Taiwan was called "Yingzhou", "Yizhou", "Liuqiu" in ancient times, to the Ming Dynasty when the folk generally called the name of the city on the island, there are called "chicken coops", there are called "Beigang", there are called "Dayuan", there are called "Taiyuan", "Taiwowan", ......, the official name of the Ming Dynasty is called "Dongfan", and the European powers follow the name given by the Portuguese, called "Formosa".

Since the middle and late Wanli period, the Ming Dynasty officials gradually corrupted, the party strife was serious, the southeast coastal naval army was shrinking, unable to take care of the lonely hanging overseas Dongfan, the Japanese and the Dutch began to wreak havoc on the treasure island, although there were sailors general Shen Yourong three times on the island to expel the Japanese and Dutch occupying the treasure island, but after Shen Yourong, no Ming officials paid attention to the east, so that the east was occupied by the Dutch until the sixth year of Chongzheng.

Xu Tianqi should be the first Ming official to set foot on Dongfanbao Island in the past ten years, but he did not come in an official capacity, but pretended to be a maritime merchant, and he was not a local official or a naval general of the Ming Dynasty, but a thousand households in Jinyiwei.

He is also a Jinyi Wei spy under Wang Zhengnan, the Jinyi Guard's envoy, and this time he did not come alone, but brought all his 1,000 Jinyi Wei agents!

In order not to attract the attention of the Dutch on the island, they did not come together, and some of his men disguised themselves as maritime merchants, fishermen, refugees, fugitives and even pirates, ranging from a dozen to dozens of people, and the more than 100 people he brought with him were the first batch.

In other words, did he bring so many Jinyi Wei secret agents to engage in some kind of special operation, kill all the Dutch in one fell swoop, and recover Dongfan Treasure Island? Of course not, Zhu Cijiong would not be stupid enough to give this kind of order, you must know that when Zheng Chenggong recovered Taiwan in the Southern Ming Dynasty, the first batch of 25,000 was not defeated, and the 6,000 people mobilized later still did not come down, and in the end, it was only when the Dutch defenders who surrounded the city ran out of food before they went out of the city and surrendered. Although the history books have been secretive about the casualties of the Ming and Zheng armies, it is generally believed that the casualties reached at least more than 10,000, otherwise they would not have sent reinforcements!

The Jinyi Wei secret agents are all selected fighting masters, Zhu Cijiong naturally will not consume them in this kind of battle that has no chance of winning at all, they are mainly here this time to collect intelligence and prepare for the army's attack on Dongfan.

It is much more convenient to go to the east to investigate than on Java Island, because most of the people on the island are Han people, and there is basically no language barrier, and even Xu Tianqi and his big ship came up to check on the Han people after they docked. After a little inspection on the boat, the Han people who led the team came to Xu Tianqi with a smile and asked politely: "Dare to ask this shopkeeper, are you coming to Formosa for the first time, but are you here to do business?" ”

Xu Tianqi pretended to be a businessman's cautious appearance, and replied in a cautious tone: "Well, it's the first time I've come here, and I want to do some small business here." ”

The leader of the team was not in a hurry to collect the money, but continued to ask with a smile: "Oh, then are you going to live in a hotel, or are you going to rent a house?" ”

Xu Tianqi's heart moved when he heard this, it was inconvenient to contact on the ship after all, and there was no cover on all sides of the sea, and a group of people always running into a boat would definitely arouse the suspicion of others. He had originally planned to stay at the hotel, and although there were many people, it was better than being on a boat. Unexpectedly, there were still houses for rent on this island, he couldn't help but ask: "Is there still a house for rent here, I'm a hundred and ten people, except for a few people to guard the ship, everyone else has to go down to find a place to live, is there such a big mansion in Dayuan City?" ”

The leader of the team saw that the business came to the door, and his smile became stronger, and he hurriedly introduced: "There are many people who come here to do business, how to live in the inn, we Lord He specially built a lot of compounds, specially for merchants from all over the country to rest, a hundred or ten people are nothing, even if it is a thousand people, there is a place to live." ”

Ho Lord? It seems that he should be a henchman of the Dutch, Xu Tianqi secretly remembered it, but he didn't directly ask about the situation of the person who led the team, but pretended to be happy: "That's really good, I just want to stay here for a while longer, familiarize myself with the business here, it is naturally more convenient to have a yard to rent than to live in a hotel, I don't know how much the yard is priced?" ”

As soon as the leader saw the play, he immediately said enthusiastically: "Don't worry, I won't kill you, the price is very fair, and the courtyard for more than 100 people is only 100 taels of silver a month, which is much more cost-effective than your hotel." ”

Xu Tianqi didn't particularly care about the price, anyway, no matter how expensive it was, he would rent it, but one hundred taels was really cheap, and he couldn't help but be grateful: "Then thank you to this adult, I don't know where the rent is paid." ”

The leader saw that the business was negotiated, and he was as happy as anything, and said with a smile: "Just hand it over to me, I'll take you over later, but you have to pay a tax of one hundred taels first, no way, this is to be handed over to those red-haired devils." ”

Red-haired devils? It seemed that these people were not so loyal to the Dutch, and it was very useful information, which he kept in his heart. When he first arrived, it was not easy for him to catch people asking questions, so he had to pay the tax first, and then follow the team to the rented courtyard in the city.

