At the beginning of October in the first year of Chenghua, Jinan Fucheng.

A month has passed, and Hu Dexing, the governor of Shandong, still has not received a reply from the Dutch, and according to intelligence and maritime reports, the Dutch are gathering troops and hoarding supplies on Luzon, and are frantically reinforcing the largest stronghold - Batavia City, it seems that they are preparing to nest in Luzon and ignore the Ming treaty!

This is clearly ready to continue to resist!

Hu Dexing said angrily to Zhang Xiaojun: "These Xiyi are simply scoundrels! The imperial court has already sent a treaty, whether it is war or peace, and there is not even a reply, just delaying the time, looking like a stinky scoundrel, I think these Dutch are a bunch of scoundrels! ”

Zhang Xiaojun was also very angry, he originally thought that the Dutch would either reorganize their troops and fight again, or they would send people to negotiate peace with the imperial court and bargain over the treaty.

But Zhang Xiaojun never thought that these Dutchmen would learn to be scoundrels in the market, and they would not fight or make peace, so they relied on it!

"Governor! This matter should be reported to His Majesty and the Hou Ye immediately! ”

Hu Dexing nodded and said, "I have already sent someone to send out two copies of the report, and the one of the Hou Ye was sent out half a day earlier than the one for His Majesty!" ”

"So what do we do next?"

Hu Dexing thought for a moment and said, "The trapped army immediately began to mobilize and be ready to dispatch at any time!" At the same time, he told Feng Xiang that now that the Nanjing Navy Division had returned, even if he really wanted to expedition to Luzon Island, the imperial court would probably not recruit the Nanjing Navy again, and let him reorganize the Dongping Island Navy within three months! ”

"Three months?"

Zhang Xiaojun said with some concern: "The navy is different from the army, is three months enough?" ”

"Enough!"

Hu Dexing said: "Now the seven large shipyards in Shandong are running at full capacity, and at least a dozen second-class battleships are under construction, and there are even more third-class and fourth-class battleships!" Moreover, two batches of Bibo Hall cadets have graduated, and three months is enough time for the Dongping Island Navy to expand! ”

Capital.

After Emperor Chenghua received the report from Hu Dexing, the governor of Shandong, he was also angry, he didn't expect the Dutch to be such a scoundrel, and after thinking about it, he didn't have any good ideas.

Now that the Ming Dynasty is at war on three sides, the treasury is already barely supporting, if the army is mobilized at this time and the expedition is tens of thousands of miles, the national strength of the Ming Dynasty will not be able to support it.

If he really went on an expedition to Luzon at this time, Emperor Chenghua would have even seen the scene of the ministers of the court jumping to scold the street.

Thinking of this, Emperor Chenghua shook his head helplessly, and then groaned for a while, then wrote an edict and sent eight hundred miles to the northwest front line urgently, ready to ask Liu Juntao about countermeasures.

A few days later, the edict of Emperor Chenghua and the telegram of Hu Dexing, the governor of Shandong, were delivered to Liu Juntao almost simultaneously.

At this time, Liu Juntao had already led the officers and men of the Tiance Army to advance to ten miles south of the Shazhou Acropolis, and more than 30,000 soldiers from Shaanxi Town, who had responded to the plan, also continued to advance, and set up camp fifteen miles east of the Shazhou Acropolis.

After he led his troops to retreat to the Acropolis of Shazhou, he commanded his soldiers and horses to attack the Tiance army camp four times, but all of them were repelled by the soldiers of the Tiance army without exception, and thousands of soldiers and horses were lost.

Seeing that the Tiance army was strong, Jia Silan also changed his strategy, scattered his iron cavalry, relying on the strength of the Ming army's iron cavalry at a disadvantage, and attacked the logistics supply line of the Ming army, which made Liu Juntao feel a headache for a while, and could only temporarily stabilize the situation, and ordered all units of the Tiance army to carry out a counterattack with iron cavalry.

For a time, the killing sound around the Shazhou Acropolis was everywhere, and the Ming army and the 270,000 troops under the command of Jiaslan were in a stalemate.

In such a situation, Liu Juntao saw that the Dutch were also playing scoundrels, and couldn't help but smile bitterly: "It seems that Daming has also encountered an asymmetrical battle, and the Dutch and Jaslan gave up the head-on confrontation at the same time, which is really a headache!" ”

At this time, the suffering in front of Liu Juntao was the same as that of Emperor Chenghua: whether the Ming Dynasty was on an expedition to Luzon at this time!

According to the national strength of the Ming Dynasty at this time, Liu Juntao would never believe that the Ming Dynasty could win four large-scale wars at the same time!

The two battlefields in the northwest and south were fought at the same time, and the Ming Dynasty had already worked hard to the limit, and it was obviously unrealistic to expedition to Luzon at this time.

"Do you want to let those Dutch stay in Luzon? The results of the previous naval battles will be in vain! ”

Liu Juntao was unwilling, frowning and thinking about countermeasures.

Suddenly, something flashed in Liu Juntao's mind, a noun emerged, and the corners of Liu Juntao's mouth began to turn up slightly.

Privateer Order!

