The East India Company has really gone back to its old business and played pirates again!

After receiving the news, Zhang Bin hurriedly rushed to the port to learn about the attack and comfort the injured soldiers.

At this time, Zheng Zhibao was in charge of counting the battle damage, according to his statistics, the warship did not lose, but earned more than 30 ships, but the casualties were more serious, a burst of shooting and then a broadside battle instantly lost hundreds of people, and the wounded were as high as thousands!

However, the pirates were not much better, not to mention more than 30 ships were robbed, and more than 30 were sunk, although most of them were medium and small ships, and there were few large ships, but they lost at least a thousand people, and countless were wounded.

According to Zheng Zhibao's analysis, the pirate Liu Xiang has at least 20,000 subordinates at this time, and the number of warships is probably more than 200, and the development momentum is very amazing, and I don't know where he got so many people and so many ships.

Zhang Bin also wanted to know this question, and heard that Zheng Zhilong was torturing a few captured pirate leaders at the Geranza Castle at this time, so he praised Zheng Zhibao with all his might, and then rushed over in a clipper.

In fact, the interrogation of pirates is quite fast, because Zheng Zhilong doesn't need to talk about any rules, just ask if you say or not, if you don't say it, it will be a big punishment, and if you don't say it, you will kill chickens and monkeys, and it's strange who can hold it after killing a few face-to-face.

When Zhang Bin came over, he had already finished the interrogation, and even washed his hands, and was sitting in the study with a towel to wipe his hands.

Seeing Zhang Bin come in, he immediately threw away the towel, stood up and said in surprise: "My lord, why are you here, if there is something to summon me, I will go over, how troublesome it is to run over in person." ”

Zhang Bin smiled and sat on the chair he gave up, and asked with interest, "How is it, did you ask something?" ”

Zheng Zhilong said calmly: "I asked for something, but unfortunately it is not very useful." ”

When Zhang Bin heard this, his eyes lit up, and he asked, "Oh, what did you ask?" ”

Zheng Zhilong said lightly: "Liu Xiang's nest is in Qiongzhou Mansion, Guangdong, and he has dens in Ryukyu and Nanyang, but unfortunately the ones caught this time are all small bosses, just the kind that runs behind the buttocks, I haven't seen the route map, there is no compass, and I can't even tell the difference between the southeast and northwest, so I can't tell a specific location at all." ”

The capital of Qiongzhou is Hainan, which is about the same size as Dongfan, and the population is pitiful, and it is really difficult to find a pirate lair without knowing the specific location, unless you carefully search along the coastline like last time.

Do you want to send someone to search?

Zhang Bin fell into deep thought, this is not a simple question, because he is only the governor of Fujian, not the southeast governor of the East India Company, Qiongzhou Mansion is the territory of the political envoy of Guangdong Chengxuan, and it is obvious that he has exceeded his authority by sending people to carry out a carpet search, and it will be troublesome if people join him.

Sometimes, the more power you have, the more you have to pay attention to proportion, lawlessness, blind and messing around, that's looking for death, the emperor sometimes has to be restricted, you are a courtier's nonsense, what do you mean, do you want to learn from Gonggong Wei to set the emperor in the air?

He was thinking of a way there, Zheng Zhilong suddenly said inexplicably: "My lord, in fact, we also have pirates!" ”

Zhang Bin was stunned when he heard this, looked at him in surprise and said, "What do you mean?" ”

Zheng Zhilong said fiercely: "The Dutch do this, nothing more than to monopolize the trade of the East, the South Seas, and even the Ming Dynasty, they do the first day of the new year, we will do the fifteenth, otherwise, we will also use pirates to drive them out of the East and dominate the Dongying market, so that most of their profits will be gone, and we can earn more." ”

Zhang Bin didn't understand this very well, most of the profits, is it so big?

Dongying does have a lot of people, but the land is small and the resources are scarce, how much money can they make, besides, no matter how rich they are, can they be richer than the Ming Dynasty?

Zhang Bin asked puzzledly: "Are Dongying people very rich?" ”

When Zheng Zhilong heard this, his eyes lit up and said: "They are indeed relatively poor, and even copper coins have to be bought from outside, but they are rich in silver, and the output is amazingly high, judging from the comparison of gold and silver, Dongying's silver production is second only to Spain's colonies in the Americas!" ”

Zhang Bin is surprised, Zheng Zhilong is worthy of being a super maritime merchant who dominated the southeast sea in history, and he even knows how to analyze silver production from the price comparison!

