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

Chapter 426: Supervisor Shi is at this level

Chapter 426

Regarding the issue of discovering the New World, the cabinet held a special meeting, especially inviting more than a dozen representatives of the expedition team. Through the representatives' narratives, the cabinet learned detailed information about the New World.

I say it's detailed, but it's really just scratching the surface. I just know that this new continent is very large, especially rich in iron ore. The quality of the ore is very good, and it has nothing to do with pig iron. After heating and forging, you can make a sharp sword without any effort. .

The natives of the New World are ignorant and still live a life of slash-and-burn farming. It is a pity that they have a large amount of high-quality iron ore but do not know how to use it!There are many islands in the sea not far from the mainland that are covered with island dung. They are several feet thick and are inexhaustible. The iron ore and manure in the New World are priceless treasures. If they can be utilized, they will be of endless use to future generations. They are better than gold. Thousands of times more silver ore!
Of course, Cheng Shijie knew this information with his eyes closed, but Cheng Shijie's own words were not convincing, and many things needed to be handled by the cabinet and the government.

Cheng Shijie pretended to be ignorant and asked: "Based on the cabinet's opinion, can immigrants be immigrated there?"

Sun Zhibao said: "The natives of the New World have survived on that continent for hundreds of thousands of years. They have not died out. On the contrary, they have become stronger and stronger. With the diligence and wisdom of our people in the Ming Dynasty, it is easy to establish a foothold there! I plan to first Try throwing 50 prisoners there, and if you can survive, throw another [-] prisoners there!"

Cheng Shijie smiled bitterly. It seemed that Australia could not escape the fate of becoming a prison camp. The British did the same in the [-]th century!

Just when the Ming Dynasty was preparing to immigrate to the New World, a big problem arose in the south of the Yangtze River. Wu Sheng, who was originally in charge of the Eighth Brigade, arrived at Wusongkou. Originally, the Eighth Brigade was to receive adaptive training at Wusongkou. As a result, as the Ming Dynasty The Royal Army moves south,

The Jin gentry in Jiangnan finally panicked, and for the first time they stopped fighting among themselves. Those who had money contributed money, and those who had no money contributed efforts, and they united and resisted.

The gold and silver that had been hidden in the cellar for who knows how many years were constantly being scattered during the day, and they were frantically recruiting troops. Men who had no problems with their arms and legs were recruited into the army to replenish their numbers. For a time, the number of rebels in the Jiangnan area was actually As many as 80 people.

However, due to the impact of the plague, Cheng Shijie did not start going south to fight, because according to the Ministry of Health's investigation, it was concluded that the plague problem was due to food shortages caused by the war. Rats living in the wild could not find food in the wild. These Omnivorous rats eat carcasses buried under grass.

Later, after the corpses were eaten up, rats began to breed in places with a large number of people. Especially when the Ming Dynasty adopted work-for-relief measures, the people in the north had food, which allowed the rats to breed more and more. The people did not pay enough attention to hygiene. Even if you see the vegetables or grains at home being eaten by mice, you will not be willing to throw them away and continue to eat them.

After people were infected with the plague, they only had fever, dizziness, and weakness in their limbs at first. In the past, when people encountered this kind of problem, they could only deal with it by force until the condition became serious, and then a serious virus formed and began to spread everywhere. spread.

Under this situation, Cheng Shijie could only postpone the war going south, because the war would inevitably lead to death, and once the plague became a nationwide epidemic in the Ming Dynasty, the consequences would be disastrous.

But the problem is that Wu Sheng's more than [-] troops had just arrived at Wusongkou, but they were attacked by unidentified armed men. The merchant ship that paid the tax to Wusongkou was hijacked. For Cheng Shijie, as long as the merchants paid the tax, the Ming Dynasty The military is responsible for protecting their safety.

Wu Sheng said angrily: "Damn it, you dare to disturb Tai Sui!"

Zhou Yunxiang, chief of staff of the Eighth Brigade, frowned and said: "I'm afraid this incident is not simple!"

"It's true, there must be someone behind it!"

It has been more than three years since Ning Haijun occupied Wusongkou. It used to be that Ning Haijun collected the money from General Gaoqi and divided it into three parts, one for Cheng Shijie and one for Chongzhen. The emperor, keep a penny for himself. Although this is a piece of fat, the problem is that neither Cheng Shijie nor Gao Qiqian can afford to offend him.

