In a blink of an eye, the fifteenth day of the first month of the fourth year passed, and the Ming army stationed at the junction of Fujian and Guangdong was about to go south to Guangdong. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoThe various meticulous work and secret agents distributed in Guangdong and Guangxi also sent back information: Kong Sizhen wanted to send troops to rescue Guangzhou; Huguang and Zhang Changgeng will also send some troops into Guangdong. At present, the strength of the Qing army in Guangzhou is 1,500 men and horses of the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners, 3,000 of the Han Eight Banners, and 12,000 of the Green Battalion.

As for Yungui's side, because the distance was too far, the information of the fine work and the agents could not be sent back for a while. But one thing is certain, Wu Sangui will definitely not send troops!

In addition, Wang Xinyu also got a hot news: Shang Zhixin intends to send Thirteen Gege over!

"Shang Kexi's thirteenth daughter, that's a famous beauty in Guangzhou City!" Wang Yuyou laughed.

Wang Xinyu shook his head: "But Shang Kexi's reputation is too stinky, if he accepts his daughter as a concubine, wouldn't this clan be sorry for the 800,000 soldiers and civilians who died unjustly in Guangzhou City back then?" His daughter can only be rewarded to the heroes under his command. ”

Chen Yonghua said with a smile: "Shang Kexi is hateful, if you don't cut him with a thousand knives, it will be difficult to solve the hatred in your heart, but his daughter is kind and docile, and she looks beautiful like a flower, even if the handsome accepts him as a concubine, it is nothing!" If the handsome don't want it, then let King Yanping be the side princess! ”

Zheng Cong's eyes widened: "Do you really want to let this fan be a happy daughter?" ”

Wang Xinyu laughed: "What's not to do!" ”

"The troops that Kong Sizhen can mobilize are the five thousand men and horses of her and Sun Yanling. If she expands the green camp, with the strength of Guangxi, she can expand the green camp by up to 3,000 and 10,000 people. Chen Yonghua diverted the topic and continued to analyze the intelligence.

Bai Xianzhong thought for a moment and asked, "Isn't Kong Sizhen still in control of the Yamen of the General Administration Department?" Although it is not as good as our Jinyi Guard in the past, this organization also has tens of thousands of spies, meticulous and assassins, if Kong Sizhen organizes these people, it is also a military force that should not be underestimated, right? ”

Zeng Yangxing laughed: "The General Administration Department is equivalent to our Jinyiwei back then, and the scale is not as big as Jinyiwei." Have you ever heard that the Jinyi Guard can go to war on the battlefield? They can spy on intelligence and carry out assassinations, but they really face to face, and the General Administration Department and Jinyiwei can't play any role! ”

Kong Sizhen was a spy leader, and after the death of Shunzhi, the Tongzheng Department established by Xiaozhuang was actually a secret office, which was a spy agency throughout the entire Qing Dynasty. Later, Yongzheng established the sticky rod can be comparable to the brocade guard, but unfortunately the sticky rod is just a flash in the pan, after the death of Yongzheng, Qianlong abolished this spy agency, leaving only the Tongzheng Department created by Xiaozhuang has been retained until the end of the Qing Dynasty. The reason why the Qing Dynasty was reluctant to set up too large a spy agency was because Jinyiwei's reputation was too bad.

In fact, Jinyiwei is not only a secret service agency of the Ming Dynasty, but also a clean and anti-corruption agency, it is precisely because of the restriction of the power of civil officials that it was blackened by civil officials, and as a result, Chongzhen abolished his martial arts and weakened Jinyiwei, which led to the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there was no special spy agency, and the detailed forces used were the fine work of the eight masters of the Jin Shang Dynasty, as well as the various eyeliners arranged by Fan Wencheng in the pass, in fact, a group of traitors were doing things for them. After the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the Thirteen Yamen established by Shunzhi was a spy agency. Later, after the death of Shunzhi, Xiaozhuang abolished the thirteen yamen and established the General Administration Division, and Kangxi also used the General Administration Department to secretly accumulate strength to deal with Aobai.

Compared with the Jinyiwei of the Ming Dynasty, the Tongzheng Division is not only much smaller in scale, but also has no power to arrest, and the combat effectiveness of the Tongzheng Division is not as good as that of the Jinyiwei.

Therefore, Kong Sizhen's General Administration Department is not afraid at all, and all she can use is Guangxi's troops.

Chen Yonghua said: "If Kong Sizhen formed the wolf soldiers of Guangxi Tusi, those soldiers would be strong in combat and their frontal field combat ability could not compare to us, but if they defended the city, the Guangxi native soldiers should not be underestimated." ”

The combat effectiveness of the Guangxi native soldiers is quite strong, especially the ability to fight alone. In the defense of the city, it is very important to be strong in fighting alone, because the large ladder truck can only send a few dozen people at a time before it will be burned by rockets and fire oil, if these dozens of people cannot gain a foothold in the city, then a large ladder car that consumes a lot of manpower to build will be wasted.

