Chapter 226: West and East

The modern country called Netherlands, in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, was still under the rule of the Spanish king, and was still a vast area called the Netherlands, the lower reaches of the Rhine, Maas, Scheldt and the North Sea coast, equivalent to today's Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and part of northeastern France.

The low terrain caused the area to be filled with very deep rivers, ships from the sea to enter and exit, and the commercial center of Europe shifted from the commercial city-states of Venice in the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

The Netherlands, bordering the North Sea, became more affluent, and the people here were very different from the conservative Spaniards, who were more open and liberal Protestant, especially the Calvinists.

However, the state religion of Spain is Catholicism, and it is the most recent person in power, from the king to the governor are all Catholics who can be described as fanatical.

Spain's expenses in order to maintain his huge army, in order to maintain the territory and colonies are very staggering, so the rich Netherlands has always been one of the main sources of tax revenue for Spain, and the Spanish governor stationed here will be called beautified by the angry lowlanders in terms of taxation and rule, if we use the word cruelty to describe it.

So at this time the armed struggles supported by the capitalists and Calvin's church organizations came and went.

In the northern part of the Netherlands, in 1530, within two months the Governor was suddenly greeted by an army of mid-range and small numbers in the Netherlands, but unlike the rest of the rebels who seemed to have a habit of cleanliness, they would coerce Spanish merchants and officials. They also bribed the officers who suppressed them in times of crisis, and showed no mercy to Spanish women and children.

If it weren't for the fact that this rebel army was really advocating independence, and doing independent things. The Spanish authorities would have seen them as pirates for English privateers.

After nearly 700 men were wiped out by the rebel army, the Spanish governor in the Netherlands finally took the small force he despised as "rats." His agents tried their best to get information, but they only knew that the leader of the rebels was named Jason. Hogan, a lieutenant who fled back from the Far East.

It was already getting dark, and a regiment of Spanish cavalry was nervously marching towards a coastal village, where a nearby Catholic nobleman sent his servants to collect taxes. And I found out that the rebels would stay in the village at night and replenish their provisions.

The head of the village was related to the servant of the nobility, so he told the servant that the name of the leader of the rebels was Jason Hogan.

The servant told the nobleman, who hurriedly sent for the officer of the nearby garrison, and when the officer got the news, he immediately sent his garrison.

The discipline of the rebels was not very good, except for a few very reluctant guards who were assigned to stand guard outside, and the rest were all with the locals to drink and gamble, and the fighting for months on end made the rebel fighters desperately need to relax.

Jason Hogan can't completely manage these people, it's difficult to really assemble an army with independent beliefs, and he has to rely on military expenses, but the money he earned from Dengzhou is about to run out. This time, he risked his appearance very close to the army, just to attack the nearby noble manor to obtain the next step of military expenses.

Otherwise, the army that finally made some noise will soon collapse, and Jason thought hard about what needs to be learned from the army under General Jiang when he was in Dengzhou half a year ago, and there are those that can help his current army, but there is nothing left and right.

Speaking of which, the army there is still under its own training, and it is gradually beginning to be regularized, but why can't these people who follow him, do they also have to learn from the Jiang people in the east, in addition to the high military salary, anyone who disobeys the military order will be directly killed.

There was no room for him to continue thinking about it outside, and the shouts of killing and gunfire became louder, and the villagers and rebels were completely overwhelmed, and ran outside like headless flies, and after a while, the sound of screams also rang out.

Many people don't even have weapons by their side, Jason Hogan grabbed the arquebus next to him and was about to rush out of the door, but he was grabbed by a few cronies behind him, these "pro-soldiers" are friends and partners in his hometown, which can be regarded as a kind of imitation of Jiang Feng's army system.

"We can't beat it, let's run from the sea!"

More than a dozen people rushed towards the beach with his life, where there were their boats, but fortunately, the servant's information did not include that the rebels came to the village in small boats, and the village's defense in the direction of the beach was still weaker, after paying the price of five dead and wounded.

Jason Hogan and his four companions finally rowed the boat out to sea, the sound of guns in the village had gradually stopped, and the terrible screams began to sound, and the Spanish army's treatment of the rebels was simple, that is, to execute them on the spot. Listening to these voices, Jason, whose left arm was stabbed with a sword, covered his mouth in pain, and after a long time, Jason, who had regained his composure, said in a hoarse voice:

"Let's go to Amsterdam and hide for a while, and you will follow me to the East to seek refuge!"

