In the past few days, the sailors have been preparing for a long voyage, and the sailor battalion has not been idle, busy recruiting troops and horses. All the captured Green Camp Qing soldiers were sent to the king of Yanping, and the captured Minzhuang, except for some of them, were left behind by Wang Xinyu. However, it is not possible to be a soldier if you stay, and among the 3,000 people who stayed, 700 people were selected to join Wang Xinyu's sailor battalion. Among the people brought back, 800 people were also selected to join the Marine Battalion.

The special combat team to which Wang Xinyu attached special importance was also secretly established, and this special combat team became independent from the Marine Battalion of the Marine Division and was named by Wang Xinyu: Seal Battalion.

There are currently only 12 people in the Seal Camp, with Wu Haodong and Luo Xiang as their coaches, Cai Jiuyi temporarily serving as a part-time martial arts instructor, and Gong Xiaoda serving as the Seal Battalion Torch Instructor. The training of the SEAL battalion is extremely strict, and it is completely in accordance with the standards of the special forces of the Marine Corps in later generations, and the twelve people selected are not only good at water, able to endure hardships, loyal and obedient to command, but also everyone is particularly strong, and they are all good seedlings for martial arts training.

In this era, the problem of long-range weapons of the naval special forces was very entangled: whether it was a bow or a musket, after being soaked in water for a long time, it turned into scrap metal. Therefore, the camp mainly conducts cold weapon training, focusing on endurance, hand-to-hand combat, assassination, climbing and other aspects of training. Ranged weapons are mainly darts and spring crossbows. Musket training is also carried out, because when capturing the enemy's ship, you can use the captured opponent's musket as a weapon. At the same time, the SEAL camp is also trained to operate boats. In the future, after Wang Xinyu recruits foreigners, he will also teach the Seal Battalion to operate Western soft sailing ships and gunnery, so that after the Seal Battalion captures the opponent's ships, it will immediately become a navy.

The spring crossbow used in the seal camp was designed by Wang Xinyu himself, and the tubular spring crossbow, similar to the Hidden Arrow, is more powerful and has a greater range than the Hidden Arrow, but is less powerful than the later speargun, firing short iron feather arrows. Spring crossbows are extremely expensive, have the same range as crossbows, and are not as durable as crossbows, but springs do not work when wet with water like bowstrings, and they can be used both in and on the surface. The spring crossbow is also very convenient, as long as the arrow is inserted from the front, the tail of the arrow can push the spring to the end, and if it is stuck, it will enter the state of preparation. There is a cutout switch that locks the trigger when not in use, so you can avoid inadvertently hitting the trigger and triggering the crossbow arrow.

In this era, the springs themselves were complex and expensive to manufacture, which made spring crossbows scarce and available only to the most elite naval special forces.

Although the Seal Battalion currently has only 12 people, these 12 people are the backbone of the future Marine Corps Special Forces, and they will be relied on to develop and grow the Special Combat Team in the future.

In addition, Wang Xinyu also summoned a group of boatmen, built a group of fishing boats from the old elm wood cut back, and selected more than 3,000 people with good water properties from among the people to be fishermen. The elected people were in fact former fishermen, but because of the Qing government's ban on the sea, they were forced to leave the sea on which they depended for their livelihood and became tenant farmers. Now that Wang Xinyu has recruited them and become fishermen, these people are naturally overjoyed. If it weren't for the fact that there were too few boats, Wang Xinyu would have wanted to recruit more fishermen.

Together with the families brought back by some of the fishermen, more than 6,000 people have become villagers in the fishing village.

Fishermen are the most important reserve force of the sailors, fishermen are familiar with the water and maneuvering the boat, they can walk on the rocking boat, and when they join the navy, the fishermen have a shorter training period than ordinary people, and they can soon become a group of qualified sailors.

After arranging everything, Wang Xinyu was ready to go. This time, he brought with him five large ships, more than 400 officers and men of the naval division, and three personal soldiers. Just before leaving, Wang Xinyu suddenly remembered something.

