Dominate the Country

[Thanks to ‘Kangkangyou’ for the 1,000-coin reward]

Qiongzhou Fucheng, Qiongshan. The bright blood tiger flag was already flying at the top of the city. Two days ago, a team of Lu Yong under the banner of Southeast Navy entered the city. The Qiongzhou magistrate, Tongzhi and others surrendered. Except for the professors and instructors, everyone else was as happy as a lamb, busy with the Fuhan army.

There was no war or artillery fire. Except for the relatives of the green camp soldiers in Qiongzhou Town who cried and worried, the people all breathed a sigh of relief. They knew that the war was far away from them.

In Qiongshan City, the Li family is still closed, with smiles on the faces of adults and children. The Li family feels so happy now that their heavy burden has been lifted. The adults had smiles on their faces, and the children naturally started to smile as well.

After months of suffering and waiting, the Li family's father, son, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were finally able to completely let go of the burden on their hearts.

They no longer have to hide in Tibet, fearing every day that officers and soldiers will suddenly break in, arrest all six members of their family, and behead them. The Li family's little life can finally be truly peaceful and fertile, if they are willing to continue to remain anonymous in this place far away from the Central Plains.

Of course, when the old worries fade away, new ones come back.

The Li family's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law thought it was time for them to reveal their identities and recognize their relatives.

The daughter of his Li family was Chen Han's Mrs. Lu Gong, who gave birth to Chen Han's future crown prince's only heir. Then the daughter of his Li family will be the queen and empress of Chen Han in the future; the grandson and nephew of his Li family will be the crown prince, crown prince and eventually the emperor of Chen Han in the future.

The Li family should not be the ordinary common people they are now, doing business that although it is an elegant thing, it is still a low-level business. They should be Chen Han's in-laws and future uncles of the country, enjoying endless glory and wealth.

After all, Mother Li wanted to see her daughter. Li Xiaomei's sister-in-law had always been on good terms with her, but at this time, they were thinking more about glory and wealth, and the future of their children.

It's just that the Li family's father and son are a little embarrassed.

"When the Chen family was in crisis, my family only cared about their own safety and fled to another country. Now that the Chen family is rich, they are shameless to seek marriage. Where is the shame? Where is the shame?"

"This is what a scoundrel does by breaking his skin, and he is not worthy of being a son of man."

Li Xiucai gave death orders to his wife and daughter-in-law. Anyone who dared to reveal his identity must not be a member of his Li family. Although he had been tossing and turning every night for the past two days, his tone of voice did not relax at all.

In private, when her daughter-in-law and grandchildren were away, Mother Li cried and scolded Li Xiucai as a "cruel thing." "My daughter is also the flesh and blood that fell from my belly. How could she be so cruel and not let our mother and daughter meet after we have been separated for many years?" Of course Li Xiucai knew the real reason for her suffering, which was that she closed her eyes and refused to speak. Her mother was so angry that she said to him more than once: "I want to save face and suffer."

"Thousands of fertile fields are worth just three meals a day; thousands of mansions are worth just three feet of bed." When Li Xiucai responded, he would often stick his neck out and put this proverb on his lips.

But no matter what, Qiongzhou became the territory of the Fuhan Army, and the knife over the heads of the Li family was gone.

Li Xiaomei, who is far away in Lushan, has no idea that because of the stubbornness of her father and brother, especially her father, her meeting with her family has been postponed for an unknown amount of time...

"Drive, drive, drive..."

Today, in the land of Guangdong, batches of fast horses are weaving like shuttles, carrying detailed news from various places to Guangzhou.

Flying pigeons are indeed very fast, but their carrying capacity is limited, and the official documents and reports in some places are all very thick.

Chen Ming admires data. Today's local affairs mostly involve changes in numbers. If you can have data, you must have data, and the data must be as detailed as possible. So every time the memorials were sent, they were in a thick pile.

Flying pigeons were used to convey messages only for urgent reports, and official documents still required fast horses.

Chen Ming didn't care about the progress of the war in the west. Just like when he was in Fuzhou two months ago, he was completely immersed in thick documents.

