In the fifteenth year of Yongli in the Ming Dynasty and the eighteenth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, on February 25, Chongqing.

Li Guoying, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, has been staying in Chongqing for some time recently, personally guarding this important town on the Jialing River and the Yangtze River. Shunzhi did fulfill his promise to Li Guoying during his lifetime, and continuously sent additional supplies to Shaanxi. Relying on these funds, Li Guoying was not only able to recruit new soldiers and ensure continuous transportation from Boryeong to Chongqing, but also gave the Jialing River Naval Division an appropriate allocation; While ensuring the rapid recovery of the army, the sailors can be maintained, and even ensure that they can train once a month.

When Deng Ming led the main force to Wuchang, Li Guoying judged that Deng Ming would return soon, so he did not plan to let his weak sailors take the opportunity to go out and harass him. But soon after, Li Guoying learned that Deng Ming went down the river and went straight to Jiangxi. The powerful Xichuan sailors had already moved away from Sichuan, and Chongqing City saw that Xichuan's ships were constantly coming and going on the Yangtze River, which naturally gave Li Guoying a target for attack.

However, although the main force of the sailors of Xichuan has left, Yuan Zongdi of Wanxian County has been working hard to protect this section of the Yangtze River waterway, and since Li Guoying did not expect Deng Ming to leave Sichuan again, he naturally would not have the idea of letting the Jialing River sailors go out to challenge the powerful Xichuan; It was not until it was repeatedly confirmed that Deng Ming had crossed Wuchang that Li Guoying hurriedly increased the allocation for the Jialing River Sailor Division and increased the training intensity.

Therefore, in the initial period of time, although there were only Yuan Zongdi's sailors in Wanxian County plus some of the warships left by Deng Ming, the Qing army's sailors were still blocked in the Jialing River and did not dare to go out. It's just that as time went by, Li Guoying's sailors gradually became stronger, putting more and more pressure on the Yangtze River shipping, and the distance of Wanxian offset the advantage on the Ming warships.

Although Daniel Zhang and other generals began to ask for battle, Li Guoying was still unwilling to take risks, and he was determined to take advantage of the geographical advantages brought by occupying Chongqing as much as possible, and regularly placed sailors at the mouth of the river to show off the Ming fleet; In order to prepare for a surprise attack that the Qing army might launch at any time, the Ming army no longer dared to pass through Chongqing on the scale of a small fleet as before, but had to complete the assembly in Xuzhou or Wanxian every time, and then crossed Chongqing under the cover of the main force of the Ming army's naval division.

Each time they had to make large-scale sorties, the utilization rate of the Ming army on the Yangtze River shipping was greatly reduced, whether it was upstream or downstream, the Ming ships loaded with goods did not dare to set off, but had to wait for all the ships to be ready before setting off together.

Although there has been no loss to the passing Ming ships, Li Guoying felt that this strategy was very good, and he told the generals who invited them to fight that this had already choked the throat of the Ming army, and the storage of the Qing army's naval division in Chongqing would greatly reduce the Ming army's shipping volume. Moreover, Li Guoying also believed that if the Qing army rashly went to war, once Yan zhòng was damaged in the confrontation, then the Ming army's shipping would immediately become active again.

Daniel Zhang and others thought that Li Guoying was too conservative, but Li Guoying was the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, and he personally sat in Chongqing, so naturally he said nothing, and no one could change his mind. In order to appease these generals who were anxious for revenge and meritorious service, Li Guoying also patiently analyzed them: every time the Ming army sailed against the current to pass Guò Chongqing, the Ming army sailors in Wanxian County had to be fully mobilized, and they also had to follow the Ming army's fleet to Xuzhou in order to protect them from returning home; When the Ming army traveled in vain on the Yangtze River, the Qing army could strengthen its training and use the money saved to make more bows and arrows and ships. In Li's view, this kind of shipping is a burden that Chengdu and Wanxian County cannot bear for a long time -- just Wanxian and Chengdu, which has only 200,000 people, believes that this continuous mobilization has caused them to lose blood.

Although he did not know why the Ming army was so stubborn to sail back and forth in front of Chongqing, Li Guoying now hoped that they would continue. He estimated the population and output of the military camps in Chengdu and Wanxian, and felt that the total output of their annual output would probably be able to sustain this kind of large-scale mobilization two or three times, and in the long run, no matter how many things Deng Ming had robbed from Jiangnan last time, they would be quickly hollowed out. Even if they grit their teeth and persevere, the rising strength of the Jialing River Sailor will find a flaw sooner or later.

As Li Guoying expected, every time he made a round trip from Xuzhou and Wanxian, Yuan Zongdi needed to repair the ships, give the soldiers extra rations, and severely affected the production of the military cantonment in Wanxian. If Yuan Zongdi had been in Dachang before, his economy would have collapsed because of this comprehensive mobilization, and at that time he would not have been able to launch such a large-scale mobilization without accumulating materials for the next year; Even now, Wanxian's work is also fully tilted towards water transportation, and almost no fields have been planted properly, and they are busy repairing ships, building sails, and expanding docks all day long, and the manpower used for these tasks is at least several times that of those used for tuntian.

