Chapter 252 Shooting yourself in the foot

Author: tx Cheng Zhi

Chapter 252 Shooting yourself in the foot

Chapter 251

"Spring River Plumbing Duck Prophet."

People who are paying attention to the news about the battle between Zheng Zhilong and Ning Haijun are actually not only the big bosses in the DPRK and China, but also more powerful businessmen from Jiangnan. They have been worried about Cheng Shijie's Ning Haijun Group, which is more powerful and more powerful than the Zheng Group.

Aggressive group.

In particular, the goods produced in Liaodong have a price advantage, which will have a huge impact on them. If possible, Jiangnan merchants, like Fujian and Guangdong maritime merchants, would like Zheng Zhilong to win.

But Zheng Zhilong not only lost the battle, but also surrendered to Cheng Shijie. Jiangnan Maritime Group reacted immediately to this unexpected turn of events. It was time to establish a good relationship with Cheng Shijie, otherwise they would not be able to keep up with the northwest wind.

For a time, a large number of merchant ships went out to sea from Wusong Port. Even the merchant ships that had been hiding in Hangzhou Port in Hangzhou Bay went north, turned a corner, paid taxes at Wusong Port, and then headed south to go to sea.

"General Cheng won?"

"Of course I won, otherwise, would those tough cocks of theirs have paid so readily?"

Zhang Muzhi clicked his abacus: "Godfather, in just a few days, we collected more than 3.2 million taels of silver, which is more than what we usually collect in two months!"

"Okay, okay, I can finally explain it to the emperor!"

Gao Qiqian has been guarding Wusongkou's money bag during this period. Without Emperor Chongzhen's side, his status has inevitably been shaken. Wang Zhixin, Wang Chengen, and Cao Huachun have all been reused by Emperor Chongzhen, especially Wang Chengen and Gao Qi.

Like Qian, he supervises the Tianxiong Army as an admiral eunuch.

Because Cheng Shijie and Zheng Zhilong fought in Nanyang, and as the peasant army grew stronger, generals Cao Wenzhao and Ai Wannian were killed in battle, and You Shiwei was defeated. Therefore, many officers and soldiers were afraid of the peasant army and cowered away. Especially during the Tenth Period of Chongzhen Period

In the second year of the Xingyang Congress, in order to deal with the peasant army, Lu Xiangsheng was promoted to the premier of five provinces half a year earlier than in history, overseeing the military affairs of the five provinces of Nanzhili, Henan, Shandong, Sichuan, and Huguang.

The Tianxiong Army is still Lu Xiangsheng's old base. Unlike in history, Emperor Chongzhen had no money. From the formation of the Tianxiong Army to the destruction of the Tianxiong Army, the entire army only had 16,700 troops. It was not that Lu Xiangsheng was unwilling to expand the army.

Ma, it’s because he has no money to feed these soldiers.

However, with the food and money sent to the capital by Gao Qiqian and Cheng Shijie, Emperor Chongzhen allocated one million taels of silver to Lu Xiangsheng, and transferred 3,000 cavalry from the Guanning Army to Lu Xiangsheng's command. Now the Tianxiong Army has been expanded and divided into

Three towns, three battalions in each town, each battalion has five infantry divisions, each division has two divisions, each division has four bureaus, each division has four sentries, each sentry has fifty people, and is divided into four teams, that is, each battalion has 8,000 troops.

In addition, each battalion is equipped with one cavalry, totaling thousands, and several artillery and muskets. Lu Xiangsheng also has a Fubiaozhong military camp with a total of more than 8,000 elites, and the entire army has a total of more than 45,000 people.

The Tianxiong Army is different from the Guan Ning Army. All the Tianxiong Army are combat soldiers. Even the attached cooking soldiers have to participate in the battle. However, Wang Chengen has the largest number of supervisors and the most combat effectiveness besides Gao Qiqian.

Strong supervisory army.

This put Gao Qiqian in a serious crisis.

In particular, Lu Xiangsheng is simply not a human being. He does not engage in corruption or bribery. Even the relationship between men and women is very clean. He is simply incompatible with the officials of the Ming Dynasty. This gave Gao Qiqian no chance to deal with Lu Xiangsheng.

"Finally won!"

Gao Qiqian said angrily: "Although Lu Xiangsheng is lucky, if General Cheng had defeated Zheng Zhilong earlier, how could Lu Xiangsheng be able to succeed?"

Zhang Muzhi said: "Godfather, are you going to the capital to report your victory?"

