The blue sea is calm and waveless, showing a peace and tranquility that does not match this season, but Li Xiuyuan, who is standing on the deck, is not calm, since he was inspected by Jiang Tian in the Bohai Sea, he has never worked in this life, which is indeed unprecedented, even if he went north with the Zheng family fleet back then, and hundreds of ships of all sizes killed the north, he has never been as nervous as today. Li Xiuyuan didn't see the little water power of Houjin at all, so he didn't have any nervousness or fear. But the enemy they faced this time was extraordinary, they were neither Xiyi pirates fighting alone, nor were they small ships and no cannons, as a fleet that had dominated the East Asian seas for decades, even if Li Xiuyuan had enough confidence to defeat the enemy, he had to be very careful and did not dare to be careless.

"Has the surrenderer returned?" Put down the binoculars, Li Xiuyuan asked his subordinates softly.

The surroundings glanced at each other, and they all shook their heads helplessly. If no one thought that they could persuade the Zheng family fleet to surrender before, it would be difficult to persuade the commander of one or two fleets, because Zheng Chenggong was like a god-like existence in the eyes of his henchmen. And everyone knows the habits of the former Ming court, and it is difficult to spend the rest of your life idlely after Zhao'an.

But this time is different from the past, firstly, the Emperor of Heaven can be regarded as very lenient to the surrendered enemy, as soon as Zheng Chenggong dies, the Zheng family does not have a person who can dominate the overall situation, and secondly, look at the Dinghai at your feet, you don't need too much, only one or twenty ships, I dare not say that the world is invincible, at least in the whole of Asia can go sideways. No matter how stubbornly clinging to the puppet Ming court, there is no hope of turning the tables.

In fact, there is another idea in everyone's hearts, but no one said it, that is, the future senior generals of the Chinese Navy are only a few places, if Zheng Jing really knows the current affairs and surrenders, and he is not allowed to be knighted by Emperor Tianyi on his father's friendship, then those old pirates under him may enter the navy, and at that time, even if their own people work hard and talk about the ability of the starting boat, they are not as good as others, in case they see these generals in the future, they will call a chief...... Everyone who thought of this place hoped that the Zheng family would not accept Zhao'an, so they were ruthlessly crushed against the trend of history.

Li Xiuyuan knew what his subordinates thought, if he didn't have some friendship with the Zheng family, he would have thought so. It's just that he can't be the master of persuasion, because the envoys who persuade him to surrender are not sent out by himself at all, and not everyone can do the job of lobbyists, Zhang Tao is very clear about the importance of persuasion, which is not only political, but also can save a group of excellent sailors.

Therefore, the selection of the envoy was positioned as a general of the former Ming Dynasty, one of the four towns of Jiangbei that everyone is familiar with, and Huang Degong under the command of the former governor of Fengyang. Of course, on the one hand, this is because Zhang Tao was wearing the hat of the generalissimo of the world's soldiers and horses at that time, and on the other hand, because Huang Degong's backer Ma Shiying was captured by Zhang Tao in one fell swoop.

Later history proved that although Huang Degong had the characteristics of a warlord with that sleeping bag, he was still reliable on the principle of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism. Therefore, when Zhang Tao was training the old army while deploying defenses along the Yangtze River, Huang Degong was the only one retained in the four towns in Jiangbei. In addition, after the soldiers were confiscated, they were all sent away from a leisurely errand, and as for Liu Liangzuofu, who later defected to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but because most of his old departments were dismantled and mixed, he failed to make any waves.

The current Huang Degong was originally meritorious after the Northern Expedition, and he could also be a feudal official, but the Zhu family and a group of civilian officials who hated the army to become bigger, have set off a trend of party struggle, Huang Degong is not Zhang Tao's descendant, and he has an army under him, so he has been co-opted by the civilian clique, Huang Degong, who fought in the north and south, is no longer the political idiot of the year, and the political education of the army copied from later generations made him see everything clearly, but he also knew that he was too small in this political whirlpool, so he ignored Zhang Tao's efforts to keep him and return to his hometown to be a rich man.

