It's a sweltering night at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. The typhoon that just passed did not leave any cool air. The air is filled with suffocating heat. Although it is the end of the eighth lunar month and the Mid-Autumn Festival has passed, today's Taiwan Harbor It doesn't look like autumn at all.
In the lobby of the old guard camp, everyone was not afraid of the scorching heat. They were all dressed in formal clothes and sitting upright in the venue. A huge topographic map of Penghu and Taiwan hung on the wall in front of the lobby. Yin Feng was also wearing a short-sleeved gray cloth military uniform. The "Battle of Penghu Battle Tactics Summary Meeting" is being held with a pointer.
This is a military academy teaching reform experiment that Yin Feng has been brewing for a long time. He cannot wait for generals to appear on the battlefield, nor does he have time to slowly discover military talents by groping. In the future, Chinese companies will have to deal with more military crises, and they will also have to deal with more military crises. With the Spanish Empire's counterattack, he urgently needed a group of military talents who could quickly stand out. Therefore, he wanted to quickly improve the quality and level of his officers through this discussion of battle tactics.
This summary meeting called back Zhao Tie, commander of the first regiment in Manila, Luo Aquan, commander of the special forces, Colonel Kutre, Chen Zhongji, director of the Luzon Military Intelligence Department, the youngest battalion commander, Li Kuiqi, commander of the artillery battalion, and others. , Yan Siqi, as the captain of the military academy cadet team, was also present. Yang Dacheng, the commander of the third battalion of the first regiment who was the first to lead the team into Manila City, Zhang Hai and other heroes who led the Zhuang Ding team to rescue Fenggui Weibao Village in the Battle of Penghu Also here are Maide, the commander of the second regiment, Li Xing, the commander of the third regiment, Zhao Xuanming, the commander of the newly formed fourth regiment, Mai Dahai, the navy commander, Ye Hua, the captain of the main battleship, and others, and almost all the armed forces of the China United Company. All the officers were present, except for Zeng Rui, the director of the military supervision department, and Lin Xiao, the director of the company's security department, who had never been on the battlefield. These mid-level and senior officers were all sitting on the left, and on the right were the young military academy cadets.
Everyone was sweating profusely, but no one dared to use a fan to cool down, so they all sat there with their backs straightened.
A special person was also present, the old general Chen Di.
"Commander Zhao has just introduced the whole process of the battle... the government troops gathered more than 10,000 people to besiege our small fortress. At the highest number, our troops only had more than 800 people. However, the government troops failed to attack repeatedly. What do you think? The reason is, don't talk nonsense about our army being invincible," Yin Feng looked around with a smile.
There was a burst of laughter in the venue. Yan Siqi, a member of the student team, stood up with his hands raised, and first stood at attention and saluted: "Reporting to the commander-in-chief, I think the officers and soldiers made the mistake of underestimating the enemy, and also did not divide their forces in time to attack the main island of Taiwan. So many troops are completely They can attack us in separate ways,"
Immediately, someone in the group of officers on the left said: "More than ten thousand people are fighting against a small fort, which is also called underestimating the enemy." Zhao Xuanming, the commander of the fourth regiment, stood up. As a hero in the Penghu island defense battle, he had already gained a reputation among the escorts. Standing upright, he raised his right hand across his chest in a military salute, and then said: "The officers and soldiers performed very poorly in this battle; the officers and soldiers did not know that our flintlock muskets can fire quickly, and our The artillery had a longer range than theirs, and they formed a dense formation to attack the wall, and suffered heavy losses time and time again. Moreover, there was a lack of coordination between the various units of the government and the army. One unit had already attacked the wall, but the follow-up troops could not keep up with the support in time. As a result, we were beaten down again and again..."
Yin Feng nodded and said: "Commander Zhao is right, but your vision is limited to Fengguiwei. You have to look at the problem from the perspective of the entire Fujian and the entire Taiwan..."
Mai De spoke at this time: "Sir shipowner, brothers, I think the officers and soldiers failed in this battle. Firstly, their own equipment is not as good as our escort. Secondly, there are no warships that can match our army's giant ships and cannons. Thirdly, because Their purpose of launching the war is not clear... They can completely surround Fengguiwei with a small force and attack our Taiwan Port with the main force..."
Yin Feng nodded; at a young age, Yan Siqi could already see the central problem of "no clear purpose" for the officers and soldiers to launch a campaign, which was amazing, although because of his youth and lack of experience, he took it a bit for granted; while Zhao Xuanming considered the problem from a specific tactical level, Madze has an overall view and can look at problems more comprehensively from a tactical perspective.
