Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 173 Exile at Sea
Chongming.

Chongming, which is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, is far from being a whole island in later generations, but is still in the process of accumulation and collapse.

From the beginning of the Wude period in the early Tang Dynasty, the east and west sands rose out of the Yangtze River estuary. After thousands of years, it reached the size of Zhoushan in the late Ming Dynasty. The city of Chongming Island was relocated five times and built six times.

By this time, the population of Chongming's various sands had reached more than [-]. At the end of the stormy Ming Dynasty, the population of Chongming did not decrease but increased. A large number of refugees from Huaiyang fled to each sand, and even many pirates stopped in various ports.

After King Yiyang was supported here and set up as a supervisor of the country, this Yangtze Estuary became even more lively.

Chongming County at this time was a new city rebuilt by Qinjiafu ten miles north of the original site after the original Dongsha City was washed and collapsed by waves during the Yongle period. After more than [-] years, it was already very lively.

There are four land gates and one water gate in the nine miles around the city.

Because of the critical geography, the city wall was later reinforced with city bricks, and four gate towers and four corner towers were added. Thirty police shops were set up on the upper ring of the city, which can be described as impenetrable.

Neighborhoods in the city are neatly planned and business is prosperous.

In the city, there are complete town god's temples, school palaces, etc., and there are even nine Guanyin temples.

When King Yiyang came to Chongming, he used the county government office as his residence.However, King Yiyang did not care about the government, and entrusted the affairs to the ministers who supported him.At this time, Huang Fei, Wu Zhikui, Huang Binqing, Tian Yang, Shen Tingyang, Zhang Pengyi, Chen Wu and other supporting ministers left Chongming one after another, and they were defeated one after another.

The island is guarded by Jing Benche, governor of the Zhejiang Navy. He was a Jinshi in Chongzhen for four years. He was dismissed in the early years because he offended the power minister Wen Tiren. Still supervise the army at sea.

The southern capital died, and together with Tian Yang and others supported Yiyang King Chongming to supervise the country, Jing Benche recruited troops and bought horses, named Sihui Camp, with 3000 soldiers and horses.

"Zhang Shiyi really voted for the Tartars?"

Gu Rongzheng had a secret meeting with Huang Wuchang at the port outside the city.

Gu Rong is a well-known pirate in the south of the Yangtze River. He is known as Gu Sanmazi. He has always traveled across the sea, often haunting the Yangtze River. He used Chongming as his base.

Later, King Yiyang sent someone to recruit him and awarded him the title of chief of the navy.

Huang Wuchang was a wealthy and powerful local in Chongming. King Yiyang came to Chongming, and he also got his support. He had a regiment under his command for training and armed forces, so he was also awarded the title of general soldier.

But a pirate and a local tyrant are not very popular in the small court of King Yiyang.

Both of them were oppressed by Jing Benche and others, especially Huang Wuchang, who was a local tycoon, and also did some business that was neither black nor white. Although his strength was far inferior to that of another local tycoon, Shen Tingyang, he was still a local snake after all.

When King Yiyang was powerful before, he was respectful, but now that the generals are away and there is only one Jing Benche on the island, they feel a little restless.

"Chen Wu was beheaded by Lu Jianguo in Ningbo. The dynasty was first attacked by Huang Binqing of Zhoushan and annexed. Zhang Guozhu was defeated and surrendered. Now Huang Fei defeated Taihu and committed suicide. Wu Zhikui surrendered under the city of Suzhou. If you leave in a big defeat, this Yiyang King is finished."

Gu Rong was robbed of many ships by Jing Benche, the governor of the navy, and has always held a grudge in his heart.

"Why don't you and I work together to destroy Jing Benche and seize Chongming City?"

Huang Wuchang twirled his beard, "What about after this is done?"

"After the matter is completed, Chongming County will belong to you, and the ship and port of Sihui Camp will belong to me, how about that?" Gu Rong suggested.

Neither of them mentioned the matter of surrendering the Qing Dynasty. Neither a local tyrant nor a pirate was in a hurry to surrender. Chongming had a special geography, and they were even more eager to seize control of Chongming first.

"How to solve Gao Jinzhong in the north of the city?"

Gao Jinzhong is a representative of the refugees on the island. Many of these refugees came from the Huanghuai and even Zhili Mountains. There are even refugees from Liaodong. They are two different forces from the local people on the island.