Wang Yuyou pointed to the map and said, "We can let Bai Wenxuan send troops from Annan; Our own army in Qiongzhou also crossed the sea to launch an attack on Guangxi, and we can contain Kong Sizhen! Let her native soldiers not go to Guangzhou! ”

"Yes!" Wang Xinyu nodded, "We have the strength at sea, and we can take a multi-pronged approach to make Kong Sizhen overwhelmed!" In this way, Kong Sizhen's people will not be able to enter Guangzhou safely! ”

With sea supremacy, it can be said that it has taken the initiative in combat. Because the speed of the deployment of the army by sea far exceeds the speed of the land march, and even more than the advantage of cavalry over infantry! Because attacking the opponent's weak point through sea transportation is equivalent to fighting on the front line, but the opponent has to prepare for multi-front operations!

Landing an attack from the sea can mobilize the opponent and make the opponent tired, and you can also look for opportunities to concentrate your forces to destroy the opponent; If the opponent is fortified everywhere and builds turrets everywhere, then the cost of the opponent is much higher than that of himself! That's the benefit of sea supremacy.

"It's finally back again!" At Haikou Wharf in Qiongzhou, the Kunxing mail ship docked at the wharf, and Fang Yizhi walked down the gangway.

Fang Yizhi originally became the prefect of Qiongzhou, and after Qiongzhou was promoted to a province, Fang Yizhi became the governor of Qiongzhou again. Later, the Ming army captured Jiangnan, and Fang Yizhi was transferred to serve as the governor of Zhejiang. Last year, Fang Yizhi went to the mouth of the Dajinsha River to meet Emperor Yongli in Beijing. After leaving Qiongzhou for two years, Fang Yizhi once again set foot on the land of Qiongzhou.

As soon as he stepped on the land, Fang Yizhi was stunned: After leaving Qiongzhou for two years, what a big change here! The simple stone road leading to the pier has been transformed into a neat and beautiful cement road, and the cement road is planted with trees on both sides, and the shade of the trees covers the sky, so you will not feel hot even walking on the cement road on a hot summer day. However, it is said that if a typhoon comes, these trees will have to be buried in the ground again, and some branches and leaves will have to be cut off, otherwise they will die if they are replanted.

Although Fang Yizhi is a scholar of which era, and he is also a member of the Donglin Party, he is not a sour Confucian in the late Ming Dynasty, on the contrary, Fang Yizhi is also a scientist, and has certain attainments in astronomy, geography, physics, mathematics, etc., he does not reject these new things that appear at this time, but supports them very much.

The neat roads and the surrounding buildings are already amazing, but the most amazing thing is the two tracks leading to the pier!

Fang Yizhi walked to the track, only to see that the track was embedded in the cement pavement. It's not that Fang Yizhi hasn't seen a track before, there have been rail cars in Qiongzhou for a long time, but it is a wooden track. The track you see now is black and has a smooth surface that looks like it's made of iron. So he bent down and touched the track, and found that it was still wood, but a layer of iron was wrapped over the wood.

"How much iron does this take!" Fang Yizhi gasped.

Although it was only a layer of iron wrapped on the outer wooden tracks, Fang Yizhi knew that these tracks were drawn from the mountains deep in Qiongzhou, and he also heard that Qiongzhou had built a track road around the island, which could lead to every city. With such a long track road, how much iron sheet is needed to wrap it? This shows how high the iron production is!

"My lord, the car is coming!" The attendant on the side reminded.

Outside the docks, there was a clanging of wheels hitting the tracks, and a two-mule-pulled railcar approached slowly. Because there is a gap between the track and the track, even after the iron sheet is wrapped, there is a gap between the iron sheet and the iron sheet, so the wheel will make a sonorous sound when it runs over the gap.

The mule-pulled rail car stopped in front of Fang Yizhi, the car was very large, the width was one zhang wide, and the height was about one zhang and three feet, deducting the three feet height of the wheels and chassis below, and the car was one zhang high. The length of the car is also very long, about five zhang long! With such a large vehicle, this is literally a ship walking on land!

But such a huge behemoth can be pulled away by only two mules.

Fang Yizhi bent down and took a closer look at the wheels of the car, only to see that the car had a total of eight wheels, of which four wheels formed a wooden frame, the wheels were all made of iron, fixed on the wooden shelf, the axle was also iron, and there were iron springs between the wheels and the wooden shelf, which were estimated to be used to reduce vibration.

