The owner of the smuggling ship and the merchant were punished, so they had to admit that they had smuggled and had nothing to do with Zheng Zhilong. Xiong Rulin wanted this sentence from them, and immediately put all these people in prison.

Of course, the original group of officials had already been locked up, and then those with a strong sense of justice, obedience to command, and strong health were selected from the militia to become a new batch of officials, a total of 100 people. Anyway, the official is not an official, and he is also a servant on the surface, and the salary is also paid by the county lord himself. Even if the magistrate replaces all of them and uses his own people, it is completely reasonable.

Xiong Rulin also deliberately sent Nan'an County Cheng and the chief bookkeeper to Quanzhou Mansion to report the case. In fact, from the confession of the servant, Xiong Rulin had long known that these two people were also participants in smuggling, but these two people were both officials of the imperial court and had close ties with the Zheng family. Xiong Rulin deliberately did not arrest them, on the one hand, to paralyze Zheng Zhilong, and on the other hand, he also wanted to capture and indulge, so that more forces involved in smuggling would be exposed.

After these two guys left Nan'an County, they really rushed to deliver a letter to Zheng Zhihu, Zheng's agent in Fujian, that is, the deputy commander of the Fujian Metropolitan Division. At that time, Zheng Zhihu had not yet escaped, but the Zheng family was already plotting to meet the rebels, and Zheng Zhihu's mind was all on it.

After listening to the news from the two, Zheng Zhihu didn't take it seriously, thinking that the two of them were ineffective and didn't get around the new magistrate, and scolded the two of them. As the saying goes, "if you are an official, you will be private, and if you are private, you will have disadvantages", and there is a way that "when you are an official, you don't give gifts", the officialdom is like this, can this surnamed Xiong be an exception? It's just that he has a bigger appetite than others. As long as you send more silver taels, invite him to spend time and drink every day, find a few beautiful women to accompany him, and I am not afraid that he will not let people go on the boat.

The two were instructed by Zheng Zhihu to return to Nan'an, but they had to walk more than 400 miles from Nan'an to Fuzhou, and most of them were mountain roads, which were rugged and difficult to walk. It's been ten days since this back and forth. When they came back, the two couldn't help but be completely dumbfounded!

It turned out that Xiong Rulin had already done several major things in the past ten days.

First, all the property of the smuggler ship owner and smuggler was confiscated, and all the prisoners were sent to Guizhou. In fact, according to the "Da Ming Law", the punishment for smuggling is very heavy, and such a large amount of smuggling can be punished as death. However, since the government is not actually able to effectively stop smuggling, it is basically a dead letter. Especially in this area of Fujian, in the past, the government turned a blind eye. Xiong Rulin's punishment is, of course, very heavy compared to the past. However, the "Da Ming Law" stipulates that smuggling is to death, and Xiong Rulin did not kill them, so it can be regarded as a light punishment, and no one can find fault with it from the surface.

Second, it is necessary to make full use of the confiscated materials and rapidly expand the scale of the militia groups. Originally, there were only 500 members of the militia group, but after 100 people were selected to serve as government servants, there were still 400 people left. However, Xiong Rulin was supported by Zhu Youzhen's secret edict, and he could extract one-tenth of the confiscated materials as "case-handling funds", and all the ships and weapons were allocated to him for use.

Xiong Rulin ate a fat man in one bite, you must know that just this smuggling, the total value of the goods and silver on both sides is nearly 100,000 taels. Xiong Rulin took out 8,000 taels from it and continued to recruit Tuan Yong, this time it was not for nothing, but each Tuan Yong could get a monthly salary of two taels. Two taels of silver is enough for the expenses of the whole family for a month, not to mention the exemption of the household from servitude, Tuan Yong only needs to work for four hours a day, and the work at home is not delayed.

At this time, the enthusiasm of the people to enlist as a group of warriors was even higher, and soon the size of the militia expanded to 1,500 people. Those who are recruited are happy, but those who are not recruited, in addition to envy, those who have the idea of "going abroad to make money" have also faded a lot. After all, everyone knows that the sea is vast, extremely fierce and dangerous, and there are too many such things as ship wrecks and deaths. Who would want to take that risk if they were to keep their homes on the ground and have enough food and clothing?

Third, carry out maritime patrols. Didn't Xiong Rulin confiscate eight smuggling merchant ships? He did not let these boats sit idle, and from the next day, he organized the regiment to train on the boat. After three days of training, the eight boats were divided into four groups, two in each group, to carry out routine patrols along the coastline of Nan'an County, with rotations every four hours.

In the past, Nan'an County did not have coastal defense at all, but now it is. Although there were only two boats and twenty birds, they had already deterred the smugglers in the county. The gang in front of them had just been raided, and they were also sent out, and for a while, no one dared to commit a crime against the wind.

Fourth, the establishment of Nan'an City Shipping Office. The Municipal Shipping Department is a specialized agency established by the imperial court to be responsible for maritime foreign trade, which is equivalent to the modern customs. However, due to the fact that the previous dynasty was in a state of sea ban for most of the time, even if the sea ban was lifted during the Longqing period, the restrictions were still very strict. In the year of the Apocalypse, there were only three cities in Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong in the whole Ming Dynasty, and although the volume of maritime trade was very large, but through the formal channels of the city, the trade of the fixed tax package was still very little, and most of it was smuggling.

Of course, there is no need to pay any taxes for smuggling, as long as you bribe the local government with a small amount of silver, and don't let the government catch it; Or simply ignore the government and blatantly smuggle. As a result, the foreign trade of the Ming Dynasty was actually out of control, and a large amount of tax and silver was lost, and the smuggling merchants became rich as a result.

For example, in the entire Fujian region, it is difficult to accurately estimate the number of merchant ships that carry out overseas trade every year, but at least more than 1,000 ships, and the trade volume is more than 10 million taels. However, the tax and silver collected by the Fujian City Shipping Division was not even 30,000 taels, which was ridiculously small.

In fact, Zhu Youzhen has long wanted to promote the foreign trade reform of the Ming Dynasty, and the first step of this reform is naturally to open more ports. However, there are only three divisions in Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, which is another ancestral system, which is not easy to change. Even though the official trade between the Ming Dynasty and Portugal had begun, Zhu Youzhen did not touch this ancestral system for the time being, and did not add a new city division. Fortunately, there was no tax issue in official trade, and the Portuguese merchant ships came very rarely, which was a way to bypass the problem.

However, reform always has to test the waters, and there must always be a first step. Zhu Youzhen chose this pilot in Nan'an, in fact, this was also proposed by Xiong Rulin in the secret recital.

To talk about the wisdom of people in this era, Zhu Youzhen also has to admire. Xiong Rulin said in the secret recital, isn't it that the ancestral system stipulates that there are only three divisions, and no new ones are allowed? Nan'an County belongs to Fujian Province, and Fujian City is located in Fuzhou, the provincial capital. Fuzhou is in the north of Fujian, Nan'an is in the south of Fujian, the two places are more than 400 miles apart, and it is very inconvenient for Nan'an's merchant ships to go to Fuzhou to go through the formalities. For this reason, a city office can be set up in Nan'an, which is nominally subordinate to the Fujian City Ship Division, which can be regarded as a dispatched agency of the Fujian City Ship Division. In fact, you can do what you have to do. Isn't that a violation of the ancestral system?