On the banks of the Songhua River in early June, there was a gentle breeze, flowers were in bloom, and the trees were dense and green.
Pieces of taupe and earthy gray are mixed with flowers on the banks of the Songhua River, which looks very disharmonious. There are more than ten thousand Jurchen Eight Banners, Mongolian Horqin, and Chahar cavalry crossing the river.
Suddenly, a series of explosions resounded in the jungle. The artillery brigade task force of the Chinese Army, which had been ambushing here for a long time, launched a rapid fire. Among the Mongolian cavalry and Eight Banners soldiers gathered on the riverside, fireballs and fireballs continued to rise. Smoke and explosive grenades blew up piles of cavalry.
In the dense meadows and jungles, groups of Chinese cavalry suddenly appeared. They formed a team of ten, shouted and rushed towards the Mongolian and Manchu Eight Banners coalition forces that were crossing the Songhua River. This was the main force of the Chinese cavalry brigade. , 6,000 cavalry rushed to the Songhua River in groups.
A battalion of the Second Regiment of the Second Division of the Chinese Army, which had been lying in wait for a day and night in a pit on the opposite bank, suddenly appeared on the edge of the river bank bushes and set up a manual rapid-fire machine gun "Lightning Cell Gun" to shoot at the enemy troops crossing the river.
This was a textbook, typical half-crossing attack. Zheng Zhihu, the deputy commander of the Second Regiment of the Chinese Army who commanded the battle, was personally operating a rapid-fire gun.
The Mongolian offensive on the Liaodong March Road has been temporarily suspended. On the northwest front of Liaodong, the Chinese army has shifted to a defensive posture. However, the success of this ambush along the Songhua River was the result of Zhao Tie's planning and Zheng Zhihu's bold breakthrough. , the unprepared Eight Jurchen Banners and the Eastern Mongolian tribal coalition were defeated. They were defeated by Zheng Zhihu for the second time on the banks of the Songhua River. Not only did they lose the last few thousand elites of the Jurchen Eight Banners, but tens of thousands of Mongolian tribesmen were dispersed. More than 10,000 horses and camels were captured by Zheng Zhihu. It was impossible for the Jurchens and Mongolian Tatars to come back in a short period of time.
On the same day, Yan Siqi finally assembled the main force of the Fifth Division at Andong Lian Castle and began to cross the Yalu River and enter the Kingdom of Korea.
In the first two days, under the escort of two battleships and more than ten cruisers of the Beiyang Fleet, more than ten Fuzhou ships carried the foreign mercenary regiment, the Ryukyu Independent Battalion and two infantry battalions of the Fifth Division. About 2,500 people set out from Lushunkou Crossed the sea to the mouth of the Datong River to rescue the besieged Chinese troops stationed in North Korea. Three days after Yan Siqi led his troops across the Yangtze River, the vanguard had reached Ping'an, the Yellow Sea, Gangwon, and Gyeonggi Province in North Korea. It was controlled by the North Korean coup army a few months ago. At this time, many so-called "Loyal and Righteous Army" volunteers were already operating in this area, attacking Han immigrant villages and industries owned by Chinese companies everywhere. Yan Siqi ordered a killing spree, clearing the way with iron blood and fire. On the seventh day after crossing the Yalu River, the forwards of the Fifth Division had arrived in the north of Pyongyang. Behind them and on both sides of the road were hundreds of miles of ruins with burning flames and thick smoke, and a no-man's land stretching for hundreds of miles.
At about the same time, the Ming army in western Liaoning marched north to the Liaohe River. At the beginning of the third year of Tianqi, Wang Huazhen became the governor of Liaodong. He had great differences with Xiong Tingbi, who advocated a defensive strategy. From February onwards, Wang Huazhen set up six battalions along the Liaohe River, each with a staff general. One person, two guards, plan the territory, set up troops to guard Xiping, Zhenwu, Liuhe, Panshan and other castles.
