In Tianjin, there were three shocks in a day.
Outside the yamen, there was a sentry every three steps and a sentry every five. The patrolling soldiers carried sabers on their waists, ferociously looking for the so-called traitors and spies everywhere. A series of poles were erected outside the yamen. The corpses of spies who had spread rumors and spied on military secrets were already hung on the poles. The corpses drifting in the wind were terrifying to look at.
In the main hall of the yamen, the generals from all over Northern Zhili held their breaths and stood motionless. There was a man sitting in the hall, who was cursing angrily, "Ordinarily you are embezzling soldiers' pay, commanding your troops to wreak havoc; during the war you are afraid of the enemy like a tiger, refusing to advance. Each and every one of you does not think of repaying the country and betrays the emperor's grace. What use do I have for you? Men, drag these pieces of trash away and behead them! "
Kneeling in front of the hall were seven, eight Tianjin local officers. By now their helmets had been taken off, their hair was untied, and they were tied up like rice dumplings. Hearing that the people in the hall were going to behead them, the generals in the hall all cried and begged for mercy, but they were quickly dragged out by the soldiers waiting outside the hall. Not long after, a few bloody heads were served. The stench of blood permeated the air, scaring the other generals in the hall.
Ma Keshi, Eunuch Ma, sat in a corner of the hall and watched this scene coldly. His heart was emotionless, like a dry well. He had already predicted the situation in front of him and was well aware of the disadvantages of the current Ming Army. If they did not chop off a few heads, they would not be able to pull themselves together. At least they could stimulate those lazy and incompetent fellows.
Sitting in the hall was the Governor-General of Jiliao, Xue Sancai. Next month, he would be promoted to Minister of War, but because of Zhou Qingfeng's attack, he picked up a hot potato. Now the Revolutionary Army had landed for three days, and the invasion was like fire. A large number of cities and towns east of Tianjin had fallen, and countless officials and gentry had been killed. The situation was so bad that Xue Sancai was roasted on the fire, forcing him to personally come to Tianjin to take charge of the overall situation.
It's just that for more than two hundred years, Tianjin had not suffered any disaster of war, the laxity of the army's armaments was a lot more serious than the border defense. Soldiers were good at farming, generals were good at business, but they were not good at fighting.
When Xue Sancai arrived in Tianjin, he immediately investigated how many troops had been gathered in Tianjin. In the end, it would have been better if they hadn't investigated. Once they did, they discovered that there were no soldiers in Tianjin at all. This forced the Viceroy of Jiliao to mobilize troops from Baoding, Miyun, and Changping. Among those who had just been dragged out to be beheaded was Tianjin Bing Beidao, who had been used as a scapegoat.
Waiting for this person's head to be chopped off, the other generals in the main hall calmed down quite a bit. In the future, if there was any dirty water, they could just pour it all on the dead people's heads. They would never be able to find them again. When Eunuch Ma saw that everyone was calm and even had joyous expressions, he could not help but snicker inwardly. This group of fools. A great calamity was upon them, yet they still acted so recklessly.
The real trouble had only just begun.
Speaking of impending disaster, Eunuch Ma could not help but look at Liu Fucheng of the Embroidered Uniform Guard sitting opposite him. This slippery fellow who had a wide circle of friends and connections was also in big trouble this time. He relied on Imperial Consort Zheng in the palace, contacted the Revolutionary Army to do business, sold military supplies, and made a lot of money. But after a few months of being complacent, when Zhou Qingfeng came with troops, he was immediately beaten out of his original form.
No matter how slippery you were and how many tricks you had up your sleeve, you could only be suppressed when you met a more ruthless, black-hearted, and shameless person. Seeing Liu Fucheng in bad luck, Eunuch Ma was actually secretly pleased.
Oh right.
This female disciple of Qianhu Liu was also like throwing a meat bun at a dog. She never came back after going to Jinzhou. The female servant he gave to Zhou Qingfeng had become a powerful subordinate of the other party. Not only did her strength increase exponentially, Not to mention the fact that that sly woman turned around and killed the officials, she was vicious and merciless. It was obvious that she was eager to show her loyalty. There were countless people in Tianjin who hated him for supporting the enemy.
