Chen Zilong originally wanted to discuss with Governor Li Zhi today about expanding the results of the battle, but he didn't expect to enter the tent and see Li Zhi frowning.

Chen Zilong took a step forward and asked, "Lord Zhangtai, but what's the matter?" ”

Seeing that his right-hand man was coming, Li Zhi sighed and handed over the military order of the King of Chu in his hand to Chen Zilong to watch.

After Chen Zilong took the letter, he read it at a glance and ten lines, and said in surprise: "King Chu, why is this?" At present, our war in Nanzhili and Zhejiang is going well, and it is the time to counterattack Nanjing in one go, why did the king of Chu give such a strange order at this stall? ”

Chen Zilong has always been a local petty official since he was admitted to the Jinshi, and he has no experience as a senior member of the central government, so he thinks about problems from the surface. Li Zhi is different, he is fifty-four years old this year, and he has been on the sea patrol for more than ten years, and the things in the officialdom are clear.

Li Zhi immediately knew that the king of Chu was killing people with a knife, and he wanted to kill the Tang king with the knife of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. As for what the order says, it is not enough to use anything, and if there is no money, can you still transport a boatload of grain from Guangdong?

Li Zhi looked at the indignant Chen Zilong, and felt that this young man was a talent that could be created, so he still had to point him out and not let him go his own way.

"Among the people, what do you think of this order of the King of Chu?"

"Didn't you say that the household department has no money, so let us shrink the war!"

"Hey, you're still young. The annual tax in Dongguan, Guangdong Province has to be collected by 5 million taels, and in addition to the taxes paid by the various governments in Guangdong, the amount of silver that can be spent in Guangdong every year is about 10 million taels. The food needed by our homeless people is all transported from Annam, and I heard that each stone of rice is less than one tael of silver. Salt is about the same, so how can it be said that there is no silver? ”

Chen Zilong also felt a little strange when he heard Li Zhi say this, there were 100,000 people in this homeless army on the island, and they needed a lot of food every day, but all of this was transported from Guangdong. The ability to ensure that the displaced people eat one meal and one meal a day is already better than what some poor families eat every day. In addition, the snow-white salt is openly supplied, you must know that this kind of refined salt costs two taels of silver and a pound in Nanzhili, and it is even more one tael of silver and one tael of refined salt north of the Yellow River. There is nothing abnormal about the grain ships coming from Guangdong in the past few days, why does the king of Chu still say that there is no money?

Chen Zilong asked, "My lord, but what is the meaning of the King of Chu?" ”

"Among the people, haven't you heard the Tang King of Fujian call himself the emperor? I heard that the king of Tang has issued two edicts to the king of Chu, asking the king of Chu to remove the title of prison state! ”

One sentence wakes up the dreamer, Chen Zilong is also a person of high intelligence, but he didn't expect that he just didn't understand high-level political activities. When I heard Li Zhi say this today, I immediately realized.

After figuring it out, Chen Zilong couldn't help but say angrily: "Which guy gave the King of Chu a bad idea, isn't this self-destruction of the Great Wall?" As the saying goes, the lips are dead and the teeth are cold, the Tang King of Fujian was wiped out by the Qing army, and Guangdong was not exposed to the iron hooves of the Qing army? I had a relationship with the King of Chu in Huguang, and the King of Chu has an open-minded temperament, so he will never make such a decision! ”

Li Zhi secretly sneered: "That wine-colored man has an open-minded temperament? That faint king is cruel and despicable! ”

Although Li Zhi thinks so, he still has to be grateful to Zhu Hongsan. Without Zhu Hongsan's discerning heroes, he was still in Guangdong as a patrol with only a thousand soldiers, and he could become a governor of eight places like now.

"Lord Zhengtai, please give me an order, I will go to Guangdong to meet the King of Chu Chitose, and I must persuade the King of Chu to revoke this order!"

Seeing Chen Zilong's youthfulness, Li Zhi couldn't help it, maybe it would be good for him to suffer a loss.

"Okay, there are still a few boatloads of displaced people to be transported to Guangdong the day after tomorrow, so you can follow them!"

While Li Zhi and Chen Zilong were discussing things, a small boat floated outside the Zhoushan Islands. It is said to be a small boat, but this kind of boat that can go out into the ocean is not small, and it is a family on the boat. In addition to the cross-sea transportation organized by the official army, the people along the coast also spontaneously organized to come to Zhoushan to defect to the Ming army. So there are not a few like this boat.

An old man in a green shirt standing on the boat would definitely scold Zhu Hongsan if he was here. "What are you doing with the old immortal Qian Qianyi?"

This old man is "the water is too cold" Qian Qianyi. Since the surrender of Nanjing, Old Man Qian thought that the Manchu Qing could reuse a Shilin leader like himself, so when the Manchu Qing asked him to go to Beijing to be an official, Old Man Qian went with joy.

But he didn't expect that when he arrived in Beijing, the Manchu Qing Dynasty only gave him an idle errand for the secretary of the Ministry of Rites to take charge of the affairs of the secretary. In addition, many people ridiculed him as the "leader of the two dynasties", and the old man Qian also felt that this official was not interesting, so he resigned on the grounds of poor health.

When he returned to his hometown in Changshu and saw his hometown that was plagued by the Qing army, Qian Qianyi also regretted his surrender at that time. But it has been a big mistake, and Qian Qianyi can only use wine to kill his sorrows every day.

