1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1056 Liao Xun's Calculation

At the same time that Gao Qiaonan and Gong Shiqi were discussing the action plan in the restaurant in the west of the city, the gate of a house in the east of the city opened, and a soft sedan chair for four people came out silently. The guards in casual clothes, with embroidered spring knives on their waists.This house is the seat of Jin Yiwei's yamen in Hangzhou City, but unlike other government offices, there are no signboards hanging here, and there are no stone lions in charge. The door is guarded by yamen guards.

This kind of low-key is not to cater to the special nature of Jinyiwei, but an adjustment made only after Liao Xun, the head of Jinyiwei in Hangzhou, took office.Liao Xun is a more pragmatic person. He believes that Jin Yiwei is the son of heaven and the army, so there is no need to show his status through pomp and circumstance. The actual work results are far more important than pomp and circumstance. , How many practical benefits can be obtained, this is the key point.

Of course, after reducing unnecessary ostentation, the saved funds were not diverted to other places, and Liao Xun put them all into his own pocket.Hangzhou is a place where commerce is developed and the people are relatively prosperous. There are very few vicious cases or political incidents that need to be dealt with by Jin Yiwei. The things that Jin Yiwei can do in Hangzhou are not even as much as Dongchang, which specializes in investigating local officials.Liao Xun found that there was nothing to gain in this place, so he naturally turned his attention to a more practical direction.

Guo Zheng, the procurator who was prosecuted, and Yu Pingfeng, who was in command of the envoy, were both officials he knew before he was assigned to Hangzhou by the Nanzhen Fusi. After arriving here, the other two introduced him to the Ningbo government. Wang Jialin, a famous big businessman, hit it off and quickly formed a private organization integrating government and business.Relying on the various "conveniences" provided by these people, Wang Jialin rose rapidly in just a few years, and became one of the largest households in the Zhoushan Islands by relying on smuggling trade. His influence also spread rapidly from Ningbo Prefecture to the entire Hangzhou Bay. Most of the sea trade business is also controlled by it.

Liao Xun only needs to write official documents and issue orders in Hangzhou, and he can get tens of thousands of taels of silver every year from Zhoushan. You won't find this light-hearted chutney anywhere else.Liao Xun used the money to buy real estate and land in Hangzhou, raised several wives and concubines, and lived happily ever after.

However, this perfect living condition was destroyed by the arrival of the Haihan people last year. Although the Zhoushan Ship Gang had made a lot of money by reselling Haihan goods before that, and Liao Xun himself had benefited a lot from it, the Haihan people came After Zhejiang, Zhoushan Chuanbang, a "non-staff agent", did not leave any face, and directly grabbed the site.

The news that the Haihan people landed in Ningbo Shipu Port had just reached Hangzhou. Before there was any response, the news that the Haihan people had captured Liuheng Island came one after another. Liao Xun and others hadn't judged whether the Haihan people would attack Zhoushan. When we started, the East China Sea was already at war.When Hangzhou tried to stop this barbaric behavior of the Haihan people in an official capacity, the battle over the control of the Zhoushan Islands was over. Zhoushan Island fell quickly under the sea and land attack of the Haihan army, and the owner of the island, Wang Jialin, died. unknown.

Everyone realizes that these southern barbarians are not just businessmen who are good at maritime trade, their combat power and ambition are far higher than the Japanese pirates and Westerners who harassed the East China Sea in the early years.Although Zhejiang Dusi sent an official document to the Ningbo government garrison due to Pingfeng, asking them to respond to the Haihan people's violent behavior, the Ningbo garrison on the front line already knew that the Haihan army was very powerful, not ordinary pirates, but It's a genuine army, so it's not easy to go to sea to deliver food to the other party.

In addition, at this time, Haihan had secretly managed to get on the way of the Ningbo government and the military, and there was a lot of money to clear the way. The orders from the government and the garrison in Ningbo were also obedient to Hangzhou, deliberately delaying, so Yu Pingfeng After the official document was sent to Ningbo, there was no response like a stone sinking into the ocean.But Liao Xun had no military power in his hands, and he couldn't use any strength in the process. He could only watch helplessly as Hai Han took control of Zhoushan.