The worst thing is to let it go.

Wu Sheng thought for a moment and said, "Can't we just let it go?"

"Are you preparing to send troops?"

"What kind of troops should we send? The commander has given strict orders. We cannot send troops now. We must obey the orders from above before we can start fighting. What's more, we still have nearly half of the landlubbers in the [-]th Brigade. They have no fighting ability here. They must complete their adaptive training as soon as possible! "

Wu Sheng's so-called adaptive training is actually very cruel. It means that soldiers are tied with ropes, thrown into the sea or river, and pulled up when they are about to drown. After a few times of this, people who can't swim and seasick people will adapt. .Of course, this kind of adaptive training is not [-]% successful, and some people will leave a deeper shadow and will never be able to engage in naval-related work from now on.

Zhou Yunxiang said doubtfully: "If we don't send troops, what will we do?"

"Call the Shen family members from Chongming Island!"

Zhou Yunxiang suddenly realized: "The Shen family?"

The basic foundation of the Shen family is the Shachuan Gang. Although it has now been changed to a maritime transportation company, the Shachuan Gang is a paramilitary organization like the militia organization.

Two hours later, after being briefed by Wu Sheng, Shen Huandong left Wusongkou and returned to Chongming Island. Soon, Chongming Island mobilized 26 flat-bottomed sand boats and more than a thousand sailors. Although they were not real navy The troops are really not good at actually fighting a naval battle.

However, they were professionals in dealing with water bandits, because they were born pirates and water bandits. After fishing and enforcing the law, Shen Huandong focused on a small group of water bandits. This small group of water bandits totaled thirty The remaining small river boats carry a total of 800 people.

Seeing the sand boats with the flag of the Sand Boat Gang appear, these water bandits immediately ran away. In order to find out the mastermind behind the scenes, Shen Huandong just followed them slowly. The boats of those water bandits were small and they could land in many places. When they wanted to abandon the ship and escape, they would be bombarded by the Shachuan Gang.

The average sand boat of the Sand Boat Gang is more than [-] pieces of material. It is a small thing when placed on the sea, but it is a huge monster when placed in the Yangtze River. Especially equipped with the Folan machine gun, the rate of fire is very fast. This water bandit seems to be unable to defeat it. , the water bandits who couldn't escape could only swim upstream.

When passing through Nanjing, they originally wanted to rescue the Nanjing Navy, but the Nanjing Navy only had two or three kittens. Seeing how ferocious the Shachuan Gang was, they closed the camp door tightly and ignored the matter.

Isn't it funny that a country's navy is afraid of a mere Jianghu gang?However, this is true.The navy of the Ming Dynasty is really not as weak as pirates and water bandits.

The water bandits traveled all the way up the river. Eight days later, they arrived at the foot of Anqing City. The water bandits did not prepare much food on the boat. In fact, they only had four days of dry food. Now they had nothing to eat. Seeing that people were surrendering, they Received, fled and could not escape, had to surrender to Anqing City.

When Anqing City saw the water bandits Yinzi, they accepted their surrender. This time, Shen Huandong thought he had caught the mastermind behind the scenes. He ordered his subordinates to fire artillery shells at Anqing City. In fact, the light Folang machine artillery was not powerful and only had a fast rate of fire. The water bandits are okay, but there is nothing they can do about the fortified city.

Shen Huandong's original intention was to scare Anqing City into handing over the water bandits and the masterminds behind the scenes. However, what he didn't expect was that after just one round of shelling, Anqing City directly hung up the white flag and surrendered. More than [-] people The more than [-] defenders outside the navy surrendered without firing a shot.

When Shen Huandong saw the military exploits that came to his door, he naturally had no reason to turn them away. So, he recruited all the soldiers of the Anqing garrison, including more than 1 navy soldiers, and asked them to mobilize the entire Anqing fleet, a total of More than [-] boats and more than [-] people continued down the river.

Shen Huandong's original intention was to sell these surrendered troops of the Southern Ming Dynasty directly to Luzon or Daguan for farming. The result was very funny. When Shen Huandong's troops arrived in Chizhou, Chizhou saw that the river was densely packed with ships, and Under the banner of the Shachuan Gang.

