Chapter 188: The Outrageous Flagship Treasure Ship, the Horror of Large Spirit Soldiers
It's almost noon.
The early spring sun shines warmly on people, making them sit still and not want to move. They just want to leisurely enjoy the beautiful spring scenery along the river and take a break from their busy schedule.
On the Jialu River, about 2,600 miles away from the border, a huge fleet was breaking through the waves towards the north at a moderate speed.
In the center of the fleet was a huge ship.
This giant ship is about ninety feet long and eighteen feet wide!
From the horizontal line upwards, the highest point of the entire hull is nine feet above the river surface!
This giant treasure ship, which is even larger than the largest aircraft carrier in the 21st century in Li Dingguo's previous life, is one of the nine top-quality treasure ships of the Duke of Wei's Mansion in the southern capital of the Ming Dynasty.
As one of the most powerful people with the highest status in the Ming Dynasty, the Duke of Wei's Mansion even has an even more awesome treasure ship.
Let’s not talk about the top-grade treasure ship for now, just look at the front, back, left and right decks of this top-grade treasure ship. There is a huge turret on each deck. The huge gun barrel pointing obliquely into the sky is enough to make people’s hearts shake and feel fear!
On the base of each turret, there is a very complicated magic circle, and from time to time, bright light flashes out, which looks very magical.
This is the psychic cannon that can only be equipped on high-quality treasure ships and top-quality treasure ships.
There were also dozens of large crossbow carts arranged beside the huge turrets on the four sides of the treasure ship's deck, also pointing obliquely towards the air outside the ship.
These large spiritual crossbow carts are of the repeating crossbow type. Each crossbow cart can continuously fire ten waves of spiritual crossbows, and each wave has twelve crossbow arrows.
It can easily launch concentrated fire attacks on the enemy, which is an effective supplement to the slower firepower of the psychic cannon.
The psychic cannon and the psychic crossbow cart complement each other and are the strongest large-scale spiritual weapon combination in the world, bar none.
With the firepower of these two, basically no enemy could get close to the treasure ship before the two types of artillery fire stopped.
Once this level of intensive firepower is unleashed, even Cao Bianjiao, the world's number one general, would not dare to charge head-on.
Otherwise, they would not be able to withstand the continuous concentrated fire attacks from these two large spiritual soldiers and would die if they were not careful.
However, only those wealthy forces can afford to equip these two types of large spiritual weapons, and only then can they have enough spiritual energy crystals such as magic cores, monster cores, soul beads, spirit stones, etc. to provide energy consumption.
The effective means to deal with these psychic cannons and large crossbow carts head-on are also the psychic cannons and large crossbow carts equipped by the enemy.
There is no other way.
Even though Cao Bianjiao led three thousand elite soldiers to form a military killing formation, they did not dare to launch a strong attack against such a large-scale combination of spiritual weapons.
The most he could do was to make use of the flexible and changeable advantages of the military killing formation to launch a roundabout attack, but he did not dare to charge head-on.
It's not just the shells fired from the psychic cannon that can cause damage to them. The large psychic crossbow carts specially designed for breaking armor can also break through the protective true qi of the Qi Refining Realm warriors and kill them.
This is also the main reason why in the spring of the previous year, the enemy chief Huang Taiji led his army into the pass and wreaked havoc, but did not dare to actually approach the capital in order to break through the Ming capital.
There is no other reason. On the four square walls of the northern capital of the Ming Dynasty, there are hundreds of psychic cannons and hundreds of psychic crossbow carts.
Although some of the spiritual cannons and spiritual crossbow carts had lost their power due to disrepair, and because of the financial shortage of the imperial court and the scarcity of energy for spiritual weapons, crossbows and cannons, Huang Taiji did not dare to personally experience this intensity of concentrated fire attacks.
If he is not careful, he will be tragically executed by cannon fire like his father Nurhaci and die a miserable death.
"Shopkeeper Cai."
"Come on, have another bowl!"
On the deck of this huge, high-quality treasure ship, a banquet was set up in the open air, with all the fine wine and delicious food.
Qian Deli, the head of the Northwest Caravan of the wealthy Xie family in Jiangnan, was holding a jade bowl that had just been filled with fine wine. His mouth was full of oil and his face was flushed from drinking. He smiled at Cai Yihu, the manager of the Northwest Border Caravan of Duke Wei's family.
"drink!"
"Drink! Let's drink together!"
The two of them, together with the two caravan managers of the southern wealthy merchants nearby, raised their bowls and clinked them together, then raised their heads and "gulped down" the century-old collection of Jinhua wine in their jade bowls, and drank it all in one gulp, then smacked their lips in satisfaction.
"Manager Cai, in my opinion, the band of thieves entrenched at the source of the Jialu River are so bold that they even dare to intercept the goods of wealthy merchants like us. This is simply outrageous!"
Qian Deli said with disdain on his face, "This is simply provoking the emperor! If we don't teach them a lesson, they really don't know that the Horse King has three eyes on his head!"
"This time, in order to ensure the smooth flow of trade routes for our master in the border areas of Daming, we have mobilized a large armed fleet. As long as we march straight into the source of the Jialu River, we can easily wipe them out!"
"According to reliable intelligence, although the bandits are bold and arrogant, they only have a few generals in the Qi Refining Realm."
"Even that little thief Li Dingguo is only at the middle fourth level of martial arts. Although his combat capability is said to be good, how can he stop our army from approaching?"
