At the banquet, Li Xiao took turns to persuade Zheng Zhifeng and Zheng Cai to drink, and for a while, between the guests and the hosts, there was laughter and laughter, and the atmosphere was very harmonious. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Seeing that Zheng Zhifeng and Zheng Cai both had drunken faces, Li Xiao smiled and asked: "Ben Bo wants to go to the Spaniards in northern Taiwan, but I don't know if Deputy General Zheng (Zheng Zhilong) can help Ben Bo?" Of course, if Vice General Zheng intends to help, our army will not treat your army badly. ”

Listening to Li Xiao's question, Zheng Zhifeng stopped his chopsticks, he groaned slightly, and then said to Li Xiao with a smile: "Uncle Chifeng, before coming to your land, my brother once told me that if you want to help your army transport the goods of the displaced people, you can agree. As for the Spaniards or Dutch who sent troops to help your army attack Taiwan, because most of our army's combat ships have been dispatched, it is difficult to gather for a while, but it is difficult to spare strength to support your army, so Xiao Ke is also helpless, and he is here to sue for his brother. ”

When Zheng Zhifeng said this, he hurriedly said: "However, if Chi Fengbo has the intention to conquer the Yi people on Taiwan Island, although our army is not able to help, it will also adopt a neutral attitude, and will never give secret support to the Spaniards and the Dutch. ”

Li Xiao sighed, didn't say anything, but smiled and continued to persuade the wine.

However, in his heart, there were many feelings for a while.

Li Xiao now, the first person he wants to attack is the Spaniards who occupy northern Taiwan. His original plan was that if he could get Zheng Zhilong's help, the two fleets would join forces to seal off the chicken coop harbor and close the door to the Spaniards, so that they could only be captured obediently under the joint attack of Li Xiaojun's land and water divisions.

But now, Zheng Zhijing made it clear that he didn't want to participate in this battle, so that Li Xiao's plan could no longer be implemented.

Moreover, Zheng Zhilong's attitude also sent two signals to Li Xiao, that is, one is that between Zheng Zhilong and Li Xiao, although there have been many cooperations, the two sides are just business relations after all. The second is that Zheng Zhilong is now doing big business with the Spaniards and the Dutch, and of course he does not want to destroy this relationship, but he is more interested in sitting on the mountain and watching the tiger fight.

Thinking of this, Li Xiao even had a dark thought in his heart.

That is, if he loses the battle against the Spaniards, then Zheng Zhilong is very likely to change his previous face of being willing to cooperate, and will in turn ruthlessly embezzle the industry he has worked hard to build in Taiwan, so that the cranes and mussels will compete and the fishermen will benefit.

This real world of love is like paper and mountains of interests, and it was originally a deception and mutual use, and Zheng Zhilong, who started as a pirate, understands this even more.

It's better to ask for someone than to ask for it.

Hmph, in this case, then Benbo wants to let your Zheng family see how my Tiger Army can take this place of Taipei occupied by the Spaniards with the strength of one family!

In the next few days, Zheng Zhifeng and Zheng Cai completed the purchase of commercial goods in Chifeng City, and the cigarettes, ironware, woolen wool, raw silk, silk and other commercial goods they purchased were packed into 50 large ships, and the total purchase amount reached more than 2 million taels of silver.

At this time, Li Xiao had collected a full 550,000 displaced people, all the soldiers of the Pingnan battalion to be replenished, and a large number of weapons, armor, horses, baggage, commercial goods and other items, all of which had been prepared.

November 10 of the 10th year of Chongzhen.

Good days and auspicious days, good travel.

Li Xiao personally led the soldiers and civilians to board a ship from Longkou Port in Chifeng City and go to Taiwan.

Li Xiao chose Longkou Port instead of Dengzhou Port because of its open terrain, which is convenient for transporting displaced people, and if he boarded a ship at such a commercial wharf, there would be no danger of military intelligence leakage.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty during the Xiaoice River period, the weather was cold early, and on the day Li Xiao led the army to set out, the weather was already very cold, dark clouds were low, the sea breeze was cold, and there were already fine crystal snowflakes, flying and falling from the sky, between the sea and the sky, full of the taste of vastness and gloom.