The destruction of the Zhoushan Ship Gang caused huge economic losses to the interest groups behind it. The annual income sent to various yamen in Hangzhou Prefecture was as many as 10 taels of silver, and no less than a hundred people in the officialdom benefited from it.Those with vested interests like Liao Xun, Yu Pingfeng, and Guo Zheng hated Hai Han and his group of uninvited guests who disrupted the stable situation, and refused to admit defeat.

It was only later that Wang Jialin returned to Zhoushan Island and tried to create chaos during the business promotion meeting organized by Haihan, but he was also frustrated.Afterwards, they encouraged Ma Yue, the commander of Haining Guard in Jiaxing Prefecture, to send his men to pretend to be pirates and send ships to rob Haihan merchant ships at sea.Although Liao Xun and others guessed that this matter had something to do with the Haihan people, they didn't have any evidence to link it with the Haihan people, so they could only hand over the blame to the nonexistent Japanese pirates.

After experiencing two major setbacks, Liao Xun and his team finally realized that their side has no advantage at sea, unless it is to concentrate and dispatch the navy in East China on a large scale, it will take a lot of trouble. up.Moreover, with the ability of the Haihan people, I am afraid that the naval forces have not completed their assembly, they are already ready to face the battle on Zhoushan Island.

It is somewhat difficult to use the Ming army to cross the sea to attack an opponent equipped with a large number of artillery.Ten years ago, Nan Gongyi, the governor of Fujian, and Yu Zigao, the commander-in-chief, led the army to attack the Hongmao City in Penghu. They used 17 warships, [-] troops, and spent [-] taels of military expenditure. It took seven months to drive the Hongmao people out of Penghu. .And the Haihan people who occupied Zhoushan this time are said to have tamed the red-haired people in the south, and their combat power was so high that it was difficult for the Ming army to hold a candle to them.

If Zhejiang wants to use troops against Zhoushan, if they don’t pull an army of 5 to [-] people, they will probably bring shame on themselves. Moreover, such large-scale military operations must be approved by the imperial court. The bigwigs discussed it slowly, and within two or three months, there was no result.But now that the imperial court is focusing all its attention on calming the civil strife in the Central Plains and resisting the post-Golden Army outside the customs, how can it find energy to deal with these maritime turmoil in Zhejiang.Even if the Zhejiang capital made a report to the Ministry of War, it would most likely be dismissed by the above with the statement of "taking care of the overall situation".

Using force did not work, so Liao Xun and others changed their methods and began to seek other means to attack Haihan.By studying the history of Haihan's prosperity, they soon discovered that the expansion routine of this armed organization is accompanied by trade. In most cases, it is to open the way with commerce. The biggest obstacle to trade is undoubtedly the so-called civil armed forces in the Zhoushan Islands that have monopolized more than half of Zhejiang's ocean trade.But what Liao Xun and others didn't quite understand was that Haihan had negotiated with the local government on the distribution of benefits in Fuguang and other places in the south, but why he was so impatient when he arrived in Zhejiang and directly attacked Zhoushan.

Of course, Liao Xun and others did not expect that the reason why Haihan did this was because he was eager to go north and expand his sphere of influence to the periphery of the Bohai Sea, so that he could take advantage of the recovery period of the Denglai Rebellion to grab one or two footholds in the Jiaodong Peninsula, and then in Northeast Asia. The region opens up the situation.The Zhoushan Ship Gang inevitably became a stumbling block to hinder the progress of the situation, and Haihan had no interest in slowly negotiating terms with a group of pirate-born armed smugglers, so he simply sent troops to push them over, just as training .And comparing the military expenditure thus spent with the future benefits that can be obtained from this area, it is undoubtedly a very cost-effective deal.

The mystery of this, seen with the eyes of Liao Xun and others, is naturally unexpected at present.So they can only think that Haihan's approach is to monopolize Zhejiang's maritime trade and not leave a way for others to survive.Although it is not realistic to use a large army to wipe out Zhoushan Island, with their influence in the official circles of Zhejiang, there are still many opportunities to cause some troubles for the Haihan people.

