Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 377 Chaos ([-])

On February 1644, 2, the 23th day of the first month of the 17th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led the main force of the Dashun Army, crossed the Yellow River from Tongguan and Puban, and marched into Puzhou, Shanxi.And six days before that, Li Zicheng's envoy had come to the capital with a card dish, and asked Daming to have a decisive battle on the tenth day of March, and the Ming court angrily beheaded his envoy.

Although Li Zicheng's envoy was beheaded, the news that he personally led an army of 20 to Shanxi has spread all over the world. Chongzhen, who was very nervous, urged the towns to lead troops to Jifu several times and divide them into various places, "to strangle the bandit army." .However, when the situation came to this point, most of the warlords and civil servants in various places began to procrastinate and wait and see with various excuses.

The local governor of Denglai, Zeng Hualong, was quite loyal. When he received the news, he immediately wrote to the local gentry and asked them to donate money to recruit soldiers to serve the king.Helplessly, these big clans in the local area turned a blind eye to the danger of Junfu. They only wanted to enjoy the benefits that the country gave them, but they were unwilling to take even a little responsibility. Therefore, Zeng Hualong's proposal naturally came to nothing.And after he looked at the few hundred soldiers in Dengzhou City, he was worried about causing a military riot, and he sighed and temporarily dismissed some thoughts.

On March 3th, when the Qing court sent a letter to "the generals who occupy the Ming land in the west" and promised to "take the Central Plains together", in the fine spring snow, several ships slowly sailed into the land that had just thawed. Shandong Yantai Port.Due to the heavy snowfall in winter, only some wooden piers can be used in Yantai Port. As for the first permanent trestle bridge, it is still under construction.

In fact, there is no shortage of labor in Yantai Fortress.After transporting 5000 people away in two batches, at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, countless refugees braved the severe winter to enter the fortress to beg for food.The number of refugees reached its peak around mid-December, when more than 12 people entered the camp almost every day.Although the number has decreased slightly since then, it still maintains a daily scale of around seventy or eighty.These people, together with the domestic slaves and tenant farmers captured during the attack on Jinshenzhuangzi in November, caused the population of Yantai Fortress to suddenly increase to more than 200 people, including about 11 refugees from the Ming Dynasty.

Such a large population has greatly exceeded the capacity of the Yantai Fortress. As a last resort, Mo Ming urgently ordered the soldiers to organize these refugees to take wood from Sakhalin Island to build huts for themselves.Originally, the Yantai area with a lot of snowfall in winter was not suitable for all kinds of construction, but at this time, I didn’t care about that much. The row of wooden houses on Zhifu Island can only accommodate about 4000 people. Such a huge gap can only let them I made a temporary residence.

More than 9000 of the 5000 people are young and middle-aged men. At this time, the port has thawed out, and the weather has passed the most severe cold period. Naturally, they can no longer be idle all day long.What’s more, after a winter’s recuperation, the faces of many refugees who were skinny and seemed to be about to die at any time when they came here now have a rosy color. After all, sweet potato porridge, millet porridge, salted fish, and the occasional broth made them His physical condition has improved greatly, and he can already do some physical work at this time.

So, as early as the beginning of March, under the organization of Jin Wugui, Luo Tiansheng and others, these people began to build the city walls, gun towers, piers, lighthouses, forts and other facilities of Yantai Fortress.The construction of these facilities has already started in the first half of last year, the foundation has been done long ago, and the city wall has been repaired to a high level. At this time, their work is to continue until all these facilities are completed.

The work of braving the severe cold to build the city wall is naturally extremely hard, and they still lack warm clothing and basic labor tools, but none of this can be a reason.Now the situation in Daming has entered the most critical moment, Li Zicheng will enter Beijing in less than two months, and then trigger a series of events.Shandong is very close to Beijing. At this time, it is better to cover your head and build the fortress that you rely on for survival, and then gather the refugees while watching the changes.

In order to command these refugees to work more effectively, Mo Ming specially promoted some cadres among the Koreans and Ming people who had defected to them at first to manage these new refugees.The number of these cadres is about [-] people, headed by Jin Wugui from North Korea and Luo Tiansheng from Ming Dynasty. officer".It is naturally more effective for them, who are natives of this time and space, to manage these newly cast immigrants than Mo Ming's group of soldiers from Italy and Bohemia.Even if something happened, the East Coast people only need to throw them out as scapegoats in order to maintain their detached arbiter status.