However, Chengdu continued to provide materials to Wanxian, and the amount of grain, gunpowder, and pig iron transported back from the upstream was terrifying, not only Li Guoying definitely did not expect it, but even Yuan Zongdi felt unbelievable. Two months ago, when another fleet of ships from Chengdu passed through Wanxian, it also replenished Yuan Zongdi with hundreds of skilled shipbuilders in one go. Of course, none of these craftsmen belonged to Yuan Zongdi, and Chengdu just put them in Wanxian to enhance their ability to renovate ships.

Yuan Zongdi inquired and learned that these craftsmen were all skilled shipbuilders in Jiangnan, and their original owners were all confiscated by the Jiangnan government in the name of "Tong Deng". With a shout, the officers and soldiers who escorted the army left these confiscated shipwrights and fled. After the officers and soldiers "fled", the Ming army swaggered over and took them onto the Ming army's ship. Although they came from different owners, the experiences of these shipbuilders were similar, and those who remained in Wanxian were only a small group of people who were "rescued" by the Ming army.

Before the arrival of these shipbuilders, Chengdu also brought back several warships from the downstream, which are said to be the new warships of the Jiangxi Navy Division captured in Jiujiang -- Yuan Zongdi did not doubt this, because these warships were very new, and at first glance they were semi-finished products, for example, the gun emplacements had not yet been finalized, and they were not equipped with cannons.

Because these ships had not yet been built, Deng Ming did not keep them in his hands, but let his subordinates drive them back to Sichuan. Chengdu saw that the pressure on Chongqing was increasing, so they gave them to Yuan Zongdi. In the past, there were many people under Yuan Zongdi who could farm, and the number of people who could build ships was really limited, and they had no experience in manufacturing such large warships, coupled with the busy repair work, these warships have been staying in Wanxian Port.

After the shipbuilders from Jiangnan arrived, they quickly helped Yuan Zongdi deal with the finishing work of these warships, and the experienced master also told Yuan Zongdi that he felt that this kind of large warship was prepared for Su Song's naval division, and the more gun emplacements allowed them to fight in the wide estuary of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and they could also undertake some offshore tasks. The Jiangnan shipbuilders, who were very familiar with the equipment of the Su Song Naval Division, not only completed the later work such as gun emplacements, but also made some necessary modifications to the masts, oars, and sails of these warships, so that they could better meet the needs of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River -- the guns equipped with them were also ready-made, and they were transported together in the cabin, and the masters said that they would be officially incorporated into the sequence of the naval divisions of Wanxian County in about a few days.

Yuan Zongdi estimated that after his officers and men became familiar with these new warships, the Wanxian Naval Division would be able to divide into two and begin to rest in rotation -- at that time, half of the Wanxian Naval Division would be enough to overwhelm the Qing naval division in the Jialing River. Construction is underway in Xuzhou, and Liu Jinge, the prefect of Chengdu, has ordered the official dispatch of garrisons to Xuzhou and the construction of docks. Later, not only were the auxiliaries willing to go, but even the soldiers couldn't help but go to work, because the salt merchants not only had a dry meal and were full, but also recently began to provide salted fish for dinner, Ye Tianming Ye boss gave a new pair of cloth shoes and a new set of cloth clothes to the auxiliary soldiers who worked during the New Year, and also claimed that when more brine wells were put into production, he would give eggs to the soldiers of Wanxian County.

Now the military tun in Wanxian County is much worse than when Xiong Lan was there, but the treatment of Yuan Zongdi's department is getting better and better day by day. The grain that Chengdu compensated Yuan Zongdi for was something that the Wanxian military tun could not produce for two or three years, but despite this, when he heard that there was a possibility of eggs being distributed in Xuzhou, the guards beside Yuan Zongdi were also full of relish.

……

Whether it was the large amount of grain that Chengdu brought back from the downstream, or the warships that were obtained from Jiujiang, Li Guoying knew nothing about them. Before the First World War of Gaoyou Lake, the Jiangnan Governor's recital gave Li Guoying a feeling that Deng Ming was hitting walls everywhere in Jiangnan. If this is the case, there is a reasonable explanation for Chengdu's efforts to maintain shipping on the Yangtze River at all costs, that is, Chengdu is constantly sending troops out of the country - the salt ships are all fully loaded; However, how to explain that many of the Ming boats back to Xichuan are also fully loaded, which is a very troublesome thing.

After the news of the battle of Gaoyou Lake reached Chongqing, the green battalion of Gansu and Shaanxi all changed, even Li Guoying could not maintain his usual calmness, and sighed: "Deng Thief fought Jiangnan and captured Lang Tingzuo; In World War II, Jiangnan collapsed, and the emperor collapsed, and Jiang Ning may not be able to protect it. ”

However, Li Guoying's prediction did not come true, and soon Jiang Guozhu, Zhou Peigong, and Liang Huafeng, who were guilty of meritorious service, still drove Deng Ming out of Jiangnan and drove him back to Wuchang.

"The princes of Jiangnan don't know what they think, why don't they rebuild the water division at the same time?" After seeing the battle report, Li Guoying sighed again: "Without a water division, how can Deng Ming be completely annihilated?" If he wants to fight, he can fight, but if he can't fight, he can go, if the princes of Jiangnan restore the water master early, the emperor will not be in trouble. ”

Today, Li Guoying received new news.