Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 178 Two Bad News

Yongle three years, November [-]th.

After morning morning.

Hall of Martial Arts.

"Your Majesty, the Ministry of War has just received the memorial from Licheng Hou Babaili who hastily sent people from the south."

Jin Zhong, Minister of the Ministry of War, bowed and presented the memorial and said respectfully at the same time.

Li Xing hunched over, walked to Jin Zhong, took the memorial, and then quickly handed it to Zhu Di, who was sitting behind the imperial table.

Zhu Di opened the memorial. After reading it, he threw it on the table angrily and said coldly: "Li Xing, go and invite Duke Wei, Duke Cao, and Uncle Cheng to discuss matters."

"Your Majesty, do you want to call me Prince?"

Li Xing asked tentatively.

Zhu Di said: "The prince is currently discussing with Zheng He about going to sea, so I won't call him for the time being."

"Slaves take orders."

Li Xing respectfully accepted the order, then bowed and retreated.

Zhu Di looked at Jin Zhong in the palace and asked, "Qing Jin, have you read the memorial sent by Marquis Licheng?"

"Return to your majesty, I have seen it." Jin Zhong bowed and said: "It is because the matter is so important that I am anxious to see your majesty."

On the fourth day of September, Zhu Di conferred the title of "General Conquering the Barbarians" to Licheng Hou Shengyong, with a sealed letter.

In late September, the Ming Dynasty's Southern Expeditionary Army officially launched, and Zhu Di personally went to Longjiang for a farewell tour. It was a sunny and windy day, and hundreds of boats were vying for water on the river. Flags covered the sky, and drums and horns sounded. The Ming army was mighty and majestic, and its military appearance was unprecedented since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Unprecedented.

A month later, Licheng Hou Shengyong and his troops led by left deputy general Mu Sheng, right deputy general Zhang Fu, left staff general Li Bin, right staff general Chen Xu and others divided their forces into Annan and met at Baihe River.

While the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were advancing step by step into the hinterland of Annan, they issued a proclamation to the Annan people, calling on the Annan people that the behavior of Hu Jima and his son was "a wanton act of cruelty and cruelty to a country", and listed the Hu family's "two murders of the former kings of Annan to occupy their country". ", "The thieves killed the descendants of the Chen family and wiped out the entire clan", "harsh punishments, violent killings of innocent people, heavy collection of taxes, endless exploitation" and other twenty major crimes. It was also said that the arrival of the Ming army was "to deprive the people of their suffering. "Restore the ancestral sacrifice of the Chen family" to shake the people's hearts.

Sure enough, many Annan people "were disgusted with Hu's harsh rule and had no fighting spirit", which helped the Ming army advance more smoothly.

On November [-], the main force of Hu's army retreated to Duobang City. The Ming army also noticed that the city was located on the river and had a large area of ​​​​beach for beaching, so they divided their forces to attack and successfully repelled Hu's army with firecrackers. Military elephant soldiers.

After that, the Ming army invaded Thang Long City, the eastern capital of Annan Kingdom, and plundered it wantonly. They "robbed women of fine materials and silk, accounted for grain reserves, divided officials into doing things, and recruited refugees. In order to stay there for a long time, many boys were castrated, and copper coins were collected from everywhere. "Send me off to Jinling by post".

However, as the Ming army plundered, many Annan people who had surrendered felt that the Ming army was brutal and should resist. Therefore, many forces took the opportunity to cause chaos in the areas occupied by the Ming army and set fire to the city.

The most frightening thing is that due to Hu's enemy troops and Annan spies deliberately poisoning the water, many Ming officers and soldiers were infected with the disease, and Sheng Yong and other generals had to stop attacking Bingfeng.

As the saying goes, "killing one thousand enemies will result in eight hundred losses." Not long after the disease appeared in the Ming army, the disease also appeared on a large scale in Annan, including in Hu's army.

As a result, two voices sounded in the Ming army.

