Since the return of the first batch of ships to sea in September last year, many Shandong businessmen who followed Lu Zhen to start maritime trade can be regarded as having tasted the sweetness, which has made more people put aside their prejudices and devote themselves to the great good thing of opening up sea trade for the benefit of the country and the people.

With the continuous expansion of the scale of the seagoing trade, the situation continued to improve, and in February and March, the second and third batches of the seagoing fleet, mainly led by private businessmen, returned safely and brought huge profits that made people blush, and more people regretted it and joined the seagoing trade.

At this time, in the eyes of large and small businessmen in Shandong, all overseas countries are cash cows, as long as they can get the money to buy the products of the Ming Dynasty and hire ships to go to sea, and go out for a trip, they can make a lot of money, and it is a matter of course to obtain more than ten times the profit.

As a result, after the middle of March, it became an irrepressible trend for ordinary businessmen to hire ships to enter the sea, regardless of the government. Most of them united with a dozen or twenty merchants, hired a few ships built by the government and went away, while the few were only three or five people, and they also went to sea in small boats to try their luck, and everyone believed that as long as they could send goods to neighboring overseas countries, they would surely obtain large profits.

On the government's side, under the instruction of Lu Jin, when the second ship returned to sea, it temporarily stopped the pace of going to sea to trade. On the surface, Lu Zhen said in a high-sounding manner that this was not competing with the people for profit, and it was a manifestation of maintaining his status as an official. But in fact, because he wanted to earn money for the hire of ships and sailors, he rented out all the big and small ships that could go to sea.

In fact, the rent of these ships and the commissions of the sailors on board are already a lot of income, not to mention that after the rise of overseas trade, Lu Zhen has taken advantage of the situation to raise the tariff, so that even if the ship is not sent to sea, the government can earn considerable benefits from it, so why let people go to sea and suffer from this storm?

Of course, in addition to encouragement, Lu Jin, as a magistrate and an advocate of overseas trade, also kindly reminded these merchants not to be completely blinded by interests, but also to be careful of all kinds of dangers at sea, and to take corresponding defensive measures. However, attracted by the merchant ships returning from the sea with full loads, everyone has long regarded this kind reminder as a deaf ear, and they have not taken it to heart at all.

Accidents often occur when everyone relaxes their vigilance.

As summer dawned in May, just as the city's merchants wondered when a new batch of ships would return, bad news ensued.

First, the merchant ships, which had just been out to sea in April, suddenly fled in disarray. Among them, many of them were injured, and several ships were also badly damaged, which seemed to have suffered a great accident.

When the men on board came ashore and cried, they were completely dumbfounded—they were attacked by a group of fierce Japanese ships shortly after they went out to sea. The opponent was well-organized and tactically sophisticated, and in just a few strokes, he controlled the three merchant ships at the front, and then surrounded and killed those merchant ships that were moving behind.

Under the attack of the opponent's catapults and ramming, these merchant ships were able to escape only after paying a great price. But in the meantime, in order to get rid of the pirates as soon as possible, they still left many of the ship's belongings in the sea. In the end, the ship that came back not only suffered a lot of casualties, but also brought less than half of the cargo.

After receiving this news, several businessmen who funded the fleet were immediately shocked, and two of them even fainted directly. They have invested most of their family property in this sea trade, and now that this thing has happened, it is really called bloodlessness!

When the government heard about it, it was also a little helpless. If there were thieves who dared to rob and kill merchants within the boundaries of Shandong, they would have sent officials and soldiers to suppress them. But now, the matter is happening on the vast sea, and the government is naturally beyond the reach of the whip.

Moreover, as early as before, the government had reminded merchants to be careful of all kinds of dangers and accidents at sea, so in real terms, their responsibility was not great.

In the face of this series of official statements, those businessmen who still wanted to find the government to stand up for themselves or make up for it suddenly ran out of curses, and finally had to consider themselves unlucky. Who allowed himself to encounter pirates and others were lucky?

However, the impact of this accident was not small, and in the next ten days or so, the merchants who had said that they would go to sea quickly stopped. Even if they had already prepared, they stopped and watched at this time, and with the lessons of the past, they didn't dare to take risks at will.

And then the development of events also proved that their caution was very correct. At the beginning of July, another group of merchant ships docked, and these ships also had scars and were apparently attacked by thieves at sea.

