Dominate the Country

[Three chapters today, and one more chapter later. A certain classmate, a chapter of 10,000 words is really unrealistic, but it is still possible to update 10,000 words. ]

Rong Bao has returned to Suzhou City.

For him now, the first priority is to slow down the pace of the Fu Han Army's advance into Suzhou as much as possible, so as to buy time for the Qing army to deploy defenses.

For example, blocking the Wusong River with sunken ships.

However, the Fu Han Army's vanguard troops advanced too fast. The navy was only sixty or seventy miles a day, and the infantry and cavalry on both sides of the river could actually keep up, and there were many fights along the way.

Sulde originally planned to set up a river-blocking iron chain on the Wusong River. The iron chain was set up on the Grand Canal when the Fu Han Army first attacked Suzhou. As a result, the racks on both sides of the Wusong River had just been set up, and the iron chain had not been set up, and the Fu Han Army had already arrived. The Green Camp and the militia sent were vulnerable. Three iron chains and thousands of pounds of good iron were cheaply used by the Fu Han Army.

What about the Taihu Association's navy? It was even more useless. The fire ships they created didn't burn a single hair of the Fu Han army. After only two battles, they were completely sluggish. They hid in Taihu Lake and refused to fight again.

The Qing army made such efforts, but fortunately, before Rong Bao arrived in Suzhou, they blocked the vanguard of the Fu Han army outside Suzhou.

"Block the Wusong River?" Sulde was so shocked that he couldn't sit still.

Rong Bao's face was as gloomy as water, "Not only the Wusong River should be blocked, but also the canal. I want to suffocate Chen Ni's navy fleet in the Wusong River." Otherwise, the navy and fleet of the Fu Han army could directly rush into Taihu Lake through the Wusong River, which would be a great threat and blow to the Qing court's rule in the Taihu Lake area. Anyway, in Wuxi, at the north end of Taihu Lake, they can go back to the canal.

"But in this case..." Sulde was a civil servant after all, and his thinking was three points of "kindness". The Wusong River and the canal are crucial to the operation of the Jiangnan economy.

"If Chen the rebel is not eliminated, how can the canal be peaceful? How can Jiangnan be peaceful? If Chen the rebel is eliminated, it will be easy to dredge the canal again?" Rong Bao looked at the problem from three different angles than Surde. Although the Fu Han Army attacked Suzhou from the Wusong River and forced him to give up Wuxi, Rong Bao also saw another opportunity from it - the navy of the Fu Han Army.

Compared with the Yangtze River, the Wusong River is just a small ditch. The navy of the Fu Han Army performed well in the Yangtze River, but in the narrow Wusong River, it would be "a dragon swimming in the shallows is played by shrimps, and a tiger falling into the plain is bullied by a dog." If there was no cover from the Fu Han Army's land infantry and cavalry, even if the Qing Army fired rockets at night, the Fu Han Army's fleet would be burned to ashes on the Wusong River.

Starting from Wuhan, the Fu Han Army has always had a certain advantage on the waterway. After the navy camp was officially established, it swept Huguang, swept Poyang Lake, and then attacked Jiangyin and Songjiang, which can be regarded as Chen Ming's other arm. If they could be suffocated in the Wusong River, the blow to the Fu Han Army would be much heavier than that of Wuxi and Changzhou. Besides, he really had to prevent the Fu Han Army's navy from entering Taihu Lake. If they swept along the coast, the losses would be too great.

One night, when the Fu Han Army entered the Luzhuangbangjiang beach more than 20 miles southeast of Suzhou City at noon the next day, the Fu Han Army's cavalry first discovered that the river in front was blocked.

Chen Kaishan stood on the river bank and could clearly see the sunken ship at the bottom of the river through the clear water.

You must know that the Wusong River is very shallow, and the water depth in many places is less than two meters, and the deepest is only about four or five meters. In this case, the sunken ship can of course be seen clearly by Chen Kaishan on the shore.

