Obviously, the emergence of Dashun can form a competition with Daming, and naturally it can raise the price.

Zhao Changshui said: "Yes, big shopkeeper, I will carefully arrange the guards of the Luming Pavilion." ”

Li Zhaoji bowed slightly, Tang Mu went to Lushun, and now Zhao Changshui is the leader in his personal entourage, this guy is as young as his uncle, but he is also as smart. It's no problem to use Dashun to raise the price, but the people on Dashun's side are not easy to get along with, all of them are murderous and unblinking, in case you see that Zhao Wenhe is not pleasing to the eye, it will be self-defeating.

It can be said that Li Zhaoji arranged the representatives of Dashun and Daming in the same residence, which was a very creative act, and both sides discovered the existence of the other party at the first time, but they both chose not to act rashly, but did their best to inquire about the other party's intention and purpose, and then followed the speculation and the news they heard, and proposed new ways of cooperation. ‘

For example, Zhang Nai's order in the arsenal, at the beginning, he only ordered 2,000 arquebuses, plus the purchase of some coastal defense guns eliminated from the forts, and prepared to pull these guns back to the customs to attack Shanhaiguan, but after hearing about the existence of Zhao Wenji, he thought that the Ming Dynasty would also order armaments on a large scale in the Oriental Trading Company, so he continuously increased the number of orders and directly ate all the rich production capacity of the arsenal, so as not to use these militaristic weapons for the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, Zhang Nai continued to deepen the friendship between Dashun and the Oriental Trading Company, and in order to drive Zhao Wenji out of the Luming Pavilion, he even destroyed the Luming Pavilion.

You must know that the Luming Pavilion is located in the core area of Tamsui City, and this building complex shares a street with high-level executives such as Li Zhaoji and Chen Liuzi, so it is very convenient to negotiate back and forth. Compared with the formality of the Dashun mission, Zhao Wenji had more convenient access to Li Zhaoji's home.

So Zhang Nai immediately proposed that the Luming Hall should be rebuilt into the Oriental Academy of Sciences, which was used to house books from Beijing and Wang Zheng, the chief academician from Shaanxi.

Even though he knew Zhang Nai's intentions, Li Zhaoji directly agreed.

Wang Zheng was a Catholic from Shaanxi and, like Xu Guangqi, was the founder of Chinese science in the late Ming Dynasty.

As early as the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zhaoji invited Wang Zheng, who had already sent a letter to Shaanxi, to come to Tamsui to teach science through the relationship of the Society of Jesus in Macau, but Wang Zheng was old and frail, and he was unwilling to travel far away, so he never reached an agreement.

Later, Dashun rose, and also wanted Wang Zheng to enter the court as an official, but was rejected by him, if it were not for Li Zhaoji to cooperate with Dashun after occupying the capital, Wang Zheng had committed suicide in Shaanxi at this time.

Wang Zheng was taken to the capital by Dashun last year, and Li Zicheng also wanted to see what kind of person an old man valued by Li Zhaoji was, but Wang Zheng was a stone in the pit for Dashun, smelly and hard, and Li Zicheng was scolded by him for a while when he saw Wang Zheng.

As a result, Wang Zheng went directly to the shelves and became an important bargaining chip in Dashun's negotiations with the Oriental Trading Company, along with the collection of books in the Jesuit church in Beijing.

This part of the collection, along with a collection of more than 7,000 books brought by the Jesuits from Europe decades ago, is part of a collection of more than 7,000 books brought by the Jesuits from Europe, and only a very small part of them belong to religious books, and most of them represent the most advanced works in Europe's science, mathematics, humanities, and geography.

Li Zhaoji naturally attached great importance to these books and talents like Wang Zheng, and proposed early on that as soon as these people and books arrived, the Academy of Oriental Sciences would be established immediately.

Even for the sake of this knowledge, Lee has relaxed Tamsui's restrictions on the Catholic Church, allowing the Jesuits to build churches here, although they cannot preach, but they can serve those who believe in Catholicism in Tamsui City.

