"Three rounds of fixed-shot loading and pre-shooting, target Laizhou battlements, self-adjusting angle ......"

"Ready...... Put!! ”

"Boom, boom—"

On February 22, the second year of Jianwen, when the artillery terms of the Bohai Navy appeared on the land of the Shandong Peninsula, the first to face the shelling of the 3rd Battalion of the Bohai Sea Shenji was the city of Laizhou, which was located between Qingzhou and Dengzhou.

Outside the city, the Bohai elite of 3,000 Shenji battalions, 100 field guns, and 2,000 Jurchen horse infantry surrounded Laizhou City.

In a few days, the entire capital of Dengzhou Prefecture was taken by the Bohai Horse Infantry Army, Cavalry and Horse Infantry Shenji Battalion that landed later.

The more than 200,000 people who were "ravaged" by thieves in Zhu Yunwen's mouth have successfully expanded to more than 787,000 people, and they are still increasing.

For example, at the moment, when a hundred field guns launched an artillery bombardment, the defenders of Laizhou County, which was already composed of cantonment soldiers and village warriors, began to fight against themselves.

The battlements of Laizhou City were shelled less than half a mile away, and many of the battlements that were hit burst and rubble flew out.

Although it did no harm, the psychological pressure was too much for the defenders to bear.

"Beat the battlements and suppress them with arquebuses and flowering shells."

"The last general commands!"

In the Bohai Navy outside the city, Meng Zhang looked at the city defense of Laizhou with a telescope, and after determining that the field artillery could destroy the battlements, he began to give orders.

The artillery Qianhu who had been ordered began to continue to direct the shelling, and the artillery of the Shenji Battalion began to rain shells on Laizhou with a round of shelling per word.

In Shandong, they did not have to worry about running out of gunpowder and shells at all.

The gunpowder seized in Dengzhou Mansion alone amounted to more than 400,000 catties, and Shandong was a major iron-producing province in the early Ming Dynasty, and the iron production of the government-run iron mill alone reached more than 3 million catties, ranking third in the country.

Even the lead bullets used in arquebuses, Shandong can produce more than 320,000 catties every year.

Therefore, in addition to gunpowder, a lot of iron and lead materials were seized from Dengzhou Prefecture.

These materials are enough to support the Bohai Navy to attack the city all the way.

"Brother Meng, do you think it is necessary for His Highness to ask us to attack the city?"

"Right now, shouldn't we directly cavalry assault the capital?"

Beside Meng Zhang, Zhao Mu, who followed him, looked at Laizhou City, and was very curious in his words.

In this regard, Meng Zhang also thought about it, and only after a while did he speak: "In the land of Surabaya on the Huai River, in the final analysis, there are still some soldiers, just like this Shandong. ”

"Although they are stationed soldiers, they will also train them when Emperor Taizu Gao was in the early years, so they also have good combat power."

"Of course, they are much worse than us, but if they are used to defend the city, or harass in the wilderness, it can still bring a lot of trouble to our army."

"What's more, at present, the food of millions of people outside the border is only enough to eat for a month, and there are at least 13,400 miles from Dengzhou to the capital."

"If we can't take Nanjing within a month, what will the millions of people outside the border eat?"

"Besides, it will take another month for the brothers to land, so what His Highness thinks is to use this month to transport food and people to Liaodong as much as possible."

Meng Zhang said, and motioned Zhao Mu to look at Laizhou City.

"In that city, there are at least 100,000 people, millions of stone officials, and people's grain."

"If we take Laizhou City, or even the entire Laizhou Mansion, then we will have no worries."

Taking the two mansions of Deng and Lai, this is the task that Zhu Gaoxu left to Meng Zhang before leaving.

There are 1.6 million people in Denglai No. 2 Prefecture, and there are more than 6 million mu of cultivated land, which is a proper place for grain production.

If you take Denglai, you can solve Bohai's urgent needs, and you can let Bohai release his hands.

