Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 758 I only owe the east wind
The next day.

After the imperial edict was issued and approved by the cabinet, Zheng Hongkui's official appointment arrived at the mansion, along with a flying fish suit given by Zhu Shenzui as a sign of favor.

Upon seeing this, Zheng Hongkui was immediately filled with gratitude and kowtowed to express his gratitude. After sending off the official who delivered the imperial edict, Zheng Hongkui was overjoyed and quickly changed into a Feiyu suit and walked around the mansion in a show-off manner, with the corners of his mouth curled up in a smile.

On the third day, Zheng Hongkui left Beijing with his men and hurried towards Shandong.

Time waits for no one, Zheng Hongkui knew that the war was imminent and he had to go to Shandong to prepare in advance. At this time, Li Xin in Shandong also received an order from the capital, informing him that Zheng Hongkui would take over the appointment of the Shandong Navy. Li Xin did not dare to neglect it at all and hurriedly prepared war materials. After Zheng Hongkui arrived in Laizhou, Li Xin personally discussed with Zheng Hongkui and adjusted the prepared materials after listening to Zheng Hongkui's opinions to make it more suitable for crossing the sea.

On the day Zheng Hongkui left, Zhu Shenzhui's new army also moved. Originally, Zheng Hongkui only wanted to mobilize some elite troops from Shandong or the capital to cross the sea for battle, but after careful consideration, Zhu Shenzhui decided to form this army based on the new army.

According to the transport capacity of the Shandong Navy, the new army mobilized this time formed a reinforced battalion with one and a half battalions of troops, in addition to three hundred elite cavalry, totaling about two thousand people.

Although these two thousand soldiers seem to be a little less, their combat effectiveness is actually very strong. Let's not talk about this one and a half battalions of new troops. At present, the new troops under Zhu Shenzhui are divided into three parts. These three parts are reorganized with Zhu Shenzhui's original new troops as the core. Each part has 5,000 people and is called an "army".

In other words, the total strength of the new army is now 15,000 people, plus logistics and auxiliary troops, the total number is about 20,000. This is the most powerful force in Zhu Shenzhu's hands and also the most powerful army in the Ming Dynasty.

One and a half battalions of new troops had less than 1,700 people, which was more than one-tenth of the entire new army. Moreover, the selected new troops were all elite veterans who had fought for many years. These people had followed Zhu Shenzui in his battles, and they were not only the best in the new army, but also the ace of the new army's aces.

The same goes for the 300 elite cavalrymen, most of them are Tumed Mongolian cavalrymen. They are well-equipped and their combat effectiveness is even better than that of the Eight Banners. Although such an army is small in number, once they land in Liaodong, their combat effectiveness can be imagined. Not to mention the Eight Banners garrisons in various parts of Liaodong, even the Eight Banners of the same number are no match for them.

The commander of this army was Li You. This time Zhu Shenzhui did not let Wang Jinwu lead the army, but chose Li You. The main reason was that the capital was somewhat unstable at the moment. With the complication of the war in Liaodong and the restoration of the Beijing inspection system, undercurrents surged in all aspects, and Zhu Shenzhui had to consider these factors.

Let Wang Jinwu sit in the capital and control the military power. No matter what evildoers are secretly planning, they will not be able to cause any trouble.

In addition, the encirclement and suppression of bandits in the Central Plains has reached a critical moment, and it is necessary to have sufficient mobile forces at hand, so Zhu Shenzhu made such arrangements.

Moreover, although Li You is not as good as Wang Jinwu in leading the army, Li You has been well-trained over the years. Compared with Wang Jinwu, although Li You is not as fierce in fighting as Wang Jinwu, Li You is more stable and cautious because of his personality, and his ability to use troops is not bad either.

If the troops were not careful in the battle across the sea, they would be deeply trapped. Once they were defeated in Liaodong, there would be no possibility of retreat. It was very appropriate to hand over such an elite force to Li You. With Li You's ability, he would definitely live up to Zhu Shenzhu's expectations.

In addition to these arrangements, Zhu Shenzhui also sent a letter to Tana and Wang Hai, asking the Tumed tribe to use troops to put pressure on the left wing of Chahar, including the Khorchin tribe, and to show an attitude of moving eastward.

The benefit of doing this is that it would attract the Chahar Left Wing and the Khorchin tribe, preventing them from providing reinforcements to Huang Taiji in Liaodong, thus weakening Huang Taiji's external assistance and reducing the pressure of crossing the sea to fight.

In addition, Zhu Shencui also wrote a private letter to Tana, telling her about the pain of missing her. He had not seen Tana, Tenger and Agudamu for more than a year since he started the rebellion. In the past, no matter how busy Zhu Shencui was, he would go to the grassland and stay with Tana and the others for several months every year. However, since he came to Beijing, this possibility has temporarily disappeared. Zhu Shencui has difficulty even leaving Beijing, let alone going to the grassland.

This is really helpless to say. Someone once said that the palace is a cage. The emperor, as the monarch of the empire, is high above everyone else and is the most honorable person in the world. But in fact, as the emperor, he cannot leave the palace easily. Instead, he is imprisoned by the palace.

