I want to be emperor

Chapter 396 Zheng's Fleet Attacks
In terms of private property, the empire allowed Zhao Xinhou to retain his private assets other than the fleet, with a total value of about 10 taels.

The negotiators of the Great Chu Empire still appreciate Zhao Xinhou, and give him a man who does not swear: Although our Great Chu Empire allows private ownership of land, it does not like to see super big landlords...

It is recommended that you dispose of these lands as soon as possible, whether you sell them yourself or give them away to others, whatever you want to do with them, in short, don't keep so much land in your hands...it is not a good thing.

In addition, it can also be sold to local governments. At the beginning of the year, the governments of the Great Chu Empire launched an unlimited purchase of local land at market prices.

The price depends on the market, and the price can be as much as you want, but you have to pay in installments. According to the output of the land, the entire payment cycle is about 20 years or more.

In the whole process, the government actually acted as a middleman, purchasing the land from the landlord in name, but then subscribing to the farmers or landless farmers who originally rented the land. Farmers’ subscription is also paid in installments. The payment cycle of more than ten years But the annual payment is even less than the previous tenancy.

Of course, this is a good thing for farmers, but a bad thing for landlords. Many landlords think that it is not impossible to sell the land to your government. Anyway, it is sold at the market price...but you can’t pay in installments. Come on, what's the difference with me collecting rent directly?After more than ten years of renting, this land is no longer mine, isn't that nonsense...

But this is only a voluntary policy. The government of the Great Chu Empire has such a policy. If you don’t sell it to the government, you don’t have to force it. You can also sell it to private individuals.

In short, don't keep so much land in your hands.

Your family has over [-] mu of land, and those tax officials are probably dreaming of confiscating your home...

In the Great Chu Empire, those super landlords who own thousands or even tens of thousands of acres of land count as one, and they are all the key monitoring targets of tax officials. If you dare to lose a penny of tax money, your family will be ransacked and wiped out in minutes... Sometimes if there is no excuse, I will find an excuse for you. It is not uncommon for those big landlords to be framed for the purpose of raiding their homes.

Why?

On the one hand, His Majesty hates the big landlords very much. Tax officials will be appreciated by their superiors for doing so, and it is very easy to get promoted!
There is a saying that if you copy one family, you will be promoted to one level, and if you can copy ten houses, you will be promoted to two levels. If you can copy tens of hundreds of houses in a row, you will be promoted to three levels in a row...

On the other hand, these big landlords are rich, copying a family can make the staff of the local one-vote tax system eat their mouths full of oil.

After all, the tax officials, tax patrol police, and armed tax police of the Great Chu Empire, and the employees of the huge tax system also have to support their families. Well, how can they support their families without any oil and water!
Zhao Xinhou was not clear about these policies of the Great Chu Empire, at most he had heard about them, but he certainly did not know them in detail, so the ghostwriter of the navy kindly reminded him.

The land is very hot, so try not to touch it.

By the way, this land cannot be used as an industry, but it can be used for other things, such as factories. Our country supports big gentry investment and construction of factories, and there are many tax exemption policies.

And now the textile industry and many other industries are booming. The Qin family in Suzhou, Jiangnan, has invested heavily in building a new textile factory. In the future, your Zhao family can also build one.

In the current textile industry, as long as you invest in it, you will make money with your eyes closed.

When the naval representatives of the Great Chu Empire and Zhao Xinhou agreed on the terms of the uprising, Zhao Xinhou also cooperated with the Great Chu Empire's military and began to surrender.

The first to bear the brunt was Guangzhou City. At this time, Zhao Xinhou was in Guangzhou City with more than 800 men, who were part of the Guangzhou City Defense Force.

Although the army said in a big way, without any internal response, our army can also break through the city of Guangzhou.

But the navy insisted on coming forward to say that we have already found a rebel army to cooperate with the siege, and the army will not say that they have to refuse...

Ever since, the Chu army outside the city also secretly negotiated with Zhao Xinhou and finalized the siege routine.

The routine is very simple, that is, after the siege, Zhao Xinhou directly opened the gate of the city he was responsible for defending, and then welcomed the Chu army into the city.

In this way, it is estimated that even large-scale shelling and attacking the city will not be necessary.

However, for the sake of conservatism, Huang Xiangbin waited until the artillery units arrived one after another before launching a formal siege, in order to prevent the cooperating Zhao Xinhou's troops from having an accident and then attacking directly.