In Mengxian County, Yanzhou Prefecture, Shandong, at the end of the eighth year of Jiajing, there was a new thing in the county. It's the guy who didn't have good ears when he was a child, and everyone called him "six deaf, six deaf".

Now it is said that he made a fortune outside and returned to his hometown. In the south of Mengxian County, a large Zhuangzi was set up, and I heard that the yamen of this county still wanted to find out the roots. As a result, it is said that he made a fortune by following a certain big official in the south, and now he has redeemed himself. Those officials who came to the door all walked out of Chenjiazhuang politely.

When Chen Deaf fell into the grass in the east and north of Jinan, he never thought that he would have this day. I was able to return to my hometown to buy an industry in a beautiful way.

And now the forces under his command are the largest forces in Linyi from south to south Zhili under the jurisdiction of Yanzhou, and now they are smugglers and small pirates from all walks of life. If you want to do business safely, you have to pay him. This is a lesson for everyone that several forces have been uprooted and exterminated.

Jiang Feng has to win a lot of private salt in the whole Shandong, and since the rise of Chen Deaf, Jiang Feng and Huang Ping don't care about the south part.

This made many salt lords and the gentry behind the salt lords who had some ideas in their hearts lively, and persuaded Chen Deaf to dominate the green forests of Shandong, and these people followed the fire.

However, these people were all rejected by Chen Deaf, and the scenery outside did not make Chen Deaf feel fluttering, he knew too well that he was too good.

It is true that the hundreds of men and horses under his command have been almost invincible in the past year, whether it is a hostile cottage or the escort team of the salt owl, they are all vulnerable, and they have even encountered soldiers from various prefectures and counties several times, and they have also been defeated by themselves.

It's just that in those battles with officers and soldiers, Chen Deaf himself controlled this degree just right, and there were not too many casualties, and afterwards he was quite unconventional and entrusted someone to give him money for the wounded and sick, so no one knew about it. This is very different from encountering the passage of the same bandit and the horse, which is to kill them all.

It is precisely because of this sense of proportion that the power of Chen Deaf's subordinates is getting bigger and bigger, except for the five or six hundred people who disguised themselves as Zhuangke Changgong in the manor, the cottage and horse bandits who obey his orders add up to several thousand. Now there are many fellow people in the green forest who call him "Lunan Dragon", which is actually called the Dengzhou Tiger of Dengzhou Jiangfeng.

Chen Deaf knew that there were more than a dozen people with Weishan accents and Jingshi accents in the core of these teams under his command, and they all claimed to the outside world that they were either fleeing the famine or breaking their families by Tatars, but the management of the army's training and financial resources, and even orders such as when to rob and when to farm, were all managed by these dozen people. Chen Deaf is extremely honest now, and he will do whatever Dengzhou orders him to do.

After all, it is now a time to eat and drink well, and there is also a status, which is much stronger than when I used to eat and sleep in the mountains.

In September of the eighth year of Jiajing, Jiang Feng ended the task of escorting his father-in-law Liu Shunhua to the south of the Yangtze River and returned to Dengzhou. Monk Li's more than 20 ships had already arrived at the private port of Yantai Mountain, except for the Spanish brig that was still berthed in the port, and the rest of the ships were directly loaded and trafficked.

Li Guangtou also made it clear that more than a dozen ships sent to Jiang Feng were bought and sold by him on weekdays, and Jiang Feng's ships were still managed by Monk Li, and after deducting various expenses, the income from these ships owned by Jiang Feng belonged to Jiang Feng. This kind of buying and selling is not a loss for each other.

Jiang Feng naturally doesn't have to work and sit and collect money, as long as Monk Li has this private port, he can double the ship's money in a year. In October, boatmen from the south began to come to Dengzhou one after another, and the five-fold increase in wages was no joke, which was naturally particularly attractive.

Chen Deaf, who had been recuperating in Mengxian for several months, received an order from Dengzhou to clean up the bandits and pirates on the coast of Shandong. And there is a side requirement - try to catch them alive.

The eighth year of Jiajing is actually a very quiet year.......