631 Request, Inspection

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"By the way, Li Yan, where are the naval fleets of Lu Yuan and Hong Sheng recently?"

Immediately, Li Zixiao asked Li Yan again.

"Back to my lord, General Hong Sheng is leading the Third Fleet, now Dengzhou, responsible for supporting General Liu Chong of Jinzhou, and the Fourth Fleet is staying on Tamna Island.

At the same time, the First and Second Fleets were anchored at Haizhou Port at this time, and were preparing to leave for Yangzhou Port for their first sea training since the beginning of spring.

Admiral Lu Yuan recently returned to the Hongzehu Naval Recruit Training Office and is busy training the new naval fleet! ”

Hearing Li Zixiao ask about the situation of the White Dragon Army's navy, Li Yan immediately replied that he had been prepared for a long time and knew what Li Zixiao was going to ask.

This is the benefit of a top strategist, who can guess the mind of the lord in advance, answer the problems encountered by the lord, and give excellent ideas at critical moments.

After listening to Li Yan's answer, Li Zixiao nodded slightly: "Lu Yuan still attaches great importance to the training of the new fleet of the Navy, and they have been training for a while.

After the beginning of spring, let them go to sea for training, and they have been practicing in Hongze Lake, and if these naval recruits are not allowed to see what the sea is, they will never be able to become excellent naval non-commissioned officers. ”

Li Zixiao has never stopped, in addition to the existing four detachments of the White Dragon Army Navy, for the construction of the White Dragon Army Navy.

After the Qingjiang Shipyard broke through the technical difficulties in the construction of the Zheng family's large three-masted warship, Li Zixiao ordered the Qingjiang Shipyard to start construction at full strength and build ships frantically.

At the same time, Li Zixiao also asked Wei Hong to recruit a group of recruits and hand them over to Lu Yuan to take to Hongze Lake for training, planning to expand two more detachments.

"Sir, my subordinates want to know, if the Zheng family doesn't agree to your two requests this time, do you really plan to ignore the war between the Zheng family and the red-haired ghost?

You know, now is the best time to take advantage of the red-haired ghost to start a war with the Zheng family, but it is the best time for our naval fleet to expand its territory!

The Zheng family fleet has controlled a large area of sea along the southeast coast over the years, and has made a lot of money, and now it is time to change this situation. ”

At this time, Li Yan still couldn't hold back and said to Li Zixiao.

"Oh? Do you think so too? Li Zixiao didn't answer Li Yan, but looked at him with a smile and asked rhetorically.

"Yes, sir. So in this battle, we have to get involved in it no matter what, even if we don't send troops to help the Zheng family, it doesn't mean that we can't participate in this battle!

Moreover, let the Zheng family and the red-haired ghost fight for a while, and when they both lose, we can also go south to pick peaches.

Even if the Zheng family can finally expel the red-haired ghosts, their strength will inevitably be greatly damaged, and our naval fleet will not be enough to fear them. ”

Li Yan said what was in his heart.

"Do you want me to take advantage of the fire to rob and start a war against the Zheng family after the Zheng family drives away the red-haired ghosts?" Li Zixiao looked at Li Yan and said with a serious expression.

"That's right, anyway, we and the Zheng family have a conflict of interest on the southeast coast, and if this continues, there will be a war between our two sides.

Since we have to fight sooner or later, it is better to take advantage of the weakest strength of the Zheng family, which will be more beneficial to us. ”

Li Zixiao's eyes were cold at this time, and he told his conspiracy.

After Li Zixiao listened, he nodded slightly, and said to Li Yan: "Well, what you said, Benjue didn't think about it, but Benjue is still absolute, and it is not appropriate for us to start a war with Zheng Zhilong at this time."

If I could, I really hoped that the Zheng family would agree to my two requests, so that I would really send troops to help him drive out the red-haired ghost and seize Ryukyu Island.

If the Zheng family doesn't agree, then we will find a way to force them to agree, but this is not yet the time for us to start a full-scale war with the Zheng family.

Therefore, this proposal you said is not intended to be implemented by Benjue for the time being, and now we and the Zheng family are still mainly cooperating.

Even if we really want to completely tear our faces with the Zheng family, we will have to wait a few more years, let us digest Henan, and the power in our hands will be stronger, and then we can have enough confidence to start a war with the Zheng family. ”

In the end, Li Zixiao shook his head and vetoed Li Yan's proposal, starting a war with the Zheng family at this time was not in Li Zixiao's interests.

On the contrary, at this time, uniting with the Zheng family fleet to jointly attack the red-haired ghosts in the castles at the north and south ends of the Ryukyus was regarded by Li Zixiao as the most feasible plan.

