Yang Peng's fleet carried twelve Fu ships surrendered by the Fujian government, loaded with goods, through the East China Sea and into the port of Hsinchu.

Zheng Hui was very happy to see Yang Peng's fleet coming, and led all the officials of Hsinchu to the dock to greet Yang Peng. Yang Peng reported to Zheng Hui in the good news of the Western Xia War. Zheng Hui is now the commander of the three products of Jinyi Weizheng, serving as a "sea general", wearing a red official robe. There are also many people under him who also have official status, and a large number of Wei commanders, Qianhu, etc., are all wearing official robes, red or blue, and they look like they are all together.

Fujian general Liu Xianglong's merchant ship was full of brass, figurines and other Japanese specialties, and it took several days to unload all of them, and the abundance of the spoils opened the eyes of Zheng Hui and the people of Hsinchu. But what surprised Zheng Hui the most was, of course, the ten ironclad ships.

Zheng Hui has seen the steamer without paddle wheels, and Yang Peng has also transformed five pointed ships into propeller types in the past few months, and these merchant ships have made several trips to Hsinchu routes, so the officials in Hsinchu have seen propeller ships. But Zheng Hui has seen the ironclad battleship outside the hull, which is the first time Zheng Hui has seen it.

The ironclad ship painted with gray tree paint was loaded with thirty-two heavy guns, and it looked like a bunker on the sea, exuding a murderous aura, which made Zheng Hui's heart surge. In this era, a five-hundred-ton ironclad ship is already considered a giant ship. With such a steel giant, it is not a problem to defeat Liu Xianglong.

In the past few months, Liu Xianglong's detectives in Hsinchu have become more and more intensive day by day, and it is obvious that it will not be long before he will do something to Hsinchu. Liu Xianglong claimed to have 100,000 sailors, which made Zheng Hui very worried. Hsinchu is Yang Peng's brainchild, but also Zheng Hui's brainchild. Zheng Hui has been building in Hsinchu all these years, and it is not easy to build Hsinchu, how can he be willing to hand over Hsinchu to Liu Xianglong?

If the army of Lord Yan comes, he is not afraid of Liu Xianglong. As soon as Yang Peng saw Zheng Hui, he asked, "Zheng Hui, is Liu Xianglong in Beigang or in Jinjiang?" "Liu Xianglong's lair is in Jinjiang, Fujian. In addition, Liu Xianglong has a port in the Ryukyus called Beigang, and sometimes Liu Xianglong will go to Beigang.

Zheng Hui was stunned and said, "Guogong, Zheng Hui doesn't know. The subordinates are only busy raising the walls of Hsinchu City these days, but they haven't thought about detective Liu Xianglong. Yang Peng smiled, the secret channel is long and short, Zheng Hui is not good at military espionage activities. Zheng Hui arched his hand at Yang Peng and said, "King Yan might as well go to Hsinchu to rest for a few days first, I built a Yan King Mansion in Hsinchu City." Although Hsinchu is in ruins and is poorly built, it can also allow King Yan to rest for a while. ”

Yang Peng nodded, then mounted his horse and led his entourage to Hsinchu City. Out of the harbor of Hsinchu Port is a fertile field. At this time, the early rice had already grown, and only green rice fields were seen on both sides of the official road along the way. The rice stalks sway from side to side with the spring wind, and from a distance, they look like waves, which is very beautiful. There are a lot of scarecrows on the ridges of the rice fields to drive birds, and rice farmers are working in the fields with their trouser legs in twos and threes, creating a pleasant and intoxicating pastoral scenery.

In the distance of the road, you can see farmhouse villages with smoke curling from time to time. Those villages were often built on higher ground, with cement brick houses and tall chimneys. Because Taiwan is vast and sparsely populated, the peasants' houses are built very large, with spacious yards, and there are often five or six houses in the yards.

From a distance, the courtyards of those peasants did not look like the houses of small farmers, but a bit like the houses of small landlords in Cangzhou. Yang Peng asked, "How many people are there in Hsinchu today?" Zheng Hui replied: "Now there are 150,000 landed peasants, and they have all been divided into fields and houses. There are also 50,000 farmers who have just entered the island, arranged in the 'desert opening camp'. ”

Yang Peng nodded and continued to walk towards Hsinchu City. The official roads in Hsinchu are well repaired, smooth and solid. To Yang Peng's surprise, almost all the farmers on the road wore satin clothes, and it seemed that the farmers in Hsinchu had to wear satin clothes to look decent when they went out. From time to time, Yang Peng saw a carriage pulled by four horses, and there were more than a dozen people sitting behind the carriage, all of whom seemed to be going into the city.

