The Great Bandit in Kangxi Year

Chapter 183 Seal Class Cruiser
At the same time, Yue Le handled the defense of Shandong and other places, and returned to the Forbidden City in a depressed mood. Facing the high-spirited and gloomy Kangxi, Yue Le was so ashamed that he said in frustration after a while: "My lord, Yue Le is incompetent!" If Wu Sangui hadn't attacked the bandit army, Shandong would have been wiped out."

Kangxi had a cold face, he was completely disappointed in Yue Le, but the princes and ministers of the Manchu Qing Dynasty were only left with this man who was the best at fighting. There are only tens of thousands of people left, besieged in the isolated city, and I have asked Prince Kang Jieshu to lead an army of 15 back to help, and when Jieshu returns, I will personally march."

For a while, Suo'etu and Mingzhu were speechless. In the past, they would definitely persuade Kangxi, but now the bandit army is fierce and unstoppable, and the emperor feels that all the ministers are incompetent. The emperor suffered a little loss and knew how powerful the bandit army was, so he wouldn't scold himself every day.

As for Yue Le, he suffered repeated defeats and had no face to talk about it. He was already preparing to go back to Shengjing to recuperate, so as not to make people laugh.

Seeing that all the ministers were silent, Kangxi's complexion became even worse, and an unknown fire ignited in his heart.

At this moment, Wei Dongting held up a sealed document and said, "Your Majesty, the urgent military situation just passed in from Gubeikou. Because Long Live has a special order to deliver it at any time, so it was delivered overnight..."

"Okay, Chahar must have sent reinforcements!" Kangxi smiled while unpacking, "I will take these three thousand cavalry and come to Shandong in person. The remnants of the Ming Dynasty—huh?" Kangxi suddenly stopped and didn't say anything. Yes, he rubbed his eyes and read the memorial twice more, and his hand holding the letter trembled slightly.Back on the couch in a daze, his legs softened and he sat down.

Going to the study room, it immediately became quiet, only hearing Kangxi's heavy breathing, Mingzhu finally couldn't help but asked cautiously: "Long live, this...?"

"Prince Chahar has rebelled and has already imprisoned Niebuhr. He took advantage of the emptiness of our capital and brought ten thousand cavalry to attack him unexpectedly! Well...all of them are rebellious...let's rebel!"

Several ministers were dumbfounded as if they had been sapped.Suo'etu's heart was beating wildly. At this time, there were only [-] recruits left in the Forbidden City. Before the war, how would we deal with the mutiny that was close at hand? At this moment, Yue Le heard the change, and suddenly kowtowed and said: "Long live , I have already thought of a countermeasure for bringing back thousands of Shenji Battalion this time, and Rong Chen will play!"

"Speak...speak!"

"Although Prince Chahar's change is recent, it is a must-have disease. Now that the battle in Shandong has stopped for a while, I don't think there is any need to work hard. After all, the bandit army has gathered hundreds of thousands of troops in Linyi, and a big war will be triggered if it is touched. My Qing Dynasty can take this opportunity to recuperate, let alone delay the spring plowing, as for Prince Chahar, the minister will be defeated overnight, the Holy Majesty does not need to worry."

Yue Le's composure surprised all the ministers.

Kangxi was also infected and calmed down a lot, but he still stared at Yue Le with a gloomy face.

"Actually, in the battle of Shandong, I gained a lot. If it weren't for the thieves who suffered great damage, they would never have stopped fighting. The advantage of the thieves lies in the mighty firearms, while our Qing Dynasty lies in the strength of our cavalry. Now our Qing Dynasty also has excellent firearms. Moreover, it can be purchased from the barbarians, and the advantage of the bandit army is gradually being offset, as long as the Qing Dynasty persists for a year or so, I will be sure to wipe out the bandits."

After Yue Le finished speaking loudly, the momentum of all the officials was lifted.

Kangxi looked at Yue Le in surprise, and leaned forward suddenly: "Speak on!"

"There are two points. Gather all the iron cavalry in the Qing Dynasty, about 25 or more, and they are all trained under the Forbidden City. If the bandits break through Shandong, they will suffer heavy losses. However, our 25 iron cavalry in the Qing Dynasty can advance, attack, and retreat. Shou, as long as the bandit army reveals its flaws, the 25 cavalry will be a reminder for the bandit army."

