Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 178 Dutch Invasion
In April, when the spring planting is over and the busy farming is over, an endless stream of people rush to the surrounding counties, and the people along the canal even come to the canal to wait for a tracker's work.

In the late Ming Dynasty, the customs became more open, and Lu Yin's inspections were much looser. Perhaps due to the aftermath of the Shandong earthquake, there were many more Shandong men in Tianjin.

For these men, Tianjin Shipyard will not refuse all comers, just because the shipyard's orders are getting bigger and bigger.

In the past three months, in order to sell livestock from the north to the south and transport grain from the south to the north, after discussing with Wang Chengen and Zhu Youjian, please build another [-] large ships with [-] materials.

As a result, Tianjin Huangdian Shipyard, which has only [-] docks, has orders for more than [-] ships.

Among them, even a [-]-material ship requires more than [-] labor, not to mention [-]-material, [-]-material and [-]-material ships.

With great difficulty, four, five, and six thousand ships were launched in late March. As a result, within half a month of launching, four of the six thousand ships were required to return to the factory due to problems with the airtight cabin.

Fortunately, there were no problems with the [-]-material and [-]-material large ships, so Huangdian please build another [-] [-]-material large ships.

However, an embarrassing thing happened. Denglai Shipyard's stock of timber has been used up, so it can only wait for Nanjing Longjiang Shipyard to transport all stock of timber to the north.

After waiting for a month, in late April, the Tianjin Shipyard continued to start construction, employing more than [-] people in hundreds of docks. For a while, Tianjin seemed to be the second largest city in the north of Ming Dynasty.

This kind of busyness will last for a long time, and every time a ship is successfully launched and enters the sea for a month of sea trials, they will be assigned to the team of the three guards of the navy.

Before the new warships of the Ming Dynasty were built and put into service, the main task of the three guards of the water army was to help the imperial horse supervise the Huangdian, and carry out the work of "selling livestock from the north to the south, and transporting grain from the south to the north".

A large ship with three thousand materials can transport hundreds of low-grade horses and thousands of sheep to the south.

Since the opening of the exclusive official market for the Yumajian in Baimaguan and Daning Sanwei, thousands of cattle, sheep and horses are sold every month.

With Daning Sanwei's millions of acres of grassland and more than [-] million mu of Liaoze, the sold cattle will directly participate in reclamation in Daning Sanwei, and the inferior horses that can be bred will be directly cultivated. Supply Daning Three Guards cavalry.

Only sheep and horses that cannot be bred will be grazed in Liaoze, waiting for Huangdian ships to escort green salt and coarse salt from Manshakou Salt Field in Yongping to various places in Liaodong by sea, and hand over Huangdian.

Afterwards, the fleet went up the Liaohe River with empty ships, and sent all the horses and sheep on board in Daning Zhongwei, and escorted them southward.

Livestock from Daning and fur from Liaodong were transported southward by sea and sold in the Yangtze River Delta. Then they were divided into two routes, one to Zhejiang and lower to Fujian, and the other to go to Jiangxi, Huguang, and Sichuan through the Yangtze River.

This model has brought huge benefits to Yumajian.

In the past four months alone, Nanfan sold more than [-] low-grade horses, more than [-] mutton sheep, and received more than [-] silver.

For this item, the annual harvest is more than [-] taels, and the grain in the south is sold in Liaodong. It is estimated that twelve million shi can be transported to Liaodong every year. More than four million taels were obtained.

In addition, Yongping Salt Farm sells all over the country, and the silver taels obtained are more than one million taels per year. Adding up all of them, just a reasonable allocation of resources can bring an annual income of nearly five million taels to the Huangdian.

Of course, the more income, the more expenses.

The three guards of the navy could not take care of so many ships, so the Huangdian also began to recruit sailors and ship owners. The sailors were paid eight or two years a year, and the ship owner was one hundred taels.

Just the expenses of sailors and ship owners amounted to more than [-] taels.

But even so, Huangdian's sea trade and domestic demand can still bring Zhu Youjian an income of more than [-] million taels of silver.

The rise of Huangdian represents the liberation of some of the labor force who have been farming in the fields for a long time.

As usual, on the third day of May, Li Mao, the captain of Huangdian, took three armed merchant ships of [-] materials under his command and headed south with sheep and horses.

Early yesterday morning, they had just finished their business in Quanzhou, but due to the long journey of other fleets, Quanzhou had already bought a lot of livestock.

