Chongming, located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, was far from the shape of a whole island in later generations. Instead, it was still in the process of continuous accumulation and collapse. It consisted of several major sandbar islands such as Chongming, Changsha, Sansha, and Nansha.
Starting from the Wude period in the early Tang Dynasty, when the East and West Sands emerged from the Yangtze River Estuary, it took thousands of years to reach the size of Zhoushan in the late Ming Dynasty. The city of Chongming Island also underwent five moves and six constructions.
By this time, the population of Chongming's various sands reached more than 200,000. In the stormy late Ming Dynasty, Chongming's population increased instead of decreasing. A large number of Huaiyang refugees fled into various sands, and even many pirates anchored in various ports.
After King Yiyang was elected to supervise the country here, the Yangtze River estuary became even more lively.
At this time, Chongming County was a new city rebuilt ten miles north of the original site at Qinjiafu after the original Dongsha City was washed away and collapsed by waves during the Yongle period. After more than 200 years, it was already very lively.
The city is nine miles around and has four land gates and one water gate.
Due to the tight geographical location, the city wall was later reinforced with city bricks, and four gate towers and four turrets were added. Thirty police shops were set up around the city wall, making it impregnable.
The neighborhoods in the city are neatly planned and the industry and commerce are prosperous.
The city has a complete collection of Chenghuang temples, academic palaces, and even nine Guanyin temples.
When King Yiyang came to Chongming, he used the county government office as his palace. However, King Yiyang did not care about the government affairs and entrusted the affairs to the supporting ministers. At this time, Huang Fei, Wu Zhikui, Huang Binqing, Tian Yang, Shen Tingyang, Zhang Pengyi, Chen Wu and others
The ministers who supported him left Chongming one after another and were defeated one after another.
The island is guarded by Jing Benche, the naval governor of Zhejiang Province. He was a Jinshi in the fourth year of Chongzhen. In his early years, he was dismissed for offending the Prime Minister Wen Tiren. In the 17th year, he was originally an official and became the supervisor of the military road in Xiajiang. During the reign of King Fu, he was appointed Doctor Fang.
, still supervising the army at sea.
After the fall of Nandu, he and Tian Yang and others supported King Chongming of Yiyang to supervise the country. Jing Benche recruited troops and horses, named Sihui Camp, with 3,000 troops.
"Zhang Shiyi really defected to the Tatars?"
At the port outside the city, Gu Rongzheng had a secret meeting with Huang Wuchang.
Gu Rong is a famous pirate in the south of the Yangtze River, known as Gu San Mazi. He has always traveled across the sea and often visited the Yangtze River. He used Chongming as his base. He was recruited and appointed commander. When the two capitals fell into chaos, Gu Rong called himself the King of Loyalty.
Later, King Yiyang sent people to recruit him and awarded him the rank of chief naval officer.
Huang Wuchang was a powerful local man in Chongming. When King Yiyang came to Chongming, he also received his support. He had a regiment under his command to train armed forces, so he was also awarded the title of General Soldier.
However, a pirate and a rich man were not very popular in the small court of King Yiyang.
Both of them were suppressed by Jing Benche and others, especially Huang Wuchang, a local powerful man who also did some black and white business. Although his strength was far inferior to that of another local powerful merchant, Shen Tingyang, he was still a local snake after all.
When King Yiyang was powerful before, he was respectful, but now that the generals are away and there is only Jing Bentetsu on the island, they feel a little restless.
"Chen Wu was beheaded by Lu Jianguo in Ningbo. The dynasty was first attacked and invaded by Huang Binqing of Zhoushan. Zhang Guozhu was defeated and went into captivity. Now Huang Fei was defeated in Taihu and committed suicide. Wu Zhikui was defeated in Suzhou and surrendered. Zhang Shiyi surrendered to the Qing Dynasty. It is said that Zhang Pengyi brothers
If he leaves in defeat, King Yiyang is doomed."
Gu Rong had been robbed of many ships by Jing Benche, the naval governor, and had always held a grudge against him.
"How about you and I join forces to destroy Jing Benche and seize Chongming City?"
Huang Wuchang twirled his beard, "What happens after it's done?"
"After everything is done, how about Chongming County belongs to you, and Sihuiying's ships and ports belong to me?" Gu Rong suggested.
Neither of them mentioned the surrender to the Qing Dynasty. Neither the local tyrant nor the pirate was in a hurry to surrender to the Qing Dynasty. Chongming had a special geographical location and they were more eager to seize control of Chongming first.
"How to deal with Gao Jinzhong in the north of the city?"
Gao Jinzhong is the representative of the refugees on the island. Many of these refugees came from Huanghuai and even Zhili to the south of Shandong. There are even refugees from Liaodong. They are two different forces from the local people on the island.
