Chapter 77 General (2)

He had sent people to post notices in Guangzhou and Qiongzhou to recruit people who were familiar with the situation of the thief and were familiar with the situation of Linggao. He also found some sailors and vendors who had been to Linggao and interrogated the details of the thief.

But what these people could tell him was that there were big iron ships and fast ships. The thief was very good at doing business and other things, and it was not very useful for war.

As for the combat power of the thief, he knew from these people that the other party "had no armor, had all used bird guns, were intact and had strict discipline." In addition, the "firearm" rumored outside was sharp.

Of course, these few words are not enough to make a living. However, the trader was not a member of the army and did not care much about the guns and cannons of the thieves. What he said was not detailed. Some people were greedy for rewards or were frightened by the authority of the official, and some were nonsense and made a mess. There were many contradictory points, which made him a little confused.

It seems that we still have to find local gentry and scholars. How can ordinary fools and wives make such military and national affairs clear? Thinking of this, he asked his staff around him:

"Are there anyone applying for the recruitment in Qiongshan and Guangzhou?"

The staff said: "There are a few, but after a little interrogation, most of them are those who want to advance to offer a strategy to defeat the enemy. No one really knows the inside story of the thief."

Back in the camp, the latest Hainan Tang newspaper transferred from Zhaoqing was put on the table. Recently, the Tang newspapers from Hainan have increased significantly. He Rubin opened it and saw that it was Chengmai and Linggao's latest battle situations from Chengmai and Linggao.

The first letter is about the Tang Dynasty newspaper about Linggao. Sun Tianbiao, the only officer of the Houqian House of the inner guards of Linggao, who escaped from the Houqian House, had arrived in Zhaoqing and showed the details of the fall of Qianhu Suocheng. According to him, under the supervision of Liu Qianhu, everyone fought for six days and nights, and the thieves could not break the city. Qianhu Suocheng was "as tall as Mount Tai". However, there were several "traitors" seduced by the thieves in the city. They took advantage of the unprepared attacks. Kill Liu Qianhu and stole the city gate, which caused the fall of Suocheng. The "traitors" also used the command arrows and documents seized in the city to earn other camps and camps, causing the entire army of Qianhu Suocheng to be destroyed.

Because this Tang Daily is first-hand material, it is much more valuable than the hearsay news that you have learned in detail. He Rubin reads it very carefully.

Next, it was about asking about the situation of Lingao being surrounded. According to Sun Tianbiao, who fled back, he heard that the thieves were besieging more than 10,000 local military and civilians to siege Lingao County, but he didn't know much about the specific situation. "Only when the sound of cannons shook the sky, the road was full of thieves." He broke through the siege by himself, "abandoning his wife and son, and sacrificing his life and dying."

This is nonsense. He Rubin thought about the content of the previous Tang newspaper. When Sun Tianbiao fled to Qiongshan, there was no news of being surrounded by Lingao. The county's emergency messenger arrived several days later.

As for the encirclement of Linggao, there was no specific news - except for an urgent document sent by the Lingao County Magistrate. After Chengmai was encircled, the post road was completely interrupted and the news was almost completely interrupted. Once the post road was interrupted, even news from Danzhou and Changhua could not be spread. Tangbao had to circle the island from the opposite direction or deliver it to Leizhou before it could be delivered to Qiongzhou Prefecture City.

"Where is the person who sent the emergency documents to Linggao?"

"The book was sent to Qiongshan, and then transferred to the province by the prefect of Qiongzhou. *** made an appointment in Qiongshan." An aide said, "It has been seven or eight days since I have passed, and I have probably returned to Lingao."

He Rubin just wanted to take care of Tang Yunwen and detain the scholar. This person would definitely provide a lot of information about the thief.

The second letter is news about Chengmai. He Rubin originally thought that Chengmai would have fallen - he knew the size of the county town on Hainan Island. Most of the city defense facilities are simple and there are not enough artillery, and the garrison almost does not exist - it is simply a delusion to expect the "fatied old soldiers" in the garrison to rescue the county town. As long as a team of two or three thousand people is willing to attack hard, it is impossible to conquer it.

However, when the Tang newspaper opened, it was sent by Chengmai County. It seems that Chengmai is still in the hands of the government and has not blocked external traffic.