Liu Fucheng sat opposite Ma Keshi. He glanced at Eunuch Ma and then lowered his head. This time, he was covered in dirt and looked really pathetic. After Zhou Qingfeng had landed, he had specially sent someone to contact him, hoping to reminisce about old times, build a relationship, and turn a bad thing into a good thing. Or maybe he could contact Yuan Qingying or even Ye Na.
Who would have thought that Zhou Qingfeng would turn against him and expose the fact that he had sent people to Jinzhou to steal secrets, ridiculing him as a traitor who deserved to be played by him? Liu Fucheng was angry and annoyed because of this. His heart was burning with hatred, but there was nothing he could do.
But if you were talking about suffering, Governor Xue Sancai, who was sitting in the main hall, was really suffering.
Zhou Qingfeng's attack on Tianjin was really a vicious blow to the Daming Dynasty. This was much more vicious than Nurhachi's attack from Liaodong. The distance from Tianjin to the capital was a stretch of flat land with no danger to defend. In addition, Tianjin had blocked the transportation from the north. If this place was not taken back, the Daming Dynasty in the north would immediately collapse.
This attack immediately showed that Zhou Qingfeng was more than a hundred times more dangerous than Wild Boar Skin. According to normal history, Wild Boar Skin should have taken over the Liaodong Peninsula and controlled Lushun very early on. But from beginning to end, he would only attack from Jinzhou and Shanhai Pass. Later on, when Hwang Tae-gil was enlightened, he would at most take a detour to Mongolia. They had never considered using the sea route to Tianjin as a shortcut.
Hearing that Tianjin was in danger, Emperor Wanli, who was hiding in the palace, could not sit still and repeatedly issued decrees to Governor Xue Sancai of Jiliao to exterminate this group of audacious traitors. When Xue Sancai arrived in Tianjin, he found that the situation was worse than he had imagined.
In order to recover Liaodong, the entire country transferred troops to Jinzhou under Yang Gao's command. Even the troops from Sichuan were there, and a lot of troops from Northern Zhili were also transferred. Tianjin and the other places were just in time to guard against the emptiness, but in the end, they encountered Zhou Qingfeng, who did not play by the rules, attacking from the sea route.
This move was really too ruthless.
Xue Sancai found that he had no troops at his disposal and no generals at his disposal. He gathered troops everywhere and waited until the sixth day after Zhou Qingfeng landed before he gathered more than 10,000 troops from Jizhou, Zunhua, Baoding and other places. With so many troops, Governor Xue finally had the confidence to fight a good battle. He decided to send troops the next day and take down the Zhou traitors at Dagu Kou.
On the fifth day after landing, Zhou Qingfeng also waited for the backup fleet that he had been waiting for. This was a total of 5,000 Liaodong militia who had received preliminary training. Whether it was organization or discipline, they were much better than the migrant workers recruited from Tianjin by the Department of Commerce and Trade. The one leading this team was the only free Minister of Education Yin Hu in the 'Revolutionary Army'. He had already become the captain of the firefighting team.
In the second batch of ships, the most eye-catching was the 500-ton barge that had just been built and launched. This barge's load capacity was more than double that of the current Ming Army's largest 2,000-ton material transport ship. Although Zhou Qingfeng felt that the 500-ton barge could only be called a boat, in the eyes of the Tianjin locals, this big barge was already shocking.
"How did you get this barge?" Zhou Qingfeng initially approved the construction of this non-powered barge with the intention of using it to transport coal between Lushun and Shandong's Longkou. The distance between the two places was less than 100 nautical miles, so it could be towed by a sailboat.
"After half a year of training, the number and ability of the mechanics in the machinery factory have greatly increased. Zhao Ze arranged for people to install a steam engine of 100 horsepower at the stern of the ship. He personally made a set of transmission shaft and propeller.
Although there were many problems along the way, this ship is quite fast. " Yin Hu said, "As long as we accumulate more technology and train more mechanics, we should be able to use an official steam-powered ship within a year. The ship's tonnage can be stable at around 500 to 800 tons. "
Only then did Zhou Qingfeng notice that there was a chimney erected at the stern of the barge. Because the ship had already docked, the steam engine had stopped working, which made this epoch-making ship look ordinary. However, the 'Revolutionary Army' came with a big ship that had no sails or oars and could move on its own. The news spread like wildfire and quickly spread at the port.