Chen Di was specially invited by Yin Feng to attend. At this time, his feelings were very complicated. He followed the Chinese army on an expedition to Manila. The scene of fighting mainly using firearms shocked him; as a student of Qi Jiguang, he never thought that Firearms can be used in combat in this way; and during this discussion, he was shocked by the active thinking and courage displayed by the escort officers. Chen Di was a general who had experienced hundreds of battles, not a scholar who talked about military affairs on paper. He personally After experiencing the strength of the escort, I knew that even if all the officers and soldiers from Fujian and Zhejiang came to fight the Battle of Penghu, they would have no chance at all when faced with the escort's sharp firearms, huge battleship cannon, and brand-new tactics.
This is an armed force that is completely different from any army in the Ming Empire, but it is not the army of the imperial court, but the army of Yin Feng, the army of the China Company. This is the thing that worries him the most.
He turned his eyes to the military cadets and sighed at a young student in the back row. The cadets had a disdainful expression on their face, which was obviously different from the expressions of the students around him. He seemed a little irritable. , absent-minded.
This young man named Chen Dagao is only seventeen years old this year. He is nominally Chen Di's nephew. He joined the military academy through Yin Feng's relationship. In fact, this young man was secretly arranged by Chen Di and Shen Yourong. , came here to learn the tactics of the escort. His real name was Yu Zigao, with the courtesy name Kemai. He was the son of Yu Dayou, a famous anti-Japanese general during the Jiajing period.
Yu Zigao himself was not willing to come here, but Chen Di was his father's colleague and disciple, the two families were family friends, and Shen Yourong was his boss, so he came to Taiwan reluctantly because of the kindness. He didn't think that He could learn nothing, and he didn't think the armed forces of the China Company were anything special. He only believed in the military books and tactics written by his father.
Chen Di looked at Yu Zigao's expression and sighed in disappointment. Yu Zigao was a typical dandy. In this world, there is not always such a thing as "a young man is better than a young man." Tiger fathers often produce dog sons.
During the intermission of the seminar, Lin Xiao quietly asked Yin Feng in the corner: "Captain, many things in this summary meeting should be confidential. Why did you call Chen Di and his nephew? I I think it’s also very suspicious, how can anyone from a military family have such white and supple palms?”
Yin Feng smiled: "What are you afraid of? They want to copy our Zhonghua Company's military organization, strategy and tactics, so let them try it... Don't be so anxious, you can send people to keep an eye on it, be careful not to alert the snake."
He patted Lin Xiao on the shoulder and said with a smile: "In fact, they have no chance to copy our practices; the current system of the imperial court cannot accommodate an all-firearms army. Unless the entire imperial court becomes our Chinese company, there will be no way for them to copy our practices. It is impossible to create an army like the Guards,"
Lin Xiao didn't understand Yin Feng's words, but he instinctively felt that there was something wrong with Chen Di and that military academy cadet Chen Dagao. Recently, there were many Chinese and foreign people of unknown origin in Taiwan and Hong Kong. He felt that there seemed to be countless people surging under the calm surface. Lin Xiao decided to monitor these two people around the clock starting tomorrow.
…
The summary of the second half will be a summary and discussion of the Battle of Manila. First, Yang Dacheng, a former farmer's son who first broke into the city of Manila, recounted the battle process. Yang Dacheng stammered and kept wiping his sweat. The people below Talking and laughing in a low voice, Yin Feng nodded encouragingly to Yang Dacheng and sat down with a smile. Suddenly, he felt that the chair seemed a little unstable, and then he felt the ground under his feet shaking slightly, and the torches and lights on the walls of the lobby The candles also started to shake...
Someone exclaimed: "The ground is shaking, an earthquake."
Yin Feng's mind suddenly flashed, and he suddenly remembered that in the history of another dimension of time and space, Quanzhou had indeed suffered a major earthquake in October 1607. He immediately jumped up and shouted: "The military students leave first, everyone leaves immediately Lobby,”
On October 18, 1607, that is, the 28th day of the eighth lunar month in the thirty-fifth year of Wanli's reign in the Ming Dynasty, a strong earthquake occurred in Quanzhou. A strong earthquake was also felt in the southern part of Taiwan Island. However, no houses collapsed and there were no casualties. However, subsequent earthquakes A sudden hurricane that followed the earthquake damaged more than a dozen merchant ships anchored in the port; more than a dozen warships in the warship fleet of Jingang were also damaged.
Zeng Ke, the eldest son of the Zeng family, has moved his family back to his old house in Quanzhou. The Huaxing joint store and the Zengjiahao store have reopened. The earthquake also caused a third of the Zeng family's old house to collapse, which was fatal. What happened was that hurricanes, heavy rains, and tidal waves came all at once. Quanzhou City turned into a hell on earth almost overnight. The government was completely helpless and had no choice. The war that lasted for nearly half a year at the beginning of the year consumed most of the grain savings in the official warehouses in southern Fujian. Now the Fujian government has no food to aid the disaster area in Quanzhou.
