The first major thing Zhu Youzhen did these days was to investigate what kind of forces the fleet rushed into the Yangtze River and rescued Zhu Yousong and the White Lotus Sect Master, where they are now. Of course, on the bright side, Zhou Yanru and the officials in various coastal areas were investigating, but this fleet did not dock anywhere, so naturally nothing was found.

Zhu Youzhen was investigating in secret, mainly by Jinyiwei. In fact, according to Zhu Youzhen's conception, the function of Jinyiwei should be similar to that of the armed police in the previous life, which is higher than the local security force and is responsible for the internal security of the country. As for intelligence gathering, special service operations, counter-espionage, and other secret-related affairs, the newly established Daming Intelligence Department should be in charge.

However, the Ministry of Intelligence had just been established, manpower was still very short, and now all his energy was devoted to the top-secret "Operation No. 1", and Zhu Youzhen did not want to distract them. Therefore, the investigation task fell to Yan Zhengang, the commander of Jinyiwei. In fact, this work had already been arranged, and by the time Zhu Youzhen moved to Changchun Garden, the investigation was basically clear. In order to prevent leakage, Yan Zhengang entered Changchun Garden late at night to report, and left quietly late the next night.

Jinyiwei has sub-offices in various places, but the investigation method is completely different from that of the local government. The local government was nothing more than sending officials to inspect the coastal villages and towns, and reported the matter without discovering the landing of the fleet.

Jinyiwei sent a large number of plainclothes to inquire about all kinds of gossip in the streets and alleys, especially in Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi. Because Zhu Youzhen and Yan Zhengang both knew that an armed fleet with such a large scale and such advanced weapons could not have appeared out of thin air, nor could it be stragglers and sporadic bandits. And there are only a handful of forces in East Asia that have such a strong force.

First of all, the Manchus can be excluded. When Kong Youde, Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming and other traitors rebelled out of Phidao and surrendered to the Manchu Dynasty, they took away some of the warships that originally belonged to the Ming army, so that Huang Taiji was like a treasure, so he established the "Great Qingshui Division" with these warships.

However, this "sailor" was too shabby, the largest warship was only 400 materials, the hull was dilapidated, although there were a few Fran cannons, but the ammunition was pitiful, as long as it met the Phi Dao sailor at sea, it would definitely be wiped out with a few cannons. Therefore, since the day of its establishment, this "Great Qingshui Division" has been willing to be a turtle with a shrunken head, anchored in the estuary of the Liao River. Moreover, the Bohai Sea is in a frozen period in winter, and even if these broken ships come up with it, they can't get out.

In the same way, it cannot be a North Korean sailor. Although the Korean naval division had more warships than the Manchu Qing Dynasty, most of them were small ships under 200 materials, and they had just been beaten up by the North Sea Fleet and the Phidao naval division.

As for the widows, Zhu Youzhen was very suspicious at first. Different from the previous life, in this time and space, the already disappeared Japanese invaders made a comeback, and they were even more ferocious than in the Jiajing period, and dared to invade the Bohai Sea. He himself has seen the Japanese with his own eyes, these Japanese devils are strong in combat and ruthless, if it weren't for Qi Meifeng and Li Zhenyan desperately saving each other, he would have died in the sea a long time ago.

However, after carefully analyzing the battle reports sent by Qi Xianzong, Wang Zaijin and others, Zhu Youzhen quickly ruled out the possibility that they were Japanese invaders. Because the ships of this fleet were mainly Fuku, equipped with sails, and attacked mainly with artillery; The ships of the Japanese were mainly thousand-stone ships, with only one large longitudinal sail, and the only weapons were arquebuses and swords. And it was observed that the sailors on the ship seemed to come from Tiannan and Haibei, both Japanese and Westerners, but the most looked like Chinese.

As a result, the range of targets is much narrower. The warships of Western countries such as Spain and the Netherlands, of course, also have this ability, but the appearance of their warships is very different from Fukufu, and it is impossible to have Chinese and Japanese. Then there's only one possibility: pirates!

At present, the largest pirate force entrenched in the East Asian seas is undoubtedly Zheng Zhilong. Although Zheng Zhilong nominally accepted the imperial court's recruitment, and also worshiped the chief military officer of Fuzhou and the governor of the navy, he never landed in Fujian, but only used this official uniform to carry out smuggling trade more blatantly, and robbed other ships when he encountered them, as if he was the emperor of the sea.

Since the sea is Zheng Zhilong's place of refuge, he naturally attaches great importance to naval warfare. Zhu Youzhen personally saw Zheng Zhilong's flagship "treasure ship" in Dengzhou, which turned out to be a behemoth of 8,000 materials, and even the navies of Western countries could not match it. In addition to the flagship, there are also many large and small warships, and they are all equipped with sails and guns, which is very advanced in East Asian waters. Therefore, don't look at Zheng Zhilong's old nest in Taiwan, and the Netherlands and Spain have invaded Taiwan, but they don't dare to start a war with Zheng Zhilong, and the three sides maintain a fragile balance at sea.

As for the other pirates, there are two other ones that can have this kind of warship: Li Dan and Lin Feng. Li Dan is also a native of Fujian, and Zheng Zhilong is a fellow villager, and his "debut" is earlier than Zheng Zhilong, and it is said that when Zheng Zhilong first became a pirate, he also recognized Li Dan as his godfather. Li Dan had a deep collusion with the Japanese Japanese pirates, and it is said that he was inextricably linked with the Tokugawa shogunate. However, after the rise of Zheng Zhilong, Li Dan's power was suppressed, and he was also old, so he had to temporarily avoid the edge and mainly operate in the Ryukyu area.

And Lin Feng is even more "legendary", it is said that she is a young woman. After taking over her father's pirate power, she mainly operated around Luzon and clashed with both the Spaniards and Zheng Zhilong.

Zhu Youzhen's most suspicious is, of course, Zheng Zhilong. The other pirates, first, were too far from the mouth of the Yangtze River, and second, they had no motives. And Zheng Zhilong has always been obedient to the court, and Zhu Youzhen has long suspected that he has different intentions.

Besides, when Zhu Youzhen married Qi Meifeng as the king of Qin, the world was a sensation, and Zheng Zhilong naturally couldn't have known about it. The marriage between his younger brother Zheng Zhibao and Qi Meifeng was disturbed by "Qi Jian", Zheng Zhilong is no matter how stupid he is, he should guess that "Qi Jian" is Zhu Youzhen today, how can he not be afraid? It can be inferred from this that Zheng Zhilong is likely to collude with the White Lotus Sect to rescue Zhu Yousong and others, and completely break with the imperial court.

But after all, Zheng Zhilong has not openly rebelled yet, and even if Zhu Youzhen suspects him, he needs to have sufficient evidence. It will definitely not work to investigate clearly, so even if Zheng Zhilong does not rebel, he will be forced to rebel. That's why he asked Jinyiwei to investigate secretly, and after verifying, he decided how to deal with it.

After watching the secret music sent by Yan Zhengang in one go, Zhu Youzhen patted his hot forehead and said with a wry smile: "What are you afraid of, Zheng Zhilong, this bastard, is really the opposite..."