The mysterious world: Start working hard from the beggar camp!

Chapter 532: Sun Chuanting's plan to lure the enemy into a trap
"My Lord, the imperial navy is newly established, poorly trained, and has low combat effectiveness. We don't need to worry about it."

Liang Shidong, the representative of the merchants of Suzhou Prefecture, had a gleam in his eyes. He stepped out from the crowd and said to Xie Youming, "The scale of the treasure ships that we, the aristocratic families and the wealthy merchants, can dispatch is totally incomparable to the imperial navy."

"Even the large number of servants and guards who are good at water combat have experience in water combat that cannot be compared with the other side."

"The two million troops of the imperial court are now advancing by land and sea, sailing down the Grand Canal and heading towards Suzhou City. This is actually great news for us."

"With the naval forces we control, we can easily defeat the imperial navy on the Grand Canal."

"Don't forget, among the navy that the imperial court managed to build, there are less than ten top-grade treasure ships and less than fifty high-grade treasure ships."

"They looted this treasure ship by recklessly confiscating and exterminating families on a large scale."

He was a weaving magnate in Suzhou and the head of the wealthy Liang family in Suzhou.

In terms of wealth, the family is not much worse than the Xie family.

However, in terms of family military strength, they are far inferior to the Xie family, so they have to obey the Xie family's orders.

Suzhou Weaving was not a simple business alliance, but a giant group that could rival the Yangzhou salt merchants.

In the nine provinces of China, more than 70% of raw silk and cloth are produced by Suzhou weaving, and they have monopolized this industry with a huge market scale.

Liang Shidong continued, "And what about us? There are more than 500 large treasure ships gathered by various companies at the Suzhou Canal Pier alone."

"Among them, there are more than thirty top-quality treasure ships, and over a hundred high-quality treasure ships!"

Although these Jiangnan aristocratic families, wealthy merchants, and tycoons each owned only a few top-grade and superior treasure ships, they basically only had a few ships, and it was rare for any family to have more than three top-grade treasure ships.

But they can’t beat the large number of these aristocratic families!

In Suzhou Prefecture alone, there are more than a hundred wealthy families and wealthy merchants whose assets exceed tens of millions of taels of gold and hundreds of millions of taels of silver!

As the current crisis of genocide is about to come, whether everyone is willing or not, they can only temporarily put aside their grudges and unite to fight against the court.

It’s not that they want to go against the Southern Ming court, but the current court has completely broken off relations with them, and there is no room for negotiation between the two sides.

Now, Chongzhen, who had learned from his mistakes and was determined to learn from Li Dingguo, had had enough of the endless encroachment of the Ming Dynasty's national strength by the aristocratic families and wealthy merchants. He started the same mode of extermination against them and refused to accept their surrender.

This will naturally force everyone to fight to the death.

"Not bad!"

"In this case, we can fully take advantage of this and mobilize a large fleet to the north to intercept and defeat the imperial fleet on the Grand Canal!"

Xie Youming's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he realized that he had just lost his composure. He only saw the superior manpower and powerful combat effectiveness of the imperial army, but ignored the opponent's biggest weakness: the navy was not good.

Although their navy was not a strong force and was not on the same level as the Fuxing Navy, it still had a great advantage over the Southern Ming Dynasty navy.

However, he vaguely felt that he had overlooked something, but he couldn't figure out the reason for a moment.

Like Xu Nianzu of the Xu family, Xie Youming also took over the position of the head of the Xie family ahead of schedule due to the pressure of the current situation.

Unlike Xu Nianzu, he was not restricted by the previous head of the Xie family, but actually controlled the power of the Xie family.

"Everyone, let's talk about it together. What do you think of Liang Shidong's suggestion? Do you agree to implement it?"

After saying this, he looked at the many representatives present and asked for their opinions.

Although Xie Youming serves as the leader of the alliance, in order to win over the hearts of the people and continue to elevate the status of the Xie family, it is routine practice to treat people with respect and courtesy.

"My Lord, this seems to be our only chance of victory. Otherwise, it will be difficult to defeat the imperial army."

"Yes, yes! Once two million imperial troops arrive at Suzhou City, our situation will be extremely dangerous!"

"I am in favor of a decisive battle with the enemy on water, so that we can play to our strengths and use our strengths to attack the enemy's weaknesses."

"Compared with the imperial court, our treasure ships currently have a huge advantage. This is undoubtedly a good opportunity to reverse the situation!"

"My Lord, speed is of the essence in war. We don't have time to think about it. With our advantage in treasure ships, I can't imagine going to war with the imperial navy on the Grand Canal. What cards does the other side have that we can't defeat?"...

