The Prosperous Era of Longwan

The Fujian Navy and the Guangdong and Guangxi Navy worked together to encircle and suppress Zeng Yiben's pirates. The battle was successful. After the news spread to Fujian and Guangdong, the coastal counties were naturally rejoiced.

In the past two decades, it has been difficult for people in other places to understand the suffering suffered by the people here.

On the one hand, Japanese pirates and pirates were plundering, and on the other hand, in order to suppress Japanese pirates and bandits, the government continued to increase taxes and levies, which has triggered several civil riots.

But after Zeng Ben was captured, it looked like it was finally over.

Although the word "Japanese pirates" still often appears in court documents, everyone from the government to the common people knows that there are no more Japanese pirates. Under the encirclement and suppression by Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou, there are not many Japanese pirates left along the coast, and most of them have escaped the Japanese country. .

Most of the remaining Japanese pirates are attached to the banners of those big pirates, obeying their orders and becoming pawns.

Most of these people are unwilling to return to the Japanese country because they are wanted criminals designated by the major names in the Japanese country, and there is only a dead end if they go back.

So now, the government and the people mostly call them pirates instead of Japanese pirates.

This is actually the reason why the word "Japanese pirates" almost disappeared after the transition from the Jiajing Dynasty to the Longqing Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty.

However, the opening of the sea in Fujian has indeed played a role in eradicating the roots. Not many coastal boat people are willing to join the pirates. This allows the government to see the opportunity to eliminate these bandits who have long been entrenched on coastal islands and wreaked havoc on land and sea.

Among the three naval forces of the Ming Dynasty that entered the battlefield, the Fujian navy was naturally the most powerful. There were as many as 24 thousand-ton sealing ships, in addition to several Dafu ships.

The Guangxi Navy has the smallest number of ships. Although there are only a hundred ships, the large ships account for the vast majority, and the overall strength exceeds the Guangdong Navy, which only has 70 black ships.

Although the Guangdong Navy has a large number of warships, most of them are clippers and small boats, and their combat power is the weakest.

According to Yu Dayou's idea, the next step is for the joint fleet to continue southward along the mainland, passing through the coastal islands and reefs, leaving no room for pirates to survive, in order to completely eradicate the scourge of banditry.

In fact, at this time, pirates on the southeast coast were not banned and could not be banned, but this did not prevent local officials from reporting their merits to the court.

As a result, the memorials from Liu Tao, the governor of Fujian and Guangdong, and Tu Zemin, the governor of Fujian, were sent to the capital.

Yu Dayou did not send this news to Wei Guangde in advance, so he only knew about the war in Fujian.

But no matter what, this is a great victory, defeating the only remaining big pirate leader who is still active on the southeast coast. According to the memorial, the southeast coast will be fine for a long time.

"Besides reporting victory to the palace and discussing merit with the Ministry of War, what else should the court do?"

Li Chunfang was now older and worried that she might not think well and leave something unfinished, so she asked.

"That's probably all. We'd better send the memorial to the palace first. Your Majesty will probably be very happy to see it."

Chen Yiqin said.

"I just passed the grand parade in the suburbs of Beijing a few days ago, which greatly demonstrated the power of our Ming Dynasty. I didn't expect good news to come from the southeast so soon. It is God's blessing for the Ming Dynasty."

Yin Shizhen also said with a smile.

Zhang Juzheng frowned and thought for a moment, but quickly nodded without any intention of speaking.

The Ministry of War discussed meritorious service not only to reward meritorious soldiers, but also to provide compensation for casualties. Zhang Juzheng did not expect to do anything else for the time being.

As for the big pirate Zeng Yiben who was caught, the prosecutors in Fujian and Guangdong were afraid that they would start to arrest him, so they all wanted to take him to their own side for trial.

But thinking about it, the person who caught the person was Guo Cheng, the commander-in-chief of Guangdong. There was a high probability that the person he arrested would be handed over to the Guangdong Police Department. The Fujian side was destined to be disappointed.

But to the people in the cabinet, these local achievements are trivial and they don't care.

It's just that Wei Guangde doesn't see it that way. He will not intervene in the trial. Instead, he will consider the aftermath of the southeastern coastal provinces and counties after the Japanese invasion subsides.

Don’t forget, in order to suppress the Japanese, the imperial court liberalized its policies to these places, allowing them to raise money to train militia groups, etc. Most of the excess tax money was taken away by Hu Zongxian, the governor of the Japanese suppression, even though the imperial court had issued an order to stop it. , but Wei Guangde would not believe that these taxes and money would really not be collected.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde felt that he should say something. Don't wait two years for someone to cause trouble in the coastal counties in the southeast due to this matter.

Now that we have done it, even if local governments continue to go their own way, it has little to do with the cabinet and is considered local corruption.

