In the middle of the academy city, there is a building built on a small hill similar to the Four Seasons Garden of the Ming Kingdom. This is the mountain tea pavilion that Masato specially entertains guests from afar, named Pavilion, is actually a garden with a large area, because there is a tea pavilion in the garden, the garden is named the Mountain Tea Pavilion.

Right now, Masahiro was now standing on the balcony of another small attic in this garden, a little taller, looking at Wang Hai and his party who were slowly walking towards the tea pavilion in the mountains.

It seems that there are more than a dozen people in this group. Although these people are not very large, they are very strong. Everyone has a knife at their waist, and the last few people are holding a box in their hands, I don't know if it is a gift or something.

The two people at the head, one of them is naturally Wang Hai, whom Zhengliang knows, and the other is a young man, about 20 years old, who is talking to each other with Chen Tianjie and walking slowly. I guessed in my heart that he was the backbone of this line. That is, Mao Haifeng, the godson of the future One Piece King Wang Zhi mentioned by Wang Hai earlier.

Half a month ago, after Wang Hai met Zhengliang, in addition to giving Zhengliang a detailed introduction to the smuggling trade of the Ming Kingdom and the recent immigration of the Ming Kingdom, he also took out a letter written by Wang Zhi to Zhengliang himself. The letter mainly expressed friendship with Masahiro and proposed mutual trade. Zhengliang immediately conveyed goodwill to Wang Zhi through Wang Hai, so Wang Zhi sent his godson Mao Haifeng as an envoy to discuss the trade trip.

Some time ago, Wang Zhi's hometown Shuangyu Island in Fujian Province was brought to the helm by Zhu Kun, who had just served as the governor of Zhejiang, and concurrently held the posts of Fujian, Xing, Zhang, Quan, Jianning and other seaways. Wang Zhi had to flee with his men to Liebiao Mountain (also known as Liegang. This port is about 60 miles away from Zhoushan County). Regroup here. Subsequently, a large army was sent to capture the Ryukyu Islands. During this period of time, Wang Zhi's strength has actually not reached its peak. Moreover, he was in great conflict with another pirate leader, Chen Sipan, at this time, and he was thinking about how to annex Chen Sipan's power. As for the Wa region, he didn't pay much attention to it for the time being, and used it more as a docking point and supply point for ships.

What Wang Zhi didn't know at this time was that Zhu Kun, who drove him away at the beginning, because of a series of tough actions against the armed merchant group after taking office, which damaged the vested interests of the gentry on the southeast coast, so he handed over the impeachment of the Fujian imperial history. Zhu Kun was demoted to "patrol" by the imperial court, and he was about to be removed from office soon after. Faced with such humiliation, the fierce Zhu Kun chose to commit suicide. After Zhu Kun's death, he left behind the post of "governor of Zhejiang, and concurrently controlled the military of the five prefectures of Fu, Xing, Zhang, Quan, and Jianning", and he did not fill the vacancy for three years. His death also brought about another, more serious consequence: the armed merchant groups that had focused on business and smuggling no longer existed, and the pirates who blindly plundered became stronger.

According to the development of history, it was during this period when the power of the government suddenly weakened that Wang Zhi sent people to secretly collude with the people in Chen Sipan's camp not long after, on the day of Chen Sipan's birthday. Wang bluntly rushed to Henggang and cooperated with those spies. At the banquet where the candle shadow shook red, he cut off Chen Sipan's head and occupied Chen Sipan's lair. When they returned to Henggang, they found that the nest had already changed hands, and after the initial decision, all of them surrendered to the king, and Wang Zhi established his position as the supremacy of the sea, and the pirates of the southeast were subject to it.

Triumphantly, he simply called himself the "owner of the five peaks", and the ships at sea had to plant the "five peaks flag" to pass in his sea area. Subsequently, in order to force the Ming Dynasty to open the sea ban, he began to frequently lead fleets to harass the Ming coast. In the end, the Ming court was forced to send famous generals such as Yu Dayou and Lu Bo to jointly kill Wang Zhi, so that Wang Zhi was defeated and fled to the Wa Kingdom, so that Wang Zhi established a pirate empire in the Wa State and proclaimed himself "King Hui".

