I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 208 Time is the worst time

Chapter 207

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

The main structure of Zheng Zhilong's mansion is Xieshan style with five bays and thirteen frames, with three gates, two fire lanes and five entrances to the courtyard.Wing halls, pavilions and pavilions on both sides face each other, and the rings are used as barriers.There is "Dunren Pavilion" in the east, "Taiyun Building" in the west, "Catholic Hall" in the front hall, and "Xiaosi Hall" in the middle hall, with a grand scale.There is a "Zhiyuan Garden" behind the big house, surrounded by walls, sparsely surrounded by hills, pavilions, houses, ponds, small bridges, winding paths, beautiful trees, 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, it is nearly half larger than the Shenyang Imperial Palace. The Shenyang Imperial Palace covers an area of ​​ninety acres and nine tenths of land. The mansion has as many as 130 acres of land.

Since the first year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong was recruited by Xiong Wencan to serve as a coastal defense guerrilla, and Zheng Zhilong left Taiwan and settled in Fujian.Thirty thousand troops and more than a thousand ships left with him.

In the third year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong built a luxurious mansion in Anping Town, Jinjiang County.Zheng Zhilong spent three years building this mansion. He is so rich that he does not spare gold and silver. The whole mansion reaches Xigang in the west, Xidongou in the north, Anping Qiaotou in the south, and goes directly to Wugang Port. It covers an area of ​​130 mu.

It was already late at night, and Zheng's strong servant stood guard at Zheng's gate, like a door god. The vermilion gate was closed tightly, and there were bursts of music and songs floating from inside, melodious.

Zheng Zhilong is having a banquet with several wealthy merchants from the south of the Yangtze River. No one knows what kind of delicacies, wines and delicacies they are enjoying. Anyway, they are good things that the poor can't even imagine. The slight smell wafting from the air has already made these members of the Zheng family salivate, lamenting in their hearts: "When will we be able to live a life like this? Even for a day!"

In the era of heroes in the late Ming Dynasty, Zheng Zhilong was a reckless hero. He was also an extremely intelligent talent. Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish, as the translator of overseas Chinese businessman Li Dan.

That is to say, Zheng Zhilong only had two years from his arrival in Macau to his small life. However, in these two years, Zheng Zhilong completed the primitive accumulation of his life from a poor boy from the countryside.

In the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the Penghu naval battle broke out between the Ming Dynasty and the Dutch. The Ming Dynasty sent troops to expel the Dutch East India Company from Penghu, and the Dutch moved to Taiwan. That is to say, Li Dan, who is familiar with both China and the Netherlands, went to Penghu to coordinate. He is proficient in Hokkien , Nanjing Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese language expert Zheng Zhilong served as the intermediary language translator.

The first noble person in Zheng Zhilong's life was Li Dan, who was nicknamed "Captain China" and also known as "China Captain" (Chinese Captain). A well-known pirate merchant on the southeast coast of Daming in the 17th century.With an armed fleet, he carried out commercial trade and ship robbery at the same time in the Ming mainland, Dayuan, Japan, Southeast Asia and other converging routes.Rumor has it that Tokugawa Ieyasu's shogunate was supported by Li Dan.

Zheng Zhilong worshiped Li Dan as his adoptive father and gave him the name Li Guozhu. Li Dan felt that he was capable, so he gave him some assets and ships to go to Vietnam to do business and make big profits.In the fifth year of Tianqi (1625), Li Dan died in Hirado.After the death of Li Dan, who had no wife or children, his property and career in Taiwan and Taiwan were donated to Zheng Zhilong.

Zheng Zhilong was only 21 years old, and he owned more than 1627 ships and more than [-] men. There was a severe drought in southern Fujian, and the terracotta was everywhere. Zheng Zhilong took the opportunity to appease tens of thousands of hungry people. In [-], Zheng Zhilong defeated the Dutch and won Taiwan command of the sea.

