Daming: I help my wife be the empress

Chapter 226 Yangtze River Navy, Royal Ship Suzaku!

After hearing Aimee Zhu's words, Hao Guangming couldn't help but smile awkwardly.

He really didn't feel guilty, after all Auntie Zhu had reached the marriageable age in the Ming Dynasty, and she was betrothed to him by Chongzhen.

But Aimee Zhu's age is indeed underage in Dahua Country, so he has a guilty conscience about this matter.

Coupled with the fact that Chongzhen passed away only last March, Aimee Zhu was burdened with the heavy responsibility of revitalizing Daming. Although Hao Guangming fell in love with her, he never made it to the final step.

Of course, Hao Guangming was also concerned about Aimee Zhu's health and was afraid that Aimee Zhu would get pregnant too early.

Seeing that Hao Guangming was embarrassed and didn't talk to Hao Guangming, Auntie Zhu looked at the list of expedition personnel prepared by Hong Niangzi with a smile.

In fact, Auntie Zhu had discussed this matter with Li Yan, Hong Niangzi and others long ago, and decided on the main generals and troops to go to Nanzhili.

The red lady showed her the memorial, but it was just a process to let her confirm it.

This time I went to Nanzhili, almost all the way was by boat. Even if I went to Nanzhili, the battles were mostly in the Huanghuai area with more rivers, which was not suitable for cavalry combat.

Therefore, she only plans to bring 1000 people to the Xiaoqi Battalion in the Yulin Army.

The Suzaku Camp brought 400 people, the Huben Camp brought 3000 people, and the Shenji Camp brought 3000 people.

One hundred female soldiers from the Zhuque Battalion, two thousand soldiers from the Shenji Battalion, and two thousand soldiers from the Xiaoqi Battalion stayed at the Shu Palace, and were assigned by Fei Zhen'e and Fang Zhenghua respectively.

The soldiers and horses mentioned above all refer to the main soldiers. In addition to the Suzaku battalion, if the three battalions of Shenji, Huben, and Xiaoqi are counted as auxiliary soldiers, the number of accompanying troops will actually double.

In other words, there were a total of 400 people accompanying the Imperial Forest Army.

Then came the first town of the Imperial Guard led by Hong Niangzi, and the second town of the Imperial Guard led by Liu Wenxiu.

The second town of the border guards led by Zeng Ying, and the third town of the border guards led by Yang Zhan.

There are a total of 8000 soldiers and horses in the four towns.

There are also the newly formed First Town and Second Town of the Navy.

and other accompanying logistics and miscellaneous personnel of nearly [-] people.

It is estimated that the total number of people on this expedition will reach [-]!

Although there are only a little more than seven towns in the fighting army, the worst among them is the level of elite soldiers in the Ming Dynasty's official army and peasant army in the past, and nearly half of the soldiers are elite soldiers!

Coupled with the extremely sophisticated equipment and even weapons beyond the times, Zhu Wei can be said to have full confidence in this trip to Nanzhili!
···
The 18th year of Chongzhen, the 25th day of the first month.

At Xinjin Port in Chengdu Prefecture, the canvas is like a cloud, almost covering the surface of the Minjiang River.

On both sides of the river, there are camps, and the flags also have the feeling of covering the sky and the sun.

At this time, hundreds of officials at the port were seeing Aimee Zhu off.

As a monarch, travel is the top priority, so even though Aimee Zhu repeatedly asked for a simple solution, she still waited at the port for more than half an hour before boarding her imperial ship.

Zhu Yuxi led the army to go to Nanzhili by water this time, mobilizing more than 1000 ships of various kinds.

Because the voyage mainly passes through the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, they are basically flat-bottomed boats.

The most conspicuous of these ships are undoubtedly the five steam armored warships.

Among them, Zhu Yuxi's imperial boat was transformed from a flat-bottomed warship of four hundred materials.

The battle boat is developed from the building boat. It is tall and majestic, and its image and momentum are similar to the building boat, but it is more stable than the building boat, and it is not as easy to capsize as the building boat.

On the basis of this, Aimee Zhu's Royal Ship has been modified to improve safety and comfort.

The length from the bow to the stern is nearly nine feet long, and the belly is three feet wide. The bow and stern are obviously narrower than the belly, and the width is no more than two feet.

The length of the straight bottom of the ship without boards is more than six feet (referring to the length of the slope from the bottom to the bow, not the height of the ship), and the depth of the straight bow is only more than five feet.

Due to the addition of propellers and steam engines, the stern is wider and lower.This point is obviously different from normal building ships and warships.

From the bottom of the ship's belly to the deck, the depth is nine feet straight, but if viewed from the outside, the height from the bottom of the ship's belly to the edge of the ship is one foot six feet.In addition to the fact that the ship has a thicker steel plate bottom, the parapet wall at the side of the ship is nearly one person high.

