I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 230

Chapter 229

Cheng Shijie is very clear that whether it is the Dutch who has always wanted to help him deal with Zheng Zhilong, or the current Catherine of the Republic of Venice, they all have a strong purpose.

Their help is definitely not free, these Europa people will definitely make a trick and give Cheng Shijie a sweet date, which must be wrapped with deadly poison.

Relying on his own strength, he defeated Zheng Zhilong and at the same time gained control of the sea.

Of course, in Cheng Shijie's ideal, defeating Zheng Zhilong is not the goal, and occupying Luzon is not the end, his goal is the stars and the sea.

This point can be seen from Cheng Shijie's emphasis on education. After achieving financial affluence, Cheng Shijie's first choice was to establish a public education system in Liaodong.

In order to ensure the effectiveness of public education, the management committee will send education commissioners to inspect schools in various places. The school's teachers and hardware facilities must be strictly assessed by the management committee every year. For those families who prevent their children from receiving compulsory education , The Liaodong Management Committee government formulated strict punishment regulations.

In fact, at the current stage of Liaodong, the fundamental reason for not paying attention to children's education is economic interests. Children in the Ming Dynasty are different from children in later generations. Even children as young as five or six years old can help adults with work.Twelve or thirteen-year-old children can master the skills of plowing and sowing, which is unimaginable in later generations.

In response to the large number of eleven and twelve-year-old children who are out of school, Cheng Shijie formulated the "Liaodong Compulsory Education Law".

Without economic benefits and facing penalties, the problem of school-age children dropping out of school has been greatly alleviated. In Liaodong now, the enrollment rate of children from immigrant families is only 30.00% in the first year, only 70.00% in the second year, and only 90.00% in the third year. The enrollment rate of immigrant children has reached [-]%.

So far, only newly included regions, such as Tamsui and Luzon, have not yet implemented compulsory education laws, and even Chongming Island, Changxing Island, and Wusongkou have established compulsory education systems.

At the beginning of the year, the Liaodong Agricultural Research Institute in Zhenhai City, the Liaodong Hospital Research Institute in Xinghai City, and the Jinzhou Academy in Jinzhou were split and refined to form the current Liaodong University (Comprehensive), Ninghai, Army, and Military College, Ning Naval Military Academy, Ning Naval Artillery Academy, Liaodong Education College, Liaodong Medical College, Liaodong Agricultural College, Liaodong Industrial College and other institutions.

Cheng Shijie's goal is to enable everyone to master a skill, so that they can contribute their due strength to the society after entering the society in the future.

It can be said that in Liaodong in the future, it is actually very difficult for illiterate people to live well. They need to master more life skills in order to live better.

Just like the current colonies, if you want to be strong and rich, you must not only exploit the natives of the colonies, you must continue to merge and expand, so as to develop and grow.

In the Central Plains, an adult man can only take care of a dozen acres of land at most, and a family of young and old may also have a dozen or a few acres of land. However, in Liaodong, the reserved land between one town and another town, the It is six hundred acres.Of course, these lands are definitely not able to be fully developed now, and more people are needed.

However, Cheng Shijie, in order to avoid being too densely packed between villages like Henan in later generations, with only a few acres per capita, so he arranged in advance that the distance between towns in Liaodong is very far, just for future population explosion. , lack of sufficient land.

However, the problem is that the income from farming is limited. Even if a family has five members, if all five members are laborers, they can manage up to [-] mu of land. As the grain cultivated in Liaodong becomes more and more Many, the price of grain in Liaodong, like Jiangnan, began to decline.

The annual income of 300 mu of land can reach more than 100 taels of silver at most. This is the result of scientific farming. If the primitive farming method in the Central Plains is adopted, the annual income is less than [-] taels of silver. There are only a few dozen taels of silver in it.

If you want to live well in the future, dozens of taels of silver may not be enough in Liaodong. After the economic development of Liaodong, price inflation will follow.

In the past, you could hire a servant for a few taels of silver, and you could even find a servant for taking care of meals without spending any money. The income is two or three taels of silver, and you can easily earn two or thirty taels of silver a year.

Cheng Shijie's idea is that people in Liaodong can't just farm, and they need a lot of excellent talents. Judges, lawyers, accountants, engineers, teachers, doctors, etc. are all good choices.

From December of the fourth year of Chongzhen, Cheng Shijie began to make preparations for expansion. This was something Catherine could not imagine. Forging iron requires one's own hard work, relying on others, and forming a habit, which is very bad.

