Historically, in 1635 (the eighth year of Ming Chongzhen) and Zheng Zhihu in the Guangdong Sea battle with a fishing net to catch Zhihu, in front of Zheng Zhilong thrown into the sea, a moment later Liu Xiang also committed suicide with a gun, becoming the last pirate to be subdued, for the 1625 in Taiwan uprising, once the world of the Age of Discovery, the eighteen Zhi, composed a little sad rest.

Chinese and foreigners have completely different attitudes towards the fact that their ancestors were pirates. For example, at this time, Britain, France and other countries openly supported piracy and allowed them to rob the ships of other countries.

The ancestors of the Nordics were the famous river and ocean thieves at sea, and they were not ashamed, but proud. Museums in Sweden and Denmark objectively show the majesty of their ancestors as pirates, and Norway even has a pirate museum. People in these countries sometimes say that their ancestors were pirates, and when they say this, they are not embarrassed at all, but they are still a little proud and proud.

The Chinese people are different. In small talk with friends, I talked about the relationship between the Merchant and the pirates, and I was always told by an older friend to avoid this when talking about the Merchant Gang in public. In fact, the maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty are also thieves and merchants.

The thieves who rebelled and robbed on the land were called the heroes of the green forest in ancient times, and today they are called peasant uprisings. But if you run to the sea, you are called a pirate in ancient and modern times. In the orthodox history of China, the matter of being a pirate to the Chinese has always been hidden.

The position of the Hui merchants in China's top ten merchant gangs is very important, and they are known as the second merchant gang (second only to the Jin merchants). When we mention Hui merchants, they all say that their four major industries are timber, tea, salt and pawnbroking, of which the salt industry is the main one.

In fact, there is another very important industry of Huizhou merchants, which is foreign trade. When the government allows foreign trade, it is a serious industry; When the government doesn't allow it, it becomes smuggling. The government has used force to suppress smuggling. Smugglers who rebel are called thieves.

The Ming Dynasty imposed a strict maritime ban policy, so the Hui merchants engaged in maritime trade became pirates. The most famous of these pirates is the Wang Zhi group. The Chinese do not hate thieves on land, but against pirates on the sea, so they talk about Hui merchants. Wang Zhi and his foreign trade activities were never included.

Wang Zhi is a native of She County, Huizhou, also known as Wang Zhi, because he knew that being a pirate would affect his family, so he changed his name to Wang Zhi. He became rich from trading with Japan and joined a pirate group headed by Xu Dong. At that time, Shuangyu Island off the coast of Zhejiang became the center of foreign trade, and its status was similar to that of Shanghai today. After the Ming government eliminated Xu Dong by force, Wang Zhi led thousands of his subordinates to establish a base in the Goto Islands in Nagasaki, Japan, and his power was so great that he called himself "King of the Pure Sea" (later renamed "King Hui").

They shouted at the Ming government. Openly engaged in smuggling - of course, there is a combination of business and theft. Under their command, the Japanese ronin burned and looted in the southeastern coastal areas of China, and became known as the "Wako". However, Wang Zhi's original intention was to be a businessman rather than a coward, so he intended to be recruited and become a businessman.

His fellow villager Hu Zongxian of Jixi, Huizhou, recruited him. But after he was recruited, the court treacherously killed him. Not only did this not eliminate the pirates. On the contrary, it spreads and causes more trouble.

The one who is more closely related to the pirates is the Fujian merchants, because the main body of the Fujian merchants is the pirate group headed by Zheng Zhilong, and the basic characteristics of the Fujian merchants are that they are both thieves and merchants.

Zheng Zhilong, a native of Shijing Township, Nan'an, Quanzhou, Fujian Province, defected to his uncle Huang Cheng, who was doing business in Macao, when he was about 17 years old. Travel to and from Macau, Japan, Luzon and other places. Not only did he broaden his horizons, but he also learned the languages of Portugal, the Netherlands, and other countries, and worked as a translator while doing business.

