Compared with rifles, what is really difficult to imitate is the more high-tech heavy artillery and Haihan warships. The material handling and casting technology of heavy artillery are insurmountable technical obstacles for the military craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty, even if the quantitative gunpowder bag and the fire pipe with low technical content, the imitations made by the Ming Dynasty have not been able to achieve the use of genuine products. If Xu Jiaqi had been lucky enough to see the artillery battles of the Haihan army outside the two Spanish castles in Taipei, he would have further realized that although the artillery equipped by the two sides looked the same, the performance on the battlefield was also like that of rifles, and there was a clear generational difference between the two.

As for the warship, it is a little less difficult to imitate than the musket gun, and the experienced old shipwright can take the time to find out the structure of the hull and come up with a rough method of shipbuilding. However, a large number of metal structural parts used in the ribs of the Haihan warship to reinforce the hull, as well as the unique steel core mast of Haihan, are difficult parts to build in Daming Shipyard. In addition, it is widely used in Haihan warships, and the steering wheel system that should have been invented by the Dutch in the next century has a special anti-disassembly device, as long as it is hard to dismantle, it will destroy the gear transmission system inside, so the imitation can only imitate its shape at most, and for these black technologies that transcend the times, Daming shipwrights racked their brains and couldn't think of how to copy it.

Since it can't be imitated, the final solution is to buy it for money. The arms procurement contracts of the Fujian Ming Army have always been personally handled by Xu Xinsu, and the content and price of the purchased armaments were directly negotiated with the Haihan high-level officials, and no one else could interfere. However, the inspection and handover of the goods were the responsibility of his cronies and generals. In the past, the transfer of armaments between the two sides was generally in Sanya or Zhangzhou, depending on how the freight was handled in the contract. After the Haihan people occupied Penghu, they took the initiative to change the trading location to Penghu, and the people in charge of receiving the goods of the Ming army naturally took the turn of the military observers stationed here.

For Xu Jiaqi, this is really a lot of oil and water, every time there is an arms handover, he will privately receive a red envelope from Haihan - a brand-new bearer bank note of Haihan, the amount of which depends on the value of the goods handed over, but since Xu Jiaqi took over this matter, the red envelope has never been less than 1,000 taels. At the beginning of the year, a batch of Haihan artillery worth more than 300,000 taels of silver and two Haihan warships were delivered here, and the Haihan people directly sealed a red envelope of 5,000 taels of silver to Xu Jiaqi, which was extremely generous.

Xu Jiaqi took the silver, and naturally quickly signed the relevant documents to receive the goods, and asked Zhangzhou to pay the Haihan Bank - in fact, the silver had already been deposited, and it was just a formality to draw an account. However, for Haihan, the faster the delivery time, the less likely it is to cause extraneous branches, and the less related costs are incurred.

Xu Jiaqi is living a peaceful and stable life here, the money is properly collected, and after a long time, he can still call Qian Tiandun and other senior Haihan officers brothers, and at the same time, he is gilding his military resume, this military observer is really a beautiful one.

After being together for a long time, Xu Jiaqi can also feel that the Haihan people do not have any hostility towards Daming, but their eyes on Daming have no element of awe, and even more of a condescending perspective. Qian Tiandun has expressed his opinion on more than one occasion in informal occasions such as wine tables, believing that the Ming Dynasty is full of all kinds of problems that are difficult to solve, and the root of these problems lies in the Ming political system.

For such "rebellious" remarks, Xu Jiaqi would not make any reaction or evaluation even if he drank too much, because he could feel that although the Haihan people were blind to the various problems of the Ming Dynasty, they were willing to use their own way to help the Ming solve the problems. The reason for these measures was for their own interests, although the reason for these measures was self-interest, but they did help the Ming to alleviate the military pressure in the southeastern maritime frontier and the social problems caused by the civil strife in the north to a certain extent.