"Report to the Grand Commander on a fast horse. Immediately!"

Chen Kaishan's face became quite ugly as if he had smelled a fart.

"Captain, if the Tartars block this first place, they can block the second place. I will lead the troops immediately..."

"Be careful of the ambush of the Qing army." Suzhou is the place with the most dense water network in the south of the Yangtze River. It is not suitable for cavalry to gallop back and forth. The repeated battles with the vanguard can show that if there were no infantry following, the vanguard of the Fu Han Army would not be able to fight so smoothly.

In fact, the follow-up troops of the Fu Han Army also marched quite fast. When Chen Ming received the report from the front, it was just past noon, and the Qing army's action of sinking ships to block the Wusong River was not unexpected. The Guo Party did the same thing back then. In Jiangyin, the navy sank 43 warships and merchant ships, 185 civilian ships and salt ships, and paid the price of the destruction of the first and second fleets of the main force of the Central Navy. For a period of time, it delayed the Japanese naval fleet from going up the river, allowing hundreds of important factories and thousands of skilled workers in Shanghai, Nanjing and other places to retreat urgently.

The current Wusong River is much easier than the Yangtze River waterway in Jiangyin. The Qing Dynasty's grain ships, after being filled with mud and sand, sank in the Wusong River. A dozen of them could probably form an underwater Great Wall.

The Fu Han Army's large fleet, consisting of dozens of warships and hundreds of grain ships, stretched more than 20 miles from head to tail. The Fu Han Army's infantry guarded the left and right banks of the Wusong River, and strictly prohibited any strangers from approaching the river.

However, it is the nature of the Chinese people to watch the excitement. Many people in the villages on both sides of the Wusong River climbed on the roofs and trees, looking at the fleet on the river from afar, just like watching a big show. Because they found that the Fu Han Army didn't care if they did this, as long as they didn't surround the riverside.

The Fu Han Army swept half of Songjiang, which was also the most prime area of ​​Songjiang. There were rumors among the people in Jiangnan that the hundreds of ships of the Fu Han Army were loaded with gold, silver and treasures. Some people even swore that they had seen the countless gold, silver and treasures with their own eyes. When the Fu Han Army was carrying boxes on the ship, one box was too heavy and broke the shoulder pole. As a result, the box fell to the ground and broke into pieces. The ground was full of silver ingots, snowflakes.

The secret camp could not find out where the news came from. The speed of the rumor spread faster than the wind.

Chen Ming was ready to go through the Wusong River into Taihu Lake, and the large army would cover Suzhou City and force the Qing army to retreat. He was ready to fight a protracted war. Anyway, the Qing army in Songjiang Prefecture had just been severely damaged by him, and although the Qing army's offshore navy was powerful, if hundreds of warships were squeezed into the small ditch of the Yangtze River, no matter how many of their warships there were, they would not be enough for the Fu Han army's artillery to bombard. In the territory of Jiangbei, the Fu Han army still held Taizhou and Taixing, and the Qing army could not overthrow the Fu Han army in the short term.

Chen Ming had time to linger outside Suzhou City. He also planned to take the opportunity to visit Jiaxing and Huzhou in Zhejiang, and then roll up Dongting East Mountain and West Mountain, which were the main force of Suzhou merchants in this era. The famous Dongting Merchants refer to the people on the two islands of Dongshan and Xishan in Taihu Lake. This merchant group, which is not named after Suzhou or Wuxian, but only after the mountain names of Dongting East and West Mountains, has a long history! In the pre-Ming Dynasty, Feng Menglong, a novelist from Suzhou, wrote about the situation of this merchant group in his collection of novels "Stories to Awaken the World". The novel says: People from the two mountains are good at making money, and they go to all directions to do business, so there is a slogan in the world, called "Drilling the Sky Dongting".