"When the time comes, I will have to operate a psychic cannon myself and blast him into the sky with one shot!"
From his words, he did not really take the target bandits seriously.
Compared with such a large battle array, not to mention a group of petty thieves, even a large-scale rebel army inside the pass would have to retreat after seeing their battle array. Otherwise, they would be doomed to be reduced to ashes.
Apart from anything else, the two types of large spiritual weapons equipped on this superior treasure ship are enough to suppress all disobedience of these rebels.
This time they brought enough energy crystals to drive the formation, such as soul beads, demon beast inner cores, and even a lot of magic cores obtained from overseas transactions.
Those white barbarians who came from overseas to trade with the Ming Dynasty sold everything, and there was nothing they dared not sell.
The exquisite porcelain, silk, Shu brocade, tea, etc. produced by the Ming Dynasty were rare goods in short supply for these barbarians, and could be sold at prices several times higher than those in the Ming Dynasty.
Not only did they use hard currencies such as gold and silver to settle accounts, they even used large baskets of magic cores of various levels as collateral for payment.
This means that wealthy merchants in the eastern and southern coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty have no shortage of this type of strategic energy crystal reserves.
These wealthy merchant families engaged in smuggling business with the white barbarians along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, and the profits they made were not inferior to those from trading with the Tartars outside the Great Wall.
However, the Tatars outside the Great Wall, including the Later Jin Tatars, have some unique local specialties, such as magical beasts and war horses, natural treasures, precious monster furs, rare magical medicines, etc., which cannot be replaced by the overseas white barbarian merchants.
Although everyone is making huge fortunes overseas, these wealthy southern merchants also attach great importance to the trade routes in the northern border areas.
To this end, they even invited a large number of high-ranking officials in the court to speak for them and put collective pressure on the Shanxi merchants, forcing them to give up some trade routes and give them, the southern wealthy merchants alliance, to use for trade with the Tatars.
However, they did not expect that just after they ambitiously began to engage in large-scale trade with the Tatars outside the Great Wall, a large number of caravans would mysteriously disappear within three or four months.
Their detailed investigation revealed that the real culprit was a group of petty thieves who had just been established and were entrenched at the source of the Jialu River.
Although they were a little bit unbelieving in their hearts, all the clues were right in front of them and they had to believe it whether they wanted to or not.
There is no doubt that this group of petty thieves outside the Great Wall seemed to have really stirred up a hornet's nest.
After urgent multi-party consultations, everyone unanimously decided that they must find a way to eliminate these daring little thieves as soon as possible.
However, when they found the chief official in charge of this border area: Hong Chengchou, the governor of Yansui Town, this guy actually asked people to accept all the gifts, but said that these petty thieves were not causing trouble within his jurisdiction and he had no right to cross the border to deal with them.
This Hong Chengchou really deserves to be called the living devil. He just stayed out of the matter without making a fuss and collected a lot of benefits without making a sound.
This made the alliance of landlords very angry.
However, what should be done about this?
The people behind these wealthy merchant alliances are all very powerful, and each of their families is as wealthy as a country.
We gathered a large armed fleet and rushed to the lair of the petty thieves entrenched at the source of the Jialu River and wiped them out directly.
With their strong financial resources and the enormous power behind the scenes, they easily assembled this large armed fleet, marched out of the Great Wall in a mighty force, and began to advance along the Jialu River.
"It's natural!"
Cai Yihu enjoyed the flattery of the crowd. He picked up a second-level red-topped white-feathered goose monster thigh that was carefully cooked by the chef and ate it all in a few big mouthfuls. Then he said carelessly, "Our large fleet went north along the Jialu River and drove straight into the enemy's territory. The little thieves couldn't react at all."
"Once our large armed fleet arrives, those petty thieves will be wiped out in an instant. The outcome is already determined."
"When the time comes, I will chop off the head of that little thief Li Dingguo with my own hands and stomp on it a few times to eliminate the hatred in my heart!"
There must be a reason why Cai Yihu is so resentful.
Several caravans that he was in charge of disappeared outside the Great Wall one after another. The loss of a few properties was not a big deal, but the loss of so many veteran merchants and their associates, and the fact that foreign trade could not be opened for a long time, was truly fatal!
Even if he succeeds in eradicating this group of petty thieves this time, he will be punished by his master, the Duke of Wei's Mansion, and the large dividends given to him this year will probably be lost.
It may even lower his status in the master's heart.
This is the biggest loss.
How could he not be furious?
It's not just him, all the shop owners of this large fleet are like this.
This is also the main reason why everyone was united in their hatred of the enemy this time, and completed the formation of a large armed fleet so quickly, and then immediately went out of the border to the north to launch a retaliatory action.
However, at this moment, Cai Yihu suddenly sensed something, and hurriedly looked up at the side of the huge treasure ship, and was immediately shocked!
He could hardly believe it and even rubbed his eyes with his hands, but he saw a huge dark yellow bell with a radius of one hundred feet suddenly appearing from a desolate place covered by a large number of reeds in the middle of the island in the middle of the river that he had just passed by!
This dark yellow bell did not stop for a moment, like a dark yellow lightning, sailing across the waves and shooting directly towards the top-grade treasure ship where it was!
No! more than!
Behind this dark yellow bell, there were five phantoms of various mythical beasts, nearly a hundred feet in size, following closely behind, walking on the waves and flying towards their own large fleet!
(End of this chapter)
