The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 415: The Japanese pirates have no time to rest

The Ming Dynasty court could not touch the interests of overseas trade, otherwise it would be disastrous.

This is a strange thing unique to the Ming Dynasty.

Or it could be said that this is a strange phenomenon that emerged after the formation of wealthy maritime merchant families in the southeast.

To put it bluntly, the Southeastern maritime merchant families want to monopolize the huge profits from overseas trade. If the Ming Dynasty court dares to move, they will use various means to confront the court.

As for the period in which the wealthy maritime merchant families were formed, this can be roughly calculated.

There were certainly no such cases during the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties, and there were probably no such cases during the Hongxi and Xuande dynasties.

Because Emperor Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji once sent Zheng He's fleet to the Western Ocean, and the Ming navy was still terrifyingly powerful at that time.

However, it was during the Xuande reign that the Ming Dynasty gradually became a country ruled by civilians and began to stop fighting and support the people. The Ming navy, which was once so powerful that it was invincible in the world, gradually became obsolete.

During the Zhengtong reign of Emperor Yingzong, the Ming Dynasty not only lost its maritime hegemony, but the Battle of Tumu also destroyed its land hegemony.

At this time, wealthy maritime merchant families gradually began to emerge.

Because Xie Qian of the Yuyao Xie family, the helmsman of the wealthy maritime merchant family exposed in the Jiajing period, was born in the Zhengtong period, and he became the top scorer in the imperial examination in the 11th year of Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty.

After the formation of wealthy maritime merchant families, the Ming Dynasty court could no longer touch the interests of overseas trade.

Emperor Jiajing insisted on taking action, and as a result, the Japanese pirates in the southeast caused chaos for twenty or thirty years.

The pirates and Japanese pirates went ashore like crazy, burning, killing and looting.

The Japanese pirates also have a bad rule, that is, they can invade other countries at will, but they cannot attack any country in Japan. Whoever attacks them will never let them go.

During the most powerful period of the Mongols, they invaded Japan.

As a result, the Japanese pirates retaliated for hundreds of years, and their retaliation continued until the Ming Dynasty.

Even if they can't defeat you, they will make you sick to death. They kept harassing the coasts of the Mongols and the Ming Dynasty, making the coasts restless. The Ming Dynasty therefore implemented a maritime ban.

The reason why the Japanese pirates and the wealthy maritime merchants were so crazy was that they actually wanted to express the same meaning.

That means I am very fierce. Don’t provoke me. If you provoke me, I will never let you go!
This is deliberately acting like a bad guy to scare others. Most people don't dare to provoke bad guys.

At this time, Wanli caught the Japanese pirates and beat them up, and almost all the profits from overseas trade were taken away by him.

The Japanese pirates and wealthy maritime merchants would naturally try every possible means to exact revenge.

They wanted to let Wanli know that they were vicious, bad people and should not be provoked.

The Zhejiang Party, a group of traitors who collaborated with the enemy and traitors, discussed with Toyotomi Hideyoshi for such a long time that they finally came up with a big move.

Pirates and Japanese pirates were just like in the Jiajing period, rushing ashore like crazy, burning, killing and looting.

Doing so is actually beneficial to both the Zhejiang Party and the Japanese pirates.

Not to mention the Japanese pirates, Toyotomi Hideyoshi wanted to weaken the strength of the Ming Dynasty in this way while strengthening his own strength.

The Zhejiang Party is even more vicious. They just want to make the people in the southeast coastal areas live in misery so that they can recruit more desperate people to regain the benefits of overseas trade.

However, they seem to have overlooked one point.

This is no longer the Jiajing Dynasty, nor is it the Wanli Dynasty in history.

The current Ming Dynasty, like the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties, has a strong army and a strong navy.

They allowed pirates and Japanese pirates to come ashore and burn, kill and loot as unscrupulously as they did during the Jiajing period. They were courting death.

At Wanli's command, the navy's centipede ships that were originally transporting supplies in the branches of rivers and lakes also gathered overseas like crazy, and all of them were heading north to Nanzhili.

At this moment, the navy probably has tens of thousands of centipede ships, while the Japanese pirates and privateers combined have only more than 10,000 people, not tens of thousands of ships.

After the Zhejiang Party discovered something was wrong, they quickly sent a speedboat to Japan to inform the pirates and Japanese pirates there not to come over. If they came over at this time, they would most likely fall into the encirclement network woven by tens of thousands of navy centipede ships.

They all thought that the navy's fast ships were gathering in the waters between Nanzhili and Dongying to encircle and suppress pirates and Japanese pirates. Who knew that these navy's fast ships would go all the way north, into the Liaohe River basin, and take the Japanese pirate captives and Sichuan Army soldiers directly to Dongfan!

