The Soul of the Han Dynasty in the Late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 286 Arrest
The era of Mao Wenlong is gone forever, and Dongjiang Town is now falling apart. Liu Xingzuo, who was able to return to Daming after going through hardships last spring, died in the battle in the pass.

Hong Xie hated Liu Xingzuo so much that he actually hid his body in a meat paste, so Daming failed to confirm Liu Xingzuo's death in time, and there were too many rumors that Liu Xingzuo was demoted to slavery again.

Liu Xingzuo's brothers and old subordinates who stayed in Pidao were treated coldly, and these murderers, who were already difficult to raise, were ready to move.

Instigated by Liu Xingzhi and Liu Xingpei, hundreds of Liao soldiers rebelled and captured Phi Island in one fell swoop, and then attacked the islands of Dongjiang Town.

In the end, the imperial court dispatched troops from Denglai to calm down the situation, and the Liu family brothers who were the instigators were all beheaded.

In addition, Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, Li Jiucheng and other former real power factions in Dongjiang Town led their troops to defect to Denglai Governor Sun Yuanhua, and the strength of Dongjiang Town has been greatly reduced.

Not long after Huanglong came to power, he had no prestige and connections in the court, so the deduction of food and salaries in Dongjiang Town was even more serious. It was already miserable, but Dongjiang Town, which had been killing each other for several months last year, was now undercurrents, and many generals had two hearts.

Geng Zhongyu, the governor of Pidao, and Li Mei, Wang Yingyuan, the Qianhu officer, and other mid-level military officers conspired to defect to Jiannu.

Li Mei took a letter of surrender drawn by more than a dozen military officers under Geng Zhongyu and took a boat through Zhenjiang Fort and up the Yalu River to get in touch with Jiannu, and another rebellion was about to be staged.

In the first ten days of June of the fourth year of Chongzhen, thanks to the hard work of shipbuilders, three of the fifteen rebuilt old lock boats in the "Tiger Cave" city dock were ready to launch.

There are three types of ships with displacements of [-] tons, [-] tons, and [-] tons respectively. Several master craftsmen from Longjiang Shipyard brought dozens of experienced sailors to test the voyage.

In order to increase opportunities for practice, Huang Yong, the newly appointed head of the water battalion of the "Red Banner Army", personally took the three marines of the General Banner onboard these three new ships equipped with cast steel cannons produced by Huang's family only on the bow and stern. The boat goes to sea.

They will drop by Phi Island to deliver a letter written by Huang Han to Huang Long, the commander-in-chief of Dongjiang Town.

How about the "Red Banner Army"?Huang Long had already heard it like thunder. He received Huang Yong and read the letter. He learned that the general of the "Red Banner Army" was going to visit Phi Island in person in a while, and he felt very honored.

When Huang Yong left Phi Island and returned to the voyage, he found that a merchant ship saw the flag of the Ming army from a distance, and Yang Fan sped up and fled. What is so suspicious?Huang Yong also wanted to check the speed of the new ship?Can you catch up with No. [-] Fuchuan at sea?
The three new warships of the "Red Banner Army" navy were originally chasing without any purpose. Later, it was discovered that dozens of people on the escaped merchant ship were in a panic. When the smallest old lock ship with a displacement of [-] tons approached Several of the ship's six-pounders were fired.

The bow and stern of this old lock ship each had a twelve-pound gun, and now it was actively fired by a merchant ship. The veteran artillery on board brought more than [-] young gunner apprentices, how could they be polite.

The twelve-pound gun produced by Huang's airtightness is good, and the range is double that of the six-pound gun equipped on merchant ships.

The fleeing merchant ship was shot four or five times in a row, and more than a dozen sailors and gunners on board were killed and injured, and the mainsail was knocked down. If you don't surrender, you will be buried in the sea, and the merchant ship raised the white flag.

The sailors and gunners on the captured merchant ship came to the deck and knelt down under the watchful eye of the young Marine Corps with his flintlock gun.

No wonder the ship escaped. It turned out that there were more than a dozen traitors with money rat tails on board, and there were actually three real slaves among them.

The reason why the ship chose to surrender was because one of the three real slaves was killed by artillery fire on the spot, the other was seriously injured and would die, and the rest of the slaves were broken by the interrupted sub-mast.

The captain of this merchant ship is a Laizhou Han with the surname Shen, and he often travels to and from North Korea, Dongjiang Town, and Liaodong Nansi Wei for smuggling, because Liaodong specialties such as Korean ginseng, Dongzhu, mink, sea cucumber, etc. are in high demand in the capital.

The wars of all dynasties could not put an end to the smuggling trade. Because of the food embargo and the economic blockade, there was an artificial shortage of supplies, and opportunities for huge profits appeared. The direct beneficiaries of the money made by the warring parties.

The captain is the son of the Shen family, a rich family in Laizhou. The Shen family has Jinshi and an official in the capital, and also has a strong background in the Denglai Navy.

This straw boat is also the ship type of the No. 36 Fuchuan, with a length of 11 meters and a width of [-] meters. The displacement is about [-] tons, and it is equipped with six six-pound copper-bodied iron-core guns.

This smuggling boat is well maintained, and usually has 41 sailors and gunners under the captain. Basically, no ship of the same size as this straw boat can catch up with it when sailing in the Liao Sea.

If there is a small ship chasing, the straw boat can basically scare off the Ming army navy inspection ship who is trying to blackmail it, as long as it fires a few symbolic shots.

In the eyes of smugglers, there are no national interests, no enemies, only business partners. The Shen family has shops in Denglai and even the capital, and there are also partners at the level of Jiannu Gushan Ezhen in Liaodong.

Daming implemented an economic blockade against Houjin and severely cracked down on smuggling, but Houjin did the opposite. They welcomed any Han merchants who dared to come to Liaodong for trade, they would not start robbery, and they would provide convenience and protection.

These Han merchants traveled to and from Liaodong so that Jiannu got food and sold Korean ginseng, Dongzhu, leather goods and other special products. They also collected a lot of information about Ming Dynasty, and many spies successfully lurked as merchants.

This time, the smuggling ship of the Shen family traded grain and purchased the returned goods. When returning to the voyage, they accepted the task of building slaves, and sent three envoys and a dozen Han people to Phi Island and handed them over to Geng Zhongyu, the capital.

Unexpectedly, they were unlucky, and just approaching the waters of Phi Island, they found three strange ships with the flag of the Daming Navy flying high. It seemed that each ship was no smaller than their own No. [-] Fuchuan.

Captain Shen thought it was nothing to worry about, and immediately gave an order to turn the rudder and deviate from the course to avoid it. It stands to reason that he was already very careful. There are related accounts.

Unexpectedly, there were more than [-] telescopes on the three old lock ships led by Huang Yong. Both sailors and marines were willing to stand on the bow and use the binoculars to look far away, so too many eyes saw the grass to hide from. Skip the boat.

In order to prove that the speed of the old lock boat was faster than that of the Fuchuan of the same size, Huang Yong and the master of the Longjiang Shipyard who participated in the trial voyage sent a flag to order the three ships to pursue at full speed.

In this way, the traitor was caught by mistake, and the third-level real slave was captured. The Jian slave whose leg was broken by the mast saw that he was surrounded by three large ships of the Ming army. When the captain decided to surrender, he wanted to avoid being tortured by the Ming army. Stabbed himself to death.

(End of this chapter)