Daming pirates

Yu Zigao, like Zhang Jiace, originally served as deputy commander-in-chief in Fujian. Moreover, Yu Zigao was the son of Yu Dayou, the powerful general along the coast of Fujian. He first won the martial arts examination during the Wanli period, and then took the post of hereditary guard commander.

, has been responsible for fighting and preparing against Japanese aggression in Fujian over the past few years. He has made many contributions and has been promoted to the position of deputy general.

Then Yu Zigao was promoted to the post of Chief Military Officer of Fujian at the end of last year because of his meritorious service in the Battle of Penghu, and the deeper reason was that he had help from people in the court and his foundation was solid.

Zhang Jiace and Yu Zigao were both deputy generals in the past and had a good relationship with each other. This time Zhang Jiace was unlucky. When he was in charge of Puxi Station, he was attacked by sea wolves at Nanyue Water Village and bombarded Puxi Station City. But he was smart enough.

Immediately after the war, personal soldiers were sent to secretly hunt down some coastal refugees and thieves, and obtained more than a hundred heads to show off their military exploits.

Therefore, with Yu Zigao's help in lobbying, Zhu Qinxiang wanted to blame Zhang Jiace, but in the end he failed. On the contrary, Zhang Jiace had "killed" more than a hundred pirates, and he had merit this time.

In the end, only Liu Yinglong, a coastal defense guerrilla, had to take the lead in this matter. Liu Yinglong was ordered to be removed from his official position. He fought hard to the end and rushed home to become a local rich man!

What made Prime Minister Zhu Qin even more angry was that he heard that Hailang was secretly sending people to lobby the government on land, spending a lot of money to ask Fujian officials to impeach him, and vowed to have him dismissed from office.

In addition, Prime Minister Zhu Qin himself belonged to the Donglin Party. After Wei Zhongxian gained power, he and the Donglin Party were in the same situation. Naturally, Prime Minister Zhu Qin could not find favor with Wei Zhongxian.

And there were so many people impeaching Prime Minister Zhu Qin. How could Wei Zhongxian miss such a good opportunity? Therefore, before the end of the fifth year of Tianqi, the imperial court issued an order to remove Prime Minister Zhu Qin from office and replaced him with the former Fujian Right Political Consultant and Supervisor Qian.

Zhu Yifeng succeeded Zhu Qin as the new governor of Fujian.

So far, Yu Xiaotian's battle with the government this year basically ended with a complete victory. Zhu Qinxiang was slapped repeatedly by the sea wolf because he chose the wrong opponent, so that he was disgraced in the end.

He was dismissed from office and went home to retire.

The news that Prime Minister Zhu Qin had been dismissed from office was immediately sent to the Wolf's Den of Nanyue Island. After hearing this, Yu Xiaotian sighed slightly, feeling that the matter of the Governor of Fujian was not worth it.

Originally, he didn't want to shoot, and quietly entered the village. He made his fortune peacefully at sea, and didn't want to get into such trouble with the government, but this Zhu Qinxiang wanted to make trouble with him, and he couldn't help it.

If you try to get him to do something within your power, he will do it himself

Let me ask, he did not initiate this incident this time, but he is not a person who is afraid of trouble. If someone wants to punish him, he will not sit back and wait for them to punish him, so he will deal with it so harshly this time.

Zhu Qinxiang was the governor of Fujian.

Now that Prime Minister Zhu Qin had been dismissed from his post and went home to have a rest, he also ordered that the navy and war barracks that had been busy during this period ceased operations, ending the second

A large-scale attack on the coast of Fujian.

This time the quarrel with the government went to such an extent, it was another advertisement for Sea Wolf. Sea Wolf actually dared to touch the government troops, and even took the initiative to force them to attack, directly destroying the warships of the government navy in the water.

Village, this incident is quite shocking news to the pirates in Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi.

Although the navy of the navy has not made much achievements in suppressing bandits at sea for so many years, at least they carry an official name. Even if the pirates at sea are powerful, few take the initiative to attack the pirates.

Yes, but this time Yu Xiaotian and his Sea Wolf tribe set a precedent, beating the officers and soldiers into disgrace and destroying dozens of warships in one fell swoop.

It turned out that Mr. Chu Cai and other big guys who were secretly gearing up had originally planned to watch the wind direction. Once the army defeated the Sea Wolf this time, they would immediately start to attack the Sea Wolf and lose everything they had lost before.

After snatching it back, especially Mr. Chu Cai, he gritted his teeth and vowed secretly that he would kill Xiaotian's skin and eat his flesh to avenge his defeat and humiliation on Nanyue Island at the beginning of the year.

