Chapter 221

In Chongming Island, the development of everything is on the right track.

Cheng Shijie positioned Chongming Island as a military base, of course, it is also a cargo transit station, Shen Boyun is a very capable person, Cheng Shijie handed over the construction of the defense line to him and a group of staff officers to complete, and he himself Zhu Weiyuan wandered around, looking for fun and enjoying life.

For some people, life is to live, and the current Cheng Shijie is called life.

Cheng Shijie first stayed in the old house of the Shen family on Chongming Island, and later Shen Boyun gave Cheng Shijie the Shen family's courtyard, which is a small house, this house is small, it is small compared with the ancestral house of the Shen family.

This is a wide more than a dozen rooms, the front yard, the main courtyard and the back yard three courtyards, there are two houses next to each other, after opening up, forming a medium-sized courtyard.

Originally, this courtyard was called Shen Garden, but now it is naturally renamed Cheng Mansion.

Cheng Shijie while enjoying life, but also attaches importance to education, with the sand boat gang to take refuge, at least in terms of teachers have been significantly improved, Cheng Shijie focused on cultivating the second generation of Liaodong, but did not give up the generation of Liaodong immigrants.

The second generation of immigrants can sit in spacious and bright classrooms to study, and they receive an education that the first generation of Liaodong can only find time to improve themselves after work, and there are night schools in the main areas of Liaodong, such as Jinzhou, Fuzhou, Gaizhou and Haizhou, as well as Lushun.

In principle, the official management committee of Liaodong does not require adults to attend night schools, but the government has requirements for the cultural level of public officials, even if they are officers of the Ning Navy, they must go to the Liaodong Army Academy or the Naval Academy to attend a short-term training course, otherwise they are not even qualified to serve as officers in the army at the level of 100 or above.

However, in Chongming Island, Cheng Shijie set up four new-style schools without much effort, which is the reason why Jiangnan is easy to recruit poor talents.

However, when Cheng Shijie came to Chongming Island, not everyone was happy, at least most people, including the people, did not like it, Cheng Shijie knew that Chongming Island was a sand island, and it was getting bigger all the time, but due to soil erosion, the island was not stable.

For this reason, Cheng Shijie issued an order in March that everyone should plant trees, and there are 20 trees, but all children who are born are counted.

Needless to say, the importance of planting trees for the environment is needless to say, but the problem is that the people on Chongming Island don't buy it, because their lives are too poor and too hard.

"Being poor actually makes sense!"

Cheng Shijie had to convince these people of poverty, because the land where everyone planted trees was planned, along Chongming Island, and along the two main roads in the east and west.

As long as the trees are planted, these lands and trees belong to the people personally, and if poplars or paulownia trees are planted, they can become mature in three or five years, which will be a lot of income.

Of course, Cheng Shijie also knew that these people were actually afraid of usury, even if the Liaodong Bank gave them loans, they were unwilling to plant trees.

Shen Boyun looked at Cheng Shijie and said: "Dashuai, otherwise, all Chongming's trees, our Shen family has all the trees, and there are now a total of 135,654 residents on the whole island, with a total of more than 2,713,000 trees!" ”

"You're beautiful! You Shen clan are rich enough, don't take all the benefits! ”

"But what can they do if they are willing to live with their own money?"

Cheng Shijie said: "They don't have money, then let them work hard, the Shen family is responsible for cultivating or purchasing a batch of saplings, and the Ning Haijun Agricultural Reclamation Company is responsible for procurement, let the people plant trees, one hundred trees of each, and give them twenty saplings, these saplings are their personal property!" ”

In fact, these islanders, like the nomads, do not have much environmental awareness, and if the island cannot survive, they will go to another place, unlike the farming people, who have a deep sense of dependence on the land.

Even if many places are not suitable for survival, especially in Liaodong, many grasslands are not suitable for human survival, and the wasteland that has been painstakingly reclaimed grows more weeds than the crops planted, which if it is replaced by Africans or whites, there is no patience to persevere.

