Laoag City is a seaport city, just like Manila.

After the Ming army took over Laoag, they took over various local files from Spanish officials.

According to statistics, there are about 10,000 inhabitants in the city of Laoag, most of whom are merchants, sailors and craftsmen.

This made Liu Yu quite satisfied, after all, the population of Weigan was only a little more than 6,000 people.

Although the largest population on the mainland is at the town level, the wealthy merchants, sailors, and craftsmen who live there are far more wealthy than traditional agrarian societies due to the fact that they are seaports and trading cities.

This time, the arrival of the Four Seas Merchant Company brought a whole ten ships of grain.

At the same time, Shanhai also transported grain from the road to Laoag.

The influx of grain and the opening of the Spanish grain depot by the Ming army curbed the price of food in the city, and the Ming army distributed free food to the destitute in the city, which undoubtedly gave good news to the inhabitants of the city.

For the first time, the inhabitants of the city who had experienced the devastation were quiet, and some of the civilians who tried to flee were also settled.

Now a series of coastal towns in the northwestern part of Luzon such as Vigan and Laoag have been occupied by the Ming army, which can show that the army has really gained a foothold in Luzon.

Luzon Island is the largest island in the Philippines, and Luzon in the Ming Dynasty is known as Greater Luzon and Little Luzon. Greater Luzon refers to the Philippines in a broad sense, and Lesser Luzon refers to the state of Luzon recorded in Chinese historical sources, that is, the largest island in the northern part of the Philippines, with an area about the same size as Zhejiang Province.

Liu Yu instigated Xiao Wu and others to go south to Luzon, not to take the Philippines, but to take the northern part of the small Luzon Island occupied by the Spaniards as a base for counterattacking mainland Taiwan.

As for Manila in the south of Luzon and even Mindanao in the south, Liu Yu didn't think about it at all.

After all, for Liu Yu, Luzon Island is actually more like Taiwan in the eyes of the anti-Qing forces in the late Qing Dynasty.

So when the Ming generals wanted to move south to Manila, Liu Yu refused.

Despite his desire for Manila's bustling trade and galleon routes, Liu Yu held back.

In fact, Liu Yu really wants to sign a gentleman's agreement with the governor of Manila.

However, considering the Spanish raid on Ming City and the annexation of Spanish government property by the Ming army, presumably the governor would not have signed such an agreement with great arrogance.

"My lord, ten boatloads of grain have been transported to the Laoag wharf, and the land route of the mountains and seas can be resumed within half a month." Su Langqing stood respectfully in front of Liu Yu.

Liu Yu has also established the Four Seas Commercial Bank for a while, and Liu Yu handed over the daily operation to the four major merchants of Weigan.

"Now that the siege of Laoag has been lifted, the traditional trade routes should also be restored as soon as possible, and Shanhai should be told to resume trade on the road from Vigan to Laoag and the area around Laoag as soon as possible." Liu Yu said to Su Langqing.

The Four Seas Firm, which is divided into four parts according to trade,

Mountains and seas: Overland trade, with the cities of Laoag and Vigan as the core, and Tuge Garao and Banggui as the bases, is the land trade, mainly to sell the food specialties of the local tribes of Ilok and Tagalu to Vigan and Laoag through road transportation, and at the same time sell the handicrafts of Vigan, Laoag and other cities to the indigenous tribes and chiefdoms in the form of barter.

These road trade Chinese merchants basically do not do, because the local tribe situation is complex and dangerous, coupled with the exclusion of the Han people by various merchant groups on the road, basically no one will choose land trade, but now it is different, the northern part of Luzon Island is in the hands of the Ming army, who dares not to obey.

The trade routes between the northern cities and the small roads between the major tribes were cleaned up by the Ming army, although it cannot be said that it is exhaustive, but basically no one dares to embarrass the Chinese merchants.