The more than one hundred representatives of aristocratic families, wealthy merchants and tycoons gathered here are not just famous for nothing, they all have their own unique vision.

Everyone thought about it for a moment, then spoke up in agreement.

Because of the recent defeat in the battle of Changzhou Prefecture, they had a thorough understanding of the fighting power of the imperial army.

He knew that under the current situation, it was basically impossible to rely on the strong city of Suzhou to stop the enemy.

In this case, why not take this opportunity to destroy the invading enemy on the Grand Canal?
Although the newly formed navy of the Southern Ming court was led by the capable eunuch Lu Jiude, and the sailors selected from it were much stronger than the useless navy of the previous court, they were undoubted new recruits.

These representatives of aristocratic families, wealthy merchants, and tycoons often travel far and wide, so they know very well that the combat effectiveness of the navy cannot be formed overnight, but depends on the accumulation of experience over many years.

Compared to the army, it takes much longer to build a strong navy.

This is not something that can be accomplished quickly with just money, materials and manpower.

"it is good!"

Seeing that everyone had reached a consensus, Xie Youming knew that the opportunity could not be missed, and immediately said loudly, "In this case, we will immediately split up and prepare for the large fleet to go north."

"If you have extra psychic cannons and crossbow carts at home, please be sure to contribute them to increase the attack power of our fleet as much as possible, and strive to be foolproof in this battle of the Grand Canal!"

"With the fleet we can raise now, it is enough to carry two million troops north at once!"

"Now, the total number of warriors and soldiers from various families gathered in Suzhou City is about 2.5 million. So, we will leave 500,000 reserve troops to guard Suzhou City, and the rest of the soldiers will all set off on the ship to fight to the death with the imperial fleet!"

With Suzhou, their home base, under fatal threat, the Xie family naturally could not stay out of it and had to fight to the death with the imperial army.

Otherwise, once the extremely wealthy Suzhou Prefecture was lost, the Xie family's foundation would immediately be lost by half, and there would be little hope for their revival in the future.

That kind of unimaginable situation is definitely not what Xie Youming wants to see.

"We will obey the leader's order!"...

There was not much time left for everyone to prepare, so everyone agreed in unison and then dispersed in a hurry.

With such a large fleet heading north for the decisive battle, the preparations were extremely arduous and there was no extra time to waste.

Three hours later, at dusk, the huge Suzhou West City Pier was bustling with people. The river was almost covered with treasure ships, and the soldiers had already boarded the ships.

"Dong dong..."

As coach Xie Youming swung his hand forward fiercely, the sound of war drums rang out!

"Weigh anchor!"

“Set sail!”…

Soldiers standing on the main masts of each treasure ship waved the colorful battle flags in their hands. Under the command of the Qi Refining Realm generals selected from each family, the treasure ships began to sail towards the vast river in the distance.

Fortunately, the crew members operating the boat were all elite soldiers with rich experience on the water, so not much chaos was caused.

But after all, the scale of the fleet heading north in this battle was too large, and there was a lack of a truly qualified naval commander, so naturally there were a lot of jokes. Fortunately, no ship collision occurred.

Another half hour passed, and on the endless river, a large fleet of more than 500 ships finally formed three columns that were so long that they could not be seen at a glance, and sailed towards the northwest direction of the river.

As the treasure ship's speed increased, about a quarter of an hour later, this large fleet of miscellaneous ships had disappeared at the end of the upper reaches of the rolling river.

……

"Chirp!"

The cry of a spirit bird came from the sky, and a green figure cut through the sky, arrived above the flagship treasure ship that was floating downstream, and then swooped down.

This is one of a pair of level six early stage spiritual birds that Sun Chuanting obtained by chance. It is a large green-feathered peacock with a terrifying aura.

There was a human figure on the back of the bird. He jumped off the bird's back and flew to the front of Emperor Chongzhen who was standing at the bow of the ship.

This is Sun Chuanting, the commander-in-chief of an army of millions of soldiers and the commander-in-chief of the army.

With Sun Chuanting's military talent, he could be said to be one of the best in the Ming Dynasty. How could he not have anticipated the biggest weakness of his side on this treasure ship heading south to Suzhou?
In view of the importance of this expedition to the south, no mistakes could be allowed. He decided to personally ride on a level 6 mount, a spirit bird, and fly south along the sky above the Grand Canal to scout the movements of the enemy.

As expected, not long ago he not only discovered an enemy fleet consisting of hundreds of large treasure ships going upstream, but also carefully avoided the sight of several level five peak spirit birds escorting the enemy fleet.

