...The sound of cannons gradually stopped. The fog and gunpowder gradually dissipated on the wide Yangtze River surface.
Ye Hua, the commander of the Second Fleet of the Chinese Navy and deputy chief of the Navy, looked at the map in the command cabin of his flagship Feiyun. The messenger rushed over and reported loudly in a slightly nervous tone: "Report. The enemy uses a The fireboat is here.”
"What are you panic..." Ye Hua murmured and walked to the front window. He raised his telescope and looked at the river in front.
This area is the widest river near Anqing Prefecture. The main battleship of the Second Navy Fleet, Feiyun (three-layer gun cabin, 80 guns), carried twenty three-masted gunboats and more than 80 modified flat-bottomed sand ships. .From Wuhu to attack Anqing, the geographical location of Anqing is very important and has considerable strategic significance. The gains and losses of Anqing are related to the overall situation of Huainan. If the official army wants to recover Jinling, this place is a must-fight place.
Zhang Heming, the Minister of War of Nanjing, has not been discouraged since his defeat in the suburbs of Suzhou. He tried his best to transfer troops from the surrounding areas to win a game. When Ye Hua's fleet raided Anqing, he happened to supervise the construction of warships in Anqing Mansion. That morning. A few naval warships were sunk by Chinese gunboats as soon as the war began.
Zhang Heming didn't understand water war at all. He just wanted to imitate the Battle of Chibi. He had already ordered the collection of all fishing boats, ferries and sailboats not yet built in Anqing Prefecture. He gathered on the Anqing River. He originally planned to go along the river when he was about to go. Those who went down to attack Nanjing now ordered the official army to pull all these ships onto the river surface and burn them to let the fire ships float downstream to the Chinese fleet.
The Chinese navy has fire ship attacks in daily training: However, Chinese military ships need to be controlled by bold sailors. They only light up the enemy warships after approaching the enemy warships. Sometimes they have to hit the enemy ships with artillery fire. The sailors who operated the fire jumped into the sea to escape. The official army could not find a sailor who dared to risk his life to operate the sailboat under enemy artillery fire. They had to ignite the fireboat from a distance and cut off the cables and let them drift along the water. It is impossible to bump into or ignite enemy ships. It depends entirely on luck.
Ye Hua saw a fire on the river surface soaring into the sky. A line of fire slowly flowed downstream. He couldn't help but sneer: "What's the use? It's just a waste of wood."
He ordered the mobilization of flat-bottomed sand ships to move forward. Using their ability to move flexibly on the shallow and gentle river bottom, destroying those fire ships with artillery fire. Each sand ship carries sandbags and hangs around the ship's side to prevent collisions and fire. And prepare for The iron-pointed bamboo pole used to resist the fire ship's operation. The rest of the warships began to turn their rudders and slowly retreated to make room for the movement between the sand ship and the fire ship.
Zhang Heming, General Anqing and the government troops from Huguang gathered on the bank of the river. He watched the fireboat flow downstream with hope. Balls of flames burned on the water. Smoke and gun smoke filled the entire river. Soon It makes it impossible to see anything on the entire river surface. Because the speed of downstream is too slow. Those fire ships often burn and sink while burning. Before they can attack the enemy, they destroy themselves first.
The sound of artillery bombardment from the Chinese naval warships was constantly heard in the thick smoke. From time to time, a few huge explosions were heard. Several rockets that could fly too far fell on the water in front of the river bank where the officials gathered. They exploded in groups of people. Fire.
The sound of cannons gradually faded, and thick smoke was still spreading on the river. About an hour later, the prefect of Anqing, Jiang Fang couldn't help it. He carefully approached Zhang Heming and asked in a low voice: "Mr. Zhang, most of these pirates are It's gone to ashes."
"Ah." Before he finished speaking, Zhang Shangshu took a step back. The surrounding generals, soldiers, and officials from Anqing Palace all screamed in surprise.
On the surface of the Yangtze River, a sand ship with a blue-bottomed middle-flag rushes out of thick smoke. Except for the place where the whole body is blackened by fireworks, it rushed towards Anqing Mansion intact.
More Chinese naval warships rushed out of the smoke. They fired cannons while rushing towards the river bank. Several solid iron bullets knocked over a large area of the government troops gathered by the river.
"Escape." The official army shouted. Everyone turned around and ran to Anqing City. The Minister of War Zhang Heming was pale and was erected by his personal soldiers. He was dragged and pulled into the city.
That night, some of the official troops abandoned the city and left. Anqing City was in chaos. The Minister of War Zhang Heming could not control the troops and had to open the city to escape.
