Chapter 207

Anping Town, Jinjiang County, Quanzhou Prefecture, Zheng Zhilong's mansion.

The main structure of Zheng Zhilong's mansion is a mountain-style five-bay room with thirteen frames, three doors, two fire lanes, and five courtyards. On both sides, the wings, pavilions, pavilions and pavilions are opposite each other, and the ring is listed as a barrier. There is "Dunren Pavilion" in the east, there is "Taiyun Building" in the west, the front hall is "Catholic Hall", and the middle hall is "Xiaosi Hall", and the scale is magnificent. Behind the big house, there is a "Zhiyuan Garden", which is protected by the wall, and is sparsely covered with hills and ravines, pavilions, fine houses, ponds, small bridges, winding paths, beautiful trees, and exotic flowers and plants.

In the eyes of the local people, this mansion is comparable to a royal palace.

In fact, Zheng Zhilong's mansion is indeed comparable to the imperial palace, although it is much worse than the imperial palace in the Forbidden City, but it is nearly half larger than the Shenyang Imperial Palace, which covers an area of ninety acres and nine points of land, but the Zheng mansion is as much as one hundred and thirty-eight acres of land.

Since the first year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong was appeased by Xiong Wencan and appointed as a guerrilla in coastal defense, Zheng Zhilong left Taiwan and sat in the Fujian Sea. He was joined by 30,000 men and more than 1,000 ships.

In the third year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong built a luxurious mansion in Anping Town, Jinjiang County. Zheng Zhilong spent three years to build this mansion, he did not spare gold and silver, the whole mansion west to Xigang, north to Xi'antou, south to Anping bridgehead, direct access to five ports, covering an area of 138 acres.

It was already late at night, and Zheng's sturdy family was guarding the door of Zheng's family, like a god, the vermilion gate was closed, and bursts of sheng songs floated out from it, melodious and beautiful.

Zheng Zhilong is feasting with several wealthy businessmen in the south of the Yangtze River, no one knows what kind of mountain and sea feasts, wine and delicacies they are enjoying, anyway, it is a good thing that the poor can't think of, just a trace of smell wafting out of the crack in the door has made these Zheng family people drool for a long time, and sighed in their hearts: "When will we live such a life?" Even if it's for a day! ”

At the age of seventeen, he defected to his uncle Huang Cheng who did business, and in the third year of the Apocalypse, the nineteen-year-old Zheng Zhilong was already proficient in Xiaori Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish, and served as the translator of Li Dan, an overseas Chinese businessman.

In other words, Zheng Zhilong only had more than two years from his arrival in Macau to his departure to Xiaori, but in these more than two years, Zheng Zhilong completed the primitive accumulation of life from a poor boy in the countryside.

In the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the Ming Dynasty and the Dutch broke out the Battle of Penghu, and the Ming Dynasty sent troops to expel the Dutch East India Company from Penghu, so the Dutch transferred to Taiwan, that is, Li Dan, who was familiar with both China and the Netherlands, went to Penghu to coordinate, and Zheng Zhilong, a language expert who is proficient in Hokkien, Nanjing Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese, served as the central language interpreter.

The first noble person in Zheng Zhilong's life was Li Dan, who was nicknamed "Captain China" and "China Captain" (Chinese Captain). In the 17th century, he was a well-known pirate merchant on the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty. With an armed fleet, he carried out commercial trade and ship robbery at the same time on the Ming Continent, Dayuan, Japan, Southeast Asia and other divergent routes. It is rumored that Tokugawa Ieyasu's shogunate was supported by Li Dan.

Zheng Zhilong worshiped Li Dan as his father-in-law and gave him the name Li Guozhu, Li Dan felt that he was capable, and handed him a part of his assets and ships to let him do business in Vietnam and make great profits. In the fifth year of the Apocalypse (1625), Li Dan died in Hirado. After the death of Li Dan, who had no wife and children, his properties and careers in Taiwan and Bay were donated to Zheng Zhilong.

Zheng Zhilong was only twenty-one years old, he had more than 700 ships, more than 30,000 men, a severe drought occurred in southern Fujian, all over the terracotta, Zheng Zhilong took the opportunity to appease tens of thousands of hungry people, in 1627 Zheng Zhilong, and defeated the Dutch, to obtain the right to control the sea in the Taiwan Strait.