“On the imperial court’s side, it would be best to make it clear to the southeastern provinces and counties that taxes and levies should be restored to the level of the 32nd year of Jiajing, and new tax assessments should be prohibited.

The Metropolitan Procuratorate should also send more censors to monitor and patrol to prevent local officials from having inappropriate thoughts.

At present, the banditry in the southeast has been eliminated, and everything is waiting for improvement. There can be no more chaos. "

Although Wei Guangde did not specify what to prevent, the words "returning to the taxes and services of the 32nd year of Jiajing" were enough for all cabinet ministers to understand his concerns.

Speaking of which, in the past few years of the Ming Dynasty, most of the troubles occurred in Fujian and Guangdong. Most of them were because of taxes, and people were forced to go up the mountains to steal.

If there is an ambitious one among the bandit leaders, there will be big trouble.

As for the ethnic minority rebellions in Guangxi, Guizhou, Huguang, Sichuan and other places, that is of another nature. The imperial court has never found an effective way to resolve the relationship between the government and the chieftains.

In other places such as Shanxi and Shandong, the White Lotus Sect also causes chaos.

But these are really different from those in Fujian and Guangdong. They can be prevented. It depends on local officials.

"The words of Shan Lian are reasonable, but this matter still needs to be dealt with by the Ministry of Personnel and the Metropolitan Procuratorate. It has been in chaos for twenty years, and the people need to rest and recuperate."

Li Chunfang praised Wei Guangde's words. She only thought about official issues, but forgot that the people there were actually the most miserable and needed the most attention from the court, so she immediately agreed.

With his words, there was naturally no need for other people to discuss it anymore, and the matter was finally settled.

"Then let's go to Qianqing Palace together and report our victory to His Majesty."

If the battle was defeated, Li Chunfang would definitely not want to go, but would leave the errand to Chen Yiqin.

But this time the battle was won, and the Fujian writing was also very beautiful. It even bluntly stated that the Japanese invasion in the southeast had been eliminated. I think Emperor Longqing would be very happy when he saw this memorial.

As for why he didn't send it there alone, it was also due to Li Chunfang's character.

Since it is a good thing, everyone should go over to congratulate the emperor.

So, under the leadership of Li Chunfang, several people in the room left the cabinet and rushed directly to Qianqing Palace to report the victory.

It was only more than half a month later that Yu Dayou learned about the victory documents sent to the court by Governor Li Tao and Governor Tu Zemin. Thinking of the actual situation on the southeast coast, he hurriedly wrote a letter to Wei Guangde, describing the situation in the southeast in detail, and also Write down some of your own analysis.

It wasn't until he read Yu Dayou's letter that Wei Guangde finally understood why the Japanese invasion, which caused a lot of trouble in the Jiajing Dynasty, quickly disappeared in the Longqing Dynasty.

Not only because of the influence of the Longqing switch, the real situation is that the imperial court has captured big pirates and big Japanese pirate groups in the encirclement and suppression in recent years, and has wiped out several of the most powerful bandits, leaving only some remnants and small fish and small fish. shrimp.

These remaining people no longer have the strength to carry out any activities on land to attack the government and seize the county. It has become difficult to even invade the coastal fishing villages.

After all, whether it was Qi Jiguang in the past or Yu Dayou now, as well as Li Xi, Guo Cheng and others, after more than ten years of training in the war against Japanese invaders, the coastal counties have already figured out a set of methods to deal with the enemy situation at sea.

Often Japanese pirates would be discovered when they were close to the seaside, and then they would set off beacon fires and summon the surrounding Ming troops and famous regiments to come to the rescue.

For a small group of pirates with only a dozen or dozens of pirates, it is no longer possible.

They dare not look at the land of the Ming Dynasty, but they also know how to keep pace with the times and change their way of survival.

In the past two years, the port has been open, and there have been more merchant ships along the coast. Therefore, pirates have changed from attacking governments and plundering counties to rob money, and now they only do business on the sea and rob merchant ships.

Merchant ships going to sea are inherently dangerous. Even if the merchant ship is captured by pirates, relatives on land will only think that it is a shipwreck.

After all, navigation technology is really bad these days. Don’t think that the West has just begun the age of navigation and thinks that sea-ship technology and navigation technology are very good. In fact, there are really many sunken ships sinking under the oceans around the world, including regular ships. A large fleet of treasure ships that traveled between the Spanish mainland and its overseas colonies, transporting European goods to the American colonies and transporting colonial products, especially gold and silver, back to the mother country.

Although many contents in Yu Dayou's letters are quite different from what Fujian officials reported, Wei Guangde still feels that what Yu Dayou said should be more true.

After all, one of Liu Tao and Tu Zemin was the governor and the other a governor. In fact, they were already somewhat separated from the grassroots level, and many situations may not be known to them.

But Yu Dayou is different. He has been drifting on the sea recently, leading naval warships from Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces to suppress bandits. Of course, he has a better understanding of the actual situation if he has been down there.