In the first year of Chongzhen, the Ming Dynasty originally regarded him as a pirate and tried his best to suppress it.However, as Zheng Zhilong's power grew, the Ming Dynasty was no longer able to control it, and peasant uprisings such as Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were already in full swing, and the Manchus outside the pass were eyeing it covetously.The Ming Dynasty's policy on Zheng Zhilong could only be changed to suppress Zheng Zhilong, and he was awarded the post of "Five Tigers Guerrilla General". Soon he was promoted to Fujian General Soldier, guarding the coast of China to prevent the Japanese pirates and the Dutch from attacking.

In the fifth year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong defeated the fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the naval battle of Jinmen, Fujian, and became the actual controller of the Western Pacific.The Dutch East India Company paid Zheng Zhilong a protection fee of 1000 million francs, or 12 francs, for the sake of trade. The author himself prefers the second option, which is 12 francs.

Because the franc at this time is not like the eighteenth century, one franc is equal to one hundred centimes, and one centimetre is equal to five grams of 90.00% pure silver.That is to say, one franc is equal to 590 grams of silver. According to the Ming system, it is 12 grams per catty, which is about 160 taels of silver, and [-] francs is more than [-] million taels of silver.

If it is 1000 million francs, it is about 460 million taels of silver. This amount is too large, and the annual profit of the Dutch East India Company is not so much.

In this year, Zheng Zhilong was 32 years old, and he was even five years younger than Cheng Shijie. However, his influence covered the East and Southeast Asia, including the Malay Peninsula, Champa, Luzon, Taiwan, Japan, the Strait of Malacca, Cambodia, Siam and even Mumbai had a fleet of more than 20 ships and a military strength of [-]. In addition to the Han Chinese, there were also Japanese, Korean, Nanyang, and African blacks.

While drinking during the banquet, Zheng Zhilong said to Zhonghai: "You should look farther, along the coastline of Tianzhu Buddhist Kingdom all the way to the west, there is a very powerful Ottoman Empire here, its national strength is not inferior to that of Ming Dynasty, but The relationship between this country and Taixi is not good, and the economy is fighting. In the past, when we sold our goods to Taixi, the profit was dozens of times, and they dared to sell a bag of tea for more than the equivalent weight of gold!"

Maritime merchants are of course jealous!Dozens of times the profit, who would not be jealous?They all want to occupy the Middle East and do business with Europeans!

Zheng Zhilong looked at the expressions of the sea merchants and knew what they wanted to do: "Don't worry about Taixi, they have powerful countries like forests, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, especially the Netherlands, are just a small country among them. It’s not good at either side, it’s more aggressive than a mad dog, and it’s hard to kick stones that don’t get in the way, and there’s absolutely no good fruit to mess with them, but the Ottoman Empire can do it!”

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

Just when Zheng Zhilong got tired of talking and sat on the soft couch to rest, Zheng Zhilong's fifth younger brother, Zheng Zhibao, said, "Brother, you don't know, that trash Morimoto Kazuku just lost a big battle."

"Oh, who did he mess with?"

Zheng Zhilong is now invincible at sea. Both the Spaniards and the Portuguese are very polite to Zheng Zhilong. You can't beat Zheng Zhilong if you are not polite.

Zheng Zhibao smiled faintly: "Beicheng!"

Cheng Shijie himself didn't know that, in fact, good people called Zheng Zhilong and Cheng Shijie the two heroes of the North and the North, 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 guy seems to be cheating all the way. He followed Li Dan for three years. Li Dan died, and he cooperated with Yan Siqi. Zheng Zhilong.

Cheng Shijie started from the north by suppressing bandits and suppressing Kong Youde's rebellion. He became famous all over the world. Then he led the Ning Navy across the sea and fought with Jiannu in southern Liaoning. He defeated Jiannu three times and became the governor of Liaodong.

What upset Zheng Zhilong the most 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 first-rank navy admiral and Fujian commander.When Cheng Shijie and Lu Xiangsheng were not knighted, he had no other ideas. Since Chengzu, it was too difficult for Daming to be knighted.

But the problem is, Cheng Shijie made Hai Guogong, Lu Xiang was promoted to be the champion, but he had nothing to do with him, which made him a little unhappy, and very unhappy.