I heard that the bandits of the Han call themselves Fubo Army. That day, there were about a thousand infantry artillery soldiers and dozens of cannons, and outside the south gate of the village. The bandits gathered outside the city, and the strong group of civilians in the city bravely went out of the city to fight and killed hundreds of bandits. However, the bandits were powerful and the firearms were sharp, and our soldiers were slightly frustrated. The bandits took advantage of the situation to attack the South Gate, and the soldiers and civilians in the city fought to the death. The city tower changed hands dozens of times. The bandits eventually failed and defeated them. They killed dozens of leaders of the bandits, and three people from the inner real horse. According to the prisoner's confession, there were fake titles in the true horse that was killed.

One of the people called "Director" and one of the pseudo-guards. The thieves and others sacrificed their lives and even robbed the thief's body. Seeing that the county town was not in the distance, the thief headed to travel to Lao Hu, and the remaining lead divided the troops into four towns to plunder. Most of the gentry's homes were killed and built by thousands of people to build a camp. They bombarded with huge cannons, and arrow bombs flew everywhere. The soldiers and civilians in the city were killed and injured. The houses were burned and rubble were everywhere. Women and children stayed in the wild, and the wailing sounds continued all day long. The situation was terrible. Those who had to go to the pond to report!

He Rubin breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the battle of the thief was indeed loose. The small Chengmai County town had used thousands of people and the cannons that were known as "sharp". No wonder Lingao County town has been able to hold on for more than three years.

In this way, he became more and more determined not to use the Zhou army, but only the strategy of the Lu army. He originally wanted to immediately order Tang Yunwen to help Chengmai immediately. Tang Yunwen's headquarters and local village warriors could almost dispatch 2,000 people. Chengmai was only half a day away from Qiongshan, and there was no need for additional excavation and food and salary expenses. As long as he could force the thieves to withdraw from the siege, it would be considered a small victory.

He took care of the people and immediately invited his aides to discuss the war to support Cheng.

Of course, his main aide was not Lu Yizhong. Although Lu Yizhong was quite "knowing the army", he was sent by the governor and was separated from him. He wanted to listen to the opinions of his aides who were closely related to his interests.

After reading the Tangbao, the aides believed that the thieves must have known that the court was going to encircle and suppress them, so they attacked the county town everywhere. Their attempt was just to create momentum, which made the officials and soldiers feel timid and dared not come to suppress them.

He Rubin smiled and asked, "I want to transfer General Tang's troops to rescue Chengmai. What do you guys think?"

The staff believed that the firearms of the thief were sharp but attacked Lingao, and Chengmai could not stand, which shows that his land battle was indeed incompetent. Tang Yunwen's troops were relatively "good at fighting" in the Ming army in Guangdong, and he would definitely succeed in sending him to rescue Chengmai.

As long as the thieves who besieged Chengmai were driven away, the "war urging" that had been constantly coming from the governor could also be buffered. Overall, most of the staff's opinions were still "heavy". They did not hope that the entire army would land on the island early to confront the island.

A staff member shook his head repeatedly: "Mr. Zhentai, most of General Tang's troops are navy troops. He is not his leader in field battles to break the siege. If he comes out rashly, his morale may be shaken if he suffers setbacks."

This aide is called Chang Qingyun, who is a juren. He is quite fond of economics. Although he has never been an official, he is very familiar with the officialdom. He is one of He Rubin's more trusted aides.

He Rubin nodded silently, thinking that although Tang Yunwen's troops were known as 5,000 people, only more than 2,000 soldiers were only naval troops, and they were not familiar with infantry battles and did not have many land warfare firearms. These men were still scattered in many prefectures and counties in Hainan. If he wanted him to rescue Chengmai, he would only use the village heroes from Qiongshan as the main force.

Although the village hero has strong combat power, his morale will be greatly reduced after leaving the hometown. He has to give him a lot of rewards to fight desperately. According to the Tang newspaper, the thieves of the siege were siege at Chengmai City and stationed in camps. The defenses must be very strict. At that time, the opponent defended the village and responded to the battle, and the firearms were fierce, so Tang Yunwen might not be able to take advantage. Isn’t the official army going to a dilemma at Chengmai’s feet?

Thinking of this, he temporarily gave up his plan to ask Tang Yunwen to send people to rescue Chengmai. However, if Chengmai falls, Tang Yunwen is also in charge of Baisha Water Village Sea Defense Governor, and he has the greatest responsibility. However, he is the military chief in Guangdong and the chief general of the conquering thieves. The responsibility for losing the county town is unavoidable.