They had no fields and no land, and after they came to the island, they could only sell salt and fish, etc., but they inevitably robbed the interests of some local tyrants, so the two sides have always been at odds.

This Gao Jinzhong was also a refugee from the Huaihe River. On the island, he became the leader of the refugees by virtue of his burly, tall and fierce daring. Here, he organized five thousand refugees on the island. Fishing and even smuggling and other businesses make a living.

After the king of Yiyang came, he also won over and gave him the post of chief soldier, still in charge of the old department.

He owns 1000 to [-] ships, more than [-] soldiers, [-] to [-] crew members, and [-] family members. There are indeed nearly [-] in total, but in fact the so-called soldiers are only young and strong refugees.

But because these Lianghuai refugees are very united and vicious, even Huang Wuchang, the local snake, can't suppress them, so they can only set aside a piece of land for them, and the two sides will not invade each other.

But in fact, he still wants to drive these outsiders away. Although Gu Rong is also an outsider, Huang Wuchang and Gu Rong are more of a cooperative relationship. Look for Huang Wuchang's stolen goods, and at the same time he often supplies supplies from Huang Wuchang.

The two parties have cooperated for a long time, and the relationship is not bad. Compared with Gao Jinzhong, who are pure foreigners, they don't like it, because Gao Jinzhong and the others do everything. Don't talk about the rules of the world.

"Gao Jinzhong can ignore him first, let's deal with Jing Benche first, will Gao Jinzhong still dare to stab him?"

The two clapped their hands together.

Their actions were very fast. Although Jing Benche controlled the county seat and had three thousand troops, Chongming Island was not an exaggeration to call it a den of thieves in the late Ming Dynasty. It was the base camp of pirates when it was most powerful.

After countless Jianghuai refugees landed on the island, most of them were engaged in smuggling, piracy and other activities. At its peak, there were hundreds of boats and tens of thousands of people in the north of the city. It's unique here.

Gu Rong and the others easily took advantage of the internal response in the city and opened the city gate in the middle of the night.

Crying and killing everywhere.

Jing Benche was caught off guard, and it was too late to summon the troops. Seeing that Gu and Huang's subordinates kept rushing into the city, Jing Benche had no choice but to abandon the city, and fled in a panic after picking up Yiyang King Zhu Chaoqiang.

Fortunately, Shuimen was still under control, and in the end only eighteen boats and more than a thousand people escaped from Chongming.

Gu Rong and Huang Wuchang successfully captured Chongming County. Afterwards, according to the agreement, Huang Wuchang entered the county and Gu Rong took all the ships that Jing Benche had no time to take away. They also took the rest of Jing Benche's Sihui Camp , share together.

When Gao Jinzhong from the north of the city heard the news, everything had already been settled, and he had no chance to participate, so he could only slap his thigh.

Jing Benche and Zhu Chaokuan were wandering on the sea, not knowing where to go, and wanted to go to Taicang Prefecture, but when they heard that Zhang Shiyi had killed Zhang Pengyi and surrendered Zhang Guozhu, he quickly turned the bow of the boat and headed for Tongzhou (Nantong) in panic. Jiangbei governor Tian Yang is in Jiangbei, controlling the occupied Tongzhou, Haimen, and Rugao.

Tian Yang was also taken aback when he saw King Yiyang and Jing Benche who came to vote in embarrassment, asked clearly, and couldn't help but slapped his thigh hard.

Tian Yang, who was nearly sixty years old, was the chief assistant of the small imperial court of Chongming, but it was not due to his high skills, but because he was the first person to support King Yiyang before, and he was also the governor of Huaiyang, the governor of water transport, but he was actually an official. It was also obtained by Liu Kongzhao, who was in power in the Afu Hongguang Dynasty.

Prior to this, he was a Jinshi of the Wanli Dynasty. He was a magistrate from Wenshang County, Shandong Province. In the first year, Ren Qiandu Yushi governor of Sichuan was impeached and relegated to border guards according to law.

After the establishment of the Hongguang Dynasty, he followed Liu Kongzhao's path and became Liu Kongzhao's confidant through bribing him.

However, Shi Kefa was besieged, Tian Yang supported eight thousand soldiers but refused to save him, Yangzhou fell, and immediately abandoned Huai'an into the sea.

