Zhou Lang repeatedly deduced, and the more he deduced, the more he felt that the Qing court might really choose Zhao'an himself.

This made him very embarrassed, whether to accept the Qing court's Zhao'an or not is not a problem, it is impossible for him to compromise with this regime, because his ultimate goal is to replace the Manchu Qing, but it is acceptable to make peace with the other party in the short term.

But if what the other side put forward is that the demands of the forces of the king of Yanping in Taiwan back then, such as asking for a shave of hair and asking for the disbandment of the army, this is completely unacceptable, especially the latter, the former is just disgusting, but the latter is fatal.

In addition, Zhou Lang was extremely disgusted with the imperial method of killing people and setting fires to Zhao'an, because he violated the principle of fairness, which he believed was the most snobbish and fruitful method in ancient Chinese ruling science, without a trace of romanticism and idealism at all.

Just because a person or a force is strong enough, you can give him high-ranking officials without asking him what he has done, is this government a stage for the powerful to share the spoils, as long as they prove that they have strength, they can go up and drink the blood of the people together?

Zhou Lang even believes that it is this utilitarianism that only calculates interests and ignores right and wrong that has buried the principles of the Chinese nation and made the Chinese less and less rigid and more and more philistine.

But this method did work, and it was used to rule the Chinese people with half the effort, and the frenzy of this wave of pirate forces in the Qianlong Jiaqing Dynasty in history was finally accepted by Zhang Baozai and other pirate forces to accept the official Zhao'an, and then turned to suppress other pirates, and finally calmed down.

Those civilian officials in the government only used some of their political means to easily recover the pirate group, which also made them feel that force was useless, and did not learn the lesson of piracy to plague the coast, and continued to let the coastal defense go on and relax, and when the British force, which was not subject to Zhao'an, broke in, the Manchu Qing Dynasty found that their coastal defense was completely a sieve, full of loopholes, and the British navy could fight all the way from Guangzhou to Tianjin without encountering any obstacles.

The more Zhou Lang thought about it, the more he went deeper, if the "smart" Manchu civil officials wanted to appease themselves, under what conditions could they cooperate with the other party for a short time?

He soon had a few plans of his own.

Soon the battle of Penghu also divided the results, everything came according to Zhou Lang's director, Zhu Lian really did not have the idea of playing with Li Changgeng, when Zhou Lang's fleet broke into Magong Port, he was ecstatic at first, thinking that Zhou Lang really came to rescue him, but Harald told him that he was not here to rescue him, but to meet his retreat, and told him that his fleet did not have the strength to stalemate with Li Changgeng in Penghu, only the ability to break through.

At this time, Zhu Lian decisively chose to give up Penghu.

It was also very uncomfortable to give up his heart, his savings over the years were basically smashed in Penghu, he built a large number of batteries, his shipyards, and his fleet were all moved here, but he had to give them up, how could he not be uncomfortable.

But he didn't want to leave it to Li Changgeng, and when he left, he let people burn the shipyard and everything else that could be burned, and smoke billowed from Magong Port, and Zhu Mian boarded the warship that broke through without looking back.

Under the cover of the Harald fleet, Zhu Lian retreated from Penghu without danger, not only all the surviving subordinates escaped, but even their families were picked up, and more than 50,000 people came to Tagu Port together, until this time, Zhu Lian's men still had 80 ships, and there were 30,000 pirates, but after all, they were pirates, and they had nothing to worry about, but their families only had 20,000.

Zhou Lang politely met with Zhu Li and offered to continue to help Zhu Li build ships, help him cast cannons, and support him to make a comeback.

Although he knew that Zhou Lang had put himself together on the issue of rescue, he had seen a lot of this kind of thing at sea, and Zhou Lang was already good if he didn't fall into the well, so Zhu Lian not only didn't blame Zhou Lang, but was a little grateful. At least he thinks that if it was Chen Zhouquan, he would probably take the opportunity to swallow his subordinates instead of helping him.

Zhu Li, who lost his base, had no choice under the fence at this time, in fact, at this time, Zhou Lang proposed that he surrender, and he would not hesitate to bow down under Zhou Lang's door, after all, his worldview is more in line with Zhou Lang, rather than Chen Zhouquan's heaven and earth society.

In fact, what Zhu Lian didn't know was that merging him was also a huge temptation for Zhou Lang. Once Zhu Lian was annexed, Zhou Lang's naval power would expand exponentially, and Zhu Lang's group of old pirates with rich seafaring experience was a huge wealth for Zhou Lang.

But he didn't, because he felt that Zhu Li's use value was not so much.

Moreover, after rescuing Zhu Li, he has already received great benefits.

The Zhu family has been a maritime merchant for generations, not only has rich experience in maritime trade, but also has strong seafaring ability, the most precious of which is his shipyard.

Now that the shipyard is gone, the people have been brought out, and as long as there is a place to live, these people can easily form a strong production capacity again, and these Zhou Lang can provide it.

Therefore, all the skilled shipbuilders who have been running by Zhu Lian for several generations have joined Zhou Lang's shipyard, and hundreds of cannon casting craftsmen under him have also become craftsmen under Zhou Lang.

Although Zhou Lang did not annex Zhu Li's fleet, he basically annexed all the logistics forces of Zhu Li's fleet.