"In the opinion of the students, it is better for the town to immediately issue a command to General Tang Shen, asking him to act on the camera and quickly rescue Chengmai."

The staff nodded one after another: Since it is "fast" and can be "camera", it is indeed clever! General He has given the order to rescue, and the ball that rescued or not was directly kicked at General Tang Shen's feet. Even if Chengmai lost, he could not investigate He Rubin's head - his troops in the camp had already crossed the sea, so he could not say that he would not save him. This is one of them; secondly, even if Chengmai temporarily fell, waiting for the army to gather together, recapturing Chengmai was just a slaughter on the way to march.

"Further, in the eyes of the students, the thief did not have the power to break the city." Chang Qingyun said, "If he had the power to break the city, why would he have to drive the people to build a long-term encirclement and build a siege? This must be the plan of the thief to be the long-term encirclement. The magistrate of Chengmai County only needs to guard carefully, and he will be able to safeguard the city. Nowadays, people should order people to mingle into the city and send the book that the army will come to rescue. When the army and the people of the city see it, they will defend with all their might and wait for the army."

He Rubin felt that his idea was not bad, so he took care of a master who handled Shuqi to apply for a handwritten order to Tang Yunwen, and wrote a note in hand to ask the officials, gentlemen and people in Chengmai City to guard the situation:

It is said that Chengmai ordered Qiu and Chengmai to guard the city to learn together: This town is responsible for the command of the army to help, and hopes to persevere and wait for the rescue.

The date is not written below, only his money is left.

After thinking about it, he wrote the same second note, but the preceding paragraph became: "Zhi Lingao Order Wu and Chengmai's officials and gentry guarding the city."

After writing, he ordered two fine soldiers from the army to choose from Qiongshan dialect, each of whom was rewarded with twenty taels of silver, and immediately crossed the sea with two letters.

After doing these two things, He Rubin felt a little more happy. Thinking that because Lu Yizhong kept urging troops to cross the Biao camp, he gave him a chance to go astray.

He asked everyone with a smile: "We don't know much about the thieves during this crossing the sea to conquer the thieves. I have brought these 20,000 troops. Apart from the empty space, the old and the weak, there are only more than 10,000 soldiers who can fight. I wonder if I can fight with the thieves?"

Everyone couldn't help but be flattered again, such as "the army arrives, cleanse the ugly", "the big attack", "the great power of the army". Half of this is flattering his words, and half of them are the real thoughts of the aides - in their opinion, the thieves are just relying on their strange skills and tricks, and their firearms are more powerful. If they really want to set up a dignified formation to fight in the field, they are definitely not the opponent of the imperial army. So no one is skeptical about the end of the war.

An aide inside said that although the thief was not enough to worry about, the ship was strong and the cannon was powerful, and he gathered tens of thousands of "Minzhou, Guangdong traitors". The official army still knows little about the details of the thief, and even the name of the thief leader.

The only source of intelligence from the government is the Tangbao and various market rumors.

"Iron ships can float on the sea, but the fast ships do not have sails. Wouldn't this become a monster?" He Rubin always didn't believe this. He only barely believed it after receiving Tang Yunwen's Tang newspaper. However, it was common for the general to exaggerate the enemy's situation in order to shirk responsibility or promote military achievements.

"The so-called "knowing yourself and knowing your enemy will never be defeated in a hundred battles. Although our army knows you, we don't know your enemy." Chang Qingyun sighed.

"When Sun Tianbiao fled back from Lingao, he must have known a lot about the details of the thief. Why not transfer him to the army to listen to him?" an aide suggested.

"What the sir said is very true." He Rubin nodded. Sun Tianbiao fled back from Lingao and was an officer. He must have known a lot. If he listened to it in front of the account, he would get a lot of useful information. "I will ask the military commander to transfer this person. I will first assign him a foreign commissioner to the general rank."

Chang Qingyun said: "The Lord Zhentai will definitely win the full results when he goes to suppress the thieves. This is needless to say, but he still needs to suppress the thieves and suppress them well. If he mobilizes troops like General Yu, he will only end up with a single result of forcing the entire enemy to retreat, which is far less powerful than the Shuangyu Victory."

He Rubin was extremely wary of overseas people. At that time, he used military force to force the red-haired people to be expelled because civil and military officials believed that the combat power was very different. Even if the war was won, the loss would not be too great. Now, it is often said that Wang Zunde was just an old trick in the past.

