Hearing that the visitor came from Longtan and his surname was Li, Zhu Yuncai bounced up from the chair with a spirit, and then rubbed his hands and ordered the family to bring the robe, and he was wearing a middle coat, but he couldn't meet the guest. But he didn't dare to let the other party wait for a long time, so he hurried to the door of the house to greet him while tying the buckle. The door opened, and Zhu Yuncai fixed his eyes to see who was standing in front of his house, who was Li Xin, the marquis of Zhenju?

"I don't know that the Marquis of Zhenyu came to visit overnight, and the officials are late to greet him, and he also asks the Marquis of Zhenju to forgive his sins and forgive his sins!"

Li Xin smiled, and hurriedly took a few steps forward to help Zhu Yuncai, who had fallen to the ground, and Zhu Yuncai was about to salute, but he added strength to his hands.

"It turned out that I came to Tang Tu, what does it have to do with Zhu Tong's judgment?" Saying that, he sniffed, smelled the smell of wine and meat, and then smiled again: "Zhu Tongju drinks alone at home, Li Xin; It's also a coincidence, and I'm sure I'll have to bother with a few cups! ”

Zhu Yuncai was stunned for a moment, and he could see at a glance that he was drinking, thinking that his mustard heart had been peeped into by the other party, so his face turned red and he didn't know how to answer. Fortunately, Li Xin did not delay and walked towards the house, and Zhu Yuncai secretly wiped a handful of fine beads of sweat from his forehead, and followed after a few steps.

When I arrived in the courtyard of Zhu Yuncai's mansion, I saw that there was wine and meat on the stone table in the courtyard, and there were red lanterns hanging next to it to light up. Zhu Yuncai hurriedly invited Li Xin to take a seat, and asked the servants to buy wine and meat. Li Xin didn't want to go around in circles, so he ate a mouthful of meat and drank a sip of wine to express his intentions.

"Li Xin has an errand and asks Zhu Tongju for help, I don't know if he is willing?"

Where does Zhu Yuncai refuse, helping others is helping himself, the Marquis of Zhenyu owes him a favor, won't he have to pay it back sooner or later? Naturally, he nodded again and again, full of promises. However, after saying a few words, he felt remorse, regretting that he had not first asked what the marquis of Zhenyu was asking for, and if he couldn't do it, wouldn't it be thankless?

Li Xin saw that he hesitated, so he got straight to the point.

"The Three Guards want to raise the sailors, and this matter is approved by Sun Butang, but the construction of the ship cannot be done without a person who can manage and coordinate, and Zhu Tongju is familiar with the affairs of the officials, and he will definitely be competent!"

It turned out that this was the case, and Zhu Yuncai first breathed a sigh of relief. Immediately afterwards, he seemed to come back to his senses, and stammered and asked Li Xin urgently: "What does the Marquis of Zhenyu mean, do you want the lower officials to supervise it?" ”

As Li Xin nodded, Zhu Yuncai only felt that his heart was beating wildly, he had always been a fat and meritorious errand to buy military supplies, even if he couldn't make up for Ying Tianfu Yin's shortcomings, as long as this merit was done, and then he would be promoted to three levels in a row, it would not be delusional to be a waiter!

With these considerations, Zhu Yuncai's eyes were full of gratitude and stammering when he looked at Li Xin again. But this is not the end, Li Xin's next words shocked him like a dream.

"Since it is to build armaments, it is definitely not appropriate to respond to the general judgment of Tianfu, Sun Butang can first lead the title of the right attendant of the Ministry of Works, and supervise the construction of the ...... in the name of the military preparation road."

Li Xin also said eloquently, Zhu Yuncai has fallen into the fog for five miles, I don't know whether it is true or not, first of all, the promotion of rank, from the general judgment of the fifth grade to the squire of the third grade, it is unbelievable to jump six levels in a row! Then there is such an errand as a soldier's road, which is an important position in a province, and Nanjing has not been set up to stay in the capital, and now it is so prominent that it has been opened up!

Under the surging heart, Zhu Yuncai swept away the depression and resentment in his chest before, and he was also arrogant, only feeling that the future was great.

"This matter of Sun Butang still needs to be submitted to the ministry before it can be decided, whether it is through guò or not, the errand of supervision is none other than you!"

Regarding Zhu Yuncai's promotion, Sun Ji made a package ticket, and with the strong support of Zheng Sanjun, he would not set up obstacles in this matter if he wanted to come to Nanjing. Therefore, Li Xincai made a confession at this time to offset the grievances of this general judge.

However, things still went unexpectedly. First of all, Xiong Mingyu, the secretary of the Nanjing Ministry of Industry, resolutely opposed Zhu Yuncai to be the right attendant under him, and then Huang Jin, the secretary of the Nanjing Ministry of Officials, also stated that Zhu Yuncai was not from a Jinshi, so it was not appropriate to be promoted, and he did not agree with the implication. Suddenly, Sun Jiao's face was completely beaten to the ground, and Li Xin broke his promise to Zhu Yuncai because of this.

It's just that Zhu Yun calmed down after last night's excitement, no matter whether the Nanjing officials oppose his promotion or not, as long as the credit for rectifying the water division and armament is taken down, there is a solid credit, who else can say anything more? Therefore, he planned to set up a shelf for the sailors without complaint.

Although Sun Jiao was ostracized, he still had to go to the Taiping Mansion to meet with Wei Guogong, and set off on a grain ship early the next morning. Who knew that just after the beginning of the morning, the news of the attack on the grain ship reached the city, followed by the warning of the Nanjing defenders, and all the city gates were hastily closed. Shao Hualong, the left-behind general soldier, did not dare to be good after receiving the police, so he went to find a few Shangshu in the city to discuss countermeasures.