Where did these carriages come from? Peasant's? Yang Peng was very curious. Han Jinxin and the others had never seen such a carriage, and they were all full of suspicion. Halfway through, Yang Peng couldn't help but stop a carriage and asked.

Seeing that the official with many guards stopped the carriage, the people on the carriage knew that he had met a big official, and hurriedly got out of the car to answer. Yang Peng casually picked a middle-aged man holding a dry tobacco stick and asked, "Man, whose carriage is this?" What are you doing in town? ”

The man put the cigarette stick into the cigarette pouch and replied, "If you go back to the official, this carriage is a traffic carriage between Dingwu Town and Hsinchu City, and it is operated by the Zhang family. Four times a day, ten copper plates can get on the bus and sit in the city. Now the people of Dingwu Town take this car when they enter the city. ”

It turned out to be a privately run public carriage with a toll of ten copper plates. Unexpectedly, the people of Hsinchu are already so rich, and they are willing to take a trip with ten copper plates. Ten copper plates are enough for a meal of white rice. If it were in Shandong, I am afraid that the peasants would not be willing to sit in this carriage with sticks.

When the man said this, he forgot about Yang Peng's second question and stood there with his hands down. Han Jinxin smiled: "Man, the prince asked you what you were doing in the city?" The other people around the man were startled when they heard the words of the prince, and immediately knelt on the ground and kowtowed. The man didn't notice the meaning of these two words, and replied with a grin: "Official, I went into the city to buy goods for my daughter-in-law and sons, and I heard that King Yan's merchant fleet has arrived on the shore, so I will go into the city to see if there are any fresh goods to buy, and by the way, I will watch the play." The big drama of Jade Pavilion's "Western Xia War" has been performed for half a year, and I haven't seen it yet, so I must squeeze in to watch it this time. ”

Yang Peng asked curiously: "How much does it cost to watch a play?" The man replied, "Twelve dollars for watching a play." But this is standing and watching, and there are only two hundred positions. If the standing ticket is sold out, you can only buy the tea seat in the front row, which costs 40 yuan per person. ”

The man thought for a while and said, "This time it's for forty dollars, and I want to see this big drama too, otherwise it's really a trip to the city for nothing?" Yang Peng thought for a while and asked, "You spend money so lavishly, don't you need to raise children?" The man smiled and said, "The official said that he was joking, what kind of money is this money?" I've had a son and a daughter in the past three years, haven't I been raised for nothing? I'm going to the city to buy a Trojan horse and a ball for my eldest son. Now my husband and wife are cultivating the prince's forty acres of paddy fields, and their annual income is almost one hundred taels of silver..."

As he spoke, the man suddenly remembered that Han Jinxin had just said the word "prince", reacted, and finally realized that the official in front of him was the prince Yang Peng, so he knelt on the ground with a frightened thud.

"The prince is above, and Xiaomin has seen the prince." The farmer didn't know whether he was excited or nervous, his voice changed when he knelt on the ground, and he shouted at the top of his voice: "The prince is above, and the small people can come to Hsinchu to live a good life thanks to Grandpa Guo." I think that in Baodi County, Cangzhou, my daughter-in-law and I couldn't eat enough all year round, and the two of us only had a set of cotton jackets in winter, and almost froze to death. At that time, I finally gave birth to a daughter, and I also died of hunger and illness..."

Yang Peng continued to walk forward with his personal guards and entered Hsinchu City from the West Gate. According to Yang Peng's order, Hsinchu City was built in imitation of Tianjing New City. After more than three years of development, Hsinchu City is now quite large-scale. The size of the city is similar to that of Tianjing New Town before the expansion, and the number of streets is the same as that of Tianjing New Town.

The town is now a commercial center for 200,000 people, and all the goods brought from the mainland are distributed here, so the wholesale business in the city is very prosperous. Zheng Hui built a large wholesale market in the west of the city, where the goods brought by Lü Hu were sold to local retailers, who then sold them to the township.

Yang Peng's decision changed the fate of hundreds of thousands of people. The new farmers here in Hsinchu are very wealthy and have amazing spending power, so logistics in Hsinchu City are very active. Taiwan's supply of goods currently mainly depends on Yang Peng's fleet. Gao Ligong organized the procurement of goods in Tianjing New Town, and then Lu Hu shipped the goods to Taiwan. This Gao Ligong is also a talent, and the goods purchased are often urgently needed by Taiwan. Therefore, the goods shipped to Taiwan are selling very well.

