The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 90 Personally escorted on the road

Wanli actually wanted to personally escort Prince Lu to Hengzhou Prefecture to establish his fiefdom!
As soon as the news spread, the entire court was in an uproar.

However, no one dared to dissuade them.

Because the little emperor is too rebellious, he does whatever he wants. Anyone who dares to dissuade him should be careful of getting a knife in the neck!
Three days later, at about 1 a.m., just as the sky was getting light, tens of thousands of Jinyiwei and imperial guards swarmed out from Dong'anmen and East Chang'anmen on the east side of the imperial city.

Soon, East Chang'an Street and Shiwangfu Street were filled with dense crowds of Jinyiwei and imperial guards. They even brought thousands of grain carts from the Beijing camp, and the streets were almost packed.

At this time, Wanli also came to the temporary residence of Prince Lu in the Ten Princes' Palace.

Prince Lu had an extremely bad temper. As soon as he entered the gate, he heard the boy roaring. The Jinyiwei in the yard were helpless against this boy.

When Wanli arrived at the palace hall, he saw the boy pointing at Lu Yi's nose and scolding him.

This kid looks so much like him before, they look 80% alike, and their rebellious temperament is just like they were cast in the same mold.

It’s just that he is not as stupid as before, but Prince Lu is still as stupid as before.

This kid was so busy cursing that he didn't even look at him!
He thought about it, then simply walked forward, slapped Prince Lu's hand away, and then pointed at his nose and said sternly: "Shut up, do you want to go on your own or be tied up and locked up in Hengzhou Prefecture?
I'm not kidding you. If you dare to scream again, I'll have you tied up immediately. You'll spend the rest of your life imprisoned in the palace of Hengzhou Prefecture, and you won't be able to leave the house."

Are you really so inhumane?
Prince Lu was stunned when he saw his brother wearing the Feiyu costume.

He was stunned for a long time before he said weakly, "Brother Huang, you can't be so heartless, right? I am your biological brother."

The emperor is ruthless, and he cannot show affection to a brainless brother like you.

Wanli said coldly: "Are you going to leave or not? If you don't leave, I will have you tied up. If you leave on your own, you will be a free prince. If you are tied up, you will be imprisoned for the rest of your life."

You are so cruel!

Upon hearing this, Prince Lu stood up helplessly and said, "Can't I just leave?"

Humph, with your limited brain, you want to fight me?

Wanli snorted inwardly, then waved his hand and said, "Hurry up and load your things onto the boat. We'll set off at noon."

After saying that, he brought Li Xuancheng, Shan Sinan, Chengguogong Zhu Yingzhen and a group of guards outside, mounted his warhorse, and headed straight for the Datong Bridge Canal Wharf outside the East Gate.

At this moment, the Datong Bridge Wharf was also surrounded by densely packed soldiers from the Beijing Camp, and the grain boats on the Tonghui River were even more crowded, with no end in sight.

As soon as they arrived at the canal dock and had no time to dismount, Qi Jiguang came up to them and made a gesture to salute them.

Wanli quickly raised his hand and whispered, "Yuan Jing, please don't be polite. Don't let anyone know that I am dressed like this."

Uh, well, okay, if you say no, then no.

Qi Jiguang was still a little worried and said, "Your Majesty, bringing only 10,000 Jinyiwei and 10,000 imperial guards is too few. What if someone plots something bad?"

Wanli smiled slightly and said, "Even if they want to do something bad, they have to find me. I live in a cabin with my uncle, General Shan, and Ying Zhen. I look like an ordinary Jinyiwei. How can they do anything bad?"

This, okay.

Qi Jiguang thought for a moment, then slowly nodded and said, "Your Majesty, please get on board first. I will pretend to welcome you here so that no one knows which ship you are on."

clever.

Wanli nodded slightly, then waved his hand and took Li Xuancheng, Shan Sinan, Zhu Yingzhen and dozens of guards to board an 800-ton grain ship.

This 800-ton grain boat is equipped with sails. If there is a favorable wind, it can travel hundreds of miles in an hour. If there is no favorable wind, it can only travel more than ten to twenty miles in an hour.

Fortunately, it was already autumn and the wind was blowing from the north. Moreover, they were still sailing downstream from Datong Bridge Wharf to Tonghui River. Even if the grain boat was carrying a lot of Prince Lu's property, the speed should not be too slow.

His trip was a simple affair. He summoned no one from the imperial court to see him off. Instead, the Jinyiwei, the Imperial Guard, and the Beijing Garrison lined the streets from East Chang'an Gate and Donghua Gate to the Datong Bridge Canal Dock. The people of the capital were unaware of his departure; many gathered on East Chang'an Street and Shiwangfu Street to watch and wait.

