Although the Eighteen Zhi have people and ships, they can be regarded as the most powerful maritime armed forces along the coast of Fujian, but at the same time, their shortcomings are also very obvious, that is, the population base is too poor to support them in foreign wars for a long time. The combined population of the ruling areas of Penghu and Taiwan Island is less than 100,000, and the amount of war materials that can be provided is limited, and it is not a big problem to engage in sea raids in peacetime, but to maintain a long-term and all-out war, the opponent is the most powerful empire in the Far East in this era, and there are Haihan people who surpass this era to provide arms support, and the results can be self-evident.

In the previous few years of warfare, Eighteen Zhi had lost a considerable part of its elite manpower and a lot of wealth. And this part of the loss is already difficult to make up for by their looting and smuggling, and there are already many leaders in the camp who have objections to the hopeless war, and are unwilling to continue to pay for the Ming army.

It was at this time that the Dutch jumped out to be peacemakers, willing to pave the way for Shibazhi, provide a channel of communication for the peace talks between the two sides and act as an intermediary. After weighing the pros and cons, Zheng Zhilong also got off the donkey, and sent his staff member Zheng Xinzhi to Zhangzhou secretly to negotiate peace with the Fujian government on behalf of Shibazhi.

At this stage, both sides had the will to cease fighting for different reasons, and after initial communication, they hit it off and temporarily stopped hostilities in the waters near Zhangquan and Quanzhou. However, this kind of armistice is only a short-term act of limited scope, and the two sides must negotiate specific terms of the armistice, and this link does not go very smoothly.

As the Haihan mission had previously predicted, the bottom line for Shibazhi was to at least secure a stable trade window in Fujian, which was a condition that Xu Xinsu, a merchant-turned-trader, could hardly accept. Xu Xinsu is well aware of the benefits of monopolizing Fujian sea trade, and can also foresee the changes in the situation after being involved in this industry by Shibazhi, so he will naturally not accept such a request. The precondition that Eighteen Zhi proposed to Xu Xinsu to withdraw from Penghu and that all the Eighteen Zhi armed personnel must unconditionally accept the incorporation of the Ming army was also difficult to accept, so the two sides were at a stalemate, and it was not until the news of the Haihan mission came out that the shape began to change.

It is no secret that Xu Xinsu spends a lot of money every year on Haihan weapons, and constantly sends personnel to Sanya for military training, opening up the Fujian market to Haihan merchants. Zheng Zhilong also knows how much influence Haihan has on Fujian, and what kind of attitude he has towards Eighteen Zhi, and it is obviously not just a coincidence that Haihan sent a delegation to visit Fujian at this juncture of peace talks between the two sides.

Zheng Xinzhi, the envoy of the Eighteenth Zhi, sent a letter back as soon as he got the news, asking for Zheng Zhilong's opinion, and Jian Yì sent a fleet to intercept and kill the Haihan delegation on the way. However, the feasibility of this plan was too low, and it was directly rejected - Xu Xinsu had already dispatched several ships to the south, preparing to meet the Haihan delegation on the way, and the two sides were in an armistice, if Xu Xinsu's ship had an accident in the nearby waters, then there was no need to continue the armistice negotiations.

On the night when the Haihan delegation arrived in Zhongzuo Suocheng, the speeches made by Ning Qi and others at the reception banquet had already reached Zheng Xinzhi's ears the next day. The Haihan people have already made clear the attitude of the main battle, and Zheng Xinzhi thinks that Xu Xinsu will probably listen to the opinions of the Haihan people in the end, after all, it is quite unwise to blame this big backer for the sake of Eighteen Zhi. But in this way, the will of the Eighteen Zhi to negotiate peace will be completely frustrated, and if the fight continues, the Eighteen Zhi will probably fall apart internally because of the great loss of the war.

In order to achieve an armistice, it is necessary to prevent Haihan from interfering in the negotiations, which is the final conclusion that Zheng Xinzhi reached. There are only two ways to achieve this goal, one is that Eighteen Zhi directly contacts Hai Han and reaches some kind of understanding that Cheng Dù will let Hai Han take the initiative to withdraw from this situation, but this possibility is very small, and in the past two years, Eighteen Zhi has also tried to make peace with Hai Han through various channels, but Hai Han's attitude has always been very clear, in Fujian only Xu Xinsu is recognized, Eighteen Zhi wants peace, Zheng Zhilong must surrender to the Fujian government on his own - this is obviously impossible to do.