Ye Hua's nephew Ye Ying led 1,000 sailors and musketeers to attack Anqing City at night. It turned out that the water gate of the city wall was opened. The official army had given up the city and fled overnight. Anqing City fell into the hands of the Chinese army. From this, Nanzhi The two political centers under the jurisdiction of Nanjing Yingtian Prefecture and Anqing Prefecture have been all controlled by the Chinese Army. In the controlled area, the Chinese Army established the Nanjing Governor's garrison office to govern dozens of cities.
...
After Yin Feng sent Yang Tingyun and Li Zhizao away that day, he met with Liu Zongzhou, a master of Neo-Confucianism, and Xia Yunyi, a famous scholar in Jiangnan.
Compared with Yang Li, two figures with profound vision and broad minds, these two reflect the sarcastic and mean, inhumane, and blindly sing the principles of supremeness. The Chinese claim to be mediocre , Tai Chi. But when it comes to extremes, it is not weaker than Westerners at all. Westerners like to go to extremes in religion, while Chinese people go to extremes in morality. The nature is actually similar.
Liu Zongzhou's trip was very much like carrying a coffin to curse the thief. He came up and scolded Yin Feng for being ruthless. Advocating business was to deceive people, and opening up the sea ban was to collude with foreigners to shake the foundation of the country. Yin Feng was called a wonderful name by him. He was patient and polite. Debate. Liu Zongzhou criticized his "Six Oaths" in a perfect way. Especially those parts that restrict imperial power: they cannot collect taxes at will, they cannot arrest people at will, and abolish purchasing and levying, etc.
Yin Feng asked him: "Confucius said that harsh government is more powerful than tigers. People in Donglin also said that mining taxation will harm the country and the people. Why can't we ask the court to establish regulations on "not levying taxes at will"?"
Liu Zongzhou stood in the middle of the room. From the beginning, he took his seat resolutely. He shouted at the top of his voice: "Shi Renzheng is the business of the Holy Lord. Just wait for the merchants and the people to be grateful..."
"What you mean. Benevolent government is the gift of the emperor. It is natural for subjects to pay taxes."
Yin Feng was a time traveler. In any case, he could not understand the views of these scribes on taxation and charity. In Yin Feng's era, the theory of relations between countries and peoples that came from the West was popular: the king wanted to tax the people. The consent of the people must be obtained first. Consent must be obtained. The purpose of the taxation must be explained first. Whether it represents the interests of the people. Therefore, issues such as "common interests", "common needs", and "common consent" are in the king and the people. Discussions and arguments gradually became clear and certain concepts and theories were formed. But in this era, the Ming Dynasty in China, in people's concepts, tax payment is natural. This is the case with the emperor, officials, and subjects. Therefore, .Not only do subjects not question the rationality of tax collection, question what rights they should enjoy in it, etc. Even those well-educated and highly qualified who criticize "harsh governments are more powerful than tigers", speak out for their subjects, and even ask for their destiny for their people. The officials would not think there was any problem here either.
Yin Feng felt that discussing political, economic, national and people's rights with people like Liu Zongzhou was completely a talk with him. There would be no result at all. He didn't want to take action against this nerd and fulfill his willingness to make his name for himself. Yin Feng said bluntly: "Since we, the Taiwanese businessmen, can conquer Nanjing, and it is no problem to seize the world. I have been in trouble for more than 200 years in the founding of the court. The people suffered from chaos in the world. So I thought about discussing peace with the court. .If you are just tough and force me to go to a dead end. Then all the jades and stones are burned, I will not care. Mr. Liu, you don’t need to say much to me. Go and talk to the millions of fishermen along the coast and go to Taiwan. Wanjun and civilians go and say it. See if they can listen to your persuasion and voluntarily put down their weapons and surrender to the court. Do you think this is possible?"
Liu Zongzhou and other Mingwei Confucian scholars. The greatest ability is to get stuck in the empty theories of "geography" and "human hearts". Once you encounter a need to solve real problems, you will be at a loss. The so-called "usually speaking, you will be at a loss." At the moment, you will "repay the king with one death". You cannot come up with anything effective in solving specific affairs.
Yin Feng didn't even want to hear Xia Yunyi's words. He waved his hand and asked his personal guard to drive the two away. After Liu Zongzhou's conversation, and his investigation and research in Jiangnan these days, Yin Feng had a new understanding of the scholar class at this time.