However, the Ming people are different, the weeds that grow are just pulled out, and if it doesn't work for two years, as long as it persists, the uninhabited grassland will sooner or later become a thriving farm.

In all fairness, the situation on Chongming Island is already good, although the sand land is limited, but the problem is that sweet potatoes and potatoes, as well as peanuts, are particularly fond of sand, and there is enough rain, and soon the big hat of poverty will be taken off here.

Not only Chongming Island, but even the fishermen living by the Yangtze River are actually very hard, and the hairy crabs weighing nearly one pound will be the king of crabs in the future life, and they need to be auctioned and lucky to buy.

However, in this era, a hairy crab actually costs only fifty yuan.

You must know that a chicken costs between 30 and 70 yuan, and 50 yuan can buy a big chicken, because the daily salary of ordinary people in the capital is actually between 30 and 40 yuan, and it is even lower in Jiangnan.

Cheng Shijie paid out of his own pocket and invited the officers of the Ning Navy to eat hairy crabs, but what he didn't expect was that the soldiers of the Ning Navy still didn't appreciate it.

"Dashuai, this hairy crab has no meat, no oil and water, it's better to buy a big fat chicken!"

Cheng Shijie was as good as a stream, bought a few hairy crabs, got a few saury fish back to try them, and even went to the river to ask fishermen to help him catch pufferfish.

Zhu Weiyuan rarely ate seafood or river fresh food in the past, but followed Cheng Shijie to Chongming and realized the freedom of hairy crabs and pufferfish.

Cheng Shijie found out that Zhu Weiyuan was still a snacker, tasting local snacks everywhere, sea bass, osmanthus fish, saury fish, hairy crab...... Eat it differently.

Including Gu Ziyi, they all slowly became blessed. The original Gu Ziyi was at most eighty catties, and now he can see his little belly slightly, at least one hundred catties away.

Cheng Shijie also found a business opportunity, these river fresh and seafood, there is no means to keep them fresh, and the business of fishermen in the Wusongkou area is not very good, barely able to maintain food and clothing.

Cheng Shijie set up a river fresh and seafood canning processing factory on Chongming Island, and business became extremely hot, and the price of fish, shrimp and crabs rose in response!

Anchovy, saury and pufferfish are listed as the "three fresh fish of the Yangtze River", among which anchovy is the most precious, because it is different from pufferfish and saury, it is a kind of seasonal fish, and the meat quality is the most delicious before the Qingming Festival, and it will plummet after the Qingming Festival.

Therefore, the price of anchovy before the Qingming Festival is more than gold, and once the Qingming Festival passes, everyone does not want to give it away.

It's already April, and it's the best time to eat anchovies.

On this day, Cheng Shijie personally handled the anchovy, Zhu Weiyuan was responsible for lighting the fire, and Gu Ziyi was in charge.

Just when Cheng Shijie steamed the steamed anchovies, Shen Boyun hurriedly came and said, "Dashuai, something happened!" ”

"What's wrong?"

"The fishermen who went out to sea to fish found that the thousands of warships of the Zheng fleet were coming towards Wusongkou, and there was only less than an hour left from here!"

"Straight to Wusongkou? It's kind of interesting! ”

Zhu Weiyuan said: "Eat the fish and then leave?" ”

"No, it's not only here to Wusongkou, it's already very hurried in an hour!"

"With General Wu here, Zheng Zhilong shouldn't be able to take advantage!"

Cheng Shijie thought about it.

The warships of this era are usually about eight or nine knots or even ten knots, two hours, that is, more than 30 kilometers, even if Cheng Shijie is riding a horse, it is difficult to reach Wusongkou within an hour.

Cheng Shijie decided to eat fish first.

Wusongkou, Ning Haijun immediately quickly assembled, entered the combat post, everything was in order. Eighteen three-inch guns of millimeter caliber breech-loading smoothbore guns and four four-inch breech-loading smoothbores were lifted from their gun jackets, and boxes of shells were moved out of the anti-artillery holes and placed on the gun positions.

