At the beginning of the 17th century, when the land annexation of the Ming Dynasty was becoming more and more serious, corruption was rampant, infighting was incessant, and the national situation was declining, the countries of the European continent were gradually becoming rich and powerful through colonial expansion and frenzied plunder.

In order to carry out colonial expansion in the Far East and monopolize the trade in the East, the Netherlands established the Dutch East India Company with state functions in 1602, which started the colonial plundering of the Far East.

In 1604, the Dutch East India Company sent Wei Malang to lead three warships to occupy Magong Island in Penghu, and enslaved the local people to "cut down wood and build houses for long-term residence", intending to use it as a colonial base and monopolize the trade between the Ming Dynasty and the European continent.

The Ming Dynasty Fujian General Army Shi De ordered the Fujian Metropolitan Commander Shen Yourong to lead the troops to ask him face to face, and the Dutch side was aggrieved and withdrew from Penghu in November of that year.

In 1622, the Dutch East India Company again sent seven warships plus more than 900 soldiers to occupy Penghu and block the mouth of Zhangzhou to the sea, so that the Ming Dynasty could not leave the port

In February of the fourth year of the Apocalypse, Nan Juyi personally arrived at Kinmen by boat, and ordered the Ming army to cross the sea to attack and recover Penghu.

However, due to the strong fortifications built by the Dutch colonists on the island, coupled with their strong ships and cannons, the Ming army could not capture it for a long time.

In July of the fourth year of the Apocalypse, Nan Juyi ordered the coastal guards of the Fujian Prefecture to mobilize Fuchuan warships to support and began to launch a general attack on the Dutch colonists in Penghu.

In August of the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the Ming army divided into three routes, and approached the castle built by the Dutch colonists in Penghu, and the Dutch colonists finally evacuated, and the guard Gao Wenlu and other twelve people were captured by the Ming army.

After this battle, the Ming Dynasty recovered the islands of Penghu, the Dutch colonists were forced to withdraw to the east, and the European powers saw the power of the Ming sailors, and they did not dare to fight the Ming Dynasty for more than ten years.

However, because the Ming army did not take advantage of the victory to pursue the Dutch colonists completely out of the southeast sea, so that the Dutch East India Company gained a firm foothold in the east, gradually monopolized the trade of the Ming Dynasty, Dongying, Korea and the European continent, and colluded with pirates to wantonly plunder the merchant ships of various countries, which eventually led to the outbreak of a major war comparable to the Opium War between the Ming Dynasty and the Netherlands.

Of course, these are all afterthoughts, so let's skip them for now.

It is said that in order to sabotage the trade between Spain, Portugal and the Ming Dynasty, the Netherlands have long begun to collude with pirates and plunder merchant ships of various countries along the southeast coast.

In order to alleviate the pressure on Penghu and disperse the strength of the Ming army, the Dutch began to contact pirates in June and plundered the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty.

Among them, the most serious harassment by pirates is Fuzhou and Funing in northern Fujian and Wenzhou and Taizhou in southern Zhejiang.

The coastal counties of these four state capitals were attacked by small groups of pirates, and the losses were small, several villages were looted, the villagers fled in all directions, and the coastal villages with large losses were all taken by the pirates, and not only the property was looted, but even the people were taken captive by the pirates.

Only in Pingyang County, Wenzhou Prefecture, the county commander Zhang Bin personally led the township to resist the pirates, although his right arm was pierced by an arrow, but he kept the property of the common people, and the entire Pingyang can be said to have suffered no losses.

For this alone, Zhang Bin is far superior to Tongji, and the evaluation at the end of the year is excellent, which seems to be no problem.

Of course, this merit is nothing compared to the great victory of Penghu, but don't underestimate the army sent by the Netherlands, even if it is an indigenous country with millions of people, I am afraid that it will be destroyed under the Dutch troops, but the Ming not only defeated it, but also captured their guards, which is very rare in the history of world colonization.

After the victory in Penghu, Nan Juyi escorted the Dutch guard Gao Wenlu and others to the capital, and Ming Xizong "sacrificed to the suburban temple, the imperial gate was captured, and the punishment of Gao Wenlu was equal to the West City, and the head was passed on to all sides, so as to show the world."

And the merits of Zhang Bin, the commander of Pingyang County, I don't know if the local state government forgot to report it or the party struggle was too fierce to pay attention to his small county order, and the officials didn't even have a word of commendation.

Zhang Bin didn't know what was going on, but since the Netherlands had been defeated, it was naturally unlikely that the pirates would land and plunder again, and the more than 500 "coolies" trapped in Pingyang County could also return to Fujian.

After bidding farewell to his second brother Zhang Guan, his injuries were almost healed, and he began to pay attention to the sale of potatoes and sweet potatoes again.

After all, the yield of potatoes and sweet potatoes is there, the yield of one mu is equivalent to about 12 stones, and this is only the yield of one season.

At this time, the squire Tang Xian found a large merchant who was ranked first in the whole Wenzhou, and came to the county government together to discuss the sale of potatoes with Zhang Bin, and Zhang Bin naturally received the two people happily.

It is said that the status of the merchant is not low at this time, even lower than the status of the craftsman, how could a famous squire like Tang Xian go with a merchant?

In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, the status of businessmen has not always been very low, at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, because Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was born as a poor peasant, there was prejudice against businessmen, so the status of businessmen was very low, and he even clearly stipulated that businessmen could not even wear satin clothes, which shows his discrimination against businessmen.

However, in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, with the development of industry and commerce, merchants became richer and richer, and they began to seek social status by all means.

The most direct way is naturally to achieve fame through the imperial examination, such as the Donglin Party leader Gu Xiancheng from the family of merchants, and many businessmen through marriage, climbing the magnates, promoting the social status of merchants to rise, in fact, at this time, the social status of big businessmen has almost caught up with the squire, or in other words, many businessmen are actually mutated squires, but what they hold in their hands is not land, but various commodities.

Like the big businessman who came to visit with Tang Xian this time, Gao praised himself for his talent and fame, and his business was very large, and he had his industry in almost the entire Wenzhou Mansion.

He came to Zhang Bin to ask for advice on the practice of potatoes, because after listening to Tang Xian's description of the deliciousness of potato stewed chicken, he found that this was a good business opportunity, he has several restaurants under his name, if he can make potatoes into a specialty, the profit is not a little!

Zhang Bin is quite appreciative of his idea, after all, the restaurant is a place for public consumption, and if potatoes can become a common dish in the restaurant, it is very beneficial to the promotion of potatoes.

Although he was not a chef in his previous life, he still knew how to cook, after all, he was born in a hard work, and if he didn't know how to cook, he would have more time to be hungry.

He happily picked up the pen and listed the potato practices he knew one by one.

For example, potato stew with chicken, potato stew with beef, vinegared shredded potatoes, braised potatoes, french fries, potato chips, and so on.

He did this purely to promote potatoes and let the people under his rule have more income, but he never thought that there would be a craze for eating potatoes in Daming later!