I want to be emperor

Chapter 346 It's All Money

After Wang Qi entered the city, he first met with the heads of the four intelligence agencies in the city. After learning about the situation in the city, he started activities in Jinling City. Among the senior civil and military officials of the Ming court of Chu, there are many generals who control the actual military power.

At the same time, a large number of Chu troops also arrived outside Jinling City one after another.

On October [-]th, the main force of the First Division arrived outside Dasheng Pass in the western outskirts of Jinling City, rested for a while, and launched an attack on Dasheng Pass the next day.

Dashengguan, the terrain here is dangerous, and it is an important fortress in the southwestern area of ​​Jinling City.

Zhu Yuanzhang once defeated Chen Youliang here, which laid the foundation for the Ming Dynasty to occupy the south of the Yangtze River. Later, the Ming court set up checkpoints and troops here.

This is not only the Jiangfang Fortress, but also an important defensive checkpoint on the periphery of Jinling City.

However, such a fortress currently has no more than [-] troops stationed, and it cannot stop the onslaught of the Chu army's elite troops like the First Division.

The violent bombardment of dozens of various artillery pieces immediately made the defenders in Dasheng pass lose their courage to resist.

Just half an hour later, the defenders in Dasheng Pass raised their flags and surrendered after more than two hundred people were killed or injured.

Dashengguan, the most important bridgehead for Jinling City to resist the Chu army on the west side, was also an important river defense fort that prevented the Chu army's naval warships from entering the river near Jinling City, so it fell into the hands of the Chu army so easily.

Immediately afterwards, the first division of the Chu Army did not stop too much but continued to advance eastward. It was not resisted by the Ming Army along the way, and directly arrived in front of the Guocheng Wall outside Jinling City.

Naturally, the outer city walls cannot stop the Chu army.

Because the outer city wall is too long, with a circumference of tens of kilometers. Although the city wall itself is quite tall, the defenders simply don't have enough troops to garrison it. They can only use limited troops to garrison some important sections of the outer city wall. , such as near the city gate.

The first division didn't bother to meet the Ming soldiers in those city gates, so they directly avoided the city gates where the Ming soldiers were stationed, chose a random place, climbed up the outer city wall, and then headed towards the nearby elephant taming gate to kill. .

When the hundreds of Ming army defenders in the elephant taming gate saw that the Chu army had gone around from the side, and even divided their troops to kill them, the hundreds of Ming troops turned around decisively and ran away.

Immediately afterwards, the nearby Xiaode'anmen and the Ming army defenders of De'anmen also ran away.

The first division actually captured the three city gates of Taming Elephant Gate, Little De'an Gate, and De'an Gate without any battle.

After the battle of Dasheng Pass and the outer city wall, the Chu army also fully saw the reality of the defenders of Jinling City.

The morale of the defenders in Jinling City is extremely low, and the number of soldiers is small, and the equipment is not good enough. There are not even a few Hongyi cannons. Instead, there were four Hongyi cannons on the fort facing the river in Dashengguan before, but now they are gone. It fell into the hands of the Chu army.

The main generals of the first division discussed it and felt that they could be bolder and directly launch more offensives, and even divide their troops.

As a result, the First Division immediately divided into three groups, with the First Infantry Brigade as the core, and the main forces of other divisions continued to march westward to occupy Yuhuatai.

The two infantry regiments under the Second Infantry Brigade continued to attack along the outer wall of the outer city, the third infantry regiment fought towards the west side of the river, and the fourth infantry regiment fought towards the east side, gradually clearing And control the outer city wall.

As for the series of actions of the first division on the outer wall of the city, the Ming army in the city was indifferent, and they did not have the courage to send troops out to intercept them.

Not to mention interception, most of the Ming troops stationed on the outer wall of the outer city were looking forward to fleeing, and did not engage in battle with the troops of the first division of the Chu army. Some fled back to the inner city wall, and some simply fled Jinling City.

