If you don't believe me, let's take a look at the actual number of people in a county. Ascertained the records of the 75th Chronicles of the 51st Rank of the Chronicles of the 4th Historical Volume. County. One person in the county. Positive seven products. There is one person in the county, and there are eight products. There is one person in the main book, nine products, its genus, and one person in the classic history. That's all for the official establishment, a total of four people. There are even fewer smaller counties, and there are no lords or counties, or neither. Of course, there are other so-called officials, but they are not official officials. Large counties will add one or two counties (the permanent residence is generally not in the county seat) and inspection. In the entire county office, there will be no more than 100 people in the whole county.

As for other specific people: patrols, non-permanent personnel. Officer: The head of the sixth room. Those who have a fixed number can never be promoted to an official. But it can be hereditary according to the unspoken rules.

Servitude: No establishment, no salary (may be subsidized). It is to fulfill the obligation of the government. Equivalent to conscription. Chores, tiring work, and beating people are basically done by them. Their main income is basically from the small coffers and extortion in the county.

Master: A private secretary hired by the county magistrate at his own expense. No establishment, no financial expenditure.

As for the specific work of the magistrate: the magistrate of the county, in charge of the government of a county. Where enslaved, the year will be levied, and ten years will make yellow books, with Ding production as the difference. The endowment of gold grain, cloth and all kinds of goods, the service of force, the hired service, and the service of borrowing from time to time, all depend on the time of day, the land is abundant, the manpower is rich and poor, and the adjustment is evenly controlled. If you apologize for the year, please reduce it in the province. All those who provide for the elderly, worship gods, pay tribute, read the law, show kindness, care for the poor, inspect and protect the armor, strictly arrest, and listen to prison lawsuits, are all diligent and prudent. If the property of the mountains and seas is sufficient for the use of the state, then the tribute will be paid according to the nationality. The county and the main secretary are in charge of grain and horses, and patrol and arrest. The canonical history of the canon is moved out of the cashier. If there is no county clerk, or there is no master book, the clerk will be assigned to the clerk. The county and the main book are different. If the household is less than 20 miles, it will be cut.

After reading the above, does anyone think that the prefectural order will find out about the affairs in the countryside? That's simply not possible! Liu Pei is now the largest landlord in Jiao, that is, the two counties, and the largest gang leader in the two counties. The petty officials and errands of the county government have long since defected under Liu Jiang's bribe. So as long as Liu Pei doesn't nod, no one will know that he has set off a monstrous wave in Jiaozhou Bay.

Now Liu Pei has to go to Jiaozhou Bay every few days to check the progress of the project. Fortunately, the food was supplied, the supervision was in place, the captives and homeless people worked very seriously, and the craftsmen were paid high wages, so the progress of the project was relatively fast.

The pier and breakwater have already taken shape. The shipyard is a little troublesome, but Liu Pei is not in a hurry, just do it slowly. Anyway, Liu Pei still has enough manpower now. Moreover, the Wenxiangjiao uprising created a large number of new displaced people, and thousands of people were collected by Liu Pei, all of whom were serving Liu Pei's project.

Now not counting Liu Bei's families, there are as many as four or five thousand strong tenants alone, and not counting women and children. The captives and the newly recruited homeless people, not counting women and children, numbered more than 5,000 strong men alone. In other words, Liu Pei's subordinates already have the strength to directly control more than 10,000 people! As for the dozens of villages that are economically dependent on Liu Pei, the population is even larger. That's why Liu Pei had the confidence to decide to enter the ocean.

At the same time, Liu Pei also visited his immediate boss and commanded the envoy. Not counting anything else, there are 1,000 taels of silver alone! However, unfortunately, the commander is in Jinan to have a relationship with the governor Zhao Yan, so that he can try to share a little more in the credit for the extermination of the Wenxiang Sect.

But the son of the commander came forward to receive Liu Pei. He said that he was very satisfied with Liu Pei's loyalty to the imperial court (generous courtesy), and he would have a lot of good words when the commander returned! It is good to encourage Liu Pei to make new contributions to the court in the future (and give generous gifts)! After greeting each other, Liu Pei returned. Anyway, Liu Pei didn't care what a commander could do to him. As long as he doesn't come to make trouble, let his wife develop slowly on her own!