His concubine Liu Ru is a heroine among women, seeing Qian Qianyi so depressed, she stepped forward and persuaded: "Master, the eldest lady has already taken the whole family to Guangdong, why don't we go to the king of Chu together!" ”

Qian Qianyi shook his head and said: "Back then, I didn't deal with that Zhu Hongsan in the court, and he also set fire to our house, if I go to Guangdong, he can spare me?" ”

"Master, I think the King of Chu has the talent of Liu Bei, plus the Lord you are still the leader of Shilin after all, and nearly half of the magistrates in the southern provinces are your protégés, disciples, and friends, I think the King of Chu should make a choice. What's more, I heard that Yuting had given birth to a son for the King of Chu, and Yuting spoke, I think the King of Chu should not be embarrassed by the master. ”

Listening to Liu Ru is words, Qian Qianyi also felt that this was a way, now there are five or six large and small prison countries in the south, and the Tang King of Fujian is directly called the emperor, and the bastard King Chu also claims to be the prison country, but he is estranged in blood, and I heard that the officials in various prefectures and counties in Guangdong Province are not convinced by him. If you go yourself, you can help him. But I can't pull my face like this.

Seeing Qian Qianyi's hesitant expression, Liu Ru already knew that he had decided to go to Guangdong, but he couldn't get over his face and wanted to go down a step.

Liu Ru thought for a while and said, "Master, Yuting just gave birth to a son, shouldn't you, who is a grandfather, go to see your grandson?" After all, Yuting is your daughter! ”

"That's right, my grandfather should go to see his grandson, Hedongjun, you prepare, let's leave in a few days!" Seeing that Old Man Qian had a step down, Liu Ru smiled and went down to make arrangements.

Now the Qian family has nothing to clean up, and when the Chen family left, everything they could take had been taken away. Qian Qianyi just took a few henchmen and hired a boat to search for the whereabouts of the Ming army along the Yangtze River.

Now the entire Yangtze River estuary to the coast of Zhejiang is under the control of the Guangdong Navy, and countless ships rush to Zhoushan every day. Qian Qianyi and his entourage easily heard the news of the Ming army in Chongming County, and then hired a large ship to go south to Zhoushan.

Outside the Zhoushan Islands, Qian Qianyi stood on the bow of the ship and saw a large number of sea ships waiting to enter Dinghai Port. Dinghai was originally just a military port, there were not so many berths, and in the past few days, Guangdong's grain ships have to enter the port, so a large number of ships that have fled have stopped outside the port.

Qian Qianyi saw the big ship of the sailor under the banner of the Ming army passing in front of him, the battleship was like a castle, and the side of the ship was three times higher than the ship he was on, and he couldn't help but sigh: "What a majestic warship!" ”

"Sir, you haven't seen the biggest one yet! I went to sea today, I was not in the port, I heard that the big ship had two thousand four hundred materials, my mother, probably the ship that the eunuch of Sanbao went to the South Seas was not as big as this! ”

Qian Qianyi looked back and saw that it was the captain of the ship he hired who spoke.

"This boatman, are these boats all the sailors of the King of Chu in Guangdong?"

"Yes, these are all Guangdong sailors. Half a year ago, I fought with the Tartar sailors on the side of the Yangtze River and the sea, and the river was dyed red. I heard that thousands of warships of the Tartar Sailors were destroyed! ”

Although Qian Qianyi had no rights on the Manchu side, he still knew some basic information, and the report at that time was that 120 warships had been lost and more than 2,000 sailors had been killed. Destroy eighteen large ships and countless small ships of the Ming army. It's different from what the ship boss said!

"Boatman, I heard that the military and naval divisions have also suffered great losses, is it true?"

"Well, I was on the Yangtze River at that time, and many boats saw it. The Ming army had only five large ships in total, and they did not come into contact with the Tartar sailors at all, and bombarded them with artillery from outside. The sound of the cannon was deafening, and I was still ringing in my ears three days later! ”

"Boatman, do you mean that the army has not lost a single ship?"

"Yes, sir, look!" The captain of the ship said and pointed to the warship walking in front of him.

"Sir, you see, there are three rows of windows on both sides of the ship, and those are cannon windows, and there is a cannon in each window!"

Qian Qianyi looked at the dense cannon windows and asked, "Is this all artillery?" Isn't this almost thirty guns? ”

"It's just one side, and there's thirty more on that side. I heard that this is only the third-level warship of the Guangdong Navy, and there are a hundred first-class warships with a hundred cannons, but the villain has never seen it, this is all from the bragging of the sailors of the sailors! Those sailors were originally pirates from Nanyang and Guangdong, and I heard that they were subdued by the king of Chu and became sailors, and each of them had a full ten taels of silver per month. ”

Qian Qianyi didn't care how much money he had, he was only interested in the strength of the King of Chu, after all, it was related to his own net worth.

"Boatman, how many other Guangdong sailors are there like this?"

"Then I don't know, I can see more than a dozen. I heard from those sailors that they still had a fleet of this size on the side of Annam in the South Seas, and I heard that they had just won a battle in Luzon some time ago and occupied Luzon. ”

Seeing that his cheap son-in-law was so powerful, Qian Qianyi couldn't help but be secretly happy, so he could have a place to live in Guangdong.