Daming pirates

So after careful consideration, before the Shangyuan Festival passed, Chongzhen issued an order, ordering Xiaotian to prepare the navy, and personally lead the navy south to Guangdong and Guangxi. Under the control of Xiong Wencan, he quelled the pirates along the coast of Guangdong and Guangxi.

It just so happens that these two guys are old partners. Xiong Wencan can probably figure out Yu Xiaotian's temper and should be able to manipulate Yu Xiaotian. Now that Yu Xiaotian has soldiers and ships, he takes the opportunity to send him south to fight against the pirates.

, it would be better to weaken his strength.

Chongzhen resorted to the magic weapon of using thieves to contain and consume these generals who were too big to lose, and made a wishful thinking. At the same time, he also sent a message to Zou Weilian, trying not to anger Yu Xiaotian, and trying his best to satisfy his request and let him

Send troops to Guangdong and Guangxi as soon as possible.

Zou Weilian never expected that the court would handle the matter in this way. The court would actually turn a blind eye to Xiaotian's occupation of Taiyuan Island, and asked him to try his best to satisfy Xiaotian's request and let Yu Xiaotian send troops to Guangdong and Guangxi as soon as possible.

So Zou Weilian quickly summoned his staff to discuss what was going on. They discussed for a long time, and finally figured out the court's current thoughts. After understanding the court's concerns, Zou Weilian couldn't help but lamented that the court now treats these warriors.

It can be said that they have already taken advantage of the situation and dare not deal with them easily. They can only adopt a gentle policy to drive them to work for the court.

Now the imperial court wants to weaken Yu Xiaotian's strength and control it by letting him lead troops south to clear out the pirates along the coast of Guangdong and Guangxi. This is really a bad move, because Yu Xiaotian is currently very powerful at sea.

, let alone the court, even Zou Weilian couldn't completely figure it out.

Letting Yu Xiaotian go south is actually similar to letting the tiger return to the mountain. This is equivalent to openly including the coastal areas of Guangdong and Guangxi within Yu Xiaotian's sphere of influence.

But there was nothing Zou Weilian could do. Now Yu Xiaotian could neither hit nor scold him. He was a piece of meat on a hob. Not to mention that he had nothing to do. Now even the imperial court was very wary of him and did not dare to do anything to him easily.

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Therefore, Zou Weilian had no choice but to follow the instructions of the Holy Emperor and collect a batch of supplies for Yu Xiaotian to move here and there. He also raised 80,000 taels of military pay for him to use as a starting salary, so that he could send troops south to Guangdong and Guangxi as soon as possible in the near future.

These movements between the government and the public are naturally under Xiaotian's control. There are never any secrets in the Ming Dynasty. As long as you are willing to spend money, you can even find out where Chongzhen slept on that day, let alone these things.

Something happened.

Yu Xiaotian also used this incident to thoroughly test the court's current attitude towards him. Although Chongzhen already knew that he controlled Taiwan Island, this time he didn't even give a shit, but asked him to send troops south to Guangdong and Guangxi to suppress the bandits.

, its purpose and ideas can be said to be obvious, and Yu Xiaotian can't help but sneer at Chongzhen's small actions.

Zou Weilian wanted to give him little shoes and play him a book, but the result did not meet Zou Weilian's expectations at all. Now the court is still asking Zou Weilian to hold his nose to raise military pay and supplies for him, which fully illustrates Ming's current scruples and weakness.

In this case, he does not need to worry that he will completely break up with Daming in the near future. As long as he is a little more submissive, he can still gain a few years of maneuvering time.

So after Yu Xiaotian knocked Zou Weilian off, he did not continue to drag it out. It was considered a favor to Xiong Wencan. At the end of February, he personally assembled his naval warships in Weitou Bay and killed animals.

The flag was announced to go out to sea and go south.

It makes sense to say that gold will shine sooner or later. Some people are born to do great things, and this cannot be denied.

Zheng Yiguan, who was driven out of the coast of Fujian by Yu Xiaotian in his early years, led his remaining troops to escape to the coastal areas of Guangdong and Guangxi. He first lived a homeless life on the coast of Guangdong for more than a year, and his men were almost completely scattered.

At the worst time, Zheng Yiguan had less than 200 men left under his command, and only a few ships. He was completely reduced to a small group of pirates.

But Zheng Yiguan was still somewhat capable. Later, he gradually established a firm foothold in Guangdong and began to gradually regain his strength. After several years of operation, he actually regained his strength.

Nowadays, Zheng Yiguan has become a force that cannot be ignored along the coasts of Guangdong and Guangdong. He controls Shangxiachuan Island and many small islands along the coast of Guangdong. His command has once again expanded to have 200 to 300 ships of various types and thousands of subordinates.

There are so many people.

Now that he has lost the Japanese trade route, and he no longer dares to provoke Yu Xiaotian easily, so he takes full advantage of his being a Catholic and being familiar with Europeans to carry out large-scale maritime trade in Guangdong and Guangxi.

They re-exported products from Guangdong and Guangxi to the Spanish and Dutch, including the Portuguese in Macau, and established contacts.

He also gave up his previous hostility to the Spanish, opened up a route to Manila, and started doing business with the Spanish. In addition, Zheng Yiguan was also a ruthless man. He could be said to do all kinds of evil along the coast of Guangdong, and it was really not easy to rob passing merchant ships.

Young Master, through the hard work of the past few years, he once again accumulated a fortune and re-armed his warships.