However, the result once again surprised Chu Cailao and others. This time, Sea Wolf won so quickly that he didn't even have a chance to give the officers and soldiers a chance to take action, so he struck preemptively and killed all the officers mobilized by the officers in one fell swoop.

The warships also captured the merchant ships sealed by the government, which immediately brought the government's plan to a halt.

Such a result immediately made Boss Chu Cai feel discouraged. He could only continue to stay there and secretly used all his strength to recruit people to join the gang and rob merchant ships to replenish the ships.

Moreover, after Mr. Chu Cai suffered a huge loss from Sea Wolf on Nanyue Island, he decided to try his best to paint the walls with dung and find a way to get his own cannon.

For this reason, Mr. Chu Cai has been constantly traveling between the red-haired people, the Folangji people and the Ganlusi people in the past six months, and even contacted the British ambassador in Pakistan who had not been to China's coastal areas at this time.

Davia's merchant house, I want to get some cannon-making craftsmen from them.

But none of his efforts were successful. These Thais are not stupid. They care about the output of craftsmen. Nowadays, arms are hard currency along the coast of the Ming Dynasty. A light naval gun (six pounds,

An eight-pound cannon can be sold for more than a thousand taels of silver. A heavier naval gun, such as an 18-pound cannon, can be sold for at least three thousand taels of silver. How could they easily teach the art of casting cannons to people like Mr. Chu Cai?

Pirates!

So Chu Cai Lao spent half a year trying to imitate Western cannons like Sea Wolf, but all his thoughts came to nothing. He just spent a lot of money to buy more than ten red cannons of various types from red-haired people, but he couldn't solve the problem at all.

The big problem is that it just enhanced his strength.

Later, Mr. Chu Cai heard that after the Battle of Penghu between Zhangzhou Prefecture and Quanzhou Prefecture, some craftsmen borrowed the red Yi cannons captured from the red-haired people to imitate some red Yi cannons, so he tried to spend money to inquire about it in both places. Later,

I learned that among the Hongyi cannons imitated by the government, the lightest one weighed one or two thousand kilograms, and the heaviest one actually weighed four to five thousand kilograms, which could not be loaded on a ship, and it was extremely difficult to imitate them.

Mr. Chu Cai weighed the strength at hand. Although Dongshan Island he occupied was not small, there was only a small blacksmith shop on Dongshan Island. It was simply a joke to rely on such infrastructure to cast Hongyi cannons on his own.

, so he had no choice but to give up and place his hope on the government, hoping that one day the government would kill the man named Yu. Then he would follow the government and beat up the drowned dog to get revenge.

But at present, Chu Cailao's hope has come true again, and Chu Cailao found that he was facing a new opponent, that is, Zheng Yiguan suddenly appeared in the coastal area, suddenly with a

The big ticket boat and his men appeared in the coastal areas of Zhangquan and other places, and began to compete with Mr. Chu Cai for territory. There was a strong intention to expel Mr. Chu Cai from the coastal areas of Fujian. At this time, Mr. Chu Cai felt a little bit nod.

He was too old to think about how to take revenge on Yu Xiaotian.

Chapter 15 Zheng Yiguan’s character issues

It can be said that Sea Wolf gained and lost through this conflict with the government. What he lost was that the relationship he had carefully maintained with the government over the past year was completely torn apart by two large-scale raids on the coastal areas.

His face also made him successfully rise to the rank of the most hated pirate by the Fujian government.

Because the relationship between him and the government broke down, the government began to restrict maritime merchants from operating on Nanyue Island, which affected the business in the commercial area of ​​Nanyue Island to a certain extent and reduced part of Sea Wolf's tax revenue.

But they gained a lot. Through the two battles between Nanyue Shuizhai and Chongwusuo, Sea Wolf's reputation reached a new height, making it one of its peers along the coast of Fujian and even in Guangdong and Guangxi.

The most ruthless representative figure, which also makes the merchant ships passing through the sea wolf's absolute control area even more respectful to the sea wolf. Very few people dare to pass through the sea wolf's control area without paying.

This has caused Seawolf's revenue from tolls to grow very rapidly this year, with revenue reaching five times that of last year, making Seawolf Council make a lot of money from this.

As for the dozens of large and medium-sized merchant ships that were forcibly tied back to Nanyue Island from Chongwu Station, Yu Xiaotian did not completely solve the problem for these merchants, and ordered them to each use a part of their money to transfer their ships and ships to Nanyue Island.

