In the fifteenth year of Yongli in the Ming Dynasty, 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 a while, personally guarding the Jialing River, an important town on the Yangtze River. Shunzhi did fulfill his guarantees to Li Guoying during his lifetime and continuously sent additional supplies to Shaanxi. Relying on these funds, Li Guoying was able to recruit new recruits and ensure continuous transportation from Baoning to Chongqing, but also provide appropriate funds to the Jialing River Navy. While ensuring the army's rapid recovery, the navy can maintain it and even ensure training 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 intend to let his weak navy take the opportunity to go out to harass him. But soon after, Li Guoying learned that Deng Ming was going downstream and heading straight to Jiangxi. The powerful Xichuan navy had already left Sichuan, and Chongqing City saw ships from Xichuan coming and going on a steady stream on the Yangtze River, which naturally gave Li Guoying the target of attack.

However, although the main force of the Xichuan naval commander has left, Yuan Zongji of Wanxian has been working hard to protect this Yangtze River channel. Since Li Guoying had never expected Deng Ming to leave Sichuan again, he naturally would not have the idea of ​​letting the Jialing River naval commander go out to challenge the powerful Xichuan. It was not until after repeated confirmation that Deng Ming had crossed Wuchang that Li Guoying hurriedly added funds to the Jialing River naval commander to increase the training intensity.

Therefore, in the first period, although only the navy of Yuan Zongdi in Wanxian and some of the warships left by Deng Ming, the Qing navy was still blocked in the Jialing River and did not dare to go out. However, as time went by, Li Guoying's navy gradually became stronger, putting increasing pressure on the shipping of the Yangtze River, and the distance between Wanxian offset the advantages of the Ming army's warships.

Although Zhang Yong and other generals began to ask for battle, Li Guoying was still unwilling to take risks. He was determined to take advantage of the geographical advantages brought by occupying Chongqing as much as possible and often put the navy in the river mouth to show off his power to the Ming army's fleet. In order to prevent the raids that the Qing army might launch at any time, the Ming army no longer dared to pass through Chongqing in the size of a small fleet like before, but would always complete the assembly in Xuzhou or Wanxian, and then pass through Chongqing under the heavy cover of the main force of the Ming army's navy.

Each time, the Ming army had to deploy on a large scale, which greatly reduced the utilization rate of the Yangtze River shipping. Whether upstream or downstream, Ming army ships filled with cargo did not dare to set off, but had to wait until all the ships were ready before setting off together.

Although he had never caused any losses to the passing Ming army ships, Li Guoying felt that this strategy was very good. He told the generals who asked for battle that this would have strangled the Ming army's throat. The existence of the Qing navy in Chongqing would greatly reduce the Ming army's shipping volume. Moreover, Li Guoying also believed that if the Qing army rashly went to fight, once it was seriously damaged in the confrontation, the Ming army's shipping would immediately become active.

Zhang Yong and others all thought that Li Guoying was too conservative, but Li Guoying was the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi. He was in charge of Chongqing in person, and no one could change his intentions. In order to appease these generals who were eager to avenge and made meritorious contributions, Li Guoying patiently analyzed to them: every time the Ming army fleet was moving upstream through Chongqing, the Ming army navy in Wanxian had to be fully mobilized, and he had to follow the Ming army's fleet to go to Xuezhou to protect them back to sail; this time, mobilizing troops again and again, so that the Ming army's expenses and losses were much greater than that of the Qing army. When the Ming army ran on the Yangtze River in vain, the Qing army could strengthen training and use the saved money to create more bows and arrows and ships. In Li Guoying's view, this kind of shipping was a burden that Chengdu and Wanxian could not bear for a long time - just with Wanxian and Chengdu, which had only 200,000 people, Li Guoying believed that this continuous mobilization had caused them to lose blood seriously.

Although he didn't know why the Ming army was so stubbornly sailing in front of Chongqing, Li Guoying now hoped that they would continue. He estimated the population and military output of Chengdu and Wanxian, and felt that the total output of their annual output could be maintained for about two or three times. In the long run, no matter how much Deng Ming snatched back from Jiangnan last time, he would be quickly hollowed out. Even if they gritted their teeth and persevered, the Jialing River Navy, whose strength was rising, would sooner or later find a flaw.

As Li Guoying expected, every time he traveled from Xuzhou and Wanxian, Yuan Zongdi needed to repair ships, give soldiers additional rations, and seriously affected the military production in Wanxian. If Yuan Zongdi had been in Dachang in the past, his economy would have long been declared collapsed due to these comprehensive mobilizations. At that time, he would not have been able to launch such large-scale mobilization without accumulating supplies for the next year. Even now, Wanxian's work has been tilted towards water transportation, and he has almost never planted fields well. He is busy repairing ships, building sails, and expanding wharfs all day long. The manpower used in these work is at least several times the people who use them to farm.

But Chengdu continuously provided supplies to Wanxian, and the amount of food, gunpowder and pig iron transported back from the upstream was scary. Not only did Li Guoying never expect it, but even Yuan Zongdi felt unbelievable. Two months ago, when another fleet of ships passed by Wanxian in Chengdu, he added hundreds of skilled shipbuilding craftsmen to Yuan Zongdi in one breath. Of course, these craftsmen did not belong to Yuan Zongdi. Chengdu just placed them in Wanxian to enhance the ability to renovate ships.