In just a quarter of an hour, the officers and men of the Ming army stationed at Wusongkou had completed their combat preparations, although this Ming army nominally belonged to the Wusongkou garrison, but in fact, they were also soldiers of the Ning Navy, at least most of them.

The original Wu Sheng, the chief soldier of Wusongkou, was so disgusting to Cheng Shijie, he also thought that Cheng Shijie had a place to find him, and began to want to blow up his hair.

Of course, Cheng Shijie will not get used to him, after cutting off Wu Sheng's head, with the help of Gao Qiqian, Cheng Shijie's guard commander became the general soldier of the Wusongkou garrison.

And it turned out that Dengzhou Weizuo Qianhu suppressed Tang En, and became Wu Sheng's deputy. Tang En was able to become Wu Sheng's deputy for two reasons, one is that he was born in Dengzhou Weizuo Qianhu and belonged to the descendants of Cheng Shijie's lineage. The second is that he himself is more hard-working, and he serves as the pacification of a thousand households.

The number of subordinate households is less than 1,000 households, deputy 1,000 households, and 100 households, and in fact it is only responsible for the prison affairs within the thousand households, and is also in charge of military affairs. At the beginning, Tang En missed the line, followed Cheng Shijie's masterpiece, and was pushed to the end by Cheng Shijie and became a big soldier.

However, the problem is that Tang En is also a ruthless person, during his tenure as a big soldier, he put down his shelf, fought hard, and got the opportunity to study at the Liaodong Military Academy, as a result, he served as an assistant teacher at the Liaodong Military Academy, and successfully obtained the certificate of completion, but he did not develop in the military post, but has been in the military supervision system.

The importance of Wu Songkou is self-evident, Cheng Shijie put Wu Sheng in this position and also left the supervisors, otherwise, Wu Sheng is likely to be pulled into the water by the wealthy businessmen in Jiangnan.

The weather is now in good condition and you can see it completely with a telescope. Under the guidance of the lookout post, Wu Sheng, Tang En and the others soon discovered the spiky sail shadows emerging from behind the sea level.

Don said in disbelief, "Good fellow, at least eight or nine hundred warships!" ”

"I'm afraid there will be more than a thousand! What a big deal! ”

Cheng Shijie worked hard, and it took two years to get less than 60 warships, and Zheng Zhilong pressed more than 1,000 warships as soon as he made a move, which is really staggering.

This time is different from the fleet led by Zheng Zhibao last time, although Zheng Zhibao also had thousands of warships last time, most of them were small ships, and this time, more than 600 main warships were dispatched, and Zheng Zhilong took out his own family foundation.

Tang En said with some concern: "General Wu, all the strength of our army now adds up to only more than 3,100 people, but the enemy army has more than 1,000 warships in one go, and the disparity between the numbers is huge, how can this be good?" ”

Wu Sheng smiled faintly: "When did we care about how much advantage the enemy army has?" ”

Tang En thought about it, and it was indeed the case, when he faced the bandit Qin Wu, the Denglai New Army, and Kong Youde's rebels, including the Jiannuning Navy, they all fought more and fought less.

Tang En muttered, "Of course the lower officer knows that our Ning Navy is very strong, but ...... But it's not like land warfare! The enemy came from the sea, there were thousands of warships and thousands of guns, they could beat us, but we couldn't beat them, how can this battle be fought! ”

"Isn't that easy?"

Wu Sheng smiled: "Put the enemy on the shore!" ”

Wu Sheng immediately gave an order: "All the artillery should be withdrawn from the artillery position first, the infantry should enter the anti-artillery fortifications, and the artillery should not be fired back when the enemy is bombarded, and then the artillery will be pushed out and beaten when the enemy army begins to land!" ”

When Zheng's fleet arrived at Wusongkou, it was found that the Ning Navy had not opened fire, which made Zheng Zhilong very strange.

The defending side should open fire at this time and keep the fleet out of the effective range of their guns. Compared with the battleship, the coastal battery can be well protected, and when firing, it is not affected by the turbulence of the waves, the accuracy is relatively high, and it will be cheaper to fight.

