weaving

Chapter 1237 Fear of Insufficient Firepower

As for supporting and assisting Sun Chuanting, the final policy was to do so in the form of loans.

First of all, the Yongyi Army can lend troops to Sun Chuanting, about one thousand to three thousand men, no more, so as not to affect the overall strategy of suppressing bandits in Henan Province. However, Sun Chuanting only has the right to command, and the power to control the troops must be controlled by the Yongyi Army headquarters.

Secondly, military supplies such as armor, weapons, muskets, cannons, chariots, gunpowder and cannonballs can only be sold, not loaned out or given away for free. However, they can be partially purchased on credit, with five years of tax revenue for the entire province of Shaanxi as collateral. The remaining balance should be paid off in proportion within three years, otherwise the Yongyi Army will enter Shaanxi to collect taxes.

Next, as for silver, if Sun Chuanting needs it, he can borrow it, and the interest rate can be negotiated; however, food and fodder cannot be borrowed and can only be sold to him, Sun Chuanting, and the same applies to other kinds of supplies.

Finally, and most importantly, a point that must be made clear in advance is that Sun Chuanting should reach an agreement with the Yongyi Army in the name of the Governor-General of the Three Borders of Shaanxi, and in addition to his governor's seal, the final agreement document must also have the seals of the Shaanxi Governor and the Provincial Governor for it to take effect.

The above four basic principles should be considered a very fair cooperation agreement from the perspective of modern people.

However, in an era like the late Ming Dynasty when Confucianism and Taoism were prevalent and wars were constant, some people who claimed to be moral role models might regard this as taking advantage of the situation.

  However, the initiative is now in Zhang Cheng's hands. Even if Sun Chuanting is so arrogant and conceited, what can he do?

As the saying goes, "A penny can make a hero fall", Sun Chuanting wants to realize his ambitions, but how can he do so without soldiers, money and food? And now the only one who can help him is Zhang Cheng, the Earl of Yongning.

After all, although the Ming Dynasty was large, the only force that had strong soldiers, military equipment, and money and food was the Yongyi Army led by Yongning Earl Zhang Cheng.

The rest are like Wu Sangui in Liaodong. Although he is also known as a powerful faction, he only has tens of thousands of Liao troops under his command, which is not necessarily stronger than the Yongyi Army. Moreover, he also relies on the court for money, food, and military equipment. How can he have the spare energy to support Sun Chuanting?

  Furthermore, the Zheng family in Fujian was also a powerful faction, but they were pirates after all, and Sun Chuanting had no connections with them, let alone friendship. Moreover, as a governor, how could he condescend to ask for an island?

Therefore, after all the calculations, among the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the entire Ming Dynasty, Sun Chuanting is the only one left to be sought!

…………

Yongning Earl Zhang Cheng first received Wu Youxing, a famous doctor in the Ming Dynasty, and Zheng Zhibao, the representative of the Zheng Group, an important guest from Fujian.

And the most important guest, who is still waiting for his reply in the central military camp of Yongning Earl in Xinchengji, is the new governor-general of Shaanxi and the Three Borders, Sun Chuanting, also known as the Great Governor-General Sun.

But the two thieves Chuang and Cao would not wait until he finished his work before launching a military attack, so although it seemed calm from Xinchengji, the fighting in the front was actually extremely fierce.

On May 22, Yongning Earl Zhang Chengcai met with Zheng Zhibao. While they were talking in the big tent, the Daguantou camp of the Yongyi Army in the southeast was being bathed in heavy artillery fire from the Chuang Army.

The most ferocious firepower was in the West Camp commanded by Tang Xiancheng, deputy general of the Tengshe Camp. The Chuang army had the largest number of artillery deployed on this side, almost all of Zhang Nai's firearms camp's artillery, deployed on this side.

Although, Tang Xiancheng had followed the deployment of the Yongyi Army Headquarters and Tengshe Camp Commander Wei Zhice and had loosened the soil near the garrison cave in advance to avoid ricochets as much as possible.

In addition to loosening the soil around the chariots and baggage carts, a large number of soil baskets and sand bags were placed to prevent ricocheting bullets from damaging the chariots and baggage carts.

You should know that there are three troops deployed in the West Camp, including only one infantry, one chariot and one baggage cart. Needless to say, the chariots are privately called artillery carts by the officers and soldiers of the Yongyi Army.

If the baggage carts of the Yongyi Army were placed in other barracks, they would probably be no less powerful than their chariots, and even more ferocious than the chariots of other camps.