But it's okay to escape back to the inner city. If they escape from Jinling City, it is actually unlikely that they will continue to maintain an organized retreat.

Because on the periphery, there are still cavalry of the Chu army performing blockade tasks.

The first to arrive at Jinling City was not the infantry and artillery of the First Division, but several cavalry regiments of the Chu Army.

That is, the First Cavalry Regiment, the Sixth Cavalry Regiment, and the Guards Cavalry Regiment. These three cavalry regiments formed a cavalry unit of about [-] cavalry, which was the first Chu army to arrive outside Jinling City.

However, these cavalry units did not initiate any siege operations, but wandered around the periphery to perform blockade tasks after arriving.

Mainly to intercept Ming army reinforcements coming from other directions.

When these rout soldiers want to escape from Jinling City, they will encounter these cavalry from the Chu Army, and the rout soldiers often end up badly when they encounter cavalry, and becoming stragglers and fleeing bravely is their only hope of escape !

As for an organized retreat, don't count on it.

The first division fought on the first day after arriving in Jinling City, and they successively captured the Dasheng Pass and the southern part of the outer wall. This information will be sent to Luo Zhixue who is still on the road behind.

Luo Zhixue showed a smile on his face: "It seems that Jinling City is easier to fight than expected!"

Xu Zhixian said: "Your Majesty's words are very true. Now that our army is coming with the might of the three major victories of Jiujiang, Hukou and Anqing, the puppet Ming army in the city may have already panicked. Why would they want to defend the city?"

Luo Zhixue said: "Send an order to speed up and try to reach Yuhua Terrace tomorrow!"

As he said that, Luo Zhixue had a worried expression: "If you delay for one more day, you will lose more money and food!"

After hearing this, Xu Zhixian also had a sad look on his face!

This time the attack on Jinling City did not pose any military difficulties. At least the [-] Ming troops in Jinling City were absolutely impossible to stop the Chu army's attack on the ground.

But the problem is that the gentry and dignitaries of the Ming army in the city will run away. Not only do they run away, but they also run away with a lot of gold, silver and jewelry.

And these gold, silver and jewels are all spoils of war from the Great Chu Empire.

A large part of these spoils of war will be turned into military expenses.

Now if there is no delay for a day, a group of gentry will run away and part of the gold and silver will be lost.

This means that the military will lose a lot of military expenses without delaying for one more day!
Thinking of this, Xu Zhixian immediately said solemnly: "Don't worry, Your Majesty, I will go and urge all the troops to march in person. Tomorrow morning, I will definitely arrive at the inner city wall of Jinling!"

After all, Xu Zhixian cast a dissatisfied look at Lu Xingye, the Minister of the Navy.

The people in the navy, who shouted loudly before, were able to deal with the Ming army navy in Huguang and Jiujiang, but when they encountered the entire main force of the Ming army navy, they immediately caught them blind.

The Yangtze River Fleet with more than 100 warships was actually blocked outside Dasheng Pass, west of Jinling City. running through the Yangtze River.

Minister of the Navy Lu Xingye also noticed Xu Zhixian's dissatisfied gaze, which made him feel ashamed and helpless at the same time.

This navy is different from the army!

After the army recruits new recruits, they can eat and drink for a few months of training, and then they can basically be pulled out to fight, and the equipment is simple, even the manufacture of a nine-pound field gun is not too difficult.

But the navy is different!

The Navy’s large warships cannot be successfully built quickly. The Navy has spent a lot of effort to build more than 20 centipede ships and dozens of other small warships. All the stored wood on the ground in Huguang that could be used to build warships was also searched.

The shipbuilding craftsmen are limited, and there is no way to train them quickly, so the speed of shipbuilding cannot be increased.

With wood, the problem is even bigger.

The wood used in warships is generally special wood, and there are certain requirements for tree species, years, and sizes, and this is actually not the most important thing.

Most importantly, boats were built not from raw wood, but from dried wood.