"No!"

Gao Qiqian shook his head and said: "We still don't know the true outcome of this matter. The key is General Cheng's attitude."

Zhang Muzhi did not dare to speak.

In the past, it was Cheng Shijie who relied on Gao Qiqian's protection to block the bright swords and hidden arrows in the court. Now it is reversed. It is Gao Qiqian who needs Cheng Shijie's light to gain a firm foothold in the court.

At this moment, more than a hundred armed merchant ships escorted by fifteen Ning Navy warships slowly approached Wusongkou. Although Cheng Shijie was reorganizing the Zheng Group's troops in Luzon and could not return to Beijing for the time being, others did not come back, but

Let Zhu Weiti return to Beijing first. Zhu Weiti did not come back empty-handed. She could bring 5.8 million taels of silver and more than 3 million shi of rice.

In the Ming Dynasty, food was very expensive. Even rice from the south of the Yangtze River could be sold for six or seven taels of silver. However, in Luzon, rice was as cheap as dirt. A sack of rice could be exchanged with the indigenous people for a piece of troublesome rice and a mouthful of braised rice.

Tinplate cans of meat can be exchanged for a large piece of unharvested rice.

Luzon's agriculture, especially grain production, is very primitive. They don't have to cultivate the land at all. They just like weeds in the ground. When they want to eat rice, they harvest part of it, and the remaining rice is considered as seed.

In Cheng Shijie's view, the natives of Luzon deserved to die. If the farmers of the Ming Dynasty saw this scene, they would definitely kill all these natives. They were too greedy for nature's resources. They were so lazy guarding such a God-given fertile land.

Cheng Shijie reorganized the surrendered troops of the Zheng Group in Luzon because the food in Luzon was rich and relatively cheap. In comparison, the cost of food production in Liaodong was much higher than that in Luzon. Although Spain occupied the sixth place in Luzon

In the 1970s, their domestic population was small and they did not need so much food, so they were not interested in growing food. Instead, they were more interested in sugar cane plantations, rubber, and tobacco leaves.

At this time, some people in the Ming Dynasty began to smoke, and many of the Zheng soldiers also smoked. In Luzon alone, there were more than 150 Spanish-controlled tobacco plantations.

Among the ships that Cheng Shijie transported to the capital, in addition to more than three million stones of grain, there were also some fruits, of course mainly those that were easier to store.

"It's a battleship from the Ning Navy!"

When Wu Sheng heard the news, he hurriedly came out to greet her. When he looked at the flag of the Eighth Princess, he realized that it was only Zhu Weiti who had returned.

About half an hour later, the Ning Navy warships began to enter the port, and they were constantly replenishing fresh water, food and repairing the ships.

Shen Boyun, Wu Sheng and Gao Qi lurked at the dock to greet Zhu Weiti and his party.

Behind Zhu Weiti were the daughters of the four major families in Nanyang and the daughters of the four major families in Luzon, a total of eight new concubines.

"Everyone is safe, I am exhausted!"

Although Zhu Weiti got off the ship, he did not leave Wusongkou. Instead, he found a house to rest in Wusongkou.

Zhu Weiti did not stop at Wusongkou just to replenish some fresh water and food. The huge fleet went all the way north, which was just a matter of time. Wen Tiren in the capital also received the news that Zheng Zhilong was defeated and surrendered to Cheng Shijie.

Wen Tiren was learning foreign languages ​​with his Korean concubine at the time. Wen Tiren suddenly felt that learning foreign languages ​​had no meaning anymore: "Trash!"

In Wen Tiren's eyes, Zheng Zhilong was a piece of trash who couldn't hold up a wall. As the overlord of a party with more than 200,000 men and 3,000 warships, he was beaten to the ground by others without even fighting back.

His power is enough to be despised, but this guy is also shameless. After losing a few battles, he surrendered like a bachelor...

How come Zheng Zhilong is also the overlord who dominates the South China Sea, but he has no backbone? Even if you really can't defeat Cheng Shijie, you won't burn Xiamen to scorched earth, and then lead his troops to flee to the Nanyang Islands to fight guerrillas with him and kill him.

ah?

Or you can stick to Xiamen and fight him to the end! Although it is unkind for us people to burn incense and pray to Buddha every day and hope that you and Cheng Shijie will fight with both sides, but it does not mean that we will not take action to cause trouble for Cheng Shijie when you are in a stalemate. We have

As a backing, what are you afraid of!

