I want to be emperor

Chapter 405 The high-ranking navy who has never seen the sea
With Zheng Zhilong's surrender, it means that the Great Chu Empire has completely resolved the threat from the south, and most of its power can be used in the Northern Expedition in the future.

Many people can see this.

It can be seen inside the Great Chu Empire, people in the Ming court can also see it, and even Dongyao can see it.

Therefore, Zheng Zhilong's surrender caused such a big response.

Before Zheng Zhilong surrendered, even though Zheng Zhilong had retreated in Fujian, he was still entrenched in many coastal islands and Dayuan Island.

Chongming Island, Zhoushan Islands, Nan'ao Island, Xiangjiang Island, Penghu Islands, Dayuan Island and many other islands are all under the control of Zheng Zhilong.

Although its ground force has suffered heavy losses, its fleet is still huge. There are dozens of large warships and hundreds of medium-sized warships. Most of the more than ten ships in Europe are not even considered sixth-class warships.

However, it is still an important force in the East Asian waters, especially in the coastal areas of China. Even if the more powerful Dutch and other foreign fleets come from afar, even Liu Xiang, a local pirate Fighting together, but it is also difficult to compete with Zheng Zhilong's fleet.

A single ship can't beat you, but there are so many people in Zheng Zhilong's ship.

It doesn't matter if it's ugly or not, as long as you can beat the Dutchman so badly.

Zheng Zhilong, who possesses such powerful water power, can still bring great trouble to the Great Chu Empire by harassing coastal areas such as Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, even if he retreats on the mainland.

How should I put it, even if it can block Zheng Zhilong's attack from the sea, the Great Chu Empire will inevitably need to spend a lot of manpower and material resources to deploy coastal defense lines. Various coastal and riverside fortresses need to be intensively built, investing hundreds or even thousands The cannons are used to build defense lines along the coast and along the river.

At the same time, it is necessary to deploy garrison forces in various coastal cities and deploy the main force for mobile operations.

Just these two items will at least restrain the Great Chu Empire's [-] or more troops, at least thousands of artillery pieces of various types.

And these forces will inevitably crowd out the resources invested by the Great Chu Empire in other directions.

The military expenditure of the Great Chu Empire was limited, as was the money and food, and the production capacity of the arsenal was also limited. When a large amount of money and food and the production capacity of the factory were invested in the coastal defense line, the input of money, food and weapons for the Northern Expedition would inevitably decrease.

And these are also the reasons why the Great Chu Empire has been trying to appease Zheng Zhilong's troops.

Even after conquering Fujian and seizing Quanzhou, Zheng Zhilong's lair on the mainland, he offered Zheng Zhilong even more favorable terms of appeasement, allowing Zheng Zhilong and the others to continue to share the huge wealth by taking shares in the new maritime trading company. maritime interests.

All of this is to completely solve the coastal threat, and then free up hands to carry out the Northern Expedition.

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The Northern Expedition, this is something that has already been discussed last year, but the Northern Expedition plan has been postponed many times.

At the beginning of the third year of Chengshun, the top leaders of the Great Chu Empire originally planned to officially launch the Northern Expedition this fall. If it was not enough, they would first attack Jiangbei and take down the three cities of Yangzhou, Huai'an, and Xuzhou.

But in fact, so far, the Great Chu Empire Army has not even captured Yangzhou. More precisely, the Great Chu Empire has not attacked Yangzhou City at all!

All this is because the continuous Guangdong-Guangzhou Campaign and the Fujian-Zhejiang Campaign occupied a large number of resources of the Great Chu Empire, and the various strategic resources for the Northern Expedition were insufficient.

With such ups and downs, the top military officials would rather wait until next year when they are more fully prepared, and then go north with all their might.

Recruiting Zheng Zhilong was part of many preparations.

After Zheng Zhilong accepted the consolation, he quickly took several main troops under his command and his son Zheng Sen to the north by boat. They first went to Zhoushan Islands and Chongming Island, and presided over the reorganization of the local troops under Zheng Zhilong.

According to a series of plans in Zhaofuli, Zheng Zhilong's subordinates belonged to the overall uprising and surrendered anyway, and were not included in the ranks of prisoners of war, so the treatment should be better.

The men and horses under Zheng Zhilong's command, the ground fighters, qualified and volunteers, are organized into the garrison, and there are three garrison divisions in total. The rest of the conditions are not qualified or unwilling to join the army. , construction battalion, etc. for a period of time, after half a year, they will also be decommissioned according to the voluntary principle.