How do you look at this, is the price difference so big that you can see it at a glance, he couldn't help but ask curiously, "How do you see it?" ”

Zheng Zhilong was a little surprised and said: "This is very simple, in Daming, one tael of gold can be exchanged for a maximum of sixty taels of silver, but in Dongying, one tael of gold can be exchanged for almost one hundred and ten taels of silver, and in Manila, Luzon, one tael of gold can be exchanged for at least one hundred and twenty taels of silver!" ”

Zhang Bin was dumbfounded and said: "Such a big price difference, doesn't that mean that if you exchange one or two gold in Daming, you can earn fifty taels of silver when you go to Dongying, and you can earn sixty taels of silver when you go to Luzon?" ”

Zheng Zhilong nodded slightly and said: "You can say that, but the premise is that you have to be able to exchange for gold in Daming, and besides, when you get to Dongying and Luzon, you have to find someone who is willing to buy gold." This mainly depends on how much you want to exchange, one or two boxes of gold, it is easy to get rid of, but if it is one or two boats of gold, it will be difficult. Therefore, both the Spaniards and the Dutch earned gold and silver through goods, such as the Spaniards, who shipped silver directly from the American colonies, and then bought goods everywhere and shipped them to the European continent to sell gold coins. The Dutch bought goods from Nanyang and Daming, transported them to Dongying to sell, earned silver, and then purchased goods from Daming and transported them to Europe to sell, the difference in price was more than twice as much, and the profit was more than 20 times. ”

Twenty times the profit, exaggerated, Zhang Bin asked puzzledly: "Twenty times the profit, how did you calculate it?" ”

Zheng Zhilong explained: "For example, rice, in the Ming Dynasty, purchased from Nanzhili or Zhejiang, is about eight or nine cents of silver and one stone, and sold to the north, it is about one or two pieces of silver and one stone, minus the consumption of the transportation process, and it is good to earn five cents of silver per stone of rice." However, once it is pulled to Dongying, a stone of rice can be sold for at least two taels of silver, if it is transported tens of thousands of stones at a time, then the freight can account for a point at most, and the remaining one or two are net profits, and the profit is twenty times! There is also white sugar, purchased in Fujian, about one tael of silver and one hundred catties, sold to Nanzhili, or North Zhili and other places, at most can be sold for about one or two cents, minus transportation losses, one hundred catties can also earn about one cent. However, if you sell it to Dongying, you can sell it for at least four taels of silver, minus the transportation loss, and you can earn at least two or five cents for one hundred catties, which is twenty-five times the profit. ”

This price difference is really such a high profit, Zhang Bin couldn't help but be moved, he said with interest: "What do you mean, cut off the trade between the East India Company and Dongying, and our Dongshengtang family will monopolize it?" ”

At this time, Dongying also allowed the Ming and the Dutch to do business in its treaty port, others like the Spaniards and the Portuguese were not, and the Ming Dynasty forbade doing business with Dongying, and it was a fornication with the Japanese pirates.

At this time, he did not block the strait, and the Dutch merchant ships could still travel between Batavia and Dongying, plus they did not dock at Yuegang, so there was no need to buy ships.

If you blockade the strait, learn from the Dutch, and rob all their merchant ships, then Dongying's business will be monopolized by Dongshengtang, and the transaction volume will at least double!

Unexpectedly, Zheng Zhilong shook his head and said: "Monopolizing the Dongying trade is just a trivial matter, the main thing is that the price of various goods can be set by us, because the East India Company has a colony, many things do not cost anything, for example, they enslaved the local people in Batavia to grow rice and produce white sugar, and enslaved the local people to grow spices and pepper in the Spice Islands, these things are no different from those picked up on the ground, so they keep the prices of these things very low." As long as we drive them out, we can raise the price, for example, rice, when it comes to three taels and one stone, the profit becomes forty times! Anyway, the money of the people of Dongying is dug out of the ground, unlike us, who earn it little by little, and they don't care about this silver at all. ”

This doubles the trading volume and doubles the profit, so won't it make more money!

Zhang Bin thought for a while and asked solemnly: "How to deal with the captives, you can't rob people and things and kill them all, right?" ”

This is a moral issue, robbing other people's things, robbing other people's business, if you still kill everyone, it will be a bit too cruel, colonists can do this, but Zhang Bin doesn't want to be so inhumane.

Zheng Zhilong shook his head again and again and said: "No, no, no, how can we kill them, sell them to Luzon, sell them to the Spaniards, one is worth dozens of taels, and we can make a lot of money!" ”

When Zhang Bin heard this, he couldn't help but shine in his eyes, yes, at this time, the Netherlands is breaking away from Spain and making an independent effort, plus they are frantically competing for markets and colonies overseas, and the relationship has long been on the same footing, selling the Dutch to the Spaniards as slaves, they definitely grab this.