In the first year of Chongzhen, the Ming Dynasty regarded him as a pirate and tried his best to suppress it. However, with the growth of Zheng Zhilong's power, the Ming Dynasty was no longer able to control it, and the peasant uprisings such as Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were in full swing, and the Manchu Qing outside the pass were eyeing each other. The Ming Dynasty's policy towards Zheng Zhilong could only be changed to Zhao'an, granting him the post of "Five Tiger Guerrilla General", and soon he was promoted to the general army of Fujian, guarding the coast of China against the Japanese and Dutch attacks.

In the fifth year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong defeated the fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the naval battle of Kinmen, Fujian, and became the de facto controller of the Western Pacific. The Dutch East India Company paid Zheng Zhilong a protection fee of 10 million francs for the sake of trade, and some say that it is 120,000 francs, but the author himself prefers the second type, that is, 120,000 francs.

For the franc at this time was not like the eighteenth century, where one franc was equal to one hundred dings, and one raw cenel was equal to five grams of ninety percent of silver. This means that one franc is equal to five hundred grams of silver, and according to the Ming system, five hundred and ninety-four grams per catty, which is about 13.46 taels of silver, and 120,000 francs is more than 1,616,000 taels of silver.

If it was 10 million francs, it would be about 134,600,000 taels of silver, which was too large to make the Dutch East India Company's profit in a year.

In this year, Zheng Zhilong was thirty-two years old, and he was even five years younger than Cheng Shijie, however, his influence covered all parts of the East and South Seas, including the Malay Peninsula, Champa, Luzon, Taiwan, Japan, the Strait of Malacca, Cambodia, Siam and even Mumbai, with a fleet of more than 3,000 ships and a military strength of 200,000 people, in addition to the Han Chinese, there were also Japanese, Koreans, Nanyangs and African blacks.

When drinking during the banquet, Zheng Zhilong said to the sea merchants: "You should look farther, along the coastline of the Tianzhu Buddha Kingdom all the way to the west, there is a very powerful Ottoman Empire here, the national strength is not under the Ming Dynasty, but the relationship between this country and Taixi is not good, and the economy is at war." In the past, we sold our goods to Taixi, and this change of hands was dozens of times the profit, and they dared to sell a bag of tea for more expensive than the same weight of gold! ”

Of course, the maritime merchants are red-eyed! Dozens of times the profit, who is not red-eyed? They all want to take the Middle East and do business with the Europeans!

Zheng Zhilong looked at the expressions of the maritime merchants, and knew what they wanted to do: "Taixi, you don't have to think about it, they are as powerful as forests there, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, especially the Netherlands, is just one of them is a small country, and it is not good in the Middle East, it is even more aggressive than a mad dog, and the stones that do not stand in the way have to be kicked twice, and there is absolutely no good fruit to eat if they are provoked, but the Ottoman Empire can!" ”

Just when Zheng Zhilong pointed to the map of the sea country, he pointed out the country to the maritime merchants, and stimulated the maritime merchants so much that they couldn't go back immediately and did a big job.

Just when Zheng Zhilong was tired and sat on the soft couch to rest, Zheng Zhilong's fifth brother, Zheng Zhibao, said: "Big brother, you don't know, Morimoto Ichijiu, that waste, just fought a big defeat. ”

"Oh, who did he mess with?"

Zheng Zhilong is now invincible at sea, whether it is the Spaniards or the Portuguese, they are very polite to Zheng Zhilong, and if you are not polite, you can't beat Zheng Zhilong.

Zheng Zhibao smiled faintly: "Beicheng! ”

Cheng Shijie himself didn't know, in fact, people who did good things called Zheng Zhilong and Cheng Shijie the two northern heroes, Zheng Zhilong in the south, and Cheng Shijie in the north.

If you look carefully at Zheng Zhilong's resume, you can find that this product seems to be hanging all the way, following Li Dan for three years, Li Dan hanged, and cooperated with Yan Siqi, but Yan Siqi also hung up, and the inheritance of Li Dan and Yan Siqi belonged to Zheng Zhilong.

Cheng Shijie was in the north, started with the suppression of bandits, suppressed the rebellion of Kong Youde, became famous all over the world, and then led the Ning Navy to cross the sea, and Jiannu fought in southern Liaoning, three battles before and after, defeated Jiannu, and became the governor of Liaodong.

What made Zheng Zhilong most unhappy was that Daming actually didn't pay much attention to the sea and the navy, he defeated the Dutch twice before and after, and was promoted to the commander of the first-class sailor division and the general army of Fujian. When Cheng Shijie and Lu Xiangsheng were not knighted, he had no other ideas, since he became an ancestor, it was too difficult for the Ming Dynasty to be knighted.

