When the Battle of Lang Son came to an end, another war that made Gao Pangshi even more worried was about to begin.
This war has a codename drawn up by Gao Pragmatic himself: Snake Catching.
The capital of the Mo Dynasty, and even the capital recognized by the entire Annam including the Le Dynasty, was called Thang Long, which was also known as Hanoi in later generations.
The city was founded in 621 AD and was called "Purple City" at that time. In the Tang Dynasty, it was called "Song Ping". In 886 AD, it became a fortress and was called "Duluo". It was the administrative center of Gao Pian of the Tang Dynasty.
In 1010, Li Gongyun took advantage of You Chong, the heir of the former Li Dynasty, usurped the throne, changed the Yuan Dynasty to Shuntian, and established the Li Dynasty.
The first policy promulgated by Li Gongyun in the first year of Shuntian was to move the capital from Hualu to Daluo City and change it to Shenglong. Li Gongyun said to his ministers: "I looked at the map and saw that Gao Pian's old capital was Daluo City.
, living in the world, there is the power of dragons and tigers, divergent in all directions, people are everywhere, and it is the capital of the emperor. I want to take advantage of the advantages of this place to settle down."
Li Gongyun consulted the ministers for their opinions in the court, and all the ministers said: Your Majesty said that this is the benefit of the world for all generations. Li Gongyun was so pleased that he moved from Hualu to Daluo City. When his boat arrived at the city, he saw a dragon, so his order was changed.
Its city is called Shenglong City.
After establishing his capital in Tsang Long, Li Gong gathered all the assets from across the country and started a large-scale construction project based on Chinese architectural style.
Thang Long is located in the resource-rich Red River Plain and is close to the sea. It is rich in products and has a prosperous population. As the center of the founding of the dynasty, it can get rid of the restrictions of the pastoralist economy of the mountain tribes in the old capital, which is very beneficial to the rule of the new dynasty.
So much so that the Chen Dynasty and Hou Li Dynasty after Li Dynasty both established their capitals here.
However, Gao Pragmatic may have committed Wang Mang's mistake for a while and was somewhat dissatisfied with the name of Thang Long City, so he named the combat operation targeting Thang Long City "Snake Catching".
dragon?
Outside of China, how dare you call yourself a dragon?
The person responsible for carrying out this "snake-catching" operation was Gao Jue.
After Gao Jue's honeymoon, he was transferred from Gyeonggi Province to Annan. If he were an ordinary person, he would probably be very unhappy. Not to mention Gao Jue himself would be unhappy, and his newlywed wife would definitely be even more unhappy.
However, Gao Jue and his wife were just the opposite. Both of them were very satisfied with this transfer order and were even grateful.
Because Gao Jue's wife is none other than Gao Pangshi's former maid Shang Yue, well... now her name is Gao Shang Yue.
Gao Jue was originally an older young man. Although he had been given important positions in the past, no one had solved the "life-long problems" for him. Although he was not from a high family background, he had an ambition and did not want to get married when nothing had been achieved.
Later, he had become the leader of the family guard group, and he was still alone. It happened that Gao Pragmatic was getting older, and if the two girls who admired the moon and listened to the piano did not get married, they would become old maids in this era, so Gao Pragmatic
Make the decision pragmatically, marry Shang Yue to Gao Jue, and marry Ting Qin to Gao Xiaozhuang.
In fact, before this, no one in Jinghua dared to suggest the idea of the two girls Shang Yue Ting Qin. According to them, the result of Shang Yue Ting Qin should be that Gao Pragmatic would take over the house. But it turned out that Gao Pragmatic did not
He would rather use this idea to consolidate the loyalty of his subordinates.
Of course, this is actually a side benefit. Gao Qingjing mainly thinks that he has no lust for the two girls, and it is not good for them to take over the house - the status of the girl from the first wife's house will not be improved much if she becomes a concubine. Instead of becoming a concubine,
It would be better to marry Gao Jue and Gao Xiaozhuang as their official wives.
It is unknown to outsiders whether the two girls who admire the moon and listen to the piano have any regrets, but they can definitely feel that Gao Pragmatic really cares about them.
Although Gao Jue is only the leader of a retainer in name, he is not an ordinary retainer leader. He usually has thousands of direct subordinates, distributed in Gyeonggi, Henan and other places. If there is any abnormal situation in the place, such as harassment by refugees, etc.,
Jinghua's local mine protection team and factory protection team will also be uniformly dispatched by Gao Jue.
In other words, he is the number one general in charge of military affairs under Gao Pragmatic.
Gao Jue was in charge of the army, while Gao Xiaozhuang was in charge of finance. Gao Xiaozhuang had always been in charge of the three major factories in Kaiping. Later, after the completion of the Jinghua Musket Factory and the Jinghua Artillery Factory, Gao Xiaozhuang was also responsible for the management. It can be said that the most important industrial base in Jinghua is the Kaiping Industrial Zone.
"It's all in Gao Xiaozhuang's hands.
Therefore, Gao Jue was transferred to Qinzhou not long after his honeymoon. Not only was it not a bad thing, but it was a sign that he continued to be trusted by Gao Pragmatic. In this case, how could the couple be unhappy?
However, Gao Jue's mood at the moment was still a little tense. He had fought Japanese pirates, been out of the Great Wall, and suppressed bandits, but this was his first time fighting against the Annan people.
Fortunately, the master left the mountain operations on the northern front to the two chieftains Cen and Huang, and he was responsible for the Thang Long area in the plain area.
The Red River Plain, crisscrossed by water networks, should be similar to the geographical environment when he fought in the south of the Yangtze River, but the overall situation is also somewhat different.
