Chapter 229

Cheng Shijie knows very well that whether it is the Dutchman who has always wanted to help him deal with Zheng Zhilong, or the current Catherine of the Republic of Venice, they all have a strong sense of purpose.

Their help is certainly not gratuitous, and these Europa people will definitely make the next set and give Cheng Shijie a sweet date, which must be wrapped in deadly poison.

He relied on his own strength to defeat Zheng Zhilong and gain control of the sea at the same time.

Of course, in Cheng Shijie's ideals, defeating Zheng Zhilong is not the goal, and occupying Luzon is not the end, his goal is the sea of stars.

This can be found from the importance that Cheng Shijie attaches to education, and after achieving financial prosperity, Cheng Shijie's first choice is to establish a public education system in eastern Liaodong.

In order to ensure the effectiveness of public education, the management committee will send education commissioners to inspect schools in various places, and the school's teachers and hardware facilities must be strictly assessed by the management committee every year.

In fact, at the current stage in Liaodong, the fundamental reason for not paying attention to children's education is economic interests, the children of the Ming Dynasty are different from the children of later generations, even if they are five or six years old, they can also help adults work. A twelve- or thirteen-year-old child can become proficient in plowing the land and sowing seeds, which would not have been unimaginable in later generations.

In response to the large number of 11 or 2-year-old children who are out of school, Cheng Shijie formulated the "Liaodong Compulsory Education Law", which was promulgated at the same time as the "Liaodong Regulations on the Prohibition of Foot Binding", and according to the severity, different punishment standards were formulated, ranging from fines to repatriation.

In Liaodong, only 30 percent of the children of immigrant families are enrolled in the first year, only 70 percent of the children of the second year, and 95 percent of the children of the immigrants in the third year.

So far, only the newly included areas, such as Tamsui and Luzon, have not implemented compulsory education laws for the time being, and even Chongming Island, Changxing Island, and Wusongkou have established compulsory education systems.

At the beginning of the year, the Liaodong Agricultural Research Institute in Zhenhai City and the Liaodong Hospital Research Institute in Xinghai City, as well as the Jinzhou Academy in Jinzhou, were split and refined to establish the current Liaodong University (comprehensive), Ningdong Navy Army Military Academy, Ninghai Naval Military Academy, Ningdong Naval Artillery College, Liaodong Education College, Liaodong Medical College, Liaodong Agricultural College, Liaodong Industrial College and other institutions.

Cheng Shijie's goal is to let everyone master a skill, so that they can contribute to the society after entering the society in the future.

It can be said that in the future of Liaodong, it is actually very difficult for illiterate people to live a good life, and they must master more life skills so that they can live a better life.

Just like the current colonies, if you want to be strong and rich, you must only rely on the exploitation of the natives of the colonies, and you must continue to merge and expand, so that you can develop and grow.

In the Central Plains, an adult man can take care of a dozen acres of land at most, and a family may also have a dozen acres or a few acres of land, but in Liaodong, the reserved land between one town and another town is 600 acres per capita. Of course, these lands are certainly not capable of being fully developed and require more population.

However, in order to avoid being like Henan in later generations, the villages are too dense between villages, and there are only a few acres per capita, so he is arranging in advance, and the distance between towns in Liaodong is very long, just to lack enough land after the population explosion in the future.

However, the problem is that the income from farming is limited, even if a family has five people, in the case that all five people are laborers, they can take care of up to 200 acres of land, and as more and more grain is reclaimed in Liaodong, the grain price in Liaodong is the same as that in Jiangnan, and it begins to decline.

The annual income of 200 mu of land can reach more than 300 taels of silver at most, and this is still the result of adopting scientific farming; if the primitive farming method of the Central Plains is adopted, the annual income is only less than 100 taels of silver, and excluding taxes, only a few dozen taels of silver will be in hand.

When you want to live well in the future, a few dozen taels of silver may not be enough in Liaodong, and after the economic development of Liaodong, prices will swell.

Originally, you could hire a servant for a few taels of silver, and you didn't even need to spend money, you could find a servant for cooking, but now it doesn't work, even if the elderly who are specifically responsible for taking care of children, similar to the person with the function of confinement wife, have an income of two or three taels of silver a month, and you can easily earn twenty or thirty taels of silver a year.

Cheng Shijie's idea is that Liaodong people can't just farm, they also need a large number of outstanding talents, judges, lawyers, accountants, engineers, teachers, doctors, etc. are all good choices.

From December of the fourth year of Chongzhen, Cheng Shijie began to prepare for expansion, which is something Catherine can't imagine, striking iron needs to be hard, relying on others, and will form habits, which is very bad.