As for personnel at sea, most of the armed merchant ships and ordinary merchant ships were incorporated into three maritime trading companies, all of which were controlled and managed by the Ministry of Industry. Is it because they occupy different shares in it? To a certain extent, they are regarded as joint stockholders, and the Ministry of Industry?They take a 'maritime trading license' to become a shareholder.

And there is no doubt that the maritime trade license is the most important thing. Without this thing, no trade can be carried out in the ports of the Great Chu Empire.

The more than 100 warships were integrated into the Great Chu Empire Navy as a whole, and then mixed with the Navy's original fleet.

The fleet of Zheng Zhilong, together with the troops of Zhao Xinhou who had surrendered one after another, and the original warships of the Great Chu Empire, were finally reorganized into two ocean-going fleets, the Nanyang Fleet and the Beiyang Fleet.

The Nanyang Fleet, with Xiangjiang as the headquarters of the fleet, is responsible for the South China Sea south of Dayuan Island.

The Beiyang Fleet, with Wusong Port as the headquarters of the fleet, is responsible for the huge sea area north of Dayuan Island.

Each ocean-going fleet includes the first and second frigate squadrons, the first and second cruiser squadrons and other subordinate squadrons.

In addition, there are two inland river fleets, the Pearl River Fleet and the Yangtze River Fleet.

The Pearl River Fleet is fully responsible for combat missions in the inland rivers of the Pearl River system.

The Yangtze River Fleet is fully responsible for the combat tasks of the Yangtze River system.

In the end, the Great Chu Empire formed a structure of two oceans, two inland rivers, and a total of four fleets.

At present, there are nine large warships classified as second-class cruisers equipped with more than thirty artillery pieces, all of which are the original Zheng Zhilong fleet, four are old-fashioned blessing ships, and five are relatively new large bird ships.

There are a total of 37 warships equipped with [-] to [-] artillery pieces and classified as first-class frigates, more than half of which are old Fuchuan and half of which are new bird ships.

There are more second-class frigates equipped with more than ten and less than twenty ships. There are hundreds of them, and most of them are medium-sized bird ships.

There are dozens of sailboats used for offshore and inland river operations.

Judging from the classification of these ship types, it can actually be seen that the previous Zheng Zhilong fleet was undergoing a ship type change.

The old Fuchuan, Cangshan boats, sandships, etc. could not adapt to the naval warfare of the gun era, so the bird boats with better maneuverability and more artillery became the new choice for Zheng Zhilong's fleet.

But after Zheng Zhilong's fleet was merged into the Great Chu Empire Navy, the Great Chu Empire Navy would not continue to build these bird ships.

Because the Great Chu Empire Navy has more professional Daye-class first-class frigates and Xiangyang-class second-class cruisers that were specially built for naval warfare.

In addition, the Naval Administration Department of the Great Chu Empire is also designing and preparing to build larger warships, such as first-class cruisers and even third-class battleships.

The high-level navy of the Great Chu Empire is still very ambitious.

Of course, this ambition is for the future. Right now, all the resources of the Great Chu Empire are preparing for the Northern Expedition, and there is no big threat from the navy, so there will not be too much resource investment in the short term. It would be nice to be able to maintain the current scale of shipbuilding, coupled with the construction of a few large warships.

It is worth mentioning that with the surrender of Zheng Zhilong's subordinates, the maritime trade of the Great Chu Empire has also been completely smoothed out. A large number of various strategic raw materials from overseas, such as saltpeter and sulfur, began to enter the control area of ​​the Great Chu Empire in large numbers, and The price is much cheaper than before.

This directly reduced the ammunition production cost of the Great Chu Empire by several layers, which was another great benefit for the subsequent Northern Expedition.

In addition, when the navy is still preparing for the future Northern Expedition, it will directly provide certain material supplies for the Northern Expedition troops by sea, such as directly transporting materials to Shandong and even Tianjin, and provide supplies for the Northern Expedition troops nearby to make up for the lack of canal capacity.

As for the safety of maritime transportation, there is no need to worry about pirates. After all, most of the existing warships and soldiers of the Great Chu Empire Navy are pirates... As for sea storms and the like, as long as they honestly sail along the coastline , the problem will not be too big, if you really encounter it, you can only consider yourself unlucky.

On the navy side, they are trying to add drama to themselves in the future Northern Expedition, lest China has not been unified yet, the navy will do nothing, and then be reduced to the edge.

