Daming pirates

Zheng Yiguan is indeed feeling a bit anxious now. Although he is strong, he arrived a little late. There is almost not much territory along the coast of Fujian for him to seize. There is Yu Xiaotian's Sea Wolf in the north.

, controls most of the sea from Meizhou Bay to Funing Prefecture in Xinghua Prefecture. He currently does not dare to fight with Yu Xiaotian without solving Yan Siqi.

And there is a big boss in the south, Mr. Chu Cai. Mr. Chu Cai is not someone to be trifled with. Even though he was beaten to pieces by a sea wolf some time ago, a starved camel is bigger than a horse, so he still has considerable strength.

Moreover, Zheng Yiguan now has a bad reputation because he turned against Yan Siqi. Many people think that this guy is too ungrateful and not a good guy. They are not willing to deal with him. Even the small group of pirates are not willing to go to him.

He joins the gang.

Behind his back, there was Yan Siqi who was eyeing him and wanted to cause trouble for him. However, he did not have a decent foothold in the coastal area. He could only stay in the Penghu area, and it was very inconvenient for his men to supply supplies.

There is another thing that depresses Zheng Yiguan the most, and that is the existence of Xu Xinsu.

Xu Xinsu was a wealthy merchant in the Zhangquan area. He had gone abroad to do maritime trade a long time ago. Later, Xu Xinsu met Li Dan. Both of them were maritime merchants. Xu Xinsu admired Li Dan very much, and Li Dan also treated Xu Xinsu very well.

So they became sworn brothers.

However, Xu Xinsu was very dissatisfied with the fact that Zheng Yiguan had robbed Li Dan of his inheritance after Li Dan fell ill and died. She criticized Zheng Yiguan. In addition, he and Zheng Yiguan had a bad relationship in the past, so they broke off the relationship.

After dating Zheng Yiguan, he started to work alone.

Xu Xinsu was very powerful in the Zhangquan area and had quite a reputation in the government. In addition, he had a good relationship with the Dutch and controlled almost the entire raw silk supply in Fujian.

Raw silk is now the most popular commodity in Western countries. Although Japan can also provide some raw silk, the quantity is very small. It is far from the quality of raw silk in China, and the quantity is not as large as here.

The Dutch had to go through Xu Xinsu to get raw silk. Xu Xinsu and Zheng Yiguan broke off their relationship, causing Zheng Yiguan to lose his way of making money from raw silk. Zheng Yiguan hated Xu Xinsu so much that he often intercepted Xu Xinsu's goods at sea during this period.

ship and robbed Xu Xinsu's belongings.

This forced Xu Xinsu to strengthen her strength at sea. In the past, Xu Xinsu mainly engaged in business and did not engage in robbery at sea. Therefore, the strength of the merchant ship was not small, but she did not have much strength to fight against others.

So Xu Xinsu asked the Dutch to help him deal with Zheng Yiguan and protect his merchant ships from going to Daguan to trade with the Dutch.

The Dutch had considerable trust in Xu Xinsu, and they indeed needed the raw silk supply controlled by Xu Xinsu. However, because of this, they were obviously unwilling to do it if they were asked to annihilate Zheng Yiguan.

Because the Dutch have only a small number of permanent troops stationed in Taiwan. There are only more than a thousand infantry and artillery troops, and there are only a few ships. Except for two of them, which are relatively large armed merchant ships, the rest are only small at best.

It can only be regarded as a gunboat.

With their strength, it is obviously impossible to annihilate Zheng Yiguan, and Zheng Yiguan is now a pirate with no fixed abode, and it is difficult to find them, so the Dutch can only provide Xu Xinsu with

He bought some cannons and let Xu Xinsu arm the merchant ships to fight against Zheng Yiguan.

But even if Xu Xinsu got the support of the Dutch, she still couldn't deal with Zheng Yiguan, so Yan Siqi came to the door at this time, because Yan Siqi also lived in Japan and had a good relationship with Li Dan. Naturally, he also knew Xu Xinsu.

It was considered a bit of a friendship, and now they had a common enemy, so they hit it off and worked together to deal with Zheng Yiguan.

Xu Xinsu was not strong in force, but he was familiar with the Zhangquan area on land and had plenty of money, while Yan Siqi had ships, cannons, and manpower. Together, the two parties were indeed a good choice.

So Xu Xinsu provided money and Yan Siqi provided people and began to provide Xu Xinsu with protection, that is, escort, so that Xu Xinsu could go to sea to do business with the Dutch in relative safety.

When Yu Xiaotian saw this, he threw the information on the table and couldn't help but laugh a little. Because of his appearance, Zheng Yiguan's life is really difficult now, unlike how he made his fortune in history.

Compared with the road, although he has inherited Li Dan's mantle and his strength has greatly increased, he no longer has Bengang, which could be his home base, and has Yan Siqi and Hailang, two forces that are hostile to him out of thin air.