Thinking of this, Meng Zhang continued to look at Laizhou City, with a cold face: "Continue to shell, either they surrender, or we will attack the city." ”

"Boom, boom—"

The dull sound of artillery rang out, and it once again hit the battlements at the head of Laizhou City.

At a distance of less than half a mile, even a field gun with a shorter firing range in the Bohai artillery can achieve seven out of ten shots.

The battlements in the east of Laizhou began to collapse in sections under the constant shelling of the Bohai Navy, and the defenders had to rely on other battlements that had not yet been destroyed.

From midnight to noon, there were fewer and fewer battlements to be relied on by the defenders, and finally they simply crowded into the arrow tower.

Seeing all this, the commander of Laizhou Wei wanted to cry without tears, so he could only grab the commander who ran up to the arrow tower from the city and asked: "When will the reinforcements from the capital department arrive?" ”

"No... There are no reinforcements..."The commander Tongzhi also wanted to cry without tears: "Du Si replied that Qingzhou was besieged by the thief army with cavalry, and the guards could only defend themselves, and there were no reinforcements to rush to Laizhou." ”

"It's over......" Hearing that there were no reinforcements, the commander of Laizhou Wei was like a lightning strike, his legs were weak, and he sat directly on the ground.

At dusk, nearly seventy percent of the battlements of the east wall of Laizhou City were destroyed by the artillery of the Bohai Navy, and the commander of Laizhou Wei made Fang Hui, Zhixian Wang and Kaecheng surrender, and presented the "Military Tun Book" of the guard and the "Fish Scale Atlas" and "Yellow Book" of Laizhou Mansion.

Seeing the surrender of Laizhou, Meng Zhang immediately asked Wang He, the magistrate of the county, and Fang Hui, the commander of the command, to write letters to all the thousands of households, hundreds of officials and counties and towns in Laizhou, and sent them by the Bohai cavalry.

For a time, the state and county guards of Laizhou Prefecture looked down on the wind.

At the same time, Zhu Gaoxu also led 3,000 cavalry to cut off the main transportation routes leading to Qingzhou City to various prefectures and counties, and personally led 3,000 cavalry to surround Qingzhou Mansion, creating a false impression that he wanted to take Qingzhou step by step and advance Jinan, Dezhou, and Cangzhou.

The news was transmitted to the prefectures and counties of Beiping through carrier pigeons, and the troops and horses led by Li Jinglong began to go straight from Jinzhou to Dezhou, and Wu Gao and Xu Kai led their troops to retreat to the Zhuozhou and Dong'an defense lines arranged by Li Jinglong.

Wu Jie, Marquis of Anlu, received Li Jinglong's military order and divided 50,000 troops from Xu Kai to rush south to aid Cangzhou.

Yu Tongyuan, Ping'an, Chen Hui, Teng Ju and others personally led 20,000 cavalry to the south and arrived in Cangzhou first.

In order to prevent Zhu Gaoxu from cutting off the supply line, 300,000 people of the southern army were mobilized by him, which made Zhu Di, who had just led the team out of the Yanshan Mountains and was ready to show his skills in Beiping, confused.

"You said that the second child crossed the sea and took Dengzhou, and now he has hit Qingzhou?"

On the 24th, when the Southern Army galloped to the aid of the canal, Zhu Di walked out of Yanshan and learned the good news just after arriving in Changping.

Not only did he not dare to believe it, but Zhu Neng, Qiu Fu and Zhu Gaoxu's old subordinate Wang Yi couldn't believe it.

They made a detour to raid Ulzhou and encircle Datong, and only then did they mobilize Li Jinglong's 100,000 troops, but Zhu Gaoxu directly staged a sea-crossing landing, with a posture of cutting off the canal, forcing the 300,000 southern army to retreat south to defend.

"The courage of the second child is almost catching up with my father......"

Rao is Zhu Di, and he couldn't help sighing.

Not everyone has the courage of Zhu Yuanzhang, and even if it is Zhu Yuanzhang, he only commanded 10,000 people to cross the sea to attack southern Liaoning, which is not the same as Zhu Gaoxu's crossing of the sea from southern Liaoning to attack Shandong.

