***

Yuezhou has experienced wars, more than half of the population was forcibly driven into soldiers by Zhang Xianzhong, nearly two-thirds of the houses in the city were burned, and there were no border yamen, and the entire Yuezhou city was already a personnel and a non-personnel.

Regarding Yun Qiao'er's mother, Qin Mu sent people to inquire many times but found nothing, so he had no choice but to post a reward notice, hoping to find an insider through this move.

Yun Qiao'er seems to have changed in the past few days, not crying or making trouble, but her silence all day long made Qin Mu and Yang Zhi even more worried.

The matter of comforting the little girl was handed over to Yang Zhi, and as soon as Qin Mu arrived in Yuezhou, he had to be busy with the training of sailors and the supervision of warships. In his previous life, he studied at the Army Academy, and to be honest, he was not good at naval warfare, especially in this era, the performance of ships and weapons and equipment were also different, so it was even more coincidental.

After Ma Yongzhen arrived in Yuezhou, he was busy fighting against Jin Shenghuan, and the training of the sailors was currently in charge of a commander named Di Zhongxing, Qin Mu went to take a look and was disappointed.

Di Zhongxing trained sailors, which seemed to be quite decent, but thousands of sailors used some simple civilian boats in training, most of them were still small sampans that could only take two or three people, and the combat methods of training were mainly broadside battles, and the weapons were rockets, fire oil and the like.

Qin Mu was worried, relying on such a small sampan and this ancient method of warfare, let alone fighting for hegemony in the ocean, he couldn't even defend the Yangtze River defense line.

However, there is a lack of craftsmen who know how to build warships in the Huguang area, although Liu Boquan has found a lot of craftsmen, but among these people, the largest ship that has participated in the construction is only a hundred materials, and it is still a merchant ship, and the people sent to the coastal area to find shipbuilding craftsmen have not returned, which makes Qin Mu can't help but feel a sense of powerlessness.

Yan Gaofei has been approached by Qin Mu for questioning several times, have the people sent to Macao come back? Did you come back?

As early as the time of Huichang, Qin Mu had sent people to Macao, hoping to obtain some more advanced weapons from the Portuguese. and the introduction of some talents, but when the sixth governor of Macao, Shi Luobao, heard that he was only a small magistrate, he did not bother to pay attention to it, and the people sent returned in vain.

After Huguang stabilized a little, Qin Mu sent someone to Macao again, calculating the distance, it should be almost back, but there has been no news back so far, which makes Qin Mu extremely unhappy in his heart, Macau. Sooner or later, Lao Tzu will turn Portugal into a place full of teeth.

In terms of shipbuilding, Qin Mu couldn't think about it, so he could only wait for the people sent to bring back the craftsmen who could build warships.

In terms of sailor training, Qin Mu didn't have a good way for a while, after all, there was no corresponding weapons and equipment, even if a cannon was built, these small sampans couldn't withstand the recoil of the cannon, and they really had to rely on the string battle.

So in addition to training sailors to maneuver ships, water nature, and broadside combat skills. It is also difficult to carry out other training.

But this is not a solution, so Qin Mu ordered the establishment of a gun department in Changsha, independent from the original military war bureau, specializing in the development of firearms. The original craftsmen of Huichang were also transferred, and the first task assigned to the Gun Division was to improve the mines and mass produce them as soon as possible.

There were mines in the Ming Dynasty as early as the Jiajing period, which were originally called "underwater mines". This is a manually controlled, mechanically fired anchor mine. It uses wooden crates as thunder shells. The putty sticks to the seams, the black powder is contained in it, and its firing mechanism is unknotted with a long rope, and it is detonated by a person pulling the fire. There are 3 iron anchors with ropes under the wooden box. Controls the depth of the mine body in the water.

Later, a kind of floating thunder called "underwater dragon king cannon" was invented, which used incense as a timing fuse, and no longer needed to be manually controlled. In the twenty-seventh year of Wanli, a man named Wang Minghe invented the "underwater thunder" with the rope as the touching line, and later improved it to touch the line drifting thunder, which is the earliest triggering thunder on Shijie.

But these kinds of mines have a common special, minelaying is more troublesome, Qin Mu asked the craftsmen of the gun department to try to improve it, as much as possible to reduce the difficulty of minelaying, only in this way, it is possible to lay a large number of mines to block the waterway.

If it really doesn't work, let's just lay mines to seal the waterways and play our lives on land.