Shocked by this situation, he immediately rode his spiritual bird, the peacock, and quickly returned to his own fleet.

"Your Majesty, as we expected, the enemy is self-aware and knows that they are no match for our army in a land battle, so they chose to fight us on the Grand Canal!"

Sun Chuanting's eyes sparkled, and he confidently reported to Emperor Chongzhen, "The enemy is only a thousand miles away from us now. At full speed, they will encounter our fleet in more than an hour at most."

"Your Majesty, please send an order immediately to have the hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen on land, who are marching in step with our fleet, hide their tracks at the designated location on the river bank and prepare for battle."

"At the same time, we should slow down the large fleet, wait for the right moment to sail close to the river bank, and calculate the time to arrive near the river bank at the planned battle site, so as to lure the enemy fleet into a trap."

The alliance of aristocratic families headed by the Xie family is plotting against themselves, so isn't Sun Chuanting also plotting against his enemies?

This massive land and sea advance to the south was a plan proposed by Sun Chuanting to lure the enemy deep into our territory.

After all, it is much easier to defeat the enemy in a field battle outside the city than to attack the city.

With the combat effectiveness of the imperial army, fighting a fierce battle with the enemy on the river bank would not be much different from fighting on land.

The allied armies of the aristocratic families went upstream, thinking that they could defeat the imperial army with the number and quality of their treasure ships. This was simply a daydream.

As long as we defeat the enemy's large fleet and kill a large number of their manpower, the enemy's elite forces in Suzhou, Songjiang and Hangzhou will be reduced sharply, and it will be easy for us to capture these areas.

When Sun Chuanting formulated the plan to lure the enemy deep into his territory, he had already determined that the main forces of the aristocratic family alliance gathered in Suzhou City would not miss this best opportunity to turn the tables.

This is an open conspiracy, and it is so tempting that the enemy will be fooled.

In terms of both literary and military strategies, Sun Chuanting and Zhou Yuji are much more powerful than the elites from aristocratic families.

The two sides are not opponents of the same level at all.

"Hahaha……"

After learning the latest military information, Chongzhen was delighted that the enemy had been tricked and attacked as expected, and he couldn't help laughing, "Good, good, good..."

He cheered and clapped his hands in praise, "As expected of you, Sun Chuanting. The enemy's every move is completely within your control!"

“Those Jiangnan noble families simply could not imagine that a battle between the enemy and us, with the help of the might of the military killing array and composed of soldiers composed of cultivators, would be no different from fighting on land!”

"They thought they had a good plan, but they didn't know we were just waiting for them to come to us!"

"I want to see how powerful the fighting power of these so-called two million troops and five hundred treasure ships of these rebels can be!"

"Without the protection of the fortified city, they have undoubtedly lost their geographical advantage. I don't know if they can hold out for an hour or two before being defeated!"

"Do these rebels still think that our fleet will stay on the rough canal and engage in a head-on naval battle with them?"

"These bastards are so self-righteous, it's almost making me laugh to death!"

The current development of the situation is exactly the same as what Sun Chuanting expected before the action, which undoubtedly gave Emperor Chongzhen great confidence.

With such a capable and trusted general, the revival of the Ming Dynasty will no longer be a luxury.

"Pass on my order. The fleet will immediately begin to slow down. Calculate the time and arrive at the river bank of the designated battlefield on time to lure the enemy's fleet to the shore for a fight!"

Chongzhen, full of confidence, immediately gave loud orders, asking the soldiers to carry out the original plan step by step.

A moment later, the large fleet with full sails began to slow down slowly, then strictly controlled its speed downstream, rushing to the designated battlefield, waiting for the enemy army to arrive.

The two large fleets were moving towards each other and would collide head-on soon. Both the enemy and us were ready to fight.

Even though the fleets of the alliance of aristocratic families discovered in advance through the spiritual birds in the sky that the government fleet was slowing down to approach the shore, it was too late to change their plans and turn around to retreat to Suzhou City.

Once the enemy chooses to do so, the imperial fleet will take advantage of the situation to follow and pursue them, causing the enemy's formation to be thrown into chaos and the entire army to quickly collapse!
This is the helplessness of a large-scale war between two armies. Once the two sides are about to come into contact, it is difficult to change the original battle plan again.

In a word: the arrow is on the string and must be shot.

It is basically impossible for the enemy's millions of troops to change their original plan before the battle after they find out they have been tricked, not to mention the motley crowd of these aristocratic families.

(End of this chapter)