Naturally, Luo Zhixue would not strike at the navy's initiative.

Although in his opinion, the current sea transportation is not very reliable and has relatively large limitations, but since the navy has offered to share the worries for the Northern Expedition, there is no reason to refuse, so he also ordered the logistics department to follow up. Material transportation can also give some tasks to the navy.

However, in Luo Zhixue's view, just the transportation of materials cannot fully play the role of the navy.

If possible, Luo Zhixue would also like to use the navy in his hand to carry out a wave of landing operations to attract and contain the enemy.

For example, a wave of landing in Tianjin at a critical moment... Chongzhen will be forced to dispatch troops to serve the king if he is not scared to death... Or he will go to Liaodong to land a wave at that time. It is estimated that Huang Taiji will not sleep well, let alone enter closed.

Thinking of this, Luo Zhixue called several navy generals over to discuss the feasibility of directly crossing the sea and landing in Tianjin or Lushun.

It's just that the answer given to him by the navy made him unsatisfied.

The navy believes that simply attacking Tianjin or Lushun is not a problem. It is feasible to organize a huge fleet to go there, land directly with thousands of troops, or even directly capture the Tianjin Acropolis.

But the problem is that it is difficult for the navy to maintain the operations of the landing troops for a long time, especially when the ground troops are directly landing on the mainland, facing a large number of enemy ground forces attacking, and the ammunition consumption is extremely high. Continued operations have high requirements for transportation and supplies.

Vice Admiral Lu Xingye, after seeing that Luo Zhixue was not satisfied, proposed a compromise plan, and ran directly to land in Tianjin, Lushun and the like, which were not very reliable.

But if it is going north to land and occupy a certain island, then it is much simpler. With the strength of the Great Chu Empire Navy, it is completely possible to take down an island and then use the fleet to protect it.

In the future, this island will be used as a forward base, and after hoarding a large amount of strategic materials in advance, a landing operation will be launched nearby, so that long-term operations can be maintained.

The overall mode is somewhat similar to the previous mode in which Zheng Zhilong's troops relied on Nan'ao Island, and then sent troops to occupy and defend several cities along the coast of Chaozhou Prefecture.

After hearing about this model, Luo Zhixue felt that it was feasible, and immediately said: "The navy is conducting research on a specific feasible combat plan!"

After Vice Admiral Lu Xingye, Minister of the Navy, returned to the Navy Department, he found a group of high-ranking navy generals to discuss with, among them was Zheng Zhilong who had just defected here.

But in the conference room, Zheng Zhilong didn't say much among the dozen or so high-ranking officers of the Navy, keeping a low profile.

He knew very well that he had just defected here, even if he had the rank of Rear Admiral, he also had the title of Earl of Zhenhai, but no one dared to say that he had won the trust of Emperor Luo Zhixue and other high-level navy officials.

In this regard, he had expected it before defecting.

The general of the defeated army wants to continue to maintain the glory and wealth, and he still has to return to the mainland to maintain the glory and wealth and give his family a better future. This will always require a price.

Handing over the fleet was the price he paid.

And after handing over the fleet, he never expected to continue to control the real power.

To be honest, it was beyond his expectation that his so-called senior naval adviser could still participate in the high-level naval meeting.

He naturally didn't know that the reason why he was called in today's meeting was not because Lu Xingye and the others had much trust in Zheng Zhilong, but because His Majesty had assigned him this time to capture a certain island in the north as a transit base before landing in the north. Some are beyond their capabilities.

In fact, the high-ranking officers of the navy present were all the same as Lu Xingye. Many of them were from the army, and a few were also from the inland river navy of the Ming army. In fact, few really understood naval warfare.

There were a few in the past, but now they are all sent to serve in the Nanyang Fleet and Beiyang Fleet. Now more than half of the dozen or so high-ranking naval officers who stay in Gyeonggi have never even seen the sea...

It is really embarrassing for you to ask them to formulate a long-distance raid to capture a certain island.

That's why Zheng Zhilong was brought to this meeting. Anyway, this Zheng Zhilong is a senior adviser of the Navy, and this person is an old pirate who knows nothing about naval warfare. It is always right to ask his opinion.

So, Zheng Zhilong, who was just thinking about coming over and going through the motions, heard Lu Xingye ask himself not long after the meeting started: "Consultant Zheng, what's your opinion?"

(End of this chapter)