Ningbo Mansion is located at the mouth of the Qiantang River, on the south bank of Hangzhou Bay, is one of the oldest human settlements along the coast of Zhejiang, as early as 7,000 years ago, the ancestors have created a splendid "Hemudu culture" here. During www.biquge.info Tang Dynasty, Mingzhou Prefecture was established here, laying the foundation for the development of more than 1,000 years thereafter.

By the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, all coastal areas were subject to a sea ban, with the exception of Mingzhou, which continued to open up to maritime trade. In the fourteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang adopted the suggestion of the scholar Shan Zhongyou in order to avoid the name of the country, and changed the name of Mingzhou Mansion to "Ningbo Mansion" in order to avoid the name of the country, and the Mingzhou Mansion was renamed "Ningbo Mansion", and this title has been used until the traversers came here, and this area still uses the place name set by Ming Taizu.

Because it was the only foreign trade port in the Ming Dynasty for a long time, it became the most prosperous port city in the eastern part of the Ming Dynasty in the early Ming Dynasty. Of course, along with the merchant ships and wealth came the pirates who were a headache for the Ming court. Under the influence of huge interests, the pirate gang and the trading port actually coexisted in a deformed relationship, and became a cancer that was difficult to cut off in the jurisdiction of Ningbo Prefecture.

However, as other southeast coastal ports opened up maritime trade either explicitly or covertly, most of the irreplaceable advantages of Ningbo Prefecture were lost, and the ports of Guangdong and Fujian gradually began to divert maritime merchants who could only trade in Ningbo Prefecture in the region. At this time, Ningbo Prefecture located in Zhejiang Province basically does not have much advantage in terms of maritime trade compared with Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and other places in the south, and the trading volume brought by Haihan to Daming Maritime Trade after the emergence of Haihan has not had much direct impact on Ningbo and other state capitals in Zhejiang because of the prevailing wind of local protection on this side of Zhejiang.

However, compared with some prefectures and counties in the inland areas, Ningbo Prefecture, which has geographical advantages and a hundred years of accumulation, is still quite a wealthy area, and the merchants engaged in maritime trade here do not earn less than the Jianghuai salt merchants in the north of the Yangtze River. Of course, although these big families also have some official background, but compared with Li Jifeng in Guangdong and Xu Xinsu in Fujian, there is still a slight gap in strength, after all, the rich businessmen who can have private armed forces as the backing are still an outlier in the Ming Dynasty, if it weren't for the high emperor Yuan, plus their local roots are too deep, these two guys who have violated countless prohibitions are estimated to have been beaten countless small reports by Jinyiwei, and have been imprisoned in the prison to be beheaded after the autumn.

Compared with this kind of big rich people staring at countless pairs of eyes, there are many inconspicuous small rich businessmen in the people, many of them are not directly engaged in maritime trade, but the industry they are engaged in is driven by the local consumption level, which has also created these people to become wealthy businessmen.

Xu Ke is one of the many small tyrants in Ningbo Prefecture, and the industry he is engaged in also relies on the sea to eat, and what he does is to buy and sell seafood. Xu Ke has more than a dozen seagoing vessels under his command, and he routinely goes to sea at least once a month to carry out fishing operations, and occasionally helps other merchants smuggle some goods from nearby islands ashore, and the income of tens of thousands of taels of silver in a year can be guaranteed.

Xu Ke claimed to be from Wenzhou, but he rarely returned to Wenzhou to visit relatives in these years, because it is said that most of his family died in a plague in the early years, and Xu Ke, who survived but was regarded as a bad omen by the countryside, had to settle in Ningbo with his family's two fishing boats. When Xu Ke first arrived in Ningbo, he was only a young man in his early twenties, and after a few years, he has now started a family in Ningbo Mansion and has spread out.

Except for the occasional time when he personally led a team to go to sea to fish, Xu Ke usually stayed in his own manor in Xiangshan and did not go out much, and he didn't even go to the county seat much. And the impression of the nearby villagers of Xu Ke is just a local tyrant who lives in a simple and low-key manner, and there is nothing out of the ordinary in the countryside. When encountering things such as repairing bridges and paving roads, Xu Ke will also take the initiative to donate 1,800 taels of silver, and will send some daily necessities to the elderly in the countryside during the New Year's holidays, and will also put some relief food to help the victims in the year of famine, which can be regarded as a squire with a good reputation in the local area.