"Li Yan, Zheng Chenggong sent someone to give you a lot of gifts yesterday, he just hopes that you can say more good things for them in front of Benjue.

But now you're taking people's money, not doing things for others! ”

Later, Li Zixiao suddenly looked at Li Yan and said with a smile.

"Haha, there's no way around it, my subordinates have done their best. In addition, tomorrow, his subordinates will send the gifts sent by Zheng Chenggong to the government office for registration. ”

Li Yan smiled heartily and said.

"Okay, you don't need to do this, you can just keep it for yourself." Li Zixiao waved his hand and said.

"You go down and send someone to keep an eye on Zheng Chenggong and them, allow them to walk around in Xuzhou at will, and if Zheng Chenggong wants to see me again, bring him here."

Li Zixiao said.

"Yes, my subordinates know." Immediately, Li Yan retreated.

In the Xuzhou Hotel, after Zheng Chenggong returned from Li Zixiao, he summoned his entourage to discuss and said Li Zixiao's conditions.

"Damn, the surname Li is simply a robbery, these two conditions must not be agreed." Dong Teng was the first to stand up and object.

"Well, the two conditions offered by Count Li have indeed crossed our bottom line, and Gongzi must not agree to it easily.

This matter is no longer up to us, and we need to send someone back to ask the adults to do it. ”

A retainer of the Zheng family next to him said.

Zheng Chenggong couldn't help sighing, indeed he was not qualified to reply to the two requests made by Li Zixiao, no wonder Li Zixiao sent them directly after he finished saying the request.

Feelings are in Li Zixiao's eyes, he is not qualified to give an answer on the spot, Li Zixiao is setting aside time for himself to send someone back to Quanzhou to ask his father.

As soon as he thought of this, Zheng Chenggong couldn't help but feel depressed, he wanted to do something, but he couldn't do anything.

"Then let's leave it at that, let's stay in Xuzhou first, send Huang Hai and a group back, tell my father about the situation on our side, and obey my father's arrangement."

In the end, Zheng Chenggong had to arrange it this way, because he had no other way.

For more than a week in the following, Zheng Chenggong and his party stayed in Xuzhou, and Li Zixiao did not send anyone to urge them, what did they dare to do.

At this time, Li Zixiao mobilized the forces of the White Dragon Army on the one hand, inspected the new barracks, inspected the naval training base in Hongze Lake, and accelerated the delivery of grain to Kaifeng.

Anyway, Li Zixiao has a lot of things, if he wants to be really busy, there will be so many things that he will never be able to finish.

Often, he only picks the most important things and pays attention to them personally, and as for other minor things, he can only throw his hands at his subordinates, and he only looks at the results in the end.

Qingjiang Shipyard, Li Zixiao walked into the shipyard at this time, followed by a group of officials, who were giving a detailed introduction to the shipyard.

"Sir, now the Qingjiang Shipyard has almost recovered to its heyday during the previous Jiajing period.

The whole shipyard has 18 branches, with 6,000 craftsmen, including a large number of laborers, and the annual shipbuilding capacity can reach more than 700 ships.

In addition, according to the previous explanation of the lord, we have overcome the technical difficulties in building a three-masted gunboat, and now the main factory can build such a large gunboat.

Here are the ships for the blessing, and over there are the birds, the boats and the sand boats......"

The director of Qingjiang Shipyard is giving Li Zixiao a detailed introduction to the situation of Qingjiang Shipyard at this time.

After more than a year of hard work, Li Zixiao spent a lot of money and used a large number of manpower, and finally let him revitalize this large shipyard.

At this time, the Qingjiang Shipyard was already able to manufacture ships of their own styles ranging from 4,000 materials to hundreds of materials.

Moreover, at this time, the Qingjiang Shipyard not only built warships for the White Dragon Army Navy, but also accepted orders from private businessmen to build civilian ships for the people.

"Sir, the warship you see now is our improved three-masted gunboat, and its displacement has reached four thousand five hundred materials (more than 1,300 tons), which is larger than the tonnage of the Zheng family's three-masted gunboat.

This way, you can carry more soldiers, install more guns, and fire more fiercely and faster!

At the same time, this is also the largest tonnage ship that our shipyard can build so far.

Not only in our shipyard, but also in our subordinates, even if you look at the entire Ming shipyard at this time, our tonnage ship is definitely the largest. ”

The director of Qingjiang Shipyard was full of pride when he talked about Li Zixiao at this time, and his words were indeed true.

Looking at the ships of the entire Ming and Qing dynasties, whether it is an official ship or a civilian ship, there is no more than 5,000 materials, the largest is only 4,000 materials, and the general ones are about 2,000 materials.

The three-masted gunboat, which is 4,500 materials, is placed in the sea area around Daming at this time, and it can already be called a giant existence.