The Anqing defenders didn't know about the Shachuan Gang, but Chizhou prefect Lin Yingcong did. Lin Yingcong once served as the magistrate of Dingtao County and was later promoted to the magistrate of Ninghai Prefecture. Although he didn't have much dealings with Cheng Shijie, he also knew that the Shachuan Gang had defected to Cheng Shijie a long time ago. It is said that Shen Boyun He also became the minister of Beiming. Because the prefect Lin Yingcong was willing to surrender, the Chizhou garrison also surrendered.

Shen Huandong looked at the Chizhou City defenders with white flags and felt numb. He vaguely understood why Cheng Shijie didn't attack the Nanming small court now, because there was no need to fight at all. As long as the food was solved, these mouths could be fed, almost all the way. Push flat.In fact, Shen Huandong's guess was good. This was Cheng Shijie's concern. If it hadn't been for the northern plague that caused Cheng Shijie to lose a lot of food and medicine, the small court in Jiangnan would not have been able to last for a few months.

The most critical issue is food. The population in the south of the Yangtze River is larger than that in the north. Although it is rich in food, it was expropriated by the corrupt officials. Except for Nanjing, there was almost no food in the small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty. It was easy to capture a city. , but it is not easy to feed the soldiers and civilians of a city.

Cheng Shijie can't imitate Boss Cao in attacking Xuzhou and slaughtering the city all the way. Doesn't Boss Cao want to earn a good reputation?In fact, he also thought that there was just no food, and the captured cities also had no food. Faced with the hungry people who had no food, he could only massacre the city, because the hungry people did not care whether they were food for the army or not, as long as they had food, they would dare to go there.

In this case, Shen Huandong accepted the surrender of the Chizhou defenders based on the principle that one sheep should be herded and a group of sheep should be herded. But the problem is that Chizhou is not like Anqing. There are many defenders here and little food. There are also few boats.Shen Huandong adopted the same method and directly mobilized ships to load the surrendered troops and their families on board.

However, the problem is that Shen Huandong ignored the attraction of the Ming Dynasty to the people and soldiers in the south of the Yangtze River. Anqing was slightly better, but they did not know Shen Huandong's identity there and were not very willing to follow Shen Huandong. However, the Chizhou prefect knew that Lin Yingcong especially wanted to follow Cheng Shijie. Damn, because he is not a member of the Donglin Party. Although he became the prefect of Southern Zhili, he could not enter the core.

What's more, Lin Yingcong knew that Nanming's small court was definitely not Cheng Shijie's opponent. Anyway, it was a sword to extend his head, and it was also a sword to shrink his head. Instead of surrendering in advance, he might have a good future. If he followed Shen Huandong, he would be Shen Boyun's man. , Shen can be regarded as one of the mountains under Cheng Shijie's command.

To say that scholars have many eyes, Lin Yingcong made a decision in a very short period of time. Seeing that there were not enough ships, he thought of going by land. In this way, Lin Yingcong, the prefect of Chizhou, not only led the Chizhou garrison of 600 The remaining troops, including soldiers, civilians and civilians, totaled more than [-] people.Of course, more than [-] large and small boats were also mobilized. It is a bit excessive to call them boats, many of them are pallets or even rafts.

In this way, Shen Huandong was actually taken hostage by Anqing and Chizhou. He had more than [-] men and more than a thousand ships. He simply reorganized and continued down the river to Tongling. Tongling saw this situation and decided to fight. Damn it, surrender quickly.

In this way, Shen Huandong visited three cities in a row within seven days.

When Wu Sheng followed Shen Huandong's battle report, he and the officers of the Eighth Brigade were stunned. Shen Huandong commanded more than a thousand men and horses, and 26 ships with a thousand materials, and attacked three cities in seven days. The troops surrendered more than [-] prisoners of the Southern Ming army and civilians. What the hell is this?
However, since they surrendered, there was no reason to turn them away. If Shen Huandong not only brought these prisoners back from Tongling, he would also lose the face of the Ming Dynasty and Cheng Shijie.

Wusongkou's navy does not have many men, but the problem is that the Shen family owns more than [-] large ships. These are not small ships, but large ships that can carry five to six thousand stones.

Although river ships cannot enter the sea, sea ships can enter the Yangtze River, especially the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. After more than half a month of preparation, Tongling was about to lose its hold.

Wu Sheng and Shen's fleet arrived in Tongling and saw a large number of densely packed prisoners in Wuyang, including tens of thousands of people wearing Ming army uniforms, equipped with swords, guns, horses and artillery.