Zheng Zhilong said disapprovingly: "On land, I admit that his surname Cheng is a good man, but on sea, how could he be?"

"It is said that the surname Cheng built a new type of large ship in Lushun. It had three thousand materials and was equipped with dozens of fast guns. With fewer enemies and more enemies, a pair of seventeen sank five ships under Kazuhisa Morimoto's command. Injure three ships and kill more than [-] people under his command!"

As the saying goes, it sounds unintentional, but Zheng Zhilong heard the crux of the problem: "You mean Cheng Shijie built a shipyard in Lushun?"

"It's not a secret. He recruited more than 2000 craftsmen from Jiangnan. It is said that there are two shipyards in Jinzhou, a total of three shipyards, two of which build warships and one builds merchant ships!"

Zheng Zhilong's mood suddenly became very bad. If you want to talk about the Spanish Empire, there is really a plan to invade Ming Dynasty, but before they have time to implement it, they find that Zheng Zhilong has beaten up Spain's rebellious son Holland twice. After seeing that Zheng Zhilong has more than 3000 ships, and an army of 20 men, no European country thought it capable of conquering the East.

It is not necessary to mobilize the entire empire of the Ming Dynasty, just a provincial general is enough to beat them out of the shit!

Zheng Zhilong didn't care much about the other lands except for the big officers. He farmed the land to support the more than [-] troops under his command. Originally, he and Cheng Shijie lived in peace and each devoted themselves to development. But the problem is, now Cheng Shijie actually aimed at the ocean.

What is this behavior?
This is eating meat from Zheng Zhilong's pot. Cutting people's fortunes is like killing their parents. Zheng Zhilong couldn't bear it anymore. Of course, he didn't order the troops to gather and go north to fight Cheng Shijie to the death.

Because although Zheng Zhilong is strong at sea, his strength on land is not strong, and Da Ming holds his lifeline. He needs goods, especially silk, porcelain and other popular goods. If Da Ming cuts off his supply, he can only Caught blind.

However, Cheng Shijie built a shipyard. Given time, Cheng Shijie's strength will become stronger, enough to threaten Zheng Zhilong's status.

Cheng Shijie's father was Cheng Yongxing, the fifth-rank guardian of Qianhu House of Daming Phoenix Mountain. His father was just an ordinary old farmer, and he still had the stain of pirates on him. He would never be able to achieve Cheng Shijie's achievements.

Before Cheng Shijie's strength became stronger, he had no choice but to act first.

……

The sea in Hangzhou Bay is calm and calm.

A fleet of more than a dozen large sandships is fully loaded with goods. These goods are mainly rice or special products that are abundant in the south of the Yangtze River, and are transported to southern Liaoning.

Although the rice output in Jiangnan is not high, it can be harvested twice a year, and it is as cheap as dirt. The price of rice in Beijing is about to rise to three taels of silver per shi, but the problem is that the rice in Jiangnan is only five yuan per shi, not them I don't want to transport rice to Beijing for sale. The problem is that if rice from Jiangnan wants to be sold to Beijing, the only waterway is water transportation.

But the millions of waterworkers in Water Transport have become vampires. Apart from filial piety, they can't make much money, and the real profits are all made by second-hand dealers.However, it is different when it is transported to southern Liaoning. Every shi of grain earns two or three taels of silver, and a boat of 900 shi of rice can earn [-] taels per boat.

Excluding the food, drink and waste of the sailors at sea, as well as the wear and tear of some ships, they made a net profit of 800 taels of silver. If the wind is favorable, they can make one round trip a month, and a new flat-bottomed sand boat can pay back its cost in a year.

Of course, after southern Liaoning, they didn't come back empty. They could also buy cement, wool cloth, steel, precious wood, and high-quality medicinal materials in southern Liaoning. These things can easily make double profits in southern Liaoning.