Zhu Yuanzhang dared to send Ma Yun and Ye Wang to cross the sea in southern Liaonan because Liu Yi in southern Liaoning surrendered to the Ming army, and the Ming army had the manpower to respond.

But on the other hand, Zhu Gaoxu, judging from the information on the letter alone, he completely relied on the strength of the Bohai Sea Division to repel the proud naval division of the Southern Army, and then took Dengzhou City by shelling.

"The second kid is getting better and better."

Zhu Di sighed, as a person who likes Tang Taizong Li Shimin very much, Zhu Di looked at the current situation and couldn't help but think of Li Shimin and Li Yuan.

"I won't follow in Li Yuan's footsteps......" As Zhu Gaochi said to Zhang, he fell into a moment of entanglement.

But after all, he is Zhu Di, the Yan King who was praised by Zhu Yuanzhang as the king of clearing the desert.

Grabbing the beard, Zhu Di smiled again: "It's okay, it's still a little short of me." ”

His confidence returned, and in the face of the current complicated situation, Zhu Di also turned over and dismounted, signaling Zhu Neng and a few of them to follow.

With Zhu Neng and others, Zhu Di spread out the map on the ground, and then pointed to Beiping, Cangzhou, Zhuozhou, Dezhou, Qingzhou and other places:

"Right now, the second child has relieved the siege of Beiping, Wu Gao and Xu Kai of the Southern Army rely on the Huliang River and Lugou River to confront us, plus the trenches and Tucheng built by Li Jinglong before, if we fight them head-on, it will definitely be disadvantageous."

"Wu Gao is a thoughtful and timid person, when he was an opponent with the second child, he was like a king and consumed, and he definitely won't come out to fight with us."

"It's Xu Kai in Dong'an who is easy to deal with, and there are only 50,000 people."

"Dong'an is two hundred and fifty miles away from Cangzhou, even if Yu Tongyuan, Ping'an, Chen Hui, and Teng Ju lead the cavalry to help, it will take at least two days."

"Besides, Xu Kai is impulsive and timid, even if he leaves the camp, he will ask for help in the direction of Cangzhou."

"My idea is to take the Cangzhou reinforcements first, and then set up an ambush to defeat Xu Kai when he is rushing to help, and then go around to Wu Gao's back, and use the fastest speed to raid in the early morning while he hasn't gotten the news of Xu Kai's defeat."

Zhu Di dared to think that he would use 60,000 horse infantry cavalry to defeat the reinforcements in Cangzhou, then defeat Xu Kai's 50,000 elites, and finally attack Wu Gao, which was more than 130 miles away.

As long as this plan can succeed, Wu Gao, Xu Kai, and Wu Jie's 200,000 troops will be beaten and lose their armor, and Li Jinglong can only take the 100,000 foot soldiers in his hands to regroup the defeated troops who fled south.

However, there is a problem with this, that is, they need Zhu Gaochu in Qingzhou to attract Li Jinglong's main force to Texas as much as possible, which requires Zhu Gaochu to further threaten Jinan and put more pressure on Li Jinglong.

"Wang Yi, you send eight hundred miles to expedite, take Yongping to Dengzhou by boat, send the news to the second child, and see if the second child can do it."

Zhu Di didn't give the generals time to think, so he took pictures of the case by himself.

Wang Yi did not refuse, but acted obediently, after all, this matter did not threaten the interests of Bohai.

If Zhu Di can really defeat Wu Gao and Xu Kai's 150,000 army, as long as he cooperates with his Royal Highness in the north and south, Li Jinglong's remaining 170,000 army will also be defeated quickly.

Therefore, under the instruction of Wang Yi, a group of expedited horse infantry from Bohai rushed to Yongping, and Zhu Di also decided to lead the army to return to Beiping to rest for the night after clarifying his thoughts, and to plan when to move the troops.

