Late Ming Dynasty: So what if Emperor Chongzhen was inactive?!

Chapter 126 combines the two approaches, employing both soft and hard tactics.
"Old Yuan, you didn't come here just to argue with me, or to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival with me, did you?" Mao Wenlong sneered. "Tell me, what brings you here?"

"His Majesty has allocated two million taels of silver to the Dengzhou-Laizhou navy. Do you want to earn that money?!"

"Two million taels?!" Mao Wenlong's jaw nearly dropped to the floor, his pupils turning square. He stammered, "Why have His Majesty and the court suddenly become so generous?!"

Previously, he asked for over 100,000 taels of silver, but the court made excuses and refused to give it to him. Now, two million taels are being given away so easily. What merit does the Dengzhou-Laizhou navy have? His Dongjiang navy is no less capable. Why is he being treated so differently?! Mao Wenlong was getting a little anxious, but Yuan Keli told him not to rush into it.

It turns out that Zhu Youjian was provoked by Zheng Zhilong and ordered Yuan Keli to rebuild the Dengzhou-Laizhou navy, even prioritizing it over the construction of the Liaoxi defense line. The Liaoxi defense line was already sufficient, and Huang Taiji was so fed up with it that he would not attempt to relocate there for a considerable period of time.

After all, he himself said: "In the past, Emperor Taizu attacked Ningyuan but failed; now I attack Jinzhou but have not yet taken it. If we cannot even win with such a field army, how can we demonstrate the prestige of our country?"
Victory in open battle is assured, defeat in siege is inevitable, and cannot be forced by human will. Therefore, we must consider strategies for conquering cities. To merely hold onto one place and waste our resources is futile!

To build a navy, you first need ships. Dengzhou, a water town, had limited shipbuilding capabilities. The craftsmanship was secondary; the main problem was the lack of suitable materials, so they could only build small boats.

The best timber in the Central Plains had long been used up. The previous establishment of the Dengzhou Navy mainly relied on dispatching warships and transporting timber directly from the south. However, this was not a long-term solution. If the navy wanted to truly develop, it needed to have its own ship repair and shipbuilding capabilities.

Yuan Keli came to see Mao Wenlong because he knew that the old man had been doing business with the Koreans and Japanese: getting timber from the deep forests of Liaodong or Korea and buying ships from Japan would be more cost-effective than transporting it from the south.

At the same time, he genuinely came to help Mao Wenlong. It was better for Mao Wenlong to make money than for certain people in the south to do so; he and Mao Wenlong were political allies.

Yuan Keli felt he didn't have many years left to live, and that old rascal Mao Wenlong could probably still be around for a long time. He was somewhat inclined to make Mao Wenlong his successor. After all, the two knew each other well, and they had fought the Jurchens very well back then. He didn't know what these young people had done, suffering defeat after defeat, losing troops and disgracing the country, losing all face.

Only Mao Wenlong might be able to carry out his strategy; he and Mao Wenlong both favored a maritime approach. The overall trend in the Ming Dynasty was to downplay the navy and emphasize infantry and cavalry.

Compared to the Jurchens, the Ming Dynasty couldn't even match their cavalry, no matter how hard they tried. Their infantry and firearms battalions were only so-so; they were fierce at the beginning, but their firearms couldn't last long, and they were finished after half a day. Their wagon battalions were good at defense but not at offense.

The Ming Dynasty's defenses were so long that they couldn't possibly be stopped. The only reliable force the Ming Dynasty had to defeat the Jurchens, and which possessed high mobility, was its navy. Fortunately, the emperor reached a consensus with him.

The Ming Dynasty navy and the Western navy followed completely different technological paths. Zheng Zhilong's approach was to combine the two to create a unique ship that combined both soft and hard sails.

Zhu Youjian's wish was to build traditional Ming Dynasty hard-sailed warships separately, and to import and imitate Western warships, and then mix the two types of ships.

Fighting is secondary. Although the Ming Dynasty's northern navy is extremely weak, it also has no decent opponents. As long as we don't let a chicken cause the ancestors of Dengzhou and Laizhou to rebel, that's fine.

Zhu Youjian needed the naval transport capacity, and Western soft-sail sailing ships were much faster and had a greater carrying capacity than Ming dynasty sailing ships, and were also more suited to the trend of developing full-scale artillery in naval warfare.

……

Pianguan, Shanxi, faces Shaanxi across the Yellow River, with Fugu County in Shaanxi on the opposite bank. Pianguan, a city built to defend against enemies from the north, is higher in the north and lower in the south. However, at this time, a bustling scene unfolds beneath the low southern walls, as a new town is being established.