In order to attract Zheng's army troops to land, the Ning Navy also deliberately put the land forces of Zheng's fleet on the shore, away from the range of naval guns.

Just when Zheng's army unit thought that Ning's navy was nothing more than that, Ning's navy actually dispatched cavalry troops, you must know that Zheng's army unit is actually a light infantry unit, there is no way, at sea, if you accidentally fall into the sea, the light infantry still has a chance to climb up.

But the hoplites, like a weighing stone, must have sunk to the bottom.

As a result, Zheng's army troops faced a crushing massacre by the cavalry of the Ning Navy, and more than 5,000 people landed smoothly, and less than 300 people ran back.

"What the hell are these black skins up to?"

Shi Daxuan smiled: "It's possible, they gave up Wusongkou!" ”

"How is this possible?"

"Your Majesty gave Chongming Island to Princess Chongming, and Cheng Shijie can deploy troops on Chongming Island, but Wusongkou is not his territory!"

Zheng Zhilong thought about it and felt that it might be, he had received information that Cheng Shijie had more than 6,000 Ning Navy soldiers on Chongming Island, which was a big force.

If Wusongkou is not occupied, the next big battle with the Ning Navy will definitely not be easy to fight. But occupying Wusongkou is different, now Cheng Shijie is robbing the maritime merchants at sea, and the Jiangnan maritime merchants have been unable to go to sea for more than three months because the naval division of the Ning Navy controls the mouth of the Yangtze River.

However, the maritime merchants of Fujian and Guangdong can go to sea, but there is a high chance that they will be plundered by the Ning navy. In this case, Jiangnan maritime merchants and Fujian and Guangdong maritime merchants have already stood on their side, and they all blame Cheng Shijie for taking the road by himself.

After half an hour of preparation, the more than 600 main warships under Zheng Zhilong's command were 24 naval guns for the Wuwei ship, and 48 were equipped with Junk ships, and the single-story bird ships did not even have a chance to participate in the battle.

Zheng Zhilong divided the more than 600 warships into three waves, wave after wave, not giving the Ning Navy a chance to breathe.

With Zheng Zhilong's order, more than 400 warships and more than 1,000 artillery pieces began to fire shells at Wusongkou.

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

The thunderous explosion suddenly exploded on the surface of the sea, and a large ball of flames erupted from the guns of the Shanghaomen naval guns at the same time, and the black pressure of gunpowder spread in all directions like a hurricane, and the sea surface was like a black storm.

The round lead ball flew out of the cannon chamber at high speed, converging into a burst of scorching hail and smashing into Wusongkou. The rifle flames from the muzzles of the thousands of naval guns had not yet dispersed, and the thunder broke out again, and thousands of naval guns opened fire fiercely.

Since the large-caliber naval guns of the Zheng fleet are all Hongyi cannons, the Hongyi cannons have a slow firing speed, and they still need to clean the gun chamber and wait for the gun chamber to cool down.

In order to increase the density of the bombardment and the intensity of the firepower, Zheng Zhilong treated the naval guns as muskets and engaged in a three-stage attack.

When the first wave of more than 200 battleships opened fire from the port side guns, they immediately adjusted their course, gave way to the firing range, and began the second wave of battleship guns to port side fire, followed by the third wave of port side guns.

When the first wave of port guns began to nervously clean the chambers and install gunpowder and shells, the first wave of battleships, adjusted their hulls, began to fire shells from the starboard guns.

At this time, on the sea surface of Wusongkou, each wave of naval guns was hundreds or thousands, and these round things were rowing a thousand strange ballistics and roaring and falling on the docks, forts, and hillsides...... exploded into a large ball of fire, and the stone chips flew wildly, not to mention the lethality, the scene alone was scary enough.

The sailors who were ready for hand-to-hand combat were demoralized and brandished their swords and spears, the lean faces of the samurai of the day twisted into bursts of laughter, and the tall and sturdy blacks were even more merry and danced on the deck.

It can't be helped, the entertainment nature of black people is just too strong.

