Another half month has passed. The warring parties on Penghu Island are generally in a state of peace. Although the officers and soldiers of the navy are still blocking the coast of Fengguiwei, at night, the elusive Sea Spirit often docks unimpeded. Go to the coast, send personnel and supplies to the island, and then pick up the wounded.
At first, there were indeed serious and responsible naval vessels that wanted to pursue the Sea Spirit. However, they often could only watch as this dark, strange ship easily left them behind and sailed away. In the end, the naval officers and soldiers were already too hungry. He went on patrol and turned into a fisherman. He fished near Penghu Island all day long. The infantry brothers couldn't make a living by growing wheat on the island. The limited food and grass had to satisfy the personal barracks of the officers and soldiers.
These days, Zhao Xuanming also took the initiative; the land route at Fengguiwei has been tightly blocked by the officers and soldiers with multiple camps. They used small sampans to row along the coastline from the south coast of Magong Port to the vicinity of the officers and soldiers' barracks. After a string of rockets, he turned around and returned quickly. Having tasted the sweetness, Zhao Xuanming continued to attack. He would arrive every night and never tired of it. This made the Ming army's camp restless, and they couldn't eat or sleep well.
A rocket attack caused a fire on the warships of officers and soldiers anchored in Magong Port. The fire spread all of a sudden and burned more than fifty ships. After that, Shen You, who had been kept in cold storage after General Zhu arrived, Rong was appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. Shen Yourong finally mobilized the morale of some people and personally went into battle with injuries. He strengthened the defense of the sea area along Fengguiwei and finally temporarily suppressed the maritime guerrilla warfare of the Chinese company's army.
As hunger spread day by day, the mood of the officers and soldiers became explosive. The Zhejiang guest army was the first to start making trouble; they came all the way to Fujian. The battle was not going well and they could not eat or sleep well. Therefore, they had long been clamoring to go back. Go home.
In order to distribute food, Zhejiang soldiers and Fujian soldiers also broke out in series of armed fights.
The logistics and food pay for the Zhejiang soldiers are mainly coordinated by General Wen of Zhejiang Dusi. General Wen still has a lot of grain shipped from Zhejiang and is hoarding it in Quanzhou and Xiamen Jinzuo Station. However, the sea is blocked and cannot be transported. More The serious problem is that in the early days when the sea route was still open, he did not have shipping. As mentioned earlier, the Zhejiang Navy's ships are suitable for sailing in shallow waters along the Zhejiang coast and are not suitable for crossing the Taiwan Strait. Therefore, he has to borrow ships from Fujian. Transport supplies to his troops. The reception of the Yiwu soldiers by Fujian General Zhu Wenda was not bad. The treatment of the rest of the troops was not good. After Yin Feng began to launch attacks on the Fujian coast, food transportation by sea was increasingly reduced. Zhu Wenda also He no longer cared about the guest soldiers and assigned all the very rare food to his own barracks and Fujian soldiers.
The grain depots of the Zhejiang soldiers were the first to be bottomed out. Then fighting broke out between the officers and soldiers of the two provinces. The Zhejiang soldiers, relying on their large number of firearms, flattened several camps of the Fujian soldiers in one go and robbed a large amount of food and grass. The Fujian soldiers Then relying on the strength of their numbers, they swarmed up and recaptured most of the food and grass in one fell swoop. Both sides used firearms, swords and guns to fight fiercely. The noise was so loud that Zhao Xuanming was woken up early in the morning, thinking that the officers and soldiers were about to attack again. I hurriedly ran up to the watchtower. Only then did I realize that it was an internal dispute between the officers and soldiers.
A few days later, some officers and soldiers secretly slipped out of Penghu Bay in boats and fled toward the mainland.
The naval warships of the Chinese Company had already been patrolling and monitoring around the Penghu Islands. If they found deserters, they would pursue them unceremoniously and fire artillery from a distance, forcing the officers and soldiers to stop the ship and surrender. The people of the Chinese Company did not embarrass them. They just took their After all the weapons and ammunition were confiscated, they were released. The kind-hearted navy soldiers also gave the officers and soldiers some food.
