The Cao Gang did a waterway deal, because its power was huge, and it did not oppose the government (on the surface, it was neither attached to the Manchu Qing nor to the Southern Ming), so now although there have been wars for many years, the Cao Gang has always been standing. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

The Cao Gang's approach of protecting one's self made the governments on both sides unwelcome, but it was not easy to really suppress it, so as not to force the other side to switch to the other side.

In any case, the Cao Gang also has a large amount of waterway resources, and there is basically nothing that the Cao Gang cannot do in the smuggling of goods and the smuggling of people between the provinces.

Nanming hoped that through the Cao Gang, those wealthy merchants, literati and even generals in the north who were determined to be Ming would be smuggled over.

The Manchu Qing also hoped that through the Cao Gang, the specialties of Jiangnan and other places would be transported into the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

In this way, as long as the Cao Gang does not oppose the government, they can always stand tall in this troubled world.

Shanghai belongs to the territory of Suzhou, and the Cao Gang put their hands here in order to get Suzhou's specialties, and even most of them will be smuggled to the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

The Cao Gang's eating appearance is ugly, as soon as it comes up, it will take over more than half of the wharf, Shanghai County officials are not good at dealing with the Cao Gang, but they also don't want to always let the other party take advantage, so in addition to supporting the local gangs to suppress the Cao Gang, they also intentionally or unintentionally revealed a message to the foreigners living in Fanfang: The government does not like the Cao Gang, and whoever has the ability to grab the Cao Gang's wharf will belong to whoever this wharf is.

Thereupon........ Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, and a large number of other foreigners set up their own gangs in Shanghai.

With these gangs uniting to deal with the Cao Gang, it is enough for the Cao Gang to be disgusting for a while.

However, the Cao Gang is indeed powerful enough, in the face of the siege of multinational gangs, after giving up several docks with little oil and water, they finally kept the two docks with the most oil and water, and kept the name of the second largest gang in Shanghai.

The Cao Gang suffered a lot of losses, but their own strength was there, so they naturally would not stop there, and after solving their worries, they began to retaliate against these small foreign gangs.

And those docks that the Cao Gang gave up before, someone has to take over!

So near Fanfang, there is a war almost every day, either the Cao Gang retaliates against the foreigners, or the foreigners hate each other, which can be described as very lively.

Earlier, Li Hongfei and his entourage were misunderstood by those foreigners as gangs seeking revenge, and many foreigners who were doing business were worried about suffering from unwarranted disasters, so they hurried to the government to report the case.

"Is this Cao Gang really so powerful? Several gangs joined forces, but they didn't squeeze him out? Li Hongfei asked with interest.

"It's nothing, our government didn't do anything, if our government speaks, his Cao gang will soon be unable to stay in Shanghai." Yao Qisheng said.

"Ahem, civil affairs, the government intervenes, it will inevitably fall into reality, and I think, since the Cao Gang wants this place in Shanghai, why can't we talk about it and strive to take them for our own use?" Li Hongfei proposed.

After listening to Yao Qisheng's introduction, Li Hongfei already understood what kind of organizational structure the Cao Gang was.

To put it simply, the Cao Gang is specifically responsible for water transportation, and in today's society, businessmen buy from the south to sell from the north, and the water route is obviously more profitable than the land route, so the Cao Gang has become an indispensable part.

Today's Cao Gang is not only numerous and powerful, but also covers a wide area, and has energy, from the three sects to the ninth stream, and there are almost no levels that the Cao Gang cannot touch.

For Li Hongfei, this is simply an excellent intelligence network!

"I'm afraid it's useless, the Cao Gang has always followed the two no-helps, and even heard that the regent of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Dolgon, once wrote a letter to Situ Jiannan, the big boss of the Cao Gang, when he first raised troops to the south, to persuade him to return to the Manchu Qing, but the result was ineffective at all." Yao Qisheng reminded.

Not to mention Dolgon, Zhu Youzhen also wrote this kind of letter to Situ Jiannan, but Situ Jiannan only agreed not to help the Qing army cross the river, and when the war came, all the Cao Gang closed down, and all the ships stopped in the port, which lasted for half a year.

"On the surface, the Cao Gang does not help each other, but in fact, it indirectly helps us a lot." Li Hongfei explained with a smile: "In the original battle of Chongming Island, if it wasn't for the Cao Gang to hide all the ships, Boluo could have requisitioned those ships to achieve the effect of crossing the river with all the staff at one time, and then the 100,000 troops would rush up, and it was really hard to say whether the Qi family army could win." ”

Not only the battle of Chongming Island, when the Qing army took Yangzhou, and Li Hongfei could not make a move, in fact, the situation was already very clear, if the Cao Gang "conformed to the will of heaven" and defected to the Qing army, then Azig and Duoduo did not need to take such a long detour, and attacked Nanjing on the east and west.

The 350,000 troops of the Manchu Qing Dynasty only needed to requisition the cargo ships of the Cao Gang and forcibly land from Xuanwu Lake, and Nanjing could not withstand it at all.

The reason why the Cao Gang did not help each other was actually the helpless move of Situ Jiannan, the big boss of the Cao Gang, he knew that it would be difficult for Nanming to survive this catastrophe, if he Ming helped Nanming, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty would find trouble afterwards, and tens of thousands of Cao Gang disciples under him would be offended.

But the Cao Gang is also a gang of Han people, so how can they help the Manchus?

So Situ Jiannan came up with a brilliant plan of "not helping each other, helping without helping".

"So, we're all wrong about the Cao Gang? The lower official gave an order to go down, so that those gangs would not move the territory of the Cao gang in the future. Yao Qisheng is not a fool, through Li Hongfei's reminder, he quickly understood the key.

At that time, Nanming was the defender, and the only role of the Cao Gang to Nanming was tens of thousands of Cao Gang brothers, but how much role did tens of thousands of people have?

But the Manchus were different, the Manchus belonged to the attacking side, and they needed not only a large number of ships but also a large number of experienced sailors to go south, and these, with the help of the Cao Gang, would be like a tiger with wings.

So Li Hongfei was right, the Cao Gang was risking offending the Manchu Qing and quietly helped Nanming.

"No, let those gangs continue to fight, this little trouble is not difficult for the Cao Gang, the harder they fight, the more relieved the Manchu Qing will be to the Cao Gang, and then it will be good to implement my plan!" Li Hongfei said.

With such a perfect intelligence network, Li Hongfei doesn't want to waste it like this, and the drama has to be shown to outsiders.

Just when Li Hongfei explained to Yao Qisheng how to find a way to win over the Cao Gang, an officer from the Yamen came to report: There was a large-scale gang fight at the Huangjiawan Wharf, and the Italian mafia, the United Japanese Triad, and the Axe Gang from Taiwan were attacking the Cao Gang's No. 2 pier.

"Ahem......... Mafia, triads, axe gangs? It's a little interesting, let's go over and see the excitement together. Li Hongfei said with a forced smile.

This Nima is the name of some of the best gangs in later generations!