"Boom Boom Boom ......"

This round of shelling by Zheng's naval guns seems to be like a raging storm, and there is no intention of stopping at all, in fact, any warship has the firepower of an artillery battalion. The sound of the cannon was completely indistinguishable, and the battleships of the Zheng fleet reached three or five hundred meters and struck fiercely according to Wu Songkou.

Solid shot put, chain bullets, grapeshot bullets, etc., as if they didn't want money, Zheng Clan's fleet was showing off its powerful firepower and terrifying destructive power.

They don't look like they're fighting, but like they're burying people with shells, looking at the entire Ming Dynasty, there are really only a handful of troops who dare to play like this!

Cannonballs hail down on Wusongkou Fortress, lead balls jumping, gravel splashing, gunpowder smoke, extremely terrifying, Zheng's army morale is getting higher and higher, they firmly believe that no army can hold the line under such fierce fire without breaking down, after this round of shelling, they will be able to occupy Wusongkou Fortress with a walking attitude, chasing and killing the fleeing enemy!

In Zheng Zhilong's view, no army in the world can withstand the bombing of Zheng's fleet, which is his self-confidence and strength to dominate the sea.

Of course, if it were other Ming army troops, the area would definitely collapse, not to mention them, even Jiannu would also collapse.

In all fairness, the firepower strike strength of the Zheng fleet now is much stronger than that of the Ning Navy on the Baliwan battlefield, and how many artillery pieces did the Ning Navy have at that time?

At best, it is less than one-tenth of the Zheng fleet, no, not even one percent, the Zheng fleet has six or seven thousand guns, at this time, compared to the number of guns of the battleship, Zheng Zhilong is really stronger than the Spanish Empire, and it is also stronger than the naval strength of Great Britain.

The Spanish Armada consisted of less than 200 warships and more than 4,000 guns, which was the strength of the Spanish Empire to dominate the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

Zheng Zhilong is actually not weaker than any country's navy in terms of the number of large warships, stronger than the more than 200,000 navies of the Ottoman Empire, his weakness is artillery, Zheng Zhilong's artillery is mostly captured old artillery, and there are many naval guns that are more than two or three hundred years old.

It's just a pity that the Ning Navy is really not an ordinary Ming army, especially since they have an independent and perfect defense system for land and artillery warfare.

In this era, more than ninety percent of the army units do not have the awareness of anti-artillery, either spread, or build a strong city, but the Ning Navy has a mature trench system, especially the soft soil when digging trenches, which can well attract the kinetic energy of artillery shells, the key to the problem is that the trenches are too narrow, and it is difficult to fall into the trenches more than one meter wide.

At this time, when the Ning Navy built the anti-artillery hole, it was six feet below the surface, using three-inch thick wooden planks and logs with a diameter of more than one foot as support columns, like Wusongkou Fortress, but the cement pillars built of reinforced concrete were used as pillars, and the Ning Navy did experiments, unless the use of forty-eight-pounder guns, it was possible to threaten the anti-artillery holes.

Under the intensive firepower bombardment of Zheng's naval artillery, the Ning Navy was not without losses, after all, there were only more than 3,100 Ning Navy in the defenders of Wusongkou, and more than 4,000 young men were recruited.

In the face of the overwhelming shells, these recruits were frightened, they ran out of the anti-artillery holes, and when they came to the indiscriminate artillery, they didn't care about any military discipline and any orders.

In this case, the soldiers who ran out of the anti-artillery holes definitely did not end well, and were either shocked to death or smashed into minced meat by shells.

With such a high-intensity shelling, Zheng Zhilong was actually very painful.

After all, when the cannon goes off, there are 10,000 taels of gold, and the cannon is money.

