In the lobby of the customs yamen, after listening to Lin Qirong's words, Xiao Yungui stroked his hands and said: "Good, good, good, Li Xiuguo is a handsome man who can be literate and martial, but how is the customs tariff set in Ningbo?" ”

Lin Qirong bowed and said: "In the subsequent official document of Li Jiandian, he detailed the tariff, and he temporarily handled it according to the old system of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and asked the king of the west for instructions on whether there could be a new tariff regulations. ”

Xiao Yungui nodded and said, "Let Wei Helin send someone to Ningbo immediately, and the tariff rules and regulations of Tianning Customs will be handled according to Shanghai." ”

Speaking of this, Wang Minyun bowed down and said: "King Xi, now that Ningbo has been lowered, the next step is to consider going to sea to rescue Xiamen as soon as possible, but the sea route must have the support of Ningbo pirates, as well as the support of foreigners, otherwise it is extremely risky for sea ships to go to sea to rescue." ”

Xiao Yungui hummed and said: "As early as before Li Xiucheng sent troops to Ningbo, this king told him about piracy, what is the situation of pirates in Ningbo?" Can Li Xiucheng report it? ”

Lin Qirong replied: "Yes, after Li Jiandian captured Ningbo, he sent people to contact the Ningbo pirates, and the Ningbo pirates have three shili being the strongest. One of them is the local pirates in Ningbo, known as the Ningbo Seahorse Gang, the leader of this gang of pirates is the Tongbao monk, a native of Foshan, Guangdong, in the early years in Guangdong followed the famous Guangdong pirate Sha Wu Tsai to eat mixed rice, and Sha Wu Tsai's other subordinate Cui Apu is called Sha Wu Tsai's two head horses. In the twenty-ninth year of Daoguang, Cui Apu killed two British generals during the plunder, which angered the British. In the same year, Sha Wu Tsai's men and horses plundered the British sand boats near Hainan, which strengthened the British determination to use force. Subsequently, the British united with the Qing Demon Water Division and defeated Sha Wu Tsai and Cui Apu. Several pirate leaders, including the monk Tongbao, managed to escape, and Cui Apu went to Jiangnan, where he was captured by the Qing Demon Eagle Dog and handed over to the British to be escorted back to Hong Kong for trial, but the British did not dare to kill him. He was sentenced to exile, but Cui Apo hanged himself in prison before being exiled. Sha Wu Tsai was much luckier, he and the monk Tongbao escaped death with 8 small boats and 400 minions, and were finally recruited by the Qing Demon, turned into an official army, and died of illness in office last year. The monk Tongbao was not recruited by the Qing demon, he took the old department of Sha Wu Tsai to start a new stove in the sea off Zhoushan, and in a few years he annexed more than ten local pirates in Ningbo, and became the largest local pirate in Ningbo. ”

Xiao Yungui touched his smooth chin, and he didn't get used to it for a while, and his beard was gone. He was stunned for a moment and asked, "Is this Tongbao monk willing to cooperate with us?" ”

Lin Qirong said: "Li Jian has already met with him, and Li Jian said in the official document that although this person is a pirate, he also has a way of stealing and never robs the people. Specializing in plundering foreigners, government offices, and wealthy merchants. Last year, there was also a batch of seaborne grain, before Sha Wuzai was ordered by the Qing demon. He just doesn't want to be an eagle dog for the court. That's why I pulled the flag and did something else. After Li Jian consulted with this person, he was happy to serve my heavenly kingdom. ”

Xiao Yungui stroked his palms and said happily: "Okay, order Li Xiucheng to do a good job of recruiting Tongbao monks, these pirates are people who have been wandering on the sea all year round, as long as they teach regular naval warfare, they will be the prototype of our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's navy." ”

Lin Qirong sighed and said, "However, one of the conditions that Monk Tongbao proposed to surrender is that our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom will support him in sweeping away the other two pirates entrenched in the sea of Ningbo. ”

Xiao Yungui sighed and asked, "What is the origin of the other two pirates?" ”

Lin Qirong replied: "Another group of pirates has a bad reputation. This gang of pirates robbed all ships, and sometimes went ashore to intrude on the villages on the shore, burning, killing and looting. The leader of this group of pirates is called Cai Tao, and he is the remnant of Cai Qian, a great pirate who crisscrossed Fujian during the Jiaqing period. At that time, the great pirate Cai led the army, and there were more than 20,000 people. There are more than 200 ships in the sea, which have been at sea for 15 years, and have also attacked Taiwan, claiming to be the mighty king of Zhenhai. Later, it took several years for the Qing demon to level him, and after Cai was killed, the rest of the tribe followed Cai's descendants to Ningbo to start a new stove. This Cai Tao is Cai Lian's nephew, but he is not as majestic as Cai Lian, this person is notorious, and sometimes even women and children are not spared when robbing sea ships. Disgusted by his notoriety, Mr. Lee did not make contact with him. ”