In particular, the specialty wool cloth in southern Liaoning is currently affected by the weather of the Little Ice River, and it will snow in Guangzhou, not to mention the south of the Yangtze River. Therefore, people in the south of the Yangtze River have a great demand for this kind of wool cloth that is thick, breathable, and excellent in warmth. , As much as they pull back, they will sell as much immediately.

It can be said that the profit of merchant ships traveling to the south of Liaoning is slightly lower than that of sailing to Nanyang. The advantages are safety and fast speed.

The Ming Dynasty was once a great empire with equal emphasis on sea and land.When Zheng He sailed to the West, there were tens of millions of craftsmen and sailors in the south of the Yangtze River, serving for the Ming Dynasty fleet's ocean voyages.

Later, after the Ming Dynasty banned the sea, the sailors of the year had no work, so they gathered in Chongming Island to make a living.The so-called relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, and relying on the sea to eat the sea, these people not only farmed and fished on the island, but also used their own sailing ability to quietly run sea transportation for the southeast gentry.

However, with the passage of time, the division of smuggling in the southeast sea has gradually become more detailed.The area in the south of the Yangtze River is mainly engaged in the production of goods, while the Zheng family in Fujian is responsible for smuggling at sea. After all, the scale of smuggling trade is not as active as normal trade and does not require so many seagoing ships. Therefore, the Shachuan Gang in Chongming is gradually excluded.

Although the Shachuan Gang has [-] to [-] ships, counting as a relatively large force on board, they mainly focus on transportation and cannot fight. Although Zheng's fleet was bullied very badly, Zheng Zhilong also issued an ultimatum to the Shachuan Gang to let them The whole goes to Zheng's.

But the Shachuan Gang belonged to the Shen family, so they naturally didn't want to take advantage of Zheng Zhilong. In the fifth year of Chongzhen, the Shachuan Gang ushered in a turning point. They transported grain to southern Liaoning and boatmen and skilled craftsmen to Cheng Shijie, earning a lot of money.

It can be said that Cheng Shijie is a great benefactor of the Shachuan Gang. The sailors of the Shachuan Gang talked and laughed, and they were quite happy. Ocean sailing is of course hard work, but the reward is very high. Of course, they have reasons to be happy with the income from farm work.

At this moment, the lookout suddenly shouted: "There is a pirate ship rushing towards us!"

Shen Huanrong, the helmsman in charge of transporting sand ships, was taken aback and shouted, "Hang up the flag!"

The sailors frantically hoisted a red flag high.

The inverted triangular red flag is the unique symbol of the Zheng family. Flying these two flags is equivalent to telling the pirates who covet the goods on board their ships that their ships are under the protection of the Zheng family. If you want to move us, you'd better measure your own weight first!

With this flag in place, Shen Huanrong wasn't worried. From their point of view, Zheng's reputation was pretty good. He typically took money to do things, and as long as he gave money, he ensured safety at sea.As the tyrannosaurus rex of the sea, Zheng's has not yet born a pirate who dares to move the ship protected by this behemoth!
A sharp sail shadow quickly appeared on the distant sea surface, and soon, a fleet cut through the sea surface and came galloping.The lookout carefully identified the flag with binoculars, and called: "It's the Zheng family's fleet!"

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

Those fast boats came so fast, they stopped in front of the merchant fleet in just one meal, and lined up, blocking the way of the merchant fleet, led by a man with a scar on his face , held up a big knife and shouted: "Sail down, stop the boat!"

The fleet did not dare to resist, so they quickly lowered the sails. Shen Huanrong walked up to the bow and bowed his hands to the scarred face, calling: "All heroes, are you safe?"

Scar stared at him and asked, "What do you guys do?"

Shen Huanrong said with a smile on his face, "Do some small business!"

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

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

"Liaodong, Liaodong!"

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

The pirates became ashamed one after another, threw iron hooks to hook the side of the merchant ship, and swished a few times to climb up. The cold swords and black muzzles were aimed at the sailors, murderous.

Shen Huanrong was so frightened that his legs trembled, and he struggled to call out: "Don't misunderstand, heroes, we have paid the protection fee, we have paid the money, why are you robbing us?"