At dusk, he led the army to the city of Beiping, and Zhu Gaochi brought Zhu Gaosui and Zhang Yu to meet him.

"Dad, the second child took Denglai and attracted the southern soldiers."

"I heard about it this morning."

Turning over and dismounting, Zhu Gaochi greeted him while talking about things in the south, and Zhu Di also nodded and smiled to indicate that he knew.

Then he set his eyes on Zhang Yu, nodded and said hello, and then set his eyes on the third child, Zhu Gaosui.

Because he is the youngest son, coupled with his own excessive spoiling, the third Zhu Gaosui is pampered and coquettish.

After going to the capital, Zhu Di originally thought that he could change his temper, but he never thought that he would get worse.

At this critical moment in Beiping, Zhu Di and Zhu Gaochi both wore mandarin duck battle jackets, and even the eunuchs wore uniforms, but Zhu Gaosui was conspicuously dressed and wore a satin round-necked robe.

Zhu Di didn't want to lecture him in front of everyone, but he just said to Zhu Gaosui: "Third brother, listen to the words of the eldest brother in Beiping, I have to continue to go south tomorrow." ”

"Erchen knows." Zhu Gaosui didn't care, he only felt that his second brother had hit Qingzhou Mansion now, maybe he would be able to enter the capital when he would, and he would be able to make a prince when the time came.

Looking at his appearance, Zhu Di couldn't help frowning, Zhu Gaochi saw that the situation was wrong, and hurriedly stood beside Zhu Di to play a round.

"Dad, my mother is still waiting for you in the back house."

"Well......" Zhu Di bowed his head and explained to Zhang Yu on the side: "Zhang Yu, you take people to arrange the camp outside the city, replenish the horse feed, kill pigs and sheep for the soldiers, and get some meat to eat, I will go back to the house first, and I will accompany you later." ”

"The last general ordered ......" Zhang Yu responded, and Zhu Di returned to Yanfu with Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Gaosui.

On the way back, Zhu Gaochi also said to Zhu Di: "Three days ago, Erchen allocated 120,000 stone of grain to Liaodong, but the grain in Beiping and Yongping can last until September, you don't have to worry." ”

"It's good to allocate it to the second child, he has a lot of people there, and I heard that after he took Denglai, he moved some of Denglai's population to Liaodong."

Zhu Di is very well-informed, and even Zhu Gaochi doesn't know about these things.

"Liaodong is bitterly cold, and the second child has moved so many people over, I'm afraid the people will be very reluctant." Zhu Gaochi's perception of Liaodong is still full of the prejudice of Jiangnan scholars.

Zhu Di didn't like it very much after hearing it, but said for Liaodong: "That Liaodong, although it is colder than Beiping, it is not so cold. ”

"It's said that it's bitter cold, when I arrived in Beiping, there were only one million people in Beiping, but now there are more than two million, and they have become more prosperous."

"Now the number of people in Liaodong is also more than one million, and it is only a matter of time before it becomes prosperous."

"What's more, the second child's governance methods are also favored by your grandfather, I think he did a good job in Bohai, otherwise it would be impossible to pull out forty or fifty thousand people with the barren Bohai."

"This amount, even Liaodong, whose population is several times that of the Bohai Sea, can't be pulled out, as long as the second child is treated a little, Liaodong may become a good place in the future."

Zhu Di can't say what means can be used to govern the prosperity of Liaodong, but he has seen Jilin City, and he firmly believes in the governance ability of his second child.

Even Jilin, which is so barren, can become comparable to some prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River in just a few years under his means, and now it has a million people in Liaodong, Daning, and Denglai, and the land outside the border will inevitably prosper.

"I'll see." Zhu Gaochi smiled, but not sarcastically, but jokingly.

Zhu Gaochu's ability to govern, as well as his ability to watch mountains and mines, these are all clear to Zhu Gaochi.

He didn't believe it when others said that he wanted Liaodong to prosper, but if it was the second child who was in power, he would believe it.