The yard is indeed not small, but the location is a little remote, but it just so happens that he doesn't want to be in the middle of the city, so it is also inconvenient to act like that.

Xu Tianqi happily paid half a year's rent, and after politely sending the leader away, he sent his subordinates to familiarize himself with the situation after settling down a little, and left a secret message for the later Jinyi guards to come and wait for the dispatch.

In this way, Jinyiwei's contact point in Dongfan was established, and Xu Tianqi pretended to be a merchant to inquire about the market of various goods, and at the same time sent his subordinates to secretly investigate the situation of the Dutch, and soon had a general understanding of the Dutch in Dongfan.

It turned out that the Dutchman did not live in the city, but built a castle not far from the city, and all the Dutchmen lived in it, and usually sent some people out to inspect it, and many specific matters were handed over to the so-called compradors.

In Dongfan, there are two largest compradors of the Dutch, one is named He Bin, who is the so-called Lord He who led the team, mainly responsible for the affairs of the port and the city; The other, Guo Huaiyi, was mainly responsible for managing the management of cash crops in various places and was responsible for the taxation of local civilians.

This He Bin and Guo Huaiyi are not ordinary characters, if you want to talk about the origin, they are both sworn brothers of Zheng Zhilong, the king of Zhennan!

This Zheng Zhilong was not called Zheng Zhilong but Zheng Yiguan before he made a fortune, he was not the most powerful person under the sea merchant Li Dan at that time, at that time the second person under Li Dan was called Yan Siqi, but later Li Dan and Yan Siqi died one after another, Zheng Yiguan united Li Dan's eighteen pirate merchants, and worshiped in Dongfan, known as the pirate "Eighteen Zhi", and Zheng Yiguan was also renamed Zheng Zhilong.

Later, Zheng Zhilong accepted the appeasement of the Ming Dynasty, and the Eighteen Zhi did not all join the Ming Dynasty with him, some continued to be pirates, some continued to be merchants, and some did not know where to go. This He Bin and Guo Huaiyi are the two Zhizhi in the original eighteen Zhi, and somehow they actually became compradors for the Dutch!

These two people naturally became the focus of Xu Tianqi's investigation, and at the same time, he also decided to go to the vicinity of the Dutchman's castle to take a look.

On this day, Xu Tianqi took a few men to a forest three or four miles away from the Dutch castle, and after arranging the sentry, he found a big tree and climbed it after a few rubs. After climbing the tree, he found a strong branch and stood on it, and then took out his telescope and pointed it at the castle of the Dutchman, and took a closer look.

Oh, what the hell, just after looking at the appearance of the castle, he couldn't help but curse in a low voice, this Dutchman is really afraid of death, you say you can build a castle, he still has to build three floors, each of which is two or three feet high, how can people climb up?

The more Xu Tianqi looked, the more frightened he became, the defense of this castle was too tight, dozens of cannons were set up on each floor, and the fortress and shooting holes were readily available, how could people attack!

There will be no armor-piercing shells or high-explosive shells, and it is almost impossible to rely on cannonballs to blow up the thick city wall, and Xu Tianqi can't think of how to capture such a turtle castle. Fortunately, he was not a sailor general, and this problem was not within his scope of responsibility, so after he wrote down the layout of the castle in detail, he flew down the tree and led his men back to sketch.

After investigating for more than a month, Xu Tianqi finally found out about the situation in Dongfan, he left a few hundred households to take people to continue to investigate here, and he himself rushed back to the capital to report to Wang Zhengnan in person.

...........

As the Jinyi Wei agents everywhere sent the news back one after another, Zhu Cijiong's brows furrowed deeper and deeper, this Dutchman is really difficult to deal with.

Now it is certain that the Dutch navy in the South Seas has 50 super battleships, more than 100 other small warships, more than 20,000 naval forces, plus 40 super battleships of the Dutch East India Company, in terms of the number of super battleships, the Dutch are almost twice as large as the Ming Dynasty, and the Netherlands also has an escort fleet, which escorts a fleet of gold ships around the Dutch strongholds every year, and the fleet size is not small, but this is not much to worry about, Just start calling when the fleet is back in Europe, and now that there are no satellite phones, they can't turn back and help.

In addition to warships, the Dutch also had countless armed merchant ships shuttling around the South Seas, and now they had almost a monopoly on all the trade in spices, pepper, metals, medicinal herbs, linen, cotton, grain, etc. in Southeast Asia, and the Portuguese, Spaniards, and British could only do a little business in their colonies!

Now the Dutch fleet alone plus the armament of the East India Company is not something that Daming can deal with, not to mention that they still have countless armed merchant ships, which are all with cannons, and they have to fight with the Dafu ship after the transformation of the Daming Naval Division.

That is to say, if you go to recover Dongfan Treasure Island now, you will definitely be retaliated by the Dutch crazy, although they may not be able to attack the interior of the Ming Dynasty, but the sea will definitely be blocked by them, at that time, the dream of the Ming Dynasty to dominate the sea will always be a dream.

After careful consideration, Zhu Cijiong still decided to endure it first, at least wait for the next batch of fifty super battleships to be built, and then the number of super battleships of the Ming Dynasty will slightly exceed the total number of super battleships of the Dutch near the South Seas.