Soon, he had the opportunity to take the ship of the great pirate Li Dan to escort goods for his uncle to Hirado, Japan, and met Li Dan, who was doing business in Hirado. and joined Li Dan's pirate group. Zheng Zhilong married a Japanese woman, Tagawa clan, in Hirado and gave birth to a son, Zheng Chenggong. At this time, the Li Dan group was divided into three branches: the Japanese base camp headed by Li Dan, the Taiwan group headed by Yan Siqi, another leader, and the Fujian local group headed by Xu Xinsu.

In 1625, after Li Dan's death, his son Li Guo continued to preside over Japanese affairs. Soon after Yan Siqi died, Zheng Zhilong took control of the Taiwan branch, and then eliminated the Xu Xinsu group and established a base camp in Anping, Fujian (Anhai Town, Jinjiang).

In 1628, Zheng Zhilong accepted the recruitment of the Ming government, and used the power of the official army to eliminate Li Kuiqi, Yang Liuyang, seven brothers, Zhu Cailao, Zhong Bin and other pirate groups, with an army of more than 10,000 people and more than 1,000 warships. They established five major circulation systems in the name of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faith, and governed the circulation channels in various inland areas, and established five fleets in the name of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth, sailing in the east and west oceans.

They issued "order flags" that were actually insurance policies, earned as much as 4 million taels of gold a year, monopolized trade with Taiwan, controlled pricing power, and threatened the interests of the Dutch. In 1633, the Dutch attacked Xiamen and attacked Zheng Zhilong, with the help of Zheng Zhilong's rival Liu Xiang pirate group. Zheng Zhilong defeated the Dutch with the support of officers and soldiers and eliminated Liu Xiang's group. Since then, Zheng Zhilong has monopolized the maritime trade between the East and the West. This is the main body of the Fujian merchants in history. Zheng Zhilong Group also guarded southern Xinjiang for the Ming government, known as the "Great Wall of the South China Sea".

Historically, after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, Zheng Zhilong ignored the opposition of his brother Zheng Zhifeng and his son Zheng Chenggong to surrender to the Qing Dynasty, and was later deceived into house arrest in Beijing. In 1661, Zheng Zhilong was beheaded by the Qing court. Zheng Chenggong resisted the Qing Dynasty in Fujian and Guangdong, and still maintained a monopoly on the sea. In 1662, Zheng Chenggong defeated the Dutch and recovered Taiwan.

In that year, Zheng Chenggong died, and Zheng Chenggong's son Zheng Jing occupied Taiwan in an attempt to implement Taiwan independence. In 1683, Kangxi sent Zheng Jia's general Shi Lang to capture Taiwan and realize the "unification of Jinou". The Qing government continued to implement the policy of banning the sea, and the Zheng Zhilong Group withdrew from the stage of history. Of course. The Fujian merchants did not end there, not only the commerce of northwestern Fujian was highly developed, but later the Fujian people continued to engage in trade with Southeast Asian countries and immigrated to these regions, among which many excellent merchants emerged. Tracing their origins, we also have to thank the Zheng Zhilong Group, which is also a thief and a businessman.

Another important merchant gang on the southeast coast was the Cantonese merchants. We generally regard the Canton Gang, which is centered on the Thirteen Lines, as the representative of Cantonese businessmen. In fact, the Cantonese merchants also included the Chaoshan merchant gang and the Hakka merchant gang. But any of the merchant gangs in the Cantonese merchants developed from pirates.

The people of the coastal provinces depend on the sea for their livelihood, and fishing or sea trade has become their main means of livelihood. After the Ming government imposed a strict ban on the sea, they had to become pirates. The famous pirates of the Ming Dynasty, Lin Daoqian of Chenghai of Chaozhou and Lin Feng of Raoping, were the ancestors of Cantonese merchants. They were all thieves and merchants, openly confronting the Ming government.

[The protagonist wants to develop the Blue Navy, and pirates are a hurdle that can't be bypassed, focusing on this part.] 】

Ask for the support of the brothers...... (To be continued......)