From a manufacturing perspective, the materials used for the chariots and baggage carts of the Yongyi Army are the same. The main differences lie in size, accessories, and artillery. The chariots are slightly smaller but thicker, and are equipped with fenders. The artillery is also one size larger than that of the baggage carts.

Therefore, the baggage carts of the Yongyi Army were as sturdy as the chariots and could withstand fire from muskets. Like the chariots, they were also equipped with two cannons. Their advantage was that they were larger than the chariots, so they could carry more. Their disadvantage was that they were not equipped with standard baffles, and their cannons were also smaller than those of the chariots and could not reach as far.

As a person who has experienced this from later generations, Zhang Cheng suffers from a common problem among Chinese people of that era – fear of insufficient firepower!

…………

When he first arrived at the Ming Empire, which was like a parallel world, Zhang Cheng found that his status was too low. He had neither territory nor money. So he could only choose to endure humiliation, forge ahead, and accumulate his strength bit by bit.

Now, he has become the number one warlord of the Ming Empire. Although the word "warlord" is very taboo in the outside world and some people occasionally mention it in private, no one dares to talk about it openly, especially the officials at all levels of the dynasty, who are even more silent about it.

But their not mentioning it doesn't mean Zhang Cheng won't do it. Now he is the commander-in-chief of Xuanzhen in the Ming Empire, and holds the title of Earl of Yongning. He has already controlled the main military forces of the three towns of Xuan and Da, and the commerce of the three towns has also been basically integrated.

Together with the various industrial workshop groups in Xuanzhen where Zhang Cheng has been deeply cultivating, the Yongyi Army has become the largest armed group in the Ming Empire. It is independent of the central government in all aspects such as military, politics, economy, and agriculture, and can even independently maintain all expenses of the Yongyi Army.

This may be the core of what makes people all over the world taboo. An armed force that is so powerful that it is almost invincible in the world does not need financial support from the central government. Then, he can serve the central government today, and overthrow this central government in name only tomorrow.

It's not that no one in the Ming court noticed this, but Zhang Cheng always showed himself to be very loyal to the Ming emperor. He listened to orders and followed instructions. Wherever Emperor Chongzhen pointed, Zhang Cheng would fight there, and he never disobeyed orders.

Moreover, there were rumors in the martial arts world that he had presented as much as one million taels of silver to Emperor Chongzhen. This could almost be regarded as the world's largest bribery case, which made them all silent. For a while, they could not see how the situation was developing, and no one dared to step forward to point out the seriousness of the matter.

  But even though the great Ming Dynasty was already on the verge of collapse, there was no shortage of loyal and righteous people. Naturally, Emperor Chongzhen mentioned the matter of Zhang Cheng. However, the embarrassment of the court was that it had to use Zhang Cheng at this moment, because there were still the Jianzhou Tartars in Liaodong and many bandits in the interior, especially Li Zicheng who was rumored to be pretending to be the emperor!

Therefore, the idea they gave to Emperor Chongzhen was to first try to limit the further expansion of Zhang Cheng's power, and at the same time try to support other forces so that they could restrain Zhang Cheng's power.

  In this way, their various forces can check and balance each other so that they can always be used by the court!

But this move played right into Zhang Cheng's hands. He always adhered to the basic principle of "making a fortune in silence". On the one hand, he obeyed the court's orders and military orders, and on the other hand, he secretly made plans to develop his own allies and strengthen his own strength.

………… Zhang Nai’s firearms battalion had nearly 200 artillery pieces of various sizes. Except for six artillery pieces deployed in front of the north and south camps, the rest were all concentrated in front of the west camp at the critical juncture.

In front of the "Shan Ziying" camp of the Chuang army, there were artillery pieces lined up in a row. Because there were so many artillery pieces, they were actually lined up in two rows. Especially in the middle position, there were three rows of artillery pieces.

In front of the artillery array, the Chuang army also dug trenches and built low earth walls to prevent the Yongyi Army in the critical moment from launching a sneak attack. After all, their artillery was hard-earned.

Only a small part of the artillery of the Chuang army was cast by themselves, while most of them came from the spoils of defeating the Ming army.

Although there seem to be many artillery pieces, they are actually of different sizes and are very troublesome to operate. A group of artillerymen can only operate one artillery piece because the caliber of each artillery piece is different. This leads to great differences in the charging. If you are not familiar with the artillery piece, rash operation can easily cause the barrel to explode.

At the same time, the artillery casting technology of the Chuang Army was slightly insufficient, which resulted in the artillery they cast being obviously insufficient in power. Of course, there was indeed a big gap compared with the Yongyi Army, but if compared with other official armies of the Ming Dynasty, they were much stronger than them.