Zhang Bin immediately nodded and said, "Okay, then do it, you come to organize, try not to let them know that we did it." ”

When Zheng Zhilong heard this, he immediately rubbed his hands excitedly and said, "Okay, my lord, you just wait for my good news." ”

A few days later, in the late afternoon, on the sea between Penghu and Yuegang.

More than 20 armed merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company were slowly sailing past the Penghu Islands, and Captain Hawke, a senior employee of the East India Company, stood on the bow of a high-level armed merchant ship, nervously looking at the Ming Empire patrol fleet in front of him on the right, and sweat came out of his forehead.

He had led the team on this route many times, and he knew that the Ming Empire's patrol fleet would not do anything to them.

The first few times, the patrol fleet of the Ming Empire was only watching from a distance, and did not come up to intercept it, and he hoped that this time, they would not come up either.

Why was he so nervous?

Because before he came, the Governor called him to his office and personally told him to be careful, because, during this time, their partners had a little conflict with the Ming Empire.

He understands the meaning of these words quite clearly, the so-called partners are pirates, and the so-called skirmishes are that the company instigated pirates to rob the merchant ships of the Ming Empire!

Hawke prayed in his heart, don't come here, don't trouble me, I didn't let pirates loot your merchant ships, I'm just an errand runner, all this has nothing to do with me.

I don't know if his prayers had an effect, or if the Ming Empire didn't know about the relationship between the pirates and them, and the Ming Empire's patrol fleet was still the same as the previous times, monitoring this from a distance, without any movement.

Hawke stood nervously at the bow of the ship and observed for half an hour, until the Ming Empire's patrol fleet slowly moved away, he sighed, moved his stiff hands and feet, and silently drew a cross on his chest, thanking the Lord, he finally passed the test!

Did they really pass the test?

At this time, in the Dongfan Guard Chicken Coop Harbor, more than 50 warships were changing their flags at a rapid pace, and the original serious Ming army battle flags were replaced, and countless strange flags were replaced.

What skulls, skeletons, hellhounds, hydras, etc., messy, but you can tell at a glance that these are pirate flags!

On the handsome boat in the middle, Chen Hui, the commander of the Dongfan guard, was giving a lecture.

However, there were only three people standing in front of him.

The little man in the middle is none other than Sasuke Sasuke, the leader of Zheng Zhilong's Dongying people;

On the left, a black man is Baturu, the leader of Zheng Zhilong's Kunlun Nu;

A small man on the right, who is neither black nor yellow, is Chachawang, the leader of the Nanyang people under Zheng Zhilong;

Chen Hui looked at their pirate looks and nodded with satisfaction: "Well, yes, it looks like that." Sasuke, you're in charge of this broadside battle. ”

Sarutobi Sasuke arched his hand excitedly and said, "Obey, General." ”

When Chen Hui heard this, he frowned and criticized: "Don't speak Chinese, speak your Dongying dialect, from now on, until the end of the battle, you are not allowed to speak Chinese, you know?" ”

Sarufei Sasuke hurriedly arched his hand and said, "The little one understands." ”

Chen Hui rolled his eyes, slapped him directly on the back of the head, and scolded: "Baga, Anatawanani, oh yo? ”

Sarutobi Sasuke was stunned for a moment when he heard this, then nodded and said, "Hayi, wow quack." ”

Chen Hui nodded with satisfaction, and said to the big black man: "Baturu, do you know how to speak Dongying?" ”

The big black man immediately raised his head and roared like thunder: "Report to the general, no." ”

Chen Hui rolled his eyes, plucked his ears vigorously, and said angrily: "Why can't you be so loud?" You won't just pretend to be dumb, you know? ”

Baturu "....... ”

Why didn't this guy reply? Chen Hui couldn't help but raise his head and shouted, "Do you understand?" ”

Baturu nodded, then pointed to his mouth and shook his head.

Chen Hui slapped his forehead and said embarrassedly: "Okay, it's very good." ”

Immediately, he said to Chachawang: "Chachawang, do you speak Dongying?" ”

Chachawang hurriedly raised his hand and gestured, "It will be a little bit." ”

Chen Hui roared impatiently: "Anatawa Badha." ”

Chachawang was so frightened that he hurriedly nodded and said, "Hayi, wah, wah." ”

Chen Hui nodded with satisfaction, waved his hand, and said, "Okay, let's go and prepare." ”

Sarutobi Sasuke: "Hello." ”

Baturu "....... ”

Chachawang: "Hahaha. ”

Chen Hui's face was suddenly covered with black lines.