Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1492 Dissuade ([-])

The armed transport ship "Chukechi" that Guo Puxia was on sailed steadily on the river.

In the 17th century, the Xiangjiang River was extremely open, and Dongting Lake was indeed a vast scene.This situation and this scene should have been the pinnacle of poets who immigrated and wrote poems along the river. However, the series of brick and stone fortresses built on both sides of the Xiangjiang River and the densely packed cannon barrels on the fortresses represent the martial arts. Such a beautiful building can always make the writers who have a little bit of poetry silently silent again. The world is so difficult and life is difficult, and they even recite poems!

Besides, now the new emperor of Dashun (Li Guo hastily proclaimed himself emperor before his death, and his reign name was Zhongxing, so 1667 is the first year of Zhongxing) doesn’t like scholars with good poems and literary talents. What the emperor prefers is a strong man who can carry a tripod and bravely crown the three armies, or a skilled craftsman who can make guns and forge cannons.As for the literati, he just treated them with a little courtesy, and it would be nonsense to say that they paid more attention to them.

Bal County is the first county of Yuezhou Prefecture. It is located at the confluence of the Xiangjiang River and the Yangtze River, and guards the entrance of Dongting Lake. It can be said to be the most important node of the Yangjiang defense line of the Shun Army.Therefore, at this critical place, Dashun built [-] fortresses, large and small, and each fortress could have hundreds to thousands of soldiers. It was guarded by more than [-] soldiers from the Dashun Central Battalion. The biggest obstacle to this is that the two sides saw each other repeatedly here many years ago, but the Qing army was still unable to attack despite the casualties, and could only return in defeat in the end.

And after the gunboats on the inland river on the east bank came and wandered around from time to time, the Qing army was even more determined to take down Ba L County by force. Some fortresses were built there as a protection and early warning system in the northern part of Bal County, making Yuezhou Prefecture look more stable as Mount Tai.

It is worth mentioning that these subsequent forts were built independently by the Shun army.They set up kilns to burn bricks locally, cut down trees to get wood, and recruited a large number of civilians according to the existing fortresses designed by engineers on the east bank, and imitated a large number of large and small fortresses, which made Dongshun evacuate because of the tense relationship. The East Coast engineers who returned were also very surprised: Although these Shunguo people don't understand construction engineering, mechanics and other related knowledge, they are good at taking pictures of cats and tigers. I really underestimated these humble guys before.

It's just that the Shun army still lacks the key brick and tile wheel kiln technology, and also lacks the technology that can increase the efficiency and yield of bricks on a large scale. The Huguang front line is more common, in order to resist the possible large-scale offensive of the Qing army.As for the central and southern JX, HN and other places in the deep rear, except for the really important traffic arteries, it is basically difficult to see the fortresses.

The reason for this situation is that the cost of building the fortress is too high, so high that it is unbearable for the whole court of Shun Kingdom—whether it is recruiting civilians, mining for stones, setting up kilns to burn bricks, cutting trees for wood, or Building a fortress itself is a matter of extremely consuming people's resources - if the military pressure is not too great, it is estimated that Li Guo would not have adopted this kind of fortress tactics when his foothold was not stable.

The armed transport ship "Chukochi" (the ninth ship of the "Yaksa" class) that Guo Puxia was on board slowly docked at a small pier specially built for it after skimming several thick fortresses.Strictly speaking, this wharf is also a small fortress. Not only are there four small-caliber artillery pieces imported from the east bank, but also some small cannons made by Dashun (in the eyes of people on the east bank, they are just large-caliber guns). To guard against possible surface attacks.

There are 3 guards stationed in the pier, all of which are equipped with matchlock guns purchased from RB and resold by the East Bank. This is the benefit of direct line troops.The Baling garrison has been affiliated to the Zhongying since the time of Li Guo, and has always been one of the troops directly under the Zhongying General Quan, HB Jiedushi, and Dashun Crown Prince Li Laiheng. The clusters are equipped with a large number of firearms, not to mention the more than 3 field troops led by Li Laiheng himself-among the more than 5000 people, there is a full-firearms force formed by selecting the elite of the fifth battalion, equipped with more than [-] east coast imported rifles and Dozens of imported or self-cast artillery, with a scale of about [-] people, is called "Silver Gun Effective Festival Army". It is Li Laiheng's first-class baby lump army. Qing army.

