Chapter 431

Although Daming has always claimed to be a vast land, the problem is that this self-proclaimed claim actually has a lot of water, except for a very few resources that occupy most of the world, but most of the resources, the number is actually not much. For example, iron ore, the world's top ten iron mines, five in Brazil, five in Australia, none in Daming.

Like oil, natural gas, including gold ore, copper ore resources, all not in the Ming Dynasty, but the problem is that with the development of the metallurgical industry in the Ming Dynasty, the original iron ore is simply not enough, now the iron ore in Liaodong mainly comes from Maoshan iron ore, relatively speaking, the iron ore grade of Maoshan is far inferior to Australia and Brazil, there is no way in the later generations, and now Cheng Shijie can use the advantages of science and technology and population, wielding a sickle, harvesting the world.

Of course, this also included the Spanish Empire.

Sun asked, "How should we deal with the Spanish Empire?" ”

"It's not easy to deal with them, you know their place, the religious atmosphere is extremely strong, even the emperor needs to be coronated, they will regard religion more than the country, it is very difficult to deal with them!"

Sun Zhilan was very puzzled and said, "Won't it?" We also have a lot of missionaries in Liaodong, and they rarely get along, huh? The king asked them to change their bathing habits, and they would change it immediately, let them learn to speak Chinese, and they would learn to speak Chinese......"

Cheng Shijie smiled and said: "That's because we are strong enough, they have to act according to our rules, if we are weaker than them, it will be miserable, just like the Plain de la Plata given to us by Spain, where the indigenous population is actually not a lot, but in a few decades, it has been almost killed by the Spaniards!" ”

Sun Zhilan put down the information in his hand, rubbed his temples, and said, "What's going on with this Ottoman Empire?" The Tessians were fanatical Nestorians, and the Ottomans were even more fanatical religious, so there was no normal country to deal with the Ming Dynasty? ”

Cheng Shijie shrugged his shoulders and said: "The whole world is basically like this, religion is above all else, no country is exceptional, the reason why we are exceptional, is because as early as the Shang Dynasty, we, like most countries in the world, are also a monistic religion country, the Shang Dynasty used four generations, until the Emperor Xin period, it was considered to defeat the clergy, and the clergy was unwilling to fail, so it led the Western Zhou Dynasty to invade the dynasty!" ”

Sun Zhilan said: "I really thought that every country was the same! ”

At this moment, Zhou Ning came over and said: "Your Majesty, our new cannon has been transported to Nanjing, and we will launch an attack on Nanjing in the near future!" ”

Cheng Shijie said excitedly: "So fast? ”

Zhou Ning smiled bitterly: "If you hadn't ordered to take it easy, Nanjing would have been taken down a long time ago!" ”

As Zhou Ning said, after Wu Sheng led the Eighth Brigade to take Yangzhou, it meant that Nanjing lost the last city that could echo each other and was about to become an isolated city. In order to redeem the defeat, Fan Jingwen, the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department who was guarding Zhenjiang, tried his best to mobilize a number of warships, and launched a counteroffensive against Yangzhou by land and water, trying to recapture Yangzhou.

If Fan Jingwen didn't take the initiative to attack and stick to Zhenjiang, there would really be no big problem, after all, it was Cheng Shijie's established strategy to defeat Yangzhou and isolate Nanjing.

But the problem is that someone can't stand it and rush to die, you must know that after defeating Zheng Zhilong, the Ning Navy captured a large number of small warships, the number of which is more than 2,000, but these warships are simply chicken ribs for the Ning Navy Navy, and in the end, these warships, the old ones are directly dismantled, and the valuable wood of the ships is made into furniture, and the worthless ones are burned as firewood.

In this way, there are still thousands of them, and these warships have been converted into transport ships, however, the biggest difference between these warships and transport ships is the transportation volume, in fact, no one can look at these ships at all.

When Fan Jingwen was preparing to attack Yangzhou by land and water, you must know that Shen Huandong had captured a large number of sailors from Anqing, Chizhou and Tongling, these sailors who had just surrendered to the Ming Dynasty were bent on making meritorious contributions, and they were familiar in front of Cheng Shijie.

So at the beginning of the war, these naval divisions broke out with extremely tenacious combat effectiveness, and the war between the two sides was the first to start on the Yangtze River, in fact, both Fan Jingwen and Wu Sheng were very clear that it was not the gains or losses of a certain city that were determining the victory or defeat of the battlefield in the south of the Yangtze River, but the navigation rights of the Yangtze River.

For this reason, Fan Jingwen even took out his old book, and 400 warships, large and small, went down the river, with flags covering the sun, and the sails were like clouds, which was magnificent. Wu Sheng's side is much more shabby, there is no way, part of the main force of the Ming Navy went south to threaten the Dutch East India Company, and part of it went to Xiaori.