All the manors, stores, etc. that were confiscated in various places were sold, especially in Guangzhou.

As the most famous city in the south, the water here is very muddy and deep. Foreign bureaucrats, the local garrison Eight Banners, and even the claws extending from the city of Beijing, the entire city of Guangzhou is connected to the four gates. After a careful search of each shop, it was found that they were closely related to the Eight Banners and the Manchu bureaucrats. More than 3,000 large and small stores were confiscated by the confiscationer, and there were five to six hundred large and small houses and villas. These were all high-end shops and houses, not to mention a complete city.

Chen Ming felt that several of the houses and manors outside the city were not inferior to those in Jiangnan. Moreover, you can often see some Western-style carvings and even buildings in the manors built by wealthy businessmen in Guangdong. He left all the houses he particularly loved.

There are many wealthy merchants in Guangdong. The shops in Guangzhou are like the storefronts in the prosperous stage of the 21st century. They will not be easily transferred. The Fu Han Army is now selling shops and stores, which immediately attracted the attention of countless wealthy families in the province. The one who is close to the water gets the moon first. Chen Ming also deliberately cut off Lu Shan's attention to Guangzhou. A large amount of local funds and silver rushed to Guangzhou like water. Even foreigners are quite interested in the shops sold in Guangzhou. They paid a lot of money to buy some of them and posted recruitment notices. If nothing unexpected happens, a group of "foreign companies" will really appear in Guangzhou before next year!

The fat meat in Shanghai and Ningbo has made the direct descendants of the Chen family full. They only ate a little bit of the shops and manors in Guangzhou. There are many good things in the world, and they can't always expect them to eat them first.

...

Jin Hui leaned under the shade of a camphor tree and looked at the Fu Han Army sailors gathered on the dock from a distance. Under the trees here, there were ragged dock laborers everywhere, so Jin Hui, who was dressed in the same way and had a strong body, didn't look very eye-catching. No one would have thought that he was a spy under the Guangzhou Sticking Rod Office.

Jin Hui was looking at the large sailing ship parked at the port. This was bought by Chen Ni from the foreigners. It was really tall and big. The Ting ship next to it seemed to be very large in the past, but compared with this large sailing ship, it became like a little brother.

Chen Ni seemed to have only such a large Western sailing ship now, but the news circulating in the market was that they had hired shipbuilders from the foreigners to build such a large sailing ship themselves. In the future, Chen Ni's advantage on the sea will be more and more behind Da Qingguo. And more importantly, what exactly is the fire dragon bomb they use in naval battles?

Jin Hui's heart was full of worries about the future. No matter how powerful the cavalry of the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners is, it is not as powerful as on the sea.

On the training ship named Nanhai No. 1, the thick and long gun barrels under the gun windows revealed a breathtaking power. Although there are only sixteen of these cannons, each of them is a twenty-jin cannon. There are twelve movable small cannons on the deck of the ship. Although it is only a medium-sized armed merchant ship, the number of cannons seems to be only twice that of the large Thunder Ship. Not to mention rockets, the pure artillery combat capability is far beyond the sum of the two large Thunder Ships.

Jin Hui was full of worries. Chen Ni has already started to build such a large ship. If the court in the north still builds small warships such as Ganzheng Ship, Shuttle Ship, and Thunder Ship, how can they be used?

Moreover, Chen Ni can build such a powerful warship, which also shows that their strength in shipbuilding is very strong. Otherwise, Chen Ming, the thief, would not think of imitating this place.

Jin Hui is now working as a coolie at the dock. The Huangpu dock is divided into two, one for civilian use and the other for military use. Of course, he didn't need to do anything big on the civilian side. Now Xiao Jian, the thief, is the head of the Guangdong Police Department, and he is squatting in Guangzhou to keep watch. The higher-ups have already sent down the message, be careful and lurk, and do not act without orders.

Jin Hui is now carefully remembering the number of ships coming and going in Huangpu every day, and then watching the changes in the number of warships of the Fu Han Army Navy anchored here. Apart from that, he can only chat with the contact not far away.

