Chapter 217

The water of the Yangtze River in December made General Wu Sheng realize one thing clearly, his life is in the hands of Cheng Shijie, Cheng Shijie let him die, he will die immediately, how to let him live, he can live, and he can live very nourishingly.

"Ben Shuai gives you two paths!"

Cheng Shijie looked at Wu Sheng, who was shivering in the cold wind, and said: "The first way, you guessed correctly, although Ben Shuai holds the Shang Fang sword, you are indeed not under the jurisdiction of Ben Shuai, Ben Shuai can't kill you with Shang Fang's sword, you must not be complacent, Ben Shuai can impeach you to His Majesty and the Ministry of War, report your actions to the Ministry of War, and let the Ministry of War take care of you!" You and the...... Damn, a bunch of waste who just eat, such a sturdy fortress is so easy for a bunch of rabble to occupy, I really want to kill you......"

When Wu Sheng heard this, his face turned green with fright: "Cheng Shuai, the last general will choose the second way!" ”

"Do you know what the second way is?"

"No matter what path it is, what Cheng Shuai tells me to do, I will do it!"

"Very good, very smart choice."

Cheng Shijie pointed to the Yangtze River and said with a smile: "What is running around on the Yangtze River is not a boat, but a silver with white flowers!" Collect a little from each one, and we'll all make a fortune! But didn't anyone think of collecting taxes before? ”

Wu Sheng smiled bitterly: "Cheng Shuai, it's not that I don't want to, but I don't dare, the sea ships that dare to pass through Wu Songkou are all heeled, and the last general can't afford to provoke them!" ”

"You can't afford to mess with them, why don't you go find someone who can afford them?"

Cheng Shijie smiled faintly: "You don't think that no one can control them, right?" ”

Cheng Shijie did not immediately indicate that Ning Haijun wanted to occupy Wusongkou, but used the way to make money by blocking the river, and when he spoke, Cheng Shijie asked Gao Qiqian to come over.

"Mr. Wu, I will introduce you to a person, Gao Qiqian Gao Gonggong, the big red man in front of His Majesty, the chief eunuch of the warrior battalion, the eunuch of the former leader, the palm seal of the imperial horse supervisor, and the Ning Navy supervisor, think about it, Gao Gonggong can't afford to provoke those people!"

Gao Qiqian naturally knows that there is too much oil and water on this Yangtze River, but this oil and water is not in Wusongkou, but in Nanjing, which is the six departments of Nanjing and the small treasury and money bags of the eunuchs.

Gao Qiqian said: "General Cheng, those people are not easy to mess with!" ”

"What if you say a few million taels of silver a year??"

"What?"

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "Zheng Zhilong's annual protection fee at sea, these Jiangnan wealthy merchants occupy one-third, if we occupy Wusongkou, each boat collects one percent, that is six or seven million taels of silver, if two percent of the tax, it is fifteen or six million taels of silver." Is the money worth offending them? ”

Gao Qiqian's face became serious: "Our family has always shared the worries of the emperor, and we are not with these moths!" ”

"This silver, Cheng thinks it should be divided into three pieces!"

"One is 30% of Gao's father-in-law, and one is His Majesty's, how can it be 40%, Cheng is not talented, accounting for 20%, and the remaining one is for his father-in-law to go up and down!"

Wu Sheng opened his mouth and said boldly: "What about the last general?" ”

"What are you?"

Gao Qiqian didn't wait for Cheng Shijie to speak, and stepped forward to kick Wu Sheng.

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "Alas, Gonggong Gao, this is not right, the emperor does not send starving soldiers to death, and does not let these soldiers eat, how can they do things with their hearts, so let's do it, Mr. Wu, your share, this handsome is out, and I will give you 100,000 taels of silver every year!" ”

Wu Sheng was ecstatic in his heart.

However, he was stunned by the great news in front of him.

Gao Qiqian was a little unhappy: "Mr. Wu, why are you still not satisfied?" You can't be too greedy......"

"Father-in-law, the last general is very satisfied!"

Cheng Shijie's promise to Wu Sheng, of course, is just an empty word, 100,000 taels of silver, how could Cheng Shijie give it to him, what he gave him was just a name.