"There is one more thing that needs Brother Hong's help! Help me find a group of alchemists! ”

"Alchemist?" Hong Xiguan laughed, "Brother, you don't want to cultivate the art of immortality, do you?" ”

"No, alchemists are useful! You'll know the use later. Wang Xinyu said. Alchemists, who can later help themselves refine sulfuric acid and the like, can use laboratory equipment to produce small amounts of explosives. At present, there is no steam engine, industrialization cannot be achieved, and only a small number of high-power sophisticated weapons can be produced by laboratory methods. Of course, the laboratory method is produced in very small quantities, and in addition to meeting the needs of a small number of elite troops, it is only used at critical moments.

Wang Xinyu was included in the secret weapons plan, in addition to the Mini rifle, there is also a sniper gun he conceived, in fact, it is a special front-loading rifled gun, which has the same principle as the Mini bullet, because it cannot be mass-produced, so it is produced by the clay mold production method. This is a small-caliber cannon that fires three-pounder shells, but in order to ensure sufficient chamber pressure, the barrel wall is extremely thick, the body tube is long, and there is rifling inside, and it fires Mini shells, which are equipped with ** fuses and explosives. But like the Mini rifle, these weapons were sky-high before industrialization, and could not be mass-produced, and could only be used by a few top-secret troops.

On the afternoon of the 17th day of the sixth lunar month of the 14th year of Yongli, the fleet pulled anchor and set sail.

The fleet of ships sailing consisted of one large warship and four medium warships. As a precaution, all ships are fully armed. Having learned the lesson of the last head-to-head with Shi Lang, Wang Xinyu installed two six-pounder copper cannons on the stern of all warships, although the caliber of this cannon is not large, but it can fire chain bullets, which can make the sails of the pursuing enemy ships fall and cannot catch up with him. The six-pounder cannon is also lightweight, so it fits on the stern helm tower and will not interfere with the command and maneuvering of the rudder, nor will it damage the rudder deck due to the firing of cannonballs.

The sun was shining, the breeze was gently lapping the waves, turning up the white waves, and the fleet full of sails slowly left Xiamen Port and sailed towards Kinmen.

Wang Xinyu's first stop was Kinmen Island, where he sent the supplied grain to the army stationed on the island and King Lu. Because rice is not produced on Kinmen Island, the officers and men stationed on the island usually eat sweet potatoes. At that time, sweet potatoes had not been popularized on a large scale, but on the southern coast, many people had planted sweet potatoes in large quantities, and quickly spread them to the whole country during the Kangxi period, which caused the "sweet potato boom" in the later Kangxi era, because sweet potatoes, a high-yield crop, reduced the starvation population and increased the Chinese population sharply, so the sweet potato prosperity was advocated by the later Qing fans as the Kangqian prosperous era.

In general, the Qing Dynasty was too lucky, there were not so many traitors leading the party, and without the natural disasters of the Ming Dynasty, it was impossible for them to even enter the customs; Without the civil strife of the Southern Ming, they would not have been able to capture Jiangnan; Without sweet potatoes, the Kangxi Dynasty would have died.

Emperor Yongli's so-called "southern hunting" fled into Burma, which made Zheng Chenggong also very difficult. When no one is in the country, will the decree still be valid? Now, although the position of the superintendent has changed from King Lu to King Yanping, Zheng Chenggong was not optimistic about Zhu Yihai, King of Lu, from the beginning, and he had contradictions with Zhang Huangyan in this regard. And Zhang Huangyan is a die-hard fan of Zhu Yihai. What's more, Yongli had twice decreed that King Lu should be the prison state, which made Zheng Chenggong feel that it affected his interests.

For more than ten years, Zhang Huangyan has been dependent on Zhu Yihai for his life. At the worst time, the Zhejiang army and naval divisions were all lost, and only Zhang Huangyan was left alone to protect the king of Lu, and he wandered at sea for a few days before he saw the Ming army fleet and had to go ashore. And sometimes, Zhu Yihai lived on the ship for several months in a row. His name is associated with the sea, and he has become a real living from the sea. However, at this time, Yihai lived with sweet potatoes as a staple food every day, and the Kinmen military and civilians nicknamed it the king of sweet potatoes.

The fleet docked on the wharf of Kinmen Island, and the soldiers and civilians of Kinmen cheered when they saw the rice and white flour unloaded on the ship. You must know that at this time, Zheng Tai's "grain collection team" has not returned, the rice and white noodles on Kinmen Island have long been eaten, and the warehouses are piled up with sweet potatoes. Every day, I eat sweet potatoes with small fish and shrimp, and the soldiers and civilians on the island are sick to their stomachs.

