Lu Ming

Chapter 565 The South Fleet
The young emperor who sat high on the throne once again refreshed the existing knowledge of the shameless lower limit of his courtiers.

This time the program is "Outsmarting the Birthday Outline".

The gang of bastards under the throne not only beat them up repeatedly, but avoided the emperor's targeting of a certain military officer with a flamboyant charge; they also robbed the emperor's personal property from the south and moved half of it into the household department .

In fact, if Fang Zhenghua, the eunuch on duty, hadn't jumped out to argue for reason, and the civil official group, which was crowded with people, originally planned to "confuse" all the emperor's share. After all, "the emperor is selfless". They are all proceeds from bribery, they came from wrong sources, and confiscated in accordance with the law is justified and well-founded!
As for whether the property can be used for the people, state affairs, national defense, and state affairs after entering the bottomless Daming national reserve warehouse-the large warehouse of the Ministry of Households, that is a mystery.This can refer to the military expenditure that Daming spends on the Guanning Group every year: after several million taels of silver were allocated, more than half of them just quietly settled in the capital, never leaving the city gate.

The young emperor, who was once again put on by his courtiers, was naturally resentful/incompetent and furious when he returned to the palace that day.So I had no choice but to summon Comrade Bu Daxing, the dark son/anti-Cao vanguard who I had secretly planted before: The emperor needs to re-evaluate the degree of infiltration and threat of the Southern General Army to the imperial court, so as to plan for the future.

In the turbulent capital city, even the ants at the base of the wall have a sense of politics.There are always various intrigues and exchanges going on there, never stopping.But in southern China, which is far away from the capital, there are not so many calculations. Here, the principle of barbarism is followed. Whoever has the biggest fist has the final say.

On June 1631, 6, the weather was fine and the wind was south-east.

Because there was a big storm just the day before yesterday, the clouds and blue waves in the South China Sea at this moment are not peaceful, and there are thick negative oxygen ions floating in the air. It is the most beautiful time of the year to swim.

A fleet of sails is sailing on the ocean.

The unique smooth line of the hull and the faint smoke that comes out from time to time have clearly indicated the ownership of the fleet.

The fleet consisted of 7 combat ships.

Among them, the main force is two 500-ton "Youguang-class" destroyers equipped with 10 artillery pieces.The remaining five are Yishui's 5-ton "Taijiang-class" high-speed frigates.

At this moment, the fleet is taking advantage of the monsoon blowing from the Pacific Ocean, constantly changing the angle of the sails, and pulling out a "zigzag" sailing track on the ocean.

The position of the fleet at this time is at the entrance of the Qiongzhou Strait.To be precise, it is in the northeast of Hainan Island in later generations, off the coast of the current Qiongzhou Fucheng.

"Old Shao, what's the matter, can you still hold on?"

Sha Zhengming, who is tall and strong, wearing a blue training uniform, put down the binoculars in his hand, turned his head and asked the people on the side.

Sha Zhengming is the commander of this fleet.

Beside him is Shao Qiang.The chubby Shao Qiang was enduring the ups and downs of the warship at the moment, his body was swaying, and his face was ugly.

In other words, since the crossing crowd smashed the Portuguese-held city of Macau two months ago, the bosses sitting in the new area looked around, and there was no longer any force to fight outside the glass window.

As for those bandits, sea bandits, and even weak officers and soldiers, these have actually been classified by the cabinet into the "comprehensive social transformation" project, which belongs to civilian work, and it takes time to slowly digest and improve internally.

And the eyes of the senior management of the Transit Group, and even the military, have turned to a further area: Southeast Asia, which can bring food, rubber, petroleum, nickel and chrome raw materials to the disaster-stricken Daming.

Prior to this, a series of actions, including the establishment of a pioneering army, have actually clearly and unmistakably indicated the direction of resource investment for the traversing forces in the next step.Now, with the opening of Macau, the army has officially taken action by pulling out the traversers who were nailed to their homes.

The southward squadron headed by Sha Zhengming was quietly formed on the 10th day after the opening of Macau.Today, Sha Zhengming led the team to Qiongzhou, which is the first official mission since the establishment of the fleet: receiving the home port.

Open the map and you can see at a glance that if you want to use Guangdong as your base to attack Nanyang, Qiongzhou Prefecture, located at the northern end of Hainan Island and later called Haikou, is a natural base for advancing.

The reason is simple: geographical advantage.

First of all, Qiongzhou Prefecture is 500 kilometers away from Guangzhou by sea.In terms of the current shipping, maintenance and logistics capabilities of the Transtrade Group, it is still very important to shorten the 500 kilometers.

After all, at present, whether it is a merchant ship or a warship, they are still old-fashioned sailing ships, and the fleet is slow and self-sustaining.

Then based on Qiongzhou Prefecture, the fleet can greatly shorten the voyage, increase the attack distance, and reduce the logistical pressure.

In addition, the city of Qiongzhou guards the entrance of the Qiongzhou Strait where Nanyang enters Fujian and Guangdong, so its geographical location is very important.Departing from Qiongzhou Prefecture, the fleet can attack the entire Beibu Gulf and radiate the Indochina Peninsula under the roughly equal route. It is an ideal bridgehead in the eyes of the navy.

So there was the scene at the beginning of today: the southward squadron led by Guangzhou Coast Defense Admiral Sha Zhengming went to Qiongzhou Prefecture to receive the naval base.

As a genuine general, Sha Zhengming naturally has a reputation.