At first, Liao Xun and others assigned tasks to the people below to investigate and deal with the Haihan goods smuggled into Hangzhou City, so as to attack the trade offensive that Haihan was trying to launch.This method seems to be feasible, but in actual operation, problems soon began to be exposed. Some people used their power to enrich their own pockets, sold some or all of the confiscated goods privately, and put the proceeds into their own pockets. However, it is still circulated to the market through other channels.

But these situations that violate their original intentions are only the actions of a few people, and the targets are mostly small businessmen with no background. This is not what really caused trouble.After the owner of the sea trade rights originally controlled by the Zhoushan Ship Gang, the Haihan people quickly recruited a large number of agents in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions through the Merchants Association, and participated in the Haihan trade system that divided up the benefits. Most of these agents have A certain amount of economic strength, as well as large or small official backers.

These people represent a new group of vested interest classes who filled the vacancy after the collapse of the Zhoushan Ship Gang. When the expected benefits were large enough, they chose to join the camp led by Haihan out of consideration of their own gains and losses, and tried to The local officials who blocked Haihan's trade in Zhejiang became a nasty stumbling block in front of these new vested interests.And many of the participants were backed by Liao Xun and the others who did not dare to offend easily.

Due to such changes in the situation, the anti-Haihan campaign advocated and carried out by Liao Xun and others has achieved very limited results. This year, instead of successfully preventing Haihan from starting trade in Zhejiang, on the contrary, the Haihan products on the market have been The speed visible to the naked eye is constantly enriching, and when this kind of transnational smuggling trade has become a lucrative industry, it becomes very difficult to eliminate it with the power of a few people, not to mention behind these trade channels, There are also those Haihan people who are not very peaceful on Zhoushan Island.

Since the end of last year, the government of Ningbo has obviously shirked the official documents issued to Hangzhou demanding strict control of maritime trade, and even claimed that some of the mandatory management measures for maritime trade would "cause public anxiety", so it refused to implement them.Liao Xun knew that the people in Ningbo were not ordinary fishermen who went out to sea to fish, but many Ming maritime merchants and their trading partners, the Haihan people.According to the information obtained by Liao Xun, the Haihan people have stated in public more than once that they will use force when necessary to maintain their trading power in the coastal areas of Zhejiang and the interests of local business partners. This is almost a "war" The two words came out directly.

The Haihan people have built a military port, barracks, and coastal fortifications on Zhoushan Island, and stationed well-organized troops and combat fleets all year round. This is obviously far away from the status of ordinary maritime merchants.Under such circumstances, it is reasonable for the local government to not want to provoke the other party. After all, if the two sides turn against each other, the first place to suffer after the war is the neighboring Ningbo Mansion.

As a last resort, Yu Pingfeng and Guo Zheng could only put more of the burden of fighting against Haihan on Liao Xun's shoulders, because the military power in their hands had gradually lost its deterrent power, and it was the special intelligence agency in charge of Jinyiwei. Liao Xun may be able to find other ways to effectively attack Haihan.

Liao Xun did think of a method that might work. Through the information he collected, he noticed that Haihan had been recruiting a large number of immigrants, especially young and skilled craftsmen. It is said that these immigrants went to Zhoushan Island for screening. Some of them will be transported to the south for reclamation, while the other will stay on Zhoushan Island to work.Liao Xun's idea was to send some trained personnel to lurk on Zhoushan Island in the form of emigration, and wait for the opportunity to kidnap or assassinate high-level figures in Haihan—the leaders of Haihan who are called "chiefs" by ordinary people.

Considering that the officialdom in Zhejiang has long been infiltrated by Haihan, if this project is not kept secret, he may have been arrested by Haihan before arriving in Zhoushan, so Liao Xun vacated a house in the north of the city. Used for training operational personnel.In order not to attract the attention of interested people, Liao Xun even moved his family to the north of the city, so that he would return to the mansion every day, and then guide his subordinates to conduct special training.

At present, not all of the more than 20 people trained under him are members of Jinyiwei, some of them are from the military, and a few of them are originally civilians, who were recruited by Liao Xun because of their outstanding skills.Whether these people can succeed in the future, Liao Xun is actually not sure, but he knows that if he still can't come up with any effective countermeasures, then the Haihan people will extend their hands to Hangzhou in about a year or two. If you think about turning the sky again, I'm afraid it will be a hundred times more difficult than it is now.

(End of this chapter)