Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 858 Under the pressure of soldiers, I did not forget to divide the Zheng family

On October 23, the 26rd year of Chongzhen, after 20 days of uninterrupted sailing day and night, the North Sea Fleet arrived in the coastal waters of Nagasaki Port, Japan. Fortunately, because the East China Sea has passed the storm period, the fleet did not encounter any dangerous waves during the voyage. .

After arriving near the destination, Li Dingguo immediately arranged for people to take a fast boat into the port, and through the left-behind personnel on the Jinghai Houfu ship that had been moored here, he got in touch with Zheng Qi, the chief steward of the Jinghai Houfu who was stationed in Nagasaki. And then brought it to Zhu Cihong's flagship "Qingzhou".

As the main implementer who was ordered to divide the internal forces in Japan and provoke civil strife in Japan, Zheng Qi traveled between Daming and Kyushu Island several times in the past year. The network of the vassal, extensively collected intelligence information about all aspects of Japan, and fed it back to the capital in a timely manner for the judges of the imperial court.

The news that the Falling Curtain Alliance was in disintegration was sent back to Daming by Zheng Qi.

After learning of the sudden internal strife in the Hirado clan, the killing of Tianchuan Yuhuang and others, and the return of several foreign daimyos one after another, Zheng Qi quickly judged that the prospect of this downfall operation was very bleak, and the imperial court's previous strategy was facing failure. Therefore, he immediately sent the news back to China to avoid major events being missed due to the slow transmission of information.

Based on Zheng Qi's pragmatic and rigorous style and attitude, as well as his achievements in the past year, Zhu Cihong specially came forward to meet him, and ordered the eunuch Zhao Xin to read out the awards given to him by the court.

Zheng Qi was first conferred as a doctor trained from the fifth rank, and the honorary rank was Xiezheng Shuyin, and the eldest son entered the Polytechnic Institute to study.

Although this kind of award is not actually granted, it at least shows the attitude of the court: meritorious service must be rewarded, regardless of origin.

Zheng Qi and Zheng Zhilong are close relatives who did not have the Five Fortunes. They have been with Zheng Zhilong since they were teenagers, taking care of all kinds of mundane affairs for him. They can be called Zheng Zhilong's right-hand men. Because of the reason, Zheng Qi has never left the Zheng family,
The cabinet suggested that Zhu Youjian's promotion of rewards was aimed at continuing to divide and disintegrate Zheng Zhilong's power, so that his main helpers could establish themselves one after another, and finally see the right time to stir up internal strife in the Zheng family and completely dissolve the Zheng family's influence on the sea.

Among the important officials in the court, quite a few people looked down on Zheng Zhilong, who was born as a pirate, and some even coveted the rich family property of the Zheng family, always thinking of finding the wrong place to overthrow the Zheng family, and then carve up its rich family property and sea channels. The prosecutor has been suppressing him, and the Marquis of Jinghai, who left his stable hometown and went to Beijing to seek safety, has long been wiped clean.

Zhu Youjian was well aware of the plans of some people in the court against the Zheng family, and it was all because of interests.

Under the premise that the strength of the navy has soared, the Zheng family has lost its original position of dominating the sea, and the imperial court has become less and less dependent on it. At this time, the Zheng family continues to monopolize the maritime trade with Japan and North Korea, and it has become the favor of many people. A thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh.

Weakening the Zheng family is what Zhu Youjian is happy to see happen, but it is limited to this. Zhu Youjian will never allow it to completely liquidate the Zheng family.

After all, the Zheng family helped him when he was in the most difficult time, and made indispensable contributions to saving him from the crisis.

It doesn't matter that the Zheng family monopolizes the sea trade routes in East Asia.

The prudent Zheng Zhilong has long ordered that all Zheng family fleets will no longer fly the Zheng family's flag and will no longer collect protection fees from other merchant ships.

He acts according to the law in everything, and is already a law-abiding citizen of Ming Dynasty, what else do you want?

As long as you pay taxes according to the regulations, do you care if he is a monopoly?
Trade is competition. If you are capable, you can sell Ming products to these two places. As for complaining that people only recognize products from the Zheng family, what does that have to do with the court?

Is it necessary for the court to order the Zheng family to give up the market?
Isn't this bullshit?

Did the imperial court open it for your family?

What do you want?
This time the imperial court awarded Zheng Qi the title of honor, which is a beautiful hand.

After the success of this matter in Japan, Zheng Qi returned to Jinghaihou Mansion, and Zheng Zhilong didn't dare to use him anymore.

Doctor Fengxun is an official of the imperial court from the five-rank system. If you are still in charge of the Hou Mansion, what are you, Zheng Zhilong, trying to do?

Are there any court rules?
As long as Zheng Qi stands on his own, no matter how close the two were before, suspicions will suddenly arise, Zheng Qi's connections will be taken away by him, and Zheng Zhilong's power will be further reduced.

First, Zheng Zhifeng became independent from the Zheng family, and now things are booming, followed by Zheng Qi, interspersed with some marginal figures attached to the Zheng family in the South China Sea Fleet who were promoted to the North Sea Fleet. Ba has only a skeleton left.

Zheng Qi never expected that he would be able to meet the distinguished Prince of Ming Dynasty in a distant foreign country, and he would be able to get such a big surprise. After kowtowing gratefully, Zheng Qi gave a brief introduction to the current situation.

The current situation is already very unfavorable to the coalition forces.

The rainy season in Kyushu Island last month has ended. After two months of full repair, the shogunate army, after the road condition recovered, divided into three groups and began to advance step by step to the southwest.

The strategy of the shogunate army was to divide the troops to attack the territory of the foreign daimyo who participated in the collapse of the curtain, so that the coalition forces of the collapse of the curtain could not gather to fight against them. This method of defeating each other quickly achieved results.

The Fujido clan was first besieged by the shogunate army. After struggling for several days, the Fujido family, which had only 1000 or [-] samurai, finally lost to the attack of the [-] shogunate army. Killing, the fields and belongings that have not yet been warmed in the hands have become other people's trophies in the blink of an eye. After more than half of the warriors were lost in battle, most of the rest chose to surrender.

Immediately afterwards, the slightly stronger Yamauchi Domain was also attacked by [-] shogunate troops. Yamauchi Quya led [-] samurai, and [-] Shogunate prisoners of war who had just been trained. After holding on to the domain for ten days, they were also breached. In the camp, Yamauchi Qu also took his two sons and part of his family property, and fled southward under the desperate protection of two hundred trusted warriors, but was still captured and killed by the shogunate cavalry after finding the trace a few days later.

After hearing the news that the shogunate army was about to approach the city, Matsuura Yuren, the head of the Matsuura family, fled southward with his family's property and [-] samurai when he knew he could not resist, and found him more than ten days later. The main force of the coalition forces that is being renovated in Chimu Town, Gongling County.

Before Teruma Ikeda and others could discuss the countermeasures, the main force of the shogunate army with 3 people had moved ten miles away. The two sides fought fiercely the next day, and the demoralized coalition forces were defeated again.

(End of this chapter)