Located on Hirasaka Island in Kochi, Japan, it is the lair of Zheng Zhilong's pirate group. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

After its main force was completely defeated by the Ming navy, Zheng Zhilong finally fled here, while the East China Sea Fleet had to turn back because its power was exhausted and its soldiers were exhausted and they could no longer provoke a war with the Japanese invaders.

What's more, at this time, the Satsuma Domain, a Japanese local military and armed force group allied with Zheng Zhilong, had also been ambushed in the waters near Hirasaka Island.

However, for Zheng Zhilong, although he has temporarily gained a little respite, he still has to admit the fact that he has completely failed at this time, but he has no more boats and many people.

At least in the next few days, he can no longer gather enough strength to compete with the imperial court, and even he is no longer able to suppress other sea forces.

Including now, these Japanese who were also living under his protection also began to despise him at this time, and the Satsuma clan even asked him to give up the Zheng family's property in Nanyang.

Moreover, there was also the Japanese general of the conquest, that is, the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who also hoped that Zheng Zhilong would lead his remnants to join the Japanese and serve his own shogunate and be driven by himself.

But for Zheng Zhilong, a great pirate who originally didn't even pay attention to the governor-level officials of the Ming Empire, he couldn't accept it anyway to let himself become a retainer of a small country.

Therefore, Zheng Zhilong rejected Tokugawa Ieyasu's kindness.

But what he didn't expect was that Tokugawa Ieyasu didn't have such a good temper as before, and the island people who had always bullied the soft and feared the hard were afraid of Zheng Zhilong because Zheng Zhilong was almost the strongest maritime power in the area, but now Zheng Zhilong is already a lost dog, if he can't use it for himself, as the actual ruler of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu naturally wants to bite off another piece of meat from Zheng Zhilong.

As a result, the Tokugawa shogunate directly dispatched 30,000 troops to Heisaka Island, under the pretext of naturally exterminating the bandits and recovering the territory taken by the pirates, and specially borrowed the name of the Ming Dynasty, that is, to completely cut off the bandits who betrayed the Celestial Empire.

Zheng Zhilong was naturally very angry after learning the news, fortunately, the emaciated camel was bigger than the horse, and Japan at this time was no longer as numerous as the so-called generals in the Wanli period, even if Zheng Zhilong no longer had much force, but still repelled the 30,000 troops of the Tokugawa shogunate.

However, Zheng Zhilong did not have to teach this Tokugawa Ieyasu a good lesson because of this.

Because, Zheng Zhilong knows that his great enemy is not these Japanese who don't know the height of the sky, but the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youxiao!

And what he needs most now is to find a peaceful harbor to recuperate, and hope that he will be able to make a comeback one day, as long as the court no longer sends a large army to suppress it, he believes that he can still rise again.

For this reason, Zheng Zhilong decided to submit to Japan and become a powerful foreign vassal of Japan, so that he could also get some funding from the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan and avoid unnecessary conflicts with other samurai groups.

Tokugawa Ieyasu finally had to agree to Zheng Zhilong's decision, although he couldn't move this Zheng Zhilong, but he could let this kind of maritime power of the Celestial Empire be attached, for Tokugawa Ieyasu, it was a merit worthy of going down in history.

He even reported to the Emperor of Japan for this reason, asking for a lot of rewards for this.

In this way, Zheng Zhilong became a foreign vassal force in Japan.

……

Zhu Youxiao did not know at this time that Zheng Zhilong had annexed Japan and was the first traitor to surrender to Japan.

Moreover, not long after Xiong Wencan's assassination, Zhu Youxiao received news from Dongchang that a concubine of Shang Zhouzuo, the governor of Liangguang, suddenly died of poison because she stole Shang Zhouzuo's almond soup.

Most of this gang were members of the Cao Gang who used to survive in the canal area, but because of the opening of the Liangjing Avenue and the prosperity of shipping brought about by the establishment of the Ming Navy, the role of Cao Yun began to decline, and many Cao Gang members fell into the grass or became tools used by some reactionary forces behind them.

After conducting strict interrogation of these gangs and conducting secret visits through various methods, Dongchang obtained the mastermind behind this series of secret assassinations, but what Zhu Youxiao did not expect was that it not only involved some wealthy businessmen along the coast, but also involved officials of the imperial court and even relatives and members of the royal family.

This made Zhu Youxiao, who learned the truth, extremely angry, and in order to prevent the huge profits brought by the sea trade from being nationalized, these people did not hesitate to assassinate the coastal governors and officials in a row by despicable means, so as to force no official to dare to be the vanguard of reform for Zhu Youxiao for the imperial court.

In order to continue his reform career in the Ming Dynasty, and to reassure the officials who are still willing to do practical things for themselves.

Zhu Youxiao did not choose to let go because of the strength and intricacies of the forces behind them, and since these people dared to brazenly assassinate the governor of one province and even deliberately murder the governors of two provinces in defiance of the condemnation of the whole world, then these reactionary forces should bear the consequences of doing so.

Li Jiantai, who is also the supervisor of the Guozi Sacrifice Wine, is a popular candidate for the next cabinet scholar, although Zhu Youxiao has no good impression of this official who did not perform well in the original history of the Chongzhen Dynasty, but seeing that this person finally rebelled against the Qing Dynasty with Jiang Yang after surrendering to Jiannu, so Zhu Youxiao did not do anything to him.

But what Zhu Youxiao didn't expect was that in the case of the murder of Xiong Wencan, Shang Zhouzuo and other governors, it turned out to be this person's mastermind.

And after getting the detailed information of the East Factory, Zhu Youxiao had to admit that the eradication of the eight Jin merchants did not mean the complete decline of the Jin merchants in the Ming Dynasty, and some of the Jin merchants who operated domestic sales and sea trade were not much damaged, but after most of the Jin merchants engaged in border trade were eliminated, they also gained greater development and became a new Jin merchant force.

And Li Jiantai's Li family is a representative of this, and it is beneficial for him for the court to eradicate the eight Jin merchants, so he did not stand up against it, but now when it comes to the conflict between the interests of the family and the interests of the court, he still chooses to defend the former, because the king can be replaced with another to re-loyal, but once the family is gone, he will not be able to survive in this society.

Zhu Youxiao didn't think about opening up to him because Li Jiantai was now a high-ranking civil official in Qingliuli, and after learning that Li Jiantai's family was involved in this matter, Zhu Youxiao directly issued a decree to wipe out the three clans.

"I have already said that anyone who disregards the will of the court and the interests of the country because of his own selfishness will directly wipe out the three clans and be punished as a crime of disaster to the country!"

After Zhu Youxiao said this, hundreds of cavalry from Dongchang immediately rushed to Guozijian, accompanied by a battalion of the Praetorian Guards stationed in the capital, and also sent people to immediately rush to the Li family's hometown in Shanxi, ordering Sun Chuanting to assist the imperial court in exterminating the Li family.