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

Chapter 431 It’s time for the farce to end
Chapter 431

Although the Ming Dynasty has always claimed to have a vast territory and abundant resources, the problem is that this claim is actually very watery. Except for a few resources, it occupies the majority of the world. However, most of the resources are actually not large in quantity.For example, among the top ten iron ore mines in the world, five are in Brazil, five are in Australia, and none are in Daming.

Resources such as oil and natural gas, including gold and copper mines, are not within the territory of the Ming Dynasty. However, the problem is that with the development of the metallurgical industry in the Ming Dynasty, the original iron ore is simply not enough. Now the iron ore in Liaodong mainly comes from Maoshan Iron Mine, relatively speaking, the grade of iron ore in Maoshan is far inferior to that of Australia and Brazil. There will be no way in future generations. Now Cheng Shijie can use the advantages of technology and population to wield a sickle and harvest the whole world.

Of course, this also includes the Spanish Empire.

Sun Zhiman asked: "How should we deal with the Spanish Empire?"

"It is not easy to deal with them. You know where they are. The religious atmosphere is extremely strong. Even the emperor needs to be crowned. They will value religion more than the country. If you want to deal with them, Very difficult!”

Sun Zhiwan said very doubtfully: "No way? We also have many missionaries in Liaodong, and we rarely get along with them? The king asked them to change their bathing habits, and they will change it immediately. Let them learn to speak Chinese, and they will Learn to speak Chinese…”

Cheng Shijie smiled and said: "That's because we are strong enough and they have to act according to our rules. If we are weaker than them, it will be miserable, just like the La Plata plain given to us by Spain, where The indigenous population is actually not large, but within a few decades, almost all of them have been killed by the Spaniards!"

Sun Zhiqian put down the information in his hand, rubbed his temples, and said, "What's going on with the Ottoman Empire? The Westerners are fanatical Nestorian believers, and the Ottomans are even more fanatical religious believers. There is no normal country. Have you dealt with Daming?"

Cheng Shijie shrugged and said: "This is basically the case all over the world. Religion is above all else. No country is exception. The reason why we are an exception is because as early as the Shang Dynasty, like most countries in the world, we also The Shang Dynasty used four generations of the Monarchy to rule the country, and it was not until the reign of Emperor Xin that the religious power was defeated. The religious power was unwilling to fail, so it led the Western Zhou Dynasty to invade Chaoge!"

Sun Zhiman said: "I really thought every country was the same!"

At this moment, Zhou Ning came over and said: "Your Majesty, our new cannon has been transported to Nanjing, and we will launch an attack on Nanjing soon!"

Cheng Shijie said excitedly: "So fast?"

Zhou Ning smiled bitterly and said: "If you hadn't ordered us to take it easy, Nanjing would have been captured long ago!"

As Zhou Ning said, just after Wu Sheng led the Eighth Brigade to capture Yangzhou, it meant that Nanjing lost the last city that could echo each other and was about to become an isolated city.In order to save the defeat, Fan Jingwen, the Minister of War in Nanjing who guarded Zhenjiang, tried his best to mobilize a group of warships and marched to Yangzhou by land and water to launch a counterattack in an attempt to take Yangzhou back.

If Fan Jingwen does not take the initiative to attack and stick to Zhenjiang, there is really no big problem. After all, it is Cheng Shijie's established strategy to capture Yangzhou and isolate Nanjing.

But the problem is that there are people who can't stand it and rush to die. You must know that after Ning Haijun defeated Zheng Zhilong, he captured a large number of small warships, more than [-] in number. However, these warships were simply useless to Ning Haijun. In the end, The old warships were directly dismantled, the valuable wood was made into furniture, and the worthless wood was burned as firewood.

In this way, there are still thousands of ships, and these warships have been changed into transport ships. However, the biggest difference between these warships and transport ships is the transportation capacity. In fact, no one can value these ships at all.

When Fan Jingwen was preparing to attack Yangzhou by land and water, you must know that Shen Huandong had captured a large number of navymen from Anqing, Chizhou and Tongling. These navymen who had just surrendered to the Ming Dynasty were only thinking about meritorious service and looking familiar to Cheng Shijie.

Therefore, at the beginning of the war, these naval forces broke out with extremely tenacious combat effectiveness. The battle between the two sides started on the Yangtze River. In fact, both Fan Jingwen and Wu Sheng knew very well that it was not someone who decided the outcome of the battlefield in Jiangnan. The gain or loss of a city lies in the navigation rights of the Yangtze River waterway. Whoever controls the navigation rights has the initiative, and the party expelled from the Yangtze River has only a dead end.