Due to the discipline of the port, there were not many people who came to watch the show. But there were always a few dock laborers looking from afar, as if they saw something extraordinary. When Zhou Qingfeng saw this ship, he immediately thought about it, "This ship should be able to sail into Haihe, right?"
"No problem at all." Yin Hu said. A 500-ton ship was not that big, and the barge was flat, which was specially used to run on the river. Its navigation performance was very good.
"As long as it can enter Haihe, I happen to have a plan." Zhou Qingfeng nodded, he asked again, "This time, other than getting 5000 militia, what else did you bring me? I told Zhao Ze to hurry up and make the cannon. Has he started yet? "
"Without a boring machine, how can he make the cannon?"
"Isn't there something called iron casting cannon? It is said that it is fast and good. "
"Zhao Ze said that he had already considered iron casting cannon. But iron casting is only slightly better than clay casting, it is not an advanced technology. If the iron mold conducts heat too fast, it will cause the cast cannon material to become extremely brittle white iron. This is an extremely serious flaw that can easily cause the cannon to explode.
Zhao Ze is working on sand casting, but as a mechanic, he doesn't know anything about casting and is still figuring it out. He is currently commanding at the front lines in Gaizhou and has no time to guide him on this matter. Now, he can only gather a group of young technicians and give them the information for them to figure it out themselves. Whether they succeed or not depends on luck. "
Zhou Qingfeng knew about iron casting thanks to his junior high school history books. He really didn't know that iron casting technology had fallen behind the moment it was invented. Back then, the West had already begun to use the more practical sand casting. However, Zhao Ze, who had only learned about sand casting, didn't know what it looked like.
Considering that they had already begun to equip firearms, but it was still difficult to produce cannons, Zhou Qingfeng was unhappy. He asked, "If there are no cannons, what other good things do you have?"
"Nothing particularly good, but there are some that can be used temporarily."
"What?"
"Explosive Pack Catapult Cannon."
It sounded weird, and it looked weird too.
The 500-ton barge transported more than 20 of these things. When the waterproof tarp was removed, the ballista underneath was revealed. This thing was about 1.5 meters tall and weighed more than 100 kilograms. It was carried on wheels and could be pulled by a horse. Zhou Qingfeng only needed a glance to understand why this thing was made. This kind of ballista was basically made of wood, and there were very few metal parts.
The Revolutionary Army currently had a large number of carpenters, and their ability to process wood was already very strong. As long as the design plan was distributed, the carpenters would be able to build it themselves. In addition, the rivers began to thaw in spring, and hydraulic machinery began to be used again. It was very easy to build this kind of all-wood ordnance.
Yin Hu explained, "Since spring plowing requires a large number of metal farming tools, the iron materials we exchanged for at the beginning of the year were all used to build things like hoes and iron plows. After all, farming can ensure that we have enough food and stabilize our regime. You also know that we lack iron and coal, so we use as much wood as we can. "
For the Revolutionary Army, spring plowing was as important as fighting a war. If they lost the war, they could still make a comeback, but if the spring plowing was not done well, the hundreds of thousands of people in the Liaodong Peninsula would immediately attack the Revolutionary Army.
Zhou Qingfeng nodded and helplessly asked, "How far can this thing shoot?"
"We used beef tendon as the torsion spring to make two kinds of ballista, light and heavy. The light one can move with the army, and can throw up to three kilograms of explosives 500 meters away. The effective range is within 150 meters. The heavy one is used to set up a defensive position, so it is not convenient to move, but it can throw ten kilograms of explosives 300 meters away.
This thing has a lot of shortcomings. First of all, the accuracy is not good, and the aim is not very good. Also, it cannot be used on rainy days, and the beef tendon will be destroyed when it is wet. After using it for a period of time, it must be corrected, otherwise the torsion spring will fail. " Yin Hu said, "Finally, there is also a very bad point, which is that the efficiency of the black gunpowder is too low. The killing effect of the explosives is actually very poor. "
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