"What? Sun Butang's fleet was attacked, and he didn't know if he was alive or dead? Where did the thieves come from? To whom do they belong? ”

Several Shangshu gathered in the political hall were shocked, and in the face of Zheng Sanjun's series of questions, Shao Hualong could only shake his head again and again, the incident happened suddenly, and the scouts sent out to investigate had not yet returned, and everything was unknown.

Now that the Duke of Wei is no longer there, and the governor Sun Jiao does not know whether he is alive or dead, could it be that the thieves have hit the city of Nanjing overnight? But Wei Guogong is not guarding the Taiping Mansion? How could the thieves touch the city of Nanjing overnight?

Seeing that it was noon, the scouts who had gone out of the city to investigate had only come back, and they had brought back several soldiers who had experienced the disaster. It turned out that Sun Jiao's fleet was robbed and killed by an unknown fleet less than ten miles out of Nanjing, and there were cannons on the other side's ship.

"It's a sea boat! I have been out to sea, and it must be a sea ship that robs and kills grain ships! ”

One of the surviving soldiers was still in shock until this time, but when it came to the sea ships used by the other side, they were categorical, densely covered with the surface of the river, and there were hundreds of them, and the big ships of the officers and soldiers were like small sampans compared to others.

Another soldier echoed the claim, and then added a message that seemed impossible to all.

"I, I look at the banner as if there is a Zheng character on it......" This soldier is a few words, but I am not sure that it is true. However, his statement was quickly agreed by the other soldiers. The surname Zheng has such a large fleet, who else can there be besides Fujian Zhengshi?

Scholars do not believe this speculation. Huang Jin, the secretary of the ministry, said: "Zheng Zhilong was only promoted to the general army of Fujian by the saint this year, and he built a mansion in Jinjiang, and the court took him with great kindness, how could he rebel?" ”

So where did these sea ships under the banner of Zheng come from?

"No matter where it came from! How could the court be afraid of these thieves? Send our sailors to fight! ”

Dozens of warships of the Daming Navy Division fan-shaped and rushed straight to the fleet entrenched in the center of the river. I saw that the fleet cruising in the center of the river began to change its hull posture, and the muzzles of the guns on both sides glowed with a jet-black luster, sending out a chill, like a beast waiting for its prey to enter the river with a low roar of disdain.

Putting away the monoculars, Colonel Wallace shook the rhinoceros horn mustache on his upper lip and said contemptuously: "Stupid Ming people, send some small boats to die, let our gunners prepare, and send them to God!" ”

Immediately, he realized that the people of the Ming Kingdom did not believe in God, so he added, "Send them to see the Buddha......

The ship at his feet was a typical three-masted galleon, with a displacement of 300 tons, and a total of 24 guns on both sides of the hull, including two cannons, four long guns, and the rest were all falcon guns. And the effective range is also more than 1500 feet. There were five galleons of this size in his fleet, and how could these headless little ships hurt his fleet in the slightest?

The warships of the Ming army and the navy swarmed, and the Jiangxin fleet did not hesitate any longer, several gunboats roared, and huge shells were thrown one by one, smashing into the dense Ming warships.

The Ming warships continued to rush forward under the rumbling artillery fire, but as they got closer and closer to the other side, more and more shells were whistling, and the landing points became more and more accurate. Before he could knock down the other party, he had already lost more than a dozen boats. The vast majority of these boats are converted from fishing boats, and their tactics are also based on broadside battles, and they get close to each other to win or lose in hand-to-hand combat.

Wallace was dissatisfied, sorting out his black military shirt, and his white pants had just been stained by a dirty sailor, which somewhat affected his mood to watch the battle. He was quite surprised by the morale of the Ming army's small boats, and he had not yet broken down under such heavy artillery fire, but he was not worried, he believed that as long as he fired another volley, he would definitely crush these stupid Ming people.

But the expected sound of the cannon did not come to mind, and Wallace cursed dissatisfiedly, why didn't he fire the cannon yet. A sailor who looked like a Han replied respectfully, speaking fluently: "Colonel Wallace, the rate of fire just now was too fast, the cannons are burning red, and the gunners are cooling down!" ”

Colonel Wallace made a strange sound, but it was a language that the Han people did not understand. The Han people are also muttering in Chinese: "** Ancestors of the Hongmao Fan...... Although these Hongmao Fans are all from the West, their situation seems to be competing for hegemony among the countries, for example, this Wallace and the Governor of Naputmans are not from the same country, and they do not speak the same language. Colonel Wallace, though he could speak the language of Governor Putmans, was always at a loss to understand.

And this guy always boasts that he is a royal pirate of Her Majesty's Majesty, ahh Don't look at the fact that he is now dressed in spotless clothes, and looks like a dog, if it weren't for the bitter begging of the governor of Putmans to take him in, I'm afraid he won't be able to eat now!

However, the Han people only dared to scold a few words in secret, and if they were discovered, they would inevitably be retaliated against by this guy.

The artillery of the fleet was fired again, and the small warships of the Ming army finally broke up because they could not withstand the powerful artillery fire, and they turned their bows and fled for their lives. Colonel Wallace would let them go, speeding up the ship and crashing into it with cannon on the other, vowing to slap these stupid flies and mosquitoes to death!

Note: Colonel is not synonymous with the modern military rank, and in the seventeenth-century West it simply referred to the person who commanded the team, or commander.