However, in order to thank Catherine for bringing the news to Cheng Shijie, Zhu Weiyuan, as the hostess, held a dinner for Catherine and Miss Xu Si, and Shen Boyun's wife and daughter-in-law also attended the dinner, including the future star of the Ming Dynasty, Shen Tingyang's wife.

Shen Tingyang's wife, the Xu family, is not the Xu family of the Xu Guangqi family, but the Huating Xu family, which is a side branch of the Xu Guangqi family.

After the dinner, Catherine began to get to the point, she knew that Cheng Shijie was not easy to deal with, and decided to take the lady route.

"Your Royal Highness the beautiful princess, the goods I brought from Venice this time have all been sold and have made a good profit. I heard that Her Royal Highness is beautiful and wise, and I want to be friends with Her Highness! ”

Catherine said, "As a friend, the greeting gift is a must!" ”

As she spoke, Catherine had a large brocade box brought her, and when she opened it, there was a huge ivory ball inside.

Of course, the real name of this thing is the Oni Gong Ball, and the Devil's Ivory Ball is carved from a whole piece of ivory. Set the ball in the ball, hollowed out layer by layer, each layer is evenly thick, the ball surface is engraved with fine pattern flower holes, and the layers can be rotated. Coupled with a variety of forms and rich content of ivory carved balls and bases, it is a perfect and unique work of art.

In fact, this thing was not brought by Catherine from Venice, but she bought it through Xu Shumin in Shanghai, and it was worth 12,000 taels of silver.

If you talk about sending other things, Zhu Weiyuan may not have seen it, but this kind of handicraft, the royal family is the most indispensable thing. Zhu Weiyuan played with the ivory ball, and said with a faint smile: "The three-layer ivory ball is indeed extraordinary, purple clothes, go and get my ivory ball!" ”

Soon Gu Ziyi went out.

Cheng Shijie was not interested in the open and secret battles between women, so he took the opportunity to leave, and today Cheng Shijie did not return to the afterlife.

Although Cheng Shijie learned the news from Catherine that Luzon was taken down by the Ning Navy, the problem is that Catherine is also hearsay and does not know the details.

How did the conflict arise?

How much did the main fleet of the Ning Navy lose in this battle?

How many shells are left in the main fleet of the Ning Navy now, and how many are left in the battle?

What was the result of the battle for the assault on the city of Manila and how much was lost?

How many men and horses are there in the Luzon Marine Corps, and how much combat power is left?

What about the losses of the Spaniards?

How many people escaped from Luzon?

This is a matter that Cheng Shijie is very concerned about, when Catherine just told Cheng Shijie that Luzon was taken down, Cheng Shijie was actually very dissatisfied with Li Zhixiang and Cheng Shi, such a big thing happened, and there was no afterthought, which made Cheng Shijie very annoyed.

After calming down, Cheng Shijie thought clearly.

The Ning Navy and the Zheng fleet fought three tentative battles, although the Ning Navy achieved a comprehensive victory, but in fact, after three battles, Zheng Zhilong's main warships only lost more than 130 ships, and the loss of these warships would definitely hurt the muscles and bones for others, but for Zheng Zhilong, its main force did not lose much.

Zheng Zhilong also has more than 600 main warships, more than 2,000 small warships, and more than 100,000 personnel, and it is actually very easy to cut off the communication between Li Zhixiang and Cheng Shijie.

The most important thing is that the communication is not smooth, even if the sea route to Liaodong is not smooth.

Cheng Shijie found Shen Boyun: "Boyun, are the secret weapons I asked you to build ready?" ”

"More than 300 have been made!"

Cheng Shijie's so-called secret weapon is actually a small and narrow boat about one zhang two long and two feet eight wide, which is used to prepare for the fireship to deal with Zheng Zhilong's huge fleet.

Speaking of which, this kind of fireship is very simple to make, and it is even less expensive than the fireship launched by Zheng Zhilong.

Faced with such unreliable means of communication, the warship sailed only two or three hundred kilometers a day, and if it returned from Liaodong, it would take at least ten days.

These ten days are also very fatal, I don't know if Li Zhixiang can persevere.

……

The sky gradually turned white, and a straight glow poured down from the sky, flying over the surging waves, gilding the waves with a layer of magnificent color. The sun is storing energy behind the sea level, and its heat has baked large areas of clouds in the east red and purple, and the sea and sky are the same color, as purple as gold, as if they are about to burn.

It was a small fleet of five fortune ships sailing on the sea. It was just getting dark, the sailors were exhausted from a hard night's voyage, and the ship's boss was a thin old man in his forties and fifties, who was smoking a hookah while observing the sea.