That kind of wooden frame is actually the bogie invented by Wang Xinyu. Originally, it was planned to build a four-wheeled vehicle first, but later considered that the four-wheeled vehicle would be too small to transport and would soon be phased out, so it directly built an eight-wheeled vehicle and used two bogies to connect the carriages. In the future, after the invention of the steam engine, the wooden bogies will be changed to iron bogies, and the carriages will be enlarged, and all the wooden tracks will be eliminated and replaced with rails.

The lower part of the carriage is made of wood, the upper part of the carriage is made of airy, cool bamboo, and the roof is made of wood to prevent water seepage. There are windows on both sides of the car, but there are no glass windows, they are all ventilated wooden lattice windows, which can be pulled up or lowered.

"My lord, this is your car, please get in the car!" Ilgen Jueluo, who is in charge of the transportation mission in Qiongzhou, said.

The Meng Baqi captive Ilgen Jueluo has changed his name to a Chinese name, called Zhang Shichao, and has entered the Han nationality, and has been upgraded from the original second-class to first-class people.

Fang Yizhi nodded, and stepped on the wooden steps that extended from the door to get into the car.

Walking into the car, I saw that the interior of the car was very luxurious, the floor was wooden, there was a bathroom in the door, there was a washbasin on the side, and the copper faucet was turned on, and the water could be discharged inside, which was very convenient. It is said that there is a water tank on the roof of the car, which can supply water to the inside of the car.

A few steps forward, a long hallway appears, with windows on one side and rooms on the other.

A servant opened the door to one of the rooms, and inside was a small room, with a bed made of bamboo and rattan that could accommodate three people, a suitcase and a rattan chair on one side, and a small coffee table by the window. Needless to say, this room is known to be the bedroom of a high-ranking official in a chauffeured car.

Fang Yizhi put his luggage in the suitor, walked out of the room again, walked through the corridor, and a living room appeared in front of him.

The living room has a dining table and a conference table, with rattan chairs framed by bamboo frames, and on one side of the living room is the kitchen, where several men are busy preparing lunch.

Before I knew it, the car was moving. The chariot driver swung his whip and drove the mule in the middle of the track. Although the car made a sonorous sound when it moved, it drove very smoothly, and there was a water cup on the table, and the water in the water cup did not move at all.

After the car left the dock, Fang Yizhi saw that there was another track on his right, which was parallel to his track, and there were constantly mule-drawn carts passing by on the opposite side, most of which were loaded with iron ore, and occasionally a vehicle full of soldiers or civilians drove by.

"It's a passenger car, one car can carry more than 100 people, and it can be pulled by only two mules." Zhang Shichao pointed to a passenger car passing by opposite and introduced it to Fang Yizhi.

"Two mules can pull more than a hundred people? It's shocking! Fang Yizhi was taken aback.

"More than 100 people are actually not heavy, adults, look at those cars that pull iron ore, they have pulled tens of thousands of catties! It only takes four mules to pull it away. Zhang Shichao said.

Fang Yizhi carefully observed the track opposite, the car had already left the dock area, and the track on the opposite side was actually laid on a pile of broken stones! There are also pieces of wood placed horizontally on top of the broken stones, and there are two tracks on top of the wood. Between the two tracks, planks were laid between the woods and the woods, covering the broken stones, which were used to facilitate the mules' walking.

"What a miracle!" Fang Yizhi sighed. He knew that Dongfan was working on the steam engine at this time, if the steam engine came out and the steam engine was used to pull this kind of car, wouldn't it be able to walk automatically?

Zhang Shichao said: "Now that the track has been improved, the cars that were originally propelled by manpower have been laid with a layer of iron sheets on the wooden tracks, and the ground has been added with gravel to bear a greater weight, and the cart is pulled by mules, which can save a lot of prisoners." The captives saved all went to serve as soldiers. ”

After improving the rails and rail cars used to transport iron ore, not only could a lot of manpower be saved, but also passenger cars could be driven, making this rail car an important means of transportation on Qiongzhou Island.

It is said that it costs money for civilians to take a bus, and it is a copper plate to sit from the dock to Haikou City; From the wharf to the capital city of Qiongzhou is two copper plates. If you sit a little farther, it will be more expensive. There are also sleeper cars with beds that can be used for long trips, although the price of the ride is more expensive.

Needless to say, I also know that these rail cars are Wang Xinyu's invention. But in fact, the railcar was not a new thing in the East in this era, and in distant Europe, England had already had a wooden railcar, and of course, the wooden railcar of the English people was far less advanced than this kind of railcar.

"If this kind of rail car can become widespread, it will be possible to transport a large amount of goods in places where there are no rivers!" Fang Yizhi said. (To be continued.) )