Of course, the Qing army on the opposite side is not a fool. After seeing the power of the silver gun Xiaojie army and Guo Sheng's army with the same all-firearms, under the pressure of reality, they also slowly started military reforms, that is, increasing the number of troops in the army. The strength of firearms, the large amount of money hired officers of the Dutch East India Company (in private, of course) to teach tactics, and tried every means to improve the manufacturing process of firearms - because they inherited most of the "artisan heritage" of the Ming Dynasty, Manchuria In terms of self-produced weapons, Qing is much better than the Shun army, which was born as a refugee and has a weak foundation-in order to gradually improve its combat effectiveness, and compete with the Shun army who reformed first.

Of course, hand-to-hand combat, riding and archery skills, which have always been the magic weapon for Manchu and Mongolian victory, were also advocated at the same time. The Manchu and Qing courts hoped that this mixed military system could be effective and lay a solid foundation for the future large-scale southern expedition to defeat Shun, Ming and other forces.

All of the above are changes that have been seen in recent years. There is no way. War is the catalyst for all technologies. Under the pressure of life and death, people will easily compromise and come into contact with new things, new technologies, and new tactics from outside.This is true of the Shun army, and the same is true of the Qing army. Even a problematic regime like Nanming has realized the shortcomings in this area and has begun to consciously make up for the shortcomings. This is already very illustrative.

Guo Puxia, as a middle-level cadre of the gendarmerie and a captain of the army, has been handling the affairs between Dongshun and Shun as a representative all the year round, and he is aware of the growth of the Shun and Qing armies.In the early days, he even trained Guo Sheng's men and horses as an instructor. He also had close contact with the troops sent by Dashun to the east bank control area for training. The analysis and information about Shunguo written by that group has always been an important reference for the desks of major military and political officials such as Jiang Zhiqing and Liang Xiangjian.

This time he was ordered to go to the Shun Kingdom, and the most important task was to persuade the new ruler of Dashun, Li Laiheng, to give up his hostile attitude towards the various forces in the Southern Ming Dynasty, and to repair it, so that he could go all out to fight against the Qing army.After all, the more than 20 troops of the Qing Dynasty in HB have always been the confidant of Dashun, and after fighting for so many years, their combat effectiveness is not weak, especially those from the Shanxi-Gansu Green Camp, who were born in poor places, are even more brave and good at fighting. Its generals Zhao Liangdong, Zhang Yong and others used their troops with sophistication, and they were definitely not easy opponents. The whole Shun army should also feel it.

Therefore, with this premise, whether it is Liang Xiangjian in Denglai or Jiang Zhiqing in Ningbo, it seems possible to persuade Shunjun and Nanming to reconcile. It is necessary to abandon Ganzhou in order to be able to resist the threat of the Qing army.However, Guo Puxia, who has been working in the front line for a long time, is not very optimistic about the wishful thinking of the two bosses. He thinks that Li Laiheng is a tough character. There is no comparison with the emperor with softer ears, and it is impossible to convince him without good reasons—just as some senior nobles often say, "Don't listen to advertisements, only look at the curative effect", saying It is Li Laiheng who is this kind of person.

With the sound of a whistle, the armed transport ship "Chukotka" slowly approached the berth, then lowered its sails and lowered its bow and tail anchors.Captain Guo Puxia straightened his clothes, and then quickly jumped onto the pier with three or four entourages.

There are already many officials of Shunguo waiting on the pier at the moment. Guo Puxia looked at them. The status quo of the old alternation period.

The colors of these people's clothes are also relatively uniform now, and they are all official clothes made of more elegant silk cloth, imitating the standard of the Tang Dynasty.This is mainly due to the fact that Li Zicheng admired his hometown SX. Not only was the capital Xi’an back then, but even the names of official positions were copied from the Tang Dynasty, such as General Guoyi and General Mighty (please forgive Lao Li for his low level of education and weak staff team. ...), Li Guo, Li Laiheng and his son inherited the Dashun's orthodoxy, naturally Xiao Gui and Cao Sui, and everything went on as usual.