They had no land, so when they came to the island, they could only dry the salt and fish, etc., but they inevitably robbed some of the interests of local powerful people, so the two sides have always been incompatible.
Gao Jinzhong was also a refugee from the Huaihe River. On the island, he became the leader of the refugees because of his tallness and fierceness. He dared to fight. Here, he organized five thousand refugees on the island and called himself the regimental training officer. He worked as a salt dryer.
They make a living through fishing and even smuggling.
After King Yiyang came, he also won over him and gave him the post of commander-in-chief of the army, still in charge of the old department.
He owned sixty or seventy ships of different sizes, more than a thousand soldiers, six hundred or seven hundred crew members, and two thousand family members. There were indeed nearly five thousand in total, but in fact the so-called soldiers were only the young and strong among the refugees.
But because these refugees from the Huaihe River are very united and vicious, even Huang Wuchang, a local snake, could not suppress them, so he could only set aside a piece of territory for them, so that both sides would not invade each other.
But in fact, he still wanted to drive away these outsiders. Although Gu Rong was also an outsider, Huang Wuchang and Gu Rong had more of a cooperative relationship. Gu Rong basically dealt with the goods plundered by pirates, etc.
Looking for stolen goods from Huang Wuchang, he also often supplies supplies from Huang Wuchang.
The two parties have cooperated for a long time and have a good relationship. Compared with Gao Jinzhong and his group, who are purely outsiders, neither of them likes them because Gao Jinzhong and the others do everything. They not only rob Huang Wuchang and others' interests, but also sometimes rob Gu Rong and his business. They are completely
Don't follow the rules of the world.
"Gao Jinzhong can ignore him for now. Let's deal with Jing Benche first. Will Gao Jinzhong dare to assassinate him then?"
The two high-fived each other.
They moved very quickly. Although Jing Benche controlled the county and had three thousand troops, Chongming Island was called a den of thieves in the late Ming Dynasty. When it was the most powerful, it was the base camp of pirates.
After countless Jianghuai refugees landed on the island, most of them engaged in smuggling, piracy and other activities. At its peak, there were hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of people in the north of the city. Although they were later surrounded and suppressed, even Gu Rong was recruited, but the particularity of Chongming made
It's very unique here.
Gu and Rong easily took advantage of the internal signals in the city and opened the city gate in the middle of the night.
There were shouts of killing everywhere.
Jing Benche was caught off guard, and it was too late to summon his troops. Seeing Gu and Huang's men rushing into the city, Jing Benche had no choice but to abandon the city and fled in panic after picking up King Zhu Chaoyang of Yiyang.
Fortunately, Minato was still in control, and in the end, more than a thousand people escaped from Chongming with only eighteen boats.
Gu Rong and Huang Wuchang successfully captured Chongming County. Afterwards, the two agreed, Huang Wuchang occupied the county seat, while Gu Rong took for himself all the boats that Jing Benche had not had time to take away. They also took the remaining troops of Jing Benche's Sihui Camp.
, share it together.
When Gao Jinzhong from the north of the city learned the news, everything had already been settled. He had no chance to participate and could only slap his thigh.
Jing Benche and Zhu Chaoyin were wandering on the sea, not knowing where to go. They wanted to go to Taicang Prefecture. However, they heard that Zhang Shiyi had killed Zhang Pengyi and surrendered Zhang Guozhu. In panic, he quickly turned the ship around and headed for Tongzhou (Nantong). At this time, Dongge University Scholar,
Tian Yang, the governor of Jiangbei, was in the north of the Yangtze River and controlled the occupied areas of Tongzhou, Haimen, and Rugao.
Tian Yang was also shocked when he saw King Yiyang and Jing Benche coming to surrender in embarrassment. He asked for clarification and couldn't help but slap his thigh painfully.
Tian Yang, who is in his sixtieth year, is the chief assistant of the small court of Chongming, but it is not because of his high ability, but because he was the first person to support King Yiyang, and he was also the governor of water transportation and governor of Huaiyang at the time. However, his official position is actually
It was also obtained from Liu Kongzhao, who was in power during the reign of Afu Hongguang.
Before that, he was a Jinshi in the Wanli Dynasty. He was the magistrate of Wenshang County in Shandong Province and served successively as the director of the Literature and Selection Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the official of Sichuan, the official of Wenchudao in Zhejiang, the counselor of Guangdong grain reserves, Shang Baoqing, Taipu Shaoqing, etc., Chongzhen
In the first year of the year, he was appointed as the censor of Qiandu to governor Sichuan. He was impeached and demoted to guard the border in accordance with the law.