This gentleman followed "Cao Haishang" into Xiong Wencan's mansion at night, and everyone conspired together to intercept Zheng Zhilong's fleet.Afterwards, as the right-hand man on the bright side, Sha Zhengming has always been the specific person in charge of the Cao family's fleet in the eyes of the government, so he was appointed by the court as a sea defense officer very early.

It was Shao Qiang who accompanied General Sha Shen and led the team to the south.

According to the current rudimentary system of the crossing crowd, the Southward Pioneering Team is equipped with one piece of paper and one weapon.Since Sha Zhengming is Wu, then Shao Qiang is Wen.

Shao Qiang, a chubby and unremarkable civil servant, used to be the deputy head of the Chikan District Government.This time, among the few people who signed up and were willing to open up wasteland, he was finally selected by the cabinet because he had managed the government affairs of a district in detail, as the onshore person in charge of the southward pioneering operation.

However, it is not so easy to be a civil servant, especially sitting on a sailing warship with only 500 tons.Sha Zhengming sailed all the way from Guangzhou, and from time to time he would order the fleet to conduct various tactical maneuvers on the ocean, which made Shao Qiang quite upset.

Fortunately, according to the time agreed in advance, the fleet has arrived at the sea off Qiongzhou Mansion at this moment, so Shao Qiang will be able to breathe a sigh of relief soon.

as predicted.When the clock on his wrist pointed to 10:[-] a.m., Sha Zhengming issued an order, and the fleet located just north of Qiongzhou Prefecture began to slow down, formed a two-line formation, and headed towards Qiongzhou.

At 12 noon, five streamlined battleships with beautiful white sails slowly stopped in the inner bay of Shenying Port.

The reason why the original 7 ships became 5 when they entered the port was because of a small episode: when the fleet sailed to a sea area not far from the coast, the lookout post reported that a ship suspected of pirates was found in the southeast Robbery of merchant ships near shore.

For this situation, the crossing fleet that has swept the coasts of Fujian and Guangdong to the point where they can't find anything is naturally very familiar.With Sha Zhengming's order, the fleet dispatched two 150-ton frigates to solve the problem, and the routes of the remaining ships remained unchanged.

Shenying Port is the Haikou Port of later generations.Of course, the scale of Shenying Port in this era is not large, and it is far worse than that of later generations.

But small scale doesn't mean it's not prosperous.Since the Song Dynasty, Shenying Port has been the most important commercial port on Hainan Island.Most of the betel nuts, coconuts, cattle, spices, logs and other tropical and subtropical local products produced in Hainan are imported into mainland Guangdong.In the Ming Dynasty, according to Qiu Jun's "Scholar Zhuang Ji": "The gathering of sails and masts is like a forest standing like a bamboo".

At this moment, General Sha Zhengming, Sha Zhengming, had already put on the traditional robes of Ming military generals.Standing on the bridge, looking at the bustling scene of Shenying Port and the dense masts on the shore, he nodded and said, "It seems that the first thing we need to do is deal with the pirates!"

"of course."

On the surface, Shao Qiang, who is only a counselor of the general army's Yamen, doesn't need to change into an official robe to prepare for socializing, so he still wears a white checked suit.

Shao Qiang's state has slowed down at this meeting, and his complexion has improved a lot: "Public security is the foundation of all social activities. After you take over the base, don't do anything, and first vigorously sweep the surrounding sea areas. I will send a telegram immediately, Want a 'labour camp' management team to come over."

The term "labor camp" is widely used in the crossing people.The labor camp Shao Qiang mentioned at this moment must be a "high-intensity labor camp" for future pirate prisoners.

"Hehe, no problem. Hurry up to build the camp and make it larger, so that there will be too many people staying there!"

Having said this, Sha Zhengming straightened his sleeves, turned around and went down to the deck, and boarded the boat that came to pick him up along the rope ladder.

Soon, the boat arrived at the official wharf of Shenying Port.At this moment, the pier was already full of officials and local gentry who came to welcome the fleet.

Today's time-traveling forces are no longer the situation they used to be when they were unknown.Even if a squadron came to Qiongzhou to set up a sub-base, the local aborigines were also prepared early.

After all, after several years of distribution and sales of industrial products, even in a remote place like Qiongzhou, there are already a group of enthusiastic "enlightened people" and officials who like money waiting here.

Among the people who came to greet him, Jia Huanbao, the Tong Zhi of Qiongzhou Prefecture, had the highest official position.As for the magistrate, Sha Zhengming said that Potian was just a general, and if the genuine Qiongzhou magistrate came out to welcome him, it would break the civil and military rules of official circles.

However, Jia Tongzhi quickly told General Sha in a low voice after the two parties greeted each other: The magistrate has already prepared a banquet in the backyard of the government office, and he is waiting for Master Sha to visit.

General Sand Ginseng naturally smiled and agreed: No matter what you do, it is better to get the assistance of the local officials than to not cooperate.

Next, Sha Shen will take out the official document issued by the governor's office of Guangdong and Guangxi: as early as more than a month ago, the governor's office of Guangdong and Guangxi went to Wenqiongzhou government, and ordered Qiongzhou government to immediately remove the existing pirates on the grounds that the pirates were becoming more and more rampant. On the basis of Baisha Water Village, a new Water Village was expanded to accommodate the government troops sent from Fucheng to assist in suppressing bandits.

Qiongzhou Mansion has been preparing for this matter for several days.

(End of this chapter)