It's just that in such a bleak environment, the dock is a hot scene.

A large number of people carried ordnance and merchant goods, like swarms of busy ants, carrying all kinds of goods to various large ships in Longkou Port.

The 550,000 displaced people who were on standby were crying and squaking.

The homeland is difficult to leave, the hometown is difficult to give up, most of these people, most of them come from Huguang and Shaanxi, and more than 100,000 people from Henan, North Zhili and Shandong, at this time, they all know that after going south, the sea and the sky are separated, in this life and this life, it may be difficult to return to their hometown.

Unlike the common people, the soldiers of the Pingnan Battalion were all excited, rubbing their hands together, and almost every soldier's eyes flashed with a desire to fight. These young soldiers all yearn to go to that strange land, to make meritorious contributions and make a name for themselves.

Li Xiao calmly watched everything in front of him, after the first two experiences of transporting homeless people and soldiers, Li Xiao faced such a scene, but his heart did not fluctuate too much.

In troubled times, life comes first, and there is nothing more important than surviving in this troubled world.

He firmly believes that these homeless people and soldiers, when spreading the blood of the Han family to overseas foreign lands, their own strength and strength will increase day by day, and after the quantitative change to the qualitative change, there should be a more brilliant future, waiting for themselves.

Li Xiao's own sailors dispatched a total of 30 ships on this expedition, of which 16 were various warships captured from the Dutch, and the other 14 were No. 1 and No. 2 fortune ships captured from the former Dongjiang Town sailors.

As for the remaining 30 Haicang boats, small boats such as the Catch Boat, the Sand Boat, and the Bird Boat that were seized from the former Donggang Town Sailors, Li Xiao left them in Dengju as necessary ships for water transportation and communication with Jeju Island.

Li Xiao left a large number of commercial goods and all the soldiers on his thirty boats, and let all the displaced people take the 300 boats brought by Zheng Zhifeng and Zheng Cai.

In this way, there are a total of 300 large ships carrying the 550,000 displaced people. On average, more than 1,800 displaced people are carried on each boat, and although it is a little crowded, it is completely accessible and has a little room to move.

At the same time, Li Xiao gave the 300 ships, each with 30 auxiliaries, to maintain order with the Zheng soldiers. In addition, several healers are attached to each boat carrying the displaced people to prevent and treat illnesses along the way.

The scale of 550,000 displaced people on board the ship is extremely huge, and at a glance, the crowd is surging and endless. Fortunately, the Department of Civil Affairs had already made a plan and assigned a specific ship number to each group of displaced people, so that when the displaced people boarded the ship, the team was busy but not chaotic, and although the scale was large, it was well organized.

Families of displaced people, dressed in rags, dragging the old and the young, with the few remaining belongings, boarded the boat from the gangway, and then disappeared into the crowd of people.

Looking at the surging crowd, Li Xiao had a strange feeling in his heart.

Originally, in real history, these displaced people who either died of sword fighting or famine and disease, but now, because of their own crossing, they have completely changed their fate, got a chance to live, and can go overseas to make a living and develop, and spread their branches.

Because the weather was extremely cold, wind and snow, Li Xiao did not let his family come to see him off. However, when he was about to board the ship with a group of guards, he saw a familiar figure.

"Jagren, why are you here?"

Looking at the approaching Makata, Li Xiao asked softly.

Under the gaze of the guards, Makata lowered his head and handed him a large package in his hand: "Lord Li, this is Princess Ingmar, let me give it to your lordship so that you can wear it on the road to protect you from the cold." “

After Makata finished speaking, his face flew a light red, and he didn't wait for Li Xiao to speak, he immediately turned around and walked away quickly.

Li Xiao watched her leave alone with complicated eyes.

Then, Li Xiao pulled out the corner of the package and saw that it was a thick tight cotton coat inside.