After the Chinese Dynasty was established, Zhang Tao did not forget those who had fought bloodily for the country and the people but had different political views from themselves, everyone had a reward, in Zhang Tao's words, you can have different opinions from me, but it has nothing to do with the honor you deserve, so it can be seen what is the intention of sending such a representative person to Taiwan.

The arrival of Huang Degong made the already turbulent small imperial court of Taiwan even more nervous, commenting that Taiwan during this period could not bypass the character of Zheng Jing in any case, in the original history, if it were not for the combination of this political strongman, Taiwan would not last so long, and it is difficult to say even once counterattacked the mainland, but this person also has his own historical limitations, and his life and Taiwan's fate were suffered by the two most important women in his life.

In this time and space, because Zheng Chenggong shrank too crooked early, and did not leave a frontier position such as Xiamen, there was no scene of Zheng Jing seizing the throne across the sea, but he was still questioned because of his personal relationship with his younger brother and nursing mother, and his mother also hated his illegitimate son Zheng Kezang very much, and his uncle Zheng Tai led the fleet out of the army although he failed to compete for the throne. However, recently there was news that after Zheng Tai retreated into the Ryukyus, he colluded with the Japanese to rob the fleet of the Chinese Dynasty, but on the contrary, he provoked the mainland, and the crusade fleet is now stopped off the coast of Penghu, and the connection between Taiwan and the Penghu Islands has been partially severed. The pirates off the coast of China have faced this situation more than once, but they have remained tenacious for so many years, but this time, both Zheng Jing and his old pirates feel powerless.

Zheng Jing is not a reckless man, he knows that only one Taiwan, even if it is plus many Europeans in Southeast Asia, it is impossible to confront the unified and stable mainland, so he planned to be recruited at the beginning, but what kind of conditions are recruited is a matter that needs to be bargained, in order to make the Chinese Dynasty accept his purpose of not landing on the shore, not handing over military rights, and being named a vassal king, he also has to seriously fight with the mainland's fleet, so a naval battle that is still unknown but will go down in history in the future will inevitably break out. It's just that this time the warring parties didn't have anything to do with him.

Li Xiuyuan led the fleet to the battlefield, even if he knew the performance of the new warship well, but he did not dare to hold it up, the Zheng family who dominated the waters of Southeast Asia was still there, he had been thinking that if it was not Zheng Tai's light enemy, he was bent on escaping, maybe this life would have stayed in Japan, so when he got information when he was replenishing Jeju Island, Zheng Tai, who had attacked him, had broken with Taiwan, so he boldly formulated a plan to attack the Ryukyus.

"The right rudder is full, and the enemy flagship is set on fire!" In the rumbling Baosheng and the dense smoke of gunpowder, Li Xiuyuan still stood on the deck in his military uniform, neither wearing heavy armor, nor staying on the armored bridge for the commander, his personal heroism was once called the courage of the horseman by Jiang Tian, and this kind of behavior was strictly forbidden when conducting surprise training for the officers of the task force, because the current lack of virtue in the Chinese Dynasty is not a ship but an officer with command experience.

Li Xiuyuan knew Lord Jiang's intentions, but he couldn't change this problem, he put on the new navy dress that was issued by him, he felt that he couldn't take it off in his life, in Jiang Tian's words, the military dress has no actual combat value, it is just a beautiful dress to show off, but what do soldiers need to show off? Naturally, it is a long history and tradition and awe-inspiring achievements, which are used to show these is the military uniform, which is not only the identification of the identity of the soldier, but also represents the soul of an army.