Now, Wang Naoya has just extended his power to the Ryukyus and Satsuma regions, and his attention is not focused on this side, and his own power is also in the rising stage, but he just happened to meet the Luo family, which also rose in the Kyushu region.

Wang Zhi, who knew about the existence of the Luo family when he was smuggling in his early years, was also taken aback when he learned that this local tycoon family in Hizen Country, who was too lazy to come forward to discuss business in person, had grown into the most powerful daimyo in the Kyushu region at this time. And when he knew that the Luo family's navy was also quite strong, he didn't dare to underestimate the Luo family. So he immediately sent someone to find Wang Hai, who had also become famous in the world of smuggling merchants in the Ming and Wa kingdoms in the past few years, hoping that Wang Hai could act as an intermediary to establish a cooperative relationship between Wang Zhi and the Luo family.

Wang Zhi's mind at this time was mainly focused on the power to annex Chen Sipan, and most importantly, he was bent on hoping that the Ming Kingdom would open the sea ban, and he would return to his hometown as a recognized and prominent identity. In his opinion, he was willing to trade with all the local powers of the Wa State, such as the sale of arms, but he was unwilling to get too involved in the affairs of the Wa State, because this would arouse the resentment of other local wealthy clans and would not be conducive to his foothold in the Wa State. The key is that his heart is in the Ming Dynasty, and the Wa Kingdom is nothing more than a place for him to use as a supply base. Besides, now that the Luo family is so powerful, it would be bad if the Luo family really unified Kyushu at that time, and he had a bad relationship with the Luo family, so he took the initiative to show favor.

And what about Masa-liang's side? After receiving Wang Zhi's handwritten letter from taking the initiative to show favor to Lu, he thought about it, what kind of way should the Luo family deal with Wang Zhi's power?

In the eyes of Zhengliang, Wang Zhi is a figure of considerable historical controversy. As the future One Piece, he restrained the behavior of pirates to a certain extent. And although others are overseas, their hearts have always been in their homeland, and they always hope to return to their homeland one day (and later this dream was indeed realized, but the head fell to the ground).

It's just that his own efforts, like ants shaking trees, are trying to push the entire corrupt Ming Dynasty to lift the maritime ban and resume maritime trade. Moreover, in order to achieve this naïve idea of his own, he has caused great harm to the people in the coastal areas, intentionally or unintentionally. This is something that Zhengliang does not agree with.

But even if he disagrees with Wang Zhi's approach, what can Zhengliang do? It is impossible to ignore the actual situation of the territory itself. Crush all your own water army. Then go and go to conquer Wang Zhi, right? That's the case. Even if he succeeds, what will Zhengliang gain?

The current Masahiro is no longer the person who just came to this world and still has the ridiculous ideal of saving the people from fire and water in his heart. As much strength as a person has, he exercises as much responsibility as he mightes. Now he is still a local lord of the Wa Kingdom, and he now has to ensure that he and the people around him can survive in this troubled era, and expand the strength of his family to protect himself. As for the Ming Kingdom? Hehe, it's really not something that his little lord can worry about. What's more, at this time, his identity is not a Ming countryman?

So, since Wang Zhi took the initiative to come to the door. The only thing Zhengliang had to consider was what benefits he could get from cooperating with him, and how to prevent Wang Zhi from being unfavorable to the Luo family in the future.

Between thoughts, Masahiro moved a chair from the Ming Kingdom to sit down, closed his eyes and waited, now that he thinks about it, after a long time in the Wa Kingdom, Masahiro has long been accustomed to sitting on the floor all day, and he has not felt the feeling of sitting on a chair for a long time.

Soon after, outside the tea room. Chen Tianjie's voice came, "The lord is waiting in the room." The two of them are invited in, and the rest of the entourage rests in the living room, where tea is already prepared. ”

"I'm tired."

Immediately after that, the wooden door of the hall was pushed open with a "squeak", and Zhengliang opened his eyes and met the gaze of Mao Haifeng who came in.