But the problem is that Cheng Shijie was crowned the Duke of Haiguo, and Lu Xiang was promoted to the champion Hou, but he had nothing to do, which made him a little unhappy, and very unhappy.

Zheng Zhilong said disappreciatively: "On land, I admit that his surname is Cheng, how can he be at sea?" ”

"It is said that the surname Cheng built a new type of big ship in Lushun, with 3,000 materials, equipped with dozens of fast guns, with fewer enemies and more than 17, sank five ships under the command of Morimoto Kazuhisa, damaged three, and killed more than 1,600 people under his command!"

As the saying goes, it was unintentional and sounded intentional, but Zheng Zhilong heard the crux of the question: "Did you say that Cheng Shijie built a shipyard in Lushun?" ”

"It's not a secret, he dug up more than 2,000 craftsmen from the south of the Yangtze River, and it is said that there are two shipyards in Jinzhou, a total of three shipyards, two of which build warships and one shipyard builds merchant ships!"

Zheng Zhilong's mood instantly became very bad, to say that the Spanish Empire really had a plan to invade the Ming Dynasty, but before they had time to implement it, they found that Zheng Zhilong had beaten Spain's rebel son Holland twice, and after seeing that Zheng Zhilong had more than 3,000 ships and a huge military force of 200,000 people, no European country thought that it was capable of conquering the East.

There is no need for the entire empire of the Ming Dynasty to carry out general mobilization, just one provincial general army is enough to beat them out of!

Zheng Zhilong has no thoughts about other lands except for the generals, and he is also in Tuntian to feed the more than 200,000 troops under his command, originally he and Cheng Shijie were at peace and quiet, and they were each immersed in development, but the problem is that now Cheng Shijie is actually aiming at the ocean.

What is this behavior?

This is snatching meat from Zheng Zhilong's pot to eat, cutting off people's wealth is like killing his parents, Zheng Zhilong can't bear it, of course, he didn't order to gather troops and go north to fight to the death with Cheng Shijie.

Because although Zheng Zhilong's strength at sea is strong, his strength on land is not strong, and Da Ming holds his lifeblood, he needs goods, especially silk, porcelain and other sought-after goods, if Da Ming cuts off his supply of goods, he can only catch blind.

However, Cheng Shijie built a shipyard, and over time, Cheng Shijie's strength will be stronger, which is enough to threaten Zheng Zhilong's status, he is different from Cheng Shijie, no matter what Cheng Shijie says, he is also the noble of Da Ming Gen Zheng Miaohong.

Cheng Shijie's father is Cheng Yongxing, the five-product guardian of the Thousand Households of the Phoenix Mountain of the Ming Dynasty, his father is just an ordinary old farmer, and he still has the stain of piracy, he will never be able to achieve Cheng Shijie's achievements.

Taking advantage of Cheng Shijie's strength not yet to become stronger, he had to strike first.

……

On the sea surface of Hangzhou Bay, the wind and waves are calm.

A fleet of more than a dozen large sand ships is being loaded with goods, mainly rice or specialty products abundant in the south of the Yangtze River, and transported to southern Liaoning.

Although the rice output in the south of the Yangtze River is not high, it can be harvested twice a year, and it is as cheap as soil, and the price of rice in Beijing is about to rise to three taels of silver per stone, but the problem is that the rice in the south of the Yangtze River is only five dollars of silver per stone, not that they do not want to transport it to Beijing to sell, the problem is that the rice in the south of the Yangtze River wants to be sold to Beijing, and the only waterway is Caoyun.

But Caoyun's millions of workers have become vampires, except for filial piety, they can't make any money, and the real profits are all earned by the second-class dealers. However, it was different when it was transported to southern Liaoning, where each stone of grain earned two or three taels of silver, and a boatload of rice of 3,000 stones could earn nine hundred taels per ship.

In addition to the eating, drinking, and lazar of the sailors at sea, as well as the loss of some ships, they made a net profit of seven or eight hundred taels of silver, and in the case of a favorable wind, they could make a round trip a month, and a new flat-bottomed sand ship could return to its capital in a year.

Of course, after Liaonan, they did not come back empty-ship, but they could also buy cement, woolen cloth, steel, precious wood, and fine medicinal materials in Liaonan, which could easily earn double profits in Jiangnan.