"The thieves issued an order to kill the Manchus. Every time they captured a place, the property and lives of my Manchu children could not be protected. This battle has evolved into a battle for the survival of the Qing Dynasty, and it is also a battle for the survival of our Manchus. All the princes The ministers must contribute money and efforts, and recruit all the eight bannermen of the right age, train them strictly, and try to form a [-] magic battalion in a short time, iron cavalry plus the magic battalion, and hundreds of thousands of green battalion soldiers and militias. Win?"

Hearing Yue Le's categorical suggestion, Kangxi took a breath and said in a voiceless voice: "Could it be that Shandong just gave up like this? Ge Erdan and the Luocha people don't care?"

"My lord, why can't I see it? The gains and losses of a city and a place are secondary. The key is the decisive battle in the future. As long as I win the upcoming decisive battle, the world will still belong to the Qing Dynasty. If I lose, we will It is already too much for the Manchus to retreat to Shengjing!" Yue Le sighed again and again, and said earnestly.

"I have a hunch that this day is coming soon."

Kangxi didn't expect the situation to have developed to such an extent. He thought that the soldiers deliberately delayed the battle in order to get higher rewards. After all, the most casualties were green battalion soldiers. Almost broke, after thinking about it for a long time, he said grimly: "Okay, go all out to fight, Prince An will be responsible for this matter with all his strength, pass on the decree, if this battle is defeated, all the Manchus will retreat to Shanhaiguan, from the princes and ministers, down to the Eight Banners. , will not die, and anyone who dares to neglect will be beheaded and ransacked."

"Your Majesty is wise, this slave is willing to donate 20 taels." Suo'etu and Mingzhu looked at each other and said in unison.

Yue Le sighed, shook his head again and again, and said with a sense of loss in his heart: "Do you have to have a knife rest on your neck to know regret, these people."

However, he was very happy to see the Holy Majesty, so he didn't make a sound. After all, the interests of the princes and ministers of the Manchu Qing Dynasty were not even dared to touch the interests of the Holy Majesty.

Three days later, Yue Le used the firearms of the Black Tiger Army to easily defeat Prince Chahar's more than ten thousand cavalry.

Prince Chahar is the orthodox descendant of Yuan Shizu. His family has gold mountains and silver seas. Yue Le led his army to attack Huanglong and captured countless horses, gold and silver treasures. This immediately eased the financial crisis of the imperial court and shocked the Mongolian princes.

The Mongolian tribes were inexplicably terrified and did not dare to change their minds. The Mongolian Horqin tribe sent 30 cavalry, the Nipur tribe sent [-] cavalry, and other tribes also sent troops to help. In just one month, Yue Le gathered [-] cavalry in the capital. Practice day and night, the momentum is booming.

......................
Jiang Tao was also shocked when he received the information from Manqing. Wherever 30 cavalry were placed, they are a heavyweight force. It seems that Manqing is ready to fight himself to the death.

Now Wu Sangui is busy proclaiming himself emperor, but Man Qing wants to fight himself desperately. Jiang Tao smiles wryly. Sure enough, Jiang Wuji guessed it. The war potential of the Qing army is slowly being tapped.

After thinking about it, he strengthened his original strategy, so the navy became the key, and it was time to visit the navy fleet.

By the mid-April of the 14th year of Kangxi, 30 Seawolf-class cruise ships had been launched successively and gathered in the coastal areas of Lianyungang for training. At the same time, 15000 marines were also stationed in Lianyungang, conducting training in land warfare and landing operations.

dong dong dong...

Thirty Seawolf-class cruise ships were arranged in a straight line, and six hundred cannons were fired one after another. Suddenly, the entire sea surface was like lightning and thunder, filled with gunpowder smoke, covering the sky and covering the sun, and countless water jets splashed in an instant.

Jiang Tao nodded, and it shouldn't be a problem to bully Man Qingshui. He asked, "Da Jiang, is there a problem with the navy's long-distance voyage?"

"Absolutely no problem." Chen Dajiang said enthusiastically.

"Haha! Prepare paper and ink!" Jiang Tao laughed, recalled the world map of his previous life, roughly drew it, and it looked terrible.

Chen Dajiang, Gong Kaijun, etc. looked at it, and they were a little puzzled.