Because Yu Xiaotian suffered a huge loss, Zheng Yiguan fully realized the disadvantages of the weapons he had on hand. So in the past few years, he worked hard in the Guangdong area and tried every means to purchase various Western artillery to arm his warships.

In addition, he also spent a lot of money to purchase several nearly scrapped Western-style sailing ships from the Dutch and Portuguese.

After he obtained these ships, he put a lot of effort into repairing them to restore their navigation and combat capabilities, and installed a lot of cannons. With his methods, his men's combat power increased rapidly.

, by the seventh year of Chongzhen, he had clearly become one of the largest pirate forces in Guangdong, and had firmly established a foothold along the coast of Guangdong.

At this time, in the coastal areas of Guangdong, in addition to Zheng Yiguan, there were several other large-scale pirate forces. One of them must be said to be one of the members who historically formed an alliance with Zheng Yiguan to form the Eighteen Zhi.

One Liu Laoxiang, some people directly call him Liu Xiang.

It is a pity that in this era, Liu Xiang did not form an alliance with Zheng Yiguan, nor was he able to establish any Eighteen Zhi. Liu Xiang is still Liu Xiang, and Zheng Yiguan is still Zheng Yiguan. Although the two people know each other, their relationship is not good.

Especially after Zheng Yiguan was driven to Guangdong by Yu Xiaotian, Liu Xiang took the opportunity to recruit many of Zheng Yiguan's old men, and the two sides even forged a big feud, and there was no shortage of bad blood between them over the years.

Moreover, Liu Xiang started earlier than Zheng Yiguan in Guangdong. At the beginning of Chongzhen, it had grown to include thousands of people and hundreds of ships of various types. He controlled the Pearl River Estuary and regarded the Pearl River Estuary as a

His territory cannot be coveted by anyone.

The Pearl River Estuary is the outlet of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, and has always been an important place for merchant ships to enter and exit. Whoever controls this place can make a fortune.

Over the years, many people wanted to kill Liu Xiang and seize the Pearl River Estuary, but they were never able to kill Liu Xiang. On the contrary, Liu Xiang became stronger and stronger. By the end of the seventh year of Chongzhen, Liu Xiang's men had gathered large and small forces.

A group of twenty or thirty small pirates can mobilize more than ten thousand pirates.

Although Zheng Yiguan has risen again in recent years, there is nothing he can do against Liu Xiang. The two sides fight several battles every year, big and small. It can be said that each has its own victory or defeat, but no one can defeat the other, and they are always in a state of insecurity.

A stalemate.

Therefore, although there are many pirate forces along the coast of Guangdong, they are relatively in a delicate balance. Of course, among them are Yan Siqi and Chu Cai, who belong to Xiaotian's forces. Although they are both powerful,

They are not very strong, but with the support of Yu Xiaotian and relatively well-equipped equipment, there is really nothing that ordinary people can do against them.

Especially Yan Siqi's command now owns nearly 200 ships of various types, and there are at least dozens of large Fu ships and Guang ships that can be used as warships. Even Liu Laoxiang is very afraid of Yan Siqi.

, under normal circumstances, one would not dare to provoke Yan Siqi easily.

Of course Liu Xiang is also very aware of the situation in Fujian. Over the years, he was always a little unconvinced by Yu Xiaotian at first. He thought that why should Yu Xiaotian take over the huge coastal area of ​​Fujian? If you have wealth, everyone can make it cheap.

They were all taken by Yu Xiaotian.

Therefore, five years before Chongzhen, Liu Xiang had colluded with many pirate forces in Guangdong and tried many times to infiltrate into the coastal areas of Fujian to seize territory.

However, Yu Xiaotian has long regarded the Fujian coast as his forbidden territory and would not allow others to interfere with it. Therefore, over the years, it can be said that Liu Laoxiang and those Guangdong pirates have repeatedly invaded the Fujian coast, sometimes even just

As soon as they showed up, they were blocked by Yu Xiaotian's navy, who beat them in the face and fled back to Guangdong in disgrace.

Sometimes, in order to support thieves to respect themselves, Yu Xiaotian did not intercept them after discovering their intrusion. Instead, he opened an opening for them and let them go ashore to plunder. After they made the matter big, Yu Xiaotian sent

When people came to intercept them, Liu Laoxiang and the others often couldn't get much advantage, and they still worked for Yu Xiaotian for free.

So after going back and forth, Liu Xiang and the others also realized how powerful Yu Xiaotian was. Fujian was really not a place they could stay, so they never dared to cause trouble in Fujian again since the last time they invaded Fujian in the fifth year of Chongzhen.

Liu Xiang was deeply afraid of Xiaotian. He once hated Xiaotian and intercepted and killed Sea Wolf's merchant ships many times in the Guangdong area. However, after they did this several times, they found that even these Sea Wolf merchant ships were

They are very difficult to deal with and often have to pay a heavy price to capture the ship. This business is really not cost-effective.

That's not all. As long as they rob Sea Wolf's ship, retribution will come soon. There are always a group of unidentified clippers operating along the coast of Guangdong. Very few people know their identities, but these

However, some people know the shape of the clipper. This kind of clipper is called the Feihao clipper. It is a unique ship type of the Sea Wolf Group and can only be built by the Sea Wolf Group.

These clippers usually cruise along the coast of Guangdong and engage in ship robberies, but as soon as they learn that someone has robbed Sea Wolf's merchant ship, these ships will quickly gather together and begin to launch extremely brutal revenge on the person who caused the trouble.

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