Especially the special wool cloth of southern Liaoning, currently affected by the weather of the Xiaoice River, it will snow in Guangzhou, not to mention Jiangnan, so Jiangnan people have a very large demand for this thick, breathable, and excellent warmth wool cloth, and how much they pull back, they will sell it immediately.

It can be said that the profit of the merchant ships running southern Liaoning is slightly lower than that of the South China Seas, and the victory is in safety and speed.

The Ming Dynasty was also a great empire on land and sea. When Zheng He went to the West, there were tens of millions of craftsmen and sailors in the south of the Yangtze River, serving the Ming Dynasty fleet on ocean voyages.

Later, after the Ming Dynasty banned the sea, the sailors of that year had no work, so they gathered on Chongming Island to make a living. In addition to farming and fishing on the island, these people also used their own navigation ability to quietly run sea transportation for the southeastern gentry.

However, with the passage of time, the division of labor in the southeast sea smuggling has gradually been refined. The south of the Yangtze River is mainly engaged in the production of goods, while the Zheng family in Fujian is responsible for sea smuggling, and the scale of smuggling trade, after all, is not as active as normal trade, and does not need so many sea ships, so Chongming's sand boat gang is gradually excluded.

Although the Sand Boat Gang has seven or eight hundred boats, counting a large force on the ship, they are mainly transportation, and they can't fight, although the Zheng team is bullied very badly, Zheng Zhilong also gave the Sand Boat Gang an ultimatum and let them defect to the Zheng family as a whole.

But the Sand Boat Gang is the industry of the Shen family, they naturally don't want to be cheap Zheng Zhilong, in the fifth year of Chongzhen, the Sand Boat Gang ushered in a turning point, they transported grain to southern Liaoning, and Cheng Shijie transported shipwrights and technical craftsmen, making a lot of money.

It can be said that Cheng Shijie is the great benefactor of the Sand Boat Gang, these sailors of the Sand Boat Gang talk and laugh, quite happy, of course, the ocean voyage is very hard, but the remuneration is very high, the reward for a trip to the sea is worth the income they get from doing farm work at home for three years, of course they have a reason to be happy.

At that moment, the lookout suddenly shouted, "A pirate ship is rushing towards us!" ”

Shen Huanrong, the helmsman in charge of transporting the sand boats, was taken aback and shouted, "Hurry up and hang up the flag!" ”

The sailors hung a red flag high with all hands and feet.

The red flag of the inverted triangle is the unique symbol of the Zheng clan, and hanging these two flags is equivalent to telling the pirates who covet the goods on their ships that their ships are protected by the Zheng clan, and at the same time pay protection money to the sea overlord Zheng Zhilong.

With this flag, Shen Huanrong is not worried, in their opinion, Zheng's reputation is not bad, a typical way to do things with money, as long as you give money, to ensure maritime safety. Zheng, as a Tyrannosaurus rex on the sea, has not yet given birth to a pirate who dares to move this behemoth's protective ship!

In the distance, a sharp sail quickly appeared on the sea, and soon, a fleet of ships cut through the sea and galloped towards it. The lookout carefully identified the flag with a telescope and shouted, "It's the Zheng family's fleet!" ”

The entire fleet breathed a sigh of relief. It's no problem if it's the Zheng family's fleet, they have all paid protection money to the Zheng family's fleet, and the Zheng family's fleet will not touch them.

Those clippers came so fast that they blocked the front of the merchant fleet after a meal, lined up, blocking the way of the merchant fleet, led by a man with a scar on his face, holding a big knife and shouting: "Lower the sails, stop the ship!" ”

The fleet did not dare to resist, and quickly lowered the sails, Shen Huanrong walked up to the bow of the ship and bowed to the scarface, shouting: "Heroes, don't come unharmed?" ”

Scarface glared at him and asked, "What are you guys doing?" ”

Shen Huanrong said with a smile: "Do a small business!" ”

"Look at your course, where are you going?"

A young sailor said: "Let's go to Liaodong!" ”

"Liaodong, Liaodong!"

Scarface was furious: "You dare to fornicate with Jiannu, I think you are tired of living, take them all away!" ”

The pirates were puffed up, threw their iron hooks and hooked the side of the merchant ship, and climbed up with a few swishs, and the cold swords and black holes of the guns were pointed at the sailors, and they were murderous.

