After meeting with Li Zhengshen, the envoy sent by Zheng Zhilong, Zhao Yan carefully pondered the pros and cons, and said that peace talks with Zheng Zhilong were naturally good, and Shandong's merchant ships could at least carry out activities along the southeast coast.

If both sides are at war, neither side is safe for merchant ships.

But both sides need not only a state of armistice, but also order, an order of mutual observance, which will be maintained until one side tears up the covenant.

At the same time, Zhao Yan also wanted to get some benefits from Fujian.

In the past, Zheng Zhilong controlled the only exit channel, and if he didn't pass through his hands, he would be his enemy, and he would be attacked.

Now Zhao Yan is naturally not afraid of him Zheng Zhilong, he also has an export channel in his hands, but those Fujian shipowners can win over, and at the same time, Shandong's maritime trade will also be opened to the outside world.

The profits of sea trade are extremely high, but it is impossible to monopolize it. Even if Zhao Yan did not allow Shandong merchants to meddle in maritime trade, Fujian merchants have been doing maritime trade for a long time.

Every country has a complete monopoly on the oceans. The state was responsible for colonization, plundering treasure, and merchants were responsible for trade, converting the resources of the colony into gold and silver. Warships are used to protect merchant ships and prevent smuggling.

As long as he had the support of the Fujian maritime merchants, Zhao Yan would have enough ships to colonize. Zhao Yan walked alone in the office, and after a while, Zhao Yan walked out of the office directly and walked towards the staff headquarters on the side.

"Zheng Zhilong's intention is obvious, he wants to keep the well water from the river water with us in the future. But this is not enough, we must make a clear covenant with him, and whoever breaks the covenant will declare war on the other side. Zhao Yan said to the staff department.

"Lord, at present, Zheng Zhilong's market gold is 3,000 gold per ship, and when each ship goes to sea, he will pay 30,000 taels of silver first, then we will also set it at 3,000 gold, so that the two sides are in an equal competitive position, and he Zheng Zhilong has nothing to say." Liu Heng said.

"In this way, how to win over Fujian maritime merchants? If you rely on Shandong merchants, you don't know what year and month you have to wait. Zhao Yan asked, in his mind, to win Fujian maritime business, naturally rely on the advantage of taxes.

"If we set it low and Fujian maritime merchants have come to Shandong, even if Zheng Zhilong will not fight with us, he can adjust the tax. At that time, it will cause a rivalry between the two sides, and we will not be able to make any money. Mao Yuanyi explained, "If the lord wants to win over Fujian maritime merchants, it is simple, as long as they can give them enough business opportunities, they will inevitably rush to them." ”

"Hmm!" Zhao Yan nodded, although he was not afraid of malicious competition, there would never be silver that he didn't earn! Zhao Yan thought for a while and said: "Then divide the tariff into import tax and export tax, all ships participating in maritime trade, whose port they enter will pay their tax, the import tax will be 20%, and the export tax will also be 20%, send someone to Shijing to talk to Zheng Zhilong, if he agrees, he will collect the tax like this." Just send Wen Bangliang to go! ”

Everyone in the staff department has no objection to Zhao Yan's decision, and now that Shandong has also mastered the exit channel, if Zheng Zhilong does not come to find trouble, it is equivalent to losing his monopoly position.

It was not Zhao Yan who was afraid of malicious competition, but Zheng Zhilong.

Zhao Yan has nothing to be afraid of at all, it is okay not to collect tariffs, anyway, let Fujian merchant ships enter and leave the port, without losing any income, but it is Zheng Zhilong who loses.

The General Staff began to discuss the specific details, and finally Liu Heng submitted a tariff implementation plan to Zhao Yan, in which it was suggested that Shandong and Fujian should jointly set up the 'Daming General Administration of Customs', and each port should send a trade statistics team, and the statistics team should be half of the staff from each side.

Merchant ships from both sides can trade in ports controlled by the other side, 20 per cent for imports and 20 per cent for exports, and the price of goods is mutually agreed upon by both sides.

At the same time, with Hangzhou as the boundary, the sea area north of Hangzhou was cleared by Zhao Yan to suppress pirates, and the south of Hangzhou and north of Qiongya (Hainan) were cleared by Zheng Zhilong to suppress pirates.

The pirates in the South Seas were to be eliminated by both sides, and both sides were not allowed to violate the provisions of the covenant, let alone attack each other's merchant ships.

Two days later, Wen Bangliang was ordered to take a few assistants, escorted by 200 soldiers, to go to Fujian with Li Zhengshen to discuss the alliance with Zheng Zhilong.

…… It is said that Chongzhen mobilized all kinds of officials and troops, and built a plan to suppress thieves with huge military spending, which evolved vigorously in this winter, under the command of Hong Chengchou, the officials and troops of all walks of life first strangled the Shanxi thieves, and in this winter, the Shanxi thieves were wiped out, and then the troops entered Henan and Huguang, and gradually gathered the thieves in Qin.

However, the thieves heard the plan of the official army, and the thieves led by Gao Yingxiang abandoned most of the wanderers and let these wanderers swagger towards southern Shaanxi, while he took 10,000 elite horsemen to the north of the Hequ ferry, crossed the Yellow River on the third day of the first month, and entered Shanxi again.

Since most of the officers and troops have entered Shaanxi, Shanxi is relatively empty, but Xuanda has Lu Xiangsheng in charge, and Gao Yingxiang is flowing all the way to the south, and the team is constantly growing on the road.

The thieves led by Li Zicheng were fleeing westward, probably trying to find horses in the west. In this era, many people raised mules and horses, and ethnic minorities even had more horses.

Zhang Xianzhong tried to enter Sichuan from Hanzhong, but was blocked back by the official army, as long as he played a hide-and-seek chase with the official army in Shaanxi.