The father and son talked happily, and Zhu Gaosui, who followed them, looked jealous.

"The second brother's meritorious service is not for you to follow, what kind of score do you put up."

He muttered to himself in his heart, but he didn't want to be the one who couldn't get involved in this topic, no wonder others.

But when he always wanted to use Zhu Gaochu to suppress Zhu Gaochi, Zhu Gaoxu, who was thousands of miles away at the moment, was busy settling accounts.

"Your Highness, it's all here, how many things each Xiaoqi has borrowed, how many white strips have been played, all counted here, a total of 724 stones, 56 catties of beans, 1,342 catties of rice, 72 pigs, and 345 sheep."

Outside Qingzhou City, when the three thousand Bohai elite horsemen cut off the road and put on a posture to attract Li Jinglong, Xu Sheng walked in with a bunch of ledgers and said a large string of data.

These things are all borrowed by the three thousand elite horsemen of the Bohai Navy and the people in the past few days.

Sitting in the handsome tent, Zhu Gaoxu ate roast lamb leg with a knife, and when he saw Xu Sheng coming, he said:

"The villages that have borrowed things must be registered, and let Meng Zhang bring people to organize them to migrate to Deng, Lai, and Erfu, and use the local farmland to repay them."

"This work is cumbersome, so before going south, I have asked Yishaha to go south with a thousand officials, you need to send the account book to Dengzhou, and tell Yishiha my requirements."

"Good!" Xu Sheng grinned and sat on the ground at the same time, leaning on Zhu Gaoxu's desk with one hand.

His appearance seemed disrespectful to the literati of this era, but it was the norm in the Bohai Sea, where the Bohai Navy was strict in discipline but also full of human feelings.

"The people don't believe that we will pay it back." Xu Sheng said cautiously, but Zhu Gaoxu indifferently cut a large piece of meat with a knife and handed it to Xu Sheng: "Since no one has treated them like this before, they naturally don't believe it." ”

"But since then, they've believed."

"Does that make any sense?" Xu Sheng devoured the large piece of meat, but Zhu Gaoxu chuckled:

"In order to let the people know that we are the soldiers, and the southern army is still the southern soldier they know."

Is the discipline of the Southern Army good?

Naturally, it was good, but that was compared to other armies in feudal times.

If we compare the Southern Army with the Bohai Navy, which has received modern training, the Southern Army is no different from the ruffians, at most the officers and soldiers in the interior have better military discipline, similar to the border soldiers in Ganliang, Liaodong, Shaanxi and other places.

This is not discrimination, but a reality in front of us.

The composition of the border soldiers was complex, including Han Chinese, Mongols and Xifan, and the education they received was naturally not comparable with that of the officers and soldiers in the interior, and the ideas they cultivated were also very different.

In their opinion, their head hangs over the belt of their trousers, and they may die at some point, and they will get some benefit or something.

It is this kind of thinking that makes them and the Bohai Navy representatives of the two eras.

Zhu Gaoxu advocated that soldiers must be educated, even if it costs them.

Soldiers who have received education, especially soldiers with military education, are very valuable, just like the current Lao Bo Navy.

The old Bohai Navy could accept things that could only be done by officials in the past, such as measuring acres of land, simple drawing, and registering.

Once the army is expanded, the 40,000 Lao Bo navy can be immediately expanded to 400,000, and the discipline of the soldiers they bring out will inevitably be better than that of the southern army.

These 40,000 old Bohai navy are the confidence of Zhu Gaochu to master the Ming army in the future, and the more than 30,000 students of Bohai are the confidence of Zhu Gaochu to control the economy of Jiangnan.

Of course, it is too difficult for 30,000 students to master the economy and taxation of 30 million people in Zhili, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, so Zhu Gaoxu still needs to continue to train students outside the customs.

If he had 100,000 students outside the border, he would dare to give them guards and carry out an inventory of cultivated land in Jiangnan to ensure that there would be no arrears in taxes every year.