There is also the problem of Liu Pei recruiting family members. Now that Liu Pei's family is on the account of the imperial court, he naturally has to make up for the rest. Now Liu Pei's subordinates are extremely short of people. The chariot and horse trade should send men to guard it; Salt roads need to be patrolled, and people are needed to set up cards; Your lair also needs to be guarded. So Liu Pei decided to recruit another thousand people. But fortunately, there is a precedent for this matter, so just do it. So Liu Pei simply handed over this matter to Wu Yizhou to deal with.

However, Liu Pei's main concern now is not the above problems. He was most concerned about the occupation of Penghu by the Dutch and the opening up of Dongjiang Town by Mao Wenlong. These two events are of great significance in history, so I don't dare to relax at all. He specifically asked Liu Jiang to remove ten capable people and go south and north respectively to find out the news.

Now the news has come back from both groups one after another. This made Liu Pei breathe a sigh of relief and choke at the same time.

The Netherlands, a commercial company under a small country, dared to invade the territory of the Ming Dynasty, which shows that the Ming Dynasty has been weakened to a certain extent.

What is even more tragic is that Mao Wenlong opened up Dongjiang Town. That sounds like good news. In fact, this is completely the result of being pressed and beaten by the Houjin army.

Phi Island, originally a lonely and unknown island, North Korea once set up a ranch on the island to raise horses, but except for the horse wranglers, there are no people living here, there may be a tree on the island, so the North Koreans call it Phi Island.

In the sixth year of the Mandate of Heaven (1621), when the Later Jin conquered Liaoshen, a large number of Liao people fled to Uiju or the islands along the coast of Korea. Therefore, Wang Huazhen, the governor of Guangning, sent his subordinates to train troops to attack Mao Wenlong, ordering him to expel the Jurchens stationed on the islands of Phi Dao and Ludao along the coast and land, and to collect all the Liao people who had fled and scattered on the islands. Subsequently, Mao Wenlong was stationed in North Korea's Michuan Fort, attacked Zhenjiang City, this battle was called "Zhenjiang Victory", according to history, Mao Wenlong "captured (Tong) Yangzhen and Zi Xiangnian and other thieves 60 people, collected 10,000 soldiers, 800 old soldiers, and the southern guard was shaken."

Mao Wenlong's actions naturally brought great shock to Nurhachi, and Houjin soon organized troops to capture Mao Wenlong. In November of the sixth year of the Mandate of Heaven, Nurhachi sent an army of 5,000 people to "cross the Zhenjiang River and enter the Korean land to suppress Mao Wenlong." The soldiers went to Zhenjiang and entered the territory of North Korea overnight", "Wenlong was only spared". Korea was a vassal of the Ming Dynasty at this time, and was actually an ally, so it accepted Mao Wenlong's troops, but Nurhachi did not stop there, and the Houjin cavalry entered Korea from the frozen Yalu River in the winter of that year, and defeated Mao Wenlong again in the place of Xuanchuan, present-day Korea.

In this way, North Korea was worried that if Mao Wenlong continued to stay, North Korea would be destroyed by Houjin, so it suggested that Mao Wenlong go to the sea islands, and the money and grain would be transported by North Korea. Moreover, the Houjin Army does not have a water division, so there is no need to worry about safety.

In this context, in 1622, Mao Wenlong hid in Phi Dao, he took Phi Island as his base camp, and established Dongjiang Town, which could connect Phi Dao, Korea and Liaodong.

Although the area of Phi Island is small, it is a geographical position, and it is located at the sea and land hub of the Korean Peninsula and the Liaodong Peninsula, so when Mao Wenlong occupied this island, he was able to obtain military supplies from North Korea and form a certain degree of containment in the rear of Houjin.

During Mao Wenlong's occupation of Phi Dao, he took advantage of the opportunity to constantly harass Houjin, such as "in August of the second year of the Apocalypse, Mao Wenlong sent Chen Zhong and others to Ke Cherry Pot and Vortex Station", "in September, he would take Zhang Pan to recover Jinzhou", etc., these actions undoubtedly brought trouble and containment to Houjin objectively. However, after Mao Wenlong's death, this kind of trouble naturally disappeared.

As for the Dutch East India Company, it was even more difficult! In the 1560s, a group of Dutch merchants sent Houtman to Portugal to spy on commerce, and after returning to Portugal, the group formed a company to develop in the East Indies, and from April 1595 to 1602, 14 Dutch companies were established with a focus on East Indian trade.

In order to avoid excessive commercial competition, the 14 companies merged into a joint company, the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch National Assembly at the time authorized the Dutch East India Company to have a monopoly on trade from the Cape of Good Hope in the east to the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of South America in the west.