Chapter 319: Pigs advance suddenly.
Su Ze walked into the field and took a look. The big-leaf plant was indeed tobacco leaves.
Growing tobacco is a very hard job. People have to bend down and cut the tobacco leaves completely.
Tobacco leaves secrete tar. When harvesting tobacco leaves in southern areas where autumn tigers are common, the tobacco oil and sweat mix together and cannot be washed away for several days.
After confirming that it was tobacco leaves, Su Ze said to Uncle Lin Qi:
"After this batch of tobacco leaves are harvested, all the seeds must be kept and cannot be leaked."
Su Ze then said: "Uncle Qi, please train a few disciples . , let them go to Dayuan Island to direct people to grow tobacco."
Su Ze picked a tobacco leaf. Although Su Ze did not smoke, his former tutor was an old smoker and often purchased tobacco leaves from tobacco farmers during school inspections.
This kind of tobacco leaves need to be baked in a curing house into yellow tobacco leaves, which are the shredded tobacco in cigarettes.
Su Ze was not planning to sell cigarettes domestically. He was planning to build several plantations on Damuan Island to export these tobacco leaves to Japan and Nanyang.
Uncle Lin Qi nodded heavily. This tobacco leaf field is not big, as long as the seeds are controlled, it will be enough.
As for growing tobacco leaves, there is actually nothing particular about it. The main thing is that it consumes soil fertility. After planting, it must be fertilized and plowed before the next round can be planted.
The climate on Damuan Island is suitable for growing tobacco leaves, and Su Ze is planning to open a plantation far away from the town, so that he can temporarily monopolize the tobacco leaves for a period of time.
It is impossible to have a complete monopoly. This thing is native to South America. Through the unremitting efforts of Spanish businessmen, it has become popular in Europe.
When it comes to making money, the Spaniards' bottom line is quite low.
After discovering this addictive tobacco, Spanish merchants' first reaction was to offer it to their emperor.
Uncle Lin Qi also planted tomatoes and a series of South American plants. Su Ze couldn't help but pick some small and ugly tomatoes back. Tomato scrambled eggs were a delicacy he hadn't tasted in eight years. The next time he went back, he planned to go back and give Fang Ruolan a taste, and also improve his [cooking] skills.
But this time when Su Ze came out for inspection, it was not as easy as it seemed.
Due to the communication capabilities of this era, after the army led by Lin Liangjun left Fujian and invaded Jiangxi, the time interval between military intelligence transmissions became longer and longer.
What Su Ze received now was the battle report from five days ago.
Do you want to "easily" create a radio?
But how can we learn "electronic" skills? Is it possible to learn from Franklin to fly a kite?
No, that's too dangerous!
Moreover, to make a radio, a rubber ring is also needed. Su Ze searched the port for so long but could not find a rubber tree.
Forget it, if that doesn't work, just build more inns. Wait until you find the seeds of the rubber tree, and then think about lighting up the "electronic" skill.
Electronics should be a skill. Even [Firearm Manufacturing] and [Administration] are considered "life" skills. There is no reason why electronics cannot be a life skill!
Su Ze was thinking wildly and opened the battle report in his hand.
After Lin Liangjun entered Jiangxi, he made very smooth progress along the way.
Jiangxi's official army could not even suppress the Feilong Army, let alone the Fujian New Army equipped with cannons.
Lin Liangjun's Second Brigade of the Fujian New Army is currently the unit with the highest degree of firearms use.
Lin Liangjun wrote to Su Ze that when he first entered Jiangxi, his Second Brigade had only a thousand people.
This was the result of an expansion of troops in Fujian.
But after entering Jiangxi, the Second Brigade expanded rapidly to 3,000 people.
According to Su Ze's military system, a brigade has a full strength of 5,000 men, but now when it is still in its infancy, each brigade only has 1,000 men.
However, the officer skeleton of each brigade has already been set up, so as long as troops can be recruited quickly, it will be full soon.
Lin Liangjun's letter to Su Ze contained only two things, asking for food and ammunition.
Su Ze has sent all the food that Fujian can assemble to Jiangxi, but facing the rapidly expanding Second Brigade, Su Ze still has a headache.
Fortunately, this year's autumn grain collection has already begun. As long as it remains stable for a while, the supplies for the second brigade can be guaranteed.
I just don’t know if the soldiers of the second brigade can get used to eating dried sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes.
As for guns and ammunition, the iron mine and mint built by Su Ze in Nanping have been transformed into an arsenal.
Young Eunuch You returned to his mint near the Nanping mine and had already begun to improve the barrel manufacturing process.
It's just that today's smelting technology is still not enough, and impurities in the barrel need to be removed by forging to ensure that the barrel does not explode during long-term use.
However, after little Eunuch You's improvements, using hydraulic hammers for forging preprocessing, and the semi-mechanized process of hydraulic hammering, the entire workshop area can now produce two hundred muskets every day.