The garrison officers and soldiers in the pier all looked curiously at Guo Puxia and the others who were wearing summer short-sleeved army uniforms. The weird expressions on their faces, if the officers were not buttery beside them, they would have laughed outright.In their minds, the craftsmen of the Eastern Kingdom court are powerful enough, and the army is quite capable of fighting, but the etiquette is probably at the level of barbarians!Hmph, although our Da Shun Dynasty is inferior to you in other things, our etiquette is firmly above you!

"The person here is General Guo of the Eastern Kingdom, my official is..." a bearded, tall and thick Dashun official from the Ministry of Rites greeted him and said.This man was a bit older, he looked over 50, but he was tall and strong, with sharp eyes, and his voice was like a bell. He was obviously a veteran official in the Dashun Army. After entering the Ministry of Rites, he still spoke in such a polite tone.

"I don't like to sit in a sedan chair. I just ride a horse. I'm going to see your emperor now. I know he's visiting all the troops in Baling." He went forward and handed in some identity documents for officials from Shunguo to check.

"Okay, I, Lao Zhang, don't like sitting in sedan chairs either, and those sore young scholars like that thing. Those of us who come from the army still enjoy riding horses. Come here, bring the horse over, don't dawdle." Guo Puxia's impolite His attitude dissatisfied a bunch of Zuo Er officials on the opposite side, but the big boss in the lead was quite interesting. Instead of blaming him, he even got someone to lead a war horse. Pretty amazing.

After checking the documents—in fact, it doesn’t matter whether it is checked or not, Guo Puxia has been stationed in Jiemadang Fortress for a long time, and many people know him, so no one dares to imitate him—the group set off for their destination.

Dashun was originally from a peasant army. Although he had been operating in the Huguang area for many years, and Li Guo and his son had proclaimed themselves emperors respectively, they were still a grassroots team, and various rules had not been perfected.For example, the team guarding Guo Puxia and others, except for the guards who are pleasing to the eye, the rest of the people carrying signs, flags, and blowing and beating are all in a mess. Laugh off, even though they just laughed at the east coast people for their lack of manners.

Bal County is the capital of Yuezhou, and it is also an important military town, so a large part of the residents in the city are military families.Most of these people were crowded on both sides of the not-so-wide road at the moment, looking at the legendary yellow-clothed thief from the Eastern Kingdom with curious eyes. The team was full of smog, and several officials who were probably from the imperial examinations in Li Guo's era shook their heads, probably because they felt that the rules were out of order and gentle.

Guo Puxia has been to Bal County a few times, and he is not very interested in the customs and customs of this place. Instead, what he is interested in now is the Minister of Rites of Dashun, who is surnamed Li, who is on par with him.Along the way, he tried to start a conversation several times, trying to learn something from this Dashun official, but unexpectedly, this person looked very rough on the outside, but he was actually very cunning on the inside, and repeatedly changed the subject to lead him to other places. .So that later, Guo Puxia simply kept silent, and asked directly when he saw Li Laiheng later, but the slander in his heart was unavoidable—these Shunguo officials really thought they were special?If it weren’t for my Dadong’an’s overt and covert support, I’m afraid that Changsha would have been taken over by the Tazi court, and these guys would probably have been captured by the Qing army and beheaded at BJ Caishikou to show the public. There are five people and six people like now .

However, Guo Puxia's wish to see Li Laiheng immediately may be difficult to realize.Li Laiheng went to Baling to inspect the troops. He was busy with affairs, but he didn't have time to meet Guo Puxia and his party for a while, so he temporarily arranged them in the world-famous Yueyang Tower—this was rebuilt with funds when Li Guo was alive—— Temporary residence, wait for him to have time to meet again.

Guo Puxia calmly accepted Shunguo's arrangement, but his mood was still a little gloomy.In the past, when envoys from the east coast were sent to Shunguo, Li Guo not only met them in person every time, but also spent most of the time meeting and chatting with each other. His attitude was very good.Even when he was sick in bed the year before last, he had to brace himself up to meet the representatives of the East Bank. Compared with Li Laiheng today, the level of enthusiasm is really heaven and earth.

"Could it be that Li Laiheng knew our reason for coming, and that our side cut off the trade before, which caused him to show his face?" Guo Puxia secretly guessed in his heart.

(End of this chapter)