It is extremely difficult to go to the islands along the coast of the mainland to suppress bandits without official participation. On the one hand, the flow of naval action will definitely arouse the vigilance of the local government and even the imperial court, and even send troops to stop the action. On the other hand, their protective umbrella will definitely impeach the company and turn it into stolen goods, so that the Thunderbolts will fall into political passivity and ruin the reputation that they have accumulated with great difficulty. On the surface, these pirate lairs are nothing unusual to ordinary villages, but a thorough search reveals what they have done to their conscience. With the official endorsement, the Liuqiu Navy can have no worries politically. Of course, Xia Dagen especially emphasized the importance of intelligence and secrecy in the suppression of bandits, on the one hand, to prevent someone from tipping off the news, and on the other hand, he also wanted to use night raids and surprise attacks to wipe out these pirates to reduce his own casualties. If it is attacked, it can easily turn into a war of attrition of "killing a thousand enemies and inflicting 800 losses", and in the end, it can also make the pirate leaders and backbones leave their old and weak and sick and flee. These pirates who slipped through the net will inevitably take revenge on the merchant ships, making the crackdown more than worth the loss.

"Well said!" Boss Qian and Liao Loach were listening to Xia Dagen analyzing the pros and cons one by one, and they didn't even notice that Yu Zhu had entered the council hall for a while. Seeing that the three of them stopped, Yu Zhu found a stool to sit down, and motioned for Xia Dagen to continue.

"This third word is easy to understand", Xia Dagen continued to explain. "Brother Xuan said that war is the continuation of politics", if you blindly kill, not only will you make many enemies, but you will also consume too much, and eventually come to an end. Ouyang Xuan's solution to the problem is also the first political means, and he uses force only if he can't solve it, this idea makes the Thunderbolt Army grow rapidly, which naturally becomes the first choice for the high-level leaders of the Thunderbolt Army to solve the problem. Although Liao Loach openly recruited few bandits in the early stage, Xia Dagen still felt that he should negotiate with those large bandits and strive to include them under his banner. In order to survive in this troubled world, good people may also become extremely vicious, and good and evil cannot be judged simply by whether they are bandits or not. The history of the Thunderbolt proves that the vast majority of bandits and new annexes can be transformed.

"Yes, I think that the sailors of my Thunderbolt Army were originally mostly the sailors of the New Annexed Army and the water bandits of Chongqing Mansion", as Liao Loach sighed. "The virtuous nephew is very good, Brother Xuan often says that he must strive for all the power that can be fought for", and Boss Qian also spoke out to express his support. In the process of the development and growth of the Thunderbolt Army, it absorbed a large number of new annexes and bandits, and even Boss Qian was forced to sign an alliance with the Thunderbolt Army after robbing the Thunderbolt Army's salt transport team and failing to succeed in counter-killing. The people who belonged to Qianjiazhai have now become the backbone of various industries of the Perak Army, especially the trade industry. It is no exaggeration to say that if there were no people attached to Qianjiazhai, there would be no good trade situation of the Thunderbolt Army today.

"Some time ago, Brother Xuan'er also wrote that Liuqiu could not only bury his head in development, but also pay attention to recruiting talents, and he especially mentioned two righteous bandits named Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan. Zhao'an will start with them first" Ouyang Xuan mentioned that these two people were famous bandit leaders at the end of the Song Dynasty, and they were later recruited by Kublai Khan to become the Yuan army of thousands of households, and made great contributions to the destruction of the Song Dynasty. Different from ordinary bandits, Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan's gang were like the legendary heroes of Liangshan, who did the way for heaven, robbed the rich and helped the poor - only robbed the eunuchs and the rich, and never violated the poor people, so they won the gratitude and support of the bottom of the society. These two men also robbed the merchant ships of the Liuqiu Company, but they did not succeed, but suffered a lot of losses under the artillery.

Both Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan were born in small fishing villages near the mouth of the Yangtze River. Zhu Qing was born in a poor family, his father died early, and since he was a child, he followed his mother to fish and collect firewood on the beach. The big family surnamed Yang was rich and unkind, Zhu Qing couldn't stand the humiliation, and in a fit of anger, he killed the big family surnamed Yang and ran away with the money, becoming a smuggler and pirate. Once he slipped into a small town on the shore to buy rice and met Zhang Xuan. Although Zhang Xuan had just come of age, he already had all the temperament of a reckless leader in the rivers and lakes: smart, bold, powerful, dignified, drunk, and adventurous. The two hit it off at first sight, and Zhang Xuan also successfully joined Zhu Qing's gang and became the second leader.

"If the crockpot is not broken from the well, the strongman will inevitably die with the knife", and he always has to pay it back when he comes out. Soon after, Zhu Qing, Zhang Xuan and his eighteen men were finally arrested by the officials who patrolled the salt and sent to the Pingjiang Military Prison for their crimes. But before the execution, Hong Qiwei found that Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan were really heroic, so he "wondered their appearance", secretly released the two, and said to them: "Now the Central Plains is in turmoil, and you are all athletes, and you should make a contribution to the restoration of the country."

Since then, Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan, who have picked up their lives, gave up the private salt business and began to be pirates wholeheartedly. They led the remaining brothers on a sail north to Shandong.

After that, Zhu Zhang and his gang of pirates began transnational crimes - "from Tongzhou in the south to Jiaolai in the north, back and forth, gathering thousands of people and hundreds of ships." In such an uproar, the rich families on the coast suffered, and the officials did not do anything." Tongzhou in the Southern Song Dynasty is Nantong in northern Jiangsu, and Jiaolai refers to the Shandong Peninsula, that is to say, although these two people were pirates, they were not enemies of the Great Song Dynasty, but mainly harassed and plundered the northern Han land occupied by the Mongols, making Li Pu and other Han army marquis who occupied the Shandong Peninsula anxious. With the increasingly fierce war between the Song and Mongolia countries, the defeated soldiers and displaced people have fled to the sea to seek a living, although many displaced people have come to Liuqiu Island to make a living, but because of the psychology of the homeland and the fear of the plague miasma, there are still many displaced people who gather as bandits. With the continuous flow of displaced people, the power of Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan has also grown, from the former smuggler salt dealer to a pirate team consisting of hundreds of large and small sea vessels and thousands of personnel. Although these thousands of people also have family members and other old and weak, there are still two or three thousand strong men.

Of course, righteous thieves like Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan are also a minority. In the eyes of most pirates, rich and poor are lambs to the slaughter, and few people can escape in their hands. The rich can be used as meat tickets to squeeze more money, while the poor are sold into slavery. For this reason, Ouyang Xuan once reminded Yu Zhu that although the Thunderbolt Army did not ask about the past, after joining the Thunderbolt Army, they must abide by the rules and discipline, and those who violate it will not be spared. In order to prevent the occurrence of another act of killing people and stealing goods and even rebelling, Ouyang Xuan also demanded the following three points: first, the attached personnel must be dispersed and resettled to prevent the gathering of people; Second, it is necessary to strengthen education and probation, especially to strengthen ideological and political education such as resisting Mongolia and loving the people, and to take timely and resolute measures against stubborn elements who cannot be reformed; The third is to make the best use of people's talents. The recruited talents should pay attention to their strengths, especially some pirates, who are accustomed to living a free life at sea, are extremely adventurous, and do not like strict control. Liuqiu Company can select personnel from them and send them to the South Seas, Western Oceans, Kangaroo Continent, Bison Continent, and Alpaca Continent to explore and precursor the next overseas expansion business.