After a night of Spring Festival, Li Hongfei, who was "calculated" by three beauties, finally let go of the knots in his heart completely. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

Life is short, blindly caring about gains and losses, but living uncomfortably.

He is not Zhu Youzhen, and power does not have much temptation for him, as long as he ensures that his life is not threatened.

Of course, with his current status, no one in the entire Ming Dynasty can easily shake it, let alone threaten his life safety.

The "New Da Ming Law" has been officially promulgated and implemented, and all incumbent officials, including members of Congress, as well as the active military, are vested interests, and moving Li Hongfei is equivalent to moving everyone's interests, even with Zhu Youzhen's energy, he is now unable to confront Li Hongfei head-on.

As long as he firmly grasps the trump card of national security internal service, Li Hongfei is not afraid of any threat.

Li Hongfei, who completely untied the knot, gradually integrated into this era, began to learn to enjoy life, and when he went home every day after running errands, he would get tired of being with his second daughter, or let Chen Yuanyuan teach calligraphy, or find Zhu Yujiao to flirt.

Occasionally, the young brother-in-law Zhu Cihuan came to visit the door, and Li Hongfei would take the initiative to play mahjong, of course, the husband and wife joined forces to beat each other, and it was difficult for Zhu Cihuan not to lose money.

Mahjong culture was not brought by Li Hongfei, but in the early Ming Dynasty, it arose in Jiangsu and other places.

Mahjong cards, also known as sparrow cards, sparrow cards, are the "grain protection cards" in Taicang, Jiangsu.

In Taicang County, Jiangsu Province, there used to be a large granary of the royal family, which hoarded rice all the year round for the "south-to-north grain transfer".

In order to reward the finch-catchers and grain guards, the officials who managed the granary used bamboo chips to record the number of birds they caught, and paid them according to this, which was the "grain protection card" of Taicang.

This kind of chip card is engraved with a variety of symbols and numbers, which can be viewed, played, and can also be used as a voucher for redeeming bonuses, and this kind of grain protection card, its play, symbols and title terms are all related to catching birds.

The name of the three basic suits of the Sparrow brand is called "Wan, Bundle, Tube", the pattern of "Tube" is the cross-section of the gunpowder gun, the "Tube" is the barrel, and the few barrels represent several gunpowder guns.

"Suo" is "bundle", is a bird strung with a thin rope, so the pattern of "a rope" is represented by a bird, a few ropes are several bunches of birds, and the bonus is calculated according to the number of birds.

"10,000" is the unit of reward, and tens of thousands is the amount of reward.

In addition, "southeast, northwest" is the wind direction, so it is called "wind", and the wind direction should be considered when shooting birds with gunpowder guns.

"Medium, white, hair": "Medium" means shooting, so it is red.

"White" means a blank slate, and a cannon.

"Fa" means to issue a bounty and receive a reward.

The terminology of mahjong is also related to catching birds and protecting food. For example, "bump" is the gunfire of "Peng", and if the card is called "and" (Yinhu), "and" and "falcon" are homophonic, "falcon" is a kind of eagle that catches birds, in addition to this, there are terms such as "eating" and "kong" are also related to catching birds.

Because in the Taicang dialect, the pronunciation of "sparrow" and "mahjong" is closer, so playing "sparrow" is naturally called playing "mahjong".

At that time, Zheng He, who went to the West, was worried that the crew would stay at sea for a long time and live a boring life, so he brought mahjong as an entertainment item on the way to the West, and thus spread in various coastal places.

Although Li Hongfei is not the inventor of mahjong, he can be regarded as an important leader in promoting mahjong as an entertainment project from the people to the government.

Lord Zuo Xiang loves mahjong, is a well-known thing in the circle, since ancient times up and down is a major feature of the Chinese people, plus the ancient entertainment items are scarce, so up to the dignitaries, down to the common people, for a time the rise of mahjong fever.

In this way, the first to bear the brunt is the gambling house and the green house.

This gambling house is a cancer that cannot be cut off, and how many people have gone bankrupt because of their gambling addiction, so it is not uncommon for children to sell their wives and children.

Although mahjong is technically considered gambling, its profits are much lower than those of making a bookmaker.

Since Li Hongfei has brought up the mahjong craze, he naturally has the intention of taking advantage of the situation to suppress the casino.

When many streets and alleys in the capital opened mahjong parlors, the consumption level of one to two dollars of silver per person was also taken care of, and the traffic of major gambling houses was instantly pulled away by nearly three-thirds.