Shaanxi heavy troops gathered, Zhang Xianzhong's department was finally lost, only with more than 1,000 people fled into the Qinling Mountains, the entire territory of Shaanxi, except for some small thieves, most of the thieves or avoided, or fled, but none of the thieves surrendered, and the battle against the official army was fierce.

The reason is that Hong Chengchou has a bad reputation, even if the thief wants to surrender, he has to think about how to live after surrendering, isn't surrendering Hong Chengchou looking for death? Hong Chengchou is famous for killing, and that reputation is already smelly among thieves, who would have no brains to surrender to Hong Chengchou.

The entire encirclement and suppression plan had no effect at all. However, the deadline has not yet arrived, and Hong Chengchou still has time to arrange after the beginning of spring.

…… In this winter, the Manchu Qing expanded the Han Chinese into eight banners, and used coercion to recruit 60,000 men from Mongolia to form the Mongolian Eight Banners.

He also ordered Tong Yang to make hundreds of Hongyi cannons, all of which were more than 200 mm in caliber, and these Hongyi cannons were equipped with Tong Yang's 'Wuzhen Chaoha' army, which was a professional artillery army, but the most professional was trained by the Portuguese Kong Youde.

In terms of the Eight Banners of Manchuria, because they were attacking the Jurchen tribes in Liaodong throughout the winter and capturing the Jurchens, after the first lunar month, the vacancies of the Eight Banners of Manchuria had been completely replenished.

In the winter, the Manchu Qing Dynasty expanded its army to 250,000 people, and although a large number of soldiers did not have armor, the military workshops under the city of Shenyang continued to produce weapons and armor day and night.

Such a crazy expansion of the army in a winter also hurt the vitality of the Manchus, and the most important thing was the population problem, the Han slaves ran away and died a little.

Seeing that the beginning of spring is approaching, the plan to conquer North Korea is ready to be implemented.

The current situation of the Eight Banners of Manchuria is that Huang Taiji controls the Yellow Banner and the Yellow Banner. Dorgon replaces Azig and takes control of the White Flag. Doze controls the white flag. Haug is in control of the blue flag. Zilharang is in control of the Blue Flag. Dai Shan controls the red flag. Yue Tuo controls the red flag.

Huang Taiji actually controls the three banners, because Hauge is his eldest son.

The brothers, Dorgon and Doze, controlled the two banners.

Dai Shan, Yue Tuo father and son control the two flags.

Zilharan commands the Blue Banner.

On the twentieth day of the first lunar month, Huang Taiji accused him of the crime of aiding the Ming of the Yu League and ordered a crusade against Korea. Ordered Dolgon to be the forward, Huang Taiji led the yellow flag and the yellow flag in the center, and after Jilharang took the blue flag bureau, he ordered Youde and others to follow from Jierharang to protect the baggage and enter Korea. Shuo Xu, Du Du and others enlisted.

At the same time, he ordered Duoze, Daishan, Haoge, and Yue Tuo to defend Liaodong, and Yue Tuo's troops entered Liaoxi to give enough pressure to the Ming army. Duoze and Daishan guarded the coast, while Haoge guarded Shenyang.

Huang Taiji took nearly 70,000 men on the expedition this time, and it smelled of wanting to wipe out Korea, and last year they did not loot the population in Guannai, but lost 50,000 people, and now they need a large number of slaves to replenish it.

Although Korea is a small country, it also has a population of more than 3 million, plus the number of Han Chinese who fled to Korea and Phi Dao reached 200,000, and there was enough population in Korea for them to plunder.

On the twenty-fifth day of the first lunar month, Dolgon led his army to cross the Yalu River Bridge, which was strictly a small bridge. After Dorgon crossed the bridge, he immediately pounced on Yizhou.

As soon as the Manchu Qing Dynasty crossed the Yalu River, the spies of the Ministry of Intelligence immediately reported back to Shandong.

On the twenty-seventh day of the first lunar month, Zhaojiabao received an urgent report.

"The Manchus have crossed the river!" After Zhao Yan heard the news, he hurriedly rushed to the staff headquarters, which was already busy at the moment.

"Lord, the Qing army has crossed the river, according to the report of the sentinels, the Manchu Qing sent nearly 70,000 troops this time, and these Tartars are really mobilizing." Liu Heng said excitedly. "Now our deployment in northeastern Korea has already been completed, and we can allow ships to block the Yalu River when all the Qing troops have crossed the Yalu River."

"Lord, shall we take a break? Let the Qing army go some distance deep in Korea first? Mao Yuanyi asked.

Zhao Yan thought for a while and said: "It's okay, but it's not too late, the North Korean army is vulnerable, if it's too late, North Korea will surrender, and then maybe Huang Taiji will run out of North Korea and let the vanguard board the ship immediately." ”

Zhao Yan is not sure how long North Korea can hold out, he has not seen the record of the date in the historical materials, but looking at the literal meaning, it did not last long, and the Korean king Li Zong finally surrendered.

…… On the twenty-seventh day of the first month, in the afternoon.

The soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Shandong Army, who were the vanguard, boarded 20 clippers, and they had already practiced boarding and sailing training many times before.

Li Ran's soldiers no longer felt any discomfort on the ship, and after receiving the order, Li Ran knew that the expedition was imminent.

This boarding was not like the previous exercise, the order of the military department was very clear, and it was waiting for orders at any time, which was not the case in the previous exercise.

Li Ran's third battalion can become the vanguard, that is the opportunity that Li Ran got by drawing lots, and Zhao Yong and Wang Wenyue both became bitter gourd faces after drawing lots.

The vanguard, tasked with the task of landing, the most dangerous task, had to hold the Manchu attack at the landing site, and probably a frenzied attack.

(To be continued)