Yin Feng responded immediately and proposed to the outgoing governor Xu Xueju through the relationship between the Quanzhou prefect and the Zeng family that the Chinese company could provide money, food and personnel to rescue Quanzhou. At this time, Xu Xueju was busy pacifying the court and local people because of the Penghu battle. The censors attacked him, and they thought that he had lost the face of the court by arbitrarily advocating the use of force.
At this time, if there is another civil uprising caused by disaster in Quanzhou, Xu Xueju's political career may be over. He had no choice but to agree to Yin Feng's suggestion, so the Chinese United Company's warships and merchant ships carried a large number of Taiwanese Grain legitimately appeared in Quanzhou Bay.
The Zeng family took the opportunity to put forward a condition for a son of the Zeng family to serve as the Kinmen Inspection Department. The governor's Yamen agreed with little delay, so the China United Company opened a commercial store on Kinmen Island in the name of storing grain and supplies, and stationed itself there. A fleet of twenty warships, this is the first time that the Chinese United Company has legitimately gained a stronghold on an island close to the mainland.
Yin Feng didn't go too far at the beginning. All the grain and supplies were handed over to the Quanzhou government to prevent the court and censors from saying that he was buying people's hearts. As for how much grain the government could distribute to the victims, how much was embezzled by the officials. If it falls off, Yin Feng will have no way to control this problem.
He also rushed back to Quanzhou after the earthquake and personally escorted a batch of food and clothing into Quanzhou City. This disaster was really devastating. The Fuyi Gate of the Quanzhou Prefecture's Yamen collapsed and most of the schools were destroyed; the first mountain in Quanzhou was green. The Imperial Palace (i.e. Dongyue Temple) all collapsed; Quanzhou Qingjing Temple-Islamic Mosque was built in the Song Dynasty, nearly 600 years ago during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. It was also seriously damaged in this earthquake and became a dangerous building; Luoyang Bridge was damaged in this earthquake The northern bridge foundation sank four feet, several large stone beams were broken, the bridge piers tilted, and the water channel shifted. The damage was serious. It was the largest damage since the Luoyang Bridge was built. Most of the north gate tower of the Quanzhou City Wall collapsed. The city wall stretched from the northeast to the southwest and was almost completely destroyed.
During the Wanli period, Quanzhou City was about 30 miles around. The city wall was 2.6 feet high and the city base was 2.4 feet wide. There were 7 gates with gate towers on the gates and 140 huts. It was a magnificent building mostly built with granite. The city, such a strong building, collapsed in an earthquake. It is obvious that the earthquake was so strong. There was also the stone archway, a landmark building in Quanzhou at that time. It used to stand side by side and was very spectacular. It was all made of large granite tenons. They were connected one after another, and six of them overturned during the earthquake.
The government has no statistics on the number of casualties in the city. No one knows how many people have died. After Yin Feng entered the city, he saw dead bodies all over the ground with no one to deal with them. The injured were everywhere, and the homeless were starving. The government's relief was slow to arrive. , at this time Yin Feng couldn't bear it anymore. He ignored Zeng Ke's persuasion and ordered the escort team to send more than 2,000 people to land in Quanzhou to transport food and rescue people.
At this time, the area around Quanzhou was in chaos. This force landed in Quanzhou with a large amount of supplies, and there was no one to stop it.
At this time, Shen Yourong had been promoted to Zhejiang Staff General and was preparing to take up his post in Fuzhou. After his Wuyu Water Village was burned down by the Chinese Company a few months ago, he had moved to Shihu. The new General Commander Zhu Wenda His cronies were busy entertaining guests in Fuzhou at this time. There were almost no officers and soldiers in the entire Quanzhou area capable of fighting. Therefore, the escort team appeared on the mainland for the first time without any hindrance. It was purely for disaster relief.
Yin Feng is a warm-hearted person with an impulsive character. Otherwise, he would not have rushed to Manila to save people. His move attracted criticism from the entire Fujian government. Some censors directly complained to the court and accused him of intending to rebel. However, he In order to save people, I can't worry about so much anymore.
The escort team entered Quanzhou City and carried out rescue operations in separate areas. It was already the tenth day after the earthquake, and most of the survivors who were still alive were about to starve to death. This strange and well-disciplined army gave the Quanzhou victims a The first thing that comes to mind is that of "saviors". Not only do they not plunder and disturb the people like ordinary officers and soldiers, but they also come to save the people from fire and water. Many of the soldiers are also from Quanzhou, so they have a close relationship with the local people. The escort team has a close relationship with the people. Although no one in the organization had experience in rescuing major disasters, it was their instinct to act according to orders, so the step-by-step rescue work was quickly launched.