Of course, out of duty considerations, Xu Jiaqi would regularly report the attitudes and views of the Haihan people to his uncle Xu Xinsu, so that he could take care of many businesses under the name of the Xu family with peace of mind. Although Xu Xinsu holds the rank of Fujian General Army, he is mainly responsible for making decisions at critical times, and specific matters in the army are basically handed over to trusted officers. Xu Xinsu only needed to understand the general situation and movements of Haihan's garrison near Fujian, and make sure that they would not pose a danger to the Ming Dynasty. As for the purchase of a large number of armaments from Haihan every year, in the past, there was indeed a practical need to expand the strength to resist the Eighteen Zhi, but after the Haihan drove away the Eighteen Zhi and suppressed the Dutch, the coastal areas of Fujian no longer had great defensive pressure as in the past, and such transactions also became more like the protection fees paid by the Fujian Ming Army to the Haihan on a regular basis.

However, for Xu Xinsu's business empire, although this expense is not a small amount, it is not enough for him to feel pain. Besides, this money is not spent in vain, the Fujian Ming army has indeed enriched its combat strength because of this, and the Haihan people will continue to maintain a military base in Penghu to provide a certain strength of protection for the coastal areas of Fujian. Of course, the most important thing is the bilateral trade brought about by the military trade, which is enough for the Fujian side to earn back the money spent in Haihan from other places in the Ming Dynasty in an exponential amount. As long as the trade system works well and continues to bring benefits to Hsu Shin-su's business empire, he thinks it is worth paying to spend money on maintaining the current relationship between the two militaries.

Under this broad framework, it is not a big deal for a person like Xu Jiaqi to obtain some personal benefits from military trade activities. Even if Xu Xinsu knows, he will definitely turn a blind eye to this, after all, he also needs to have special personnel to deal with the relationship with the Haihan military, if he replaces the existing personnel for a small profit, it may affect the relationship between the two sides for a period of time, this has to be measured on the balance in Xu Xinsu's heart, and it must be worth the loss - a lot of silver has been smashed out, and he still cares about this?

Of course, this kind of idle life will occasionally be suddenly disrupted, for example, Xu Jiaqi had just gotten up and hadn't eaten breakfast that day, when he received a message from Qian Tiandun, inviting him to the base headquarters for a while.

Usually the military observers of the Ming Dynasty are invited to meet at the headquarters, which are more formal matters that need to be communicated. And an ad hoc meeting like this, which has not been booked in advance, may be due to an emergency. Xu Jiaqi didn't dare to put up any shelf, so he quickly cleaned up and rushed to the Haihan headquarters with a few personal guards.

"General Qian sent someone to recruit the last general early in the morning, could it be that there is an urgent military situation?" After seeing Qian Tiandun, Xu Jiaqi asked straight to the point.

"It is true that there is a military situation to inform you. Qian Tiandun saw that Xu Jiaqi's face became nervous, and immediately smiled: "General Xu, don't worry, it's not that Eighteen Zhi has come back." ”

For the generals of the Ming army in Fujian, Shibazhi was undoubtedly a nightmare that had plagued them for many years, even if the Ming army supported by the Haihan in the later stage of the war gradually gained the initiative, and even forced Shibazhi to retreat the scope of activities and take the initiative to give up the control area on the coast of Fujian, it was still difficult to completely alleviate the psychological shadow formed by the long-term beating of the Ming army. Even if the Haihan Army took the initiative to completely expel Shibazhi from the Fujian Strait last year, a senior officer like Xu Jiaqi still has a little bit of a bad memory of Shibazhi.

Xu Jia Qiqiang said with a smile: "General Qian said that he was joking, thinking that the thief of Eighteen Zhi was killed by the coalition army last year, he lost his armor and fled in the wilderness, and he didn't even want his nest." It has only been a short period of one year, and how can they dare to run back to their deaths! With your army in Penghu, Fujian will have no worries about coastal defense!"

Qian Tiandun calmly accepted Xu Jiaqi's sycophancy, and continued: "Inviting General Xu to come over for a meeting today is mainly two things. First, our army has officially declared war on the Kingdom of Spain, that is, the country of Franco, which the Ming Dynasty called the Kingdom of Franco. The second thing is that our army has conquered the two armed strongholds built by the Spaniards in the northern part of the island of Taiwan and completely expelled them from the island. ”

Xu Jiaqi's expression at this time could only be described as dumbfounded, he couldn't have imagined that Qian Tiandun would come over to report such news. To tell the truth, the Haihan people and the Francophone people started to fight, which had no impact on the Ming Dynasty, and as for seizing the other party's stronghold in the northern part of Taiwan Island, it had no direct relationship with the Ming Dynasty. Xu Jiaqi was surprised that the Haihan people would suddenly declare war on the Franco-Robot without any warning and launch an attack, and in a very short time, they conquered the opponent's fortress and expelled them from the island of Taiwan.

