Wang Fuqian's Northern Expedition is quite legendary.

He did not go on a northern expedition to conquer the city, but to send Chen Guanghui to the north.

Chen Guanghui wanted to go to the north to join Chen Zhouquan, and at the same time attack the Qing army on both sides, leveling the whole Taiwan in one fell swoop.

But the response of the two sides is very problematic, Chen Zhouquan is indeed counterattacking the Qing army, but at this time, the Qing army has completely mobilized the landlord's armed forces, and the troops are even stronger, and the main force is on the front line of confrontation with Chen Zhouquan. On the contrary, it was used to prevent the strength of the Southern Heaven and Earth Society to be insufficient, and as a result, Wang Fuqian was given a chance.

Of course, the Qing army was not completely defenseless, but Wang Fuqian marched along the official road, and the work of overcoming difficulties along the way was all the work of 1,500 mercenaries, and the Qing army's will to fight was very problematic, and they were more willing to use encirclement, blockade and other methods to consume the enemy, and the hard battle, few Qing troops were willing to do it, and the sharp knife of the mercenaries was too sharp.

The result is that there is almost no shield in front that can resist this sharp knife, and the 10,000 Tiandihui soldiers led by Chen Guanghui, although the combat effectiveness is not good, but the mighty and powerful are very oppressive, so after the mercenaries break the barriers along the way, the Qing army rarely comes to support immediately, but slowly oppresses over.

Wang Fuqian and Chen Guanghui's purpose was not to occupy the city and seize land, so they turned north, first hit Fucheng from Fengshan County, passed around Fucheng, and then entered Chiayi County, like a fish swimming in the ocean of the Qing army, the Qing army in front was cut, and the Qing army was in the rear on both sides, but it never stopped them.

In the end, it was like a knife, piercing the entire Taiwan from south to north.

It would be wrong to say that this Northern Expedition was completely meaningless. The main force of the Qing army was concentrated in Chiayi County and Changhua County to engage in a tug of war with the Heaven and Earth Society, and Wang Fuqian and Chen Guanghui suddenly stabbed from behind, which immediately disrupted the form of confrontation, allowing Chen Zhouquan's army to defeat the Qing army in front of it at once, and advanced the battle line from Changhua to Chiayi County.

Another significance lies in the huge deterrent effect, from the south to the north of Taiwan at once, this is the second time after Chen Zhouquan's Northern Expedition, the Tiandihui armed throughout Taiwan, showing strong combat effectiveness, especially those mercenaries, all of a sudden The combat effectiveness of the Southern Route Army was displayed in front of the entire Taiwan Qing army.

At the same time, along the way, the Heaven and Earth Society will also offend the landlord forces along the way, Chen Guanghui's Northern Expedition, no ability to carry materials all the way forward, arms and other baggage can only be with the army, food and other consumables rely on the landlord to collect grain, to put it bluntly, it is robbery. In many cases, the local landlord Tuan Lian had already been transferred to the north with the Qing army, and there was no way to stop Chen Guanghui's raid. The purpose was to grab grain, but once the robbery began, it was difficult for the soldiers to stop it, and as a result, the landlords of all sizes were unlucky.

After penetrating Taiwan and joining forces with Chen Zhouquan, Wang Fuqian took a short rest and immediately led his troops back from the sea, called Zhu Li's ship, which returned to Tagu Port around the Penghu waterway.

More than 100 people were lost in this battle, most of them died of disease, and less than 30 were killed in direct battles.

After returning to Dagu Port, Wang Fuqian found that Zhou Lang and the others had made the army more formal, and various rules and regulations were more detailed and perfect, which made him feel a lot of regret, and he felt that these jobs were more attractive to him and more meaningful than going to the front line to fight.

However, Zhou Lang soon gave him a long-dreamed errand to manage civil affairs!

Zhou Lang officially appointed him as the commander of Fengshan County, entrusted him with the civil affairs of the entire Fengshan County, and the rest of Fengshan County was under his control except for the port area.

At that time, Wang Fuqian was excited, he finally became an official, for scholars, this kind of civil official is the real official, and the military general is not at all, Wang Fuqian thought that he would use his military identity to assist Zhou Lang to set the world, before he could abandon the military and follow the literature, but he didn't expect him to become a civilian official so soon.

Wang Fuqian went to take office almost non-stop, but he was almost a bare-bones commander, and there was no one available under him.

He didn't mind these, rushed to Fengshan County to take office, after the Heaven and Earth Society uprising, the civil affairs of Fengshan County were very withered, Wang Fuqian, who dreamed of being an official, knew too much how to run a yamen, he personally rushed to the homes of various officials in the past for the first time, and sincerely invited these people to come out to perform their duties, and sincerity moved these old officials, and the shelves of the Fengshan County Ya were quickly erected.

After that, Wang Fuqian was urgently promoted to the court, and dealt with the civil disputes that had been squeezed up these days, and he was also too addicted to officials. But then he did not relax, and immediately went to all directions to visit the countryside.