However, Prince Lu made a lot of noise. Empress Dowager Li rushed over with a large group of eunuchs and palace maids, crying and howling, holding Prince Lu and refusing to let go, crying all the way to the Datong Bridge Canal Wharf.

At around noon, the morning sun rose vigorously, and the Datong Bridge Canal Transport Wharf also became bright and transparent.

Seeing that more and more people were gathering to watch, Wanli immediately gave a secret wink to Lu Yi on the other boat.

Lu Yi immediately waved his hand and said loudly: "Set sail, set sail, and the fleet will set off."

The sails of hundreds of 800-ton canal ships were slowly raised, and the fleet gradually left the canal dock.

Empress Dowager Li cried for a while again, and the people watching around were buzzing with discussions, not knowing why the empress dowager was crying so sadly.

Wanli didn't care about that stupid woman at all.

At this time, his focus was on the canal.

He stood at the bow of the more than ten-foot-long canal boat, facing the rising sun and watching the ships coming and going on the wide Tonghui River. He couldn't help but secretly sigh at the greatness of the ancients.

The Tonghui River is not considered a Grand Canal. Its width is roughly twenty zhang, or sixty to seventy meters. It already looks quite spectacular. It is hard to say how much manpower it would have taken to dig such a long, wide and deep canal.

The fleet was sailing smoothly at this time, and in less than half an hour, they arrived at the Tongzhou North Canal section.

The river channel ahead suddenly opened up, and there were obviously more large and small ships. The width of the North Canal was over a hundred feet, or three or four hundred meters. From this side of the river, it was even difficult to see what was on the other side.

The passing ships were accustomed to seeing their fleet of thousands of grain boats and showed no surprise at all. This shows how many grain boats there were on the Grand Canal.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty's shipbuilding technology had reached the top of the world during the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties. At that time, Zheng He's fleet sailing to the West was invincible.

Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty gave up the ocean and the construction of ocean-going giant ships at its own expense.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty could build treasure ships and warships of 5,000 tonnes. Two hundred years later, there were only a few Fujian ships of 1,000 tonnes left, and a grain ship of 800 tonnes was considered the largest ship on the North Grand Canal.

The fleet sailed south with smooth sailing. The thrust from the Wenyu River and Chaobai River, coupled with the howling north wind, made the 800-ton grain ships move like galloping horses, covering more than a hundred miles in an hour.

They traveled day and night without getting off the boat to rest, and they arrived at the Yangzhou Canal Transport Wharf in just three days.

If you turn west here, you will reach the main channel of the Yangtze River. The fleet is equivalent to going upstream, and the wind direction is also wrong. Relying solely on oars, the heavy canal boats can only travel more than ten miles in an hour, and it is considered good if they can travel a hundred miles a day.

The waterway from Yangzhou Prefecture in Southern Zhili to Yuezhou Prefecture in Huguang is nearly two thousand miles long. It would take at least half a month for a grain boat to row so slowly. Moreover, after arriving at Yuezhou Prefecture, it would still take another six or seven hundred miles to go upstream on a tributary of the Yangtze River.

If he really took a fleet to escort Prince Lu to Hengzhou Prefecture to establish his fiefdom, it would take more than 20 days just to get there. Even if he had to go downstream, it would still take at least a few days to come back.

In other words, it would take him about a month to send Prince Lu off.

Fortunately, at this time Zhang Zhen and Luo Sigong were already waiting at the Yangzhou Canal Transport Wharf with hundreds of Jinyiwei and secret guards.

Zhang Zhen also used his connections to rent five 800-ton centipede boats from the navy.

The centipede boat is not a bulky canal boat. There are 298 large oars on both sides of the pointed and wide hull. If it is on the sea, it can easily row hundreds of miles in an hour. Even if it goes upstream, it can row forty to fifty miles in an hour, and more than three hundred miles in a day.

Wanli changed into casual clothes and boarded the navy's centipede ship with Li Xuancheng, Shan Sinan and dozens of guards, leaving only Duke Chengguo Zhu Yingzhen and Jinyiwei Commander-in-Chief Lu Yi to escort Prince Lu.

This was indeed a bit risky. He actually left behind 20,000 Jinyiwei and elite imperial guards and set off with less than 200 people!

However, everyone else's attention must have been on the huge fleet, and who would have thought that he would change ships midway.

As long as he doesn't reveal his identity, there shouldn't be any danger.

(End of this chapter)