Supporting the King of Yiyang, after the University of Baidong Pavilion became the chief assistant, he did nothing. The three Jiangbei cities in Lianzhou were all defeated by Zhang Pengyi and Shen Tingyang before. Credit, but no further progress.

Now as soon as he heard that Chongming was lost, Zhang Shiyi surrendered, Zhang Pengyi was killed, etc., he immediately abandoned the three cities in the north of the Yangtze River, ordered his troops and ran away.

Tian Yang packed up his men and horses, abandoned Jiangbei regardless, and took Yiyang King to join Shen Tingyang, the right servant of the Ministry of War and the left servant of the household department who fought in Jingjiang.

Shen Tingyang's family is a generation of maritime merchants in Chongming, especially the maritime industry. The family trained him to study, and he lived up to expectations.

In order to solve the problem of grain and payment transportation in Liaodong, he wrote a small test of sea transportation, suggesting to restore the sea transportation pioneered in the Yuan Dynasty, and the sea transportation books and sea transportation maps collected by his family were presented to Chongzhen.

Chongzhen asked him to build a sea-going ship for a trial run. He took two boats, carrying hundreds of meters and hundreds of stones. On the first day of June, 13th, he went out to sea from Huai'an and arrived in Tianjin by Wangri.The guardian of the wind lasts five days and travels only for ten days.

Chongzhen was overjoyed, and he was named a doctor of the household department, and went to Dengzhou to be in charge of the affairs of shipping Liao pay with the governor Xu Renlong.In the past, Liao pay used Tianjin boats to go to Dengzhou, Hou Dongnanfeng transferred grain to Tianjin, and Hou Nanfeng transferred to Ningyuan.And Shen Tingyang transported directly from Dengzhou to Ningyuan, saving time and effort.

In the 16th year of Chongzhen, he was promoted to the Minister of Taipusi and the Minister of the Household Department, and was later appointed as the Secretary of the Imperial Academy, changing the water boats into Yangtze River warships.Shen Tingyang, a technocrat, transformed many tank boats into warships. Hong Guangli once planned to let him transport grain to Shanhaiguan to supply Wu Sangui. After Nanjing fell, Shen Tingyang took hundreds of boats back to his hometown in Chongming, and together they supported King Yiyang.

Jing Benche and King Yiyang were defeated and came to vote, and Shen Tingyang could only order to stop attacking Jingjiang.

"For the current plan, I have to ask His Highness to abdicate and return to the vassal, and go to Yilu to supervise the country." Shen Tingyang was also very helpless. He even lost Chongming, the base camp. Generals Huang Fei, Chen Wu, and Zhang Pengyi died one after another. After surrendering to the Qing Dynasty one after another, Gu Rong, Huang Wuchang and others rebelled, and Huang Binqing and Wang Chaoxian surrendered to Lu Jianguo. Their small court has existed in name only.

That being the case, it is better to simply vote for Lu Jianguo.

King Yiyang hesitated and asked, "Can King Lu tolerate it?"

"Your Majesty has heard some of Lu Jianguo's actions, and he is generous and wise. Your Highness can go there with confidence. They are all from the Ming clan, and they were all for the restoration of the country and the country before." Shen Tingyang comforted.

Although King Yiyang knew that the relationship between him and King Lu was not that simple, he had previously sent Huang Binqing, the leader of the Chen Wu Dynasty, to go south to eastern Zhejiang to grab territory, and then he rejected the edict of King Lu's envoy to abdicate and return to the vassal, but now there is really no way out. can go.

After the discussion, the few people did not dare to stay any longer, so the fleet went out to sea along the river first, and then went south to Shaoxing.

On the deck, the King of Yiyang was in a daze, Tian Yang, the governor of Jiangbei, a scholar of Dongge University, and the Minister of the Ministry of Officials, was writing a letter of abdication for King Yiyang, and Jing Benche, the governor of the Zhezhi Navy and Minister of Rongzheng, was on behalf of Yiyang. King Yang wrote a congratulatory form for King Lu to supervise the country, but Shen Tingyang, the left servant of the military department and the right servant of the household department, was counting the money, food, soldiers and horses of their last ships, calculating whether they were enough to sail to Shaoxing.

(End of this chapter)