A thunderstorm fell on the U.S. capital region of China on July 16, and the sky was as dark as night, with thunderbolts of lightning and rolling thunder from early in the morning. For safety reasons, factories and enterprises in the West and Outer Island Industrial Parks on Long Island had to temporarily suspend operations.

But even so, the accident caused by a lightning strike has been a terrifying experience for the residents of the capital and Jersey Town. A worker in the outer islands who was sheltering from the rain under a green tree was killed by lightning, and several livestock farm sheds in Jersey Town were pierced by lightning and ten sheep were roasted.

The pouring rain washed over the windows of the government cabinet office building, and the world of water outside the glass windows was like a world of water, and the dull sound of thunder pierced the building, making everyone in the conference room fidget as if in resonance, almost everyone's fingers tapping unconsciously on the table or on their lap.

“…… Looking at the multi-year time cycle, Portugal's migrant convoy should have been circumnavigating Africa to Butterfly Island from the beginning of March and continuing until July of that year. The Dutch started a little later, probably in April or May. ”

Immigration Minister Li Xiang flipped through his notebook and expressed his opinion at the cabinet ministers' meeting, and judging from his frowning brow, it was clear that something very bad had happened.

Since March, after the arrival of the first Portuguese and Dutch migrant ships this year, not a single Ming migrant has arrived at Nanshan Port or Butterfly Island Twin Port for three consecutive months. At first, it was thought that the Indian Ocean might have experienced a harsh hurricane climate, and the Portuguese and Dutch ships were delayed. But it's already mid-July, the annual southwest monsoon is long over, and not a single Portuguese or Dutch migrant ship has arrived.

"And there is also a strange thing that we have discovered so far, through our understanding of the twin ports of Nanshan and Butterfly Island. Portuguese merchant ships coming from the Indian Ocean. Almost all of them were Indian colonies. None of them came from Macau, so they didn't bring any substantive news either. Li Xiang reluctantly put down the notepad, which can be regarded as a pessimistic and unanswered summary of the current situation.

"Xiao Yan, you are the direct person in charge of the Ming Dynasty's immigration program. What do you think of this kind of thing. "Prime Minister Qi Jianjun's hair has been a lot more thankful over the years, and today it looks more reflective, and the sparse basketball court has fallen out of anxiety. While asking Yan Xiaosong a question, the corner of Qi Jianjun's eyes was also aimed at Su Zining intentionally or unintentionally. In a corner of the conference room, the young man who has been "well-behaved" a lot in recent years is looking out the window in a daze without saying a word.

"I think ......"

Yan Xiaosong quickly stood up and coughed lightly, but before it was his turn to say anything, the door of the conference room opened. I saw a clerk from the prime minister's office walk in with a strange expression, and a telegram was gently placed in front of Qi Jianjun.

The eyes of all the ministers looked over, but Qi Jianjun just stared blankly at the telegram in front of him and did not say a word......

……

For the lunch break, Su Zining and Yan Xiaosong still chose the Lala Zhen Food Chain on the side of the Congress Square. A plate of cake, a cup of hot coffee, and a corn cob make for a lunch that will seem unacceptable to future generations.

“…… The Emperor of the Apocalypse hung up. Emperor Chongzhen came to power, and Wei Zhongxian lost power. The Donglin Party turned the tables. History is indeed inertia huge and unstoppable. Yan Xiaosong shook the coffee cup, his face was calm, and he couldn't say that he was in a good mood or not.

"Su Zining, what do you think Congress will think of this issue?" Looking at the plate in front of him that had barely been touched, Yan Xiaosong finally put down the coffee that had been wandering for a long time and had not taken a sip.

Su Zining in front of him was munching on the corn cob, as if he was not attentive at all, and even there was only a layer of cream left in the cake plate on one side, and he seemed to have a good appetite.

"Hey, pretending to be forced should be done in moderation! Especially in front of me! Yan Xiaosong couldn't help but grab a nut on the side and threw it over, just hitting the half of the corn cob that Su Zining bit into his mouth.