The Dongting business group had its prototype as early as the Northern Song Dynasty. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Weizhen, a big businessman in Dongshan, was the third son of Wang Yanxiang. One of his lines produced a prime minister in the mountains, Wang Ao, who served in the three dynasties of Ming Xian, Xiao, and Wu, and served as a cabinet minister. It was the ancestors of this prime minister in the mountains who were well versed in the art of accumulation and good at financial management, thus laying the foundation for the Wang family business. Later, the Wang family was succeeded by Weng Fan, Weng Xu Fuxiong, and Xi. The Dongting business group was rich, and the rich and noble families in Dongshan and Xishan gathered, and they had a deep relationship with the Qing government. The Xi family relied on welcoming Kang Mazi who went to the south of the Yangtze River to thoroughly consolidate their position in the business group.

If the Fu Han Army swept through the intact East and West Mountains, the effect would not be inferior to taking Suzhou City. But now, the news that the Fu Han Army was advancing westward along the Wusong River has spread, and those slippery guys must have begun to transfer their property.

…

The Fu Han Army's attack on the Wusong River and its advance westward was a turning point in the Jiangnan war. Suzhou, which was originally in a very minor position in this battle, suddenly became crucial. The Qing soldiers who retreated to the east of the Huangpu River began to "largely" recover lost territory, but it was impossible for them to poke the Fu Han Army's ass. Even though Rong Bao's official document had been sent to Nanhui.

The Qing Army's foreign navy, which used Chongming Island as its base, also approached the Jiang** area carelessly, but facing the cannons mounted on Huangshan [Jiangyin Huangshan], none of them dared to easily break into it. The narrow river surface was only three miles, and the cannons mounted on the top of the mountain could completely block the entire river surface. Although everyone knew that the five artillery platforms built by the Fu Han Army on Huangshan were just grass structures.

Therefore, even though the large force of the Fu Han Army was dragged to Suzhou, the Qing army could not take down the bridgehead of Jiangyin, so they could not threaten Zhenjiang, let alone Nanjing. Chen Ming felt very at ease.

…

In Beijing, a piece of news quickly spread throughout the city as Emperor Qianlong opened his mouth.

——The Qing Dynasty will have another foreign official like Nan Huairen and Tang Ruowang.

The Jesuit missionaries in Beijing were recommended by many officials in Beijing and were recommended by Emperor Qianlong. Chao Junxiu (proficient in astronomical calculations), Jin Jishi (proficient in carving and astronomical calculations), Li Junxian (proficient in clock and watch mechanics)-Why did the Chinese names of Jesuit missionaries at that time have a kind of Korean flavor? ? ——Cipola [proficient in painting and has experience in firing glassware) and many others entered the palace of Yangxin Palace-the artillery factory, engaged in the work of casting cannons and repairing muskets.

These were the first batch of foreigners who entered the Qing Dynasty’s artillery factory after Kangxi banned religion and began to manufacture the “national heavy weapons” for the Qing Dynasty. These missionaries had not yet made any contribution, but they were already rewarded with official salaries of the fifth and sixth ranks by Emperor Qianlong. What is particularly noteworthy is that there were two Chinese who entered the Yangxin Palace’s artillery factory with these foreigners. They were born and raised in Beijing: Gao Leisi and Yang Dewang. These were two Chinese with yellow skin and black hair who had been baptized by True God early on, because their families were relatively few True God believers in China at that time. The two followed the missionaries in Beijing to study since they were young. Not only could they speak many foreign languages ​​fluently, but they also went to France to study more than ten years ago and entered the French University in Lovelace to study French and Latin, and studied theology, philosophy and other subjects. After graduating from college, the two came to Paris and requested to become monks in a monastery. However, the President of the French Society of Jesus, taking into account the opinions of Jesuit priests in China and China's actual national conditions, did not approve their application and instead arranged for the two to continue their studies in the Society of Jesus.