He only has a small detachment of the Dayuan Fleet, a total of twenty Seawolf-class warships, and the main battleships of the Sea Shark and Giant Shark are going south to support the Luzon fleet, in fact, this kind of large warship is very disadvantageous on the Yangtze River, after all, it is too big and inflexible.

Coupled with the sand boat gang's sand ship warships, he can only mobilize more than 60 warships now, which is nearly ten times worse. At the time of the decisive battle, the three sailors from Chizhou, Anqing and Tongling, thousands of ships of various sizes, directly hit Fan Jingwen's ass.

These dilapidated warships, even the small fishing boats, were undaunted, hoisting the brand new black tiger flag, and rushing towards the upper reaches with their sails full of sails!

This is a huge scuffle, completely unorganized, but the fight is very fierce, blood and flames stained the river red, the people of Jiangnan watching the battle on both sides of the Yangtze River watched this terrible killing dumbfounded, silent. They all stared at it all in a daze, unable to utter a word.

These sailors, who originally belonged to Nanming, changed to a black battle flag, but they were dozens of times more brave than before, the reason is actually very simple, they all say that the Jurchens are not satisfied with ten thousand, and they are invincible. In fact, the Ming army could not be fully paid, and once it was full, it would be invincible.

The Sanfu Naval Division who surrendered to Shen Huandong, in fact, most of them were temporarily pulled up by fishermen along the river, they did not have much opportunity and experience in actual combat at all, but they became the reserve personnel of the Royal Navy of the Ming Empire, they were well fed and warmly dressed, once they successfully entered the navy's audition, they would live a worry-free life, even if they died in battle, there were still 100 acres of land, the key is that this 100 acres of land for these landless fishermen, this temptation is more tempting than the tens of millions of awards in later generations.

Their current behavior is even crazier than the decisive suicide boat, even if the ship is hit by a cannon and the boat is blown to pieces, they, the fishermen with excellent water ability, also grab wood chips or swim to the Nanming warship, stab them with knives, or climb onto the boat, and fight with the Nanming sailor Bai Ren.

As soon as Nanming Shui Shi saw this situation, where could he still hold on, only more than two hours later, Nan Ming Shui Division's loss was far less than that of the temporary water division of Sanfu's cameo, but he collapsed in fright.

Just as Fan Jingwen was about to send the Inspector team to control the situation, the rumbling of artillery also sounded on the riverbank. Both sides are advancing by land and water, and now the infantry is also running head-on.

The Nanming infantry was frightened by the tragic situation of the slaughter of the fleet on the river, and collectively turned back and walked in unison, but unfortunately the Ming army did not plan to let them go, and bombarded them with artillery and rocket artillery, and the shells were like rain, and the flesh and blood of the Nanming army were blown up.

One or two thousand Ming army infantry lined up in a neat line, holding rifles, while shooting, while pressing up, when they advanced to only more than 300 meters away from the rebel Southern Ming army, the Southern Ming army was already frightened by the overwhelming momentum of artillery and rocket artillery!

In the face of this kind of opponent, the Ming army even avoided the routine queue to shoot, and all the soldiers let out a roar in unison, and directly charged with bayonets!

The first reaction of the Southern Ming Army was to jump into the Yangtze River, yes, they would rather jump into the river than face the bayonet wall that crashed into it at a rapid pace!

Fan Jingwen stood stiffly at the head of Zhenjiang City, looking at the battlefield in the distance, his expression was sluggish. As far as he could see, his fleet had become a pile of burning wreckage, smoke and fire covered the river, rumbling explosions like rolling thunder, and the sound of cries was heard in the midst of the smoke and fire.

I don't know how many people on the river are struggling to escape, every piece of floating things is densely packed with people, the horror is that the number of people fluttering is still increasing, because the fierce Ming army is holding bayonets to form an arc around his army, driving his soldiers into the river like sheep, without mercy and mercilessness.

Seeing that there is the Yangtze River behind them, the smart Nanming soldiers are densely packed together like frightened sheep, the Ming army is only one-third of their strength, if they make a decisive assault, they will definitely be able to tear some gaps in this arc encirclement and rush out, but no one has the courage to launch an assault, and the encirclement is constantly compressed.

The rebel soldiers in the encirclement either jumped into the river with all their might, or jumped into the river with all the things that could float. Or surrender directly to the Ming army.

In fact, those who jump into the Yangtze River are warriors, or they know how to water, and they are not afraid of drowning, and they dare not jump, that is, landlubbers, and they can only surrender on their knees. As soon as the first man laid down his arms, others followed suit.