The wholesale market in Hsinchu is called "Yanwang Market", Yang Peng looked at the wholesale market and found that all the goods shipped last month had been sold, and there was no one in the market at this time. People were standing at the entrance to the market. Retailers in a hurry, dressed in clean and decent clothes, crowded in front of the wholesale market, anxiously awaiting the arrival of new goods from the docks.

Zheng Hui said: "Lord, in the first half of the year, we mainly used cargo ships to transport farmers and materials for land reclamation, so the transportation of consumer goods was relatively tight. When the goods are transported to Hsinchu City, they are often sold short in less than three days. Every time a fleet of ships came into port with goods, it was a big deal for the merchants. ”

Yang Peng stood at the door of the wholesale market and watched for a while. Soon after, a carriage loaded with fine cloth drove into the wholesale market, and the merchants surrounded it like raccoon cats that saw river fish, waving silver. The two little boys sitting in the carriage were very busy, desperately keeping accounts and collecting money among the silver stuffed by the merchants.

Before the carriage had even entered the textile section of the wholesale market, the fine cloth on the carriage was snapped up. Not long after, a cart of fine iron drove over again, and another group of merchants rushed up to buy it. That scene was like buying a train ticket during the Spring Festival in later generations. Yang Peng smiled and left the wholesale market to wander around the rest of the city.

Walking around the city, Yang Peng found that there was not only a wholesale business in Hsinchu City, but also a very developed retail industry. There are three vertical and three horizontal streets in the city, among which the streets named Phoenix Street by Yang Peng are full of large shops with gorgeous decorations. These shops tend to be two-storey tall and two or three rooms wide.

The shelves of the store are full of goods: silk, porcelain, mirrors, tea, wine, tobacco, etc., all high-end consumer goods that wealthy Hsinchu farmers can afford. The streets of Phoenix were bustling with people, and well-dressed peasants came and went from shops to shops, carrying large bags and small bags in their hands.

"Although there are retail stores in each township, the variety is limited. To buy high-end goods, farmers would rather spend dozens of dollars more to go into the city to buy them, and there are more varieties to choose from. ”

Yang Peng nodded and walked to the north of the city again. Zhenbei Street in the north of the city is also named by Yang Peng, and now there are more than a dozen theater teahouses, and every family is overcrowded. From time to time, the crowded theater building resounded with earth-shattering cheers, and it was obvious that the wealthy peasants had a great demand for opera entertainment. Someone in the teahouse was reading the newspaper, reading the "Dali Temple Announcement" that came with the fleet. Although those papers were all ten days ago, the people in the teahouse still listened to them with relish.

However, Yang Peng walked around, but did not find a brothel in Qinglou. Yang Peng thought about it and knew that this was because most of the young couples he recruited when he recruited farmers to open up the wasteland, so there were no women to come out to make powder, and the Qinglou could not be opened.

Han Jinxin and others followed behind Yang Peng, observing the prosperity of Hsinchu City all the way, and praised: "This Hsinchu City has such prosperity in just four years, which is really good." If it was snatched by Liu Xianglong, it would be a pity. Yang Peng said with a smile: "Liu Xianglong not only can't rob us, but we also have to rob Liu Xianglong." After two days of repairs in Hsinchu, we went to take Liu Xianglong's Beigang. ”

Two days later, Yang Peng's huge fleet sailed out of Hsinchu Port and attacked Liu Xianglong's North Port. Beigang was developed in Taiwan by the sea merchant Wang Hu in the early years, also known as Bengang, located in the west central part of Taiwan Island, on the right bank of the lower reaches of Beigang Creek. Today, the port is Yang's stronghold on the island of Taiwan. Beigang was 400 miles from Hsinchu, and Yang Peng's fleet set out in the evening, drove for one night, and arrived at Beigang in the early morning of 15 April.

There are three Fu ships moored in the port of Beigang, which are probably used by Liu Xianglong to communicate with the merchant ships of the mainland. Yang Peng observed the port with a telescope and found that there were not many defensive facilities in the port, only a few sunken forts were built by the small river near the port, and more than a dozen Hongyi cannons were erected.

There were hundreds of sailors in the port, and these sailors saw Yang Peng's huge fleet of soldiers pressing the border, and hurried to the dock. Yang Peng took a closer look and found that one-third of these Liu family's private soldiers were equipped with bows and crossbows, while the others used spears.