Although Zhu Yihai was the king of Lu, there was no extra fine grain on the island for him to eat, and he ate sweet potato porridge that was boiled and boiled every morning and put a few grains of brown rice; At noon, eat vermicelli made of sweet potatoes, and the vegetable leaves covered with the flour are also sweet potato leaves; Eat boiled sweet potato soup for dinner and stir-fried sweet potato leaves; Dim sum and supper, still sweet potato, baked sweet potato.

"Report to the prince, Ding Xibo has just delivered grain to the dock, we don't need to eat sweet potatoes today!" A guard walked in and happily reported to King Lu.

"Dingxiber?" Zhu Yihai's eyes lit up, "It's the Gaoqi naval battle, and it is not chaotic in the face of danger; Breaking through the clouds and fortifying the city, Ke Zhao'an, recovering the lost land for my Ming Dynasty and recovering a large number of people, Dingxi Bo Wang Yu? ”

"Back to the prince, it's him!"

"Get it in! The widow wants to see him! ”

"But the prince, the vassal king's personal friendship with the military generals seems to be a big taboo. Lord Wang, you are not a prisoner now, not as good as in previous years. If it is a personal relationship with a military general, I am afraid that it will arouse the suspicion of King Yanping of the prison state. The guard walked up to Zhu Yihai and reminded him softly in his ear.

Zhu Yihai's eyes that had just shone dimmed again: "Then forget it, the widow can't spoil Dingxibo's good future." Maybe there will be a chance in the future. ”

In fact, Wang Xinyu also knew that Zhu Yihai, the king of Lu, was on Kinmen Island. But he didn't dare to go to see King Lu privately. You must know that the king of Yanping County is easy to say about other things, but he is most afraid that someone will offend him. If he commits a big taboo, then the king of Yanping will not show mercy at all. Originally, King Lu was a prisoner, and King Yanping took the prison country from King Lu, if he went to see King Lu at this time, what would King Yanping think? Although I sympathized with this sweet potato king who escaped from the pile of dead people and wandered at sea for half his life, I couldn't go to see him.

King Yanping has a gap between Yongli and King Lu. For Yongli, although there is a certain estrangement, and even think that the holy decree of Yongli is invalid at all, but how to say that Yongli is a banner on behalf of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the surface work still needs to be done. And King Lu, in Zheng Chenggong's eyes, his prison country was given by Zhang Huangyan and others themselves, which was completely illegal. It wasn't until later, when the curse water disaster occurred, and after Yongli died in Kunming, Zheng Chenggong was still unwilling to establish King Lu as the emperor, but continued to use a Yongli year name that had ascended to heaven. In fact, in Zheng Chenggong's eyes, he is most willing to be loyal to Emperor Longwu, he is also the righteous son of Emperor Longwu, and Emperor Longwu gave the name Zhu Chenggong, so he is also known as the national surname. Although Emperor Longwu has been killed, Zheng Chenggong thinks that Yongli is not orthodox, as for King Lu, it is a pseudo-prison state supported by Zhang Huangyan and others, and he raised King Lu out of loyalty to the Ming Dynasty.

But just look at King Lu's three meals a day, Zheng Chenggong didn't really offer Zhu Yihai as a royal family. King Lu's personal guard was also a disciple of Zhejiang sent by Zhang Huangyan, not a member of the Zheng family.

Wang Xinyu knew that he was not good at political struggle, and after Zheng Chenggong's death in two years, if he played with his wrists, he would definitely not be able to play Zheng Jing and his group. He didn't dare to push King Lu out as the Ming Emperor to call on the world, and it was impossible for him to block the car to save Yongli. However, he has a dark hole card in his hand, and when the time comes, it will surprise the world.

"All the grain for Kinmen has been moved, right?" Wang Xinyu asked.

Li Rui replied: "Back to my lord, I have already moved!" ”

"Then the herald set sail! It's time for us to go! I have to rush to Penghu tomorrow morning! ”

"Set sail!" Li Rui gave the order.

The fleet pulled anchor and set sail, slowly leaving Kinmen and sailing into the depths of the sea.

"Everyone, be on guard! Now the Tartar sailors have nothing to fear, what they have to worry about is the fleet of red-haired ghosts! Before dark, Wang Xinyu gave an order.