The boatmen redeemed it and warned them that this was because it was their first time. If they dared to help the government deal with the sea wolf in the future, it would not be so cheap.

It would be the cheapest to kill their ship. After finding out who was involved in helping the government deal with Sea Wolf, Sea Wolf would completely block their way to the sea in the future. Anyone who found that they had a ship to go to sea would not let them go.

This group of maritime merchants were so frightened that they made up their mind that if they encountered a merchant ship sealed by the government again and went to sea to deal with the sea wolf, they would rather scuttle the ship at the dock or sink it to the dock.

Don't get involved in this kind of thing again, otherwise once the Sea Wolf wins, they will never want to do this profitable business again.

As a result, Sea Wolf has greatly shocked the maritime traders in the coastal areas of Fujian. It is estimated that many people will not dare to be enemies of Sea Wolf again in the future.

During the period when Yu Xiaotian was dealing with the government's incursion, he did not relax his surveillance of Yan Siqi and Zheng Yiguan. News from there would come every few days.

After Zheng Yiguan learned the news of the death of his adoptive father Li Dan, he immediately rushed back to Hirado with his men. According to the news, Zheng Yiguan went to Hirado this time to attend the funeral, which was actually to pay tribute to Li Dan.

He fought for Li Dan's inheritance, and this time after he returned to Hirado, he basically won a great victory in this battle for inheritance, and almost took over Li Dan's entire inheritance.

It is said that the legacy Li Dan left behind was very huge. In addition to the fact that he accumulated hundreds of thousands of taels of gold and silver by doing business on the sea and working part-time as a pirate over the years, the most important thing was the tens of thousands of subordinates he recruited and numerous

Merchant ship.

It is reported that before his death, Li Dan controlled nearly 500 ships of various types, among which the number of ships that could be used as warships was no less than 300. This is more substantial than pure gold and silver alone, especially

Those experienced sailors cannot be bought by money alone.

As for Li Dan's son Li Guo, because of his young age, although he is protected by Li Dan's name, his prestige among Li Dan's subordinates is not high, and he is far less prestigious than following Li Dan around all these years.

Zheng Yiguan has high prestige among his subordinates.

This time Zheng Yiguan went to Hirado to attend the funeral, and secretly contacted those Li Dan's men he had met before, and obtained the full support of these people, so that when attending the funeral, relying on the support of these people, he took over Li Dan's business.

Of course, he did not take away all of Li Dan's properties and real estate in Hirado and left them to Li Dan's descendants. However, he basically took over all the maritime properties and became the new leader after Li Dan.

The big boss.

After Zheng Yiguan accepted Li Dan's inheritance, he did not consider Hirado as his home like Li Dan, because he and Yan Siqi had previously conspired to start an uprising in Japan to fight against the Tokugawa shogunate currently in power in Japan.

, later the incident failed and he fled Japan, and then followed Yan Siqi to Taiwan Island.

After Li Dan's death, if he stayed in Hirado, the Tokugawa shogunate would probably not tolerate him. Therefore, after taking over Li Dan's industry, Zheng Yiguan returned to Yan Siqi's island of Taiwan with a large number of ships and men.

Bengang area.

As a result, Zheng Yiguan's strength immediately jumped above Yan Siqi. Originally, Yan Siqi valued Zheng Yiguan very much and had intended to cultivate Zheng Yiguan before, but when Zheng Yiguan came back this time, he turned around and took over Li Dan's inheritance.

, Yan Siqi felt Zheng Yiguan's threat to his status.

Therefore, after Zheng Yiguan led his troops back to Taiwan Island, Yan Siqi still maintained a harmonious relationship with Zheng Yiguan on the surface. However, according to careful observation while staying there, there was already a gap between the two people.

In mid-December, news came from Yan Siqi's hometown that there had been secret calls for Zheng Yiguan to be their head. This incident immediately caused Yan Siqi and Zheng Yiguan to

The relationship between them became tense.

It turned out that Yan Siqi's subordinates also began to be divided after Zheng Yiguan returned to Bengang. A group of Yan Siqi's old brothers supported Yan Siqi, but some people began to have ambiguous attitudes, and some even simply switched sides.

Zheng Yiguan's side.

Now the atmosphere in Yan Siqi's territory has become very tense. Zheng Yiguan's men and Yan Siqi's men have often had some minor frictions during this period. Although Zheng Yiguan is nominally Yan Siqi's younger brother, Zheng Yiguan's men are not.