Although there are very many Zheng warships on the sea, there are almost no people who dare not pay protection fees, almost none, which does not mean that there are none, but Liang Zhiqi of Maoming, Gaozhou, Guangdong, is a member who is unwilling to pay protection fees.

Liang Zhiqi is the son-in-law of Xu Suxin, and he is also a core member of Xu Suxin's group, after the death of the maritime merchant Li Dan, he left two heirs, one is Zheng Zhilong, who is responsible for Japan's business and sea vessels, and the other is Xu Suxin, who is responsible for the business of Quanzhou and Macau.

Zheng Zhilong's cooperation with Xu Suxin was not bad at the beginning, after all, Xu Suxin is also a figure with five or six hundred boats, and his strength should not be underestimated, but after Zheng Zhilong annexed the inheritance of Yan Siqi, the king of Taiwan, his strength expanded rapidly and began to deal with Xu Suxin.

Xu Suxin is a good hand in business, but in terms of ruthlessness, far inferior to Zheng Zhilong, the two sides fought for more than half a year, Xu Suxin was killed by Zheng Zhilong, and most of Xu Suxin's subordinates also took refuge in Zheng Zhilong, in fact, Liang Zhiqi also wanted to surrender, but the problem was that he was Xu Suxin's son-in-law, and Zheng Zhilong was unwilling to let him go.

In desperation, Liang Zhiqi took some members who were unwilling to surrender to Zheng Zhilong and began to wander on the sea, of course, Liang Zhiqi is not a good person, he is also a maritime businessman, but a smaller person in the maritime business, he does not pay protection money to Zheng Zhilong, on the one hand, he is worried that Zheng Zhilong will find out his identity.

On the other hand, he does not have a stable supply of goods on land, so he can only collect it from retail investors, and the cost is relatively high. In this case, how he pays protection money to Zheng Zhilong will not be profitable.

Liang Zhiqi's small fleet used Higashida Island in the Ryukyu Islands as its home port, and Higashida Island is also a small coral island, only less than 20 square kilometers, but fortunately, there is a small amount of arable land, which can barely survive.

As Zheng Zhilong unified the South Seas and became the overlord of the sea, Liang Zhiqi's operation became more and more difficult, and he kept thinking about where to go and where to survive.

There are not many opportunities for Liang Zhiqi to choose, either to take refuge in the Shen family's sand boat gang, or to take refuge in a certain maritime merchant in Jiangnan, but the problem is that he was also bullied by Zheng Zhilong and took refuge in the maritime businessman, Zheng Zhilong was very concerned about Liang Zhiqi, the fish that slipped through the net of Xu Suxin's group, and he didn't dare to take risks.

Just when Liang Zhiqi was thinking about it, a small black dot appeared on the sea in the distance.

A sailor called out curiously, "What is that, big boss?" It looks like it's moving this way. ”

Liang Zhiqi hurriedly picked up the telescope and stared at the small black dot in the distance, this magical gadget suddenly pulled the distant thing in front of him: "It's a person!" ”

Liang Zhiqi could see very clearly that the man in black was still alive, lying on a mast, floating and sinking with the waves.

However, he saw that the mast did not look like it had been broken by the wind, but as if it had been broken by a cannonball, and it still had scorched marks on it.

"It may be the Zheng family's sin!"

Liang Zhiqi's sailor replenishment is not as easy as Zheng Zhilong's, and the only way is to fish up the survivors who were sunk by the Zheng pirates from the sea, and if the other party wants to, they can be absorbed as subordinates.

"Come on, go over and see if the other party is still alive?"

Soon the man in black who fell into the water was rescued on the boat, and Liang Zhiqi didn't know that his move opened a way for himself.

Mao Youjun is one of Mao Wenlong's adopted grandsons and one of the brave generals under Mao Wenlong, and it can even be said that he is more brave than Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde under Mao Wenlong, and can swim in the water without sinking in armor.

However, Mao Youjun has an Achilles heel, he has a strong force value, but his emotional intelligence is too low, and he is not good at communicating with people, and he is addicted to alcohol, savage and violent.

When he was in the Dongjiang Army, his rank was not high, he was just a guerrilla general on Shuanglu Island, much lower than Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde.

During the Battle of Baliwan, Mao Youjun followed Huanglong and did not retreat, and was seriously injured in seven places. But the problem is that he has made great contributions, and according to reason, he should also be promoted. But Mao Youjun does not abide by military discipline, which is definitely not good.

Later, the Military Affairs Department of the Ning Navy considered that Mao Youjun had made a meritorious service, and if he was not rewarded, it would affect the morale and morale of the army, so he threw him to the Ning Navy Naval Academy, which is now the Liaodong Naval Military Academy.