Although these two people tended to study theology and philosophy in Europe, they also had a good understanding of modern Western knowledge and had seen French guns and cannons. After receiving the recommendation of the Jesuit priests in Beijing, Qianlong naturally accepted these two people. It would be good to use them as translators.

This matter caused quite a stir in Beijing. For many Chinese people, the emperor ordered a group of foreigners to enter the artillery factory, which obviously recognized the level of attainments of these foreigners in guns and cannons. It also reflected the emperor's dissatisfaction with the guns and cannons of his own craftsmen and officials. Doesn't this mean that foreigners are better than our Qing Dynasty in guns and cannons? ?

This hurt the self-esteem of countless old men in the city who regarded themselves as "citizens of the empire". Moreover, many people scolded Gao and Yang for being fatherless and motherless, and even their families were implicated. It is really true that people are afraid of being famous and pigs are afraid of being fat.

Such news was considered important. The secret camp in Beijing reported the relevant matters to the headquarters one after another, and then the news was transferred to Chen Ming's hands. He was not surprised that Emperor Qianlong asked foreigners to make guns and cannons. Qianlong was not Daoguang Xianfeng, and the Qing Dynasty at this time was not the Qing Dynasty during the reign of Emperors 1 and 2. Chen Ming felt that when necessary, Qianlong would even directly purchase guns and cannons from the West, just like the Ming Dynasty in the late Ming Dynasty.

What really interested Chen Ming was Gao Leisi and Yang Dewang. Aren't they "students"? When Chen Ming saw the secret report for the first time, his eyes almost popped out. Although these two people must have studied theology as their main subject in Europe, in China during the middle of Qianlong's reign, it was really rare for Chinese people to have such an experience. If these two people were placed in his hands, they would be of great use after the establishment of the new China.

When sending envoys to the West, these two people were not qualified to be the main envoys, but they could also be deputy envoys and interpreters. Of course, Chen Ming was not interested in Gao Yang and his true God followers, but he could not be perfect in employing people, as long as they were useful. He was really curious about these two people.

"Keep an eye on them. Try to spy on the progress of the gun factory!"

Chen Ming walked out of the cabin. A sunken ship in front of him was slowly floating up under the drag of four ships and a herd of buffaloes on the shore. A dozen sailors with good swimming skills dived into the water and fastened the sides and cabins of the sunken ship with iron nails and ropes. Dozens of big buffaloes on the river bank were driven by whips and pushed forward. Four warships without sandbags pulled up the sunken ship under the water.

This was the salvage operation of the Fu Han Army. Both land and water worked together. For this purpose, the Fu Han Army specially collected hundreds of buffaloes from the surrounding villages and worked hard in turns. It was also because Suzhou Prefecture was rich that the people could easily gather so many buffaloes.

Chen Ming had been waiting on the boat for three days. It took the Fu Han Army three days to break through the first shipwreck ‘defense line’ of the Qing soldiers. As the sunken ship in front of him was salvaged, a ‘hole’ more than ten meters wide was cracked in the center of the Wusong River waterway, and all the ships of the Fu Han Army could pass through.

But this was only the first ‘defense line’ of the Qing soldiers. There was a second line in Zhangjiagang not far away. Dangtou, the narrowest part of the Wusong River, was the third line. Then there was the confluence of the Wusong River and the Grand Canal, and finally Guajingkou, the source of the Wusong River.

In Suzhou, the Fu Han Army still had time to waste.

…

In the humid and hot land of Fujian, there were clearly six ice basins in the room, but sweat still kept hitting Chen Liang’s forehead.

This damn place, if possible, Chen Liang didn’t want to stay here for another day. It was too hard!

"Master Eight, the Yellow Sect has decided to start an uprising on the 15th of this month."

"Send the silver and weapons to them. I have promised them the Fu Han Army, so I will not go back on my word." Chen Liang fanned his fan quickly. "Does the Yellow Sect still have contact with the natives in the mountains?"

"The contact is still close."

"He is so stubborn and stupid that he cannot be taught. Let him go..."