The snow-white dress loomed in the smoke of gunpowder, and the sailors on the battleship had a sense of calm security when they saw the figure of their commander, which was also one of the reasons why Li Xiuyuan had to stand in the midst of the artillery fire. Since leaving Jeju Island, the old sailors have already seen that the fleet is sailing towards the Ryukyus, in the face of the upcoming battle, all the people are a little uneasy, there are only a few ships on their side, but on the opposite side are more than 100 warships led by Zheng Tai, this is not the Japanese house ship, even if it is a small ship such as Cangshan and Guangchuan, thanks to the sale of surplus arms by the mainland in the past two years, it is also equipped with a lot of artillery. On his side, there are only eight ships.

Let any commander look at it, he will feel that this is not brave but death, in fact, Li Xiuyuan also thinks so, so he rejected the fate of other fleets, those friendly forces that are not much more advanced than the enemy, if there is no will to fight to the death, it will drag himself down, on the way to Liu Xiu, he repeatedly imagined various battle plans, and took all variables into account as much as possible, but he never expected that when Zheng Tai's fleet appeared in the telescope, the entire port was just shrouded in the light of the rising sun, The sea without waves was quiet and serene, and both the fleet and the port were still asleep, and there was no appearance of being ready for war at all.

Although it was a highly secretive attack, no one expected that the sneak attack would be successful, and there were also small warships like patrol ships on the road, but for the sake of the suddenness of the battle, Li Xiuyuan did not pay attention to them, but buried his head and rushed forward, maybe those reconnaissance fleets have not been able to catch up with it now. Look at the ship clock hanging on the wall, which is also a good thing that can only be supplied in Jeju Island. It was around four o'clock in the morning, so it was the perfect time for a sneak attack, and although the summer sunrise always came so early, the slack pirates didn't expect death to come.

Without too much hesitation, Li Xiuyuan ordered the fleet to rush straight to the port in a horizontal column, and when it was within range, a beautiful collective turned right, turning the original horizontal column into a column, and no matter what the firing order, the artillery and rockets smashed over. The sailors ran out of the cabin in a panic, some were in a hurry to make sails and some were in a hurry to paddle, and the result was that the originally crowded port was even more chaotic. However, Li Xiuyuan's side dealt a very heavy blow to the opponent's dense berthing area because of the rocket artillery, and Li Xiuyuan even saw with his own eyes that a not small Fu ship was pierced through the shell by one of the main gun shells of the Dinghai, and the shells exploded in another ship next to him. A rocket that strikes every two or three minutes makes the living sailors even more heartbroken, the rockets that explode in the air can make the deck burst out of the fluffy blood mist every time, those that do not explode are not much better, often fall on the ship and the ship is ignited, and the sea water is burning, if you are stained with this kind of flame, even if you jump into the sea immediately, you may not be able to live, this kind of scene is probably rare even if it is eighteen layers of hell, but it is already a veritable hell on earth.

Although there was a mess in the port, the batteries near the port were the first to reflect, these batteries were built recently, so Li Xiuyuan didn't know in advance, and when they shot out eighteen-pound iron balls, it really startled the commander of the task force, he was too familiar with this kind of artillery, whether it was defending the city or using it to conquer the city during the Northern Expedition, this kind of artillery played a considerable role, so this eighteen-pounder naval gun also had a very Chinese name, called the Hongyi Cannon, which was later changed to the Red Cannon. It's just that this time the Zheng family's artillery accuracy is obviously a little worse, and none of the shells fired indiscriminately can threaten the fleet. But Rao is like this, Li Xiuyuan didn't dare to stay any longer, even if it was a sturdy and abnormally large ship like the Dinghai, it would leave a hole that was difficult to repair if it was hit by a red-clothed cannon.