However, in order to thank Catherine for the news she brought to Cheng Shijie, Zhu Weiti, as the hostess, held a dinner for Catherine and Fourth Miss Xu. Shen Boyun's wife and daughter-in-law also attended the dinner, including Daming's future star, Shen Tingyang's lady.

Shen Tingyang's wife, the Xu family, is not the Xu family of Xu Guangqi's family, but the Xu family of Huating, which can be regarded as a side branch of Xu Guangqi's family.

After the dinner, Catherine started to get down to business. She knew that Cheng Shijie was not easy to deal with, so she decided to take the route of his wife.

"Your Royal Highness, I have sold all the goods I brought from Venice this time, and I have made huge profits. I heard that Your Highness is beautiful and wise. I want to be friends with Her Highness!"

Catherine said: "As a friend, a meeting gift is a must!"

While talking, Catherine sent someone a huge brocade box, opened the brocade box, and inside was a huge ivory ball.

Of course, the real name of this thing is Guigong ball, and the uncanny ivory ball is carved from a whole piece of ivory.The ball inside the ball is hollowed out layer by layer, each layer is uniform in thickness, and the spherical surface is engraved with fine pattern flower holes, so that layers can be rotated.Coupled with various forms and rich content of ivory ball columns and bases, it is a perfect and unique work of art.

In fact, Catherine did not bring this thing from Venice, but she bought it through Xu Shumin in Shanghai, worth 1 taels of silver.

If talking about other gifts, Zhu Weiti might have never seen them before, but this kind of handicraft is the most indispensable thing in the royal family.Zhu Weiti played with the ivory ball for a while, and said with a faint smile: "The three-layer ivory ball is really extraordinary, Zi Yi, go and get my ivory ball!"

Soon Gu Ziyi went out.

Cheng Shijie was not interested in the open and secret fights between women, so he took the opportunity to leave. Today Cheng Shijie did not return to the later generations.

Although Cheng Shijie learned from Catherine that Luzon was taken down by Ning Haijun, the problem is that Catherine also heard the news and didn't know the details.

How did the conflict arise?

How much did the main fleet of the Ninghai Navy lose in this battle?
Now how many shells are left in the main fleet of the Ning Navy, and how many battles are left?
What was the result of the attack on Manila City and how much was lost?
How many troops and combat effectiveness are there in the Luzon Marine Corps?
How did the Spaniards lose?
How many people escaped from Luzon?
These are all issues that Cheng Shijie is very concerned about. When Catherine just told Cheng Shijie that Lu Song was taken down, Cheng Shijie was actually very dissatisfied with Li Zhixiang and Cheng Shi. Such a big thing happened, and there was no report afterwards. for annoyed.

After calming down, Cheng Shijie thought clearly.

The Ning Navy and Zheng's Fleet fought three times. Although the Ning Navy won an overall victory, in fact, after the three battles, Zheng Zhilong's main battleship only lost more than 130 ships. The loss of these warships will definitely hurt others. The muscles are muscular, but for Zheng Zhilong, his main force has not lost much.

Zheng Zhilong still has more than 600 main warships, more than 2000 small warships, and tens of thousands of personnel. It is actually very easy to cut off the communication between Li Zhixiang and Cheng Shijie.

The most important thing is that the communication is not smooth. Even the sea route to Liaodong is not smooth now.

Cheng Shijie found Shen Boyun: "Boyun, is the secret weapon I asked you to build ready?"

"More than 300 have been made!"

Cheng Shijie's so-called secret weapon is actually a small narrow boat about [-] feet long and [-] feet [-] feet wide. This is the fireboat used to deal with Zheng Zhilong's huge fleet.

To put it bluntly, this kind of fireboat is very simple to manufacture, even cheaper than the fireboat launched by Zheng Zhilong.

Facing such unreliable means of communication, the warship only sailed two to three hundred kilometers a day, and it would take at least ten days to return from Liaodong.

These ten days are also very terrible. I don't know if Li Zhixiang can persist.

……

The sky gradually turned white, and a straight ray of light poured down from the sky, flying over the turbulent waves, coating the tens of thousands of hectares of waves with a layer of magnificent color.The sun is accumulating energy behind the sea level, and its heat has roasted the large expanse of clouds in the east until it turns red and purple.

This is a small fleet with a total of five blessing ships sailing on the sea.The sky had just dawned, and the sailors were exhausted after a hard night's voyage. The captain of the boat was a thin old man in his 50s and [-]s. He was smoking a hookah while observing the sea.

