Become a feudal king from today

Yizhou, Gaocheng. ReadМ

The dock less than ten miles away from the city was extremely busy with people coming and going.

Since it was occupied by the Japanese, it has become a trade transit point on the Japanese sea.

Merchant ships from Japan anchored here to rest, and then continued south to the Kingdom of Luzon and even further to the Kingdom of Tianzhu.

At this moment, there was only one table of guests sitting in a Japanese-style tavern by the pier.

Any merchant who wanted to enter would be turned away.

"This time our Wufeng Island suffered losses in Yanzhou, and the Liang family must compensate for it!"

On the north side of the wine table, an eagle-eyed man pointed at the middle-aged businessman opposite and shouted.

The middle-aged businessman is a muscular man with dark skin. It looks like he has been baked by the sun all year round at sea.

The middle-aged businessman laughed repeatedly at the eagle-eyed man's scolding.

"Island owner, please calm down. Beforehand, our Liang family had given Wufeng Island three million taels of silver. Now it's you, Wufeng Island, who are taking the money. If you haven't completed the matter, how can we, the Liang family, compensate you for the money?" said the middle-aged man. The merchant still had a smile on his face.

Lu Zheng's face suddenly turned red.

Their Wufeng Island has never suffered such heavy losses.

Except for the more than 30 warships parked at sea and fleeing back to Wufeng Island when they saw something was wrong, none of the people they landed on the Yanzhou land came back.

There is no doubt that they were all killed by King Yan's army.

How could he, as the island owner, be willing to suffer such heavy losses?

Immediately, he set off from Wufeng Island and arrived in Yizhou to seek an explanation from the Liang family.

"Fart, your Liang family never said that King Yan's army was equipped with muskets." Lu Zheng slapped the table and stood up.

The crew at sea heard the sound of the other side's cannons and the sound of musketry.

"How is this possible!" The middle-aged businessman showed a surprised look, and the slyness in his eyes was overturned. "If this is really the case, I am willing to tell the owner of the family about this. If compensation is needed, I will definitely compensate you."

"Forty-two warships, more than 10,000 crew members, and my deputy island owner Heishan, you have to pay at least eight million taels of silver." Lu Zheng looked at the middle-aged merchant fiercely and gritted his teeth, "If you don't give it, You know my methods on Wufeng Island."

"Island owner, calm down, I will definitely investigate this matter thoroughly." The middle-aged businessman's face changed slightly.

"Go away!" Lu Zheng glared at the middle-aged businessman.

The middle-aged businessman apologized repeatedly and quit the restaurant.

At this time, everyone around Lu Zheng said: "Island Master, we are afraid that we have fallen into the Liang family's plan to drive away tigers and devour wolves."

His name is Xue Ran, and like Heishan, he is also the deputy island owner of Wufeng Island.

Because there are five peaks on the island, the middle is the highest and the two sides are lower. Lu Zai set up four island owners below to correspond to the five peaks.

Lu Zheng folded his arms and watched the middle-aged merchant leave. He said coldly, "I also have this suspicion. He not only wants to use us to destroy King Yan's battleship, but also wants to use King Yan to weaken us."

After a pause, he said: "That's why I came to Yizhou in person to ask for compensation from the Liang family. If he pays the money honestly, we will temporarily spare him. If they are dishonest, we will let him know. , who is the master of this ocean.”

"How can the lives of brothers be measured in money?" Xue Ran was a little angry.

According to his idea, the warships should be concentrated now, annihilate the Liang family's navy in one fell swoop, and invade Zhezhou to avenge the dead crew members.

"Why are you so anxious!" Lu Zheng's eyes widened with a fierce expression, "Suffering such a loss in Yanzhou, don't you need to ask the Liang family for money to recruit crew members and buy warships? And this time General Nakata promised to sell us the Anzhai ship ”

"Really? This is great." Xue Bin's momentum suddenly dropped, and then he was overjoyed.

This Anzha ship is a Japanese warship. It can carry eighteen artillery pieces, which is much stronger than their warship which can only carry six cannons.

Moreover, this ship can carry more than 350 people.

Although not as good as the Francois, the Britons had warships loaded with dozens or hundreds of cannons.

But among the three countries of Dasong, Goryeo, and Japan, this kind of warship is undoubtedly the strongest.

If Wufeng Island has this Anzhai ship, its strength at sea will be greatly enhanced.