Under the escort of the Ming army, many Chinese merchants began to engage in land trade, Shanhai through the purchase of urban handicrafts and the major indigenous tribes in exchange for grain, palm and other specialties, and the goods will be transported to Weigan and other towns in exchange for silver and other currency, due to the war blocking the main road caused many towns and cities to urgently need food specialties.

The trade of mountains and seas was particularly good, and it was developed at the earliest with good opportunities, and soon there were considerable benefits.

The open sea, mainly responsible for maritime trade, especially ocean trade, ships sailed from Vigan, Laoag to the East Indies or Batavia, and even Manila, these days due to the decline of piracy, the shipping lanes have also returned to prosperity, and Chinese merchants have also begun to carry out long-distance trade by receiving Vigan's merchant ships, but the results are not ideal.

Lu Hai, mainly responsible for the mainland, Liu Yu and others have been going south to Luzon for several months, and the Qing court has not made much action, especially after no signs of remnant army activities were found near the coast, so they also tried to develop a sea ban. Liu Yu formed Lu Hai mainly to carve up the big cake of the mainland-to-South Seas trade, selling tea, silk, porcelain and other specialties from the mainland to Manila, East India and other places, and at the same time selling spices and other South Sea specialties back to the mainland, so as to earn high profits. Of course, the current spice site is still in the hands of those first-class natives in the southern Philippines, and Liu Yu will not be able to touch it for a while, but the tea and porcelain business is still very important.

Another point is that the mainland is communicated through land and sea, and since the southern flight to Luzon, it has basically cut off contact with the mainland, and now through land and sea, you can find out some policies of the Qing court, and at the same time secretly carry out population migration in Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Fujian.

Yes, although the approach is a bit shameless, for the sake of Luzon's foundation, Liu Yu has no choice but to do so.

Through land and sea, the coastal generation is secretly bought and sold in the coastal generation, especially the young and middle-aged people.

The price is also very expensive, ten taels of silver for an adult Han person, five taels for women and children, of course, these can only be done secretly, and even Liu Quan doesn't know what Liu Yu does.

Ming Hai is relatively special, because its business object is the Ming army, through the merchants in Luzon, the Ming army in daily life is much more convenient, especially food, medicine, leather clothing, etc. can be purchased in Luzon through Chinese merchants, of course, basically on credit.

During this period of time, Ming Hai delivered grain to the Ming army in Laoag, which enabled more than 2,000 Ming troops to besiege the city for half a month.

The commercial tax of mountains and seas, land and sea, and far sea is thirty percent, which is thirty percent of the net profit after subtracting the original price of the ships and sailors after the trade profits, and the Ming army protected the ships through the waterway for the long-distance voyages.

And because Ming Hai served the Ming army, the tax was only 20%, and now he was generously reduced to 10% by Liu Yu.

Su Langqing, who was the person in charge of Ming Hai, was naturally happy, and the Ming army after occupying Laoag began to repay the previous credit, which gave Ming Hai the confidence to continue to cooperate with the Ming army.

Thousands of Chinese imprisoned in the Rawag prison were also released by Liu Yu.

These Chinese were imprisoned in the prison of Laoag by the enraged Spaniards because of the arrival of the Ming army.

The reason why the Spaniards did not wield a butcher's knife against these thousands of Han Chinese was mainly because Sir Brent felt that if the Ming army really attacked Laoag, then these Chinese could be used as bargaining chips.

It's just that he didn't expect that the Spanish merchants would ruthlessly abandon him.

Now, not only did the thousands of Chinese not become his bargaining chips in negotiations with the Ming people, on the contrary, the thousands of Spaniards in Laoag became Liu Yu's bargaining chips against Manila.

The number of Spanish colonists in Luzon never exceeded 10,000, and they were mostly located in Manila and several port towns in Luzon.

The Spaniards captured by Liu Yu were mainly hundreds of merchants, officials and their families, as well as a large number of Spanish officers and soldiers, the number of which was about 1,000.

And this has also become a bargaining chip for the Ming army to deal with Manila.