Chapter 233 The British guy who crossed the river and burned the bridge

Author: tx Cheng Zhi

Chapter 233 The British guy who crossed the river and burned the bridge

Chapter 232

During the battle, it was not obvious, but when they saw the Zheng fleet fleeing, the Ning Navy officers all breathed a sigh of relief. In particular, many Ning Navy officers had trembling hands and weak legs and feet.

Of course, some of Ning's naval officers were nervous, some were tired, and of course a few were frightened. After all, the battle on the sea was so brutal.

To put it bluntly, this was actually Ning Haijun's luck. Because of Zheng Zhibao's mistake, he consumed the sharpest knife under Zheng Zhilong's command, Taro Kumamoto, and the more than 6,000 little samurai under his command.

If Zheng Zhilong's fire ship is controlled by these little warriors in this battle, it is hard to say whether Ning Haijun can win this battle, because the little warriors are very crazy.

Because the Konihi Kingdom is very poor now, even if they are samurai, the Konihi samurai now manage local and tax revenue for daimyo at all levels, which is equivalent to civil servants. However, their income is very low. Almost all samurai who serve the shogunate are called

It is the identity of "Hatara" and "Yujia".

Moreover, samurai have no salary, and their income is stone, which is rice. Relatively speaking, the income of Hatamoto is slightly higher, and that of the royal family is slightly lower. Taken together, their ordinary income is about fifty stone and rice. Of course, people like Morimoto Kazuhisa of the Kato family

, his income is definitely much higher, but the income of ordinary warriors under his command is nominally equivalent to that of officials from the ninth rank of the Ming Dynasty.

This is the income level of a real samurai. If you include those nominal samurai who hold a samurai sword, it is even lower. After excluding taxes, they can barely make ends meet. Therefore, samurai in their childhood have to eat rice balls, and they have to eat rice balls.

There is so-called sushi, and the reason for making sushi is that they don't have enough rice.

It can be said that the reason and background for the emergence of sushi is just like the authentic snack braised in Beijing. In the Qing Dynasty, wealthy families and the powerful people of the Eight Banners did not eat sushi. Every year, poor people from the imperial city roots stayed in the wealthy families.

When people and the dignitaries of the Eight Banners came to the door, they would pick up the water and eat it after watching others throw it into the water. This can also be regarded as meat, but the problem is that there was not much water after all, so they added dead dough pancakes and burned them, forming the current stewed meat.

Of course, the life of the little warriors in the kingdom was not easy. Pickles, dried radish and natto were their daily staple food. As for the common people, their living standards were far worse than the living standards of the warriors. Even in the Ming Dynasty

Natural disasters and man-made disasters, in fact, the living standards of the people in the Ming Dynasty were far higher than those in the early days.

After these young warriors took refuge with Zheng Zhilong, they fought very bravely, because if they died in battle, their families would receive a settlement fee of one hundred taels of silver. Zheng Zhilong was very generous in this regard.

Therefore, the young samurai under Taro Kumamoto were not afraid of death at all when fighting. For them, death was a kind of relief.

It's just a pity that Zheng Zhibao didn't know what he was thinking at the time, but he actually released monsters little by little to gain experience for Ning Haijun's navy.

For a young army, it is the best choice to fight indiscriminately and randomly. In later generations, fighting against the beautiful navy in their childhood was a big taboo.

Zheng Zhibao actually used such a useful sharp blade to practice with Ning Haijun. As a result, Ning Haijun, who had no combat experience, used these more than 200 ships and more than 6,000 young warriors to gain sufficient practical experience.

experience.

Although Zheng Cai recruited samurai from his childhood kingdom, their coordination and training were far inferior to those of Taro Kumamoto's men. Therefore, after this battle, the real fire ships did not cause much damage to Ning Haijun.

Of course, in reality there are not that many ifs.

Li Zhixiang watched the Zheng fleet retreat and did not pursue it. Once he pursues the Zheng fleet fiercely, he will miss the opportunity to treat the wounded.