Helpless, Li Mao could only set his sights on Zhangzhou in Fujian and Guangzhou in Guangdong.

With three boats, more than [-] draft horses, and more than [-] sheep, they continued southward to Kinmen Island, which had just passed Quanzhou Prefecture.

I have to say that the coastal scenery in early May was good. The sea breeze was blowing the soft sails of the ship, and the busy sailors on the deck were preparing to enter the mouth of Zhangzhou.

It's just that while they were busy, they didn't know that behind Wuwei Island in front of them, there was a fleet different from the Daming Navy.

If you look carefully at the Zhangzhou estuary, you can still see a sea of ​​shipwreck waste, congesting the estuary.

"Colonel Reyes Zorn, maybe you need to see this..."

On the deck of the main ship, an officer wearing a breastplate, a Western sword pinned to his waist, and a ship cap spoke to an officer who was sitting on the deck, soaking up the sun, and drinking the tea made by snatching tea.

Hearing this, the officer put down the teacup in his hand, put on his hat, and said with a smile:
"Let me see if there is another ship from the Ming Dynasty delivering goods."

"The ship this time seems to be different from the ship of the Ming Dynasty, and its firepower is also higher than other ships. We may need to be more vigilant." The officer handed over the binoculars while persuading.

Hearing this, Reyes Zorn took over the binoculars, and after some searching, he saw three "huge" ships swaggering on the sea five miles away.

Three armed merchant ships with three thousand materials, each with a tonnage of 925 tons, are equivalent to large Galen sailing ships, but the number of artillery is far inferior.

There are seven warships and nine hundred soldiers under Reyes Zorn's command.

The warships are a large 1000-ton galleon and six small 400-ton galleons. The large galleon has one [-]-pound gun, four eighteen-pound guns, eight twelve-pound guns, and eight There are four pounders, a total of seventeen artillery pieces.

As for the six small Galen ships of 400 tons, they were equipped with four twelve-pound guns and three eight-pound guns, for a total of seven guns.

In contrast, in the eyes of Reyes Zorn, the three western ships with the flag of the bright sun and the moon, the tonnage of about [-] tons, and only [-] artillery pieces are very strange.

He tried to determine how many pounds the guns of the three ships were, but they were too far away to see clearly.

But there was one thing he could see clearly, and that was the sheep on the deck.

"Oh... how many sheep did they transport for business? They even allocated a special boat for fodder."

Reyes Zorn swallowed his saliva, imagining how much he could gain if he captured these two ships.

Although there is a gap in tonnage, in terms of the number of artillery pieces, compared to the number of artillery pieces of the two sides, they are more.

For Europeans who are poor in material and inflated by the influx of silver, the livestock of the two ships can completely drive them crazy.

However, Reyes Zorn still felt a little strange, especially since Daming actually began to imitate Western ships, which made him vigilant a lot, and even wondered in his heart whether the Ming army had imitated warships.

If even armed merchant ships can be equipped with fifteen cannons, then warships...

Thinking of this, Reyes Zorn felt suffocated for a while.

It's just that he has sunk many cargo ships of Ming Dynasty, blocked the mouth of Zhangzhou, and captured the Penghu Islands, so it is impossible to retreat now.

Thinking of this, he immediately turned to the officer and said:

"Shoot these three ships, there are many sheep on them, be careful not to hit the gunpowder depot."

"Yes, sir!" Hearing this, the officer immediately turned his head and began to wave two small flags. At the same time as the semaphore was passed on, the seven warships also started to move.

At the same time, Li Mao on the deck also noticed something was wrong.

He saw some broken planks floating over, and suddenly had a bad feeling in his heart.

Daming's coastal waters have never been calm, and pirates often exist.

Except during Zheng He's voyages to the West, when the entire sea was trembling under the power of the treasure fleet, the Daming Navy has been dealing with pirates and Japanese pirates in the two hundred years since its establishment.

"There is something wrong with the semaphore, let the gunner clear the gun."

Li Mao greeted the deputy captain next to him, and at the same time, his anxiety became more and more intense.

In less than a stick of incense, the sound of cannons suddenly sounded in the calm sea, and then three or four stone bombs hit Li Mao's boat, making several holes the size of human heads in the cabin.

"Beep! Seven enemy ships appeared at three o'clock in Northeast Chou!"

The wooden whistle was blown, and the flag bearer who observed the enemy ship shouted, and Li Mao also reacted, shouting loudly:

"Flag, strike back!"