Originally, he was wondering why the island owner was so eager for money and even took on the work of the Liang family.

Now he finally understands.

While the two were talking, suddenly there was a noise from the pier.

They looked out and saw a warship with blue and white stripes hanging slowly passing by outside the dock.

Lu Zheng showed envy in his eyes. Compared with the size of the merchant ships at the dock, this warship was very big.

This is the sailing battleship of the Fo Langji people.

They came from the south of Yizhou, where they built a fortress called Rezhe City by the Folangji people.

Initially, during the civil war before the founding of Dasong, Yizhou, an isolated island offshore, was captured by the Folangji people and served as a transit point for their sea trade.

There are now nine thousand francji troops stationed in Rezhe City.

At the same time, they also had eight warships anchored in the harbor outside Rezhe City.

After the founding of Dasong, the Liang family once tried to attack Yizhou and take Yizhou as their own.

But they suffered a disastrous defeat in Reja City.

The warships of Fo Langji even broke into the Liang family's port and bombarded the Liang family's warships.

The Liang family concealed the defeat and did not report it. They only exaggerated the dangers of pirates and even said that some people went to sea to act as pirates.

Since then, the sea has been banned, no one is allowed to go into the sea, and people are prevented from going to the sea to become bandits.

At the same time, the Liang family obtained the sole right to sea trade.

After paying a large sum of silver to the Portuguese to settle the feud, the Liang family began to trade with the Portuguese and made a lot of money.

This made the Liang family pay more attention to maritime trade, and the number of large and small merchant ships trading on the sea reached more than 2,000.

In order to monopolize maritime trade, the Liang family has always claimed that Shenzhou is a trading port designated by the Dasong court.

All foreign ships can only trade goods in Xiangcheng, Shenzhou.

What puzzled him was that no one in Dasong seemed to have exposed this lie until now.

Perhaps it was really as the people said, the Liang family's silver was well-known, and even if someone knew it, they would not say it.

After all, the emperor only stayed in the imperial city, and no one told him, so naturally he didn't know.

"It's so sad." Lu Zheng suddenly laughed coldly, "Great Song, a country in the Central Plains, is divided by powerful families, bullying the lower and deceiving the upper, and they don't know the great changes in the world. They are even worse than Japan. Fortunately, I am no longer a Song person." After the ban on the sea in Song, Japan, which was in the period of war between feudal lords, also banned the sea. That was because the then co-lord of Japan, Fujino Daimyo, was worried that the feudal lords would become stronger through maritime trade. But a hundred years ago, the Fujino family declined, and the feudal lords fought again for power in Japan. At this time, the Watanabe family, located at the southernmost tip of Japan, quickly became stronger by using maritime trade. Because even during the ban on the sea, the Watanabe family had been engaged in smuggling trade with the Portuguese. Now it is in the Warring States Period, so naturally there is nothing to worry about. It was also during that period that Japan mastered the matchlock gun casting skills from the Portuguese and unified Japan. Later, more foreign merchant ships came to Japan. Japan also salvaged cannons from the sunken ship. Although the imitation was unsuccessful, the missionaries who entered Japan later mastered the casting of bronze cannons. Although the wrought iron cannons were not as good as those of the British and Portuguese, they had also made great progress.

Now the Japanese navy's Anzhai ship is a mixture of iron cannons and bronze cannons.

With cannons, muskets and warships, the Watanabe family naturally had ambitions. Since they traded with the Portuguese, they envied their warships that roamed the sea and controlled trade routes.

So thirty years ago, the Watanabe family saw the decline of the Portuguese and turned their attention to Izhou.

For Japan, this is also an excellent trade transit point.

After seven or eight years of repeated struggles, the Portuguese and Japan reached an agreement to divide Izhou into two.

Later, the Japanese found him and made him the current owner of Wufeng Island. At the same time, they secretly decided to use it to control the sea trade around Dasong.

After all, the Portuguese and the British did this.

Their country supports privateers in order to attack the maritime trade of their opponents.

For Japan, this method is indeed very good.

He can bring benefits to Japan, and when there is a conflict with Da Song, the Japanese shogunate can easily get rid of him, after all, they will not admit their relationship with them.

However, in recent years, Japan has gradually stopped caring about Da Song's attitude.

Da Song's powerful families are divided, the court is fighting each other, the royal family is weak, and the northern barbarians are eyeing it covetously, and it may be destroyed at any time.

The Watanabe shogunate smelled the decline of Da Song.