In May, Wang Huazhen transferred out of Guangning, and Luyang's garrison gathered at Xipingbao, led by Zu Dashou, and joined the general Qi Bingzhong and Xiong Tingbi's general Liu Qu. There were about 60,000 Ming troops in total, preparing to attack the west to attack China. What stood in front of them were more than 2,200 Chinese army defenders in the Xiningbao Fortress area on the west bank of the Liao River. Among them were two battalions of the First Division directly under Zhao Tie, one battalion of the artillery brigade, and the Liaodong militia formed by locals. The battalion has five 36-pound bronze cannons, thirty-five other cannons of various types, fifteen lightning strike honeycomb guns, grenades and countless mines in the arsenal. In addition, there are two cavalry units directly under the old battalion of the First Division. About 200 Mongolian cavalry were stationed here and went out every day to inquire about the military situation, reaching as far as Xiping Fort where the Ming army was stationed.
The troops under the Chinese Army's Liaodong Road Marching Commander were suddenly required to deal with a three-front battle. The troops were really empty. Zhao Tie, the Liaodong Marching Road Commander, had to order the main force of the Lu Xiaotian Cavalry Brigade to give up chasing and annihilating the remaining Eight Banners and go south to support the Liaohe River.
The troops along the line were fighting. At the same time, Zhao Tie, who lacked mobile troops on hand, requested support from the Jiangnan Theater.
When Xu Guangqi and more than 30 imperial envoys of the Ming Dynasty boarded the ship at Jinshan Guard and went to sea, they happened to encounter the troops of the Fourth Division boarding there and heading north to support Liaodong. Even Luo Quanxiu also left Jiangnan and boarded a communication ship a few days ago to go ahead.
Lushunkou is here, a truce has been declared along the Yangtze River, and the Chinese Army has evacuated from Wuchang and other places. The Chinese Army and the Yangtze River above Zhenjiang must evacuate. Of course, there are many people who have followed the Chinese Army to evacuate. Chinese companies are in various places along the Yangtze River.
Many craftsmen and technicians were recruited on a large scale, and a large number of landless refugees also followed the Chinese army and planned to immigrate overseas: the Chinese company advertised that as long as they were willing to farm overseas, each person could be allocated forty acres of land, and every household
A maximum of 200 acres of land could be allocated, which immediately attracted hundreds of thousands of people to follow the Chinese army.
On the sea outside Jinshanwei, the main force of the Fourth Division of more than 6,000 people is being sent into hundreds of large sailing ships. Most of these ships are ordinary blessing ships and sand ships, which are large civilian sailing ships temporarily recruited.
Among them, there were also several large Portuguese Galenic ships. These ships had just delivered a batch of Western goods to the south of the Yangtze River and were immediately requisitioned by the Chinese army.
Numerous human-powered winch cranes and several conveyor belts made of cowhide have been erected on Jinshanwei Beach, and piles of munitions are being efficiently transported onto the ship.
Many of the large merchant ships belonging to the wealthy merchants in the south of the Yangtze River came from the Zhonghua Company Shipyard and were on the trade sea route to Luzon, Malacca and Banten. Therefore, Chen Zhongji spared no expense and did everything possible to recruit a large number of civilian ships, not even fishing boats.
Let it go, finally managed to get enough ships, and planned to transport the main force of the Fourth Division to North Korea at once.
The largest battleship in the Taiwan fleet, the "Longxiang", will transport the imperial envoys of the Ming Dynasty to Taiwan. Accompanying them is the escort task force composed of the 10th and 5th Squadrons. The fleet admiral is Lieutenant Colonel Liu Xiang.
The keel of the "Long Xiang" is made of very rare Guangdong iron wood, and cast iron fasteners are added. Its length, width, height and displacement of the hull rank first in the Chinese Navy fleet.
Xu Guangqi and others didn't feel much at the Jinshanwei Pier. When they arrived at the "Longxiang" in a rowing boat, they couldn't help being surprised. Seeing this huge ship as big as a floating city, they couldn't believe themselves.
s eyes.