Moreover, Yan Siqi survived due to a combination of circumstances. Instead of dying young and leaving a pot of ready-made food for Zheng Yiguan like in history, Zheng Yiguan wanted to replace him because his tail was too big to fall off. In the end,

Instead of hitting the fox, he got scratched all over.

Now the former brothers have turned against each other, and Yan Siqi has become Zheng Yiguan's mortal enemy.

This time, Zheng Yiguan's path was not as smooth as it was in another time and space in history. Now he had enemies on all sides and didn't even have a decent place to stay. The Dutch also began to be hostile to Zheng Yiguan because of Xu Xinsu's relationship.

They rejected Zheng Yiguan's request to buy cannons from them, and prohibited Zheng Yiguan's ships and men from going to Danguan.

So whether Zheng Yiguan can quickly rise to become a hegemon on the sea like he did in another time and space in history? Now it seems that his future is indeed worrying!

In addition, among the various intelligence collected, Yu Xiaotian also saw the news that Hailang Xizuo came back from Haojingao, that is, Macau. Zheng Yiguan failed to purchase cannons from the Dutch and was active in Macau during this period.

, hoping to purchase a batch of cannons from the Portuguese to increase his strength.

This information is a relatively important one, because Zheng Yiguan started learning business from his uncle when he was a teenager. He first started living in Macau, and received Catholic baptism and a Christian name. This was an important factor in his life.

Very important thing.

He also had a considerable relationship with the Portuguese and the Catholic Church in Macau. Although he later did not deal with the Spanish after Li Dan, he did not turn against the Portuguese. Not to mention that Portugal is now temporarily under the flag of the Spanish King.

Yes, but these Portuguese and Spaniards are not close brothers. At best, they are just different bedfellows, each with his own plans.

The Portuguese are not kind people either. They are very good at maneuvering. After arriving in China for so many years, they have a deep understanding of China's situation and people's way of thinking.

Although there is no conflict between Sea Wolf and the Portuguese now, and they still have many business dealings with each other, there is one very different thing about Sea Wolf and other pirates doing business with the Portuguese, and that is the sea wolf

Wolf did not unilaterally only sell some Chinese goods to the Portuguese, but also purchased many things from the Portuguese, including large quantities of hardwood, Indian canvas, cotton, Indian saltpeter, Indian refined iron, and even rice from the Li Dynasty.

.

Although the Portuguese brought a lot of these things in the past, they were never able to find a market. In the Ming Dynasty, the vast majority of people had very poor purchasing power, including many landlord families, who lived a self-sufficient life.

In the small-scale peasant economy, the demand for foreign goods is very small. Only a few dignitaries, big businessmen or extremely wealthy people who pursue fashion and face will buy some luxury goods such as mirrors and glass.

Like Indian cotton cloth, although the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and even the British have all tried, they wanted to use this kind of goods to open up the Chinese market and use the profits to buy specialties from the Ming Dynasty.

But this effort ultimately failed, because at this time, Ming Dynasty also had a large amount of high-quality and low-price Songjiang cloth, and it did not need to import a large amount of Indian cotton cloth to meet the demand. Moreover, after the Indian cotton cloth was shipped to Daming, the cost was not necessarily higher than that of Songjiang cloth.

Cloth is so good, and farmers often weave it themselves. Although the quality is poorer and rougher, people without money would rather weave their own cloth than buy Indian cotton cloth.

Therefore, there are really not many types of goods that Westerners can sell to the Chinese now, including the slave trade. The Chinese themselves are all over the place as refugees, and it is impossible to buy Western slaves at high prices. The slave trade

There is no market at all in China.

In this way, except for a small amount of spices, dyes, glass, Western handicrafts, gems and jewelry, etc., which can be sold to the Chinese, the Ming Dynasty can basically produce the rest by itself. Before the Opium War, Westerners almost

I can't sell much to the Chinese.

China has almost always had a trade surplus for hundreds of years. Westerners can only find ways to plunder silver from all over the world, and then transport it to China in exchange for Chinese porcelain, tea, silk, raw silk and other commodities.

As a result, China was in a state of inflation for a long period of time due to the massive import of silver.

It was not until the defeat of the Qing Dynasty in the Opium War and a series of humiliating land cession and indemnity treaties that China's silver began to drain out in large quantities, and China's silver stock began to decline significantly.

But what made the Portuguese happy was that after meeting the sea wolves, they discovered that this group of sea wolves was different from other Chinese merchants and pirates. They did not like to store large amounts of silver, but preferred some coins that seemed to be of little value.

Small ordinary supplies, especially various raw materials, are almost all things they like to ask for.

Among them, Sea Wolf's favorite things are all kinds of canvas that can be used to make sails, as well as cheap Indian cotton cloth, fine iron, rice, and hardwood. In the past, Westerners couldn't sell these things, but Sea Wolf wants them all.

, and the quantity is still very large, no matter how much it is, at least it allows them to no longer spend money to buy it like they used to.

(I grit my teeth and hold on! Everything is for my son! Thanks to my two friends gzg1972 and Yueyuanshitian for their rewards! I will continue to persevere!)