Almost everyone knows that Mao Youjun will definitely not be able to persist in the Sailor Academy, but something unexpected happened, this Mao Youjun is very interested in reading, because Mao Youjun's surname is Hu, his name is Hu Fen, and his father Hu Pan was the hereditary hundred households of Liaozhongwei Youtun Thousand Households, and he has always let Hu Fen abandon Wu Congwen.

It's just that when Hu Fen was young, Hu Pan died in the forty-first year of Wanli, when Hu Fen was only seven years old, and only studied with his father for less than a year.

Later, in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, he became one of Mao Wenlong's adopted grandsons, but Mao Wenlong only took a fancy to his martial arts, and he did not cultivate him because of his low emotional intelligence.

It wasn't until he entered the Ninghai Navy Naval Academy and began to study full-time that Mao Youjun was like a fish in water in the Naval Academy, not only got rid of his stinky problems, but also graduated with a good score of the fifth place in the first school of the Naval Academy.

Mao Youjun was serving as the 100 general manager of the Gaizhou warhead, and when the Gaizhou was forced to sink by itself, he was washed into the sea by the shock wave, accidentally held a mast, and drifted at sea for four days.

After Mao Youjun woke up, he thought about his responsibility, they were to report to Cheng Shijie, he looked at the sailor and said, "Where is this?" ”

"At sea!"

"Can you send me to Liaodong!"

"Liaodong!"

Liang Zhiqi asked consciously, "Are you from the Ning Navy?" ”

"That's right, in the first fleet of the Xianning Navy and the Navy, there is a hundred general Mao Youjun of the military detachment, as long as you send me to Liaodong, there will be a heavy thanks!"

Cheng Shijie had not yet received the Sixth Fleet from Liaodong, nor had he heard detailed information from Luzon, while Zheng Zhilong's fleet had already led the South China Sea.

South China Sea, Subic Bay.

Since the occupation of Manila in Luzon, all four detachments of the First Fleet of the Ning Navy have been dispatched to reconnoiter in the direction of the Luzon Strait, the Subic Strait, Manila Bay, and the Sulu Sea.

The 1st Squadron's 12 Shark-class warships were responsible for the sea surface vigilance in the Subic direction.

As soon as the sky was bright, the sailors and soldiers on the battleship got up with their sleepy eyes, went to the deck to assemble, first called names, and after making sure that all the personnel were in place, they hoisted the military flag, sang the military song, and finished their work, while enjoying the beautiful sunrise on the sea, they washed their teeth and washed their faces and ate breakfast. The sailors were all dressed in only a pair of trousers, revealing a strong muscle.

And, of course, a ...... Sweat and grime! They all looked like moving humanoid gas bombs, and the smell of sweat could smoke people, and everyone had to stay away from them, or their noses would suffer.

No way, it's too sad to be a sailor these days, not to mention eating worse than a dog, staying in the hot and humid bilge all day long like a year, you can't even take a bath, bathing requires a lot of fresh water, and this is what the ship lacks the most.

If you want to take a shower on the boat, you have to wait until it rains, and if it doesn't rain, you can endure it. The sailors hadn't bathed in days, and the smell was not much better.

For the Ning Navy, it was actually lucky, because they didn't have to eat worse than dogs like their Europa counterparts, because the Ning Navy Navy would stock up on a large number of cans, including canned beef, canned mutton, braised pork, and all kinds of canned fruits.

At least the officers and men of the Ning Navy will not get scurvy, although they can't eat too much fresh food, they can use canned food to protect the balance of nutrition.

As the commander of the First Fleet, Li Yuan still has a little privilege, he can get a liter of fresh water every day to wash his face, and he can also use this water to wipe his body, at least not like other sailors.

Just as Li Yuan was about to eat, Yang Shiwei, the deputy commander of the fleet, said with a smile: "We are so lucky today, we met fifteen merchant ships just now, such a large merchant ship, it must not be simple, maybe it is the fleet of a rich man in the south of the Yangtze River!" ”

Li Yuan wiped his hands and said, "Don't think about robbing, what if it's the Spaniards' fleet?" ”

"This can't be a large sand boat, it belongs to the unique ship type in Jiangnan, I can't be mistaken!"

"Maybe it's Zheng's fleet!"

"Unlikely, right? No matter how I look at them, I think they're merchant ships......"

Just as he was talking, there was a burst of walkie-talkie electric current from the battleship: "Report to General Li, it's the Zheng fleet, not the merchant ship, repeat, it's the Zheng fleet, not the merchant ship!" ”

"Roger!"