The artillerymen in the harbor battery first opened fire on Yang Peng's fleet. However, the distance was more than two miles, and the thirteen cannons of the Liu family lacked accuracy, and none of them hit the target in one round.

Yang Peng ordered to surround Beigang with ten merchant ships and ten ironclad ships in a semicircle and crush the fort. Soon twenty steamers were in place, and two hundred and forty cannons were aimed at the batteries in the North Harbor. The gunners pulled the ignition rope, and the bombs rained down on the batteries in the harbor, exploding inside and outside the batteries. The design of the Liujia Fort is recessed into the ground, and it is difficult for the bomb to hit the target, but once it falls into it, it is a massacre. About a dozen of the 240 shells exploded inside the fort, blowing up the Liu family's private soldiers who operated the artillery into a blur of flesh and blood.

With only one round of shooting, the gunners of the Liu family couldn't stand it. Half of the gunners were killed, and the living half were splashed with the blood and minced flesh of the dead and wounded, and they also lost their fighting spirit and fled from the battery in a panic.

Yang Peng asked the artillerymen to change their targets and began to bombard the more than 600 private soldiers of the Liu family guarding the dock. However, the scene of more than 200 cannons bombarding the fort just now frightened these 600 private soldiers. If more than 200 cannons were fired at the 600 soldiers exposed in the harbor, how bloody would it be? Without waiting for Yang Peng's cannon to fire, the six hundred private soldiers collapsed with a bang. The soldiers threw away their weapons and fled in panic into the countryside outside the harbor.

Yang Peng smiled, waved his hand and said, "The ship is docked, and the North Port is also ours!" When the fleet entered the Beigang wharf, Yang Peng found that the port town was not large. There are dozens of rooms on the wharf, as well as dozens of cargo holds, which store the materials brought by Liu Jiafu's ship from the mainland, as well as the rice ready to be sold to the mainland. There was a lot of rice, and Yang Peng's sailors made a rough count and found that more than 100,000 stone of rice were stored in more than a dozen granaries.

The grain of more than 100,000 stones is probably a year's land endowment or land rent for the farmers of Beigang, worth more than 400,000 taels of silver, and all of them have become Yang Peng's bag at this time. The Liu family thought that they controlled the southeast sea, and they were not afraid of others coming to rob them, and even wanted to rob Yang Peng's Hsinchu, but they didn't expect Yang Peng to dare to rob his Beigang.

There is a gorgeous five-entry courtyard on the north side of the wharf, which is the "palace" where Liu Xianglong lives in Beigang. At this time, seeing Yang Peng attacking, the Liu family in the big courtyard all fled, and they didn't know where they fled, Yang Peng's soldiers entered the hospital and searched for a while, only in a warehouse found more than 20,000 taels of silver. It seems that Liu Xianglong does not have the habit of storing a large amount of money in Beigang.

Three miles east of the wharf is a town where about 1,000 traders and craftsmen live. At this time, the people of the town were attacked and the people of the town took refuge in their homes, and the roads in the town were deserted.

Yang Peng rode into the countryside again and found that the countryside of Beigang was in tatters. The people were hiding in mud huts with thatched roofs, and the occasional ill-informed farmer was working in the fields, all of them with yellow faces and thin muscles.

Yang Peng is ready to take over Beigang, ready to manage and operate this place, and naturally he can't let the people be afraid of him. Yang Peng asked the soldiers to go into the towns and villages in groups of ten to promote their policies:

"King Yan crusaded against injustice, only punished the culprit and did not hurt the people, the people should not panic!" "King Yan has occupied the whole of Hong Kong, the order of the town has been restored, the people are relieved to come out to operate, and the soldiers will not commit any crimes."

The soldiers shouted along the street for half an hour, and the people of Beigang gradually stopped panicking. Yang Peng found ten prestigious village elders and borrowed the wine shop in the town to entertain these village elders, trying to understand the basic situation of the entire Beigang.

"Fellow villagers, I am Yang Peng, the king of Yan! In the future, this North Port will be under the jurisdiction of the prince. "The officials loyal to Liu Xianglong in Beigang have long since run away, and the people left in the town have nothing to do with the Liu family. When these villagers heard Yang Peng's words, they wanted to leave their seats and kneel, but Yang Peng raised his hand to stop them.