Wu Sheng was stunned and said: "Did it really take seven days?"

"To be exact, it only took six and a half days!"

"We asked more than 1000 people to catch more than 8 pigs in seven days, and they couldn't catch them all!"

It was already late May when Cheng Shijie received this information. Although the plague was still not completely controlled in the north at this time, the food shipped from Nanhou and Luzon had arrived in advance.

Song Xiance suggested: "Your Majesty, we should be able to take action now!"

"I'm just afraid it won't be easy!"

"We have the advantage of shipping. We can first take advantage of the coastal areas south of the Yangtze River, such as Zhejiang and Jiangxi! If the king is planning to develop a new continent, go to the south of the Yangtze River to arrest people!"

Cheng Shijie was persuaded by Song Xiance, nodded and said: "Then let's do it!"

Cheng Shijie gave the order.

On June [-], the Ming Dynasty Royal Army Cheng Shi and Jiang Wubing swept through more than [-] troops from Huainan and Huaibei, and fell into Lu'an and Hefei within seven days.

Facing the fierce Ming Dynasty Royal Army, the rebels guarding Hefei surrendered almost without firing a shot. The reason was that these northern barbarians were very barbaric. If they resisted, they might massacre the city after the city was broken!
I have to admire the rebel generals guarding Hefei for their foresight. Before the battle even started, they were thinking about whether they would massacre the city after the city was broken!

The Jianghuai area took action, and Wu Sheng from Wusongkou also took action. As a result, all the cities along the way surrendered. After this, Wu Sheng finally understood why Shen Huan, with more than a thousand sailors, conquered three cities in seven days.

He led the main force of the Eighth Brigade to attack Yangzhou. Wu Sheng encountered Shi Kefa, a famous figure in the history of the late Ming Dynasty.This strong man commanded 4 troops to guard Yangzhou, forming a line of defense with Zhenjiang as Nanjing's last barrier.

Wu Sheng wrote a letter to ask Shi Kefa to surrender. Shi Kefa replied with thousands of words, eloquent and eloquent, quoting scriptures, laughing and scolding, and sarcasm and ridicule were all natural. He sent greetings to the Beijing court from Cheng Shijie to the maid sweeping the floor. After going through it again, the scholar finally said angrily: Cheng Shijie was treasonous and coveted the artifact. He killed the gentlemen of Donglin for his own selfish purposes. Music collapsed, morals declined, and the Han family's clothes no longer existed.

As a member of the Han family, Shi read moral articles and learned loyalty, filial piety, etiquette and justice. He had no reason to give in to rebellion. He must die with Yangzhou to preserve righteousness for heaven and earth!
This article is indeed of such high literary talent that Wu Sheng cannot even compare to it.So he didn't bother to waste any more time and mobilized cannons to blast at the Yangzhou city wall. After destroying a section of the wall, he rushed in.

He respects people like Shi Kefa, so he is merciless in his actions. This kind of person cannot be persuaded. The best way is to try his best to defeat him and let him die without regrets.

But what surprised Wu Sheng was that the expected stubborn resistance did not exist at all. The Yangzhou defenders were like headless flies. The entire defense line was full of flaws. He broke through the city wall with almost no effort in the army. In an hour, Yangzhou changed hands and Shi Kefa became a prisoner.

After becoming a prisoner, Shi Kefa was still calm and composed, facing Wu Sheng's sharp gaze without changing his expression. This courage was admirable, but...Shi Kefa seemed to be the only one who could be admired for his courage.

Wu Sheng looked at the just and awe-inspiring Shi Kefa. He was puzzled. Yangzhou had more than [-] troops, including a considerable number of artillery. There were [-] Hongyi cannons alone.

If these twenty Hongyi cannons fire successfully, the artillery regiment of the Eighth Brigade will definitely lose weight, because the Hongyi cannons have a range advantage, an absolute advantage. In addition to the twenty Hongyi cannons, there are six thousand There were remaining muskets, countless swords and axes, and more importantly, Yangzhou City had enough food for the defenders for half a year.

Wu Sheng couldn't help but ask: "Why is Yangzhou so vulnerable? Have you never put any thought into defense?"

Shi Kefa said calmly: "Shi just wants to die to clarify his will, how can he take care of these trivial matters?"

Wu Sheng was stunned.

Zhou Yunxiang was dumbfounded: "Is this the level of the supervisor?"

...

(End of this chapter)