Zhang Nai only sent Wang Zheng over, but he couldn't convince Wang Zheng to work for the Oriental Trading Company, but Zhang Nai's didn't need to bother with this.

Li Zhaoji directly took out his personal letter with Hongguang Emperor Zhu Yousong and let Wang Zheng see it, although Wang Zheng did not believe that the emperor of the Ming Dynasty would have a businessman as a friend, which was really a bit shocking, but the more shocking the world, the more Wang Zheng thought it was reasonable, after all, it was too untrue to use this kind of thing to deceive people.

Li Zhaoji's reply to Zhu Yousong mentioned Wang Zheng, hoping that Zhu Yousong, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, could order Wang Zheng to serve him as emperor.

Obviously, after Wang Zheng broke away from Dashun's control, he became a bargaining chip for cooperation between Daming and Dongfang Trading Company.

Zhao Wenji was naturally happy to help, and took Li Zhaoji in this matter, and got some benefits in the matter of Liao soldiers on Jeju Island.

In the end, the matter of how to settle and distribute the Liao soldiers on Jeju Island was officially negotiated in February of the first year of Hongguang.

After various transactions, the Ming court got 17,000 Liao soldiers and more than 40,000 Liao soldiers for 600,000 taels of silver, while Dashun got more than 4,000 Liao soldiers.

Li Zhaoji's distribution of Liao soldiers followed the principle of partial voluntariness, and the Ming side gave priority, and those who were willing to go to Jiangnan, and those whose soldiers and relatives were on Jeju Island, were all handed over to the Ming Dynasty. The soldier himself is on Jeju Island, but his family or most of his family members are in Liaoxi, and he does not have a strong desire to go to Daming, then he can choose to go to Dashun.

Those who don't want to go anywhere, who are tired of the war, or who only have relatives on Jeju Island and the soldiers who are nowhere to be found, can stay on Jeju Island and be resettled by Lee So-gi.

But there is one thing, all officers with official rank and above must leave, and even if they do not leave, they must give up their official positions.

In the end, Li Zhaoji got more than 600 Liao soldiers and about 800 Liao people.

He did not leave these people on Jeju Island, because the island's production was poor, and the few supplies had to serve the horse ranches of the trading companies, and these people went to Sado Island or were sent to Ryukyu, Tamsui, etc., and became members of the common people under the rule of the Oriental Trading Company.

However, the cooperation between the trading company and Daming and Dashun has not been contacted.

Zhang Nai stayed in Tamsui for a long time until June of the first year of Hongguang, and Zhao Wenji went back and forth between Nanjing and Tamsui many times for cooperation matters and some terms. It's just that the general strategy has been formulated, and the next step is to implement it, and Lee Zhaoji does not need to personally participate in everything.

On February 1 of the first year of Hongguang, Lee Zhaoji officially held a supreme meeting at the headquarters of the trading company, gathered all the members of the high-level in Tamsui, and officially announced the key work of the first year of Hongguang.

"Before the meeting starts, I need to announce one thing. The Manchus had sent troops to the court ten days earlier, and now the army had crossed the Yalu River, saying that they were going to Jeju Island to rescue the Liao people and soldiers there. Li Zhaoji looked around and said to everyone.

Liu Mingde reached out and took out a delicate cigarette case from his arms, took out a cigarette, wanted to light it but remembered Li Zhaoji's rule that smoking is not allowed, and took it back stupidly, he said: "The Manchu Qing sent troops for the Liao people, why does it sound so weasels to give New Year's greetings to chickens?"

I don't believe it, I guess they want to annex the DPRK, Xian. ”

Yang Yandi immediately asked: "What about the trading company, do you want to take action?" ”

The work of reducing the army is underway, and if it is necessary to use troops now, the reduction will naturally have to be abolished directly, which will also save trouble.

Li Zhaoji shook his head slightly, and said: "No, we are not in the court, rarely use soldiers, the dynasty, rarely is a vassal state of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, only a small number of merchants and officials have smuggled trade with us, and we have no partners there at all."