"What does it have to do with me?" Su Zining threw away the corn that was almost nibbled, wiped his mouth, picked up the coffee again, and then looked at his friend with a stern expression in front of him with a smile, "This is the game you set, what do you hope for the result?" ”

"You...... Well, I'll admit that this one counts mine. Yan Xiaosong spread his hands helplessly, with a wry smile on his face, "But you also foresaw it, we all know that Yan Siqi will follow Wei Zhongxian and will have such an end." So, you can't stay out of it. ”

"Am I staying out of the way? Isn't the Atlantic Checkers plan, which has stripped the country of its skin, perfectly completed, just in time to work? Su Zining drank all the coffee and finally stretched comfortably, "The last time the prime minister chatted with me, he was actually asking about this matter, what a coincidence." ”

"After all, Yan Siqi is a pirate leader, and he is too upright in history, if he is not restricted, he will eventually be a thorn in the eye that is not easy to control. From this point of view, Zheng Zhilong is actually more suitable than him. Yan Xiaosong looked at the desktop quietly and began to review his original choice, "But because Zheng Zhilong hadn't made a fortune at the beginning, it was difficult to cut in, so he just took the opportunity to rescue Yan Sihai and chose to support the Yan family." ”

"Although he has your butterfly wings, he has not escaped the inertia of history in the end." Su Zining retracted his smile, exhaled deeply, and turned his head to look at the street outside the store in the heavy rain, "With the help of Liu Yaoyu's relationship, you pushed Yan Siqi to Wei Zhongxian's gang, just wait for today's 'bad' news, right?" In order to safeguard the core interests of immigrants, we have to travel thousands of miles to reorganize the 'order' of the Ming East China Sea. ”

"I didn't think about it as much as you did at first, I just thought it was the best opportunity for us. Chongzhen came to power, Wei Zhongxian was finished, and the entire Wei Zhongxian bureaucratic system would collapse, and Yan Siqi would not be an exception, not to mention that he was still a pirate who had been secretly feared by the Ming court after recruiting An. Zheng Zhilong, who has already obtained Li Dan's inheritance, will inevitably take advantage of this central change to fight for the hegemony of the East China Sea of the Ming Dynasty, with the support of the Dutch, the support of the Japanese, and the weakest Portuguese do not dare to mess around in Macao, without our intervention, the defeat of the Yan family is inevitable. ”

Yan Xiaosong did not deliberately refute Su Zining's "accusation", and he also knew that the other party had already understood his thoughts.

"So. The Yan family failed. Our Ming Dynasty immigration layout also means that it will be finished. You wait for this day to make a move. is the most suitable. The Atlantic Checkers Project is not only to establish a safe immigration route, but also an opportunity to interfere in the history of the Ming Dynasty by following the inertia of history. Su Zining took Yan Xiaosong's words and smiled, "We continue to give the Yan family hope and illusion of vigorous growth. But in essence, they know that the higher they climb, the worse they fall. Once we make a move, it was the Yan family and we were in a cooperative relationship before, and this time it was a charcoal in the snow. In the future, it will be a dependency relationship, with a truly controllable agent of the Ming Dynasty to influence the Ming Dynasty and change the history of the Ming Dynasty. Lao Yan, you even kidnapped the country with you, and your ability to harm people is bullish! It took a seven-year game. ”

"Well, you said yes. Or that question, will Congress agree? Yan Xiaosong showed a nervous expression at this time.

"You are a guy who worries about the country and the people, and if you go to the Ming Dynasty, Finance Minister Liu Xin will hate you to death...... But you're on the right side. Many people in this country are on the same page as you. Plus someone touched our cake, just wait for Congress to go berserk en masse. Well. Today you pay. ”

Standing up and patting his friend's shoulder, Su Zining grabbed his umbrella and walked towards the door of the store.