And Qin Mu felt like he had walked into a misunderstanding in a trance.

The Manchu Tartars were mostly landlubbers, and they could sweep the whole of China without relying on sailors.

As for himself, the time is too short, the foundation is too weak, and the idea of relying on the sailors to block the enemy north of the river is both lacking in enterprising spirit and unrealistic.

In this case, I am still too entangled in the construction of the water division? A strong navy must be needed, but it is not the most urgent at the moment, and it is not too late to think about hegemony in the seas after defeating the Manchus.

The most important thing at the moment is to first protect the land of China and not to fall completely under the iron hooves of the Manchus, but to defeat the Manchus, the naval division is definitely not the decisive army.

Thinking of this, Qin Mu had a feeling of sudden enlightenment.

Of course, the sailor still has to let Di Zhongxing train as well as possible, something is better than nothing. In a special situation, the sailor can still play a decisive role in the battle, such as the Battle of Chibi commanded by Zhou Yu; There is also the battle of quarrying alum commanded by Yu Yunwen. However, both wars have their own peculiarities, and there is not much value for reference, let alone the possibility of replication.

Qin Mu, who let go of his arms, made a series of adjustments to the army, formulated a more perfect training Jihua, and ordered Ma Yongzhen, Ning Yuan and other generals to step up the training of the army, and at the same time he selected 300 people again, like the training camp in Huichang, he personally trained and trained, so as to further strengthen his control over the army in the future.

In the middle of the busyness, I didn't feel that the mountain had passed a few days, and at dusk that day, Qin Mu had just returned to his station in the south of the city after giving a theoretical lesson to the newly established teaching camp, and Yan Gaofei hurriedly came in and reported: "My lord, I just received the news from Shaanxi that Li Zicheng sent Yuan Zongdi to lead an army of 40,000 troops from the right battalion to urgently attack Xiangyang. ”

"Oh, do you know where Yuan Zongdi is now?"

"Back to my lord, the specific location of Yuan Zongdi is not easy to determine at present, although our singles' house has infiltrated Shaanxi, but the message transmission network has not yet been perfected, even if information is obtained in many places, it is difficult to quickly transmit it back for a while, please forgive me."

Qin Mu smiled faintly and said, "What about Zuo Liangyu, did Zuo Liangyu get this news?" ”

"It's hard to determine."

"Well, this time, let's sell Zuo Liangyu a favor, send someone to inform Zuo Liangyu, just in case Yuan Zongdi calls Xiangyang and Zuo Liangyu still doesn't know anything. Let Zuo Liangyu prepare well and have a big fight with Yuan Zongdi, this scene will be interesting. ”

"Yes, my subordinates will inform Zuo Liangyu."

After Yan Gaofei left, Qin Mu looked even more relaxed, Yuan Zongdi's arrival, before the two sides decided the winner, at least there was no need to worry about Zuo Liangyu fighting back at Wuchang and Jingzhou.

*******************

Jinling.

The signboard of the Wanyuan Trade Bank on the side of the Wende Bridge is particularly high and eye-catching. Whether it's a silver shop or a money bank, in fact, the most important business is silver money exchange.

Due to the large number of private money among the people, the weight of copper coins is different, the fineness is different, the price difference between money, private money, and silver is large, and there are many changes, and there are huge profits hidden in the exchange of silver money. In particular, the people in the south of the Yangtze River are relatively wealthy, the business is developed, and the silver exchange industry is also the most developed area.

At this moment, in a side hall in the backyard of the bank, there is the owner of the money village in and outside the city of Nanjing, everyone looks faint, rarely talks, and seems to be waiting for something.

Nowadays, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, Nanchang and other places have suddenly emerged a Huitong bank, which does not charge fees for depositing money, and has interest on the deposit period, and also carries out non-local exchange business. In addition, with Han Zanzhou and a number of powerful people in Nanjing, the development speed is extremely amazing, and it is constantly swallowing up the living space of the original money bank.

With the financial resources of Huitong Bank and the support of the powerful behind it, it is impossible for those sitting here to shake Huitong Bank on their own, and the cruel reality has forced these former competitors to join forces. Dealing with pressure from Huitong Bank.

With the support of Han Zanzhou, it is difficult to suppress Tongtong Bank through other means, and the only feasible thing now is for everyone to join forces to destroy the credibility of Huitong Bank.

(To be continued......)