On this day, there were a few fresh faces from outside Xujiazhuang, and after asking for directions twice near Zhuangzi, they found the inconspicuous main entrance of Xujia. The leader knocked on the door and said a few words to the gatekeeper, and then the people entered the Zhuangzi.

Xu Ke read the letter in his hand several times, and then said to the visitor: "Does the head of the family have any other instructions?"

The person who came replied: "The villain just took the errand of delivering the letter, and he doesn't know anything else." The things that the family wants to do are all written in the letter. ”

Xu Ke nodded and said, "Okay, then let me think about how to reply to the family master." Housekeeper, bring everyone from your hometown to rest first. ”

Xu Ke and the "head of the family" mentioned by Xu Ke and the people who came to him is Xu Xinsu, Xu Ke is just a pseudonym, his original name is Xu Keqiang, the second son of Xu Xinsu's cousin, he grew up at sea since he was a child, and he became a good hand on the ship at a young age. Back then, Xu Xinsu arranged for people to lurk in Zhejiang, and he was one of the people who was selected. In order not to make people doubt his identity, Xu Xinsu specially packaged his life experience, and even changed his name, which is almost equivalent to being reborn.

However, Xu Ke was able to gain a foothold in Ningbo, and the Xu family did give him a lot of funding. In Ningbo, the initial expenses of buying ships, buying land, and recruiting people basically came from the funds provided by Fujian. And what he needs to do here in Ningbo is to play his current identity and quietly accumulate strength. If one day his hometown in Fujian needs his help, Xu Ke must give up everything and try his best to work hard for his family.

Of course, with the influence of the Xu clan in Fujian today, basically no one can shake it, and it is no longer the precarious situation when Xu Ke left Fujian a few years ago. Xu Ke has also slowly stabilized from the anxiety of the previous few years, not only marrying a wife and having children, buying land and property, but also beginning to think about when to apply to the head of the family, Xu Xinsu, to return to the Xu family.

At present, as allies and supporters of the Xu clan, Xu Ke has also heard of it in Ningbo. All kinds of glassware made by Haihan have appeared on the market since a few years ago, and even Xu Ke himself couldn't help but buy some to keep at home as a collection. However, Xu Ke did not have a more intuitive understanding of the military strength of the Haihan people, but in the letters sent from Fujian on a regular basis, he would always mention where the Haihan people fought, and they were never defeated in attacking cities. By last year, even the Eighteen Zhi, who had almost forced the Xu family to be cornered, had been expelled from the Fujian Strait by the Haihan people. In the handwritten letter sent by Xu Xinsu, who was specially sent by a messenger from his hometown in Fujian, he also specifically explained that the Haihan people had already made the Hongmao and the Franc Ji people on the island of Taiwan obedient, and the next step would probably be to march towards Zhejiang -- the Zhoushan Islands near Ningbo Prefecture were the primary target.

But if the Haihan people wanted to enter the Zhoushan Islands, they had to face the local armed forces and the favoritism of the government. Although Xu Xinsu is already powerful in Fujian, he has no way to directly intervene in the affairs of Zhejiang. If you want to find someone who is familiar with the sea conditions around Ningbo Mansion and can fully trust it, it is naturally Xu Ke's own person who was born in the Xu family. However, Xu Ke also knew that when Xu Xinsu arranged the lurkers, he was not the only one who stayed in Ningbo.

Xu Ke knew that there was a child of the Xu family in the Ningbo Sailor who was lurking, probably about the same age as himself, and he was currently in the position of chief official. However, although the two are in Ningbo, they have no contact with each other, and he has never taken the initiative to inquire about each other's identities.

Although the messenger may not have known about the situation, Xu Ke can roughly conclude that the Xu clan member in the water division will also receive the family's notice. Because he and the lurker have two characteristics in common, the first is that they eat by the sea, and the second is that they both maintain some unsightly relationships with the pirates of the Zhoushan Islands. The head of the family, Xu Xinsu, did not require them to be able to cooperate with Haihan, as long as they could provide enough information to Haihan and provide necessary guidance during the war, but in order to be safe, they would definitely let these two lines be launched together.

In his personal letter, Xu Xinsu asked Xu Ke to write as soon as possible a description of the pirate gang in the Zhoushan Islands, and to express his attitude and views on this matter.