Chang Qingyun believed that the thieves had large iron ships and iron cranes. If they were forced to demolish the city and leave, they would definitely choose another place to build a fortress again. How could such overseas barbarians who broke through the waves and sacrificed their lives to trade in China? They would inevitably find another nest. Although the Dutch retreated due to the great power of the government and the army, they had the promise of allowing merchants to trade in Taiwan. And they immediately turned to Taiwan to build a fortress. To date, the red-haired and wild barbarians were still a disaster on the coast of the Ming Dynasty.

"What do you mean by sir?"

"The thieves are good at boats and oars. Although our army cannot fight against the waves on the sea, they can defeat them with strange weapons." Chang Qingyun said with confidence.

An aide smiled and said, "Do you want to follow Zhuge Wuhou's old trick?"

"Most of the pirate ships are made of iron, and it is difficult to pay for Bing Ding." Another staff member shook his head and expressed his disapproval.

The Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Fire Attack Ship was not the traditional Chinese water war weapon, and the main means of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty's naval divisions to resist foreign aggression. His Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Age of the Modern Rockets.

However, due to the serious problems in the ignition mechanism and the difficulty in laying, this kind of anchor lightning has never been used to its practical use, and gradually became a "magic weapon" in the book.

Of course, He Rubin knew this. The late Ming Dynasty was an era of great explosion of firearms in China. Anyone who knew a few words was talking about the invention and creation of firearms. Although most of them were just like Song Yingxing said, they were relying on this promotion to make a fortune.

The underwater humming dragon has no practical value at all, and He Rubin knows this very clearly. However, the Changqingyun's surprise weapon is an improved version of the humming dragon - similar to the drifting thunder.

Chang Qingyun immediately used tea and ink on the table and drew a sketch. It was roughly to put gunpowder in a pottery and seal it, and then tie bamboos across it, not only providing buoyancy but also easily hang the ship. The raft was covered with straw and other things. The water-produced soldiers and brave men pushed it to the thief's boat, and then ignited the fuse.

"There are no need to use military force, just send a small boat to enter the port by taking the night tide, release a hundred and ten Hunjianglongs outside the port, and drift into the port with the tide. The Hunjianglong uses a smolder incense to attract fire." Chang Qingyun said.

Of course, there is no accurate way to cast the lightning in this way, so you need to release more, release one or two hundred at a time. Even if you don’t hang it on the ship, it will still be a striking effect of disturbing the thief whenever it explodes. If you can blow up the big iron ship that hurts the thief and thinks it is the Great Wall, the thief will have to surrender.

Chang Qingyun's new tactic caused a lot of discussion among his staff. Of course, they understood the significance of Hunjianglong. If Hunjianglong is deployed in the Boshop, the ships of the thief will not only be damaged, but the remaining ships will not dare to stay in the port for more. They will inevitably seek peace in advance.

He Rubin thought to himself that this thing had any effect? ​​But it was not much cost. He Rubin didn't believe that this thing could blow up and sink a large iron ship, but it was a great achievement to be able to blow up and sink a few iron cranes. He immediately agreed to ask someone to try out a batch first.

"This thing is better to push into the port with a good-looking soldier." Chang Qingyun suggested, "It is better to build a water mine camp than a water mine camp. Choose a hundred water braves who are familiar with water and practice, and you will definitely be able to achieve great skills!"

A local aide said: "There are poor households in this province. These people live on the water and wander around the water on a lie. There are many people who are traitors and thieves. However, the water quality is excellent, so it is better to recruit as a water brave and drive it to the use of the Mianjiang Dragon. The effect of poison is used to fight poison, and there will be casualties in an instant, which is not worth cherishing. It will not damage the power of heaven, and it can also eliminate harm to the local area."

From this, the staff members talked about firearms. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, it was an era when everyone talked about firearms. There were many books and it was not difficult to obtain, so most of the staff members could tell me about Zi, Chou, Yin and Mao. He Rubin was also a person in this way, and he also wrote books, which was even more sensible when talking about them. Because it was rumored that the firearms of the thief were powerful, everyone wanted to find several more powerful ways to restrain the enemy.

He Rubin pondered for a moment. He could not do anything alone in recruiting Shui Yong, and needed the approval of the governor and the governor. However, this is a way to defeat the enemy. It is not much to recruit two or three hundred Shui Yongs. Even if the Hunjianglong is useless, he can still fight.
Chapter completed!