Zeng Yue, who was accompanying him, smiled and said: "I'm really surprised. Don't tell me about you. I was also surprised when I saw this giant ship for the first time."
Chen Zhongji dealt with the complicated situation after the armistice in Jiangnan. Zeng Yue and Mai Dahai were the only ones accompanying the Ming Dynasty imperial envoy. Of course, the number of Military Intelligence personnel who had been secretly observing and monitoring the Ming Dynasty imperial envoy did not decrease.
The imperial envoys of the Ming Dynasty have been shocked to the point of numbness by numerous strange and strange things these days. Therefore, when they were taken aboard the "Longxiang", they all consciously followed the Chinese army leaders to the back deck, without looking around like curious babies.
The only exception was Yuan Chonghuan, the chief of the Staff Department of the Ministry of War, who was the most restless of all the imperial envoys of the Ming Dynasty. The "Long Xiang" had not yet raised its sails and set sail. In the blink of an eye, he was busy entertaining the Ming Dynasty in the captain's cabin in the back cabin.
The imperial envoy's warship sailors discovered that Chief Yuan Chonghuan was missing.
The personnel of the Military Intelligence Department immediately became nervous and quickly sent people to search everywhere. Finally, when they were lifting anchor and raising the sail, they found Mr. Yuan, the head of the Staff Department of the Ministry of War, on the front deck.
Yuan Chonghuan was watching the crew weighing anchor at the bow of the ship, and even joined in the fun to help. Zeng Rui, who was dressed as a sailor, had a headache: "It's such a headache. I really don't know what this guy is thinking."
He said to several of his men: "Keep your eyes open and keep an eye on this guy. Don't let him get into trouble again."
…
Although the Longxiang is almost half the size of the Feilong, because the rated number of personnel on board has reached 430, and the return to Taiwan this time, the crew and sailors all carried a lot of trophies, plus the temporary boarding More than 80 trainee sailors from the Naval Branch of the Military Academy and nearly 40 members of the imperial envoy were recruited, causing the space on the Longxiang to be extremely crowded.
When the ship arrived in the East China Sea, there were strong winds and waves for several days, and it was dark and dark everywhere. Yuan Chonghuan and others also lost their ability to move and kept vomiting in their cabins. Except for Xu Guangqi and a few others, almost none of the imperial envoys had any experience in traveling at sea. Everyone suffered from collective seasickness, especially Sheng Yihong, who was on a sea-going ship for the first time in his life. He vomited for several days in a row and almost ran out of green bile. When the sea calmed down a few days later, almost all the Ming Dynasty envoys lost weight. After walking around for a while, Sheng Yihong lay on the bed and refused to get up. He swore never to go to sea by boat again. Jin Yiwei Qianhu Zhang Ye kindly reminded him: After the negotiation, he still had to take a sea boat to return to the capital from Taiwan Island. Sheng Yihong regretted it and was very dissatisfied with Xu Guangqi.
Yuan Chonghuan recovered quickly and quickly adapted to sailing at sea. The crew of the Longxiang came from various coastal provinces, many of them were from Guangdong, and they were fellow villagers with Yuan Chonghuan. Although their identities were different, Yuan Chonghuan put down his dignity, worked hard, and The sailors were still able to talk about going together, and soon he began to wander around energetically again, making friends with the crew, asking questions, and asking about everything of interest.
Zeng Rui had been secretly monitoring him. At first, he thought he was just out of curiosity. Later, he gradually discovered that Master Yuan was very interested in the cannons on the ship. When chatting with the crew, he would always mention the cannons intentionally or unintentionally. Moreover, Yuan Chonghuan also twice tried to sneak into the gun cabin below the deck, but was stopped by sailors on guard both times.
Xu Guangqi has long been experienced in sea travel life, so he quickly adapted to it. During this time, he has been asking Shi Daxuan, the captain of the Longxiang, for some navigation guidance issues.
Colonel Shi Daxuan was promoted due to his meritorious service during the Jiangnan Campaign. He had just been transferred from the "Feilong" to the "Longxiang" as captain.