The two looked at each other for a moment. In the process, Masarashi always maintained this smiling expression on his face, and his eyes were calm, as calm as the deep sea.

The last thing was Mao Haifeng who smiled politely first, hugged his fists and said to Zhengliang above the main seat: "In the lower Mao Haifeng, I have seen the lord. ”

Zhengliang also smiled slightly, and replied: "Your guests are coming, and you have missed the welcome, please forgive me!" You two, you may be seated! ”

It's just that after Mao Haifeng heard Zhengliang's words, he was immediately stunned, and then said: "I don't want to, Lord Lord's Ming Chinese is so good!" ”

Zhengliang's accent at this time was the local accent he learned in Ningbo Mansion, and his original language talent was good, so it was really similar to imitate.

After a few polite exchanges, everyone sat down in turn. After that, two small surnames came in to serve tea, using the local tea soup of the Wa Kingdom. While enjoying the tea, everyone talked a few words about the way of tea soup.

After the politeness is over, I finally get to the point. I saw Mao Haifeng say with a straight face: "Lord Lord, I came here on the orders of my father this time, hoping to cooperate well with Lord Lord." ”

"Oh? I don't know how the king of Lu Dao plans to cooperate? Zhengliang immediately asked quietly.

"Trade. The family can provide a large amount of supplies to the lord, and the family hopes that the lord will be able to exchange gold, silver, copper, sulfur, and other materials. In addition, the family also hopes that if necessary, the lord can also send some ships and men to join the family's fleet and go to the coast of the Ming Kingdom to make a fortune together. If you are short of manpower, you can also allow your family to recruit people in the lord's territory. Mao Haifeng said.

"We are very welcome to trade with you." It is naturally best to be able to obtain materials such as iron ore, saltpeter, gunpowder, and fire oil from the other party, so Masara is very welcome to trade with the other party. But it is not okay to allow the other party to recruit people on their own territory, and even send people to do some looting with them.

Although powerful names such as the Shimazu family have probably agreed to cooperate with the other party in this way (which will not only deepen the relationship with Wang Nao, but also rob more wealth in the process of looting), and even according to the return of the Intelligence Cabinet, Wang Nao's power in Satsuma Province has been recruiting people to go to sea on a large scale. But in Zhengliang's view, even if he can't do anything for the Ming Kingdom, at least he can't do anything for the tiger. So although Zhengliang changed his voice, he said to Mao Haifeng euphemistically:

"As for recruiting people and sending people to help, I'm afraid it's a bit difficult for my family. Your Excellency also knows that at this time, our family is facing enemies on all sides, and the population is also very insufficient, so I ask for your forgiveness regarding manpower. ”

"Hahaha, it's okay. As long as the lord can agree to trade with his family. That's enough to explain to my father next time. Although it was strange that the Luo family's territory was so large that it claimed to lack population, Mao Haifeng really didn't care about the Luo family's inability to provide them with manpower. Anyway, in addition to the Luo family, there are many other powerful names. They don't have to worry about not being able to recruit people.

Of course. Mao Haifeng didn't know what to do. Due to the early appearance of the Roche family. In history, there were many coastal areas of Hizen Kingdom, Higo Kingdom, and Chikuzen Province during this period, and they defected to Wang Zhi's command because of this. And some of the pirates who left a lot of blood debts along the coast of the Ming Kingdom have been either absorbed by the Luo family in advance, or destroyed by the Luo family.

"Truth be told, there's another request here." Seeing that Mao Haifeng didn't care about Zhengliang's refusal to provide manpower, Zhengliang took the opportunity to continue, "Our family is indeed very short of population at this time, if you have excess population, you can't prevent it from being given to your family, regardless of men, women, old and young. Whether the body is healthy or not, the family is willing to exchange a certain amount of gold and silver. ”

This is tantamount to doing human trafficking business with Wang Zhi. It's just that Masahiro just wants to give the poor people who have been robbed to these pirate dens a chance to live again. Often, after losing their value, these looted slaves are left to be killed, in this case, it is better to buy them from these pirates, so as to increase the population of the territory.