The task force temporarily retreated to the open sea, which left a little respite for the chaotic port, and the fire extinguishing and plugging the leak, but none of them thought of rushing out to fight to the death, these guys have already seen from the attack just now, they are inferior to others in terms of speed, they are inferior to others in terms of artillery, and they are still inferior to others in terms of strict and orderly quality of orders and prohibitions, so that when they see the sea, there is only a dead end. Li Xiuyuan was also a little difficult if they didn't come out, he wanted to catch Zheng Tai off guard, and finally forced him to fight a decisive battle with him, and then he could gradually consume this old pirate with the advantage of performance. Now it seems that this old thing is also a little timid. But when Li Xiuyuan raised the telescope and took a closer look again, he found an unusual place, because according to the report of the pervasive spies cultivated by His Majesty the Emperor, the Zheng family did not fall out with the mainland, so they could also get some convenience of maritime trade, and recently bought a few armed merchant ships from the Dutch, this kind of ship has at least twenty guns, which is one size bigger than the Zheng family's largest lucky ship, and Zheng Tai happened to get one, but now after looking for a long time, he has not been able to find the ship from a bunch of sail shadows, Could it be that Zheng Tai was not in the Ryukyus at this time?

In fact, Zheng Tai was here, but he was not anchored in an ordinary port, and since he learned of the fiasco of the attack on the Seto Inland Sea, he had already understood that his good days of rampaging in the Sea of Japan were coming to an end. After fleeing from Taiwan, he had no support, and it was even more difficult to ensure that Zheng Jing would not regard himself as a vote for the sake of his glory and wealth, so he had only one way out, that is, to become a pawn of the East India Company and work for the Dutch from then on. At this time, the Dutch were worried about the fact that the Spaniards had gone to China and won the emperor's favor, and they were also afraid that the Spaniards would instigate China to fight with them, and they coveted the share of trade with Japan that once belonged to the Zheng family and was now taken away by the mainland, so it was necessary for them to find a thug who seemed to be able to help them fight for hegemony.

In order to show their sincerity, the Dutch not only renovated Zheng Tai's ship, but also squeezed out the not rich ships from Batavia, and sent a fleet of ten armed merchant ships, whose mission was to support Zheng Tai on the one hand, and to see if the Spanish envoy could be intercepted at sea on the other hand. They calculated that Fernando would definitely sail from the mouth of Dagu, and as long as they reached the sea, they would have enough time to sink it on the way to Luzon, and as for whether this would trigger a full-scale hostility of China to the Netherlands, they would not consider it for the time being, as long as China and Spain did not unite, then the East India Company had reason to believe that it could still control the situation.

When Zheng Tai received the news of the attack on the fleet, he happened not to be in Shuri Castle, but to welcome the Dutch who came to help, he brought a hidden port, the location of this port was very close to the location of the Naha Airport in the later generations, adjacent to the port but hidden in a bay, so Li Xiuyuan, who was directly killing the port, did not see this fleet with the strongest combat power at the first time. But it doesn't matter, anyway, Zheng Tai's main fleet is now frightened and will definitely not dare to leave the range of the shore defense artillery. Zheng Tai, who didn't know who he was attacking, naturally ordered the fleet to attack, and he followed behind the Dutch, who were also eager to make contributions, to fight a victory to boost morale, but when these eleven standard European sailing ships sailed into the open sea, they found that there were only eight warships on the sea, which was far from the dense fire attack ships in Chinese-style naval battles.

Three of the ten Dutch warships were the most elite Galen warships, and these three were also old friends of the Chinese. Therefore, the Dutch actually still had a thought, that is, if they saw the Chinese fleet in that position, they would immediately sail away, and they would never let the precious warships of the East India Company sink to the bottom of the sea and become a paradise for fish. If Jiang Tian was here, he would definitely feel that the world is impermanent. At the same time, they will also despise the Dutch spirit of not shedding tears when they see the coffin, even if they are businessmen seeking profits, they can't ask for money like this, right? You were beaten by Zheng Zhilong and bowed down, and you had to buy a pass in the name of a Japanese ship, and now you think you can turn over when you see that the Zheng family is split? But why do you choose the least likely ally every time? As a result, the great battle known as the Ryukyu Naval War broke out under the misfortune of both sides.