In fact, people who participate in gambling understand a truth in their hearts, that is, "ten gambles and nine cheats", but why do these people want to jump into the fire pit?

The key is to stay at home........

Nowadays, there can be a relatively cheap, and especially easy to kill a good place to kill time, and compared to the casino that loses nine out of ten, the probability of making a profit in the mahjong parlor is as high as 25 percent, as long as you are not a professional gambler, you will choose the mahjong parlor.

As for the mahjong parlor, where the three religions and nine streams gather, and the speed of information circulation is no worse than that of the teahouse tavern, the spies of the National Security Internal Service Department are naturally highly respected.

As long as professional gamblers can be retained, the losses of some small retail investors are still within the scope of bearing, and it is really not good, the casino can also add mahjong this project, let out part of the benefits, to stabilize the flow of customers.

But brothels are different, you can't always have a group of prostitutes to accompany the officials who come to drink flower wine and play mahjong all night.

Since there is a mahjong parlor, most of the women in the capital are obsessed with this entertainment, these broad wives, used to play with the maid at home, the play is too big for the maid to lose, and the play is small and boring.

But in this mahjong parlor, as long as you talk about the rules in advance, you can play as much as you want, and you can play mahjong together, although they are all neighbors, but there are always a few people who compete with each other secretly, win their money, not only enrich the pocket, but also have light on the face.

So the husbands of these women could not sit still..........

What kind of place is the mahjong parlor, a place where men and women mix and match, and if you don't pay attention, you may be "green".

The most taboo thing for a veteran who wanders around the flowers all the year round is that his "flowers" are picked by others, so whether he wants to or not, he must make a choice between watching his wife and going out to drink flower wine.

This is still those men who have wives, those who don't have wives, and like to visit Qinglou all year round, they are also not stupid, how expensive it is to visit Qinglou, and after a long time, it is full of acquaintances, and there is not much freshness for a long time.

How can you visit a mahjong parlor comfortably, the cost is low, and you can enjoy it in a different way, although they are all young women, but they are also better than the Qinglou sisters.

As the saying goes: a wife is not as good as a concubine, and a concubine is not as good as stealing.

There are more exciting projects than visiting the green house, and some veterans of flowers will naturally not miss it.

As a result, those who protect the flowers, pick the flowers, and the men who protect the flowers in their hands and worry about the flowers in other people's hands have abandoned the Qinglou.

The business of the entire Qinglou in the capital, because of the appearance of the mahjong parlor, instantly plummeted by as much as fifty percent, which is even worse than the gambling house.

Of course, this is also what Li Hongfei did not expect.

Originally, I just wanted to crack down on the gambling industry and provide an excellent place for the intelligence agencies by the way, but it turned out to be a serious impact on the Qinglou.

But it's okay now, just like what is said in the "New Daming Law": all citizens of the Ming Dynasty are equal.

Nowadays, the phenomenon of male superiority and inferiority of women is too serious, and only by letting these women go out and communicate more with outsiders can fundamentally break the bad habit that women are not allowed to show their heads, so that it will be logical to liberate women's labor force in the future.

Don't underestimate a small mahjong parlor, receive more information from the outside world, and your vision and knowledge will naturally become richer and richer, not to mention this entertainment project, even the princes and nobles and the first person in the dynasty are very fond of it, who dares to say bad things about it?

The vigorous "mahjong culture" gradually spread to the entire Ming Dynasty within a few months, and Li Hongfei, the initiator of the whole thing, finally had a big thing to do after two months of comfortable life..........

At the beginning of July 1650, a fleet calling itself the "Kingdom of Great Britain" (Britain had not yet been merged with Northern Ireland at this time, and could not be called the United Kingdom) sailed into Hong Kong, which was in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and contacted local officials to formally ask for a meeting with the Ming monarch.

Originally, with the current strength of the Ming Dynasty, a small country is really not in the eyes, even if the other party may become a maritime hegemon in the future, but who can say what the future will be?

However, Great Britain is now engaged in the first Anglo-Dutch war with the Dutch, which is an excellent opportunity for the Ming Dynasty to officially enter the Age of Discovery.

..........

In the late 16th century, Britain thwarted Spain's maritime hegemony and broke the colonial monopoly of Spain and Portugal.

At the same time, the powerful windfall profits brought by colonial plunder made the struggle between Britain and the Dutch colonial powers inevitable.

Moreover, at this time, the Dutch were also crowding out British merchants everywhere, and in Russia and the Baltic States, in the North American colonies and East Asian countries, in the Mediterranean and West African coastal areas, the Dutch relied on their abundant capital and basically monopolized the trade of various countries.