A privateer order is a privateer license issued by the state authorizing an individual to attack or plunder a ship of another country. Ships that enforce privateer orders are often referred to as privateers or armed civilian vessels, and their captains are often referred to as privateer captains. Strictly speaking, privateering is only allowed in wartime, and at this time there is no truce between the Ming and the Netherlands, that is, it is in wartime!

Privateers are often used to disrupt enemy nations' maritime trade routes. For countries with weak maritime powers, this is a good way to defeat a strong enemy, and for a weak enemy, it is more able to block it in a fixed area and not move.

In later generations, many Western countries used this method to build up their own maritime armed forces without spending a lot of money, and at the same time trained a large number of excellent sailors and officers.

Liu Juntao also has this kind of plan, after all, the talent of the Dongping Island Navy is still a short board, and it is completely possible to let those maritime merchants and even pirates enhance their combat power through this move, and then select the best ones to be absorbed into the Dongping Island Navy.

Liu Juntao clearly remembers that in later generations, Britain accumulated a large number of qualified sailors by virtue of privateer orders, blockaded and weakened Spain's maritime power at that time, and finally destroyed the Spanish Armada in World War I, establishing Britain's position as the supremacy of the sea!

Moreover, Liu Juntao believed that it was also possible to set up a trading ground in Shandong, and that the goods obtained by those privateers attacking enemy ships could be auctioned and sold in a fixed trading place, and Shandong towns could also extract some expenses from them.

Thinking of this, Liu Juntao sorted out the ideas of promulgating privateering orders and opening trading venues in detail, wrote them down freely, and spent most of the night writing a thick letter, and early the next morning, he sent the soldiers to the capital without collecting them at night.

A few days later, Emperor Chenghua received Liu Juntao's recital.

“…… The imperial court issued a privateer order, allowing private merchants and ordinary people to build their own ships to go to sea, and they could wait for an opportunity to attack the merchant ships of the Dutch, as well as any foreign merchant ships that had trade with the Dutch! ”

“…… The casualties of the people and the loss of ships caused by this shall be compensated by the imperial court, and all goods and ships captured by privateer ships must be divided into fifty or fifty with the imperial court......"

"Open a trading ground in Shandong, all the goods and even ships seized by privateers can be sold and sold in the trading field, and Shandong Town will charge a certain amount of taxes and fees according to the price of the goods, of which thirty percent will be retained by Shandong Town, and the remaining seventy percent will be handed over to the imperial treasury!"

This letter was sprinkled with thousands of words, detailing the various terms and details of the privateer order, and Emperor Chenghua was overjoyed after reading it.

Even Emperor Chenghua is not very good at maritime affairs, but he can understand that once this privateering order is promulgated, it can be said that it will kill multiple birds with one stone!

This move can not only suppress the Dutch in Luzon, but also make the Dutch's merchant ships have nowhere to hide, and can cut off all trade between the Dutch around Daming in one fell swoop!

Moreover, the imperial court can also obtain a large amount of tax revenue, although the imperial court needs to bear the damage to privateers, casualties and other losses, but compared to the share and taxes obtained, these expenditures are small.

The most important point, which is also mentioned by Liu Juntao in the recital, is that the issuance of a privateer order can train a considerable number of qualified sailors and captains for the Ming Dynasty in a short period of time, and these people can be used as the reserve talents of the Ming sailors, and can even greatly promote the development of the Ming shipbuilding industry!

Although Liu Juntao depicted the prospect of navigation in the twists and turns, Emperor Chenghua didn't see anything exciting for a while, and he didn't think it would bring any great achievements to the Ming Dynasty, but he could also understand that this move was beneficial to the Ming Dynasty, at least the number of sea ships increased significantly, and after the increase in sea trade, the income of the city shipping department could be greatly increased! This is the existence of real money, especially at this time when the Ming Dynasty is fighting on three fronts, and the treasury spends money like flowing water, which is of great significance!

Emperor Chenghua immediately approved Liu Juntao's performance, and sent it to the cabinet on the same day.

At the same time, Emperor Chenghua wrote an edict to Hu Dexing, the governor of Shandong, asking him to immediately select a site in Shandong to prepare for the construction of a trading field, and prepare to mobilize a batch of weapons for naval warfare.

According to Liu Juntao's compromise proposal, Emperor Chenghua planned to mobilize a large number of naval firearms from Shandong, even small artillery, and sell these weapons to privateer owners for use.

Of course, this does not mean that these privateer owners can do whatever they want, if they want to get the privateer order of the imperial court, they must have a guarantor, and they must use all their net worth as collateral, and register the father, mother, and wife clans in the government.

Moreover, the firearms sold in Shandong Town are all obsolete products after the upgrading of the Tiance Army over the years, and these firearms have no chance of winning against the trapped army stationed in Shandong.

Shandong is the hometown of the Tiance Army, and there is a trap army of the Tiance Army stationed there, guarded by the governor of Shandong and the chief military officer of Shandong Town, which can be described as stable as Mount Tai, which is also the confidence of Emperor Chenghua to issue a privateer order in Shandong.

After Hu Dexing and Zhang Xiaojun received the edict from Emperor Chenghua, they were also excited, and immediately began to arrange it.