Looking at it this way, they only regarded Zheng Yiguan as their boss and did not consider Yan Siqi at all.

Naturally, some of Yan Siqi's die-hard subordinates couldn't bear to see Zheng Yiguan's new subordinates being disrespectful to their old brothers on their territory, so it was very normal for friction to occur. Although Yan Siqi and Zheng Yiguan suppressed it,

There has been no major incident yet, but now Yan Siqi's place is like a powder keg. If a spark falls into it, there may be a big explosion.

After learning this news, Yu Xiaotian can be sure that history has begun to change because of his appearance at this moment. This is already the end of the fifth year of Tianqi. According to the historical process he once knew, Yan Siqi should have died long ago.

However, in this time and space, Yan Siqi unexpectedly avoided death from a sudden illness and survived.

Then Yan Siqi's survival has caused Zheng Yiguan's path to deviate from the original track. No one can predict where Zheng Yiguan will go next, but one thing can be confirmed. To this day, he

The appearance of Yu Xiaotian has made the situation on the sea more complicated.

Yu Xiaotian calmed down and began to think carefully about the whereabouts of Zheng Yiguan in the future. After understanding Zheng Yiguan's development in the old time and space, and his direct interactions with Zheng Yiguan in this time and space, Yu Xiaotian can now determine

, Zheng Yiguan is by no means the kind of person who values ​​loyalty.

In history, because Zheng Yiguan is the father of Zheng Chenggong, many records are full of praise for him, describing him as a shrewd, capable and energetic person. However, if you think carefully about the path he has taken, you can

I found that Zheng Yiguan was by no means the kind of person who was loyal.

If he was a loyal person, he would not have rushed all the way to Hirado just after Li Dan's death, and in the name of paying homage to his adoptive father, he would have taken away Li Dan's inheritance from Li Dan's descendants.

making him an overlord of the sea.

In addition, before inheriting Li Dan's inheritance, Zheng Yiguan first inherited Yan Siqi's mantle and collected all the industries created by Yan Siqi.

Later, Zheng Yiguan gathered coastal powerful men in the Bengang area of ​​Taiwan Island, established the famous Shibazhi pirate group in history, and became the leader of Shibazhi.

Moreover, he accepted the favor of the government in history and turned into a red-top businessman. At the same time, he also became a general with military power.

For this reason, many of his old brothers abandoned him, including the famous Liu Xiang and Li Kuiqi, as well as the less famous Yang Liu, Yang Qi, Zhong Bin, He Bin and others. If Zheng Yiguan is

If he were a loyal person, he would not force so many brothers to desert him.

In the next few years, these old brothers were cut off one by one by Zheng Yiguan and wiped from the sea. In addition, Xu Xinsu, an old friend who had a close relationship with his adoptive father, also died.

In his hands, such a person is definitely not a loyal person, otherwise he would not have done so many fratricidal things.

Zheng Yiguan also has one of the biggest stains in his life, that is, the Ming court treated him well. However, when the Tatars entered the pass and went south, Zheng Yiguan saw that the Tatars of Houjin were powerful, so he immediately turned around and joined the Tatars of Houjin.

son.

And the premise is that when the Manchu Tatars forced his wife, the legendary Japanese girl Tagawa, to death, Zheng Yiguan still sought refuge with the Houjin Tatars for the sake of his own glory and wealth. Even his son Zheng Chenggong

He was not allowed to do this, so Nu'er later rose up, took over Zheng Yiguan's property and troops, and embarked on the road of resisting the Qing Dynasty.

So no matter from any aspect, Zheng Yiguan's character is very poor, and he can be said to be a complete villain. This person does everything based on his own interests. He is a standard businessman and his thinking mode is also a standard.

The thinking mode of a businessman is that he only pursues interests. As for righteousness, he thinks that it is not something that can influence his behavior. His brothers are for sale. As long as it is beneficial to him, he can do anything.

.

This is Yu Xiaotian's evaluation of Zheng Yiguan as a whole, and he believes that he has not misjudged Zheng Yiguan's character, but he also has to admit that Zheng Yiguan is a very smart person and has almost grasped him.

Given all the opportunities in his life, he became the overlord of the Chinese Sea at a young age and was good at utilizing various relationships, eventually controlling the entire Chinese Sea.

Such a person will sooner or later become his Sea Wolf's formidable enemy. Although the two sides are currently at peace with each other, as Zheng Yiguan's strength expands, it is only a matter of time before he and Sea Wolf clash.

(Today, two chapters have been updated together! I hope you will forgive me for any inconvenience caused!)