Therefore, when the six ships led by Lieutenant Li Yi (the first batch of rescue ships in 43 years) arrived at the wharf of Yantai Port, what they saw was a refugee with short hair in the style of the people on the east coast. The scene of working hard under the command of the "cadre" wearing a big cap.Although it was still snowing outside, these Ming refugees with red noses and cheeks were working hard to obtain the food they could survive.People on the east coast have issued regulations, how much work each person can complete every day, if they fail to complete, they will be deducted from their rations, and if they complete too much, they will be rewarded. Cash, cloth, and food are optional. Therefore, these refugees generally come to It's hard work to say the least.With their efforts, Yantai Fortress is also being built little by little at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"From the scorching sun in the southern hemisphere to the snowy Shandong Peninsula, I really haven't gotten used to it for a while." Li Yi put a woolen coat on top of his thin navy autumn uniform , and then strolled onto the pier.The ground on the pier was already muddy, but it was stepped on by people coming and going, and it became a mud puddle, which made Li Yi's brand new cowhide military boots splashed with mud.

Luo Tiansheng, who accompanied Mo Ming to greet Li Yi, saw this, and immediately signaled with his eyes to several of his men to bring a few dustpans of cinders to fill up the mud pits one by one.

"Hehe, it's snowing all over the world to welcome you. I just heard the report from the people below that the new fleet has brought a large number of troops. How many people have come?" His eyes swept over the soldiers wearing thick military overcoats who were filing out of the cabin.

"One army company, plus one hundred gunners, one hundred supplementary soldiers, and one battalion of the Eight Banners New Army, all of whom were former Liu Zhong's old subordinates, totaling more than 200 people." Li Yi reported it without thinking.

In February, Li Yi arrived at Jinshan Port, Australia with three motor sailboats, and then joined the armed transport ship "Galicia Flying Fish", the transport ship "Hump Cow" and the "Red Trout" that had been moored here for a while. The escort gunship "Yu" returned to Yantai Port together.On the return trip, several sail-powered ships even needed to be towed by steamships in some ocean currents and wind direction-changing sea areas. Therefore, the entire fleet sailed for about 2 days before arriving in Yantai from Jinshan Port, which also proved that pure sailing Powered ships are really not suitable for this route.

"After joining this group of troops, Yantai Fortress has two infantry companies with nearly 500 soldiers, 200 gunners, nearly 1500 Eight Banners new troops, and 250 officers and soldiers who came forward. If there is a chance, we will try to recruit more. The savage Jurchen and the Japanese samurai will expand the size of the standing team to two or even three squadrons, so that we will have a strength of nearly 3000 people." Mo Ming said happily, "If I am here again If I recruit a group of reliable people from the masters and train them as gunners, then the whole fortress will be solid. At that time, even if there are tens of thousands of enemies, as long as the command of the sea is in my hands, the fortress will not be easy for them. shaking."

"It's just that there is still a lack of cavalry." Li Yi said with a smile, "If there are a few hundred more serious heavy cavalry, then this fortress will really be able to advance, attack, retreat, and defend, and no one will come. It works."

"The cavalry depends on how the executive committee will operate." Mo Ming also sighed, and said: "Actually, I have already mentioned this issue before I set off here to take office. The business station of the company helped us hire a group of Polish cavalry. After the Smolensk War, the Poles were in financial difficulties and could not afford to support so many troops, so they abolished many troops conscripted in the war. Among them were a considerable number of cavalry , these people have fought against Lao Maozi, Cossacks and even Turks, more or less have some combat experience, and the cost of hiring is not very high, plus the Poles are ordering a large number of army weapons from us, so this should not be difficult Operation, after all, we are helping the Poles eliminate their 'overcapacity', but we don't know if there will be enough time."

"Polish cavalry is not difficult. And it is not difficult for you to write a letter to ask to recruit cavalry from the Egyptian Mamluk chiefs. They have a lot of cavalry who are poor enough to go to Persia to rob. As long as we can afford the price, they dare not say , Hundreds of people can still be hired. The difficulty is how to transport their equipment and horses to Yantai together. This is very terrible and will take up a lot of transport tonnage." Li Yi looked at those people and shouted, The sailors who were carefully hoisting several Finnish draft horses down through the pulley boom spoke slowly.

"Cavalry is very important to us. Without cavalry, the battlefield is one-way transparent to the enemy. How can our infantry be dispatched? Have we been fighting against the city?" Mo Ming said, "Okay, don't talk That's all. Hurry up and take the brothers to the city, Luo Tiansheng, go find someone to kill some pigs, and everyone will have extra meals today!"

(End of this chapter)