Of course, they are when there is no one around.

The Fu Han Army sailors on the dock gradually dispersed, and Jin Hui's hawk-like eyes followed a person closely - Pan Zhencheng's eldest son Pan Youneng. This Pan Youneng joined the rebel party with his father, and everyone in the sticking office of the Pan family's portraits knew them by heart, and they would never make a mistake. At this time, Pan Youneng was walking slowly while chatting with a tall and thin foreigner.

Pan Youneng was wearing a very strange black military uniform - a simple, tight-fitting outfit with a well-cut design. There is a pocket with a lid and buttons on the left and right sides of the top, and the bottom is straight pants. The designer of this kind of clothing is the famous Chen Lugong. It is said that Chen Ming simply considered simplicity, neatness, and convenience, combined with the traditional Chinese short coat and the Qing Dynasty's Ma Gua, and absorbed the characteristics of its double doors and buttons, changing the buttons from traditional coiled buttons to wooden buttons, and the same is true for pants. Add buckles and belt loops, and tie them with belt loops. It is more convenient to wear than traditional Hanfu, saves more time, and is more suitable for the army.

This thing is the new military uniform that the Fu Han Army just started to change in autumn. Chen Han did not promote it widely among the people. However, this style of Fu Han was spread from Henan to Wuhan in just two or three months, from Huguang to Jiangnan, and then from Hunan Jiangnan to Fujian and Guangdong.

Ordinary people don't care about Hanfu or not, nor do they care about tradition or not. They pay attention to "thrift".

Local scholars don't pay much attention to this. Chen Han did not promote this kind of clothing among the people, it was just the dress in the army. It can't be considered as "changing clothes".

The "Hu clothing and horse riding" of King Wuling of Zhao in China laid the most solid "theoretical foundation" for the current military uniform change of the Fu Han Army.

In this way, the common people began to wear this kind of clothing, and this kind of military-style clothing obviously saves much more cloth than traditional Han clothing. In addition, the Chen Han court did not have any restrictions on it, it was completely spontaneous among the people, so it didn't matter to Chen Han.

Chen Ming didn't pay attention, and the new clothes actually became popular little by little in the area controlled by Chen Han.

Guangzhou is a city where China has the deepest contact with the West, and its people are the most developed. Among the merchants who mainly engage in foreign trade business, some people have started to make such clothes, but they don’t wear them every day. The Pan family is one of them!

Foreigners in China also feel that this thing has some similarities with their clothes, but in comparison, it is more concise. Some foreigners even ordered more than one set.

The tall and thin foreigner was wearing a black tuxedo, a silk white shirt inside, and a bow tie. There was an attendant standing in front and behind him. The two men were dressed the same, but the tuxedos on them were far less suitable than the tall and thin foreigner. Judging from the physique and walking posture of these two people, they should be foreign soldiers on foreign ships. The hands of the two people have been placed on their waists intentionally or unintentionally, and there is a piece of bulge there. If the guess is right, there must be a flintlock pistol inside. And it is definitely good ammunition.

"What a bunch of unsavory country bumpkins, so lenient to the barbarians, the whole city of Guangzhou is open. If you grow up with your heart, be careful of being bitten back by the foreigners." Jin Hui slandered Chen Han's foreign trade policy in his heart. Pan Youneng was an official of Chen Han after all, and he actually came to the dock to greet a foreigner, which was really shameful!

Maybe one day..., Jin Hui's mind emerged with a huge fleet that was endless. Chen Han fed the hearts of foreigners, and maybe one day he would really attract a large fleet of foreigners, and then Chen Han would know what the consequences would be.

Because the entire Qing Dynasty was in confrontation with Zheng Ming at the time of its founding, and during the reign of Kang Mazi, the Tsarist Russia first moved to the northeast and then moved to Junggar, which made the Qing rulers full of vigilance and rejection of foreigners. In the 22nd year of Qianlong, the rest of the trading ports were abolished, all foreign trade was concentrated in Guangzhou, and foreign ships were prohibited from going north. That is the best proof.