One is to choose to stick to Thang Long City and wait for the epidemic to pass before continuing the pursuit and heading straight to Thanh Hoa City, the capital of Annan Kingdom.

The other is to take advantage of the enemy's disease and continue to fight until Thanh Hoa City is captured.

"Your Majesty, Xu Huizu (Li Jinglong, Liu Jing), pays homage to your Majesty. Long live my emperor."

Xu Huizu, Li Jinglong and Liu Jing bowed into the hall and bowed in salute.

Since the dispersion of the dynasty was short-lived, Duke Cao Guo, Duke Wei and Bo Chengyi had not gone far yet. It didn't take much time for Li Xing to call the three of them over.

"Let's all get back together." Zhu Di raised his hand and said.

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Xu and Li said in unison.

Zhu Di gave Li Xing a look, and the latter understood, walked to the imperial table, picked up Sheng Yong's memorial from the table, and then presented it to Xu Huizu.

Xu Huizu quickly read the memorial and handed it to Li Jinglong.

After the two of them finished reading the memorial, Zhu Di asked: "What do you think of the war in Annan? Should it be a war or a cessation?"

"Your Majesty, the failure of the war in Annan was not due to the lack of life of our Ming soldiers, but to Hu's cunning and poisoning. Therefore, I think we can send medical officers to send medicinal materials to diagnose and treat our officers and soldiers. At the same time, I sent an order to General Sheng to stick to the promotion." Dragon, choose the opportunity to fight again."

Xu Huizu bowed, saluted, and replied respectfully.

Li Jinglong said: "Your Majesty, I feel that the continuous interruption will lead to chaos. The great situation that our officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty finally defeated cannot be delayed by the epidemic. We can send reinforcements to attack Hu's army from the flank. At this time There is also an epidemic among Hu's army. As soon as my reinforcements arrive, I will attack Qinghua City in one go and capture the puppet king of Hu's."

"Uncle Chengyi, why don't you speak?"

Zhu Di looked at Liu Jing and asked.

"Your Majesty, I am thinking that our Ming Dynasty firearms are no less than ten times sharper than those in the early Hongwu period. We captured Shenglong City in just a few months, but the powerful military peak was stopped due to the epidemic. I noticed that Shenglong City was The general said in his memorial that after conquering Thang Long City, our army "robbed women of gold and silk, accounted for grain reserves, divided officials to handle affairs, and recruited refugees. In order to stay here for a long time, they castrated many boys, collected copper coins from various places, and sent them to Jinling by post." "

Liu Jing bowed and said: "Your Majesty, the purpose of our army's southern expedition to the puppet king of the Hu family in Annan is to 'carry the hardships of the people of Annan and restore the ancestral sacrifice of the Chen family'. We are not going to plunder wantonly! We, the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, are justice for the king." It is really inappropriate for our army to seize the women’s treasures and treasures after conquering the city!”

"absurd!"

Li Jinglong retorted: "Did Uncle Cheng say that our soldiers were plundering Annan?"

"Don't be angry, Mr. Cao Guo. I don't mean that."

Liu Jing explained: "Because according to what General Sheng said, after our soldiers broke into the city and robbed the women of their treasures, they were actually no different from bandits."

When he said this, he clasped his fists and bowed to Zhu Di: "Your Majesty, please give me a clear warning."

"Stop arguing."

Zhu Di raised his hand to stop the argument between Li Jinglong and Liu Jing.

"The order was passed and the Huimin Medical Hospital was ordered to send a team of medical officers to Annan. In addition, medicinal materials were transferred from Huimin Pharmacies in Fujian and Guangzhou and sent to the Annan front line to treat epidemic diseases for our soldiers."

Zhu Di thought for a moment and then ordered in a deep voice: "As for whether to stop the war or not, I ordered Sheng Yong to discuss with the generals and choose the opportunity to act. There is no need to ask for orders again."

"The minister leads the order."