For this reason, Fan Jingwen even used his capital. Four hundred warships of various sizes sailed down the river, with their flags covering the sun and their sails like clouds, making it a spectacular sight.Wu Sheng's side was much shabby. There was no other way. Part of the main force of the Ming Navy went south to threaten the Dutch East India Company, and part of it went to Xiaoli.

There was no way he could come back for a while. He only had a small squadron of Lishu Yu Da Yuan's fleet, with a total of twenty Sea Wolf-class battleships, while the Sea Shark-class and Ju Shark-class main battleships were heading south to support Lu. The Song Fleet, in fact, this kind of large warship suffered a lot on the Yangtze River. After all, it was too big and inflexible.

Including the Shachuan warships of the Shachuan Gang, the number of warships he can mobilize now is only about [-], which is a difference of nearly ten times.At the time of the decisive battle, three naval divisions from Chizhou, Anqing and Tongling, with thousands of ships of various sizes, directly attacked Fan Jingwen's ass.

These dilapidated warships and even small fishing boats were not afraid, hoisting the brand-new black tiger flag, and rushing upstream with full sails!

This was a huge melee, completely unstructured, but it was fought very fiercely. Blood and flames dyed the river red. The people in the south of the Yangtze River who were watching the battle on both sides of the Yangtze River were dumbfounded and watched this terrible killing in silence.They all watched all this blankly, unable to say a word.

These naval forces that originally belonged to Nanming had a black battle flag, but they were dozens of times more brave than before. The reason is actually very simple. It is said that the Jurchens are invincible if they are less than ten thousand.In fact, the Ming army could not reach full military pay. Once full military pay was reached, it would be invincible.

In fact, most of the Sanfu Navy who surrendered to Shen Huandong were temporarily recruited by strong fishermen along the river. They did not have much opportunity and experience in actual combat, but they became reserve personnel of the Royal Navy of the Ming Empire. They were well fed and clothed. De Nuan, once they successfully enter the navy's audition, they will live a life without worries about food and clothing. Even if they die in the battle, they will still have a hundred acres of land. The key is that for these landless fishermen, this hundred acres of land is The temptation is even more tempting than the tens of millions of jackpots in future generations.

Their current performance is even crazier than a desperate suicide ship. Even if the ship is hit by a cannon and the ship is blown to pieces, they, fishermen with excellent water skills, will grab wood chips or swim towards the Nanming warship, stabbing it with knives, or climbing on it. Climb onto the boat and fight with Nanming Navy Bai Ren.

When the Nanming Navy saw this situation, it was hard to hold on. Just over two hours later, the Nanming Navy's losses were far less than those of the temporary navy from Sanfu, but they collapsed in fear.

Just when Fan Jingwen was about to send a supervising team to control the situation, the rumble of cannons also sounded on the river bank.Both sides were advancing by land and water, and now the infantry also collided head-on.

The Nanming infantry were frightened by the tragic sight of the fleet being slaughtered on the river. They turned back and walked together. Unfortunately, the Ming army did not want to let them go. They bombarded Nanming with artillery and rocket launchers. The shells were like rain, and the Nanming The army was bloody and bloody.Ten to twenty thousand Ming Army infantrymen lined up in neat queues, holding rifles and firing while pressing forward. When they advanced to only more than 300 meters away from the rebel Nan Ming Army, the Nan Ming Army had already been hit by artillery and rocket launchers. The overwhelming momentum was so frightening that he almost collapsed!
Faced with this kind of opponent, the Ming army even skipped the routine queuing and shooting. All the soldiers roared in unison and launched a direct charge with their bayonets drawn!

The first reaction of the Nanming Army was to jump into the Yangtze River. Yes, they would rather jump into the river than face the wall of bayonets that were rushing towards them at high speed!
Fan Jingwen stood stiffly at the top of Zhenjiang City, looking at the battlefield in the distance, his expression dull.Just within his sight, his fleet had turned into piles of burning wreckage. Fireworks covered the river. Rumbling and explosion sounds came one after another, like rolling thunder. The sound of wailing could be heard among the thick smoke and fire. Horrible.

There were countless people on the river struggling to escape, and every floating thing was densely packed with people. The scary thing was that the number of people thrashing about was still increasing, because the ferocious Ming army was aiming at them with bayonets drawn. His army formed an arc and surrounded him, driving his soldiers into the river like sheep, showing no mercy or mercy.

Seeing the Yangtze River behind them, the clever Nanming soldiers were huddled together like frightened sheep. The Ming army's strength was only one-third of theirs. If they made a desperate attack, they would definitely be able to open some gaps in this arc-shaped encirclement. They rushed out, but no one had the courage to launch an assault, and the encirclement continued to be compressed.

The rebel soldiers in the encirclement either jumped into the river desperately, or they scrambled for anything that could float and jumped into the river.Or surrender directly to the Ming army.