And it usually takes three years for a piece of wood to dry naturally to the point where it can be used to build a warship.

Even the lumber factory under the Ministry of Industry tried their best to use heating and drying methods, but it took several months.

As a result, the supply of timber has become a big trouble affecting the Chu army's construction of warships.

In addition, the supply of naval guns used by warships is also very troublesome. The total production capacity of several arsenals in the Great Chu Empire is limited, and they must supply both the army and the navy.

Even if the army has already supported the navy and given up a lot of artillery production capacity, it is still impossible for the navy to obtain a large number of naval guns in a short period of time, especially those nine-pound and five-pound naval guns.

Lack of craftsmen, lack of wood, and even lack of naval guns made it very difficult for the Great Chu Empire Navy to build its own warships.

Otherwise, it would not have been more than 20 centipede ships built in the past year or so.

You must know that if the cost of the hull of this thing is simply measured by money, it is actually very cheap, and one ship is only a few hundred taels of silver.

Even a hundred centipede boats are only tens of thousands of taels of silver.

As for tens of thousands of taels of silver, that is nothing to the Great Chu Empire...

But the problem is, you can't build more centipede ships if you have money.

This is still a centipede ship, but for large inland river warships, this is even more difficult. So far, the Great Chu Empire has not built even a single large inland river warship of hundreds of tons, which is not easy to build.

The main equipment of the battleship cannot be crash-produced, and at the same time, the personnel of the navy cannot be crash-produced.

The Chu Army Navy has only been established for more than a year, and has undergone rapid expansion in the past year, but they themselves have no way to train so many qualified sailors in a short period of time.

In order to search for sailors, the Chu army's navy is full of meat and fish. Civilian sailors, ship bosses, sailors dragged by the Ming army's sailors, and captains are all wanted.

Even so, the navy does not have enough skilled sailors and officers.

Today's Great Chu Empire Navy is actually a group of half-assed sailors and officers, plus more than 20 centipede ships, six captured or refitted large warships as the core, plus a bunch of mess, most of them are refitted civilian ships A half-baked inland river fleet formed by warships.

The Chu army’s navy fought against the Ming army’s navy in Hukou before, and it was okay to cooperate with the army to fight against the Ming army’s navy in Anqing, because the enemy’s navy was at an absolute disadvantage. Quantity pressure can also win.

But after arriving at Jinling City, the situation is different.

Outside Jinling City, the naval divisions of the Ming Army stationed there were all dispatched from various coastal guards, including Zheng Zhilong's.

During the previous trials, the navy found that the enemy's strength was a bit strong, so they didn't dare to fight over it!

The day before yesterday, the navy finally made up their minds that they wanted to fight an offensive war, and dispatched dozens of warships to press them out, but they were intercepted by the navy of the Ming army, and they couldn't fight it...

Among them, the fleet flying the flag of Zheng Zhilong, with the cooperation of Dasheng Guanjiang Defense Fort, severely beat a squadron under the Chu Army Navy...

The navy sank two warships on the spot, captured four warships, and killed or injured hundreds of people.

The navy suffered its first disastrous defeat since it became an army, which made the top leaders of the Great Chu Empire very dissatisfied with the navy.

Well, if you lose a battle, you don’t care if hundreds of people are killed or injured. The Chu army is fighting every day, so there are many casualties. At the same time, the army won all kinds of wars, but in fact there are many small and medium-sized combat forces. Lost or even defeated.

The reason why the [-]th garrison division on the transmission side has been huddled in Badong and failed to capture Wushan is because it has suffered several times in a row under the hands of the Sichuan soldiers headed by Qin Liangyu.

What the upper echelons of the Great Chu Empire really cared about was that the navy failed to block Jinling City from the river, which in turn allowed many dignitaries in Jinling City to flee across the river with a lot of money.

In the words of Chen Xingkai, Minister of State Affairs and Minister of Taxation, "It's all money!"

(End of this chapter)