Regarding the construction of a colonial base in the northern part of Taiwan Island, Xu Jiaqi had actually heard a little about it before. The Xu family's maritime trade business is very large, not to mention the Franc machine people who live on Taiwan Island, and even Manila City on the Luzon side has always had business dealings, so Xu Jiaqi still has a certain understanding of the strength of the Franc machine people. Although it is not necessarily stronger than the Haihan people, it is at least on the same level as the red-haired people in Dayuangang. I had also heard that the red-haired people had launched an offensive against the Franc stronghold in the north more than once, but they were all in vain, which shows that the local stronghold is not so easy to deal with.

However, this does not seem to be a big problem for the Haihan people, according to Xu Jiaqi's observation records, the main force of the Haihan fleet stationed in Penghu should have left the port about ten days ago, and it was left in the name of going to sea for training, accompanied by the main force of the special operations battalion. Although Xu Jiaqi had a little doubt that the daily training of the Haihan people was too strong, he quickly put this matter behind him. In retrospect, it is likely that the armed forces of this port went directly to the north. However, Qian Tiandun has never left during this period, but Takahashi Nan has disappeared for many days, so thinking about it, it should be Takahashi Nan who commanded this military operation on the front line.

However, in just ten days before and after, the Haihan people not only conquered the two strongholds of the Francophiles, but even expelled all the people from the island of Taiwan, and the speed of this battle was inevitably too fast. You must know that the red-haired people who led the Ming army to besiege Penghu with 10,000 against 900 were fought for seven months, costing more than 100,000 taels of silver, and finally expelled the red-haired people from Penghu. And the strength of the Francophone is no worse than that of the red-haired man, and he has also been operating in the northern part of Taiwan Island for several years, and he has not even survived half a month under the offensive of Haihan, and the gap between them really surprised Xu Jiaqi.

Perhaps it was out of secrecy considerations, or maybe it was not intended to let the Ming army intervene in this matter at all, Haihan had not informed the Ming army about this before, and now Qian Tiandun's calm and straightforward statement can be regarded as an official report to the Ming army. Although it was a little late, it was notified after all, and it can be regarded as a kind of respect for military allies.

Xu Jiaqi is not a wine bag and rice bag, after the initial surprise, he quickly remembered that Haihan had previously sent a fleet to deter the red-haired people in Dayuan Port, and opened a port in Kaohsiung Port to build a port city. Now that the potential opponent in the north has been quietly bulldozed, there is no longer a formed force on the entire island of Taiwan that can compete with Haihan. In other words, Haihan has actually taken de facto control of the island of Taiwan.

From the landing of the Haihan people on the island of Taiwan for reconnaissance more than half a year ago, to the later occupation of Kaohsiung, and now even Taipei is occupied, the time taken by the Haihan people to acquire this land is only about half a year, and the speed of this territory expansion is indeed quite fast. Since the Ming Dynasty did not include the island of Taiwan under its rule, the Fujian government would not have any objections to the control of the Haihan people - even if there were, it would be useless, after all, strength speaks.

For the Ming Dynasty, the occupation of Taiwan Island by the Haihan is actually a good thing to some extent, which means that a huge protective umbrella has been held up for the Ming Dynasty along the southeast coast.

Xu Jiaqi quickly got rid of his surprise and congratulated Qian Tiandun with a smile: "Congratulations to General Qian for his meritorious service! Congratulations to Haihan for gaining new land!"

Qian Tiandun also bowed his hand and replied: "Taiwan Island is so big, and the space available for development is also large enough, if the Fujian government is interested, it can also participate in the development of Taiwan Island." What Kaohsiung Port does, other places can follow suit, anyway, the rules will continue as before, and make a fortune together!"