Although there are many warships of the Zheng family on the sea, there are almost no people who dare not pay the protection fee.

Liang Zhiqi was originally Xu Suxin's son-in-law, and he can also be regarded as a core member of Xu Suxin's group. After the death of the great merchant Li Dan, he left behind two heirs, one is Zheng Zhilong, who is in charge of Japanese business and sea ships, and the other is Xu Suxin. , responsible for the business in Quanzhou and Macau.

Zheng Zhilong's cooperation with Xu Suxin was not bad at the beginning. After all, Xu Suxin also owns five or six hundred ships, and his strength should not be underestimated. .

Xu Suxin is good at doing business, but in terms of ruthlessness, he is far inferior to Zheng Zhilong. After the two sides fought for more than half a year, Xu Suxin was beaten to death by Zheng Zhilong, and most of Xu Suxin's subordinates also defected to Zheng Zhilong. In fact, Liang Zhiqi also wanted to surrender, but the problem was that he Xu Suxin's son-in-law, Zheng Zhilong is unwilling to let him go.

In desperation, Liang Zhiqi took some members who were unwilling to surrender to Zheng Zhilong, and began to wander on the sea. Of course, Liang Zhiqi is not a good person, he is also a maritime merchant, but he is just a small-scale member of the maritime merchant. Zheng Zhilong paid the protection fee, on the one hand he was worried that Zheng Zhilong would find out his identity.

On the other hand, he does not have a stable supply of goods on land, so he can only collect them from retail investors, and the cost is relatively high.In this case, there is no profit at all for how he pays Zheng Zhilong the protection fee.

Liang Zhiqi's small fleet uses Dongda Island in the Ryukyu Islands as its home port. Dongda Island is also a small coral island with less than [-] square kilometers. Fortunately, there is light and a small amount of cultivated land, so it can barely survive.

As Zheng Zhilong unified Nanyang and became the overlord of the sea, Liang Zhiqi's management became more and more difficult. He has been thinking about where to go and where to save.

In fact, there are not many opportunities for Liang Zhiqi to choose. He can either join Shen's Shachuan Gang or a large merchant in the south of the Yangtze River. But the problem is that if he joins the Shachuan Gang, he is also bullied by Zheng Zhilong. The fish that slipped through the net was very concerned, and he didn't dare to take risks.

Just when Liang Zhiqi was thinking about it, a small black spot appeared on the sea in the distance.

A sailor asked curiously: "Master, what is that? It seems to be moving this way."

Liang Zhiqi hurriedly picked up the binoculars and stared at the small black dot in the distance. This magical gadget suddenly pulled the distant object in front of him: "It's a person!"

Liang Zhiqi could see very clearly that the man in black was still alive, lying on top of a mast, floating and sinking with the waves.

However, he saw that the mast did not seem to be broken by the wind, but it seemed to be broken by a shell, with scorched black marks on it.

"Maybe it's Mrs. Zheng's fault!"

Liang Zhiqi's recruitment of sailors is not as easy as Zheng Zhilong's. The only way is to pick up the survivors who were sunk by Zheng's pirates from the sea. If the other party is willing, they can recruit them as members.

"Come here, go over and see if the other party is still alive?"

Soon the man in black who fell into the water was rescued on board, but Liang Zhiqi didn't know that his action opened a way for himself.

Mao Youjun is one of Mao Wenlong's adopted grandsons and one of Mao Wenlong's brave generals. It can even be said that he is braver than Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde under Mao Wenlong's command. He can swim in the water without sinking in armor.

However, Mao Youjun has an Achilles' heel, strong force, but low EQ, not good at communicating with people, and alcoholic, brutal and violent.

When he was in the Dongjiang Army, his rank was not high. He was just a guerrilla general on Shuanglu Island. He was much lower than Geng Zhongming and Kong Youde.

During the Battle of Baliwan, Mao Youjun fought with Huanglong to the death and was seriously injured in seven places.But the problem is, he has made great achievements, so logically, he should also be promoted.But Mao Youjun didn't abide by military discipline, which is definitely not acceptable.

Later, the Ning Naval Military Affairs Office considered Mao Youjun's meritorious service. If he did not reward him, it would affect the morale and morale of the army, so he threw him to the Ning Naval Academy, which is now the Liaodong Naval Military Academy.

Almost everyone knows that Mao Youjun was definitely unable to persevere in the Naval Academy, but something unexpected happened. This Mao Youjun was very interested in studying, because Mao Youjun's surname was Hu, and his name was Hu Fen , his father, Hu Pan, was once a hereditary hundred households of the Youtun Qianhu House in Liaozhong Wei. He always made Hu Fen think that he could abandon martial arts and follow literature.