When they disembarked, the results were even more surprising when they asked—not only were they attacked by pirates at sea, but they were also surrounded by hundreds of small ships. If it weren't for the fact that the naval generals hired a lot of money on the ships at that time calmly ordered to directly break through the enemy's encirclement with all their might, I am afraid that these ships would have to be taken by pirates.

When they learned that this group of pirates had such a huge scale, everyone was even more stunned. Then, everyone discovered something even more terrifying. This fleet left Weihai at the end of March this year, and before it, there were still three fleets that had not yet returned from going to sea. In other words, at least three more fleets may well have already been shipwrecked at sea.

Now it's a big deal. If only one or two fleets of ships going to sea were attacked by the pirates, everyone could still say that they were lucky, but now, their own family is obviously targeted by pirates and pirates, and once they go to sea, they will be attacked by them.

After understanding this, the merchants finally couldn't hold back any longer, and hurriedly ran back to Jinan, and complained to the governor who presided over the opening of the sea.

After listening to their telling, Lu Jin was also surprised: "How can this be? There are still pirates waiting at sea to attack our fleet? He originally thought that as long as he no longer closed himself off as in history, but opened the sea ban, the Japanese who had plagued the Ming coastal area for decades in history would naturally disappear.

Because of his understanding of the history of the Ming Dynasty, there will be a disaster for the southeast, in the final analysis, it is the national policy of forbidding the sea so that many people along the coast can not survive, so they have to risk their lives and enter the sea to collude with the Japanese ronin to rob the Ming Dynasty for a living. Now that I have solved this problem from the source, why is the problem still not small?

Then, he noticed a little more, and looked at the general of the navy who rushed out of the encirclement of the Japanese and asked, "How many ships surrounded you on the sea that day?" ”

"If you go back to your words, that's exactly what happened. Fortunately, these ships are not very large, so they can take advantage of the advantage of large ships to crash out of the way. But even so, the last two ships were entangled by them, and they couldn't get away in the end. The man said with a look of unease and self-reproach.

Lu Zhen didn't blame him, but after a little thought, he said, "Then in your opinion, how many people are there in this batch of widows?" ”

"This ......" was silent for a while, and after a long time of reminiscence, he replied, "If the villain's memory is correct, it should be in the number of five or six hundred." ”

"It's a coincidence that five or six hundred pirates are on the surface of the sea to attack our merchant ships. It seems that they are indeed coming for our Shandong merchant ship! Lu Zhen has already come to the final conclusion: "Moreover, judging from the previous intelligence, the strength of the sea bandits in the past was not very good, and this time to be able to gather such a large fleet, it must have been formed by uniting several groups of pirate pirates!" ”

After listening to his analysis, the merchants became even more uneasy: "Big ...... My lord, how is this good? If they were at sea for a day, wouldn't I never again want to trade safely at sea? ”

This is a huge blow to the merchants. Not only because they have already invested a lot of money in the matter of going to sea, but they will inevitably bear extremely serious losses if they stop at this time. What's more, after tasting the sweetness of going to sea, I really don't want such a good thing to be ruined. As a result, everyone looked at Lu Zhen and other officials with blank eyes, hoping that these adults could help them solve this problem.

"You guys go back first, and Rong Benguan will think about countermeasures before speaking." Although Lu Zhen was also eager to solve this problem, he did not show too eagerness. Because from the accounts of these people, he has faintly seen some problems.

After they left, Gao Duzhong and other subordinate officials looked at Lu Jin: "My lord, how should I deal with this matter?" If it is not good, it may become an excuse for some people in the DPRK and China who oppose the opening of the sea. ”

"This official naturally understands that this group of pirates must be eliminated as soon as possible, otherwise it will not only be those merchants who will lose, but also the tax silver of the imperial court." Lu Zhen nodded in agreement: "However, don't you think there is something strange about this matter?" How did these pirates find the merchant ships we sent out in the vast sea? If only once or twice, it would have been enough, but for now, since May or June, almost all of our merchant ships have been attacked by them. What does this mean? ”

Everyone immediately understood, and a look of surprise suddenly appeared on their faces: "What do you mean...... They are well aware of the sailing routes of our merchant ships, so they can prepare early? ”

"Not bad." Lu Zhen nodded: "This shows that in my Weihai port, there are actually pirates' accomplices who have been ambushed in it for a long time." Therefore, if we send troops into the sea to suppress the thieves, I am afraid that the effect may not be good. Maybe we won't even be able to find these thieves! ”

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What a number of chapters of 6。。。。。

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