"How many three-masted gunboats like this are being built in the shipyard right now?"

Li Zixiao looked at the large gunboat that had just finished laying the keel in front of him at this time, and the corners of his mouth showed joy, and asked out loud.

"Back to my lord, there are only three such three-masted gunboats under construction in the shipyard at this time, and this is also the maximum number of such three-masted gunboats we have built at the same time."

"Very good, you have done a good job, speed up the construction of warships, and the scale of the shipyard must continue to expand......"

Li Zixiao was already satisfied with the restoration of the Qingjiang Shipyard, but the speed at which he built the warship still did not meet Li Zixiao's requirements.

"When Benjue returns, I will ask the government to allocate a special fund to you for the expansion of your shipyard."

"Subordinate Lord Xie."

At this time, among the four detachments of the White Dragon Army Navy, the four three-masted gunboats were all purchased from Zheng Zhilong, with a tonnage of 4,000 materials, and they were also the largest warships in the White Dragon Army Navy.

In addition, the 3,000-material warship is the main force in the White Dragon Army Navy, and among the White Dragon Navy warships, the lowest tonnage is more than 2,000 materials.

Ships with less than 2,000 materials are not eligible to join the White Dragon Army's naval fleet at all.

At the same time, the types of warships in the naval fleet of the White Dragon Army mainly include lucky ships, bird ships, and sand ships. Clippers and other types, among which the three-masted gunboat actually belongs to the type of large fortune ship.

Because Li Zixiao wanted to intervene in the naval war between the Zheng family and the red-haired ghost next and get involved in Ryukyu Island, he remembered to inspect the Qingjiang Shipyard this time.

Li Zixiao was very satisfied with the results of the inspection of the Qingjiang Shipyard, and then Li Zixiao took Quartz, Li Yan and others to the naval training base in Hongze Lake to inspect Lu Yuan's training of naval recruits.

"Kill, fire!"

When Li Zixiao led people to the Hongze Lake Naval Training Base, Lu Yuan was training naval recruits and organizing two small fleets to simulate battle formations.

When Lu Yuan knew that Li Zixiao was coming, he immediately handed over the task of training recruits to his generals, and then ran to meet Li Zixiao.

"General, why are you here?" After Lu Yuan saluted Li Zixiao, he said excitedly.

"General Lu, it's time to change to a lord in the future, and you can't call the general anymore." Li Yan, who was behind Li Zixiao, kindly reminded Lu Yuandao at this time.

"Yes, yes, yes, you see my memory, it's time to be called a lord." Lu Yuan immediately came to his senses and cast a grateful glance at Li Yan.

"How many recruits did you recruit in the Navy this time?"

At this time, Li Zixiao was standing by the lake, looking at the lake not far away, the naval recruits who were conducting ship training and artillery shooting training, and he didn't turn his head around, so he asked Lu Yuan.

"Back to my lord, from the beginning of autumn to the present, we have recruited about 4,000 recruits in three batches, which is a bit much.

However, this is also because we in the navy always remember what our lord once taught us, 'It is better to let people wait for ships than let ships wait for people.' ’

My subordinates dare to guarantee here that as soon as the shipyard delivers us new ships, my recruits will be able to control those ships immediately. ”

Lu Yuan shouted in a loud voice.

"Well, four thousand people is not much, and after a while, the warships of the Qingjiang Shipyard will be delivered to you one after another.

When the time comes, you will draw some backbone sailors from the four detachments of your navy, and then use these 4,000 new soldiers as the backbone, and I will prepare to set up another fleet. ”

After Li Zixiao heard Lu Yuan's report, he nodded slightly and said.

"Yes."

Lu Yuan responded excitedly, Li Zixiao was ready to set up another fleet, and Lu Yuan was of course happy to see the strength of his fleet become stronger.

"In addition, the recruitment and training of your navy recruits must not be stopped, and this recruit training base must be maintained forever.

In the future, we will have more ships, and we will need more naval non-commissioned officers. ”

"Yes, sir, my subordinates understand that when my subordinates return to the fleet, they will also leave their right-hand men here to continue training recruits."

When Lu Yuan heard that Li Zixiao attached so much importance to their navy, he was also very excited in his heart, and shouted loudly.

"Sir, when will we be able to go to sea to fight again, last time I went to fight the Tartars, but the Tartars don't have a sailor at all, and our naval fleet is all given to the guys in the army, as the captain of the transport team.

The occasional encounter with a few small pirates is not challenging at all.

Sir, when will we be able to let our naval fleet find a powerful opponent and fight a battle! ”

At this time, Lu Yuan also held back and complained to Li Zixiao, he was eager to lead the fleet, defeat a strong enemy at sea, and make meritorious contributions.

(End of chapter)