It’s just that when Hu Fen was young, Hu Pan was killed in the 41st year of Wanli. Hu Fen was only seven years old at the time. He only studied with his father for less than a year. However, Hu Fen can only avoid being bullied by acting arrogantly.

Later, in Tianqi for six years, he became one of Mao Wenlong's adopted grandsons, but Mao Wenlong only valued his martial prowess, and because of his low EQ, he didn't train him.

Until he entered the Ningjun Naval Academy and started full-time study and study, Mao Youjun was like a fish in water in the Naval Academy. Not only did he get rid of his bad habits, but he also graduated with a good grade of No. 5 in the first class of the Naval Academy.

Mao Youjun served as the head of the war department of the Gaizhou. When the Gaizhou was forced to sink, he was washed into the sea by the shock wave. He accidentally held a section of the mast and drifted on the sea for four days.

After Mao Youjun woke up, he thought about his responsibility. They wanted to report to Cheng Shijie. He looked at the sailor and said, "Where is this place?"

"maritime!"

"Can you send me to Liaodong!"

"Liaodong!"

Liang Zhiqi asked consciously, "Are you from Ning Haijun?"

"That's right, Chairman Mao Youjun of the Central Squadron of the First Fleet of the Xianing Navy, as long as you send me to Liaodong, I will be very grateful!"

Cheng Shijie has not received the sixth squadron from Liaodong, nor has he heard the detailed information from Lu Song, but Zheng Zhilong's fleet has already led the South China Sea.

South China Sea, Subic Bay.

Since the occupation of Manila in Luzon, all four squadrons of the Ning Navy's First Fleet have been dispatched to conduct reconnaissance in the Luzon Strait, Subic Strait, Manila Bay, and Sulu Sea.

The twelve Jusha-class warships of the First Squadron are responsible for the security of the sea in the direction of Subic.

When the sky just dawned, the sailors and soldiers on the battleship rubbed their sleepy eyes and climbed up, went to the deck to assemble, first roll call, and after making sure that all the personnel were present, they raised the military flag and sang military songs. Wash your teeth and wash your face and have breakfast while watching the beautiful scenery of the sunrise on the sea.These sailors were all wearing only a pair of underpants, revealing their strong muscles.

Of course, there is also a body of... sweat!All of them are like moving human gas bombs, the smell of sweat can overwhelm people, everyone must keep away from them, otherwise the nose will suffer.

There is no way, being a sailor these days is really too sad, eating worse than a dog, staying in the sultry and humid bilge all day is like a year, and you can’t even take a bath, which consumes a lot of fresh water, and That's all that's missing from the boat.

If you want to take a bath on the boat, you have to wait until it rains. If it doesn't rain, you can bear it.These sailors hadn't bathed for several days, so their body smell was not much better.

For the officers and men of the Ning Navy, it is actually lucky, because they do not have to eat worse than dogs like their counterparts in Europa, because the Ning Navy Navy will store a large amount of canned food, which includes canned beef, canned mutton, Canned braised pork, as well as various canned fruits.

At least the soldiers of the Ning Navy will not get scurvy. Although they can't eat much fresh food, they can use canned food to maintain a balanced nutrition.

The flagship of the First Squadron is the Guangning, which is the first ship of the Sea Shark class. As the commander of the First Squadron, Li Yuan still has a little privilege. He can get a liter of fresh water every day to wash his face, and You can use the water to wipe your body, at least it doesn't smell like other sailors.

Just as Li Yuan was preparing to eat, Yang Shiwei, the deputy fleet commander, smiled and said, "We are very lucky today. We encountered fifteen merchant ships just after dawn. Such a large merchant ship must not be easy. Maybe it belongs to some rich man in the south of the Yangtze River. Where's the fleet!"

Li Yuan wiped his hands and said, "Don't try to grab it, what if it's the Spaniard's fleet?"

"This can't be a large sand ship. It belongs to the unique ship type in Jiangnan. I can't admit it wrong!"

"Maybe it's Zheng's fleet!"

"Improbable? No matter how I look at it, I think they are merchant ships..."

While talking, there was a burst of intercom sound from the battleship: "Report to General Li, it is Zheng's fleet, not a merchant ship. Repeat, it is Zheng's fleet, not a merchant ship!"

"Roger that!"

Li Fang opened the full-channel communication: "Get ready for battle!"

