Chapter 116                                                             

To be honest, no one who can become a ship owner at sea is ordinary people.

Either he is very capable of fighting, fighting one after another, fighting from below. Every ship is snatched by him. Or he has a background and some strength on the shore. However, after several years of fighting in the Battle of Japan, the relationship between the shore of anyone is not easy to use now.

No matter what, they are not fools.

They naturally think of the risks of this battle.

Not to mention anything else, if you live in the Ming Dynasty, you will know how important grain is.

Of course, most pirates are lawless. They have also captured the county town and killed officials, and they don’t care about having one more thing. Especially in recent years, Wang Zhi has a strong foundation and can still persist, but some other ship owners are about to bottom out in all aspects.

Even if not, millions of stones of grain may only be worth more than one million taels in the Ming Dynasty, but it is not the price overseas, especially in the chaotic Japan. This is a priceless treasure, enough for most daimyos to fight for ten consecutive years.

"Since the old ship owner has said it, how can we not obey?" Xie Hexian spoke in line.

Xie He was chased by Yu Dayou for hundreds of miles, breaking through and capturing many ships, causing Xie He to suffer heavy losses. He lost all his face. Xie He always remembered this tone. Although he could not beat Yu Dayou's fleet, he did not think that Yu Dayou's troops were strong, there were always too few ships and too few personnel.

They have been dealing with Yu Dayou for a day or two. If Yu Dayou feels that his strength is stronger than the Japanese pirates, he will not need to be ordered by others, and Yu Dayou will attack himself, such as Wang Zhi’s place, which is no secret now.

If it was a secret at the beginning, it had been a few months since then, and under the strict blockade, it had done several business with some people on the land. Even if the blockade was tight, it would not be as touching as money. In this case, it would not be able to keep it confidential. It had spread long ago.

Yu Dayou's Zhoushan station is only more than 100 miles away from here. Why don't you come to attack? There will be no other reason.

Since the sea situation is still strong and the government is weak, isn’t this a good opportunity to take action. Revenge this one arrow.

Xie Heyi agreed, and many ship owners below were also echoing.

Wang Zhi secretly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, and finally unified all opinions. He said, "Since that's the case, we will all go out this time to do a big deal, and the emperor of Beijing dare not underestimate us."

Then Wang Zhi began to arrange troops.

In fact, there is no need to arrange troops. Because the pirates fight on their own, they can't develop any advanced tactics. They can't be ambushed at the estuary of the Yangtze River, and when the fleet passes by, they will surge up.

The only thing to do is to put enough eyeliner. After all, as mentioned before, except from the estuary of the Yangtze River to the Black Tide Current, this section of the route can be intercepted. Once the current is on, it will be difficult to chase, unless you directly chase it into the Bohai Sea. Although the Ming Navy is not very good at strength, the Shandong Navy is still good.

Because Shandong has always had a mission, which is to transport supplies to Liaodong. So a considerable number of ships have been retained. Even many wars with the Later Jin Dynasty were the figures of Shandong Navy. The Qing army went south, and the Shandong Navy was still fighting in the Yangtze River, Taihu Lake and other places, and was finally destroyed.

Most of the waters where Wang Zhi and others are active are in the ocean and in the south. When they reach the unfamiliar sea area of ​​the Bohai Sea, they may be troublesome.

The ambush they designated was naturally the estuary of the Yangtze River.

Just when Wang Zhi was ready, Zhenjiang was also ready.

The reason why it gathers in Zhenjiang is very simple. Zhenjiang is a traditional canal transport terminal, where grain is gathered from here, and then crossing the Yangtze River is Yangzhou, entering the Grand Canal from Yangzhou, and then heading north all the way. Although this time, the water conditions of Zhenjiang terminal may not be appropriate. However, for many years, grain from all over the world has been transported to Zhenjiang, which has become a habit. Zhenjiang also has a large number of warehouses, all ready-made. It is much more convenient than other ports. For example, if Shanghai Port starts from here, a large number of warehouses will have to be built.

Too waste of time.

Perhaps the starting point of shipping in the future will be in Shanghai, but now it will be in Zhenjiang.