From Thang Long to Thanh Hoa, this area has been fought for decades. Now the north and the south are facing each other. The Mo Dynasty happened to send troops to the south. It would be better if the Mo Dynasty wins. But if the Mo Dynasty loses and the Li Dynasty pursues them, I will
The situation to be faced is even more complicated.
Gao Jue didn't think there was anything strange about his master's actions this time. In his opinion, the master's so-called "war of revenge" was definitely just an external rhetoric. With his understanding of the master, he could allow him to use so many resources to fight against the enemy.
The purpose of promoting this war can only be profit.
And it's a huge benefit.
But Gao Pragmatic didn't say anything clearly, so Gao Jue could only guess: What benefits could Annan have?
When he became an ancestor, he could only collect more than 70,000 taels of silver in taxes in Annan every year, and the highest silver consumption was nearly one million taels a year.
Hundreds of thousands of taels. If it weren't for such a huge financial hole, how could Xuanzong simply abandon Annan?
Unless Annan has a mine!
Gao Jue guessed in his heart that if Annan didn't have a large mine, the master would not be so interested in such a remote land. But how big must the mine in Annan be for the master to spend such a huge amount of money?
The key is, the master doesn’t seem to be short of minerals now.
Come on, if you can't figure out how to make money, don't think about it. Anyway, the master is better than you. The key is to think about how to win Sheng Long now.
Gao Jue now has a copy of the general layout of Shenglong City, which Gao Pragmatic asked Gao Mengnan to forward to him. In addition, there is also a description of the hydrological conditions of the Red River.
These two things were provided by a merchant in Guangzhou Port. The merchant's surname was Hu, and he happened to be in the pepper business. Of course, he also occasionally did some business such as agarwood. During the Ming Dynasty, Cantonese merchants were also a big player.
Commercial power, this is why the highly pragmatic Jinghua has only laid a foundation in Guangzhou Port for so many years.
However, this Boss Hu (the word "boss" has been around since ancient times, and he is from the south) is not a native Cantonese businessman. He migrated from Huguang, so he did not get along well among the Cantonese businessmen, and he often suffered a lot.
After the highly pragmatic Jinghua's power expanded to Guangzhou, he observed it for a while and then made up his mind to defect to Guangzhou - defecting did not mean selling himself, but that all his cargo ships used Jinghua's private port in Guangzhou.
Boss Hu’s fleet is not very big. Even calling it a fleet is a bit high. He actually only has three ships in total, and they are much smaller than Jinghua’s own-style armed transport ships. Jinghua’s armed transport ships need to be equipped with cannons.
The tonnage is relatively large along the coast of the Ming Dynasty. The unified standard is 1,600 materials. In later generations, the displacement is 800 tons. [Wufeng Note: Regarding the ratio of "materials" and "tons", there are several different opinions on the Internet.
, some experts’ opinions are also contradictory, so this book adopts this ratio, mainly for convenience.]
Although Boss Hu's three ships are only 900 pieces in size, they also have armed forces. At first, they only hired some sailors who dared to fight gangs. Later, after joining Jinghua, he bought twelve Jinghua-made ships.
The naval gun was installed on his own ship, and from then on he began to move sideways along the northern coast of Annan. Even the Mochao Navy rarely caused trouble for him.
His business was mainly in the north of Annan. He occasionally went to the south, but not much, because Mo Chao in the north was nominally the commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty's reputation was easier to deal with here.
His ship is not big, and he often sails directly along the river from the mouth of the Red River to Thang Long for trading. He is familiar with the hydrology and waterways of the Red River. So this time, Gao Pragmatic wanted to attack Mo Chao. When he mobilized maritime power in Guangzhou Port,
Boss Hu took the initiative to ask for help and not only provided the layout of Thang Long City, but also provided more critical hydrological descriptions of the Red River.
He even personally joined Gao Jingshi's maritime expeditionary force, and his three gun-carrying transport ships became part of the two hundred or so ships mobilized by Gao Jingshi. In fact, for a maritime businessman like him, this time Gao Jingshi
There are still twenty or thirty ships in the pragmatic fleet.
Of course, Boss Hu has no loyalty to Gao Pragmatic. They have no leadership relationship. What he and the other bosses who are willing to join the Gao family's expedition fleet value is Jinghua's big legs, well... maybe I should say giant legs.
In their opinion, Jinghua was too powerful. It had a port, a fleet, a shipyard, and a gun factory, not to mention that Jinghua’s boss was the emperor’s classmate, the top six scholar of Gengchenke!
What does it mean to cling to Jinghua's lap? It means that they are basically not afraid of the government finding trouble, and it means that they can buy whatever they want from Jinghua... whether it is ships, guns, or even some muskets for the sailors.
Next - Although it is theoretically illegal, after going to sea, the Ming Dynasty's laws are not very easy to use. Only firearms are easy to use.
Gao Jue looked at the pamphlet in his hand again, turned to Boss Hu, who was tall and fat and did not look like an ordinary southerner, and finally confirmed: "Boss Hu, at this time, our fleet can really run directly along the Red River.
Under Shenglong City?"
Although Boss Hu is tall and fat, he smiles like a Bodhisattva. He is cheerful and not nervous at all: "Don't worry, Gao Tuanzuo. The Red River is wide and deep enough. This waterway has been running for more than ten years."
, there will be no problem. If Annan had been prepared, it would have been possible to plant dark tombs and the like in the river. However, their naval strength was far superior to that of the Southern Dynasty, and they did not know that they would suddenly send troops to attack Thang Long by water.
, these things are definitely not available right now... After all, after An Chun's deployment, his own navy will not be convenient."