In fact, those who jumped into the Yangtze River were all warriors. In other words, they knew how to swim and were not afraid of being drowned. Those who dared not jump were landlubbers. They could only kneel down and surrender.As long as the first person lays down his arms, others will follow suit.

From Fan Jingwen's perspective, the Nanming Army surrendered directly one after another. He lamented in his heart: "It's over, the Zhenjiang defenders are completely over. It's over, Nanjing is completely over. It's over, the Jiangnan Jingentry Group..."

Fan Jingwen was heartbroken.In the small court of Nanjing, he was considered a person who knew a lot about military affairs, otherwise he would not have become the Minister of War.

If Lu Xiangsheng is the weird prefect of the Ming Dynasty, and Fan Jingwen is the weird governor of the Ming Dynasty, the prefect does not have military power, but the governor does. In July of the second year of Chongzhen (1629), he was promoted to the right of the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the governor. Henan.In the same year, the Jisi Incident occurred. He led 8000 of his men to send troops to serve the king, and he paid for them himself.When they arrived at Zhuozhou, most of the reinforcements from all directions looted, but only the troops from Henan did not commit any crimes.Fan Jingwen moved troops to garrison the gates of Kyoto and then garrisoned Changping. People near and far relied on him for stability.

Although Fan Jingwen was not promoted as quickly as Lu Xiang, he captured Fengyang due to Zhang Xianzhong in the eighth year of Chongzhen. He should have been questioned at that time and was not punished. This already shows that he has a certain status in front of Emperor Chongzhen. He is a military commander who knows the military. Shangshu was actually blown out.

Because there were more people complimenting him, Fan Jingwen himself thought that he was more powerful than Lu Xiangsheng, but he was not as lucky as Lu Xiangsheng. Otherwise, Lu Xiangsheng's champion should be his.

As the saying goes, if you give him too much face, the dog will think he is a lion.When Fan Jingwen led the troops into battle, he was full of confidence. He was confident that he could stop the Ming army's offensive with the troops at hand and the fortified city in the south of the Yangtze River. He did not dare to say that defeating the Ming army would at least make the Ming army suffer a bloody blow. Look down on Jiangnan again and gain some bargaining capital for the small court in Nanjing.

It's just a pity that Fan Jingwen overestimated himself, and he also overestimated his own army. The small court of Nanming only desperately expanded the number of the army, but did not improve the treatment of the soldiers of the Nanming army. It only enhanced the equipment of the Nanming army. No matter how good it is, The equipment required people to operate it, so the Nanming army, which had no fighting spirit, was vulnerable to the Ming army.

In fact, Wu Sheng did not use all his strength, and the Nanming army collapsed. Looking at his collapsed army, Fan Jingwen knew very well that the army under his command was already one of the more capable armies under the command of the small court in Nanjing. These elite troops performed so poorly, let alone the troops who were not as good as them!

Fan Jingwen's heart was filled with despair. He had made countless plans and tricks, but they fell apart under a single blow from the Ming army. This result was unacceptable to him, the Minister of War, and the string in his mind was about to break.

"Sir, let's go quickly, the Beilu are coming! They are going to surround Zhenjiang!"

Fan Jingwen smiled sadly: "Let's go? Where to go? We have planned and worked hard, and the situation we finally managed to win has now collapsed. The Beibei are about to invade Nanjing. Where else can I go!"

Fan Jingwen shook his head and looked up to the sky and sighed: "God is going to destroy us and other scholar-bureaucrats!"

He pulled out his long sword and struck his neck, killing himself.

The soldiers were stunned for a long time, and suddenly shouted: "Master Fan committed suicide! Master Fan committed suicide!"

The soldiers dispersed in a hurry, and now no one cared about the fate of Zhenjiang. Everyone just wanted to escape from this ghost place, as far away as possible, and Zhenjiang City was immediately captured.

Nanjing fell into a comprehensive siege by the Ming army.

Ordinarily, Nanjing should be like Beijing in history. Once Li Zicheng's army came to the city, they would voluntarily surrender. But the problem was that this situation was different. Cheng Shijie was carrying out land reform in the north, and on the other hand he had people collect taxes from the gentry. I don’t know how many gentry were forced to have their families destroyed by Cheng Shijie.

They are still insisting. On the one hand, Nanjing is a solid city. On the other hand, Nanjing has a large amount of food and more than 20 troops. This is their confidence.

After learning that Nanjing had become an isolated city and that new cannons were about to be delivered to the city, Cheng Shijie also said in a good-natured manner: "This farce should end!"

"It's time to end!"

On June 27, the first year of reform, Cheng Shijie, Zhou Ning, Chen Guodong, Song Xiance and others led the Guards Brigade and took a boat from Tianjin to go south directly along the coast.

(End of this chapter)