On the 10th day of November, Li Zhi was teaching his son Li Huan to ride a horse in the wilderness east of Tianjin. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Fifty miles east of the Tianjin Acropolis is a large area of wasteland. Most of these lands are saline, unsuitable for agriculture and overgrown with weeds. However, there are many small herbivorous animals such as hares in the wasteland, and Li Xing often comes here with people to hunt.

Li Huan is now six years old, and he will inherit Li Zhi's career in the future, and Li Zhi hopes that he will be an excellent commander. Li Zhi found a docile foal for Li Huan to practice riding.

Li Huan heard that there was a horse to ride, and he was very happy in the carriage on the way over, bragging about what he would do if he got on the horse.

But when he really got to the wilderness and was about to get on the horse, Li Huan cowered and didn't dare to go up, so Li Zhi coaxed him on the horse after saying anything. Li Huan was still a little stiff at first, but after riding it for a while, he became bolder, laughed on the back of the colt, and rode around Li Zhi very happily.

Li Zhi was watching his son there, but saw more than a dozen horsemen coming this way in the distance. Taking a closer look, Li Zhi found that it was Lu Hu, the commander of his fleet. Lu Hu's fleet had to go to Taiwan once a month to transport a large amount of supplies needed by Hsinchu. Li Zhi could only see him in a few days after he returned to the port of Dagu in Tianjin.

Lu Hu came to Li Zhi to salute and said, "Grandpa Guo, Lu Hu has something important to report. ”

Li Zhi asked a personal guard to watch Li Huan, and said to Lu Hu: "You say." ”

Lu Hu arched his hand and said: "Grandpa Guo, there is an abnormality in the Zheng family in Fujian. ”

"Oh?"

"On these two trips to Taiwan, I found a lot of small boats disguised as fishing boats off the coast of Hsinchu, monitoring our entry and exit. As soon as the boats saw our fleet, they followed, snooping a few hundred paces away. There were also ships that followed our fleet, as if to record the dates of our arrivals and departures. ”

"There are also some sneaky outsiders on the docks in Dagu these days, speaking with a Fujian accent and looking around."

"On the island of Taiwan near Hsinchu, there are also a lot of secret posts of the Zheng family. Zheng Hui said that his people saw Han Chinese coming and going in the camp of the local Shengfan, apparently to buy information from the Shengfan. ”

Listening to Lu Hu's words, Li Zhi was silent, he remembered the scene when he saw Zheng Zhilong in the court in May. At that time, the pirate leader came up to share Li Zhi's profits in Hsinchu, and threatened Li Zhi with the Zheng family's warship.

There are not many people who dare to threaten Li Zhi these years.

However, the Zheng family's maritime power is indeed huge, and it actually controls the seas along the southeast coast. The sea ships of Fujian and Guangdong went to sea, and each boat had to give the Zheng family 2,000 taels of silver every year as money to buy the road. If you don't pay this money, you will be sunk if you encounter the Zheng family's fleet at sea.

Li Zhi's ship did not pass through Fujian, but it did not buy money for the Zheng family. But now that Hsinchu's business is getting bigger and bigger, Zheng Zhilong is red-eyed. The land in Hsinchu is fertile, Li Zhi has cultivated more than 10,000 hectares of land there, and the annual rent income has 2 or 3 million taels of silver after deducting various expenses, and this number is still increasing, Zheng Zhilong coveted it.

Judging from the situation reflected by Lu Hu, the Zheng family is staring at Hsinchu. It is estimated that in less than a year and a half, Zheng Zhilong will have to do something to Hsinchu.

Today, Hsinchu's ground rent has become Li Zhi's largest income, and it cannot be missed.

Li Zhi pondered for a moment, and said to Lu Hu: "Call Gao Ligong, let's go to the shipbuilding site to have a look." ”

Li Zhi continued to teach Li Huan to ride a horse, and when Gao Ligong came, he went to Wangjiawan together and went to Wang Laoda's shipyard to have a look.

After three and a half years of development, Li Zhi now has 43 pointed ships with a displacement of more than 400 tons. These large ships were armed with twenty eighteen-pounder guns and had considerable combat effectiveness. Moreover, Li Zhi has two shipbuilding sites in Dengzhou and Tianjin that are building new ships, and new ships are launched every year.

These ships are more than enough to deal with the average pirate. However, if he faced the Zheng family, Li Zhi still had some lack of confidence.

On the way to the shipyard, Gao Ligong said: "Grandpa Guo, the number of pirates in the Zheng family is very huge. Tens of thousands of people at every turn. These pirates are all foraging for food in the waves, and they are very skilled in handling boats. Although they also built more than a hundred large ships and equipped them with cannons, many more were small ships with two masts. ”

"Not to mention Zheng Zhilong's big ships, some ships have eight or nine heavy guns, and some ships are equipped with four or five small guns, and the overall firepower is not comparable to our fleet. However, Zheng Zhilong's greatest strength is his large number of small boats. ”

"When Zheng Zhilong was still a sea guerrilla, there were more than 100 such boats. Now the entire Fujian Navy is under the dispatch of Zheng Zhilong, and Zheng Zhilong rarely says that he can dispatch five or six hundred such small boats. ”

"Zheng Zhilong was born as a pirate, he didn't have the technology to build a lot of artillery, and there were no cannons on these small boats, and these small boats were used as fireships when there was a naval battle. The sailors on board drove their boats to the side of the enemy ships without firing guns or hand-to-hand combat, and then set their own ships on fire along with the enemy ships. ”

"The fireship was loaded with hay, gunpowder and other flammable materials, and the bow was fitted with sharp hooks. On the battlefield, the sailors of the fireship quickly rowed the fireboat and sprinted towards the enemy ship, stabbed the hook into the hull of the enemy's ship, and then set the fireboat on fire and burned the enemy's ship. ”

"At the beginning of Liaoluo Bay, the big ships of the Dutch were burned and sunk by Zheng Zhilong's fireships one by one. No matter how big the ship is, it can't withstand the dozens of such fire ships surrounding and burning. ”

"Burning a big ship, Zheng Zhilong gave the pirates on the fire ship a reward of several hundred taels of silver, and never defaulted. Therefore, the fireship thieves were very enthusiastic and not afraid of death. ”

"This tactic is very vicious, and once surrounded by fireboats, no matter how big the ship is, it will not be able to escape."

Li Zhi listened to Gao Ligong's words, nodded slightly, and did not speak all the way.

Everyone rode to Wangjiawan under the honor guard of the national government.

Over the years, Li Zhi has continued to place shipbuilding orders for Wangjiawan, and Wangjiawan has really become rich. Although Boss Wang verbally said that he didn't make much money from shipbuilding, the actual profit was obviously still very considerable. Li Zhi saw that many elegant courtyards had been built near Wangjiawan, and all the original shipbuilders' earthen houses had been demolished. The boatbuilder's family went in and out of the yard and wore very decent clothes.

Li Zhi smiled and asked someone to find Boss Wang.

"Boss Wang, when will the ship you build now be ready?"

Boss Wang knelt on the ground and kowtowed, then stood up respectfully and replied: "Grandpa Guo, according to General Lu's order, we have built a larger pointed ship this time, with 5,000 materials and 24 gun emplacements. ”

Li Zhi nodded and asked, "What if I want to equip the ship with iron armor outside?" ”

Boss Wang was stunned for a long time before he said, "Grandpa Guo, how can this wooden boat be equipped with iron armor?" ”