He suddenly remembered that his concubine Ingmar had told him in a joking tone that his maid Makata had been obsessed with sewing clothes in recent months, and that she had been flying needles and threads in the room every day. At that time, he didn't think much about it, but now he saw that this cotton coat with tight and dense stitches should have been specially sewn by Makata for himself, and it was definitely not Ingmar's intention.

Thinking of that moonlit night a few months ago, this Makata was still bent on assassinating himself, Li Xiao couldn't help but feel a lot of emotion in his heart.

This poor girl has finally crossed the hurdle in her heart。。。。。。

Li Xiao didn't say anything in the end, and turned his hand to hand over the cotton clothes to the guards next to him to accept.

It wasn't until dusk that the 550,000 homeless people finally boarded the ship, and at this time, Li Xiao finally boarded the Thang Long, the leader of his own sailors.

The sea breeze is bleak, the fine snowflakes are already flying all over the sky, and the Longkou Port, which is already empty in the south, is getting smaller and smaller, and finally disappears. Between heaven and earth, there is only a vast expanse.

Sailing in such an empty and monotonous environment, Li Xiao felt that the Shenglong under his feet and the sea ships next to him seemed to be stationary, as if they were all stationary, as if they were forever stagnant, between the increasingly dim and vast sea and sky.

Li Xiao, who was looking from the side, let the cold snowflakes caress his handsome face, and let the cold sea breeze blow the bright red cloak to the wind and fly fiercely, his eyes were deep, his expression was serious, but he was carefully calculating in his heart, how to fight the Spaniards when he went to Taiwan this time.

Li Xiao suddenly remembered the relevant situation of the current Spanish Empire in real history.

From the middle of the last century to the beginning of this century, Spain at this time was quite powerful, with the most extensive colonies in the world, and most of the United States, Africa, and large areas of Asia were under its rule. Its sphere of influence spreads throughout the world, and it is known as the empire on which the sun never sets. This was a truly cosmopolitan empire before the rise of the later British Empire.

On the European continent, King Philip II of Spain even arrogantly put forward the slogan of letting the Habsburg dynasty in Spain unify the whole of Europe. Subsequently, the Spaniards first went to war with the French, and the French were forced to surrender. Then, in the name of the Christian allies in Europe, he launched the war of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which was bent on expanding into the Mediterranean valley at the time, and inflicted heavy losses on the powerful Turkish fleet at the Battle of Lebán in western Greece.

In the eighth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, King Philip II of Spain used the excuse that he was half Portuguese blood, and sent the Duke of Alva to lead an army to forcibly merge Portugal (Portugal did not regain independence until 60 years later), and became the king of Portugal, and changed his name to Philip I.

In 1588, King Philip II of Spain was ambitious to destroy the rising English Empire, so he sent an expedition against the English Empire under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, with 130 large ships and more than 30,000 battle-hardened soldiers.

However, although the Spanish navy was huge, its equipment was backward, corrupt and inefficient, and it was suddenly attacked by a storm, and this world-famous "invincible armada" was completely defeated by a pirate-born Drake, who led the British navy mixed with a large number of pirate ships, and only some of the surviving fleets fled north, bypassing Scotland and Ireland, before returning to Spain with extremely heavy losses. From then on, Spain lost its position as a maritime hegemon and began to gradually decline.

But even so, Spain is still one of the best maritime powers, and in the vast ocean, it is still a force to be reckoned with.

Immediately after the arrival of Spain in the East, they began to invade the beautiful and rich Luzon.

Luzon is located in the northern part of the Philippine Islands, when the establishment of the Luzon State, is a very prosperous country, and has friendly exchanges with China for a long time, it is located in the South China Sea trade route, north of the South China Sea, south of the Malacca route, is a prime location for trade and navigation.

Such a treasure land, the Spaniards have coveted for a long time, and this time the whole army came to come, and they were determined to get it.

But to the great surprise of the Spaniards, the small state of Luzon put up desperate resistance, and the Spaniards attacked many times, only to be repulsed.