"Although you have Zheng He's nautical chart in your hand, it is not the whole world. From your point of view, this is where we are, this is Malacca, this is Oceania, this is Africa, this is Europe, This is South America, this is North America..."

Listening to Jiang Tao's continuous explanation, the generals realized that the world is so big, and there are so many countries on the sea, and everyone was shocked.

"This world is talked about with cannons and giant ships. Don't look at some people who are high-sounding, especially these Europeans, such as the Netherlands, Spain, Britain, and France. They are all benevolent on the surface, but in fact they are not as good as bandits in their hearts. Filled with the blood of other nations and fattening ourselves, if we want to be strong and the country rich and the people strong, we can only tear off the hypocrisy and participate in the hegemony of the ocean, otherwise, sooner or later, our descendants will be slaughtered The lamb, but not now, our current strength is too weak, everyone, there is a long way to go!"

Hearing Jiang Tao confide in his heart, Chen Dajiang and others shouted in unison: "Don't worry, my lord, more than [-] people in the navy are willing to expand the territory for my lord!"

"Okay, everyone must be mentally prepared. After one month of strong training, the navy will be divided into six teams, responsible for cruising the surrounding areas and intercepting all ships in the vicinity except the Dutch fleet. First pick soft persimmons and adapt to strong opponents. After five months, you must Hurrying back to Lianyungang will be of great use to me, which means you only have four months."

"These four months are the actual combat training of the navy. No matter what you do, the king will confiscate two-thirds of what you seize, and one-third will be a reward for the soldiers who participated in the battle. But you must not fly the king's flag, and you must not plunder and kill Han people. Compatriots, do you understand?"

Jiang Tao said solemnly, after investing so much, it should be rewarding.

Everyone was pleasantly surprised, so the Navy wants to play pirates for the time being?And it can be plundered at will, and the rewards are even more amazing.

"As ordered!"

The reason why he didn't grab the Dutch ships for the time being is mainly because Jiang Tao still wants to cooperate with the Netherlands to learn their shipbuilding technology and other advanced European technologies. Without strength, he can't make a high profile.

In fact, he was still a little confused about the Zheng family's maritime strength, which is why he didn't attack Taiwan. After all, the Manchu Qing was the number one enemy at this time.

Hearing the cries of joy from the generals, Jiang Tao left Lianyungang with peace of mind. Now that 30 Seawolf-class cruisers have been built, tens of thousands of boatmen will be idle at once. This is not his original intention.

He saw that the Seawolf-class cruiser was quite effective, and that after more than a year of study and training, tens of thousands of craftsmen had matured their technology and crafts, and were able to build larger cruisers. Jiang Tao thought of China's huge sea area, and immediately approved it. Construction plans for the Seal-class cruiser.

During this year, Jiang Tao made a lot of preparations. First of all, he stocked up enough high-quality shipbuilding wood. The best shipbuilding wood in Asia is mahogany, which is comparable to European oak.

Because Jiang Tao attached great importance to the shipyard, he also specially built a large-scale steel nail factory for making boat nails, as well as a series of auxiliary factories such as a sail factory, a paint factory, a rope factory, and a tent factory.

Some foreign warship designers were also recruited in Luzon and other places. Under the attack of Jiang Tao's gold and silver shells, those designers showed their true skills one by one. With the cooperation of the shipbuilder, they jointly designed a more powerful cruiser, which was named the Seal-class cruiser.

Cruisers are the main battleships for decisive battles, so in addition to speed, they also need to take firepower into account.

For firepower, there is no other way.Can only increase the number of artillery and the caliber of the artillery.

The wide hull of the Eastern culmination obviously cannot arrange more gun decks, so it cannot be equipped with more artillery, so this cruiser is based on the Western Galen cruiser as a reference.

In this era, the hit rate of the two sides in naval battles is actually not much different. The battleships are all made of wood, and the level of protection is similar. Therefore, whoever has more guns will undoubtedly take advantage.This is one of the main reasons why battleships with three gun decks can be arrogant.

Under Jiang Tao's left and right, the warship is 49 meters long, 12 meters wide, 6.5 meters in draft, [-] tons in displacement, and has three soft sails.The foremast and mainmast hang square sails, the mizzen hangs a triangular schooner, and the foremast hangs four-sided triangular sails.