Li Mao was just an ordinary ship owner. Before joining Huangdian, he was doing business on the Yangtze River and canals. He had never dealt with pirates, and he was not very familiar with water warfare.

The only thing he knew was to fight back, because they used powerful firepower to deal with the pirates along the way all the way south.

"Bang bang bang!"

The cannons fired in unison. Compared with ordinary smoothbore cannons, the simple eight-rifled artillery made by hook cutting method does not have high requirements for stone bullets, but its accuracy is a little higher than ordinary smoothbore cannons, but only a little bit. .

The Dutch fleet had more than [-] cannons on one side, and only three stone bullets hit it, while the Huangdian fleet had [-] cannons on one side, and it also hit three shots.

The difference is that since the [-]-pound cannon is equivalent to the European [-]-pound and [-]-pound cannon, among the three hits, one of them is the stone bullet of the [-]-pound cannon. It directly penetrated Reyes Zorn's thousand-ton boat.

"**! What gun is this? Twenty-four or twenty-six pounds?!"

Looking at the pierced main ship, Reyes Zorn cursed and commanded the fleet:
"Rush up, they are not many in number, get on board and fight!"

Following his order, seven Galen ships rushed towards Li Mao's fleet.

Seeing this, Li Mao continued to order people to fire.

But unfortunately, after two consecutive bombardments, none of the stone bullets hit the opponent.

Fortunately, during the third round of shelling, four stone bullets hit the Dutch fleet less than half a mile away from them, and Reyes Zorn's main ship was hit twice, one of which was a ten-pound bullet that fell on the deck The ground ricocheted and took several lives.

raging sea...

Seeing the approaching enemy ships, Li Mao felt a little scared after all. After the people below reported that the artillery was too hot, he immediately ordered to retreat.

The direction they retreated was the mouth of the Jiulong River in Zhangzhou. At this time, they didn't care whether they would be forced to cross the mouth of the Jiulong River. The sinking merchant ship would pierce the bottom of the ship and sink it. Li Mao and the others just wanted to survive.

However, the distance of more than ten miles was like the last stop before death to Li Mao and the others.

The three merchant ships were constantly being hit. Although they would stop and counterattack, they were still at a disadvantage in this naval battle.

Fortunately, with another counterattack, two [-]-pound cannons hit a small [-]-ton Galen ship, pierced the warship directly, and the cabin began to flood.

Seeing that his own warship was hit and flooded, Reyes Zorn also helplessly stopped the pursuit and ordered people to drag the ship back to Penghu.

At the same time, immediately rushed into the mouth of the Longjiang River with three bruised boats, and successfully ran aground at the mouth of the river, attracting the attention of the officers and soldiers of Zhangzhou Prefecture.

After knowing that the ship belonged to Huangdian, the officers and soldiers called the people of Zhangzhou Mansion and towed the stranded ship to the shipyard of Zhangzhou Mansion.

At the same time, the first thing Li Mao did when he disembarked was to find the Baihu Office of Fusi, Funan Town, Zhangzhou, and sent the incident of the attack on the Huangdian ship to the capital with an urgent first-class military situation of [-] miles.

When the news reached the capital, it was already the seventh day of May in the second year of Tianqi, and such news made Zhu Youjian, who had just returned from the busy farming season, furious.

"Your mother and maidservant! How dare you even hit my boat?!"

Having just returned to the capital, Zhu Youjian, whose buttocks were still hot, cursed loudly, embarrassing Cui Yingyuan who sent the news.

Zhu Youjian, who is sitting in the main seat, is also depressed. He has been paying attention to the situation in Shandong, because he remembers that the rebellion of the Wenxiang Sect, a supporting teacher of the White Lotus Sect, will break out this year.

As a result, Cui Yingyuan arrested many people from Wenxiangjiao, but he did not catch the main criminals such as Xu Hongru, and because Huaibei and Shandong were able to provide disaster relief, and the shipyard recruited a large number of Shandong men, it was not so Many families were destroyed.

In the aftermath of the Shandong earthquake, more than [-] people died. The data should be true, because the investigation by Cui Yingyuan's Nanzhen Fusi found that the number was almost the same, and it was still within the controllable range.

The busy farming has been over for a month now, and the autumn harvest will be ready in three months. As long as there are no problems in these three months, the uprising of the Wenxiang Sect should be impossible.

In the future, as long as we continue to arrest the disseminators of the Wenxiang Sect and the White Lotus Sect, we should be able to eliminate some of the people who were bewitched and rebelled.