The 500 garrison troops of Fugu Garrison and the 300 garrison troops of Huangfuchuan Fort were ordered to abandon their original posts, cross the Yellow River to the east, and retreat to Shanxi, along with their families.

And it wasn't just them; the garrisons and fortresses throughout northern Shaanxi received similar orders. Their mission was to retreat to the east bank of the Yellow River, guard its natural defenses, and prevent Shaanxi refugees from entering Shanxi!

The Shaanxi army retreated east into Shanxi and south into Guanzhong, holding fast to the northern mountain defense line; the army south of Guanzhong retreated to the Qinling Mountains, blocking southern Shaanxi and Guanzhong. It's no wonder Zhu Youjian was ruthless. Eight rivers surround Chang'an, and the Ming Dynasty had once considered moving the capital to Chang'an, but now even Xi'an Prefecture was experiencing drought.

The registered population of Shaanxi is 4.5 million, but the actual population is likely over 10 million. These millions of disaster victims each need at least two shi (a unit of dry measure) of grain per year; the Ming Dynasty's annual tax revenue is only 36 million shi of grain. Even considering transportation losses, it wouldn't be enough to cover all the grain needed for disaster relief in Shaanxi, let alone the sheer volume of grain that could be transported!
After the Jiajing era, "the Yellow River diverted the Huai River, and the Wei and Han Rivers were all silted up. The grain transport boats in Xi'an could not move for a long time, and rice and millet were all transported by cart overland."

Before crossing the river, the soldiers of the Fugu Garrison were starving. Grain prices in Fugu County were high, costing a thousand coins per dou (a unit of dry measure), and after their meager salaries were deducted, they received less than two taels of silver per month, which was far from enough to feed them.

Now things are much better. After they moved here, Pianguan provides food for free, and they even get mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Although each person only gets a small one, it's said to be a mooncake made by the empresses in the palace. They've never even seen such exquisite things before.

Commander Zhang of the Fugu Garrison was enjoying a bite of mooncake and a sip of coarse tea, thoroughly content. Looking at the full moon in the sky, he sighed with relief, "Luckily, I ran fast!"

I heard that on the second day after they were transferred, a rebellion broke out in Fugu County. It was said that deserters from the Dingbian Camp of Yansui Town gathered a group of deserters and starving people to rebel, and the rebels numbered over a thousand.

At that time, the Fugu Garrison Command had an authorized strength of 1120 men, but the actual number of men was less than half. Furthermore, due to the high price of grain, which cost 1,000 coins per dou (a unit of dry measure), and the fact that most of the three liang (a unit of weight) of military pay was embezzled, the meager pay was simply not enough to buy enough food to fill their stomachs.

Having endured prolonged hunger and thirst, let alone suppressing bandits, they would have been doing a favor to the court and the emperor simply by not joining the rebels. Commander Zhang felt that if he had been a little slower, his men would probably have already cut off his head and sent him to join the rebels.

Northern Shaanxi is characterized by its rugged terrain and deep ravines, and its people have always loved to sing. It's unclear who started it, but beneath the southern city wall of Pianguan, a unique Shaanxi folk song began to rise, its scattered notes gradually merging into a unified chorus. Mixed with the biting northwest winds and the sound of the Yellow River, it evoked a profound sense of desolation. Although they had food to eat here, they still longed for their hometown.

They guarded the border wall, and now that they're withdrawing, will the northern barbarians invade and plunder the border people? What will happen to the people on the other side of the river? The drought is so severe that there's not a single grain of autumn harvest, and the tree bark has been stripped bare. What will they eat?! The soldiers gnawed on the precious maltose-filled mooncakes, but their feelings towards the emperor were very complicated. They may not have read many books, but that doesn't mean they were stupid.

The emperor's meaning was clear, even to these ordinary soldiers. He had clearly abandoned their homeland! However, while he abandoned their homes, he did not abandon them as a group of people, which made it impossible for them to feel hatred towards the emperor.

In fact, Pianguan was already the limit of Zhu Youjian's supply delivery. The farthest the mooncakes could be sent was here; as for Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia, there was nothing he could do.

Aside from large cities like Pianguan, the border wall also contained numerous small and medium-sized fortresses, and even small beacon towers that could only house a few scattered people. Even on the Mid-Autumn Festival, they could not reunite with their families. However, they still had mooncakes to eat, but the sweet-filled mooncakes became increasingly bitter with each bite, and before they knew it, their clothes were soaked with tears.

(End of this chapter)