As for the matchless percussion gun that uses spring flint, due to the constraints of spring production, only 20 guns can be produced a day, and they are mainly distributed to sharpshooters and assaulters in the army.
In addition, a series of ammunition accessories such as lead shot, powder, oil paper, etc., together with standardized military rations, are all transported to the front line through unified channels.
Seeing Lin Liangjun's military information document asking for food and weapons, Su Ze's blood pressure rose again. This guy can't fight without gunpowder? Look at how good Yu Zigao of the Third Brigade was. After leading the Qi army into Zhangzhou Prefecture, he quickly achieved results and never asked Su Ze for weapons.
Zhang Lian indeed fell into the relatively unfavorable category among the peasant army uprisings in history.
Or maybe his luck is really bad.
In the history before Su Ze traveled through time, Zhang Lian was wiped out by the Qi Army, even earlier than in this world.
In the timeline that was not changed by Su Ze, Qi Jiguang "conveniently" killed Zhang Lian when he was fighting against the Japanese in Fujian.
Zhang Lian's base camp is in the mountains between Guangdong and Fujian. After the failure of the war in southern Fujian, Zhang Lian built a stronghold in the mountains to protect himself.
However, these forts were connected end to end, and Zhang Lian had no serious military advisers who knew how to fight and camp, so the Ming army burned down the entire camp and completely burned down the base.
The rebel army suffered heavy casualties, so they led the remaining troops to sail out to sea from the Yunxiao River, combined with the maritime armed forces, and continued to fight against the Ming Dynasty. After that, he went south and captured Sriwijaya Island (today's Sumatra) and proclaimed himself emperor. He also occupied Old Port, Johor, Malacca and other places, and cultivated them for fishing. He was called Fanbo Chang. The local Zhangzhou and Quanzhou people and overseas Chinese immigrants all relied on him. .
The same result also occurred on this historical timeline that was changed by Su Ze.
After observing the layout of Zhang Lian's stronghold, Yu Zigao was worthy of being a general. He was personally taught by Yu Dayou and was familiar with military books.
Later, under Su Ze's command, he combined Su Ze's military theories and developed his own set of tactics.
Yu Zigao improved the Yuanyang Formation. On the basis of increasing the use of firearms, he simplified the complexity of the battle formation, making the Yuanyang Formation, which was originally suitable for fighting in open areas, more suitable for fighting in mountainous areas.
Yu Zigao also proposed to strike at the enemy first at a long range and strive for a pre-emptive combat policy, emphasizing the importance of reconnaissance and early battle arrangements. For Su Ze, he really found a treasure.
If Yu Zigao had been in the original historical timeline and eventually became the Fujian General Soldier, although he was not as outstanding as his father Yu Dayou's military exploits, he would still be a famous general.
After Yu Zigao discovered the loopholes in the Feilong Army camp, he personally observed the wind direction and led his elite soldiers into the vicinity of the Feilong Army camp.
Yu Zigao tied wine bottles to the mule while creating chaos.
These bottles are high-strength wine shipped from Quanzhou. Since the publication of "Tiangong Kaiwu", some wine merchants have been able to sell 60-proof liquor.
After further purification, these liquors can be made into 80-90% alcohol.
Su Ze purchased a large amount of liquor, purified it and gave it to Yu Zigao.
Yu Zigao mixed the liquor with tung oil, stuffed the bottles with cloth strips, and then drove the mules towards the Feilong Army's camp. He used fuses to control the ignition time, and waited until the mules entered the Feilong Army's wooden camp. Only then did these wine bottles light up!
The huge explosion caused a huge fireball that instantly flooded the camp.
And under the influence of the wind direction, the fire quickly spread to the entire Feilong Army camp.
Seeing that the fire was unstoppable, Zhang Lian could only take a boat on the Yunxiao River with his cronies, preparing to flee to Nanyang.
But this time Yu Zigao had been reminded by Su Ze and had already dispatched the navy to intercept at the lower reaches of the Yunxiao River. As expected, Zhang Lian and a group of "princes and prime ministers" were captured.
Once the Feilong Army was destroyed, Yu Zigao crossed the mountainous area between Fujian and Guangdong and attacked Chaozhou Prefecture in Guangdong.
Look at Yu Zigao!
However, Lin Liangjun's progress is still good. Five days ago, he had captured Fuzhou Prefecture in Jiangxi Province and pushed the front to the edge of Poyang Lake.
The prefect of Fuzhou fled, and the counties also surrendered.
In fact, Fuzhou Prefecture is close to Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi Province, so it should not be so easy to capture.
It was only because of the Ming court's excessive actions that Jiangxi's military strength was so empty that even the Feilong Army could not defeat it.
Since the "Chenhao Rebellion" in the Zhengde period, the Ningwang lineage was eliminated.
Although the vassal king system of the Ming Dynasty is often criticized for raising pigs, the vassal kings in some areas still have practical significance.