The war has reached this stage. Everyone who is not an idiot knows that the days before the complete defeat of the army are numbered. Governor Xu Xueju regrets it. There is still one year before he will be transferred from Fujian, but because of his advocacy of fighting "pirates" As a result, the entire naval force of the province was destroyed. All the capable infantry in Fujian were trapped on the isolated island. As a result, his official career was in jeopardy.
Moreover, this war with the China Company has also offended many local gentry and officials who have interests in the China Company. Many of these people have people in the court who can speak to them. If they start stirring up trouble in the court again, next year will be the year to evaluate their political performance. .Maybe he will have to be demoted to some barren mountain to be a minor official. Xu Xueju has always been at odds with the powerful eunuchs in the court. When he was serving in Fujian, he also had a serious conflict with the tax eunuch Gao Cai. Therefore, he Now I am really worried about my fate.
The tax eunuch Gao Cai also had his own worries; he had advanced so much money and grain for this expedition. If he failed, not only would he not be able to complete the amount of tax and silver paid by Fujian this year, but he would also be sued for offending all the officials and gentry in Fujian. He went to Beijing. Maybe he would be transferred back to Beijing, ending his domineering career in Fujian. He had to go to the governor's office for help. Governor Xu was also as troubled as him. He sent him away without saying anything nice. .
One day later, Xu Huai, the trusted butler of Fujian Governor Xu Xueju, and Xie Huimin, the master of the governor's Yamen, came to Quanzhou again. They found the Zeng family compound. As a result, the Zeng family only had a few old servants to look after the house. The rest of the people moved to Taiwan.
Butler Xu had no choice but to find the Huaxing joint store next to Zeng's house.
Xu Xinsu participated in several recruitment negotiations with Zeng Qi and got to know these two errands. While he warmly entertained Governor Xu's housekeeper, he sent people out to sea to inform Yin Feng who was on Haitan Island. At the same time, he also expressed deep feelings to the governor and Fujian Province. Officials throughout the province expressed contempt and disdain.
At the same time, on the Penghu Islands, the Zhejiang soldiers who had been hungry for several days made trouble again. Led by the Yiwu soldiers, they seized the Navy's temporary dock near the Empress' Palace in Magong Port. They then sent people to guard the dock and began to board ships in batches. . Planning to go to sea and return to Zhejiang. There was a conflict between the officers and soldiers of the two provinces last time. The commander-in-chief Zhu Wenda favored his own soldiers. The Zhejiang soldiers completely lost their trust in him. They decided that since they would either starve to death or be beaten to death if they stayed on the island, they would go back Go to Zhejiang and ignore this mess. Moreover, their leader, General Wen Chushen, is far away in Quanzhou to collect food and grass. There is no general on Penghu Island who can suppress these soldiers.
Zhu Wenda was trembling with anger after hearing the news. He ordered his soldiers to retake the dock and asked Shen Yourong to send the navy to intercept. As a result, half of the Zhejiang soldiers escaped from Penghu Bay. The other half were either killed or captured. Some Nearly a thousand people were disarmed and imprisoned in Xiyu. Half of those who escaped could not return to Zhejiang. They were intercepted by the Second Battle Fleet of the Chinese Navy in the waters north of Penghu. The Zhejiang soldiers were not familiar with water warfare in the first place. They had no choice but to surrender. According to Yin Feng's order, there was no courtesy in dealing with these foreign soldiers. More than 700 prisoners of Zhejiang soldiers were taken to Taiwan Port and temporarily detained.
They couldn't fight. They couldn't eat or drink well. The morale of the officers and soldiers had plummeted. In the camp of officers and soldiers, deserting before the battle became a trend. Many officers and soldiers fled one after another. Not only did they go to the sea and take boats to escape, but some directly attacked the Fengguiwei Zhonghua Company's troops. Surrender. Zhao Xuanming came here with more than ten flag soldiers of Zhangzhou Guard. The leader was Qi Yue, a hundred households of Zhangzhou Guard.