Jin Zhong bowed and bowed.

At this moment, Li Xing entered the palace and reported, "Your Majesty, Qitai, the Minister of War, wants to see you."

When Zhu Di heard this, he said expressionlessly: "Send him to come in."

"Your Majesty, Qitai, pays homage to your Majesty."

After Qitai entered the palace, he immediately bowed and saluted.

"Pingshen." Zhu Di said.

Qi Tai said: "Your Majesty, I have just received an urgent military report sent by General Song Sheng, the commander-in-chief of Gansu Province. Please take a look at it."

As he spoke, he took out the military newspaper from his sleeve pocket.

Li Xing stepped forward to take the military report from Qi Tai, bowed to the imperial table, and presented it to Zhu Di.

"The ancient saints and sages said that 'good fortune never comes in pairs, and misfortune never comes alone'."

After Zhu Di read the military newspaper, he sighed: "This bad news is really one after another!" He put down the military newspaper and handed it to Li Xing: "Read them all."

Therefore, Li Xing handed this military report to Wei Guogong Xu Huizu.

After Xu Huizu read it, the military report was passed to Li Jinglong, Liu Jing, Jin Zhong and others for reading.

Song Sheng reported in the military newspaper that the war in the northwest was not going well.

Yilipali's general Nanaha was actually killed by Arutai, but Arutai sent Nanaha's confidant general to send news to Yilipali, claiming that the Ming army had killed Nanaha, and Alutai Taiwan wanted to divert the trouble to the west and mobilized Ming Dynasty and Yili to fight inside.

After the Ming army recaptured Hami and expanded the city, Yili realized the Ming army's intention to advance westward.

Although after investigation, it was also known that Nanaha died at the hands of Alutai, but in order to make his soldiers work hard to resist the Ming Dynasty, those in power naturally claimed that the Ming army killed Nanaha.

Although the border troops in Yili were unable to withstand the firearms of the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers, they grew up on horseback and escaped very quickly.

Often when the Ming army was about to pursue them, they would quickly run back to the city within their own territory.

Since the Ming army was not ready to invade the Western Regions on a large scale, Song Sheng did not order an attack on the city under Yili's control.

Under the instigation of Arutai and the persuasion of Chun Sui Chi Han, Ke Yilibaili sent many tribes from Turpan to prevent the Ming army from building a city on the border between Hami and Yilibali.

Probably under the guidance of Arutai, Yili improved the catapult and installed wheels on the catapult.

Those Turpan tribal forces that harassed the Ming army actually used horse-drawn wheeled catapults to bombard the city wall built by the Ming army on the Hami border.

Once the Ming army could not bear the disturbance and sent cavalry to attack, Turpan used its soldiers to cover the auxiliary troops and pulled away the catapults, and then fled to their border cities. However, Song Sheng believed that the time had not come for a large-scale attack to defend the city, so he could not The quasi-frontier army attacked the city of Turpan.

The officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty had no choice but to build the city at night, but after dawn, when the city wall was not yet strong, the Turpan tribes used catapults to bombard the city wall.

As a result, the Ming army on the Hami border and the tribal forces in Turpan were in a stalemate, which led to a particularly slow progress in the construction of the Hami border city.

"Do you have any countermeasures, sir?"

Zhu Di saw that all the ministers were looking at each other and no one spoke, so he had to ask: "Do you have any suggestions, Duke Wei?"

"Your Majesty, I have no countermeasures in mind at the moment."

Xu Huizu bowed and spoke bluntly.

"Cao Guogong is very resourceful, does he have any good strategies?" Zhu Di looked at Li Jinglong and asked.

Li Jinglong bowed and said: "Your Majesty, I can't think of any good countermeasures for a while. After all, the time has not come to send troops to the Western Region. The seven major fortresses in northern Xinjiang have not been built yet. Moreover, Hami has just been recovered, and there are many wastes waiting to be done. In Hami Building cities on the border can only be done slowly."