Jiangnan has been in arrears of taxes all the year round, isn't it that the imperial court can't come up with so many officials to maintain the operation of the place, and can only rely on the relationship between the gentry and wealthy households to collect basic taxes?

In this case, I will replace their role with students outside the customs and firmly grasp the tax in my own hands.

Of course, this is not enough, the way to alleviate the pressure of the people is to spread the land into the mu, but what Zhu Gaoxu wants to do is different from what Yongzheng has to do.

Yongzheng's paving into the mu is nothing more than an upgraded version of the integration of the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

This measure is objectively a relaxation of the personal control of the peasants at the bottom, but this reform cannot fundamentally solve the problem of the heavy burden on the peasants.

Whether it is apportioned into the mu or the official gentry as an errand and the grain is paid, or the law of eliminating lowly status and equal landlords and tenants...... None of these things can fundamentally solve the burden on the peasants.

Because they are essentially a policy of enriching the treasury in order to exploit the people, and Yongzheng's philosophy is also to enrich the treasury, not to improve people's livelihood.

The landlords and rich peasants were able to sustain themselves, but the poor peasants with barren land could not make ends meet, and instead created displacement.

Returning fire consumption to the public is a means of increasing the fiscal revenue of the state treasury, and the burden on the people has not been lightened, but has become heavier.

The abolition of untouchables is essentially to collect taxes from this group of untouchables who do not have to pay taxes.

As for the official gentry as an errand boy, this policy is very good, but how to implement it, can it be realized?

At least in Zhu Gaoxu's impression, even Yongzheng himself only implemented this policy in some areas for a period of time, and then quietly disappeared.

Zhu Gaoxu still holds the same view on the collection of taxes from peasants, that taxes should be collected from land, but at the same time, different tax thresholds should be set according to different local conditions.

In this regard, Lao Zhu has done a good job in the north except for Shanxi and the south except for Jiangnan.

Where the yield per mu is high, it is natural to harvest more, and where the yield per mu is less, it is necessary to harvest less.

It's easy to say, but it's hard to do.

In order to make this system work well, it is necessary to have enough grassroots tax officials, so education is a prerequisite for maintaining the operation of the national tax system.

While promoting education, we must also firmly control this education system, otherwise we will end up in the end of the country.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di could rely on the tributes of Guozijian to dismiss and replace officials at will, but they couldn't in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

In the final analysis, even the Guozijian has been infiltrated into a sieve, and most of their backgrounds are in the Jiangnan and Huguang areas, so they are naturally unwilling to offend the rich squires in their hometowns for the sake of the imperial court.

"Big head, ......"

As soon as Zhu Gaoxu thought that he would govern a country in the future, and that he would govern this country well, thoughts kept pouring out of his mind.

If he wants Daming to maintain a feudal system, it will naturally be easy to govern Daming.

But he couldn't, because he knew what the current context was.

South Seas, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Western Regions, Qinghai-Tibet, Desert Desert North, Overseas......

The era of great navigation is about to open, since Daming has the qualifications to seize the opportunity, why should he let it out for nothing.

However, if the 30 million people of the three provinces south of the Yangtze River can be transported out of 10 million, the Ming Dynasty can realize the actual control of the Northeast and the Western Regions, and increase half of the South Seas.

How to use 60 million people to govern this huge country, and then achieve a historical leap, this is the concept of governing the country that Zhu Gaoxu thinks.

"Your Highness!"

Zhu Gaoxu was still thinking about how to govern the country in the future, and the sound of Tang Qi came from outside the tent.

Xu Sheng got up and walked out of the tent, and after returning after a while, he said to Zhu Gaoxu:

"Your Highness, Butang has been released towards us in the direction of Jinan, probably Li Jinglong's 100,000 southern army has arrived in Dezhou."

"Are you coming?" Zhu Gaoxu withdrew the thoughts of governing the country in his mind and devoted all his thoughts to the question of how to deal with the Southern Army.

His eyes were fixed on the map hanging in the tent, and he already had an idea in his mind.

(End of chapter)