent sand islands, gradually connected together.

Since it is to start construction and build Chongming Island, a large number of workers will definitely be needed, and the Shen family has taken refuge in Cheng Shijie, supervising the work, recruiting workers, and the construction work, which naturally falls on the head of the Shen family.

But the Shen family is used to being high, and when the Sand Boat Gang is running the boat for transportation, who is used is who to reward for food, so they have developed such a habit.

In order to speed up the progress of the construction of the project, Cheng Shijie recruited workers for the people of Chongming Island according to the salary of one bucket of rice or fifty yuan a day. But the problem is that when this matter came into the hands of the Shen family, a bucket of rice became three liters, and fifty yuan became twenty yuan.

In this way, although the workers who participated in the construction were also very satisfied, the Shen family deducted money from Cheng Shijie, which made Cheng Shijie very unhappy, but the Shen family had just taken refuge, and the excellent craftsmen of the Shachuan Gang were also enriched into the shipyards or naval divisions in Liaodong.

"Confused!"

Shen Boyun was so anxious that he trembled.

How short-sighted are the people of the Shen family, if their hands and feet are not clean, how can Cheng Shijie hand over important things to them? I can't get the impression that Shen Boyun has fallen in Cheng Shijie's heart.

Shen Boyun was so anxious that he hurriedly ordered the mobilization of a wheel ship, the wheel ship is known as a thousand-mile ship, with a pedal wheel mechanism, driving the ship forward, but not afraid of the wind direction, the speed is very fast, but the problem is that people will be very tired, so this kind of ship can not be built too big, can only sail for a short distance.

Just when Shen Boyun hurried back to Chongming Island,

To the south of Chongming Island is Changxing Island, and to the south of Changxing Island is the famous Wusongkou.

In the nineteenth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1386), Wu Song was set up to guard the thousand households. In the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing (1557), Baoshan was set up in Wusong to guard the thousand households in the southeast high bridge.

This is the largest garrison of the Ming army in Wusongkou, two guards of the thousand households, now Wusongkou did not establish a fort, until the seventeenth year of Shunzhi Shunzhi (1660), in the west bank of Wusongkou Yangjiazui built a west fort. In the fifty-seventh year of Kangxi (1718), the East Fort was built at the sea on the east bank of Wusongkou. In the twelfth year of Guangxu (1886), the north fort was built, and the original site was located at the north end of the South Shitang (now the north end of the Wusongkou National Defense Project), and the west fort was the horn of each other.

Although there is no fort in Wusongkou at this time, it is built as a thousand households in Wusongkou, which is actually a small military fortress, especially in the south of the Yangtze River, and the city built with glutinous rice juice and green bricks occupies an absolute geographical advantage, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Just when Zheng Zhibao's huge fleet appeared on the river surface of Wusongkou, the guards of the Wusongkou Thousand Households were stunned, and the sails were heavily shadowed, covering the sky and the sun.

However......

No matter how powerful a fortress is, someone has to defend it, and if people can't do it, even a fortress with impregnable walls is vulnerable. For more than 200 years, the military equipment has long been abandoned, the smoke of the anti-Japanese war in the Jiajing period has long dissipated, and the bloodshed of the war has been forgotten, the Ming army stationed in Wusongkou has returned to the old road, Shangguan continues to try to drink the blood of the soldiers, and the guards continue to try to flee or steal something to eat, what is rotten?

It's so rotten that you can just ignore them!

The first reaction of these guards guarding the Thousand Households was neither to ask for help, nor to assemble to prepare for a counterattack, but to turn around and run neatly, from Zheng Zhibao's battleship to the sight, and when they arrived at Wusongkou, in just half an hour, the defenders of Wusongkou had already run away.

When Zheng Zhibao came to the river more than 1,000 meters above Wusongkou, he used his binoculars to look at the guard of the thousand households in Wusongkou, on which there were neither soldiers defending nor arraying, and there was silence on the shore.

Zheng Zhibao was very cautious at this time, for fear of being ambushed, but ordered: "Prepare for shelling, and the landing force is ready!" ”

With Zheng Zhibao's order, the heralds of Zheng's fleet hurriedly issued orders to the ships, and one by one the battleships began to turn and move sideways, aiming their side guns at Wusongkou.

"Boom Boom ......"

The sound of the cannon was like midsummer thunder, and hundreds of lead balls roared out from the cannon muzzle and smashed into Wu Songkou!

Since the guns of the Zheng fleet were fired with black powder, the movement of hundreds of guns firing at the same time was not small, but it blocked their sight.

Zheng Zhilong couldn't see clearly what was going on at the Wusongkou Fortress, and with the end of one round of shelling, another round of bombardment, five rounds of continuous bombardment, Zheng Zhilong ordered people to land.