Zheng Zhilong surrendered as a bachelor, but he was so angry that Grand Bachelor Wen Tiren Wen was furious.

Cheng Shijie's strength on land is already frightening, and now he has annexed the Zheng Group and has an unparalleled maritime strength. Who else can defeat him?

Thinking that he and others had tried so hard to provoke a vicious fight between Cheng Shijie and Zheng Zhilong in an attempt to profit from it, but ended up with this result, Wen Shoufu felt a little like he shot himself in the foot.

But it's too late to say anything now. It's a definite fact that Cheng Shijie has become the overlord of the sea. Do you expect that guy to spit out what he eats? You might as well expect a sow to climb a tree! What's even more annoying is that he has done this.

, the Donglin Party members are even more dissatisfied with him, and the storm of overturning the government is just around the corner!

Gao Qiqian arrived in the capital a moment before Zhu Weiti, holding in his hand the victory report written by Cheng Shijie: "Ning Haijun's 30,000-strong army fought hard and, with the cooperation of Fujian Admiral Zheng Zhilong, successfully wiped out the coastal areas of Guangdong and Fujian.

The evil-doing pirates ensured the smooth flow of routes and the safety of maritime trade. The Zheng Zhilong Group suffered heavy losses in the battle against pirates. The Zheng brothers were even injured and sick, and were no longer able to shoulder the important task of protecting the security of Fujian's coast.

They formally submitted a letter to the court requesting that they retire in Liaodong, and their fleet would be collected by Ning Haijun..."

This victory report was written in an understatement, not mentioning anything about Luzon and Batavia. The super melee with more than 200,000 troops turned into an insignificant battle to suppress bandits in Cheng Shijie's writing, and was interrupted by him.

The Zheng Group, which had lost its backbone, became the hero of the encirclement and suppression of pirates. This ability to confuse right and wrong, and such shame, really refreshed Emperor Chongzhen's outlook on things, and made him see that there was Cheng Shijie who was even more shameless than those civil servants.

.

The most irritating thing is that Zheng Zhilong also wrote a letter, detailing his experience of cooperating with Cheng Shijie to suppress pirates. He said it very clearly. At the end, he also said that he was too old and couldn't do anything anymore, and asked to become an official to live in Liaodong... OK

Well, basically he agrees to whatever Cheng Yi Shijie says.

However, at the end, he told Emperor Chongzhen that a lot of money had been seized in this battle, including 5.8 million taels of silver alone. Cheng Shijie said that he had not touched any money, and after smelting, he cast it into silver ingots, hoping that Emperor Chongzhen would accept it with a smile.

.

In addition, some treasures were also seized. Considering that the capital was short of food, Cheng Shijie boldly used the seized property to buy rice in Nanyang, totaling three million stones of rice, which he had already shipped north.

Emperor Chongzhen was very happy, but while he was happy, he had a headache on how to reward Cheng Shijie. You must know that Cheng Shijie was already the Duke of Hai and could not be promoted, but the court still needed him. To be honest, although Lu Xiangsheng was considered a good general of the Ming Dynasty

Although he was a famous commander, Emperor Chongzhen did not have much confidence in annihilating the peasant army.

Fortunately, this sum of money came just in time.

If Cheng Shijie's eldest son, Cheng Jialong, could be found, Emperor Chongzhen would not have such a headache. He could directly confer the title of Crown Prince of Hai Kingdom on Cheng Jia Long. In the future, Zhu Weiti and Cheng Shijie's son could inherit Cheng Shijie's title, and then transfer Cheng Shijie's title from Hai Kingdom Duke's title.

If it were another Duke...

But the problem is that there is no news that Zhu Weiti is pregnant, nor that Cheng Shijie has found his son Cheng Jialong. I'm afraid it will be difficult to find him.

"Cao Banban, what's the result of searching for Cheng Qing's heir?"

"Reporting to Your Majesty, there are some clues about this matter. Fourteen people claimed to be Cheng Jialong, the son of General Cheng. However, these fourteen people were all fakes. There were also seven women who claimed to be Xiang. However, after verification, they also

It’s all fake!”

Cao Huachun thought for a while and said: "Your Majesty, now General Cheng's reputation is so well-known that General Cheng has already been famous in the countryside. If Xiang and his son were still alive, they should have found him long ago! Unless...

"

"Unless they are no longer alive?"

"It's also possible that they are hiding in the mountains and forests and have no information!"
To be continued...