Cheng Shijie told Li Zhixiang many times that the navy is a technical branch, and wounded soldiers are very valuable. Wounded soldiers who survive on the battlefield will become elite soldiers when they return to the army after recovering from their injuries. The Ning Navy has no shortage of warships, and now the warships of the Ning Navy are

With the production speed, they can produce a huge fleet within a year.

And Navy soldiers are truly priceless treasures.

What's more, the current Zheng's fleet has had its backbone broken, and there is little point in continuing to fight drowned dogs. However, those sailors were trained by him with so much hard work. It would be too sad if they died as a result.

Each level of the Ning Navy dispatched lifeboats accompanying the ship and began to search and rescue survivors on the sea. The sea area dyed red with blood and fire suddenly became lively.

Just as the Subic-Haining Navy was engaged in a decisive battle with the Zheng fleet, the Dutch East India Company dispatched a third-level battleship and two fourth-level battleships on the Tulip, the flagship of this small fleet.

The fleet commander, Colonel Bernard L. DeVos, handed the telescope to the chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Peter van der Waals, and said, "What do you think?"

"Their warships... are really fast! Moreover, their naval guns are much larger in caliber, have a longer range, and are more powerful than ours, but they are always weird!"

Bernard sighed and said: "The vampires on the board of directors have failed in their wishes!"

In fact, after Manila in Luzon changed hands, the Dutch East India Company paid special attention to this matter. Since most of the more than 150 armed merchant ships and warships of the Dutch East India with a thousand-ton class or above were scattered around the world, they were short of

In fact, not many warships can be mobilized within the time limit, but twenty or thirty are still possible.

At the Eastern Headquarters of the Dutch East India Company in Batavia, Senior Commercial Commissioner Koopmans proposed to take chestnuts from the fire. If Zheng Zhilong and Ning Haijun lost both sides in a decisive battle, they could save 120,000 francs in protection fees.

At the same time, you can also take advantage of Spain's inability to take care of Luzon and get a share of the pie on Luzon Island.

It's just a pity that the Subic naval battle started very hastily and ended even more quickly. It came to an end in just two or three days and ended with the Zheng family's disastrous defeat.

"Their ship is about two knots faster than our warship without full sail. How did they do it?"

Lieutenant Colonel Valls said in disbelief: "How did they do it?"

"Don't worry about how they did it. We are businessmen, and profit is the standard that businessmen use to measure everything! The current situation is very obvious. The profit from the war with Ning Haijun is far less than paying them protection money!"

Bernard smiled bitterly and said: "Unless the board of directors is willing to risk the loss of at least a hundred battleships, or five thousand sailors, and the loss of millions of gold carats."

Regarding the Dutch watching the game, Li Zhixiang had the same reaction as Cheng Shijie. He had already sent someone to warn the Dutch: "You can watch, but don't interfere, otherwise Ning Haijun will fight to the death!"

Obviously, these Dutch people did not have the courage to fight Ning Haijun until death.

…

Although Zheng Zhilong retreated, not everything was lost, because when they were dueling with Ning Haijun's main battleship, their squadron, the troops led by Zheng Zhibao, finally did something serious.

The Zheng fleet successfully captured Subic Port. At this time, Subic Port was actually just a small Spanish port, but it had four forts. This time Zheng Zhibao was very powerful. He successfully learned the lessons from the Wusongkou naval battle.

, but to attack from both sea and land simultaneously.

First, about a hundred small centipede boats with extremely shallow drafts carried army troops to land from the left and right wings of Subic Port. After the landing troops successfully landed, they did not touch the Spanish, but Zheng Zhibao's squadron successfully landed.

After attracting the Spanish's attention, they attacked from both sea and land.

After more than half a day of fierce fighting, Zheng Zhibao captured Subic Port and Subic Castle after paying the price of more than a thousand casualties, killed 63 Spanish soldiers defending Subic City, and captured them.

Ninety-three people annihilated about 1,500 Spanish colonial troops.

When arriving at Subic Port, Zheng Zhibao held a grand welcome ceremony.

However, Zheng Zhilong had no interest in this. His ears were buzzing, his chest was rising and falling rapidly, and he struggled to swallow the blood that surged into his throat.

"Fifth brother, prepare some wine, food, and women!"