When Cheng Shijie arrived on Chongming Island, he knew that Wusongkou had been lost, and even the Ning Navy sailors on Chongming Island, which was more than 60 kilometers away, had no time to support.

Just when Cheng Shijie's Eighth Princess entered the mouth of the Yangtze River, Zheng Zhibao led the fleet to arrive, and hundreds of warships crowded at the mouth of the Yangtze River, looking at it, almost all of them were warships.

Zheng Zhibao wanted to see how effective the Ning Navy was, but Cheng Shijie did not plan to enter a dignified battle with the Zheng family.

Cheng Shijie smiled: "Good guy, isn't the Zheng family ready to live?" There are hundreds of them, which is really enough to save face! ”

Li Zhixiang said: "Dashuai, how to fight this battle?" ”

"Don't fight for the time being!"

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "Look at the Zheng family's fleet, densely packed here, we occupy the upper hand, if you don't take advantage of this wind, I'm sorry God." ”

"What do you mean by fire attack?"

"That's right!"

Cheng Shijie looked at the four hundred gunboats in the fleet and the old ships of the Sand Boat Gang and said: "These dilapidated have lost the value of repair, rather than wasting energy to dismantle them, it is better to use them!" ”

Li Zhixiang understood what Cheng Shijie meant, and ordered the Ningbo Navy's 400-gauge gunboat to be quickly disassembled at any time, and the 400-gauge gunboat had eight small-caliber Franc machine guns, which were the first ones equipped by the Ning Navy's infantry troops, which could fire four-pounder or six-pounder guns.

This kind of artillery is very light, less than 300 catties in total, and it is directly disassembled, and then the 400 gunboats are tied together with iron locks, and every ten guns is a group.

Seeing that the sailors of the Ning Navy were changing formations, the large warships gave way to the waterways and let the small ships fight.

At this time, Zheng Zhibao had not yet realized that the Ning Navy was preparing a fire attack, and he thought that the Ning Navy was testing the strength of the Zheng fleet with sailors.

Seeing more than 100 small broken ships of the Ning Navy Naval Division, Zheng Zhibao smiled and said: "Lao Jiu, you go and try the quality of the Ning Navy, remember, only send more than 100 ships, I can't make people laugh at me for bullying more and less!" ”

Lao Jiu is Yang Liu, one of the eighteen Zhizhi, he is ranked ninth, because he followed Liu Xiang to oppose Zheng Zhilong, and last year, he was captured by Zheng Zhilong, and Yang Liu surrendered to Zheng Zhilong.

Yang Liu is a ferocious person, but he is very brave and good at fighting, this is a ruthless character who can wrestle with Zheng Zhihu, Yang Liu is lustful, Zheng Zhilong used his nickname to subdue Yang Liu.

Yang Liuda smiled and said: "Fifth master, don't worry, you can see okay, I don't need a hundred ships to use eighty, let the surnamed Cheng see how good we are!" ”

However, at this moment, Yang Liu's nose moved, and his brows furrowed: "The surname Cheng is ready to play yin, spread out!" ”

Zheng Zhibao's face changed drastically.

Without his order, the warships of the Zheng fleet began to turn and flee, because they were in too haste, five or six boats collided together, and a fire broke out on the river, and more than a hundred old and broken ships of the Ning navy turned into fireships and sailed towards the Zheng fleet.

Cheng Shijie looked at the chaotic Zheng fleet, and said with some regret: "It's a pity, these pirate noses are really not ordinary spirits!" ”

Li Zhixiang said with a smile: "Dashuai, Zheng Zhilong is an expert in playing with fireboats, I didn't expect to be ...... by Dashuai today."

Cheng Shijie said disapprerovingly: "Next, it's up to you, the Yangtze River estuary is too small, and the naval battle will be fought at sea!" ”

"Please also move!"

Cheng Shijie actually wants to see how the navy fights, but the problem is that Li Zhixiang doesn't dare to let Cheng Shijie take risks, you must know that now the development of the Ning Navy Power Group is getting better and better, and hundreds of thousands of people follow Cheng Shijie to eat, if Cheng Shijie has a problem, this will be a smashing of hundreds of thousands of people's jobs.

What's more, Cheng Shijie doesn't have a son now, this is the most worrying thing for the Ning Navy, once Cheng Shijie has an accident, no one can afford this responsibility, which means that the Ning Navy Group will collapse.

"If the marshal doesn't move, this battle can't be fought!"