Cheng Shijie said: "Not only will I give you 100,000 taels of silver, but Ben Shuai will also provide you with equipment, as well as the supplies of his subordinates, and on the side of the Ning Navy Marine, Ben Shuai will transfer you a hundred ships, so that you can intercept all the smuggling ships on the river!" ”

Soon the supply ships of the Ning Navy docked at the Wusongkou wharf and unloaded a large amount of food and supplies from the ship, and soon, Wusongkou also became a huge construction site like Chongming Island.

A large number of men and guards are wielding hoes and shovels, and are in full swing to build warehouses and trestle bridges. Wusongkou is called a fortress, but in fact, it is the same as the original Dengzhou Weizuo Qianhu Office, which has been rotten to a mess, and many fortifications can be kicked down with one kick.

The weapons warehouse was already empty, and there was not even a shadow of a cannon on the entire Wusongkou fortress.

Cheng Shijie finally knew why Zheng Zhilong's pirate group could easily capture Wusongkou, a fortress without a single cannon, can it be called a fortress? There was no choice but to command the people and the guards to rebuild the fort and mount the five-inch naval guns that were originally assigned to him on the giant shark-class battleship.

It's not that Cheng Shijie doesn't use the huge naval guns, but it's because the five-inch naval guns are too heavy for the sail battleship, in the naval battle of Wusongkou, the five-inch rear-loading thirty times the diameter of the naval gun fired, and when the cannon goes down, the battleship retreats dozens of meters as a whole, and the huge recoil force makes no one dare to fire the second gun.

If the second cannon is fired, without the enemy's attack, the giant shark-class battleship will fall apart if it is not managed, and the Ning Navy and Army have no way to deal with these behemoths, and the two naval guns with a range of more than 4,000 meters are enough to block the river.

What convinced Cheng Shijie the most was that Wu Sheng and others, who were responsible for building forts, wharves and trestle bridges, actually tried to cut corners under his nose! For example, let them dig the foundation, the foundation is only dug less than one meter, and the timber for the construction of the trestle is as shoddy as possible, as for the food for the people......

It can only be said that they can't eat the dead, and they should have given the people rice, salted eggs, salted fish and other good things, and let them sell them.

But the problem is that for Wu Sheng, a bastard, he still needs to be used, so Cheng Shijie played a grafting tree, reported the Wusongkou counterattack to the Ministry of War, and endorsed it by Gao Qiqian, so Wu Sheng, the chief soldier of Wu Songkou, became Wu Sheng, the chief of Cheng Shijie's personal guard, and Wu Sheng also had the original general and was promoted to the chief soldier.

directly occupied the magpie's nest and became the de facto Wu Sheng's general soldier, as for the original Wu Sheng, this guy was unpopular, Cheng Shijie asked Wu Sheng to be directly sealed in a cement pillar as the final contribution.

As for the other guards officers with unclean hands and feet, Cheng Shijie also divided five by two, and killed one when he found one! Chen Guodong's internal supervision of the Ning Navy went around the construction site several times a day, and then ate with the workers, and killed one when they found one. Soon, the engineering quality of Wusongkou Fortress increased tenfold, and when digging the foundation, I was eager to dig out all the magma, and the quality of food for the workers was also greatly improved, even better than some officials!

Just when Cheng Shijie began to build fortifications in Chongming, Changxing, and Wusongkou, a Karak warship affiliated with the Portuguese came to Wusongkou.

The Carrack Hull was a three- or four-masted sailing ship. It also translates as the battleship Karrick. Japanese history books of the same period refer to it as the "Black Ship". It is characterized by its huge curved stern, as well as a huge mast in the bow. It was fitted with several sails on the foremast and midmast, and a spinnaker on the rearmast.

The Carrick was the first ship in European history to be used for ocean-going voyages, due to its sheer size and ability to remain stable in the open sea; In addition, it is divided into a large amount of space to store enough supplies for ocean voyages.

The Karak battleship was large and well-protected, and the addition of the military made some Carrick-type sailing ships into superships weighing 2,000 tons, three masts, and multiple decks. The multi-deck can be used for heavy guns, and it is also convenient for firing side-by-side side guns, which is very powerful and terrifying. Suffice it to say, more than any warship in Asia at that time.

European navigators also continued to improve the Karak battleship. In addition to improving the mast of the sailing ship, on the ship's guns, cast iron replaced the welded calcined iron. The breech-loading gun, which could be fixed on a shelf, replaced the front-loading gun on a wheeled trolley. All these strengthened the performance of the naval guns.