Of course, this is likely to spur the pirates to increase the size of their looting population. But from another point of view, Masahiro also indirectly saved the lives of those looted civilians. Because these pirates are very vicious and cruel when they plunder, if they don't intend to leave the looted people as slaves, they will kill them directly. Now that these people are left, they can also be sold to the Luo family as goods. Then these pirates will naturally show mercy before killing.

At that time, it is estimated that most of the slaves will be women. After all, women are often the most popular among these pirates. And the innocence of these robbed women is naturally basically not guaranteed. So in order to receive these women. Zhengliang also needs to add an organization similar to psychological counseling in the pension institutions run by several of his own women to guide these women, so as to prevent them from committing suicide after they reach the Luo family's territory. Otherwise, the coins of the Luo family will be equal to a hundred flowers.

Unlike the local women of the Wa Kingdom, although the social status of the women in the Ming Kingdom is not high, they all have a strong concept of chastity. However, the local women of the Wa Kingdom do not seem to have a high concept of this. Anyway, for such a thing as remarriage, the local women are very much in agreement. It is estimated that it was the open-mindedness of these women and the local worship of male phallic culture that led to a certain culture that would later spread overseas in the wake of the Wa Kingdom.

Regarding Zhengliang's proposal to buy people from them, Mao Haifeng naturally agreed very much. Since there is business to do, there will be fools who push it off. What's more, pirates also have a day when they grow old or can no longer go to sea, in the past, they were a problem for how to deal with these people, but now it just gives these people an extra way out? You can get rid of your burden and make some money, so why not?

Subsequently, Zhengliang and Mao Haifeng reached an agreement that when the Luo family's ships passed through the sea area within the range of Wang Zhishi's power, as long as they hung the Luo family's family crest flag, they could pass safely without harassment.

After reaching an agreement with Wang Zhi, the Luo family had already reached an agreement on business cooperation with the Nanban Sea Adventure Merchant, the Western Church, the Ming Smuggler, Wang Zhi and the Korean Smuggler. In this way, a diversified export method has been formed, and the price of Roche's export goods has been reduced due to a single partner. The so-called shop around, which can make the Luo family earn more profits, get more benefits and benefits, the Luo family will focus on cooperating with that family. This also allows these partners to form a competitive relationship.

Of course, in the process of discussion, Mao Haifeng also put forward a proposal to exchange Yongle Tongbao for gold, silver, copper ore, sulfur and other materials of the Luo family. Zhengliang naturally disagrees with this, the Luo family is now able to imitate the Yongle Tongbao that is difficult to distinguish between serious and fake, and use it as the main foreign trade currency, where do you still need the Yongle Tongbao from Wang Zhi's side? Therefore, Zhengliang decisively proposed the method of bartering, and asked Wang Zhi to provide iron ore, saltpeter, gunpowder, oil and other materials to the Luo family, and even if he could, he could also provide the Luo family with warships, large cylinders and other weapons. And promised that as much as Wang Zhi provided these materials, the Luo family would be able to exchange them (in order to trade with the Southern Barbarians and Ming merchants before, the Luo family stored a lot of gold and silver in the warehouse, and now it comes in handy).

Finally, when Mao Haifeng was happily preparing to leave, Zhengliang solemnly handed over a wooden box to Mao Haifeng's hand.

"My lord, what is this?" Mao Haifeng looked at the box suspiciously and asked.

"Inside is a little gift for your leader, please be sure to hand it over to him yourself." Masara said.

"It's good." Seeing Zhengliang's expression so solemn, Mao Haifeng also cautiously put away the wooden box.

There are only two things in the wooden box, one is a map of the world drawn by Zhengliang based on the memories of later generations, and the other is a letter written by Zhengliang himself to Wang Zhi.

The letter mainly pointed out to Wang Zhi in detail that with the current situation, it was impossible to force the Ming State to reopen the sea ban. At the same time, Wang Zhi is advised to look at Southeast Asia, and even beyond, where free trade and pirates are paradise. That piece of heaven and earth really belongs to him. As for how much Wang Zhi can listen to after reading these gifts, it is not something that Zhengliang can consider, he just doesn't want the historical tragedy to happen again and does his best. (To be continued......)