Taking advantage of the stalemate stage of the war, Zhang Chu seized the time to develop the production in his own territory, and a large number of commodities produced by factories and mines needed to find a suitable market, and things could only be sold in exchange for money, and raw materials should be bought back for reproduction, so as to form a complete production and sales chain and generate profits from them, which could promote social progress and development. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Due to the imperial court's maritime ban policy, the Ming Dynasty's legal foreign trade was greatly reduced, and in the face of huge interests, the imperial court's ban did not play much role. Foreign smuggling activities in various coastal areas have never stopped, and the Zheng Zhilong group, the largest pirate group in the late Ming Dynasty, developed by monopolizing foreign trade in the south.

Zhang Chu established a base on Liuheng Island and began to send crew teams on a small scale to open up shipping routes to carry out maritime trade. Look for opportunities to make money between Zheng Zhilong, the Dutch, and the Portuguese.

After gaining a foothold in Shandong, Zhang Chu decided to sell the goods produced in Shandong overseas. Zhang Chu studied the surrounding situation, and found that the closest and most promising thing to Shandong was the Wa State market, although Zhang Chu did not like the Wa State, but the things that could make money were Zhang Chu's favorite thing to do, so Shandong's goods were loaded on the five No. 1 Fu ships armed to the teeth, and sailed to the Wa State under the escort of two warships.

The silk fabrics and copper coins of the Ming Dynasty have always been the most popular in the Wa Kingdom, Zhang Chu did not have silk but had the cotton cloth woven by using advanced water conservancy looms, in addition to Zhang Chu also loaded a large number of iron tools on the ship, these things went to the Wa Kingdom to use the channels originally opened up, a little bit of investment in the market, immediately caused a sensation, the glittering copper coins attracted the attention of many Wa people, high-quality and inexpensive cotton cloth even so that ordinary Wa people can buy some to make a dress for themselves. The work was made easy by the iron tools of good quality, and the people of the Wa Kingdom rushed to buy them.

And these things are all without exception under the symbol of the security army, and the Japanese people gradually remember these two Chinese characters, which are the guarantee of quality.

The Wa Kingdom is a small island country, most of the mineral resources are very scarce, but only the reserves of silver are abundant, at this time the silver mines of Iwami Silver Mountain have been mined for nearly a hundred years, and most of the silver produced in it has flowed to the Ming Dynasty. It is the main source of silver.

Zhang Chu's caravan in the Wa Kingdom of course did not miss a great opportunity to collect silver, exchanged all the goods for silver, and then bought a full ship of sulfur, and there was still a surplus of silver, and the fleet returned with a full load, and returned to Shandong Sulfur entered the factory and turned into gunpowder. The silver was turned into fine silver dollars in the mint, and it was transported outside Shandong to buy a large amount of cotton and copper, and Zhang Chu was ready to build a fixed trade route to the Japanese state, and then send a ship to go when there were enough goods. Zhang Chu lived a very comfortable life of making money quietly, and he didn't want to change it for a while, but before he knew it, five months had passed, and history had returned to his original trajectory.

In July of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Kong Youde still surrounded Laizhou City wholeheartedly, and Xu Congzhi, the governor of Shandong in the city, and Xie Lian, the governor of Denglai, led everyone to resist desperately in the city and resolutely refused to surrender. And the ministers in the court didn't care about the life or death of these two governors, and they were still arguing in the court about how to appease Kong Youde's rebels.

The officers and soldiers who were ordered to come to reinforce Laizhou were all watching from the Shandong border. Of course, the security army began to rush to the eastern part of Shandong and approached Dengzhou, but after that, it was like a deflated ball with no motivation to fight, and started large-scale production around Yantai. In short, there was no official army that really supported Laizhou City.

The life of the rebel Kong Youde was not better because of the slackness of the official army, and after the rebellion, he attacked the city and captured the village, and the momentum was like a bamboo. Unexpectedly, he was entangled in Laizhou City, and it was a few months to fight, and now he can't move forward or retreat. What was even more terrifying was that Li Jiucheng came with the news that all the ships that went to sea to fight had been wiped out. According to Li Jiucheng's description, this official army was very powerful, and Li Jiucheng's men and horses had lost more than 10,000 after several battles. And there are also powerful ships, if it weren't for Li Jiucheng saying that this group of officials and troops was a thief who was appeased by the government, and the thieves didn't want to embarrass the rebellious Liaodong soldiers, and wanted to live in peace with the Liaodong soldiers, Kong Youde would have retreated back to Dengzhou a long time ago. This group of officers and troops was also trustworthy, and they really did not launch an offensive for more than five months, so Kong Youde was relieved.

In order to attack the city of Clay Prefecture as soon as possible, Kong Youde kept thinking of a way. Eventually, he came up with a clever plan, and that was to surrender. The imperial court always had illusions about Kong Youde's submission, and Kong Youde took advantage of this psychology and wrote a letter to the officials and soldiers expressing his willingness to accept the appeasement, but to meet Xie Lian for negotiation. The news reached Xie Lian, Xie Lian believed it to be true, and sent the prefect Zhu Wannian out of the south gate of Laizhou to meet Kong Youde.

Kong Youde told Zhu Wannian that he was willing to surrender. The prefect Zhu Wannian returned to the city to inform Xie Lian of the situation, and Xie Lian, Zhu Wannian and others went out of the city to meet Kong Youde and read out the imperial court's edict to let him surrender. Kong Youde had already prepared, and immediately asked his subordinates to catch Xie Lian and others, and took advantage of the city gate to open and urgently ordered the siege of the city. Seeing that the situation was critical, Zhu Wannian shouted to close the city gate and was killed by Kong Youde. The Ming army urgently closed the city gate, Kong Youde's plan to break the city failed, but Xie Lian and others were taken prisoner.

The capture of Xie Lian and others made the court understand that Kong Youde had no intention of surrendering at all, and the method of appeasement would not work. Emperor Chongzhen issued a holy decree ordering reinforcements from all walks of life to attack Kong Youde, and Kong Youde's pressure suddenly increased greatly.

What was even more terrifying was that the rebels found that there were soldiers with the same Liaodong accent as them in the attacking ranks, and the court also transferred the Guanning border army outside the pass to quell the rebellion.

These Liao troops were as brave as the rebels and experienced on the battlefield, and after several battles, the rebels retreated one after another.

Kong Youde hurriedly gathered his troops and barely stabilized the defensive line, and at this time, other officers and soldiers also saw the hope of victory and were hurrying up, and there was a great tendency to annihilate Kong Zaide under the city of Laizhou.

Kong Youde is more worried that his back road to Dengzhou is not safe. Although the security forces in Zhaoyuan lived in peace with them, no one could guarantee that they would not intervene in such a situation to cut off the retreat of the rebels. Even if they retreated to Dengzhou, all the ships in Dengzhou were lost, and the whole army had no way to retreat. Since the beginning of the rebellion, there have been several court officials who have been killed by Kong Youde, and if they surrender to the court, it will be too late. The rebels who were killed and retreated one after another had no bargaining chips, and after surrendering, Kong Youde and others felt that the end was not much better.

Just when Kong Youde was in a dilemma, he received a letter from Zhang Chu, the marshal of the security army, saying that he wanted to talk to Kong Youde. (To be continued.) )