open sea

Chapter 1499
Drake is desperate.

He was facing an opponent unlike any he had fought in the past.

Just as he didn't understand why Liu Ruguo could recruit soldiers endlessly regardless of finances, but he couldn't even pay the nobles' military salaries.

Strictly speaking, what Drake led was not a rebel army that started a rebellion, on the contrary, they should be a counter-insurgency force.

Where is the salary of the rebel leader? Drake is the only one. Every month, he will provide nobles, soldiers, and mercenaries with nearly two thousand pounds of military salary, and spend another three pounds on supplies and logistics. thousand pounds.

This is still based on the support provided by Scotland.

With such a level of expenditure, even in the past, the whole Kingdom of England could hardly last for two years. Their annual financial income, parliamentary allowances, royal domains, customs duties and feudal income only added up to less than 25 pounds, not to mention the current Drake alone.

He had no money.

If there is no money, but the war must continue, the only way to carry forward the fine traditions of the Elizabethan era is to sell church and royal land, force loans, sell officials and nobles on a large scale, and sell privileges in exchange for money.

This method was very useful at first. The nobles who followed the north lost their land. How much land was laid down in the south could be looted first, and then the land would be auctioned off or confiscated at a reduced price.

If there is no land, it will be auctioned in advance, the land will be paid directly, and there are also things such as selling mines to new nobles and merchants, monopolizing saltworks or monopoly power in a certain area, all of which can easily obtain a large amount of funds.

In this way, there is no need for Drake to worry about the military strength, and these nobles will take care of things.

But when the one-sided attack turned into repeated seesaws, since they conquered a certain piece of land for the second time, these lands have been confiscated, and they have been looted many times, and they cannot be exchanged for valuable wealth. The chain of funds obtained by this method Just disconnected.

Newly entrusted land, newly sold trade routes, newly granted titles and newly sold monopoly all require a stable political environment to continue to produce value.

In fact, this was not a blow to Drake at first, he could survive it.

Even if he gritted his teeth, he would hold out until Liu Ruguo couldn't hold on.

Until he knew Liu Ruguo who was standing opposite, the Shuntian Anmin Rebel Army had no military salary at all.

There's no more dumbfounding thing in the world than Drake's hope that his opponent will fail on a problem that was never a problem.

When the truth came out, he was on the verge of collapse.

I always thought that everyone spent so much money, and I always had Scottish support. I didn't expect you to spend so much money at all!
Perhaps before knowing this, Drake could still carry on for two years, but after finding out about this, Drake suddenly had no hope of continuing to carry on, and instead spent money to mobilize the nobles, serfs, and residents of the original city, A large bastion was built on the river north of the city as the second line of defense.

It's almost make or break in one fell swoop.

Power is a game of cooperation. For Drake at this moment, there are fewer and fewer people who are willing to cooperate with him in the game.

And on the other side, more and more.

He couldn't figure out why the people across the street were willing to follow Liu Ruguo even though they were so poor that they didn't even have military pay. If it was because of nobles, Drake wasn't noble either!
The sentries on the front line reported the latest military situation to Drake in the evening. A force crossing the Mersey River in an attempt to clear the Ming army sentries landed on the south bank, and was wiped out by a small force that came out of nowhere.

After that, the small infantry gathered more troops, set up camp on the river bank, launched a surprise attack on the stone bridge in the afternoon, and then broke through the [-] defenders at the bridgehead and occupied the bridge deck.

When the sentries set off, they had cleared the sentries along the river banks on the east and west sides, and removed every outpost placed by the English and Scottish troops in front. It can be imagined that in this evening, the Ming army was gathering on the north bank of the Mersey River.

There was not much time left for Drake. A team of scouts crossed the town that was overwhelmed by the army, and at the last moment before night fell, they climbed up the bell tower and looked at the brightly lit camps on the river bank in the outskirts.

It didn't matter that they had never seen soldiers, what mattered was that the scouts saw the cannons that people had placed in the camp, and the size of the enemy army far exceeded what they expected.

On a night at the end of summer, the two sides mobilized more than [-] troops, affecting the lives of more than [-] people. They were repeatedly mobilized in Manchester, which is so small that it has a radius of only [-] miles.

Meng Xin, who escaped from death, continued to move forward. He crossed the Mersey River and climbed to the opposite bank as he wished, but he failed to restrain the heads of his elder brother and brother-in-law as he wished.

Can't tell.

He couldn't tell which was the elder brother's skull, and he didn't know which was the brother-in-law's head.

The anger accumulated in his heart for half a month can only make him cry into a puddle of mud on the bank of a river where people come and go, facing dozens of spiky wooden pillars piercing into the sky, and among dozens of skulls that have been taken down .

The troops ordered to support the front line were Uesugi Echigo Chito, a young man in his twenties who led the team to rescue Meng Xin and wiped out all the enemies.

This time, he was the one who helped up Meng Xin who was crying into mud, and told him: "Tomorrow, march."

Up to now, Meng Xin still hasn't figured out what this young man's name is, and their communication is not smooth, and Meng Xin can't even recognize his name when he writes it down.

So in his heart, Meng Xin has always called him the Zhijiang circle.

Zhijiang admired Meng Xin's loyalty and even more his courage. With a few iron cannons of the court, he dared to stand in the trench and shoot dozens of enemies, and shot and wounded more than 20 enemies in more than ten days.

Although the Nanman is still a Nanman, at least he is a very powerful Nanman who is on his side.

Meng Xin wanted to ask Zhijiang for a knife, but he didn't give it.

He knew very well what Meng Xin wanted to do with the knife.

On the front line, many soldiers of the Suncheon Anmin Uprising Army have this need. The biggest thing they have in common is that all relatives and family members died in this battle, especially like Meng Xin.

The family lost several people in a row, and the subordinate Robe Ze was killed and curled up in the trench with wounds on his body for a whole month. The elder brother's head was hanging on the opposite bank, and he couldn't eat or sleep well.

Give him a knife at this time, and when he rushes into the town tomorrow, he will raise the knife to the strong men of the enemy army, the common people, the old and the weak, women and children. Even if a cat that is harmless to humans and animals runs past his eyes, he will chop it up without mercy .

It's not that Naoe thinks revenge is bad, revenge is very easy to understand and normal in this era.

It's just that here in Baihu Naojiang, there has not been an order from the chief to let go of the looting after breaking the city.

He believes that both Liu Ruguo and Uesugi Jingsheng are evaluating the gains and losses of this battle to decide whether looting is necessary.

"Sir, I'll give you the knife, before that."

Zhijiang patted Meng Xin on the shoulder: "Be safe and don't be impatient."

　good afternoon!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)