But he didn't expect that when he was focusing on Liaodong, Southwest, and Shandong, the Dutch gave him a blow in Zhangzhou.

At present, it is only known that the other party has seven ships and hundreds of people, but there is no specific number of people or firepower configuration.

In addition, there are still two months for the teak wood to dry in the shade, and the construction of a warship will take at least three months, which means that even if it can be fought, it will be five months later.

But the problem is, it would be fine if the Dutch invaded aggressively, but he sent hundreds of people and seven ships to fight his own ideas. Does he really think Zhu Youjian has a good temper?
Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian stood up abruptly, grabbed the military newspaper on the table and said:
"If you don't avenge this revenge, don't the court think that everyone in the Imperial Horse Supervisor can be bullied?"

"Cui Yingyuan, tell Li Ruolian to let him investigate Hongmaoyi's military situation for me. If he doesn't fight this time, his face is full of peach blossoms, and Gu's name is written upside down!"

After all, Zhu Youjian grabbed the letter and walked towards the Hall of Mental Cultivation, while Cao Huachun, who was standing at the door, quickly followed after seeing this.

He asked someone to prepare the chariot, and wanted to help Zhu Youjian get into the car, but Zhu Youjian jumped on it, got into the car, and said to Cao Huachun:
"drive!"

"Yes..." Cao Huachun smiled wryly in his heart, His Highness was really offended by those red-haired barbarians.

However, it is not surprising that the Southwest War has fallen into a stalemate in the past few months. Although Sun Chuanting and others have recruited a lot of soldiers and horses after receiving silver taels, it will take more than half a year for these soldiers and horses to form combat power.

However, An Bangyan, Song Wanhua, An Xiaoliang and others hid in the mountains and dug the mountain roads. While guarding the Guinan area, they also went to Guangxi from time to time to fight the autumn wind.

In this way, the Ming army had to build roads if they wanted to catch these guys.

With regard to the karst landform in Guinan, it is very difficult to build a road, but it is very easy to dig it down. If this continues, the annual expenditure of millions of taels of silver cannot be supported by the imperial court.

Of course, the most worrying thing is Nurhachi in Liaodong.

For more than three months, Nurhachi has not moved, but the lack of movement makes people feel weak.

However, Yang Gao did not investigate anything in North Korea, making people wonder whether Nurhachi and North Korea had private trade.

No matter how Beizhen Fusi tried, he couldn't invade Jianlu's interior, let alone instigate anyone.

The only good news is that sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn and other crops have been arranged for decentralized planting, and the sea trade in Yumajian Huangdian has developed.

It turned out that such good news would also be mixed up by Hongmao Yi.

If it wasn't for Li Mao's fast running, it is estimated that the livestock worth tens of thousands of taels of silver would have been taken away from the three merchant ships.

Therefore, Cao Huachun was more curious about what His Royal Highness would say when he went to see Wansui.

While he was thinking this way, the carriage also stopped at the gate of the Qianqing Palace, and when Zhu Youjian saw the car stopped, he opened the door from the back of the car, jumped out of the car, and walked towards the Qianqing Palace aggressively. It was Zhu Youxiao who provoked him.

Seeing Zhu Youjian's appearance, Liu Ruoyu, the eunuch on duty at the gate of Qianqing Palace, immediately became energetic, and saluted from a long distance away, then stepped into the palace with his crotch, and said to Zhu Youxiao in the Hall of Mental Cultivation one step ahead of time:

"Long live, the king of Qi is begging to see you, he seems a little anxious..."

"Worried?" Hearing this, Zhu Youxiao, who was wearing a middle coat and planing wood in the Hall of Mental Cultivation, froze for a moment.

Wei Zhongxian, who was supporting the wood next to him, also secretly shook his numb hands, and then stepped forward with a smile and said:

"Long live, I guess King Qi has something important to do."

"Brother is here? Then just let him see if my carriage is right." Zhu Youxiao heard that his younger brother returned to the palace after leaving the palace for three months, and immediately turned his head to look at a built carriage next to him happily.

This carriage is different from Daming's ordinary carriages. The difference is that the carriage consists of four wheels, and the two front wheels are also equipped with steering handles.

This is one of the drawings that Zhu Youjian gave to his royal brother to "edify his sentiments" before he left.

In addition to turning to a four-wheeled carriage, there are also wooden bicycles, and some principles of textile machines and hydraulic looms that Zhu Youjian has read in books, but he can't remember the specifics.