For a time, the officials were helpless.

At this moment, there was a loud noise in everyone's ears, which sounded like the sound of heavy artillery.

"Don't be alarmed, gentlemen. The prince told me yesterday that Mo Qiaosi will conduct an experiment of bombarding the stone chamber today. The rumbling sound should be the sound of artillery."

Zhu Di was as steady as a mountain and calmed the bewildered people in the hall.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, in order to build strong city walls to resist foreign enemies, people summed up the experience of previous generations and invented a building material called glutinous rice mortar.

That is, by mixing glutinous rice soup into lime mortar, it can be mixed to form a new composite mortar.

This kind of glutinous rice lime mortar is much stronger than pure lime mortar and is very strong.

Later generations discovered that the city walls built in the Ming Dynasty also had a material that modern people are unwilling, or reluctant to use, and that is glutinous rice.

Although there was no cement concrete in the Ming Dynasty, there was a special kind of concrete, which was glutinous rice lime mortar mixed with glutinous rice, slaked lime and limestone.

This mixture is very viscous and acts as a durable bonding material.

It is precisely because of this material that the bricks and stones on the city walls of the Ming Dynasty could last for hundreds of years without deterioration or damage.

Therefore, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties in history, many buildings of the buildings were made of glutinous rice mortar. After hundreds of years, they stood up, such as the Great Wall and Mingcheng Walls in various places.

Some of the walls are even harder than modern buildings and would be difficult to knock down even with bulldozers.

But Zhu Gaoxu understood that making glutinous rice lime slurry requires a large amount of glutinous rice and the cost is too high.

Cement is different. The materials used to make ordinary cement are very simple. There are only three types, namely stone, clay, and iron ore powder.

The production process is not complicated. There are generally only three steps. The first step is to make raw material, the second step is to make clinker, and the third step is to grind it into powder.

The first step is to grind and mix limestone, clay and iron ore powder in a certain proportion. The mixture at this time is called raw meal.

The second step is to calcine the raw material. Usually the calcining temperature is around 400 degrees, and the calcined product is called clinker.

The third step is to grind the clinker and gypsum together and mix them in proportion, which is the common cement in later generations, also called ordinary Portland cement.

Because burning cement requires high-temperature calcination, it is difficult to reach this temperature when burning wood, so coal is needed.

In ancient China, limited by mining tools and technical means, coal was rarely used and usually relied on open-pit coal mining.

Since open-pit coal mines are relatively rare, this may be one reason why the ancient Chinese did not develop cement.

However, with Zhu Gaoxu here, Mo Qiaosi had successfully burned ordinary cement a few months ago.

Cement is generally divided into ordinary Portland cement, Portland cement mixed with mixed materials and special cement.

Portland cement mixed with mixed materials is to add other substances to ordinary Portland cement according to proportion and certain processing procedures to achieve special effects, such as slag cement, pozzolanic Portland cement, fly ash silicic acid Salt cement, composite Portland cement, etc.

The raw materials of these cements have more active mixed materials or inactive mixed materials than the original ordinary Portland cement.

Cement made from different raw materials has different properties and is applicable to different construction areas.

At present, Moqiaosi already has a research laboratory developing cement with mixed materials.

"I see."

"I'm afraid those who don't know the truth must have been shocked just now."

After everyone in the hall heard Zhu Di's explanation, they all spoke up.

"Li Xing?"

Zhu Di looked at Li Xingdao, who was standing at the door.

"My servant is here." Li Xing bowed.

"Send someone to Mo Qiaosi and ask if the rumbling sound just now was caused by shelling the stone chamber."

Zhu Di said loudly.

He estimated the time in his mind. Zhu Gaoxu and Zheng He should have almost finished their discussion, so he added: "Go and send word that the prince is here to discuss matters."

"The servants lead the order."

Li Xing respectfully accepted the order, then bowed and retreated.

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(End of this chapter)