Indeed, as Zeng Qi said, just ignore them. In any case, it is difficult to make these literati say good things about Chinese companies and agree with the rule of Chinese companies. But is it necessary to rely on them to govern Jiangnan? Zeng Qi said: "Don't pay attention to them. Just don't have the same knowledge as them... As long as we can demonstrate our abilities in military and civil governance, these literati will come to rely on us."
Zeng Qi brought dozens of his own students and more than 100 interns from Taiwan. It was not enough to be in charge of the government affairs of dozens of prefectures and counties in the south of the Yangtze River. Therefore, the Chinese Army was publicly held in the name of Nanjing's garrison. Recruiting officials was beyond Zeng Qi and Yin Feng's expectations. Many scholars took the initiative to come out to apply, hoping to enjoy the official enjoyment under the rule of the Chinese company. Although the Chinese military disclosed the notice in advance that the guard office was exposed. Officials need to strictly abide by laws. However, a large number of scholars still flocked to them. Some people also wanted to take shortcuts and came to Nanjing Yinfeng’s old camp. The famous essays asked Yin Feng to receive could pile up into small hills every day.
In this way, the lack of management personnel needed in the Jiangnan control area was somewhat successfully solved. These locally recruited civil servants, under the supervision and management of administrative personnel from Taiwan, finally operated the administrative agency of the Nanjing garrison office.
By the end of this year, Yin Feng was no longer interested in finding ways to win the support of the Chinese company's rule: as long as the Chinese army has strong military strength, scholars and scholars will naturally come to serve. As long as they are given hope to become officials. They don’t care who the ruler is. Of course, there are many literati like Liu Zongzhou who talk about the solar terms. However, the literati class trained under the imperial examination system, except for a few geniuses who learned without teachers. They resisted the uprising that required practical experience. The great cause would not be done at all. In other words, the literati of this period were basically not proficient in everything that needed to operate practical matters. They were worried that they could cause trouble for the rule of the Chinese army. They were purely asking for trouble. What they needed to worry about was .These scribes will cause trouble in the peace talks between the Chinese company and the imperial court.
Therefore, except for continuing to attack the court in politics and military affairs, Yin Feng believed that there was no other way and could force the court to negotiate with him.
The attack on Anqing was the beginning of further military operations of the Chinese army. In fact, it was already winter. The wind direction on the sea had changed. It was difficult to transport Taiwan's logistics supplies. The number of troops participating in military operations on the southern front was actually smaller than when the war started. Because of a battalion of Li Xing's Third Division, the indigenous troops of Taiwan in Luzon have been transferred back to Taiwan. They are preparing to go to Luzon to suppress the joint rebellion between the indigenous and Japanese people.
However, in this case, the Chinese army launched an attack and captured Anqing in one fell swoop. The Chinese army opened an arsenal in Nanjing City, making full use of the original craftsmen in the city and producing arms in Nanjing City. At the same time, the Chinese army also suppressed the The "fighting" and other underworlds in Suzhou, Songjiang and other places were recruited into local farmers. The number of people was still large. There were already four or five thousand people.
The government and court also knew a lot about the situation in the Chinese military ruling area due to the merchants' exchanges.
But Nanjing's manager Zhang Heming was really powerless.
The southern troops were constantly being drawn north to deal with the attack on the northern front of the Chinese army. In the face of the small-scale attacks of the Chinese army in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Taihu Lake Basin, Zhang Heming, Xiong Tingbi and others were also unable to deal with it. They retreated step by step. At this time, they still had no choice but to deal with it. There were riots and riots among the people in Sichuan, Jiangxi and other places. The troops originally used to recover Nanjing had to divide their troops to suppress them. Therefore, the court officials, officers and others in the Jiangnan area were unanimously inclined to recruit the Chinese army.
They jointly requested court pacification. This is an obvious fact: the Chinese army cannot be beaten, but they still occupied Jiangnan. Not long after, I am afraid that the entire Jiangnan would no longer be named Zhu.
After all, these southern bureaucrats are politicians who have been through political vortex for a long time. They are not nerds like Liu Zongzhou.
Ye Xianggao and other officials and gentry in the villages in Jiangnan also wrote letters together, asking the court to recruit appeasements. Some of them were infringed on their own economic interests because of the war. Some of them saw the threat of the Chinese army. The officials, gentry, and landlords suppressed by the Chinese army. After all, the number of people was relatively large. Although there are still many relatives, friends and fellow villagers who oppose the pacification, the number of officials in the court has gradually increased.
Yin Feng received information from Beijing in time and decided to add fuel to the fire. On the first day of the New Year in the 46th year of Wanli, he issued an announcement: In order to express his sincerity in peace talks, the Chinese army will withdraw troops from Beijing and Tianjin.