Shen Huanrong was so frightened that his legs trembled, and he struggled and shouted: "Don't misunderstand, heroes, we have paid the protection fee, we have paid the money, why do you want to rob us?" ”

Scarface sneered: "You shouldn't smuggle Jiannu, Jiannu is a fierce enemy of the Ming Dynasty, collaborating with the enemy and betraying the country, and you are not small, so your money is in vain, rob me!" ”

I am not afraid that the hooligans are bold, but I am afraid that the hooligans are educated.

Zheng Zhilong did not directly confront Cheng Shijie, but in the name of cracking down on the maritime merchants who smuggled slaves, but all the ships that were transported with Liaodong, Zheng's pirates saw one and grabbed one.

The Sand Boat Gang, which has been cooperating with Ning Haijun for a long time, couldn't sit still, and Shen Boyun, the leader of the Sand Boat Gang, had no choice but to ask Cheng Shijie for help.

When Shen Boyun, the leader of the Shachuan Gang, arrived in southern Liaoning, southern Liaoning was entering a busy autumn harvest, and the displaced people from the Central Plains, hundreds of households in various tuntians, and even soldiers from the Ning Navy participated in the autumn harvest work.

The autumn harvest in the sixth year of Chongzhen includes 10 million mu of wheat, more than 3 million fields of rice, more than 6 million mu of soybeans, and the others are more than 6 million mu of sweet potatoes, more than 6 million mu of potatoes, more than 8 million mu of corn, and more than 3 million mu of various vegetables.

At the beginning of September, the weather has turned cold, and if you don't harvest again, the potatoes and sweet potatoes will freeze in the ground.

When Shen Boyun came to the Jinzhou Ning Navy General Headquarters, Cheng Shijie was not in Jinzhou, Cheng Shijie was in Liaoyang City, because he was worried that Jiannu would come to harass the autumn harvest work in southern Liaoning.

Waiting for the ice to freeze on the Taizi River, Jiannu showed no signs of heading south.

Shen Boyun, who couldn't wait for Cheng Shijie in Jinzhou, had no choice but to go to Liaoyang, and when Shen Boyun arrived in Liaoyang, it was the end of September of the sixth year of Chongzhen.

"Meet the Commander!"

"Shen Gang Master is polite!"

Cheng Shijie actually knew Shen Boyun's intention, and the taste of being slapped in the face was very uncomfortable, Zheng Zhilong sent people to intercept the ships from Shanghai to Liaodong, although not everyone was as honest as Shen Huanrong, and directly said that he was going to Liaodong, most of these ships went directly to the northeast, turned north on Jeju Island, and then arrived in southern Liaoning.

Although it is hundreds of nautical miles away, it is better to be safe, but Zheng Zhilong's threat is objective, even if he pretends not to know, he can't solve the fundamental question.

Cheng Shijie pretended not to know Shen Boyun's intentions, and said with a faint smile: "What kind of wind blew Gang Leader Zheng to Liaodong?" ”

"Zheng Zhilong from Fujian has a special relationship with our sand boat gang, and has robbed more than 40 boats of our sand boat gang in a row!"

Shen Boyun didn't know whether Zheng Zhilong was coming at him or Cheng Shijie this time, after all, it wasn't a matter of one or two days for Zheng Zhilong to suppress the Shachuan Gang at the beginning.

"This Zheng Zhilong is now getting more and more excessive, grabbing one by one of our ships, not only robbing all the goods on the ship, but even detaining people, which makes people panic, and now not many people dare to go to sea!"

"Is there some misunderstanding? Why does Zheng Zhilong have trouble with us? Haven't we always been at peace with them, and the water from the well does not interfere with the water of the river? ”

Cheng Shijie naturally didn't stop the matter on his head, he needed time, and when the Sea Shark class trial occurred, he had an encounter with Morimoto for a long time, and Cheng Shijie knew that this battle was inevitable.

In order to rapidly expand the naval strength of the Ning Navy, Cheng Shijie had no choice but to adopt the later modular warship construction method, dividing a warship of the same class into several parts, especially most of the parts, directly placed in various woodworking factories for processing, assembled into larger parts, and assembled in the shipyard in a unified manner.

In this way, the production speed of the Lushun shipyard has more than tripled, and the Sea Shark-class warship, which was originally planned to produce one in twelve months, can now produce one in only three and a half months, and eight docks can produce eight ships at a time.

PS: I fell asleep last night without finishing it, this chapter is considered yesterday, and there is still in the evening

(End of chapter)