Scarface smiled grimly: "You shouldn't, you shouldn't, you shouldn't smuggle Jiannu, Jiannu is a powerful enemy of the Ming Dynasty, collaborating with the enemy and traitorous country, you are not cowardly, so your money is for nothing, let me steal it!"

Don't be afraid of hooligans who are bold, but afraid of hooligans who are educated.

Zheng Zhilong didn't confront Cheng Shijie directly, but in the name of cracking down on maritime merchants who smuggled slaves. Whenever the ships transported to Liaodong, Zheng's pirates saw one and snatched one.

The Shachuan Gang, who had been cooperating with Ning Haijun for a long time, couldn't sit still. Shen Boyun, the head of the Shachuan Gang, had no choice but to ask Cheng Shijie for help.

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

The autumn harvest in the six years of Chongzhen included 1000 million mu of wheat, more than 600 million fields of rice, more than [-] million mu of soybeans, and others were more than [-] million mu of sweet potatoes, more than [-] million mu of potatoes, and more than [-] million mu of rice. Corn, and more than [-] million mu of various vegetables.

At the beginning of September, the weather has turned cold, and if the harvest is not done, the potatoes and sweet potatoes will be frozen to the ground. Everywhere Shen Boyun can see, there are busy people.

When Shen Boyun came to Jinzhou Ning Navy General Mansion, Cheng Shijie was not in Jinzhou, but Cheng Shijie was in Liaoyang City, because he was worried that Jiannu would come to disturb the autumn harvest work in southern Liaoning. Cheng Shijie, fifteen guards, eight thousand households, and guards The Dusi, the Cavalry Dusi, and the Artillery Dusi sit in Liaoyang.

I have been waiting for the ice to freeze on the Taizi River, but there is no sign of Jiannu going south.

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

"Meet the Master!"

"Master Shen, please be polite!"

Cheng Shijie actually knew Shen Boyun's reason for coming, and it was very uncomfortable to be slapped in the face. Zheng Zhilong sent people to intercept the ship from Shanghai to Liaodong. Although not everyone was as honest as Shen Huanrong, they directly said that they were going to Liaodong. Northeast direction, turn north at Jeju Island, and then reach Liaonan.

Although the distance is hundreds of nautical miles away, it is better to be safe, but Zheng Zhilong's threat exists objectively. Even if he pretends not to know, he cannot solve the fundamental problem.

Cheng Shijie pretended not to know Shen Boyun's reason for coming, and said with a faint smile: "What wind brought Chief Zheng to Liaodong?"

"Zheng Zhilong from Fujian has made trouble with our Shachuan Gang, and has robbed more than 40 boats of our Shachuan Gang in a row!"

Shen Boyun didn't know whether Zheng Zhilong came for him this time, or for Cheng Shijie. After all, Zheng Zhilong's suppression of the Shachuan Gang was not a matter of a day or two.

"This Zheng Zhilong is getting more and more over the top now. Seeing our ships being robbed of one another, not only the cargo on the ship was robbed, but even the people on the ship were detained, which made people panic. Not many people dare to go to sea now!"

"Is there some misunderstanding? Why does Zheng Zhilong want to make things difficult for us? Haven't we always lived in peace with them, and the well water does not violate the river water?"

Naturally, Cheng Shijie didn't take the matter to his own head, he needed time, and when he encountered Morimoto Yijiu during the sea shark trial, Cheng Shijie knew that this battle was inevitable.

In order to quickly expand the naval strength of the Ning Navy, Cheng Shijie had no choice but to adopt the later method of building modular warships, dividing a warship of the same level into several parts, especially most of the parts, directly processed in various woodwork factories, and assembled into more The large parts are assembled uniformly in the shipyard.

Since then, the production speed of Lushun Shipyard has more than tripled. Originally, it was planned to produce one Sea Shark warship in twelve months, but now it only takes three and a half months to produce one, and eight docks can be produced at one time. Eight can be produced.

PS: I fell asleep before finishing writing last night. This chapter is considered yesterday, and there are more chapters tonight

(End of this chapter)