If you are in Korea, you will rarely use troops, and you will fall into a war of attrition. We may be able to defeat the Qing army in Chao Xian, but what benefit can we gain?

Could it be that we can occupy the DPRK, Xian? Or let it belong to the Ming Dynasty and become a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty again? ”

When Li Zhaoji got the news that the Manchus had sent troops, he also had to sigh that the rise of the Manchus in China and their entry into the Central Plains were definitely not by luck, and superb political wisdom was also one of the aspects. The Manchus might have strengthened their country by annexing the dynasty, which Li Zhaoji had long speculated.

After all, in terms of military strength, Dashun is already one dimension higher than the Chongzhen era, and the only thing this emerging dynasty lacks is time. Even if Dashun does not build a new firearms army like the Eastern Brigade, just by integrating domestic resources, it can crush the Manchus with its size advantage.

The military strength of Dashun was so strong that the Manchus could not enhance their strength through plundering methods such as 'grabbing the west'. Then the way to significantly increase one's own strength is to annex more forces.

It is foreseeable that not only the tribes in the east, Xian, and southern Mo, which have not yet been fully subjugated, as well as the Khalkhas, who have surrendered but cannot be mobilized, but even the forces in northern Xinjiang and Tibet, will also become the target of the Manchus, and the country must continue to expand and annex in order to maintain its existence.

"In the north, our goal this year is to help Dashun seize Shanhaiguan." Lee told everyone in a slow but firm tone, lest anyone be cranky.

In fact, sitting back and watching the Manchus annex Korea is rarely in line with Li Zhaoji's strategy of 'continental balance of power'. The enemy of the trading company was the Manchus, and in addition to Li Zhaoji's personal nationalist ideas, the most important thing was that dealing with the Manchus would gain more benefits from Dashun, the most powerful force on the continent.

However, this does not mean that the Shang society helped the Great Shun to eliminate the Manchus, on the contrary, the existence of the Manchus was an essential part of the strategy of 'continental balance of power'.

If one day, the Manchu Qing Dynasty will be wiped out, it will definitely not be the Great Shun or the Ming Dynasty, but Li Zhaoji's Oriental Trading Society, at which time, the Eastern Commercial Society will replace the Manchus and become part of the continental balance of power. But obviously, not now.

If the Manchu Qing were eliminated during the first year of Hongguang, then it would definitely be Dashun who annexed it, not a trading company, and Li Zhaoji would not do it if he made wedding dresses for others.

Chen Liuzi coughed lightly and said, "I'm worried, if Dashun obtains Shanhaiguan, will it change the current balance of power on the mainland?"

Shanhaiguan is a gate, and if you get it, you can use part of your forces to block the invasion from the Manchu Qing Dynasty. ”

Li Zhaoji said lightly: "At present, it seems that it should not be, whether it is Zhang Nai's mission or the news we got from Song Xiance, Dashun is eager to solve the Qing army in the pass, and after obtaining Shanhaiguan, it is not necessary to go south to deal with Daming, but to get a respite, integrate the internal forces, and reform Dashun's military."

I need you to understand the concept that the Dashun has not established rule over the north now, they have only occupied the north militarily.

Dashun, like our Oriental Trading Company, needs time to digest the gains made over the past few years. ”

Li Zicheng's rebellion was during the Apocalypse, and at the beginning he was just a small leader in the peasant army, and even the title of King Chuang was inherited from others.

In fact, Li Zicheng, like Li Zhaoji, rose to Chongzhen for fifteen years, in which Li Zhaoji got the Dongfang and began to expand in the China Sea. And it was also this year that when Li Zicheng walked out of Shangluo Mountain, there were only more than 1,000 people around him.

In just two or three years, Li Zicheng established Dashun and had a northern empire, and his army changed from more than 1,000 people to nearly 200,000 old battalions and roughly the same number of Ming troops, which was an expansion speed like blowing up a balloon.

It was precisely because it expanded so quickly that it did not have enough time to digest the gains that it eventually led to the fall of the Dashun Dynasty at the hands of the Manchus.

new