This may sound a bit hypocritical, but it is true. Just like now, Zhu Shenzhui, as the regent of the Ming Dynasty, has the same power as the emperor, but he cannot easily leave the palace or even the capital. It is not that he does not want to, but the reality makes it impossible for him to leave easily. Not to mention going to Mongolia to see his wife and children as before, even Xu Jingqiu and the two children in the Ming Dynasty have been placed in Yangtou Mountain. So many days have passed, and I don’t know how Tana and the children are now. Is Tana still the same as I remember? Have the two children grown up a lot? Especially as Tengger is his eldest son, has he become mature now?
Zhu Shenzhui said a lot in the letter and promised Tana that he would go to Guihua to meet them after the capital was completely stable. If possible, Zhu Shenzhui also hoped that Tana would bring her children to Daming to see the beautiful mountains and rivers of Daming and experience the scenery of Daming. By the way, the same goes for Xu Jingqiu. Tana and Xu Jingqiu both knew each other's existence, but had never met each other. The same was true for his four children. He had to find a chance to meet them.

After Li You's troops assembled, they headed for Shandong. This time, Zhu Shencui's crossing of the sea did not go through the cabinet and the Ministry of War. Because of the importance of this battle, not many people knew about this arrangement. Even Wen Tihen and Yang Sichang did not know that Zhu Shencui had secretly planned to relieve the siege of Liaodong.

The mobilization of the new army was not large in scale, and Wang Jinwu's cover-up did not attract attention. The reason for Zheng Hongkui to go to Shandong was also easy to find. Originally, Zheng Hongkui came to the capital because of Shandong's maritime trade. Most people knew this. Therefore, in the eyes of the cabinet and the Ministry of War, Zheng Hongkui's position as deputy general of Leiden was just an arrangement by Zhu Shenzui for Shandong's maritime trade.

Zhu Shenzhui could not be sure whether there were people in the court who were secretly colluding with the Jiannu and would reveal the plan of crossing the sea in advance. In order to be absolutely sure, he directly issued a gag order to those who knew about it, and did not mention the plan of crossing the sea to the outside world. Instead, he summoned the cabinet and the Ministry of War every few days to discuss the reinforcement of Liaodong and how to send troops to relieve the siege.

Time passed day by day, and in the blink of an eye, half a month had passed. During this half month, Li You's troops had already arrived in Laizhou, and Zheng Hongkui, with the cooperation of Li Xin, completely took over the Shandong Navy and made good preparations for material reserves.

In addition, Zheng Hongkui specially asked Li You's troops to board the ship and carry out several adaptive preparations for crossing the sea. After all, although the new army and cavalry were both elite, they were all land forces, and both the new army and cavalry were either northerners or Mongolians, and many of them were seeing the sea for the first time.

Crossing the sea to fight is not as simple as loading people onto a ship and then transporting them across the sea to land and fight. Anything can happen on the sea. Even though the waves in the Bohai Bay are much smaller than those in the open sea and the weather changes are not so frequent, the sea is still the sea after all. It is impossible for a landlubber to get on the ship without adapting to the environment.

If we load all the people onto the boat and land across the sea right now, the soldiers might not be able to stand steadily due to seasickness when they arrive. Once they reach the shore, they might even stagger and be unable to stand steadily, let alone fight.

It's not just people, the same goes for war horses. Zheng Hongkui, as the core figure of the Zheng family and a big pirate who travels all over the world, knows this situation too well. Therefore, pre-war adaptation is necessary, and this matter cannot be ignored no matter how tight the time is.

In the past half month, after several adaptations, the new army and cavalry had barely adapted to the turbulence of sailing on the sea, although they had not yet achieved the best results. In addition, some herbs brought by Zheng Hongkui could effectively relieve seasickness, thus greatly increasing the possibility of going on the expedition.

On this day, Zheng Hongkui was standing at the beach, watching dozens of ships sailing near the coast, carrying hundreds of soldiers and some horses. Looking ahead, Zheng Hongkui nodded slightly, thinking that two more drills would be enough.

"Zheng Shuai!"

"No, no, why is General Li here?" Looking back, Zheng Hongkui saw Li You walking away from a distance and reaching the high ground. With a smile on his face, he hurriedly stepped forward to greet him.

Although Zheng Hongkui was the commander-in-chief and Li You was his deputy, Zheng Hongkui knew that he was the commander-in-chief in name only and his command was limited to the navy. Li You, the deputy, was the general who actually commanded the battle after landing. In addition, Li You's military rank was not lower than his own. It was said that he was also a disciple of the general Wang Jinwu. His father Li Hu knew Zhu Shenzhui in his early years and was considered Zhu Shenzhui's confidant.

Zheng Hongkui would not dare to neglect such a person, let alone his military rank being equal to his own! Moreover, Li You not only had a military rank, but also a title. Even if his title was not any of the third-class nobles, but just an ordinary military honor, it was still much better than the hereditary position of the guard.

It is said that Zhu Shenzhui has intended to restore the five ranks of nobility in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, namely duke, marquis, earl, viscount, and baron. Once the five-rank nobility system is restored, with Li You's influence in the emperor's heart, he will surely become a baron or even a viscount in the future. He may even be directly awarded the title of earl for his meritorious service in this sea crossing battle.

How could Zheng Hongkui be so arrogant in front of such a person? He naturally had to please him. Moreover, Zheng Hongkui had a very good impression of Li You after the two of them had been in contact for a while. Although Li You's background was much stronger than his, he always treated him with great courtesy and respect. He never showed off when he saw him, and always called him "Zheng Shuai".

Since the other party gave him face, Zheng Hongkui had to give it up, so he was naturally polite. As a result, the cooperation between the chief and deputy commanders in the army was quite harmonious, which also dispelled Zheng Hongkui's original concerns.

(End of this chapter)