Zheng Xinzhi believes that if something happens to the Haihan mission in Zhangzhou, then it is very likely to affect the cooperative relationship between Haihan and Xu Xinsu, and then Shibazhi can use all kinds of public opinion to spread some unfavorable news to Xu Xinsu, and it will probably be difficult for the Haihan people thousands of miles away to distinguish the truth of the matter, and they will definitely be suspicious of Xu Xinsu at that time, and maybe they will directly terminate the military aid to Fujian.

Zheng Xinzhi didn't spend too much effort to find out the identity of the head of the Haihan Mission, and prepared a group of people in Zhangzhou City, all of whom were dead soldiers who Zheng Zhilong had supported for many years, planning to find an opportunity to assassinate Ning Qi and others, the Haihan envoy. However, due to the lack of definite arrangements for the itinerary of Ning Qi and others, Zheng Xinzhi had no way to make preparations for the assassination in advance, so he could only use guò surveillance to understand the target's movements and look for a chance.

Ning Qi went to the teahouse under the leadership of Wang Jialin, and Zheng Xinzhi, who was monitoring the perimeter, thought it was an excellent opportunity. So he sent three people to pretend to be tea guests in the ambush, and arranged more than ten people at the door of the tea house. The dozen or so people outside were actually just a cover for Zheng Xinzhi to attract the attention of the guards, and the three assassins who entered the teahouse disguised as guests were the main force of the assassination.

The skills of these three people are all excellent in the eighteen zhi, and they have all practiced a flying knife skill, and the accuracy within three zhang is quite good, and it is not an exaggeration to call it a hundred shots. And they are all determined to die, and if they can't escape after the assassination, they will end it on their own, so as not to implicate their own masters.

Although Zheng Xinzhi also noticed that Ning Qi had several personal guards dressed differently by his side, he had full confidence in his own people, believing that they could completely deal with the other party's guards in a short time. What he didn't expect, however, was that these Assassins, despite their skills, would not be able to use their timeless melee weapons. If they had known in advance about the melee firearms that the Haihan guards were equipped with, they might have been able to make a little targeted preparation, but unfortunately they would never have had such a chance again.

With just three throwing knives thrown in a hurry, the Assassins were knocked down by the pistol bullets of the Haihan guards, and they didn't even get a chance to fight in close quarters. And none of these three flying knives hit the real target, but Wang Jialin's humanoid sandbag inadvertently blocked a knife for Ning Qi.

Zheng Xinzhi, who commanded the assassination operation on the periphery, of course, did not wait for the results to come out before withdrawing, in fact, he immediately evacuated the scene after giving the order to do it. He didn't do this entirely because he was afraid of death, no matter what the outcome of the assassination was, he had to leave this place temporarily, first, to send out the news of the situation in Zhangzhou City to inform Zheng Zhilong, and second, to make the necessary response after getting the result.

As for his retreat route and hiding place, he did not inform the dead soldiers, so although the interrogation method provided by Morgan worked, there was still no way to immediately know the whereabouts of the main messenger Zheng Xinzhi.

"If he evacuates quickly enough, he may have already left Zhangzhou City after he started. Morgan sighed with regret when he learned of the outcome of the trial.

From the time the assassin made a move outside the teahouse to the time when Yang Lu received the news and ordered the city gates to be closed, in fact, the time in between was not long, but the place where the accident occurred was only a mile away from the nearest city gate, if Zheng Xinzhi chose this retreat route, it would indeed have enough time to leave Zhangzhou City safely before the city gate was closed.

"No matter what, the people under the old man's command will definitely continue to investigate, try their best to arrest the people involved in the case, and return justice to everyone in Haihan!" Xu Xinsu, who had cleared up the suspicion, breathed a sigh of relief, but he did not forget to show his attitude of investigating to the end - whether or not to catch the real culprit is secondary, but the attitude must be clear. Attitude is higher than a qiē, this is an important truth that Xu Xinsu has learned since he dealt with Haihan for several years, and Haihan people value Cheng dù more than monetary interests in some cases.