Although the main business of Xu Ke is fishing, he is also quite familiar with the pirates of the Zhoushan Islands. Xu Ke paid more than 10,000 taels of silver to the pirates of the Zhoushan Islands every year, and he knew who would take the lion's share of the money and which ones would divide the rest. Every year, when he leads his team to sea, he often takes the initiative to go to some local pirate dens and meet the pirate leaders he knows.

Although this kind of scene is ridiculous to think about, in fact, it is even more ridiculous that the situation of the sailor. With the wealth of Ningbo Mansion, it can't afford to raise a decent fleet of sailors, and in the establishment of sailors, there are really many people who collude with pirates in private or have friendships. When it comes to the specific distribution of pirates, Xu Ke thinks that the colleague of the sailor probably knows the situation better than himself.

Although he already has a family and a business in Ningbo, but the head of the family sent a letter in person, Xu Ke still had to follow the original agreement and contribute to the family. However, he did not inform his family of his decision, ordered someone to guard the door of the study, and began to write secret letters.

After Xu Ke's secret letter was written, it was picked up by the messenger who delivered the letter on the same day, and he went south to Penghu overnight. It is about 500 nautical miles from Xiangshan to Penghu, and it takes a lot of time to get there.

Just as Xu Ke expected, two secret letters sent from Ningbo a few days later arrived at the Penghu base almost front and back. However, Qian Tiandun and Shi Diwen were not in a hurry to open it, after all, the letter was stamped with a special wax seal of the Xu family, and it was not easy to fake it. Qian Tiandun immediately ordered someone to invite Xu Xinsu to come over and read the mystery of this letter together. A few days after Xu Xinsu sent the messenger, he left his station and came to Penghu, waiting for news while constantly verifying Haihan's attitude.

"I actually drew a map, it's really heartfelt!" Xu Xinsu immediately praised after opening the envelope.

Although the map was nowhere near as accurate as the military maps used by Haihan himself, it was remarkable that it marked the main characters of all the pirate gangs. Just by slowly comparing the map drawn by Haihan himself, you can get an accurate and practical combat map.

The main content of the letter is a brief introduction to the forces of various local pirate gangs, Qian Tiandun and Shi Diwen carefully compared the two breaking news letters, and found that although the narrative techniques of the two are different, the key objects mentioned and the related news are basically the same, indicating that their authenticity is indeed good.

"General Qian, the news that my Xu Jiaerlang sent back this time is what you need?" Xu Xinsu's tone was not without smugness, after all, when he interviewed Shi Diwen a few days ago, he praised Haikou, saying that as long as he mobilized the lurker guards around him, it would not be a problem to get the detailed news of the Zhoushan Islands.

"Convinced, capitalized!" Qian Tiandun replied casually, but he didn't care whether Xu Xinsu knew what "capitalization" was. If Haihan is allowed to collect this information on his own, ten days and half a month may not be able to achieve the current effect. Now that eighty percent of the pirate gangs have been confessed as targets in the two whistleblowing letters, Qian Tiandun has to admit that the infiltrator team led by Xu Xinsu is indeed capable.

"General Qian, what should we do next?" Xu Xinsu really appreciated this plan when he heard Qian Tiandun's tone, and immediately hit the snake with the stick.

"We will send someone to Fujian and talk to them in person again. At the same time, the operational staff will also receive this document, and they will be responsible for developing a specific combat plan. Qian Tiandun patiently explained: "Lord Xu, I think you can start to help prepare combat supplies." Once the troop movement is complete, we are ready to launch an offensive. ”

According to the agreement between the two sides in advance, the Haihan side will be the main combat force in the Zhejiang sea area, while Xu Xinsu will be responsible for the local supply system to be able to operate. However, this time, the preparations were quite low-key, and Qian Tiandun did not want pirates to flee. If it worked, he was even willing to give the pirate an extra day and a half to prepare.

Xu Xinsu responded: "The matter of material preparation will be personally inquired by the old man, and General Qian can rest assured." However, how many troops you will invest this time, and how many battles you are expected to fight, can you explain it? ”

Qian Tiandun said: "It's hard to say how many battles we won, maybe my Haihan army will arrive, and it's hard to say if the defenders surrender directly." ”