Xiao Yungui snorted and said: "This kind of pirate must be resolutely exterminated, it is a scourge to stay, even if you come to vote for this king, you don't want it!" What about the other strand? ”

Lin Qirong said: "There is also a group of pirates that are the remnants of Zhang Baozai, a Guangdong tycoon who crossed the sea decades ago, and his department inherited the mantle of Zhang Baozai, with the red flag as the flag, also known as the red flag pirates. Zhang Baozai was recruited by the Qing demon and settled in Xiamen, and many of his pirates were also good, but there was also a north to Ningbo to make a living. Now the leader of the Red Flag Pirates is named Zhang Guiping, who claims to be the grandson of Zhang Baozai, but there is no way to verify. Although this pirate also makes a living as a pirate, his reputation is not as bad as that of the Cai family pirates. This pirate was much closer to the Qing demon because Zhang Baozai had been an official in the Qing Demon, and he heard that they had received a lot of government funding, and he was planning to collude with the government to counterattack Ningbo from Dinghai. ”

Xiao Yungui stood up and said: "Immediately send an official document to tell Li Xiucheng, let him unite with Monk Tongbao to exterminate the other two groups of pirates as soon as possible, Monk Tongbao wants money for money, grain for food, in short, these two groups of pirates must be eliminated." At the same time, let the Tongbao monk prepare more sea ships, let Li Xiucheng negotiate with the foreigners in Ningbo, lease more merchant ships and cargo ships, in short, rent as many ships as there are, and when the sea ships are ready, they will immediately go south to Xiamen, and rescue the besieged people from Xiamen! ”

Wang Minyun was slightly startled, hugged his fists and said: "His Royal Highness the King of the West, Xiamen was besieged for ten months, although there were many dead and wounded and scattered, but there were at least more than 20,000 people, to rescue so many people, there should be no less than 600 sea ships and merchant ships needed, but I am afraid that it will be difficult to gather them in a short time." ”

Qian Jiang also said: "Yes, King Xi, the Xiamen Little Knife Society is not a holy soldier of the Heavenly Kingdom, and the congregation is mixed and impure, and it is afraid that it will be difficult to control it if it is rescued, so it is better to hire some foreign ships to take Liu Lichuan and the others out." ”

Xiao Yungui pondered for a moment and stared at the crowd: "In the nearly two hundred years since the Qing army entered the customs, our Han people have rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, every dynasty and every year, and the Han people in the world are dozens of times more than the Manchus, but why have they repeatedly opposed the Qing Dynasty but failed repeatedly?" The reason is nothing more than the view of the Han people in the world and the view of the region are too heavy, and the Heaven and Earth Society, the White Lotus Sect, the Tianli Sect and other factions have risen, but they all do not help each other, so that they are broken by the Qing demons one by one! The king of Xiamen's knife club must be rescued, since my heavenly kingdom is holding the banner of anti-Qing righteousness, we must treat the anti-Qing righteous army as our own, this king is to use this move to tell the anti-Qing righteous army in the world, my heavenly kingdom is their backbone! This king will not give up any of the rebels who oppose the Qing. I won't die without help! ”

Hearing this, everyone was silent, and they thought about it in their hearts, and sure enough, the king of the West was right, the Han people were too disunited, so that there were continuous anti-Qing uprisings for more than a hundred years, but none of them could succeed.

Xiao Yungui continued: "Now that Ningbo has been down, the seaway obstacles to the south have been basically lifted, and this king intends to recruit the pirate of Tongbao Monk, supplemented by Lu Shunde and Zhao Shunping's sailors, to form a southbound fleet to escort the Qing demon. Then hit the fuck! In Shanghai and Ningbo, many seagoing ships and merchant ships were recruited and hired to go to sea, and then the king sent a note to the ministers and consuls of Britain, France, and the United States, and hired their merchant ships and warships to participate in the rescue operation. Wang Minyun and Qianjiang, you are in charge of the allocation of money and grain and hired ships, and do a good job of receiving the resettlement of the people of Xiamen after they are withdrawn. Lin Qirong and Zhou Lichun, you do a good job in the deployment of sailors' ships. No matter how much it costs this time, the king must rescue the rebels in Xiamen! This operation was given a code name. Call the Thunder Rescuers! ”

Wang Minyun, Qian Jiang, Lin Qirong, Zhou Lichun and others bowed down to receive the order together. Wang Minyun, Qianjiang and others took the officials of various ministries to discuss for a long time, began to detail all kinds of details, and sent official documents to Ningbo. Lin Qirong and others also began to mobilize sailors and warships to recruit crews to go south.

