Zhou Zhong may have clashed with Wei Commander for this position, when he first came to Dinghaiwei, he was released by Cheng Quan, and he used strong means to remove Cheng Quan. Seeing Chang Xiao for the first time this time, Zhou Chong suspected that the other party had killed good and risked his work, and the other party didn't seem to have any effective evidence to prove that those heads were pirates, and the atmosphere on the dock was a little dignified for a while.

But at this moment, suddenly a short general walked quickly to Chang Xiao's side, and then whispered a few words in his ear, but Chang Xiao slapped his head fiercely, and said to Zhou Zhong with a somewhat remorseful expression: "Lord Admiral, my subordinates almost forgot an important piece of evidence just now, when we exterminated that group of pirates, we once saved a group of merchants and women who were captured by pirates, and now these people are on the warship, they can testify for us!" ”

Hearing that Chang Xiao and the others actually had witnesses, Zhou Zhong glared at Chang Xiao fiercely, thinking that you, the commander, are really confused, there is such a group of witnesses in the fleet, wouldn't it be okay to call them out earlier? I have been worried about it for so long in vain, and I almost blamed the other party.

When Zhou Zhong immediately sent Wu Shan to personally call the people who Chang Xiao had rescued, and after a while, he saw more than a dozen ragged people walking down from a warship, most of these people were dark and thin, and some of them were even injured, but their spirits were good.

"Huh? Aren't there still women, why are all these men? Zhou Zhong asked a little strangely.

"Lord Qiyu, those women have lost their virginity, so they don't want to appear in front of so many people, and their subordinates also feel pity for them. So I took it upon myself to let them stay on the boat. Wu Shan replied immediately after hearing this. There was also a hint of sympathy on his face.

Zhou Chong was stunned when he heard this. Immediately afterwards, he also nodded approvingly to Wu Shan, since those women were captured by pirates, it would definitely be difficult to preserve their chastity. In this era, the chastity of women is the most important, so although those women are victims, they are afraid of being exposed to others. It is also worth mentioning that even if they are rescued, they will not return to their loved ones, because then they will not only have to endure the contempt of others. It will also bring shame to the family.

"In this case, Wu Shan, you can arrange to send those women to Shuangyu Port, and let Sanniang arrange some laundry and cooking chores for them, so that at least they won't worry about their livelihood for the rest of their lives!" Zhou Zhong sighed at this time and said.

In fact, this is not the first time that Zhou Chong has taken in such a poor woman as in front of him, when he eliminated the Jeolla Chamber of Commerce and the Sangcheon Chamber of Commerce, he also rescued many abducted women and boys, and those boys were okay, just send them back, but those girls said that they didn't want to go back. Although they were abducted and sold for a good price, they still remained virgins when they were rescued. But for them, their reputation has been ruined after being abducted and trafficked, and now going back will only add shame to the family, so the most reluctant Zhou Zhong has no choice but to take them in the Chamber of Commerce to do some chores, and then they were all hooked away by the young men in the Chamber of Commerce, and the fastest one now even has a son.

"Your Excellency is merciful, your subordinates will do it!" After Wu Shan finished speaking, he turned around and went to settle those poor women.

Then Zhou Chong walked to the group of ragged people and asked them what happened to them, and these people quickly dominated Chang Xiao's words, they were either the crew members of the ship, or the ordinary people living near Penghu, they were all captured by the pirates to work in the pirate's den, and according to them, many of their companions were tortured to death by the pirates, they were very lucky to survive, and the most fortunate thing was that they met Chang Xiao and their sailors later, so that they completely escaped from the pirate's den.

With these people testifying, Chang Xiao and they finally got rid of the suspicion of killing good and taking credit, Chang Xiao and other Guanghaiwei soldiers still have some resentment in their hearts, but at this time, I saw Zhou Zhong solemnly saluted Chang Xiao and others: "General Chang, this admiral just wronged you, let everyone be wronged, but as the so-called punishment must be rewarded, this admiral announced that this time Guanghaiwei exterminated all the meritorious people of the pirates, all the rewards will be doubled!" ”

Zhou Chong's words suddenly hit the key point of Chang Xiao's people, and when they heard this, they all showed ecstatic expressions, don't say anything about these soldiers to protect their families and defend the country, they don't have such a high consciousness, and it can even be said that they fought hard to kill the enemy just to earn a background and white flowers. Therefore, when they heard that the reward was doubled, the dissatisfaction with Zhou Zhong in the hearts of these people had long since vanished, and they even felt that this young admiral was particularly pleasing to the eye.