May 28, at dawn!
After making full preparations, Zhao Xinhou personally led the team to open the city gate he was in charge of defending, and then a commando from the Chu army outside immediately entered the city.

When the sky became brighter and other Ming troops in the city sensed that something was wrong, the entire main force of the Chu army had already entered the city and launched an attack on other areas in the city.

Because of the cooperation of the internal response, the siege of Guangzhou came and went quickly, and the whole process did not break out too fiercely.

The dozen or twenty long-barreled cannons deployed by the Ming army on the top of the city became the spoils of the Chu army before a single shot was fired.

Except for the 800 people under Zhao Xinhou's troops in the city, the remaining [-] Ming troops had only sporadic resistance, and most of them either took advantage of the chaos and fled or simply surrendered.

After all, the Ming army in the city was originally very mixed, and they were all war scum, so there were not many soldiers at all.

And the generals who led the soldiers saw that something was wrong, for their own sake, and also for the lives of the soldiers under their command, they simply surrendered.

Including Xiong Wencan, who was appointed by Xiong Wencan to command more than 500 standard soldiers from Guangdong, and these 500 standard soldiers were the core force of the Ming army in the city.

They all surrendered, so what a fart!

Ever since, by about ten o'clock in the morning, the Chu army had already announced that it had seized and controlled most of the important areas in Guangzhou City, including the four walls, the city gates, the barracks in the city, the official warehouses, the important government offices in the city, etc. .

As for the many officials in the city, some surrendered, some committed suicide, some were captured and captured, and some fled without knowing where they ended up.

Looking at the soldiers in front of them escorting a group of dejected captive officials who were tied up and trained in a row, Zhao Xin had a thick smile on his face!
Especially when he saw a Qipin county magistrate ahead, he was overjoyed.

Nima, this is the county magistrate of Zhima, who openly scolded him in front of a group of people last year, saying that he would not change his banditry, that he was lowly, and that Zhao Xin was so generous that he almost led the army to attack Guangzhou...

Now, this person has become a prisoner!
But he, Zhao Xinhou, was already wearing the summer uniform of a general of the Great Chu Empire Navy and the rank of Commodore.

Not to mention, Zhao Xinhou likes this military uniform very much.

——

After the initial battle in the city was over, Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin, commander of the defense of Guangdong and Guangxi, also received Zhao Xinhou, saying that he would truthfully report his contribution to opening the door to welcome the army in the battle report.

But after the meeting, Zhao Xinhou left with several other navy members.

Even though Zhao Xinhou had just defected here, he knew that the army was the army and the navy was the navy, and these naval officers who came from Jinling City seemed not too interested in the army...

The army and navy of our Great Chu Empire, this contradiction is not small!

Zhao Xinhou defected here, and he was an admiral of the navy, so he naturally knew that he couldn't get too close to the army.

He still has this political sense.

Zhao Xinhou didn't know that last year, the army and navy of the Great Chu Empire were still a family, and there was no major conflict between the two armies.

But since the distribution of the military budget at the end of last year, the leaders of the army and the navy have completely torn their skins in order to compete for limited military expenses. Since the beginning of the year, the atmosphere between the army and the navy has become tense.

It's not enough to draw swords to face each other, and there will be some cooperation in combat, but don't expect to give the opponent any good looks.

After all, the dispute over military spending concerns core interests.

After all, with military spending, there is an establishment, and with an establishment, there is a job.

If you want to rob my military expenses, you want to rob me of my establishment, my official title... You are fucking going to rob me of my official title, how can I give you a good face?
Zhao Xinhou didn't know this, but after a few hours of contact, he could also feel the conflict between the land and the sea in our great Chu king's master.

He is just a newcomer who has defected here, so he should be more careful not to get involved in the dispute between the military.

So Zhao Xinhou didn't stay in the city for long, and soon he took more than 800 of his men to the direction of the pier, accompanied by Rear Admiral Xia Qiuyang, commander of the Pearl River Fleet, and more than 1000 naval soldiers led by Xia Qiuyang.

This Rear Admiral Xia Qiuyang was appointed by Jinling to come to Guangdong to be in charge of the preparations for the Pearl River Fleet and to be in charge of Guangdong's coastal defense affairs. (When the last chapter was just published, Zhao Xinhou wrote that he was the commander of the Pearl River Fleet. This was a typo. It should be the deputy commander. It has been corrected. Hope to know.)
Like many generals in the navy, Xia Qiuyang has never dealt with the navy in the first half of his life. He is an army gunner...