Front ram, high freeboard anti-wave design, square stern.Equipped with 130 new 28mm guns, 150 new 20mm guns, double-layer gun decks, symmetrical layout.The bridge command and rudder command are arranged on the upper and lower floors, and in the middle of the battleship, which is convenient for unified command and timely transmission of orders.

Carrying more than 400 people, the average speed is ten knots.The battery life is six months.

Just to increase the stability of the artillery layout, the perimeter of the upper deck was reduced, which naturally caused the lower gun deck to look like a big belly.

With the addition of artillery, it is natural to consider the stability of the battleship when it fires, so Jiang Tao wanted to increase the draft of the warship, so that even the tall masts would not be as violent as the western warships.In order to increase the speed of the battleship, Jiang Tao asked the Seal-class cruiser to wrap copper skin below the waterline of the hull to reduce frictional resistance.At the same time, the interior of the hull adopts a multi-layer waterproof cabin design to enhance the survivability of the warship.

In terms of defense, the hulls of the Seal-class cruisers are covered with iron sheets.After being attacked by shells in this way, because the iron sheet is stretchable and elastic, the shells will not easily splash around and injure the crew and gunners, and the wooden thorns inside are wrapped in iron sheets, so they will not fly around and injure personnel.

Several shipyards are fully engaged in production, and can produce [-] ships at the same time. Reluctant to let the children be caught by wolves, Jiang Tao directly ordered the shipyards to start working at full capacity.

Now that Fujian is occupied, Jiang Tao owns several large shipyards, and he has an idea in his mind to order them to build thirty large Fuchuan with a displacement of [-] tons.

Daming's Fu Chuan has a wide bottom and top, good navigability and stability, and is an ideal sea ship.The only shortcoming is that the lower part of the hull is narrow, so the number of artillery assemblies is small. Normally, there is one gun deck, and a warship with two gun decks will have a large volume.

However, Jiang Tao did not build the large Fuchuan for naval battles, but for use as a merchant ship or troop carrier, equipped with only a small amount of artillery. After all, future battles will require the cooperation of the Marine Corps.

The reason why large-scale cruise ships have started to be built is mainly because the construction of ironclad ships is still far away. The shipyard under Jiang Tao’s command still does not have the strength to build battleships of thousands of tons. Jiang Tao couldn't wait to talk about developing colonies.

The recent two consecutive wars and the expansion of the armory and shipyard cost him more than 2000 million taels of silver, and now he only has about 3000 million taels of silver left in his small coffers. Of course, other gold, jade and jewelry are not counted, but no amount of money is enough. He consumes it like this. After all, war consumes the most power of a country, but it is another thing to support war with war.

Moreover, the Navy is a real gold-swallowing behemoth. Once it is trapped, it will be difficult to get out. If you don’t continue to manufacture warships, you can’t let all major shipyards stop production. Once production stops, tens of thousands of boatmen will lose their jobs, which will cause chain problems. reaction.

Jiang Tao didn't dare to take this risk. At this time, there is no retreat, and if you retreat, you will be in the abyss. Fortunately, the Lu'an and Jiangning two ordnance factories have undergone further expansion. There are more than 300 craftsmen and workers, and they can already produce monthly. There are more than 500 Mieqing rifles, more than [-] Mielu guns, about [-] pistols, about [-] tiger squat guns, and more than [-] other new cannons.

Now the sharpshooter division 1 and the sharpshooter division 2 have been equipped and are undergoing intensive training.

Although the money was spent like flowing water, Jiang Tao was still very happy. Seeing that the honest peasants had become steel warriors under his command, and he was still a cultured steel warrior, he felt a sense of accomplishment in his heart, and the money was not worth it. Sneaking away, they all entered the homes of hundreds of thousands of people, which can be regarded as hiding wealth in the people, and these families have benefited, so they will support Jiang Tao's rule even more.

Times make heroes, winners and losers, but that's all.

Now every month, one sharpshooter and half a sharpshooter can be formed, which was unimaginable a year ago.

The metal storm will blow to the entire land of China, Jiang Tao clenched his fists, he wants to mentally crush the Manchu Tartars, just wait.

Unexpectedly, he had just returned to Huaxing Palace, but there were already two groups of envoys waiting for him. After thinking about it, he decided to summon Shang Zhixin's special envoy first.

(End of this chapter)