At this time, the Grand Marshal of the Army Qi Jiguang and the Governor of Zhejiang and Fujian Zhu Guozuo also took the Fu ships and centipede ships built in the second half of the year at the Xinbao Shipyard in Longjiangzhou, and pulled countless newly trained garrison guards down the river and out to sea, taking advantage of the monsoon and ocean currents to head straight for Dongfan.

Immediately afterwards, the navy centipede ships that had taken away the Japanese pirate captives and Sichuan army soldiers returned to Zhejiang. Some of them seemed to be deployed in the waters between Yangzhou Prefecture and Huai'an Prefecture, and some seemed to be deployed in the waters between Taizhou Prefecture and Wenzhou Prefecture.

Another part went straight back to Jinling, taking countless garrisons and materials out to sea, and no one knew where they went or what they did.

This wave of operations really confused the Zhejiang Party. After all, Wanli mobilized so many naval centipede ships not to encircle and suppress pirates and Japanese pirates.

They risked sending a speedboat disguised as a fishing boat to circle the waters between Nanzhili and Japan, but they didn't even see a single navy centipede ship!

What is Wanli doing?

They really don't understand.

They don't need to explore the Fujian waters. At this moment, the sea areas from Taizhou Prefecture, Wenzhou Prefecture to Fuzhou Prefecture, Quanzhou Prefecture, and Zhangzhou Prefecture are all full of navy ships, which can be seen from the shore.

They really didn't understand what Wanli was doing.

However, it doesn't matter much that they don't understand what Wanli is doing.

Anyway, as long as we don’t go to encircle and suppress pirates and Japanese pirates, it’s fine.

They also found out that there were no naval ships in the waters of Jiaxing, Hangzhou and Ningbo prefectures at this moment.

Wanli probably thought that these three coastal prefectures were closer to the navy's overseas bases, and pirates and Japanese pirates would not dare to come over to burn, kill and loot.

This is a loophole!

There is nothing for pirates and Japanese pirates to be afraid of? Anyway, it is smooth sailing for everyone to sail south now. As long as their pirate fleet sneaks in from the outer waters of Nanzhili and is not discovered by the navy ships, they can go to Ningbo Prefecture to burn, kill and loot.

Ningbo Prefecture is four or five hundred miles away from the navy base in the sea near Songjiang Prefecture, which means a round trip of nearly a thousand miles. Even if the navy ships receive the news and rush over immediately, they will still be one day slower than the pirates and Japanese pirates.

This day was enough for the pirates and Japanese pirates to shake off the navy fleet.

Therefore, the Zhejiang Party sent out speedboats to notify the pirates and Japanese pirates hiding in Japan to come to Ningbo Prefecture quickly and burn, kill and loot near their lair!
So what did Wanli do with the new recruits on the navy ships?

At this time, in a natural harbor called Jilong to the north of Dongfan, Qi Jiguang was commanding more than 100,000 newly trained garrison guards and tens of thousands of craftsmen to rapidly build a port terminal.

The materials they used were all prepared by Xinjiangzhou. With nearly 200,000 people working on it, the construction speed was extremely fast.

Zhu Guozuo, the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian, led 200,000 Sichuan troops and more than 300,000 captured Japanese pirates to open up wasteland on several plains west of Dongfan, and at the same time built courtyards for farmers to live in and even prefecture and county towns.

Dongfan was originally a large island under the jurisdiction of Quanzhou Prefecture. Because it was too far from the coast of Quanzhou Prefecture, the Ming Dynasty court had not organized anyone to develop it before.

Now Dongfan consists of dozens of villages composed of tens of thousands of civilians who spontaneously migrated from the coast of Zhejiang and Fujian. Usually they just raise some deer, dig some sulfur and exchange them for daily necessities with passing sea merchants. Their life is still quite hard.

At this moment, they heard that the Ming Dynasty court sent the Governor of Zhejiang and Fujian with hundreds of thousands of people to develop Dongfan, and they were extremely excited.

They also hope that Dongfan can be developed. If Dongfan is developed, there will be more people, and with more people there will be more opportunities to make money.

Moreover, with the large-scale development organized by the imperial court, all kinds of daily necessities will certainly be pulled in, and their lives will definitely be better in the future.

They were so excited that they picked up hoes and other tools and came to help, just wanting Dongfan to develop quickly.

The captured Japanese pirates were also very excited at this moment, because the teacher who taught them the Ming Dynasty official language said that as long as they worked hard, they would be able to return to Japan next year!

They had no doubt about this because the Ming Dynasty had already released tens of thousands of people this year.

They worked very hard to get back to Japan, fearing that the Ming army officers and soldiers guarding them would say that they performed poorly and not let them go back.

As for the fact that after finishing their work in Liaodong, they were dragged to Dongfan to work again, where they had no time to rest and no time to rest, they didn't care about that. As long as they could return to Japan to reunite with their families, they would have plenty of time to rest when they returned.

I have to say that this trick is quite effective in boosting morale or making the Japanese pirates work hard.

What do the captured Japanese pirates want most now?
That must be going home.

(End of this chapter)