Cheng Shijie also knew Li Zhixiang's worries, he patted Li Zhixiang's shoulder and said: "Naval battle, Ben Shuai will be handed over to you, fight hard, let Zheng Zhilong kneel in front of Ben Shuai and sing conquest!" ”

Cheng Shijie took the Eight Princesses to Chongming Island. And Li Zhixiang climbed the battleship Lushun and raised the command flag: "Now you can finally do a big job!" ”

Just when Zheng Zhibao hurriedly dodged the fireboats, he was stunned to find that the Ning Navy was actually divided into two, one part of which was quickly sailing towards Chongming Island, and the other part of the main battleship, about fifty or sixty large warships, headed towards the sea.

Zheng Zhibao's first reaction was that Cheng Shijie wanted to run.

"The surname Cheng wants to run, Hong Xu!"

"In!"

"Take your people and the boat to catch up, don't let the surnamed Cheng run away!"

"Yes!"

As one of the eighteen Zhi Hong Xu, was originally Zheng Zhilong's general and fellow townsman, deeply trusted by Zheng Zhilong, in history, Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he switched to Zheng Chenggong, Shunzhi fifteen years (1658), Zheng Chenggong Northern Expedition to Nanjing, let Hong Xu also manage the military officer, and the former governor Huang Ting, household official Zheng Tai stayed in Jin, Xiamen two islands.

Taking advantage of the chaos at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the main battleship of the naval division of the Ning Navy sailed on the sea, and with the help of the wind, it actually went all the way north against the wind, which made Zheng Zhibao anxious.

The Ning Navy sailors fled in front, and Zheng's fleet pursued behind, and the two sides fought a naval guerrilla war at sea.

Guerrilla warfare is different from escaping, when the Ning naval division is running in front, from time to time he throws down a few mines, or deliberately reduces his speed, and then fires at Zheng's fleet.

In short, the naval division of the Ning Navy was full of tricks and provoked Zheng Zhibao to go more and more crazy.

Just a dozen kilometers after leaving the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Li Zhixiang said: "Now it's time for the marshal to go to Chongming, right?" ”

"Almost!"

Shen Shikui said: "Lao Li, how are you going to fight?" ”

"Fight now!"

With the order issued on the battleship Lushun, the main battleship of the Ning Navy Division began to change from the original one-word long snake formation, and the two wings were spread out, like a large peng spreading its wings.

The naval division of the Ning Navy no longer fled, so the main battleships lined up in two horizontal columns and marched in unison. Carrying the front hard and outflanking the two wings is exactly the specialty of the Ning Navy Army, and now the Ning Navy Navy has transplanted this set of tactics to naval warfare, as for whether it works...... To be honest, Li Zhixiang has no bottom in his heart.

Seeing that the battleship of the Ning Navy's naval division actually advanced instead of retreating, this made Zheng Zhibao feel a little abnormal.

Cheng Shijie's intention is very simple, Lao Tzu's ship is stronger than your warship, and the naval guns are more powerful than your naval guns, so what tricks do you need to play? Just push it flat!

In the end, the sailors of the Ning Navy were a little unskilled in receiving and contacting this kind of large warship of 3,000 or 4,000 materials, and even because of the emergency turn, several sailors were thrown out of the battleship, and the other ships were in a hurry.

In contrast, the Zheng fleet was much more calm, after all, they were begging for food at sea, and this kind of scene was just a trivial matter to them, and they didn't make a fuss.

After a short period of consternation, Zheng Zhibao immediately reacted, commanding the fleet to spread out in a wild goose formation, more than a hundred medium and large warships were arranged in the middle, the two wings of the light battleship were spread out, straight into the past, the gunners quickly loaded gunpowder and shells, aimed at the target, and the armed sailors who were ready for hand-to-hand combat held their swords, axes and muskets tightly, and once they boarded the enemy ship, they won.

Both fleets were approaching at high speed, like two tyrannosaurus dragons, viciously pounced on their opponents, and in the blink of an eye, the distance between the two fleets was shortened to less than two thousand meters.

"Boom Boom Boom Boom ......"

A large cloud of smoke and flames rushed out of the cannon chamber, and the strong recoil made the battleship involuntarily pause back, and in the thunder and lightning, more than 200 shells burst out, forming a fire curtain and covering the front line of Zheng's fleet!

"Firing the cannon so far away, the surname Cheng has a lot of money!"

Zheng Zhibao was still laughing at Ning Haijun for not understanding naval warfare, and opened fire at a distance of more than 2,000 meters, except for wasting shells, there was no effect, but the problem was that this salvo, Ning Haijun's luck was especially, he actually hit three ships directly, one of the small gunboats was directly blown up, and the other was a black-tailed ship, although it did not sink, the flowering shells directly ignited the gunpowder on it.

Seeing that his battleship lost three in an instant, Zheng Zhibao's face was full of horror: "Ning Navy's artillery can actually hit so far?" ”

(End of chapter)