Li Fang opened the all-channel communication: "Get ready for battle!" ”

Cheng Shijie's biggest hanging for the Ning Navy is to equip each warship with at least two walkie-talkies, and each battleship has a 200-watt solar panel, two sets of batteries and inverters to charge the walkie-talkie.

The detachment is equipped with a 10-watt walkie-talkie covering an area of 5 to 8 kilometers, and a 50-watt vehicle-mounted walkie-talkie, which can cover an area of 25 to 30 kilometers on the sea surface, which is used to coordinate operations with the detachment of the First Fleet.

"Knock Knock Knock ......"

After Li Yuan gave the order to prepare for battle, the war drums sounded, and the sailors who were almost full of the drums threw away their lunch boxes, and did not ask what was going on, but rushed to their respective posts almost in response to the conditions, and as soon as the drums sounded, even if there was a big matter, they had to put it aside first and return to their posts immediately.

The Sea Shark-class warships are all large warships of the 4,000-material class, and a large number of steel are used to strengthen the hull, and the bow is hollow to reduce weight, benefiting from these new technologies, these big guys weighing more than 1,000 tons can run fast even against the wind, which is incomparable to traditional schooners. They are like light petrels skimming the sea, and with the help of telescopes, they outflank them all the way, and they are extremely vigorous and pleasing to the eye.

Through the forty-fold telescope, you can see that on the opposite battleship, those sailors are lazily maneuvering the sails or scraping the dirt on the deck, and when they see the battleship of the Ning Navy rushing towards them, they suddenly become a mess.

The five battleships in front reacted the fastest, and they immediately began to operate the rudder and began to turn, trying to escape in vain, but it was already too late.

The captain of the Xi'an, the lead ship on the left flank, ordered: "Open the cannon and say hello to them!" ”

The gunners on the bow of the Xi'an fired a shot very casually, of course, they really didn't think about a direct hit, because they were a full 3,500 meters away from the opponent at this time, and the three-inch muzzle shell burst out of the barrel, screaming all the way to the target three kilometers away.

All the gunners swore to the sky that they really didn't deliberately aim, and even if they wanted to, they couldn't aim accurately, and in the turbulent sea, the effective firing range of the three-inch naval guns was only 1,500 meters, and in battle, they often had to go up to 1,000 meters or even 7,800 meters before firing to effectively hit.

However, hell, only a few seconds after the cannon was discharged, the ship that I saw exploded into a large ball of fire, the mast was upside down, the sail was torn, and the burning broken canvas was blown up dozens of meters high by the explosion wave, like a butterfly in the sky......

Li Yuan saw this scene and said from the walkie-talkie: "Good guys, you guys are really awesome, how did you train this cannon?" ”

"Pure luck!"

The captain of the Xi'an found that the other Zheng warships actually hung up the white flag, and in order to avoid misunderstanding by the Ning Navy, they also quickly put on gun jackets for the naval guns.

"It's just a shot, how did they surrender?"

In all fairness, the fifteen warships of Zheng's fleet are not old and broken ships of pirates, all of them are big guys of six or seven hundred tons, even if they are placed in Europa, this is also the main battleship.

Even if they were hit by one, there were still fourteen warships, while the Ning Navy only had twelve, although they were not as large as the other party's ships, they were not necessarily without the strength to fight.

But the problem is that these fourteen warships immediately lowered their sails, dropped anchor, and appeared to surrender.

Li Yuan didn't understand what was going on.

The captains of the questioned Zheng fleet were scared.

More than 3,500 meters, a direct hit with one shot, how can they fight?

The effective range of their naval guns was only three or four hundred meters, and when they rushed to this distance, it would be enough for the Ning Navy to sink them ten times or eight times.

……

Port of Manila, Manila City. As the Viceroyalty of the Spaniards, it is now the territory of the Ning Navy.

Li Zhixiang also received information from Li Yuan, and he was a little incredulous: "You mean, the Zheng fleet attacked Liaodong and Wusongkou, and they were all beaten back?" ”

"According to the confession of the captive, in order to screen the authenticity of the prisoner's confession, we interrogated all the prisoners separately, and the information presented, there were some discrepancies, and it was generally not bad, they fought before and after, and they were all repelled by the commander, losing more than 100 main warships, as well as 7,000 or 8,000 army troops!"

"I didn't expect it, the Spaniards didn't come, Zheng Zhilong came first!"

Li Zhixiang smiled bitterly: "Order all the detachments to return immediately and enter the port to replenish supplies and ammunition!" Prepare for the showdown! ”

"However, Zheng Zhilong's strength ......"

"Whether you can fight or not, you only know if you have beaten it!"

(End of chapter)