After thinking for a moment, Wei Guangde felt that although this letter was written by Yu Dayou to him, there was nothing inappropriate in it, so he planned to take this letter to the cabinet tomorrow and let several cabinet ministers read it to know the true situation in the southeast.

The main reason why he considered doing this was because Wei Guangde planned to form the Ming Dynasty Navy, using these three-province naval warships as the backbone.

You must know that the military power of the Ming Dynasty was a system established by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. Although there were some changes during the Chengzu period, the general framework remained unchanged, and the system was mainly based on the Weisuo system.

The navy of the Ming army was a garrison along the coast and on rivers. It was composed of officers and soldiers who were familiar with water. There was no specialized navy unit. Even the Chaohu Navy, which helped Zhu Yuanzhang conquer the world, was this unit for Zhu Yuanzhang. He was very effective in seizing control of Jiangnan, but after he became emperor, the navy was still not the main military force of the Ming Dynasty.

But the situation is different now. The opening of the sea in the Ming Dynasty means that there will be a large number of sea ships along the coast.

Although the Ming Dynasty has only opened one trading port in Yuegang, there are merchants from Guangdong, Zhejiang and other places who go to sea, but they only transport goods from various places by sea ships to Yuegang for trading.

As for what will happen to the ship after it goes to sea, it is unknown.

However, merchant ships from all over the world applied for ship diversion from the government, and their destination was Yuegang.

There are many merchant ships at sea, but Wei Guangde knows who these merchants are.

Whether the ship will be a merchant or a pirate after it goes to sea is all in their minds.

Such chaos naturally requires the court to control it. The Ming Navy took this opportunity to make Yu Dayou officially the admiral of the Ming Navy.

Just like Qi Jiguang's military training as prime minister, Yu Dayou's current admiral position is only a temporary official position.

As for whether to name it "Royal", Wei Guangde felt that it was unnecessary, because the Navy's military expenses should be specially allocated by the Ministry of War.

In the current navy, shipbuilding expenses come from the court and local governments, but most of them are borne by local governments.

These all need to establish rules, such as how much taxes the coastal provinces must provide each year, and how much military pay the Ministry of War must allocate. Only by setting rules can we ensure that the Ming Dynasty Navy will always exist independently and will no longer be a temporary force composed of provincial guards.

Cabinet, Li Chunfang is in charge of the house.

Several cabinet ministers took turns reading Yu Dayou's letters and knowing the true situation in Southeast, but they were all silent.

"Everyone knows that now Japanese pirates and pirates don't come ashore to cause harassment, but they are still active on the sea. This is undoubtedly a great threat to our Ming Dynasty merchant ships.

These businessmen are, after all, members of my Ming Dynasty.

If they committed crimes and committed crimes, they would be punished by the court's laws, but since they were leading a boat out to sea, the court would naturally protect them.

Therefore, our Ming Dynasty now needs to build a huge naval fleet to patrol various sea areas and protect the navigation of the Ming Dynasty fleet. "

Wei Guangde was standing in the middle and spoke to everyone.

“It’s understandable to establish the Ming Dynasty Navy and protect shipping lanes, but where does the money come from?

It can be said that the warships in various provinces do not need money from the court, but what about in the future?

These warships will have to be replaced sooner or later, and the court also needs to pay military salaries to the navy officers and soldiers. "

Zhang Juzheng said.

"Military pay can always be squeezed out if you squeeze."

Wei Guangde replied directly, "As for the military expenses for ship repair and shipbuilding, the imperial court will bear some, and the southeast coast will also bear some. After all, the navy was established to protect their safety.

With the navy around, they don't have to worry about any more threats from the sea. "

"Shandai, I also know about the situation in the southeast. We really need a fleet to maintain the safety of sea routes, but you keep talking about the southeast. My Ming Dynasty is not only located in the southeast."

Chen Yiqin frowned and said.

"The Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong naval divisions will form the southern navy, and the Denglai navy will form the northern navy. In this way, there will be a sea defense along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, and Japanese pirates will become history and never reappear."

Wei Guangde said, "Furthermore, according to my review of classics, Xiaoliuqiu has never had a so-called king among the countries that Taizu decided not to conquer in the early Ming Dynasty, so naturally it cannot be called a country.

According to the news from Fujian, this small Liuqiu island is huge, with suitable land for building a port in both the north and south. The trees on the island are also dense, which can be used to build more warships.

In the past, it was a place where pirates were harbored. It was just right for Yu Dayou to lead his troops to occupy it in the name of suppressing bandits. It could be used as a base for the Southern Navy, which could be regarded as opening up territory. "

Xiaoliuqiu is Taiwan. Wei Guangde knows the history of later generations, so of course he will not give up this land, and naturally he will not leave it to others.

Incorporating it into the territory of the Ming Dynasty is also considered an achievement.