At that time, apart from the steering four-wheeled carriage, Zhu Youjian had no hope for his royal brother to develop several other things, because as far as bicycles were concerned, even if they were produced, they were probably handmade luxury goods and could not be introduced into the common people. .

As he expected, Zhu Youxiao couldn't figure out several other things, so he kept investing in the four-wheel steering carriage.

No, I just got a new carriage today.

At this moment, Zhu Youjian stepped into the Qianqing Palace, raised his hand and shook the military report in his hand:

"Brother! Someone robbed your money!"

"Ahem..." Hearing these words, Cao Huachun, who was following behind, almost staggered and knelt on the ground.

"Steal my money?" Zhu Youxiao was also stunned, and so were Liu Ruoyu and Wei Zhongxian.

They thought to themselves, in this world, there are still people who dare to rob the emperor's money?So I couldn't help being curious.

At the same time, Zhu Youjian also shook the military report in his hand:

"That's right. I originally wanted to have some livestock traded, and then get some wood and silver from Zhangzhou Mansion to give back to my brother. In the end, the Hong Maoyi occupied Penghu by force, bombarded the mouth of the Zhangzhou River, and beat the people on the three ships."

"Red-haired barbarians? The one in Europe?" Zhu Youxiao became curious, because as far as he knew, the last time the red-haired barbarians invaded Daming was fourteen years ago.

"The red-haired barbarians robbed me?"

"That's not true. The people on the three boats tried their best to protect them, and finally sold the livestock to the shore and bought enough wood, but the red-haired barbarians blocked the mouth of the Zhangzhou River, preventing them from getting out." Zhu Youjian opened his eyes. tell nonsense.

"Hmm..." Zhu Youxiao felt something was wrong, he always felt that his brother was fooling him, so he turned to look at Wei Zhongxian:
"Zhongxian, does the cabinet have any news about Zhangzhou Hongmaoyi?"

"Ah... this, I need someone to take a look at it. Maybe the memorial has just been sent to the cabinet." Wei Zhongxian was a little ashamed, and Zhu Youxiao also said:

"Let someone go and have a look. If it's true, these bastards who don't know the number of days really deserve to die."

The two brothers have a "your mother's maidservant" and a "bastard", and they are indeed the most civilized brothers in Ming Dynasty.

However, in the eyes of everyone, what Zhu Youjian said was a curse, but what Zhu Youxiao said was not.

Because this so-called "hybrid" has been around for a long time.

During the Wanli period, the local officials said, "The red-haired barbarians, overseas bastards, with cyanotic eyes, red beard and hair, the so-called Helan country, have not been able to communicate with China since the past, and have been able to communicate with Fujian merchants through Dani."

Therefore, what Zhu Youxiao said was really not a curse, but just the truth.

After telling the truth, Zhu Youxiao arranged for Wei Zhongxian to go to the cabinet to have a look, while he dragged Zhu Youjian and pointed to the carriageway he built:
"This carriage is really good. I used to have it in Huaxia, and then it was lost for some reason. It is also a good thing for my brother to draw the blueprint this time and let it reappear in the world."

"With it, it will be much easier for the people to get food and grass in the future."

"Eh... this is just a small gadget, not worth mentioning. It would be a big deal if my brother can make a hydraulic loom." Zhu Youjian painted cakes like a day, but Zhu Youxiao said with a smile:
"The hydraulic loom is also used in Jiangnan, but it's not as exquisite as my brother's blueprint."

"It's just a few of them. I haven't figured it out yet. After I figure it out, it shouldn't be difficult to figure it out."

Zhu Youxiao was stubborn as always, but Zhu Youjian was secretly happy when he heard this, and replied on the surface:
"I still have a lot of exquisite ideas in my hands. If my brother can really come up with it, I will draw it when the time comes."

"A word from a gentleman?" Zhu Youxiao's eyes lit up, and he was very interested in the subtle ideas his younger brother said.

"It's hard to chase a four-horse horse!" Zhu Youjian straightened his back, and then smiled at Zhu Youxiao.

Looking at the two of them like this, Liu Ruoyu, Wei Zhongxian, and Cao Huachun were all at a loss, not understanding what's so interesting about wood.

While they were confused, Zhu Youxiao continued to pull Zhu Youjian to talk about some things he didn't know about bicycles, textile machines, and hydraulic looms.

Zhu Youjian explained these things when he understood them, and muddled through those who didn’t understand them. In short, after a quarter of an hour of fooling around, the eunuch who went to the cabinet to ask questions also rushed back...

(End of this chapter)