In 1647, the Netherlands signed a treaty with Denmark, granting cargo ships duty-free transit through the Sunde Strait, thus gaining trade advantages in the region.

What the British people could not tolerate the most was that the Netherlands went so far as to wantonly catch fish, shrimp, and other aquatic products in British waters, and even sold them on the British market at high prices for huge profits.

At the beginning of 1649, the British Parliament passed the new "Navigation Regulations", which stipulated that all goods imported into England must be carried by English ships or brought to England by ships of actual origin, that is, no other countries with shipping capabilities were allowed to interfere.

The Netherlands has always been a trade intermediary country with many merchant ships, large size, high efficiency, and perfect organization, and can be said to be the center of the world's commodity distribution, Britain's new navigation regulations are obviously against the Netherlands, and combat its intermediary role in Britain's trade with other countries (for example, the goods exported by the Ming Dynasty are basically transshipped to European countries through the Dutch).

The struggle between the Netherlands and Britain intensified as never before, with the Netherlands opposing British navigation regulations and Britain refusing to abolish them, which led to the Anglo-Dutch naval war.

The First Anglo-Dutch War began in early July 1649, and the scale of its naval battles was unprecedented, if not unprecedented.

Initially, the two sides were mainly concentrated in the two theaters of operations, the Strait of Dover (including the North Sea) and the Mediterranean, of which the Strait of Dover was the main theater - this was determined by the geographical location of the two countries.

Almost every naval battle, both sides have to invest 3-50,000 sailors and 8,000-10,000 cannons (according to the calculation of six to 12 guns on a warship, each major battle between the two sides basically invests nearly 1,000 warships), and the number of battles is probably rare in history.

Later, the British began to perceive the weakness of the Dutch, which was their heavy reliance on overseas colonies to provide war potential, so by the early 1650s, the scale of the war was not limited to the Atlantic seas.

The British Navy even sent a large fleet to the Far East in an attempt to control the Indian coast and cut off the logistics supply lines of the Dutch.

However, the British did not know much about the Far East, and when they sent nearly 300 warships to the waters of the Indian Ocean and occupied Sri Lanka with great vigour, they finally got into serious trouble...........

Because the Dutch had suffered a big loss at the hands of the Ming Dynasty navy in the previous two years, the warships were almost destroyed, and most of the ships owned in the Far East were merchant ships, and there was little power to fight back against the British naval fleet.

At this time, the Dutch, who were forced to be helpless, had to turn to the Ming Dynasty sailors, to be precise, to ask Zheng Zhilong for help from the Ming Ocean Trading Company.

Although the Dutch's request to buy steam warships again was rejected by Zheng Zhilong, Zheng Zhilong, who was eager to find out the two strongest navies in the world today, still agreed to lease 20 steam warships and pilots at a sky-high price of 1 million taels of silver to help the Dutch hold the ports along the coast of the East Indies.

One million taels of silver is enough for the Baoshan Shipyard to build ten new steam warships again, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as a robbery of money.

However, according to Zheng Chenggong's statement: The pilot of a steam battleship cannot be trained overnight, and even if the battleship is sold to you, it will not be able to form combat effectiveness in a short period of time.

With this explanation, the Dutch finally agreed.

Anyway, when the time comes, let this group of yellow-skinned monkeys take the lead, and it is best that both sides can fight real fire, so that even if they no longer lease each other's warships, with the revenge psychology of this group of yellow-skinned monkeys, the British should not think about it.

The Dutch had a good calculation, and the naval battle in the Bay of Bengal was indeed the main attack launched by Zheng Zhilong's sailors.

However, in the Battle of Bengal, although the Dutch army won a complete victory, the British army calmly retreated to the port of Colombo, where Sri Lanka is located, at the cost of only losing 32 warships.

Throughout the campaign, Zheng Zhilong's sailors always kept 500 meters away from the British warships, completely using the advantage of maneuverability to pick up leaks, or to play soy sauce.

It was always the Dutch warships that really fought with the British (who made the Dutch warships slow).

After all, Zheng Zhilong only agreed to help the Dutch defend the ports in the coastal areas of the East Indies, but he didn't say that he wanted to replace the Dutch and fight the British.

However, even so, twenty steam warships were enough to contain nearly a hundred British warships, so that the Dutch finally won a great victory.

The British suffered a big loss, but they reined in a lot, and at the same time, after learning about the situation in the Far East, they finally made up their minds to send an envoy to the mysterious country in the East - Daming.