For example, Jiangxi has been a place full of rebels since ancient times. Since the early Ming Dynasty, rebels have been produced here one after another. The Ming Dynasty established the vassal state in Jiangxi to suppress these rebels.
I don’t know if it was a matter of diet or feng shui in Jiangxi. During the Zhengde period, even the vassal kings rebelled.
After Zhu Chenhao was suppressed by Wang Yangming and King Ning was deposed, the imperial court did not continue to set up vassal kings in Jiangxi.
This also led to the further weakening of Jiangxi's military strength. After that, several rebellions occurred in Jiangxi, including the Luo Jiao religious rebellion, the Fanatic Rebellion, and then the Feilong Army. Jiangxi's military strength has bottomed out, let alone Fuzhou. , now the South Great Wall is uneasy, for fear of being attacked by the second brigade.
However, Lin Liangjun also kept Su Ze's teachings in mind. He only deployed a defensive line west of Fuzhou to prevent the Ming army from Nanchang from counterattack, and then led his troops to continue eastward and attack Raozhou Prefecture along Poyang Lake.
Lin Deyang, who marched from Zhejiang, led the Zhejiang New Army directly to Jingdezhen.
Jingdezhen is an important town between South Zhili and Jiangxi. The order Lin Deyang received was to help Lin Liangjun block the reinforcements coming from the direction of South Zhili, ensure that Lin Liangjun could control the key cities along the Poyang Lake, and build a navy to block the Yangtze River. .
Sure enough, Lin Deyang encountered resistance from the Ming army near Jingdezhen.
Zhang Juzheng's judgment of the situation was very correct, and he was very decisive in taking action. He immediately sent all available troops in Huizhou Prefecture to the border with Jiangxi.
After receiving the news from the governor of Jiangxi asking for help, Zhang Juzheng immediately led 5,000 Huizhou soldiers into Jiangxi with Liu Shiyan, his sincerity uncle, as the main general, and attacked the important town of Jingdezhen.
Lin Deyang only had three thousand new troops under his command, but Lin Deyang's new troops were all equipped with firearms. After encountering the panic of the surprise attack, Lin Deyang immediately organized a defense line and began to use firearms to counterattack.
This was the first time that the Ming army encountered such concentrated use of firearms, and they were quickly defeated.
Zhang Juzheng is indeed a good judge of people, and Liu Shiyan is indeed a good fighter. Under Lin Deyang's attack, he can still stabilize the defense line, and then asks Zhang Juzheng behind for firearms and bows and arrows.
Zhang Juzheng gritted his teeth and moved all the bows, arrows and firearms in the Nanjing treasury to the front line, and really caused the two armies to confront each other in front of Jingdezhen.
Being able to fight like this shows Liu Shiyan's brilliance, but he also knows very well that it is impossible for him to attack. Now the strategic intention has changed from occupying Jingdezhen and sniping the Fujian-Zhejiang coalition forces to relying on the border of Huizhou Prefecture. Yes, defend Huizhou Prefecture.
Zhang Juzheng had no choice. Huizhou Prefecture was too important to the Ming Dynasty.
Huizhou is one of the most prosperous prefectures in southern Zhili, comparable to Su Song when it was most prosperous.
Southern Zhili has lost Su Song and cannot lose Huizhou Prefecture again.
In addition, Huizhou Prefecture also flourished in culture and education, and many court officials came from Huizhou Prefecture.
For example, Wang Daokun, Xu Guo, Huizhou Prefecture had many officials in the court, and they also had a strong voice in the court.
If Huizhou Prefecture fell, neither Liu Shiyan nor Zhang Juzheng could bear the responsibility.
Lin Deyang kept Su Ze's strategic requirements in mind, and after leading his troops into Jingdezhen, he did not continue to stimulate Liu Shiyan's army.
Lin Deyang found that the kiln owners in Jingdezhen often worked with flames, had strong discipline, and had mechanical knowledge.
So we simply recruited recruits in Jingdezhen, and then continued to use the recruited recruits to fight on the front lines.
His goal was to block the Ming army in Huizhou Prefecture. As long as this strategic goal was achieved, Lin Deyang would be credited.
Because according to Su Ze's newly revised "Military Merit Regulations", when calculating military merits and results, it is not just a simple calculation based on the number of heads lost.
Capturing enemy troops, strategic cover, etc. will be calculated into military merit.
In other words, even if Lin Deyang is not the main offensive force, as long as he can complete the set strategic goals, it is still a great achievement.
Five days later, Su Ze received the battle report. Lin Liangjun had captured Raozhou Prefecture. As long as he conquered Nankang Prefecture, he would be able to capture most of the cities along the Poyang Lake.
I finished writing despite my toothache!
ps: Recommend a book to a friend: "Sun Wukong offers me incense, and I teach him how to control the prison with his idols"
(end of this chapter)