The bottom of the ship was divided into nine watertight warehouses, and the five warehouses in the middle were divided into two layers. The lower layer was very low and contained only a moderate amount of sandbags, and the upper layer stored grain, gunpowder, dry firewood and other materials.

Of course, these materials must be classified into categories and stored separately, which is extremely particular.

If it is a normal warship, the deck is basically a simple boathouse, which is used by soldiers to take turns, and most of the space is used for combat, or as a warehouse for combat supplies.

But there was a two-story steel-clad wooden building on Zhu Yuxi's imperial boat.

Seen from the outside, it is about three feet long, two feet wide, and each floor is one foot high.

In this way, even if the two masts of this imperial ship are not counted, the height from the bottom of the ship to the top of the building on the ship is more than three feet.

Coupled with the fact that the entire ship was painted vermilion, it looked really majestic and imposing while moored on the Minjiang River.

However, because the two-story building where Auntie Zhu lived took up a lot of space, even if the imperial ship used steam engines and propellers and didn't need too many sailors, it still couldn't carry many other people.

According to Hao Guangming's knowledge, there were twelve sailors on the royal ship, followed by ten court ladies headed by Forsythia and Liu Zhu who were in charge of dressing Aimee Zhu, and then a group of female soldiers from the Suzaku Battalion led by Dong Qiongying (50 people) ).

The entire imperial ship only carried 73 people.

Judging only from the imperial ship, Zhu Yuxi's protective power is very small, but don't forget that the imperial ship is in the middle of many other warships.

If the enemy hit Zhu Yuxi's imperial boat during the water battle, it would have definitely been defeated.

From the perspective of the strength of the entire naval fleet, this situation is almost impossible...

The remaining four steam ironclad warships are mainly used for combat functions.

One of them is Liu Wenxiu's ship, which is mainly responsible for leading [-] elite sailors to protect Zhu Yuxi's imperial ship.

The other three steam ironclad warships were assigned as the ships of Zeng Ying, Li Zhanchun, and Yu Dahai respectively.

Among them, Zeng Ying is the interim commander of the two townships and other troops and horses accompanying them. After returning to Chengdu, Zeng Ying has been added the title of Zuo Dudu due to his achievements in recovering Chongqing. Promoted to Admiral of the Yangtze River Navy.

As for Li Zhanchun and Yu Dahai, they are Zeng Ying's two most adept generals in water warfare.

They were also promoted to deputy commander-in-chief because of their meritorious service, and each led a town of water division.

In fact, the first town of the border defense army led by Zeng Ying also has good river water warfare capabilities, and can be counted as the third town of the navy.

However, as far as Hao Guangming and Zhu Yuxi knew, the previous water battle on the Yangtze River in Sichuan was just like that, and there were very few scenes where the two sides bombarded each other with cannons carried by ships.

In most cases, the ships of both sides approached and fought each other with bows and arrows, firecrackers and other old-fashioned inland water warfare weapons.

It is even necessary to board the ship to decide the outcome.

It cannot be compared with naval battles.

But it was also because of this that Auntie Zhu had great confidence to lead this navy with five steam iron-clad warships across the Yangtze River.

Because, except for her imperial ship, the other four ironclad warships are all equipped with more than [-] new artillery pieces.

There are also more than 300 warships of various types equipped with new artillery, tiger squat guns, and Franglers, and dozens of them are equipped with some steel armor.

Coupled with the fact that bright-style flintlock guns have been installed on a large scale in the accompanying guards, even the border guards have installed [-] guns in each town.

With such ferocious firepower, at this point in time, there is really no force on both sides of the Yangtze River that is the opponent of this navy.

···
"set sail!--"

With a loud and clear shout, the sails of the ships on the river in Xinjin Port were raised one after another, and for those without sails, long and wide oars protruded.

"Wow!—"

The five steam ironclad warships followed with long sirens, and the black smoke rose into the sky, which was the most eye-catching.

ashore.

Long Wenguang, Li Yan and others, together with the civil and military officials who stayed behind in Chengdu, as well as the Ming soldiers who stayed behind, knelt down to the imperial boat on which Auntie Zhu was riding, and shouted in unison——

"Congratulations to Jian Guo! Have a good journey!"

Suzaku, this is the name Zhu Yuxi chose for the imperial ship.

On the top of the second floor, she was holding on to the vermilion railing that was as tall as half a person, and her red cloak was rattling by the cold wind in early spring.

She first looked in the direction of Chengdu for a while, and waited until Xinjin Port quickly moved away, and the figures became small and blurred, then she looked away and looked east.

"Nanjing, here I come."

　I wrote part of this chapter last night, but in order to find out the information on the inland river warships, I searched last night and got up early today, but I couldn’t find anything useful. They were all about sea ships and naval battles. Can't find much.

　　In vain, very speechless.

　　It is known that the larger inland river warships in the Ming and Qing Dynasties should be warships, cruise ships, sand ships, and various special warships.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)