When the Great Chu Empire Navy had not been formally established and only had an inland river transport fleet, the military directly transferred a group of people from the army to serve, and Xia Qiuyang was one of them.

This has led to the fact that quite a few of the high-level navy are from the army... Of course, those who were able to be transferred to the navy back then were basically able to swim and have been in contact with ships.

Then these people supported the original Great Chu Empire Navy, and then successively accepted a group of generals and sailors from the Ming Army Navy.

Especially after the Battle of Wuchang and the Battle of Jiujiang, the Great Chu Empire accepted a large number of local Ming army navy divisions.

Basically, the navy of the Great Chu Empire fully accepted the inland river navy of the Ming court in Huguang and Jiangxi regions, and part of the inland river navy in the Jiangnan region.

Therefore, there were basically two types of people in the early Chu Navy: the early army transferred to the past, and the Ming army sailors accepted.

However, this situation began to change in the second half of last year, mainly because officers from the Navy crash course trained by the Naval Academy graduated one after another and entered the Navy.

Although these are also half-baked, but the navy is really short of people, so now it also occupies a large number of middle and low-level officer positions in the navy. In time, these people will grow rapidly and become the real high-level of the navy.

Xia Qiuyang came to Guangzhou this time with a mission.

Before departing from Jinling City, when he went to the palace to face the saint, His Majesty Luo Zhixue asked him to run the Pearl River Fleet well, consolidate the coastal defenses of Guangdong and Guangxi, and vigorously develop the ocean-going fleet to lay the foundation for the empire to control the sea.

The acceptance of Zhao Xinhou was also strongly supported by him, and he had already obtained Luo Zhixue's permission before going south. Luo Zhixue had already prepared in advance the documents for appointing Zhao Xinhou as the deputy commander of the Pearl River Fleet and conferring the rank of brigadier general. Yang went south with him... As long as the other party agrees, he can directly appoint and confer titles on the spot.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to complete Zhao Xinhou's recruitment in just a few days.

Now that Xia Qiuyang has arrived in Guangzhou, he doesn't care about the follow-up actions of the army. Instead, he starts to integrate Zhao Xinhou's fleet.

Soon, a Pearl River Fleet with more than 20 large armed merchant ships and more than 300 small and medium-sized offshore inland watercraft was pulled out.

It's just that this fleet has not had time to complete the integration. Rear Admiral Xia Qiuyang got the news that a large number of ships appeared in the Pearl River estuary, and the flags were under the command of Zheng Zhilong. Initially, there were at least [-] or [-] large ships.

This news even reached the ears of Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin, Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin, the commander of the Guangdong-Guangzhou garrison who is still in Guangzhou. Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin asked Xia Qiuyang: How is the Navy going to respond to the attack of Zheng's fleet?

Xia Qiuyang first glanced at Huang Xiangbin, and then said in a flat tone: "There is no one else, but to fight to the death!"

"I have ordered the fleet to be assembled, and the enemy's fleet must be blocked outside Guangzhou. Please rest assured that the army!"

After finishing speaking, Xia Qiuyang said that he was busy preparing for the battle and left.

Looking at the back of Xia Qiuyang leaving in a hurry, Huang Xiangbin spit directly, and muttered in his mouth: "I used to hear that people in the navy have brain problems and didn't think so, but now it seems that they are really a bunch of elm heads!"

"It's still fighting to the death... Just the broken ship under your hand, plus a group of stragglers who have just surrendered, I'm afraid they can't beat Zheng's fleet after feeding all the fish and shrimp."

"No, it doesn't matter if the navy messes around, but Guangzhou is an important city, we can't let those pirates do harm to us!"

Thinking of this, Huang Xiangbin asked the messenger to call a few army generals, and then said to these subordinates: "I think you all know that Zheng Zhilong's fleet is coming, and they look like they are coming directly to Guangzhou. "

"Survey the surrounding terrain immediately, choose a suitable place to urgently build a river defense fort, and then pull up the more than 20 long-barreled cannons we seized before and the artillery of the Seventh Artillery Regiment for emergency response."

"The navy is unreliable. That guy Xia Qiuyang, before he even said a few words, he was yelling for a fight to the death. We have nothing to do with them rushing to die, but the safety of Guangzhou city depends on us." Own."

(End of this chapter)