As a beneficiary of the Qing Dynasty's rule, Jin Hui certainly agrees with the Qing Dynasty's philosophy - foreigners are a disaster, be careful and beware!

The tall and thin foreigner and Pan Youneng were talking and laughing loudly, and it seemed that they were talking about something very happy.

Pan Youneng didn't know that he had just been stared at by a poisonous snake, but this poisonous snake was a semi-hibernating poisonous snake, hiding in the dark, quietly watching the prey pass by in front of him, without showing his sharp fangs.

Pan Zhencheng finally chose to be an official, but not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but the newly established Foreign Trade Department of the Industry and Commerce Bureau. He also brought his eldest son Pan Youneng in, and the family business was handed over to the second son Pan Youwei. The person who came to the port to greet Pan Youneng this time was no one else, but a senior business of the Dutch East India Company sent by Batavia.

The great changes in South China had a huge impact, especially the flag raised by the Fu Han Army, which made all the Chinese in Southeast Asia ecstatic. Even the Dutch knew that the new king of Sulu, Abu Beka, had planned to send envoys to China again to pay tribute. At that time, the King of Sulu, Mahavian Roulu, sent envoys to the Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty to pay tribute to local products and a parcel of land, and requested to include the population in the Chinese map, but was rejected by Qianlong. The relationship between the two sides continued until the 28th year of Qianlong, when the King of Sulu sent envoys to pay tribute to China again. It has only been six or seven years since then.

And this is the long-lasting influence of China in the Nanyang region.

Although the Spaniards and the Dutch have entered Nanyang for 200 years, they have never been able to completely eliminate China's influence from Nanyang. Although the Sulu Archipelago is the sphere of influence of the Spanish, the Dutch are still happy to see the Spanish frowning. But how small will the impact on Batavia be?

You know, it has only been 30 years since the Hongxi Massacre. The blood of more than 20,000 Chinese has not completely dried.

The Dutch will not worry that the Chinese emperor of the Qing Dynasty will settle accounts with them, because the rulers of the Qing Dynasty are Tatars. The Qing government had always ignored the Chinese in Southeast Asia, but they could not help but worry that the Chen Han would brandish swords and guns against them, because the Chen Han was the most orthodox Han dynasty. The banner they raised when they started the army was to restore the traditional glory and rights of the Han people.

When the news that Guangzhou was captured by the Fu Han Army reached Batavia, the Dutch in Batavia felt a heavy pressure. Unlike the Chinese inside and outside the city who were very happy, the Batavia authorities felt very urgent. The more happy the Chinese inside and outside the city were, the greater the "invisible pressure" they felt. The Dutch urgently convened a council. Finally, they sent Fike Dekelma, a senior business officer, to China and Guangzhou.

"Vigilance is really high." Jin Hui sighed secretly. In addition to the two foreign soldiers, Pan Youneng was guarded by four people with hand guns and knives. Although the sticking pole was always in a lurking state after the Fu Han Army captured Guangzhou, who would forget their lethality?

Pan Youneng and his group walked for more than a quarter of an hour before Jin Hui lazily stood up, stretched his waist and walked out of the port. It was noon, time to eat.

A very ordinary rice noodle stall.

"These rebels are really well prepared." Jin Hui said as he picked up rice noodles and put them into his mouth.

"Be honest. We have informants watching us here." A short middle-aged man in his thirties with wrinkles on his face, who looked like he was suffering from the pressure of life, lowered his head and said: "From my observation, there are four people watching this dock. They are quite experienced and definitely veterans. I just don't know if they are from the police station or the secret camp." I don't know if it's a momentary impulse or a long-term concern.

"Keep your eyes open recently and don't let anyone see the flaws."

...

In Guangzhou, on the left side of the former governor's office, a new door was opened on the tall red wall, with a sign of the police department hanging next to it.

Going inside, to Xiao Jian's office, a confidential map was spread out on his desk.

On it was a map of Guangzhou, with many places marked with small circles in red pen, some with more and some with less, some with larger and some with smaller. Among them, the three circles with the most strokes were on the Huangpu Wharf!