From Fan Jingwen's point of view, the Southern Ming Army was a direct surrender one after another, and he lamented in his heart: "It's over, the Zhenjiang garrison is completely finished." It's over, Nanjing is completely finished. It's over, Jiangnan Jinshen Group ......"

Fan Jingwen's heart was like ashes. In the small court of Nanjing, he can be regarded as a person who is familiar with military affairs, otherwise he would not have become the secretary of the military department.

If Lu Xiangsheng is the strange prefect of the Ming Dynasty, and Fan Jingwen is the strange governor of the Ming Dynasty, the prefect has no military power, but the governor has, in July of the second year of Chongzhen (1629), he was promoted to the right of the Imperial History of the Imperial Court of the Imperial Palace, and the governor of Henan. In the same year, when the Jisi Rebellion occurred, he led 8,000 of his subordinates to send troops to Qinwang, and the soldiers were paid by themselves. When they arrived in Zhuozhou, most of the reinforcements from the Quartet looted, and only Henan's troops did not commit any crimes. Fan Jingwen moved troops to garrison the gate of Kyoto, and then moved troops to garrison Changping, and people near and far relied on him to get stability.

Although Fan Jingwen was not as fast as Lu Xiangsheng's promotion, but he was captured by Zhang Xianzhong in the eighth year of Chongzhen, he should have been questioned at that time, and there was no punishment, which has already shown that he has a certain status in front of Emperor Chongzhen.

Because there are many compliments, Fan Jingwen himself thinks that he is better than Lu Xiangsheng, but he is not as good as Lu Xiangsheng's life, otherwise, Lu Xiangsheng's champion Hou should be his.

As the saying goes, if you give too much face, the dog will think that he is a lion. When Fan Jingwen led the troops to battle, he was full of confidence, confident that he could block the offensive of the Ming army with the troops at hand and the fortified cities in Jiangnan, and he didn't dare to say that he could defeat the Ming army, at least let the Ming army hit his head and break the bloodstream, and he didn't dare to underestimate Jiangnan anymore and strive for a little bargaining capital for the small court in Nanjing.

It's just a pity that Fan Jingwen overestimated himself, and he overestimated his own army, the small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty just desperately expanded the number of troops, but did not improve the treatment of the soldiers of the Southern Ming Army, but only enhanced the equipment of the Southern Ming Army, no matter how good the equipment is, it also needs people to operate, so the Southern Ming Army, which has no will to fight, is vulnerable in front of the Ming Army.

In fact, Wu Sheng didn't use all his strength, and the Nanming army collapsed, looking at his collapsed army, Fan Jingwen knew very well that the army under his command was already one of the more capable troops that could be commanded by the small court in Nanjing, and these elite troops performed so badly, let alone those troops that were not as good as them!

Fan Jingwen's heart was like ashes, he planned in a thousand ways, and the organs were exhausted, but he collapsed under the blow of the Ming army, and this result was difficult for him, the secretary of the military department, to accept, and the string in his brain was about to break.

"My lord, let's go, the Beiyu is coming! They're going to surround Zhenjiang! ”

Fan Jingwen smiled sadly: "Let's go? Where to go? I waited for all kinds of planning, painstaking management, and the situation that I finally fought out has now collapsed, and the Beiyu is about to come to Nanjing, where else can I go! ”

Fan Jingwen shook his head, looked up to the sky and sighed: "It's the day that the sky is going to die, and I will wait for the scholars!" ”

He drew his sword and swiped it around his neck, killing himself.

The soldiers were stunned for a long time, and suddenly shouted: "Master Fan committed suicide!" Master Fan committed suicide! ”

The soldiers dispersed in a hurry, and now no one cares about the fate of Zhenjiang, everyone only thinks about escaping from this ghost place, and the farther away the better, and Zhenjiang City was immediately captured.

Nanjing, on the other hand, fell under the total encirclement of the Ming army.

It is said that Nanjing should be like Beijing in history, once Li Zicheng's army comes to the city, they will take the initiative to surrender, but the problem is that this situation is not the same, Cheng Shijie carried out land reform in the north on the one hand, and on the other hand, let people chase taxes from the gentry, I don't know how many gentry were forced to ruin their families by Cheng Shijie.

They are still insisting that on the one hand, Nanjing is a strong city, and on the other hand, Nanjing has a large amount of grain and more than 200,000 troops, which is their confidence.

After learning that Nanjing has become an isolated city, and the new cannon is about to be transported to Nanjing, Cheng Shijie also said with kindness: "This farce should also end!" ”

"It's time to finish!"

On June 27 of the first year of Dingxin, Cheng Shijie, Zhou Ning, Chen Guodong, Song Xiance and others led the Guards Brigade to take a boat from Tianjin and go directly to the south along the coast.

(End of chapter)