Ning Qi did not forget that he would raise the severity of the matter at any time: "This behavior of Eighteen Zhi is not only a threat to me personally, but more importantly, it is a damage to the friendly relations between our two sides! Although their assassination was carried out against me, in fact both of us are victims, and Lord Xu should not talk about peace with these bandits who smear honey in their faces and pull knives behind their backs in the future, and only by completely exterminating them can we exchange for real peace!"

"Mr. Ning said very well, whoever mentions peace talks in front of the old man in the future will be regarded as a fellow party of Eighteen Zhi!" Xu Xinsu did not have the idea of making peace with Eighteen Zhi at this time, this Zheng Xinzhi made him so passive, Xu Xinsu couldn't wait to get rid of him quickly.

Two days later, Xu Xinsu, in accordance with the intention of the Haihan mission, conducted a public trial and public sentence in Zhangzhou City for the people who were captured in the assassination case. On the one-third acre of land in Zhangzhou, Xu Xinsu can basically follow his words, and there is no Cheng dù who waits until the autumn after the death sentence is sentenced, what he wants is a deterrent effect.

And this public handling also means a complete break between the Fujian government and the 18 Zhi, and the previous situation of turning a blind eye and still having economic exchanges in the open face and fighting in private will probably not continue to appear in the coastal areas of Fujian in the future. On the same day that the results of the interrogation came out, Xu Xinsu issued several orders to arrest those who worked for Shibazhi in Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, Fuzhou, and other places.

Of course, such an arrest will cause a lot of chaos, but for Xu Xinsu, there are not too many scruples now. Ning Qi had already expressed his stance to him, as long as he stood on the side of Haihan, then no matter how Fujian developed in the future, Haihan could ensure the prosperity and safety of the Xu family -- if he couldn't get along and step down as the chief soldier of Fujian, Haihan's side could immediately run a port city under construction in Haihai.

There is nothing to find fault with this kind of support, and with this back road, Xu Xinsu's idea is much simpler. As for the distribution of Haihan's interests in Fujian after the elimination of the Eighteen Zhi, Ning Qi has also made it clear on behalf of the Haihan Executive Committee that as long as each port has the right of free trade, it will not take the initiative to station troops in Fujian -- of course, the militia troops that will be stationed in Fujian in the near future are not within the scope of "initiative." Since the Haihan people are willing to support themselves with such strength and determination, some of Xu Xinsu's original worries are completely gone.

After dealing with the assassination, the talks shifted from military cooperation to commerce. The two sides agreed to inject no less than 150,000 taels of silver into each of the jointly operated "Minhaixing" in the next three years for the construction of large merchant ships, the opening of new shipping routes in the Far East, and the construction of special wharves and supply points in various parts of the southeast coast.

After the expansion of the scale of operation, in addition to providing transportation services for the increasing maritime trade between the two places, the "Minhai Tour" will also undertake the transportation task of transporting migrants from Fujian to Hainan Island on a large scale. Although Fujian's local immigrant population will be relatively limited, Xu Xinsu will try to organize immigrants from Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other places bordering Fujian. Haihan's immigration policy for Fujian was very flexible, and these immigrants could either settle with Haihan in cash on a capitation basis or count as Xu Xinsu's investment shares in the area under Haihan's rule for long-term gains. Although the price is not much different from that of the early years when the non-governmental traffickers organized piglets to go to the South Seas, Xu Xinsu is obviously more interested in the political effect of this cooperation.

In addition, in recent years, there has been great chaos in the north and food harvests have failed, and a considerable number of refugees have fled to the south, where the situation is relatively stable, and it is not too difficult to recruit refugees at a low cost. For the Haihan people on the remote island of Hainan, there may be a natural geographical obstacle, but for Fujian it is much easier.

Of course, all of these collaborations have one premise that must be achieved first, and that is the safety of the sea lanes. And to do this, solving the eighteen zhi has become an imperative move. Earlier, the Fujian government wanted to cease the war because the cost of the war was already greater than the expected gains that could be obtained, but now that Haihan promised the expected benefits far beyond the past, the battle against Shibazhi has become a profitable thing again. The profits that Fujian will be able to obtain from this will increase, and even greatly exceed the profits from trade with the red-haired people, and there is no need to say which side Xu Xinsu and other Fujian officials prefer.

After living in Zhangzhou City for nearly ten days, Xu Xinsu finally went out of the city with the Haihan delegation and returned to the Zhongzuo Institute, preparing to participate in the next joint military exercise.