Zheng Zhilong knew that the pirates' life at sea was very boring, and now that they had lost the battle, they needed to revive their morale. There were only two things that could boost their morale, wine and women.

Zheng Zhibao looked at Zheng Zhilong with an unkind look on his face. Although he did not ask Zheng Zhilong about his results in detail, a cursory look at him, the number three figure in the Zheng Group, revealed that the Zheng Group's fleet had been streamlined too much.

"Yes, brother, I will make arrangements right away!"

Zheng Zhibao had actually made preparations for a long time, but it was just to celebrate Zheng Zhilong's victory. After he occupied Subic Port, he sent troops to wipe out more than a dozen surrounding tribes and captured six to seven thousand women. Except for black spots, ugly

Click, you can make do with it.

Now that we can't celebrate the victory, it would be easier to appease the soldiers.

Zheng Zhibao paid a little attention and found that Zheng Zhilong's main fleet only had more than 300 warships left, and most of the warships were scarred and covered with bloody wounded soldiers. These wounded soldiers could not receive effective treatment.

Deaths continued to occur in the hot and smelly cabin, and it was probably unknown how many people would survive in the end.

Recalling the grand occasion when the fleet set out on the expedition with white sails like clouds and flags covering the sun, and looking at the miserable scene now, Zheng Zhibao really wanted to cry. The losses to Zheng's fleet were too heavy, and the consequences were very serious.

Located in a castle built by the Spanish, facing a dozen trembling Spanish women, Zheng Zhilong was not in the slightest mood. He was drinking alone and his face was frighteningly smelly.

Zheng Zhilong couldn't figure it out after pouring more than half the bottle of whiskey into his stomach.

"how so?"

The warships of the Ning Navy are obviously only one-tenth of their main warships. In terms of total tonnage, they are only one-eighth. And the people driving those warships are a group of sailors who have been in the military for less than two years.

Technically and mentally, he is still very immature.

Although Zheng Zhibao lost a lot of warships in the Battle of Wusongkou, the main force was still there. In order to win, from him, the commander-in-chief, to every ordinary sailor, they even tried their best to suck milk. As long as they could

The only tactics that could hit Ning Haijun's navy were those he hadn't thought of, and there were no tactics he hadn't tried.

With ten times the advantage of the Ning Navy's navy, coupled with the fierce sailors who have been honed for more than ten years across the sea, and the muskets and artillery they bought at high prices from Xiyi, with such a huge advantage, why can't they still win?

Win? Why?

Shi Daxuan also knew that Zheng Zhilong was in a bad mood, and Zheng Zhibao did not dare to touch Zheng Zhilong's brow.

At this time, Zheng Zhilong was just like Huang Taiji after the Battle of Bali Bay. He began to worry about the future of his Zheng Group. Even though the Zheng Group had more than 3,000 warships, he also had many enemies.

Xu Xinsu, Li Kuiqi, the great pirate Zhong Bin, Liu Xiang, etc., who parted ways from the official party, have traversed the sea for more than ten years and established countless achievements. Normally these contradictions would not be exposed, but with his defeat, all problems will surface.

water surface.

The Zheng Group is completely different from the Ning Haijun Group. Cheng Shijie has different control over the Ning Haijun Group. The Zheng Group is like a typical company. Zheng Zhilong is just the chairman. Below are shareholders, large and small. And shareholders, large and small,

There are also mountains. They, the shareholders, have their own people, their own ships, and even their spheres of influence are divided to a certain extent.

But the problem is that Ning Haijun is a collective. Even Li Zhixiang, who controls the main fleet of Ning Haijun, if he dares to have the slightest idea of ​​betraying Cheng Shijie, the governor will immediately deal with him. If he dares to surrender to the enemy, he may not even have a ship.

They can't take him away, the most likely option is to take away his personal guards.

In fact, when he retreated this time, he found that many warships did not follow him. It might be that the ships were damaged or they might have betrayed him.

What should we do in the future?

Zheng Zhilong had a very headache.

He drank to drown his sorrows, so he got drunk very quickly, and Zheng Zhilong fell into a deep sleep without knowing it.
To be continued...