"I know that the Ming Dynasty has rotted into the bones, but can you guarantee that the next dynasty will be better than the Ming Dynasty? Maybe if it were you, you would have chosen Zheng Zhilong, who was more sleek, more ambitious and more valuable for growth, and chose to ignore the life and death of the Ming Dynasty, and we would not be so tormented. Looking at his friend's back, Yan Xiaosong couldn't help but say.

"I can't guarantee it, so I agree with you now, it's better to be familiar with it."

Su Zining looked back and smiled, if you don't consider his age, his expression can be called cute.

……

A year ago, on September 29, 1627, the twentieth day of the eighth lunar month, the Emperor of the Apocalypse, Zhu Youxiao, died two days earlier than history. Zhu Youzhen, the Chongzhen Emperor who can be called the most diligent, the most tragic and the most uninteresting in the history of the Ming Empire, also began his hard work two days earlier than history, and was enthroned as the Ming Emperor, and changed the next year to the first year of Chongzhen.

On September 30, the 21st day of the eighth lunar month, the day after the death of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, Yan Siqi, who was already a lieutenant general, led the main fleet under his command to fight a decisive battle against the fleet of Hidaka Kayama, a major minister of the Satsuma Domain of Japan, in the sea near Ryukyu Island.

For many years, the Satsuma Domain has spared no effort to annex the Ryukyu Islands and has succeeded again and again, but was finally fanned by the butterfly wings, and a gorgeous nine-pound cannon shell directly smashed the Satsuma Domain into minced meat, and the fleet of the Satsuma Domain collapsed immediately, with heavy casualties, and Yan Siqi won a complete victory, breaking the threat of the Japanese Satsuma Domain to himself in one fell swoop, and regaining the control of the sea in the waters of Ryukyu Island.

However, joy and sorrow also came, and Yan Siqi was directly "invited" to live in the palace of the Ryukyu king Shangfeng with the aftermath of a great victory. The Ryukyu king Shotoyo, who had been reduced to a puppet of the Satsuma Domain, was surprised and delighted, and naturally he was hospitable and served with good wine and food.

That night, the drunken Yan Siqi was poisoned to death by a spy of the Satsuma clan lurking in the Ryukyu royal palace. Today's ambition is unsuccessful, the middle way is dead, and the public is waiting for its succession. ”。

Yan Siqi, who was supposed to die of overeating in 1625, although he lived for two more years because of Yan Xiaosong's butterfly wings, he still failed to escape the due end of history and still died on "eating and drinking" at the age of 38.

Yan Siqi's cousin, the general Yan Sihai of Anpingbao guerrilla general, was furious, and washed the Ryukyu Palace in the early morning of the next day, the whereabouts of the Ryukyu king Shang Feng and the prince Shang Gong were unknown, and the Japanese of the entire Ryukyu Island were killed by Yan Sihai, and even after the Yan family soldiers killed the red eye, it also affected many other Ming maritime merchants in the Ryukyus, and for a time the corpses of the Ryukyu Island were all over the field, like a hell on earth.

However, the Yan family, a major member who lost its leader, also fell into chaos later, and several small pirate leaders who were usually inconspicuous in the middle and late stages of the merger into the Yan family began to move. Yan Sihai, who temporarily took over the authority of the Yan Siqi family, once again exposed his brave and unscrupulous temper, and despite the opposition of the family elder Yan Qishu, he brazenly launched a major internal purge.

In the end, some of the more mentally retarded pirate leaders were bloodily suppressed, while several pirate leaders who secretly received warnings from Zheng Zhilong's undercover agents escaped and fled to Xiamen with their henchmen and fleet to seize a large number of sophisticated Chinese and American military arms, and defected to Zheng Zhilong. Among them are Guo Huaiyi, Yang Liu, and others, who were one of the "Eighteen Zhis" who worshiped Zheng Zhilong after Yan Siqi's death in history, and who took refuge in the Dutch in the later period. A scrap of history has dramatically branched out in this way.