This brutal battle lasted for ten years before the Spaniards captured Manila, the capital of Luzon, and killed the king of Luzon. It was only after paying a heavy price that the Spaniards finally got all of Luzon, as well as the nearby Philippine islands, large and small.

In 1603, after the capture of Luzon, the Spanish colonists, envious of the wealth of Chinese businessmen, finally became wild and slaughtered more than 20,000 Chinese in the Philippines. After the massacre, the Spanish colonists were very weak, fearing that the Ming Dynasty, the suzerainty of Luzon, would send troops to retaliate. But he didn't expect that the stupid and incompetent Wanli Emperor, after getting the news of the Spanish massacre of the Chinese, praised it greatly, and he issued an edict saying: The Chinese are scoundrels, and the merchants are even more overseas pariahs, and the Celestial Empire will not embarrass friends for such a trivial matter, please rest assured that you will do it yourself. As a result, after receiving the edict, the Spaniards were ecstatic, and they were even more fearless about the oppression and humiliation of the Chinese. Since then, the Chinese who were originally respected in Nanyang have become untouchables who are inferior to the local natives.

From this time until modern China, the history of the Chinese in the entire Nanyang region can be called a history of blood and tears that makes people sigh.

And the weakness and incompetence of the Ming court further stimulated the ambitions of the Spaniards.

The Spaniards began to seriously consider the complete conquest of this weak and disgraced ancient China.

This is not a joke, as the then governor of Manila, La Vizales, drew up a map of China's coast and presented it to King Philip II of Spain. In his report to the king, he claimed that with only four to six thousand troops, he could conquer China.

He also convened the Manila Conference, at which the Spanish military, political, and religious elites in Asia were gathered, and they drew up a memorandum containing eleven articles and 97 articles, which was then signed by 51 nobles, and then sent back to Madrid, Spain, for approval by King Philip II.

The whole battle plan can be briefly described as follows: The Spaniards planned to draw in the Portuguese younger brothers, use the Japanese churches, recruit a large number of Japanese mercenaries, and land from the four regions of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangnan, and Shandong in China, blockade the Chinese coast on all fronts, and then advance by separate routes to conquer China in one fell swoop.

These greedy robbers even specifically stated in the memorandum that after the landing, all units must fight together and must not fight for merit, especially not to plunder and burn states and counties as in the Americas and Africa. The purpose of this is to prevent the decline of the Chinese population, because population is wealth, the most scarce resource in Spain's vast colonies.

In this plan, Lavisares even planned for the post-war period, that is, to establish church schools in China, to replace Confucianism with Catholicism, to replace Chinese with Spanish, and to encourage Spaniards to marry more Chinese women as wives, and to become officials in China after having children.

It can be seen that the Spaniards at that time had completely regarded China as their dish, and it is a pity that the Ming court knew nothing about it and was completely in the dark.

In the end, it was only because the British destroyed the Armada that the Spaniards had spent a lot of money to build, and left the Spanish king Philip II with a huge debt of up to 100 million gold coins, that the Spaniards, who felt deeply powerless, finally gave up the idea of invading China.

It is worth mentioning that this huge debt of up to 100 million gold coins requires 2/3 of Spain's domestic income just to pay the interest on the debt, which is really staggering. Philip II was unable to pay off until his death, and his profligate son, Philip III, instead of paying off his debts and reviving the empire, borrowed heavily and drank and drunk, plunging the Spanish Empire into a deep sinking.

Thinking of this, Li Xiao's face was as heavy as iron, but he was secretly ruthless in his heart.

"Hmph, you Spanish Xiaoxiao, now Ben Bo himself is leading the army, but he wants to cut you scoundrels who owe blood to the Chinese, and let you know that the Chinese who have always paid attention to gentleness, frugality, and retribution with virtue, and the Chinese who have always been wantonly bullied and humiliated by Er and others, will also mercilessly raise the bloody butcher knife at your arrogant and ugly head!"