Cheng Shijie's biggest challenge to Ning Haijun is to equip each warship with at least two walkie-talkies, and each battleship has a [-]-watt solar panel, two sets of batteries and inverters to charge the walkie-talkie .

The squadron is equipped with 25 watts, covering an area of ​​five to eight kilometers. A [-]-watt vehicle-mounted walkie-talkie can cover a range of [-] to [-] kilometers on the sea. This is used to communicate with the First Fleet Squadron A walkie-talkie for combat.

"Dong dong dong..."

After Li Yuan gave the order to prepare for the battle, the drums sounded, and the sailors, who were almost full after hearing the drums, threw away their lunch boxes without asking what was going on. As soon as the drum beats, even if there is a big matter, you have to put it aside first, and return to your post immediately.

Sea Shark-class battleships are large warships of the 1000-ton class. A large amount of steel is used to strengthen the hull, and the bow is hollow to reduce weight. Benefiting from these new technologies, these big guys weighing more than [-] tons can run fast even against the wind. It is incomparable to the traditional sailboat.They skim over the sea like light petrels, and with the help of telescopes, they outflank them all the way. They are extremely vigorous and pleasing to the eye.

Through the forty-fold telescope, you can see that the sailors on the opposite battleship are lazily manipulating the sails or scraping the dirt on the deck. When they saw the battleship of the Ning Navy rushing towards them, they suddenly panicked. group.

The five battleships in front reacted the fastest. They immediately began to operate the rudders and turn around, trying to escape, but it was already too late.

The captain of the first ship on the left wing, Xi'an, ordered: "Fire and say hello to them!"

The gunners on the bow battery of the Xi'an fired a shot very casually. Of course, they really didn't think about hitting directly, because they were 500 meters away from the opponent at this time, and the shells from the three-inch muzzle came from It rushed out of the barrel, screaming all the way towards the target three kilometers away.

All the gunners swear to God that they really didn't deliberately aim, even if they wanted to aim, they couldn't aim correctly. In the turbulent sea, the effective range of the three-inch naval gun is only 500 meters, and it often reaches 1000 meters in combat. Even if you fire at 800 meters, you can effectively hit it. At [-] kilometers, you can't hit it no matter how you aim.

However, the hell is that within a few seconds after the cannon was ejected, the ship I saw exploded into a big ball of flames, the mast collapsed, the sails were torn, and the burning broken canvas was blown up by dozens of blast waves Mi Gao, like a butterfly filled with fire...

Seeing this scene, Li Yuan said through the walkie-talkie: "Good guy, you guys are so awesome, how did you practice this gun?"

"Pure luck!"

The captain of the Xi'an discovered that the other Zheng warships had actually hoisted white flags. In order to avoid misunderstanding by the Ning Navy, they quickly put guns on the ship's guns.

"It was just a shot, how did they surrender?"

In all fairness, the fifteen battleships of Zheng's fleet are not old broken ships of pirates, they are all big guys of six to seven hundred tons, even if they are placed on Europa, they are still the main battleships.

Even if one of them is hit, there are still fourteen warships, while the Ning Navy only has twelve ships. Although they are not as big as the opponent's ships, they may not be incapable of fighting.

But the problem is that these fourteen warships immediately lowered their sails, anchored, and seemed to surrender.

Li Yuan didn't understand what was going on.

The captains of these Zheng's fleets who were questioned were almost scared to pee.

More than 500 meters, a direct hit from a cannonball, how do they fight?
The effective range of their naval guns is only 400 meters. When they rush to this distance, it is enough for the Ning Navy to sink them ten times or eight times.

……

Manila Port, Manila City.As the Governor's Mansion of the Spaniards, it has now become the territory of the Ning Navy.

Li Zhixiang also received information from Li Yuan, he couldn't believe it: "You mean, Zheng's fleet attacked Liaodong and Wusongkou, and they were all beaten back?"

"According to the confessions of the prisoners, this is the case. In order to verify the authenticity of the confessions of the prisoners, we interrogated all the prisoners separately. The information presented was somewhat discrepant, and generally not bad. They were repulsed by the commander in two battles before and after, and they lost more than 100 yuan. A main battleship, and seven or eight thousand troops!"

"Unexpectedly, the Spaniard didn't come, Zheng Zhilong came first!"

Li Zhixiang said with a wry smile: "Order all squadrons to return immediately and enter the port to replenish supplies and ammunition! Prepare for a decisive battle!"

"But, Zheng Zhilong's strength..."

"Whether you can fight or not, you will only know if you fight!"

(End of this chapter)