"Excuse me, I want to know, how many people and fields are there in this Beigang, and how did the Liu family collect taxes in the past?" The villagers glanced at each other, and an old man with a gray beard stood up and replied: "The prince is above, forgive the old man on the desert island for being rude, as far as the old man knows, there are more than 4,000 households in Beigang, with 32,000 people. I don't know how many fields there are, but the former housekeeper of the Liu family once invited us to drink, saying that there are 2,000 hectares of fields in Beigang, and there are 2,000 hectares of fields. ”

Although the old man spoke official dialect, he had a strong Fujian accent. It took a lot of effort for Yang Peng to understand and nodded.

"How does the Liu family collect taxes and how does it collect land rent?" The old man said: "These fields of the people of Beigang are still spontaneously reclaimed in the hands of Wang Hu, the 'Oriental Ship Elder', and they are all private fields of the common people, so there is no such thing as land rent. However, after the Liu family came, we received sixty percent of the field, and the people collected one stone of grain to pay six buckets to the Liu family, and the people were very poor. ”

It turned out that the Liu family set the field endowment so high, although it was a field endowment, it was actually no different from the ground rent. "This prince also collects sixty percent of the land rent from the people in Hsinchu, and the people are very rich, why are the people of Beigang poor when they pay sixty percent of the land endowment?"

When the villager heard Yang Peng's question, he didn't dare to speak, for fear that his crying behavior would contradict Yang Peng. A chubby old man next to him stood up and said:

"Wang Ye Mingjian, the fields in Beigang are all cultivated by the people on the edge of the valley, irrigation and watering all rely on flat buckets to carry water, and the young couple can plant 25 acres of land and die of exhaustion. Moreover, manpower is always insufficient to carry water for irrigation, and the grain harvested is limited, so it is good to be able to harvest two stones a year. After planing the fields, only a dozen stones were left for personal use. ”

"You can only harvest such a small amount of food in a hard year, and if you want to feed your whole family, how can the people of Beigang not be poor?" Yang Peng understood when he heard the old man's words. The main problem in Beigang is that there are no water conservancy facilities, there is little land for each person to plant, and the yield is also low due to poor irrigation, so the people are poor. In comparison, because of the water conservancy facilities in Hsinchu, the productivity of each strong man is twice that of Beigang.

Yang Peng nodded, and said confidently: "Fellow villagers, rest assured, since Beigang is now ruled by this prince, the people will definitely become rich in the future." In the future, not to mention that eating and dressing will not be a problem, I will let the people live in brick houses, wear satin clothes, and eat meat! ”

When the villagers in Beigang heard this, they knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Yang Peng. Although they may not believe Yang Peng's words in their hearts, these villagers have happy and sincere expressions on their faces.

Leaving 500 soldiers to maintain order in Beigang, Yang Peng sailed the fleet to the open sea outside Beigang. The advantage of Yang Peng's fleet lies in mobility and firepower. Only in the vast open sea, the surface fleet can be unleashed. If the ship docked in the harbor and was surrounded by Liu Xianglong's army, the situation would not be good. The waterway in the port is narrow, and the steamer cannot maneuver quickly, and in the end it will definitely be surrounded by the Liu family's pirates. When the time comes, thousands of people will climb the side of the ironclad ship with swords in their hands, and no amount of artillery will be useless.

Attacking the enemy's ports was not what Yang Peng's steam steamers were best at. There are many reefs near the mainland, and ironclad ships with a deep draft can easily run aground if they maneuver at high speed in the shallow sea near the land. But if you don't maneuver at high speed, you will easily be surrounded by Liu pirates who are several times the number of you.

So Yang Peng drove the fleet to the open sea outside Beigang and cruised at high speed. On the one hand, it can plunder the Liu family's merchant fleet returning from the Japanese state, and on the other hand, it can intercept the Liu family's navy trying to recover Beigang.

Beigang can bring hundreds of thousands of taels of income to the Liu family a year, and Liu Xianglong can't swallow this breath anyway. Yang Peng's fleet cruised off the coast of Beigang for five days, and sure enough, it encountered Liu Xianglong's huge fleet. Yang Peng was pondering the map at the end of the building, when he suddenly heard a loud call from the lookout. Yang Peng looked up and found that countless spots suddenly appeared on the distant horizon. The spots grew bigger and bigger, and finally they became a line on the horizon. The straight line is getting thicker and thicker, and from south to north occupies the entire end of the sea.

In the bright summer sun of early April, those spots gradually revealed their true face - the sails of a sailboat. The fleet of the Liu family seems to cover the entire sea, and I don't know how many warships there are, and they can't attack the fifty-three steam steamers.

After all, what happens next, let's see how it will be broken down next time.