"Hey, Master Baihu, have you come to persuade me to surrender again?"
Zhao Xuanming greeted these officers and soldiers at the gate of the village. Seeing that Qi Yue, whose face was rosy a month ago, had become dark and thin, he couldn't help teasing: "What conditions does the commander-in-chief bring this time?"
Qi Yue smiled bitterly: "Fellow, don't make fun of me. Hurry up and give me something to eat. Damn General Zhu. He only cares about the life and death of his own barracks. He won't share any food with us. Fellow, hurry up and give it to my brothers." We have little food. There is a little brother who hasn't eaten for three days." Sure enough, someone was carrying a soldier behind him who was only fifteen or sixteen years old. He was already unconscious.
The Zhao Xuanming family was originally descended from military families. They had a certain affinity with the officers and soldiers, so they let him in without saying a word. They quickly found a medical officer to treat the soldier.
Not everyone sympathizes with the officers and soldiers like Zhao Xuanming. Fan Tao, commander of the Second Battle Fleet, led the flagship three-masted sailing ship "Haiyan" and ten two-masted modified Fuchuan warships. These days, they are responsible for blocking the entrance of Penghu Bay.
In the past, when he was a pirate, he was chased and beaten by officers and soldiers every day. When he saw the officers and soldiers, the navy's ships had to turn around and run away. But now, he has replaced his guns with cannons. His ship is a three-masted fortune ship with three decks. It is a large sailing ship that combines Chinese and Western styles with a reinforced keel and a rib structure. It is made of soft and hard canvas. It has two heavy cannons and six cannons ranging from 3 to 6 pounds. There are also countless other muskets, rockets, and powder barrels. The number of cannons is just the number of cannons. And the quality can be compared with the warship equipment of an entire battalion of the navy.
Therefore, any navy ship that escapes in front of his fleet will not be spared the fate of being sunk. Fan Tao must beat the opponent's ship to black and blue before going on board to capture the personnel, and then set the broken ship on fire. Burn it to relieve the grievances of being chased by officers and soldiers many years ago.
The supervisor of the Second Battle Fleet reported the matter to Mai Dahai. In the end, Fan Tao was scolded by Yin Feng and transferred his Second Battle Fleet to Haitan Island to station and blockade the coast of Fuzhou. Dahai personally took the main battleship "Flying Leopard" to blockade Penghu. He casually took the steward Xu Huai and the master Xie Huimin, the confidants of Governor Xu Xueju, with him.
As soon as the Flying Leopard appeared, the patrol ships in Penghu Bay withdrew back to Penghu Bay and said nothing. At this point, the sea control around Penghu was completely controlled by the Chinese Company. Penghu really became an isolated island.
The Flying Leopard would not foolishly rush into Penghu Bay. After all, if more than 200 ships in the bay swarmed up, the ants would kill the elephant, and the Flying Leopard would undoubtedly die. Mai Dahai just docked outside Penghu and sent a few ships to swagger around. Fenggui docked at the end of the beach and unloaded a large amount of supplies. Food, weapons, ammunition, etc. were piled up like mountains on the beach. The navy and navy cruising not far away could definitely see clearly.
At the same time, the two full-time errand runners of the governor also came ashore. In the evening, a small sampan carried the two people and landed quietly at the Magong Port Pier. At this time, Magong Port was completely guarded by Zhu Wenda's personal barracks. General Zhu was afraid that the ships docked at the dock would suffer further losses, and that there would be no means of escape. Therefore, he asked his own barracks to guard the dock day and night. Among them, Yuan Jin and Li Zhong also led their men to guard the dock.
They recognized the governor's steward Xu Huai and his master Xie Huimin. These two were the governor's representatives. Whenever the governor had any secret matters to discuss with Gao Cai and Zhu Wenda, these two people always appeared. Therefore, the two quickly He was secretly brought to the commander-in-chief Zhu Wenda.
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Sorry. The end of the year is our busiest time. We spend these days on the highway. Sorry.