The main type of ship for this shipping is sand ship. The sand ship is a flat land ship with shallow draft. It can be passed even in certain sections of the Yangtze River. Therefore, it can also sail in Zhenjiang. It is just that hundreds of large ships are moored near Zhenjiang at one time, and some of the Zhenjiang wharfs cannot afford it.

Zhou Mengchen's light chariot Jian has always arrived at Zhenjiang Wharf and watched countless erectile sacks delivering a large number of boxes and sacks onto the ship in an orderly manner.

Most people would not know that these sacks were not filled with food, but gunpowder, and other supplies. More importantly, these sacks were all pretended by soldiers, and they would not come down after they boarded the ship one by one.

In order to disguise, there is a layer of rice on the ground of all wharfs. It seems that it has fallen from a sack and has fallen on the ground elsewhere.

Zhou Mengchen called Yu Dayou, Lu Tong, Tang Kekuan and Liu Xian to his side. He saw them one by one. In fact, he was quite confident in Yu Dayou's troops and Lu Tong's troops. As they said, most of their soldiers were adapting to sea activities, and most of them had experiences as sailing boats, and at least there was no seasickness. Liu Xian and Tang Kekuan and Zhou Mengchen had a little doubt that Liu Xian had just been transferred from the southwest.

Liu Xian made some contributions to quelling the rebellion in the Guizhou ravine. Zhou Mengchen also saw Liu Xian's troops, which had some iron-blooded and fierce spirit.

It should be more capable of fighting.

But Zhou Mengchen was worried that these troops hiking the mountain valley could fight at sea?

Although most of them are from the south, they all say they know how to water.

Liu Xian's troops were not dispatched by Zhou Mengchen. The order to order Liu Xian to go to Jiangnan was established before Zhou Mengchen took office. It took only half a year before it was in place.

This action speed is not surprising. The following order will take several months to reach the southwest, from southwest to Guangdong, from Guangdong to Fujian. This also takes time.

As soon as Liu Xian arrived in Jiangnan, he wanted to show his positive performance, and Zhou Mengchen could understand it.

However, Zhou Mengchen still compressed the men who boarded the ship by Liu Xian.

As for Tang Kekuan's men, Zhou Mengchen was also worried. In fact, Tang Kekuan had served in the Yangtze River Navy. From this point of view, Zhou Mengchen believed in Tang Kekuan's ability to command water wars. But, the troops brought by Tang Kekuan were not his old subordinates in the Yangtze River Navy.

Because his old subordinates had long been disbanded. Tang Kekuan was even demoted. Finally, when he was employed, Tang Kekuan returned to Xuzhou to recruit soldiers and brought thousands of Xuzhou soldiers to Jiangnan, and became a combat-capable army.

If it is possible, Zhou Mengchen does not want to draw troops from these two armies.

But Zhou Mengchen suddenly found that others were not very good at their hands, they were enough for two hundred sand ships. Each sand ship had at least two cannons, a thousand kilogram cannon, a five hundred kilogram cannon, or a Folang machine cannon. As for each ship, there were also a large number of small cannons, firearms and other firearms.

In order to fight, each ship requires at least 100 people. It requires 20,000 combat troops. There are also some sailors. The number is even between 20,000 and 30,000.

Zhou Mengchen had so many combat soldiers at hand. He even planned to draw some personnel from Qi Jiguang's Zhejiang soldiers. As for the cavalry he brought, they really couldn't get on the ship. Most of the cavalry, including Ma Gui, once the ship got faster, they would not stand firmly on the deck, and even felt dizzy. It was impossible to fight at all.

So these are the only people.

Zhou Mengchen stopped saying anything depressed and worried at this moment. It was useless to say it. He raised the wine bowl and said, "This time, Yu Dayou is the main general. The general leads the entire army. I am waiting for the victory here, hoping that this battle will end the Japanese pirates, capture Wang Zhi alive, and sweep away the demon atmosphere at sea." Then Zhou Mengchen drank the strong wine in the bowl and smashed it hard on the ground. With a "bang", the wine bowl was split into pieces.

These four generals also drank and threw their bowls. Yu Dayou said, "Please rest assured, I will not return if I cannot win this battle."

The other three people also saluted and said, "I won't return if I can't win." Then they began to board the ship.

Before the war came, the wind was already very tight.
Chapter completed!