After the misunderstanding was resolved, Zhou Zhong immediately arranged for Guanghaiwei's soldiers to rest in the barracks, and Chang Xiao and the others were welcomed by him to the conference hall of Zhenhai Tower, where a banquet had been set up to catch them up. But on the way back, Shen Ying quietly walked to Zhou Chong's side and said softly: "My lord, just now I observed Guanghaiwei's soldiers, and found that these soldiers are forbidden, advance and retreat, and all of them have a fierce expression, obviously they are not negligent in practice, and even have actual combat experience in exterminating pirates. ”

Zhou Zhong also nodded when he heard this, when he saw Chang Xiao's soldiers just now, he also felt that these soldiers were different from the soldiers of Dinghaiwei, although he didn't know how to train soldiers, but the good and bad of the army were still clear, and now even Shenying, a veteran, said so, it was more affirmative of Zhou Chong's feelings, it seems that this Chang Xiao is a talent, I hope he can shine in his own hands in the future, and don't insult the reputation of his ancestor Kaiping King Chang Yuchun.

Chang Xiao looks rude on the outside, but he is actually a shrewd general, and he is very open-minded, especially after getting double the reward, so that he does not hold a grudge, and soon the two chatted eagerly. In the process of chatting, Zhou Zhong found that Chang Xiao admired his ancestor Chang Yuchun very much, and took his ancestors as an example everywhere, but when he talked about the Duke of the Chang family being cut, his tone was full of regret, and even when he drank at the end of the day, he also said drunk words that he wanted to recreate the glory of the Chang family.

After the arrival of Guanghaiwei, Zhou Chong, the commander of the four seas, has gathered his troops, including 11,200 sailors, more than 200 large and small warships, and 3,000 elite camps brought by Shen Ying, with a total strength of 14,000 people, although this number is nothing in the army of the Ming Dynasty, but Zhou Chong still felt that the number was too much, and later after discussing with Shen Ying, Qu Lie and Chang Xiao, he decided to reduce the number of troops.

When fighting, the more troops the better, especially when Zhou heavily assists Malacca City and prepares to use the strategy of sneak attack, so it is easy to expose the target in advance if there are too many people, and the effect of sneak attack cannot be achieved. In addition, although the military expenses for going to sea to fight nominally came from Zhengde's inner treasury, but in fact it was provided by Zhou Chong's private people, and the more people who went to sea to fight, the greater Zhou Chong's expenses, so on the premise of ensuring victory, Zhou Zhong naturally had to reduce his troops.

The 3,000 people brought by Shen Ying were all the elite of the Beijing camp, and according to the plan they had formulated before, the most important thing to eliminate the Portuguese was land warfare, so these 3,000 people naturally did not need to be reduced. In contrast, the number of sailors is a little too much, and after Zhou Chong's internal discussion, it was finally decided to divide Dinghaiwei and Guanghaiwei into one hundred teams, each team is actually the former hundred households, and then all of them urgently practiced for three months, and after three months, Zhou Chong and several major generals personally evaluated, and selected fifty hundred households to form an army, and this selected elite was qualified to fight at sea.

In addition, in order to motivate the soldiers to practice, Zhou Zhong also proposed a series of rewards and punishments, such as the treatment of the soldiers of the selected 100 households will be improved, and the top 100 households can be an additional reward, while the 100 households that have not been selected can only take the meager military salary before, and they must hand over the best warship in their hands for others to choose. In addition, Zhou Zhong also made it clear that the selected soldiers would go to sea with him to fight, and the military rewards were also extremely rich, and it was up to them whether they could get it or not.

Zhou Zhong doesn't know how to train soldiers, but he understands the truth that wealth moves people's hearts, especially for these military households with low incomes, his series of means of salary and reward, coupled with the military merits and rewards promised in the future, will definitely allow these soldiers to show the greatest strength to practice.

Sure enough, when the above measures were announced, the barracks of the two guards were all boiling, in order to maintain the integrity of their two guards, the treatment of the soldiers in the guards was higher than that of the ordinary guards, and the commanders of the two guards did not dare to wantonly annex the land of the guards, after all, there were countless people staring at it.

But even so, the life of the military households is not easy, because in the past, a military household was allocated a certain amount of land, but after years of reproduction, a family was divided into several or even a dozen, but the number of fields is still so much, it is not enough for the old and young wives and children in the family to make a living, and the military orders in the guard house are strict, they do not dare to do other livelihoods, they can only hold on to this death, some military families even starve to death, and now there is an opportunity to raise military salaries and even make a fortune. This is simply to show them the way in the dark, so these soldiers are simply crazy with joy.

Shen Ying, Qu Lie, and Chang Xiao were also very surprised by Zhou Chong's generosity, and at the same time admired the young Admiral, but this also made them feel a kind of pressure, after all, the more generous Zhou Chong was to the army, which meant that their future tasks would be heavier, so they also tried their best to train the army and strive to satisfy Zhou Chong.

Zhou Zhong didn't know anything about military training, so all he could do was the above, and he handed over all the military training to the three of Shenying, and then he had to exercise another power of the Admiral of the Four Seas. (To be continued......)