It can be said that Portugal can become the hegemon of the sea, relying on the Karak battleship, the appearance of this battleship has attracted Cheng Shijie's attention, and now the main battleship of the Ning Navy is not in Wusongkou, this battleship is not easy to deal with.

Cheng Shijie ordered: "All 400 gunboats are ready to attack with fireships!" ”

However, just when the big war was about to break out, the battleship put on a gun suit, put on a gun suit, just like an infantry put away a rifle, this was not in a combat state, and soon, this behemoth sent a small speedboat to contact the Ning Navy Navy Commander to show his intentions.

Of course, the Portuguese have now gone downhill, with the Dutch-stirring stick, starting to attack Portuguese settlements or colonies all over the world.

Although the Portuguese settled in Macao and did business, they had to pay taxes to the Ming Dynasty, and if they didn't pay taxes, they didn't negotiate with you. Some stupid and brainless people use the topic to play, thinking that Macao was lost by the Ming Dynasty, in fact, this account really can't be counted on the Ming Dynasty, and the Portuguese who were in Macao in the Ming Dynasty are very honest, and they dare not blow up the thorns, and want to cut Macao away from China, and they have to wait for another two hundred years for the glorious Qing Dynasty to turn the entire land of Shenzhou into a place full of fools and thousands of horses.

The Portuguese were now allies of the Ming Dynasty, and when the Manchus attacked Beijing, they also sent troops to support them in the name of mercenaries, and of course, the Western-style army trained by Sun Yuanhua in Dengzhou was the Spanish-style army unit trained by the Portuguese. After all, Portugal is not yet a sovereign state, but a vassal state of the Spanish Empire.

"Meet the Governor of Liaodong!"

If he hadn't seen this foreign devil with his own eyes, Cheng Shijie couldn't believe that the representative of the Portuguese, the bearded Chinese name Zeng Dezhao, was very fluent in Chinese, and he came to Nanjing from the forty-first year of Wanli (1613) to learn Chinese and named Xie Wulu. In the forty-fourth year, Shen Zuo, a waiter of the Ministry of Rites, was escorted to Macao when he asked for a ban on teaching. The more four years of the year, changed to this name.

Now that he has been living in Daming for more than twenty years, it is not surprising that he can speak Chinese.

"Zeng Dezhao, what are you doing?"

"Your Excellency the Governor, on behalf of Portugal, we want to trade with Liaodong!"

Zeng Dezhao said with a smile: "Our parishioners in Liaodong said that Your Excellency the Governor has phosphate mines, sea bird droppings, tin mines, manganese mines, copper mines, silver mines, sulfur, saltpeter, and a lot of wood!" ”

"That's right, I wonder if Your Excellency the Governor can allow us Portuguese to go to Liaodong?"

"Yes!"

Cheng Shijie thought for a while and said, "There are three things to follow!" ”

"Please!"

"First, you are in Liaodong, you have Ben Shuai's soldiers to protect your safety, you can't carry weapons and equipment to land in Liaodong, and you still want to go ashore with swords and guns, which will make people say that the law and order under Ben Shuai's rule is not good!"

"Yes!"

Zeng Dezhao did not hesitate, nor did he object, they had few people and few guns, and it was not enough to see in the face of the Ning Navy, especially the Spanish Army, which they were proud of, did not even insist on the Ning Navy, and surrendered directly.

"The second thing, you must abide by the law of the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese in Liaodong have broken the law, and they must be dealt with in accordance with the laws of the Ming Dynasty, you must not only abide by the laws of the Ming Dynasty, but also abide by the living customs of the Ming Dynasty, after all, there is a saying in the Ming Dynasty, follow the customs of the locals, you have been in the Ming Dynasty for more than 20 years, you should understand!"

Zeng Dezhao said: "This is as it should be!" ”

"Also, you have to pay taxes according to the system of Liaodong. Of course, after paying taxes, you can enjoy the protection of the Ning Navy, and you can also have the right to buy property in Liaodong! ”

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "You can buy land in Liaodong, and you can also build churches!" ”

The Portuguese were so moved that they wanted to cry, they couldn't think of a way to preach, but the problem was that they didn't know that the Ming people were actually the most pragmatic, and they only believed in their ancestors when it came to faith.

Worthy of the ancestors is the code of morality and behavior, and the glorious lintel is the greatest goal and motivation.