This tripled the number of skilled workers in the Zhoulang shipyard in an instant, reaching a thousand, and the craftsmen who cast the cannons also greatly met the needs, and with the technical support provided by the Dutch, casting the mainstream cannons in Europe was no longer a problem.

As for the purpose of leaving Zhu Li's fleet, Zhou Lang hoped that Zhu Li could help him develop Japanese trade. He needs sea trade talents too much, and doing sea trade is not just about driving a ship to deliver goods, but with a set of professional knowledge to support.

On Zhu Li's ships, there is a mature management model, each ship has a financial deputy in charge of goods and money, a chief manager (also known as the chief guard) to manage the incident, in charge of the miscellaneous personnel, and a general shop (also known as the chief feeder, chief manager, chief official) in charge of the kitchen fire. At the same time, he also rented out the ship's space and attached the merchants, who rented the cabin and carried the goods with the ship.

After two years of recruitment, Zhou Lang has only recruited three qualified account rooms, and it is completely impossible to match one for each ship, and can only arrange a account room for each fleet to manage goods and accounts.

Therefore, he needs Zhu Lian to continue to do maritime trade and prosper the trade and economy of Fengshan County.

So Zhou Lang made a tempting suggestion to Zhu Li, who was at the end of his rope, that Zhu Hao should go to Japan for trade, and Zhou Lang gave Zhu Li authorization to provide all official support.

Zhu Lian not only had free access to the port under Zhou Lang's jurisdiction, but also purchased and sold all kinds of goods, repaired ships in the port, hired manpower, and provided him with a full set of official documents, so that he could have an official status to settle various disputes with the Japanese shogunate.

With the increasing prosperity of trade between Donggang and Guangzhou, Zhu Li's goods that can be purchased in Donggang have become complete, and the most important thing is that they are very safe, which is very attractive to Zhu Li.

After thinking about it for a day, he agreed to Zhou Lang's request, of course, he said according to the rules of the industry that he could give Zhou Lang one-third of the profit.

Co-opting Zhu Li's forces is a good start, and Zhou Lang even thinks that this can be used as an example, and the pirate forces can be operated in the future.

It doesn't matter whether he can take a cut of it or not, and he is not really as short of money as Elizabeth's little lady.

Everything is going in a good direction, and the news from the two islands of Jinxia is very optimistic.

The Dutch skilled workers sent have already improved the forts on the two islands, reinforced them on the basis of the Qing army forts, and installed self-made fortress heavy artillery, which is not a large amount of work.

There was also good news from the fleet, recruiting a large number of coastal fishermen, which Fengshan County could not provide.

As for the reason, it is still due to natural disasters.

Last year, heavy rains in Zhangquan and other places in Fujian Province caused rice prices to soar, the displacement of hungry people, and the corruption of officials such as Wu Lana, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and the number of hungry people forced to go to the sea to become thieves surged. The local government reported that "Fujian Province has been flooded with foreign pirates recently, and after the Zhangquan was flooded, the unemployed and poor people have gone abroad to become bandits."

After the arrival of Zhou Lang's fleet, a large number of sailors were recruited, and the local poor fishermen enthusiastically joined, and the hungry people who could not eat were not able to rebel.

But there is also very bad news that suddenly came, Zhao Wen is missing!

After hearing the news, Zhou Lang couldn't help but be confused, Zhao Wen was the general he sent to sit in Jinxia, and he was fully responsible for the defense of Jinxia, but this person suddenly disappeared, and the news said that someone saw Zhao Wen hire a fishing boat to go to sea, and then disappeared.

Was this a defection, or was there an accident?

Zhou Lang couldn't figure out the situation at all, but he thought it was very serious, because at this time, Jin Xia was equal to the dragons without a leader, and if Li Changgeng counterattacked at this time, the consequences would be very serious.

Zhou Lang immediately decided, no matter what happened to Zhao Wen, he had to rush to Jinxia in person.

All the way, Zhou Lang's mind was full of Zhao Wen.

This is the first crony to follow him, but in retrospect, he doesn't know enough about this person at all, and Zhao Wen seems to have been covered with a layer of fog, which makes it difficult to see.

In fact, Zhou Lang values Zhao Wen very much, Zhao Wen is reluctant to tell Zhou Lang where he is from, no matter how his family situation is, these Zhou Lang has the concept of protecting privacy and does not pay attention to it, and now that something happened, he found out that he didn't know anything about this person.

He only knew that this person was recruited by Xie Qinggao from Nanyang, and his accent was from the Chaoshan region, and he thought that he was from the Chaoshan region, but he didn't know anything else.

This person's ability Zhou Lang is extremely recognized, Zhao Wen leads his subordinates with outstanding ability, is low-key and humble, never arrogant, nor flattering, has always been silent, the most important thing is that he is also literate and able to deal with document exchanges.

In addition, Zhao Wen does not have the shortcomings of other officers, he is not as fond of pleasure as Wei Lianli, nor like drinking as Ma Dalei, not as timid as Chen Xiaoshou, and not as arbitrary as Hong Jiuzhi.

Therefore, Zhou Lang has always cultivated Zhao Wen as a confidant in the future, and has always let him sit on one side, when he was in the drum port, let Zhao Wen sit in the left camp, and after occupying Fengshan County, let him garrison the county seat, Zhao Wen has always had the richest experience in leading troops alone, so this time he was stationed in Jinxia, and Zhou Lang was the first to choose Zhao Wen.

But I didn't expect Zhao Wen to have an accident!