When the Hongguang Dynasty was established, he followed Liu Kongzhao's path and became Liu Kongzhao's confidant through bribery. He was promoted to the right minister of the Ministry of War, deputy censor of the capital, governor of water transportation, and governor of Huaihe defense. Later, he was promoted to minister of the Ministry of War, responsible for garrisoning the Huaihe River.
However, Shi Kefa was surrounded, and Tian Yang, with eight thousand troops, refused to save him. Yangzhou fell, and he immediately abandoned Huai'an and entered the sea.
After supporting the Yiyang King and becoming the chief assistant, Bai Dongge, a bachelor, did nothing. The three cities in the north of the Yangtze River in Tongzhou were previously conquered by Zhang Pengyi and Shen Tingyang. He came to serve as the governor of Jiangbei to grab points.
Credit goes, but there is no progress at all.
Now, as soon as I heard about the loss of Chongming, the surrender of Zhang Shiyi, and the murder of Zhang Pengyi, I immediately abandoned the three cities in Jiangbei, ordered the troops and ran away.
Tian Yang packed up his troops, abandoned Jiangbei, and took King Yiyang to defect to Shen Tingyang, the right minister of the Ministry of War and the left minister of the household ministry, who was fighting against Jingjiang.
Shen Tingyang's family has been a maritime merchant for generations in Chongming, especially shipping, which is a family business. The family trained him to study, and he lived up to expectations. He became a scholar at a very young age, and later became a scholar in Wuying Palace.
In order to solve the problem of food and salary transportation in Liaodong, he wrote a letter to try out maritime transportation, and suggested that the maritime water transportation pioneered in the Yuan Dynasty be restored. He also submitted the maritime books and maritime maps collected by his family to Chongzhen.
Chongzhen asked him to build a sea-going ship for trial use. He took two boats and carried hundreds of meters and hundreds of stones. On the first day of June in the thirteenth year, he set out to sea from Huai'an and arrived in Tianjin. He waited for five days and only traveled ten days.
Chongzhen was overjoyed and was granted the title of Doctor of the Ministry of Household Affairs. He went to Dengzhou and was responsible for shipping Liao's salary affairs with the governor Xu Renlong. In the past, Liao's salarymen used Tianjin ships to go to Dengzhou. The southeast wind would transfer the grain to Tianjin, and then the southwest wind would transfer to Ningyuan.
Shen Tingyang transported it directly from Dengzhou to Ningyuan, saving time and effort.
In the 16th year of Chongzhen, he was promoted to the Minister of Taipu Temple and the Ministry of Household Affairs. Later, he was appointed as the Secretary of the Imperial College. He changed the water ships into Yangtze River warships. Shen Tingyang, a technocrat, transformed many water ships into warships. Hongguangli also planned
He was asked to transport grain to Shanhaiguan to supply Wu Sangui. After the fall of Nanjing, Shen Tingyang took hundreds of ships back to his hometown in Chongming, and together they supported King Yiyang.
Jing Benche and King Yiyang surrendered in defeat, and Shen Tingyang could only order a halt to the attack on Jingjiang.
"For the current plan, I have to ask His Highness to abdicate and return to the vassal state, and go to Yilu to supervise the country." Shen Tingyang was also very helpless. He even lost the base camp of Chongming. Generals Huang Fei, Chen Wu, Zhang Pengyi died one after another, Wu Zhikui, Zhang Shiyi, and Zhang Guozhu
After surrendering to the Qing Dynasty one after another, Gu Rong, Huang Wuchang and others rebelled, and Huang Binqing and the dynasty first surrendered to Lu Jianguo. Their small court had ceased to exist in name only.
In this case, it is better to go to Lu Jianguo.
King Yiyang hesitated and asked, "Can King Lu tolerate this?"
"I heard that some of Lu Jianguo's actions were grand and wise. Your Highness can go there with confidence. They are all members of the Ming Dynasty clan. They were just trying to restore the country and the country." Shen Tingyang comforted.
Although King Yiyang knew that the relationship between him and King Lu was not that simple. He had previously sent Huang Binqing, the leader of the Chen Wu dynasty, to go south to eastern Zhejiang to seize territory, and then refused the edict conveyed by King Lu's envoy to abdicate and return to the vassal vassal, but now there is really no way out Can go.
The discussion was settled, and the few people did not dare to stay any longer, so the fleet first sailed along the river and then headed south to Shaoxing.
On the deck, King Yiyang was in a daze. Tian Yangze, the governor of Jiangbei, a bachelor of Dongge University and the official minister, was writing a letter for King Yiyang to abdicate and return to the feudal clan. King Yang was writing a congratulatory letter to support King Lu in supervising the country, while Shen Tingyang, the left minister of the Ministry of War and the right minister of the Ministry of Household, was counting their last ships, money, food, soldiers and horses, and calculating whether they would be enough to sail to Shaoxing.