In fact, there are only a few things that the local officials of the Qing Dynasty can do, as long as they are willing to do things, they can have something to do. Whether it is the height of the dynasty or the late dynasty, you can find some magistrates who have made meritorious contributions to the people. Wang Fuqian visited and immediately put forward ten points for cleaning up and curing the accumulated evils. It is nothing more than untidy roads, water conservancy disrepair, rampant corruption, etc.

He wrote to Zhou Lang to rectify, mainly for money. In the era of the Chinese Dynasty, local projects were often produced by the government and by the people. In fact, it is very cost-effective, Wang Fuqian applied to Zhou Lang for 200,000 taels of silver to purchase materials, and he wanted to do a lot of things.

He wanted to renovate the Fengshan county town damaged in the Tiandihui uprising, he also had to repair the official road, restore the old post station, he invited the squire Confucianism, planned to renovate the Confucius Temple, found that many poor peasants because of the war, reduced to a situation where there were no seeds, hoping to lend money to the peasants for relief, his biggest ambition was to build a water conservancy project, to solve the irrigation problem in the south of Fengshan County that had been troubled for a long time.

This kind of depressed literati, the strong revenge of "what if I become an official" that has been held back for decades, Wang Fuqian hated that it could not be achieved all at once, and was full of strong desire for governance.

Zhou Lang was satisfied one by one, and asked him to let go and boldly organize the people to do these things, just kindly reminded him to pay attention to his body.

As soon as Wang Fuqian was placed in a suitable position, Xie Qinggao came back from India, to be precise, he came back from Nanyang.

After he went to India to deliver Zhou Lang's letters to Henry Pitt, he soon headed straight to the Dutch colony of Batavia in Java.

Then he formally negotiated with the Dutch in the name of the China (East India) Company and introduced the situation of the Chinese company to the Dutch, in fact, the Dutch had already grasped the existence of the Chinese company at this time, so they had a serious meeting with Xie Qinggao.

Xie Qinggao put forward Zhou Lang's requests, asked the Dutch to provide technical assistance such as shipbuilding and cannon casting, and was willing to establish close commercial relations with the Dutch.

The Dutch, knowing that Chinese companies had established a presence in southern Taiwan, offered that technical assistance could be provided, but that they had to give them exclusive trade privileges, and supported the Dutch in occupying a commercial base in southern Taiwan.

If you want to say that the whole West, the country that knows the value of Taiwan the most is the Netherlands, and the main reason is that they established a colony in Taiwan in those years and did it well.

The significance of Taiwan does not lie in Taiwan's products, but in Taiwan's geographical location. At that time, the Netherlands used Taiwan as a base to develop a triangular trade between China, Japan and Europe, in this triangular trade, Taiwan was a transit station, silk fabrics purchased from Chinese mainland were extremely popular in Japan, the Dutch shipped to Japan in exchange for Japan's abundant silver, and returned to China to purchase silk, porcelain and other most popular Chinese goods at that time, and then returned to Europe, this triangular trade, both in terms of time and profit, was designed very reasonable and strictly forbidden, supporting the early expansion of the Dutch in the East.

The Netherlands and China are the only two countries that do not restrict trade with Japan, and if the Taiwan base is reopened, the Dutch can restart this triangular trade, which is very attractive to the Dutch East India Company, which is now heavily squeezed by the British in Eastern commerce.

However, Xie Qinggao couldn't answer their requests, at least he couldn't promise them to give them a commercial base.

However, the Dutch were very active, and when Xie Qinggao returned, they directly sent a representative to negotiate directly with Zhou Lang.

It is said to be a negotiation delegation, but in fact it is more like a highly professional delegation, with a team of more than 10 people, including engineering personnel, military personnel, business personnel, etc. They want to have a more intuitive understanding of who they are negotiating with, and to find out their opponent's hole cards before they can determine their bid. It was also because they knew from Guangzhou that Zhou Lang led thousands of troops and surrounded the city of Guangzhou once, otherwise they would even directly regard Zhou Lang as a pirate and would not send someone to talk. Now they want to find out Zhou Lang's strength and whether it is possible to hold this base under the counterattack of the Qing army.

This is the basis for negotiations, and if we can't even hold the southern part of Taiwan, we can't talk about cooperating with the Dutch.

So Zhou Lang also let the Dutch come to investigate, and even allowed him to go inland, so that it was the Dutch, Zhou Lang knew very well that they were no threat to him, if he was replaced by the British, he would have to consider it.

The Dutch were very meticulous in their investigation, and they met Zhou Lang's army, which was quite recognized, and basically trained and equipped in accordance with the most advanced methods in Europe, and their combat effectiveness was trustworthy. But what the Dutch recognized more was that when they visited the hinterland of Fengshan County, they found that after more than 100 years of cultivation by the Han people, it was no longer desolate in their colonial period. What made the Dutch even more recognized was that when they walked into the interior, what they saw was orderly, and it was obvious that Zhou Lang already had strong control over the place.

After investigation, the Dutch thought that they could cooperate with Zhou Lang, and even their conditions could be lowered.

At least Zhou Lang could not have given the Dutch a separate commercial base.