With the three rounds of naval artillery bombardment, Zheng Zhilong looked at a Japanese samurai beside him who was barefoot and wore two long knives at his waist and said, "Morimoto-kun, it depends on your performance!" ”

In fact, if it weren't for Zheng Zhibao wasting Kumamoto Taro next to Zheng Zhilong, he would not want to use Morimoto Ichihisa, Kumamoto Taro is Zheng Zhilong's Xiaori lineage, as early as the third year of the Apocalypse, when Zheng Zhilong went to the country of Xiaori, Kumamoto Taro met Zheng Zhilong, and at that time, Tokugawa Xiu was loyal to Kumamoto Taro to be responsible for protecting Zheng Zhilong, a Ming nobleman.

With the improvement of Zheng Zhilong's strength, Kumamoto Taro gathered a large number of small days of forced samurai, loyal to Zheng Zhilong, and with Zheng Zhilong's southern and northern war, in the decisive battle with Xu Suxin, Kumamoto Taro braved the bullet rain of Xu Suxin's musket team, and cut off Xu Suxin's head in the case of more than 600 dead and wounded.

In Zheng Zhilong's heart, Taro Kumamoto is a good dog for him, and it is a pity that this dog died.

Morimoto also knew for a long time that without Zheng Zhilong's protection, he would have no way to live at all, and there was no place for him in Xiaori Country, and he inadvertently offended Cheng Shijie, although Cheng Shijie was not as strong as Zheng Zhilong, but it was more than enough to clean him up.

Morimoto bowed to Zheng Zhilong for a long time: "Your Excellency General, please rest assured, you don't need to send other landing troops, the two thousand four hundred brave warriors under my command are enough to easily take Wusongkou!" ”

In Morimoto's heart, in the face of such a sharp shelling, there should be no living people in Wusongkou, and they can go ashore to collect the corpses.

It's just a pity that Morimoto thought about it wrong for a long time, and it was very wrong.

Morimoto didn't know for a long time that he had kicked the iron plate this time.

Morimoto pulled out a long knife for a long time and pointed at Wu Songkou: "Kill it, don't leave the chicken and dog!" ”

Two thousand four hundred samurai wielded their long swords and howled loudly, and swooped down on the docks in more than sixty small warships. They moved quickly, rowed the boat like a swordfish, and in a few strokes rushed ashore, and a large number of small day warriors jumped from the boat, without making any stops, and rushed straight to the defense line of the Ning navy.

When Cheng Shijie arrived at Wusongkou, he happened to see these small days of samurai rushing ashore, and there were still five or six hundred meters away from the defense line of the Ning Navy.

"How's it going?"

"Some of the recruits were blown up, and it's not a big problem."

Cheng Shijie looked at Wu Sheng and said, "These little days of samurai, all of them will be left for me to fatten!" ”

At this time, Cheng Shijie's face was a little hideous, this scene, Wu Sheng had still seen it on the battlefield of Baliwan.

"Guaranteed to complete the mission!"

Wu Sheng ordered loudly: "All artillery regardless of their landing force and landing ship, the target is their large battleship, concentrate firepower to sink their large battleship!" ”

The artillery of the Ning Navy received the order and hurriedly ran out of the anti-artillery holes, then pushed the artillery and entered the artillery position.

Of course, there was no way for the artillery to fire right away.

These days, the samurai were barefoot, and soon after they came ashore, there was a terrible scream.

Morimoto said angrily: "What's the matter? ”

"There are nails in the ground, and our samurai has pierced his feet!"

"Yaga, as a samurai, you can't even overcome this little problem!"

The officers and men of the Ning Navy did not immediately start to counterattack, after all, the distance was too far, whether it was crossbow arrows or muskets, it was helpless for a distance of four or five hundred meters.

However, it does not mean that the samurai will be able to successfully land on these small days.

"Flutter!"

A small day warrior fell a dog gnawing mud, he struggled to get up, and he didn't feel abnormal, in fact, it was the fierce fire oil released by the defenders of the Ning Navy.

It's just that Wusongkou is full of pungent sulfur smell or gunsmoke,

These little days don't feel out of the ordinary.

When it was still fifty or sixty meters away from the front of the Ning Navy.

Cheng Shijie ordered: "Light the fire and serve the food, roast the suckling pig, not the pig." ”

(End of chapter)