Just like the artillery pieces captured by the rebel army, in fact, the number was far greater than this, but after selection, only about a hundred pieces of artillery could still be used, the rest were almost waste and could only be recycled.

However, these inferior artillery pieces were still the powerful weapons that the Chuang army was proud of. Ding Qirui, Zuo Liangyu and their army of hundreds of thousands were completely helpless under the bombardment of these artillery pieces and finally had to abandon their camp and flee.

However, the powerful weapons that they had always been proud of did not seem so powerful in front of the Yongyi Army. Artillery shells were fired one after another, but there was no other movement except layers of sand and dust raised in front of the West Camp of Daguantou.

"Hey, Master Zhang, did we fire the cannon incorrectly?"

Faced with Tong Shoushan's question, Zhang Nai didn't know how to answer for a moment. His heart was full of doubts. He muttered in confusion: "Something is wrong. Why can't I see even the shadow of a person?"

"Master Zhang, why don't we stop for a moment and see what's going on? These gunpowder shells weren't blown by the wind, so we shouldn't waste them."

"General Tong means... the government troops are running away?"

"It's hard to say, but it's not impossible."

Tong Shoushan's face was also full of doubts, and he continued: "Even Lao Zuo was driven away by our artillery. I don't believe that the government troops on the other side can be stronger than Lao Zuo?"

Zhang Nai looked hesitant and asked, "What about Mr. Liu?"

Tong Shoushan scratched his chin when he heard this and said, "Well... Young Master Zhang, let the brothers rest for a while. We can send some people to fill the trenches and see how the government troops react before we make any decisions."

Zhang Nai then nodded, turned around and ordered the artillery to stop firing. On the other side, Tong Shoushan also issued a military order, ordering Xiao Yunshan to lead the soldiers of the left camp to force more than a thousand servants to fill the trenches.

  Looking at the crowd of people approaching in front of him, Tong Shoushan was filled with doubts!

In his impression, the Xuanfu army has never lacked artillery. Even if they don't have the red cannon like Zhang Nai's Firearm Battalion, they should at least have artillery that can shoot two miles away. Why didn't they fight back under the bombardment of the Firearm Battalion?

"This doesn't make sense!"

Tong Shoushan was full of questions and looked nervously at the servants and hungry civilians who were rushing to fill the trenches in front of him. Zhang Nai, who was standing by, saw that he was so nervous and thought that he was worried about Xiao Yunshan and other soldiers. He couldn't help but praise him in his heart, "He really loves his soldiers like his own sons. No wonder the Shanzi Camp supports him so much."

Soon, nearly ten passages were filled out in the first trench in front, each of which was about ten feet wide, enough for the army to pass through.

"Really no one here?"

Zhang Nai heard Tong Shoushan talking to himself. He was suspicious and blurted out, "General Tong, how about a charge?"

Tong Shoushan was unwilling in his heart, but it was hard to refuse Zhang Nai's proposal. He looked up at the sky and said, "Okay. But looking at the weather, I'm afraid we can only charge once, and it's not easy to expand the results of the battle!"

What he said was true. Zhang Nai arrived on time with the firearms battalion at noon today. However, it was not an easy task to set up so many artillery pieces. It was not until the afternoon that they were finally able to do it.

The soldiers of the Firearm Battalion started bombarding the Yongyi Army camp opposite with their cannons without even having a hot meal. Now they have been firing for an hour, but there is no movement from the opposite government troops. The strangest thing is not that they did not fight back, but that there is no sign of chaos in the camp, which makes Zhang Nai and Tong Shoushan full of suspicion.

Now, it seems that it is almost the afternoon. As Tong Shoushan said, if we launch a charge at this time, it will only be a one-round charge at best, and there will be no time to organize a second charge.

Zhang Nai also knew that what Tong Shoushan said was true, so he could only say, "Let's go for a round and give it a try!"

Don't underestimate Zhang Nai as he is just a rising young general, but he is the godson of King Chuang after all, and he is the most direct descendant of King Chuang's direct descendants. Although Tong Shoushan is slightly higher than Zhang Nai in military rank, they are far behind in actual status.

"it is good."

He agreed very readily, and turned to the flag bearer beside him and said, "Raise the flag and order Xiao Yunshan to lead the troops to charge."

Before the flag bearer could issue the flag order, Tong Shoushan hastily added: "Tell Commander Xiao to let Si Yang go in front and our soldiers follow behind!"