Yuan Zongdi asked, and learned that these craftsmen were all skilled shipbuilders in Jiangnan. Their original owners were all seized by the Jiangnan government in the name of "Tong Deng". After they were sentenced to be exiled, they were taken to the border of Zhenjiang River by officers and soldiers. With the shout of "The Deng thief is coming!", the escorted officers and soldiers left the exiled shipbuilders and fled. After the officers and soldiers "escape", the Ming army came over and brought them on the Ming army's ship. Although they came from different owners, the experiences of these shipbuilders were similar. The ones who stayed in Wanxian were just a small group of people who were "rescued" by the Ming army.

Before these shipbuilders arrived, Chengdu brought back several warships from the downstream. It is said that they were new warships of the Jiangxi Navy captured in Jiujiang. Yuan Zongdi did not doubt this, because these warships were very new and looked like semi-finished products. For example, the gun position has not been finalized and the cannons were not installed.

Because these ships have not been built, Deng Ming did not keep them in his hands, but asked his subordinates to return to Sichuan. Seeing that Chongqing was under increasing pressure, Chengdu gave them to Yuan Zongdi. Before, Yuan Zongdi had many people who could farm, and they were very limited in their ability to build ships, and they had no experience in manufacturing such large warships. In addition, they were busy with repair work, so these warships stayed in Wanxian Port.

After the shipbuilders in Jiangnan arrived, they quickly helped Yuan Zongdi handle the finishing work of these warships. Among them, the experienced master also told Yuan Zongdi that this large warship seemed to be prepared for the Susong Navy. The more gun positions allowed them to fight at the wide seaports in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and could also undertake some offshore tasks. The Jiangnan shipbuilders who are familiar with the Susong Navy equipment not only completed the later work of the cannon positions, but also carried out some necessary transformations on the masts, oars and sails of these warships to make them more adapted to the needs of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The guns and cannons equipped are also ready-made and shipped in the cabin. The masters said that they will be officially incorporated into the Wanxian naval sequence in about a few days.

Yuan Zongdi estimated that after his subordinates were familiar with these new warships, the Wanxian Navy could be divided into two and started to take off. At that time, half of the Wanxian Navy was enough to overwhelm the Qing army navy in the Jialing River. Building construction was underway in Xuzhou. Chengdu magistrate Liu Jinge had ordered the formal dispatch of garrison troops to Xuzhou to build a wharf. Every time the Wanxian Navy stayed in Xuzhou, the salt merchant would hire Wanxian auxiliary soldiers to help them build a braised well. Later, not only were the auxiliary soldiers willing to go, but even the soldiers couldn't help but go to work, because the salt merchants not only had a meal every time they had enough, but also began to provide salted fish meals. Ye Tianming and Boss Ye gave the auxiliary soldiers who worked a new pair of cloth shoes and a new set of cloth clothes to each of the auxiliary soldiers who worked during the Chinese New Year. He also claimed that more brine wells were put into production, so he gave eggs to the Wanxian soldiers who worked.

Now the military camps in Wanxian are much worse than when Xiong Lan was there, but the treatment of Yuan Zongdi's troops is getting better and better day by day. Chengdu compensates Yuan Zongdi for two in Wanxian Jundi, which cannot be produced in three years. Despite this, when I heard that it is possible to distribute eggs in Xuzhou, the guards next to Yuan Zongdi also all gave birth to salivation.

...

Whether it was the large amount of grain transported from the downstream of Chengdu or the warships obtained from Jiujiang, Li Guoying knew nothing about these. Before the Battle of Gaoyou Lake, the memorial of the governor of Jiangnan gave Li Guoying a feeling that Deng Ming was hitting a wall everywhere in Jiangnan. If this was the case, Cheng would have a reasonable explanation to maintain the Yangtze River shipping at any cost, that is, Chengdu was constantly transporting troops out of the outbound ships - salt ships were loaded; however, how to explain that many Ming ships back to Xichuan were also full of loads, which was a very troublesome thing.

After the news of the Battle of Gaoyou Lake reached Chongqing, the Ganzhou Green Camps were all terrified. Even Li Guoying could not maintain his usual calmness and sighed: "Deng's thief fought against Jiangnan and captured Lang Tingzuo; when Jiangnan and the emperor collapsed, Jiangning might not be able to protect him now."

However, Li Guoying's prophecy did not become a fact. Jiang Guozhu, Zhou Peigong, and Liang Huafeng, who soon made meritorious service, drove Deng Ming out of Jiangnan and drove him back to Wuchang.

"The Dukes of Jiangnan don't know what they thought, why don't they rebuild the navy as soon as possible?" After seeing the war report, Li Guoying sighed again: "Without the navy, how can he wipe out Deng Ming? He can fight if he wants, but he can still leave if he can't beat him. If the Dukes of Jiangnan restored the navy early, the late emperor would not be in trouble."
Chapter completed!