Cheng Shijie is not worried that the missionaries will pull people's hearts away, if they have this ability, they will not have a headache.

Just as Cheng Shijie was meeting with Zeng Dezhao, representatives of the Dutch East India Company also boarded Wusongkou and asked to meet Cheng Shijie.

"Your Excellency the Governor, I am the Senior Commercial Commissioner of the Dutch East India Company, and I think we have room for cooperation!"

Cheng Shijie smiled faintly: "Dutch East India Company, how do you want to cooperate?" ”

Ning Haijun and the Zheng Group had a big fight, which made the Dutch see the opportunity, in fact, the Dutch were very unhappy that Zheng Zhilong monopolized the trade with the Dutch, and they wanted to do business directly with the Daming, but the problem was that no matter what the goods were, they had to go through Zheng Zhilong's scraping.

More importantly, the Dutch took a fancy to the big man, the big man is rich in resources, the climate is pleasant, the geographical location is extremely superior, is a pearl embedded in the South China Sea, the Netherlands as a maritime power, the pearl is naturally coveted, and does not hesitate to risk the risk of war with the Ming Dynasty to send troops to occupy it.

However, the Daguan is really too savage, completely in the era of flood, there are countless poisonous snakes and beasts stung in the forest, and there are fierce and bloodthirsty natives hiding in the shadows, and a careless head hunter will let these terrible headhunters cut off and hang under the eaves to dry.

Of course, the most painful thing is that the traffic conditions are extremely poor, and there is not a decent road. It's not that they don't want to repair, it's that it's too difficult to repair, and after repairing, they were washed away by floods, and the conditions are so bad that the difficulty of wanting to develop a master can be imagined.

The big man is not completely a wilderness, for example, the Taichung area, because of the development of the opening king Yan Siqi, the Taichung area now has a certain infrastructure after more than ten years of development, but the problem is that this place belongs to Zheng Zhilong, if they want to intervene, there is no doubt that they will be hit by Zheng Zhilong.

However, the Dutch are not yet Zheng Zhilong's opponent, in their opinion, Cheng Shijie's maritime strength is far inferior to Zheng Zhilong, and there is no choice but to cooperate with them.

The representative of the Netherlands was the senior commercial attaché of the Dutch East India Company, and now the Viceroy Putmans.

Cheng Shijie unceremoniously rejected Putmans' proposal, no matter how he and Zheng Zhilong fought, it was a civil war of the Ming Dynasty, but the Dutch intervened, with the help of the Dutch, Cheng Shijie was a traitor and traitor, this is a matter of principle.

"Your Excellency the Governor, you must know that Zheng's strength is much stronger than yours!"

"I don't have to worry about this!"

Seeing Cheng Shijie's resolute attitude, Putmans expressed great regret.

He also knew that Cheng Shijie had not suffered a loss, he had achieved a chance victory, and he thought that he could easily defeat Zheng Zhilong, but when Zheng Zhilong attacked with all his strength, Cheng Shijie would cry and shout and beg them for help.

Cheng Shijie smiled faintly when Putmans was about to leave: "Hans, are you still comfortable in the big office?" ”

Hans, Putmans stiffened his head and said, "Comfortable, comfortable." ”

"It's good to be comfortable! However, the place is very wild, infested with malaria mosquitoes, very dangerous, and there is not even a decent road, so you must have encountered a lot of difficulties in settling there, right? ”

Seeing that Cheng Shijie had a very tough attitude, Putmans thought that Cheng Shijie was going to ask the teacher for guilt, but he never expected that he would actually shush them and ask for warmth.

Putmans said tentatively, "We are really grateful for the concern of the Governor! To tell you the Governor, we did encounter great difficulties on the side of the Governor, for example, the transportation conditions were so poor that we could only settle in a few ports, and we did not dare to go deep into the island......"

"How can this work? If you want to get rich, you must first build roads, children know it, and the roads don't develop the economy much! After you go back, hurry up and build the road, and build the road that runs through the entire Dayuan Island! ”

Putmans wept and said, "We want to repair it too, but it was hot and rainy, and the road was finally repaired, and after a few heavy rains, the roadbed was washed away!" ”

"You can build concrete roads!"

Cheng Shijie naturally didn't have a good heart, he tricked the Dutch into building roads, waiting for the Dutch to repair ports, roads, and towns, and then sent troops to beat down the big men and eat ready-made......

(End of chapter)