Returning to the mainland level to continue, in less than two months, Wei Zhongxian lost power, and the Ming center was surging, with all kinds of denunciations, all kinds of reversals, and all kinds of settling accounts after the autumn. The Liu family in Shandong was implicated, Liu Yaoyu was imprisoned by several uncles in the six departments of the two capitals, exiled from exile, degraded from official, many family businesses were seized by local officials, and a large number of Lu businessmen couldn't wait to clear up the relationship with the Liu family.

Immediately afterwards, Hu Yingtai, the governor of Liangguang, was accused of corruption, and Hu Yingtai, who had an unusual relationship with Wei Zhongxian, instantly burst out of the "lucky halo" that belonged to him in history, and as early as soon after the death of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, he launched diplomatic relations in full swing, and avoided this turmoil in the court very chicly, and continued to sit firmly in Diaoyutai, but also decisively drew a line with Wei Zhongxian's faction.

At the end of the year, Chongzhen finally officially ordered Wei Zhongxian to eunuch the party against the case, and a purge that was no less than Wei Zhongxian's creation of "Donglin Point General Record" began again, from top to bottom, almost all the officials related to Wei Zhongxian were spared, it can be described as a tragedy in turn, who is it today.

The maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty, who were affected by the Ryukyu Island massacre, then stabbed the matter in front of Emperor Chongzhen through their respective connections, and added fuel to the fire, and even the matter of "relocating displaced people" with Yan guy and Macao Franji people was accused of "trafficking good people". Emperor Chongzhen was furious, and the Yan family, who had lost their backers, was crowned as "a private placement trilogy, slaughtering the screen; sells good sons, and there are traces of Tongyi; entrenched in the east, arson and rebellion" and a series of crimes, ordered the governor of Fujian, the governor of Liangguang and the guerrilla general of Penghu to "immediately advance and suppress the sea troubles". Dayuan Island, which has only been hung on the Ming Dynasty for a few years, was beaten back to the original appearance of "Dongfan Island" overnight.

The poor Yan family, a group bent on maintaining the status of the Ming Empire in the East China Sea, became a character shouted at by everyone along the entire East Asian coast overnight. Not only was the backer on the mainland taken to the end, but he was also kicked back to his original shape. Zheng Zhilong, a Penghu guerrilla general under the banner of counterinsurgency, went out in all directions to destroy a number of mainland strongholds that the Yan family had managed to operate with great difficulty over the years, and there was not a single subordinate of the money and financial department left.

Of course, it is not only the Yan family that is unlucky, and the Portuguese in Macau, as the "close partners of the Yan family", do not have good fruits to eat. Hu Yingtai, the governor of Liangguang, who "was shocked to learn that he was smuggling people in Macao, making unauthorized moves, and buying smuggled goods," was anxious to show his "turn his face and deny people" and directly dispatched the Governor's Battalion from Zhaoqing to Macao.

A large number of Ming officials who were once so good as to wear a pair of pants with the Yan family were arrested and imprisoned, Macao was taken over by the Ming army, and all the Portuguese ships were detained.

At this time, the most happy were naturally the Dutch in Batavia, and the armed merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company took the opportunity to dispatch, not only to occupy Dayuan Island, but also to start plundering Portuguese merchant ships and Chinese merchants in the South China Sea.

Since then, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on Dayuan Island have been isolated, facing pressure in several directions, and the supply of all kinds of materials has been interrupted, and there is no time to take care of anything else. Under the leadership of Yan Sihai, the Yan family, who suffered many heavy losses, sought to break through and turn around many times, but they were still repelled by Zheng Zhilong, who was highly skilled and had heavy troops, and even almost lost Tamsui Fort.

The Ming Dynasty immigration corridor, which the Chinese American Republic had painstakingly operated for several years, or Yan Xiaosong, had painstakingly built for several years, was closed "as scheduled" in 1628. (To be continued.) )