Xiao Yungui and Hong Yun'er sent a note to Wen Han, Marshali, Blombull and others to the customs yamen to discuss the matter of Ningbo. After Wen Han and the others arrived, Xiao Yungui and Hong Xuanjiao met with them.

Wen Han is very troubled by the recent development momentum of the Taiping Army. Shanghai was occupied by them, Xiamen was also occupied by the rebels, and the banner of the rebels in Xiamen was also from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and now Ningbo has also been captured. The Manchus lost three of the five treaty ports. Although Xiamen is still surrounded by clear water and land, trade there is almost cut off, fortunately, Xiamen is not an important port, otherwise the trade loss is unbearable.

Ningbo was captured by the Taiping army was also expected by Wen Han and others, Suzhou and Hangzhou were lost, Ningbo was the next target of the Taiping army, with the strength of the Taiping army, Ningbo fell sooner or later. However, the envoys of the three kingdoms were still surprised by the speed of the defeat of the Manchu army, and the Manchu Qing repeatedly sent notes asking for help in the suppression, and asked other countries not to trade with the Taiping army, and the envoys of the three kingdoms naturally would not agree. Such an important port of Shanghai was captured by the Taiping Army, and not allowing countries to trade with the Taiping Army meant that all countries would abandon Shanghai as an important treaty port, and the great powers would certainly not agree. They politely replied to the Qing court, they remained completely neutral, neither sent troops to help the Taiping army, nor sent troops to help the Manchu Qing, and the Chinese affairs should be solved by themselves, but they could not affect the interests of the commerce of various countries. However, out of the need to give an explanation to the Qing court, the consuls of the three countries in Ningbo still helped the Manchu officials escape from Ningbo City, which can be regarded as alleviating some of the dissatisfaction of the Qing court.

Wen Han and others were invited to come today, and they also thought that Xiao Yungui might reproach the Ningbo consul for helping the Manchu officials escape, but they did not expect Xiao Yungui to say a word, and the two sides talked about how to stabilize Ningbo's commerce and trade, and the ministers of the three countries agreed that Ningbo's tariffs, commerce, and so on should be handled according to the Shanghai system.

Then Xiao Yungui changed his words and talked about the righteous army in Xiamen. Wen Han politely said that they could go out to transport the rebels in Xiamen to Nanyang for refuge, but Xiao Yungui refused.

Xiao Yungui proposed a plan, the Taiping army paid to hire merchant ships from various countries to go south to Xiamen, withdraw all the rebels in Xiamen to Shanghai, and even hire warships from various countries as escorts.

Wen Han and the others were taken aback, they didn't expect the King of the West to think of such a large-scale naval withdrawal, but after the three of them discussed, they rejected Xiao Yungui's request, the warships of various countries could not be used as escort fleets, so as not to conflict with the Qing army, but merchant ships and cargo ships could be rented by the Taiping Army, but the rental fee was indeed not cheap.

Xiao Yungui and Hong Yun'er tried their best to bargain with the ministers of the Three Kingdoms, and Zuihou was able to calculate a slightly cheaper charter price, and if the seafarers on board were insufficient, they had to pay for the foreigners.

Xiao Yungui scolded the three foreign devils in his heart, and finally spent a huge sum of 190,000 taels of silver to rent more than 300 merchant ships and cargo ships from the three countries to participate in this rescue operation.

Xiao Yungui also proposed to let the envoys of the three countries come forward as a mediator, so that the Qing army in Xiamen could let go of the encirclement on the sea, and let the fleet go to Xiamen to pick up the people, and after the people were picked up, Xiamen could return the Qing army.

Wen Han immediately agreed, he now wants to resume Xiamen's trade as soon as possible, so as not to destroy Xiamen in the war, he promised the three countries to jointly come forward to negotiate with Wang Yide, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and Li Tingyu, the governor of Fujian.

Then it was the matter of preparing the fleet to go to sea, and after the hired ships arrived, Lu Shunde and Zhao Shunping returned to Shanghai from Chongming to take over. The battle of Chongming Island was not worth mentioning at all, before the Taiping army sailors arrived, the Qing army on the island retreated to Yangzhou by boat, and Lu Shunde and Zhao Shunping just took the fleet to walk around. After sending 2,000 troops to Chongming Island, the two returned to Shanghai to accept the rescue of the south.

Six days later, after Lu Shunde and Zhao Shunping got the supplies they needed at sea, they set sail with more than 300 large and small merchant ships, sea ships, Dasha boats, and 100 sailors red single boats, fast crab boats, and big war ships. (To be continued......)