Lu Ming

Chapter 329 Liu Xiang's Anxiety

Liu Xiang was born on Lamma Island, but he made his fortune in the Chaoshan area, so just like Zheng Zhilong regarded Anping as his old nest, he is also a local snake in the Chaoshan area.And the main force of Liu Xiang's gang is now entrenched around Dahao Island at the mouth of the Haojiang River.

It has been less than half a year since the Li Kuiqi Group was destroyed. After a series of trials and integrations, the power structure in the South China Sea has stabilized.

With the blockade of Xiamen, Penghu, and Tainan as the boundary, the Cantonese pirates in the south are now unable to step over the thunder pool. As for the Fujian pirates who were all-powerful in the past, they have long since disappeared.

The whole of Fujian is based in Fuzhou and Xiamen, and the subordinates of "Da Ming Fujian's branch guarding Xiamen and other coastal defense generals and acting deputy generals Cao Chuan" have used the method of pulling nets to screen the coastal areas countless times, forcibly creating a A great situation of stability and unity.

However, this situation is extremely bad for traditional pirates, such as Liu Xiang.

Things have to start from that war.

After Li Kuiqi's gang was destroyed that day, a large number of scattered pirates went south and defected to Liu Xiang's gang who were watching the situation in Dongshan Bay.

Luckily, shopkeeper Liu, who had escaped the catastrophe, not only got battle reports from the fugitives while his strength expanded rapidly, but he also frequently sent spies to the Xiamen area to inquire, feeling a little eager to try.After all, the north has become a mess, and the men under him are expanding, so a normal person would have an idea.

However, within a few days, Liu Xiang changed his original intention and led his troops south to Chaoshan—this was tantamount to shrinking his head strategically, and Liu Dadao gave up his intention to disturb the troubled waters in Xiamen.

What led him to make a decision was the hard power constantly displayed by the opponent.

First of all, the warships of the traversers are gradually revealing their terrifying side.

Originally, from Liu Xiang's ears, the so-called Cao's warship that suddenly appeared was just a Chinese-style apprentice of a Westerner's plywood ship.

If this kind of opponent is dealt with seriously, the brothers still have a way. At the beginning, Zheng Zhilong didn't let the red-haired man please him.

However, things are completely different from what they imagined.When shopkeeper Liu sent his scout horse back, he felt as if he had played an ice bucket challenge: his whole body was cold.

The spies are all old brothers, and they will never exaggerate: fast as galloping horses, warships with sharp guns are chasing and killing the remnants of the enemy in Zhangzhou Bay.

Indeed, it took only a few days for the officers and soldiers to wipe out and crush the gang of tens of thousands of people, and the latter had no power to fight back.

This kind of unheard-of mode of suppressing bandits like chopping melons and vegetables is beyond the understanding of Liu Xiang's team - naval battles in the Middle Ages were not fought like this, even if the pirates are defeated for a while, they should be entangled for a period of time Only then will the winner be decided.

It was this model that Zheng Zhilong fought with officers and soldiers in Tongshan.

At this time, Liu Xiang had no choice but to improve his understanding of Cao's gunboat to an unprecedented level.

But where is this?When more spies came back, Liu Xiang received another piece of bad news: Cao's gunboats could sail against the wind, like galloping horses.
After hysterically verifying the authenticity of the news N times, the treasurer finally figured out the real strength of the opponent, and also figured out the reason why this naval battle was so weird.

At this time, the pirate leaders who had thought a lot at first shut up one by one and became younger brothers.No one knows better than the pirates what sailing against the wind means: no matter how the Cao fleet that suddenly appeared did it, in short, the current situation is not good.

And Liu Xiang, as a big treasurer who controls tens of thousands, judging the strength gap between the enemy and ourselves is his basic skill.So he quickly issued an order for the whole group to prepare for the battle.This is not to fish in the troubled waters of Zhangzhou Bay, but to go south at any time.

Soon, two more messages came.

One: The officers and soldiers have given out real gold and silver rewards like never before, and the coast of Zhangzhou Bay is now in a desperate situation.The pirates who used to be able to rest and recuperate in the villages were all caught and sent to Xiamen to receive their rewards.

Two: There are strange ships cruising near Tai O Bay.

After Liu Xiang heard the two messages, she knew it was aimed at him.Although shopkeeper Liu can't say the words "the vast ocean of the people's war", he understands the meaning: the remaining pirates in Zhangzhou Bay have already been punished, and the officers and soldiers have begun to free up their hands and plan to go south!
Tai O Bay is located between Xiamen and Dongshan Bay where Liu Xiang is entrenched, not far away.Shopkeeper Liu, who felt the deep crisis, did not hesitate at this time, and immediately led a large number of gangsters southward from Dongshan Bay, and went straight to Chaoshan to avoid the sharp edge of the government and army.

Before leaving the voyage, the shopkeeper silently glanced at the north: he had a premonition that it would be very difficult to go to Fujian to "do business" in the future.

Bad premonitions always come true.When a large group of people came to Chaoshan to rest, shopkeeper Liu, who was still receiving information continuously, found that the situation was slipping in the direction he guessed.

After clearing Zhangzhou Bay, Cao's soldiers with hairy hair soon forced the Zheng family's trash to surrender, and wiped out Zheng Zhilong's hard-earned family fortune.

After getting the news, Mr. Liu couldn't help but let out a long sigh: Although everyone has been dirty in the past, there is no doubt that Liu Xiang still respects Zheng Yiguan as a hero.Now that he learns that the Zheng family has collapsed, he is also saddened by the death of a rabbit and a fox, with sympathy and sympathy.

After that, the Cao family started building large-scale projects in Zhongzuo Institute to expand the port, just like the master's house.

At this moment, Liu Xiang could only smile wryly again: Zheng Zhilong had described the scene after the recruitment to everyone more than once.Now that Zhilong has passed away, Zhongzuo Institute has been taken over by the Cao family, and it is still carrying out large-scale construction projects. It is really unpredictable!
Liu Xiang, who retreated to Chaoshan, formed a team and kept going to Xiamen, including sending many spies to Taiwan: now no one dares to underestimate this unknown force.

However, in the next six months, Shopkeeper Liu gradually became a patient with mild depression.

What caused him to be extremely depressed was a series of "friction" events that could be called "supernatural".

After the Chaoshan reorganization is completed, the gang, which has swelled to 2 million people, is ready to "work".

Work is a must.The daily consumption of tens of thousands of people staying there is a big number. What do you eat if you don't work?
However, today is different from the past: before finding out the details of the powerful enemy in the north, the big gang naturally dare not try their frontiers again.Therefore, while Liu Xiang led the main force to go south to Guangdong to find food, he left behind some teachers to try Cao's skills.

In history, after Zheng Zhilong occupied Xiamen in Zhao'an, he was not finished—he then carried out a series of hacking and killing of old brothers. It was not until the last Liu Xiang was finished that the Zheng family officially unified the sea.

The process of "cutting down the vassal" is very long.Liu Xiang died in 1635, that is to say, it took Zheng Zhilong 7 years to get all the pirate hills in Fujian and Guangdong.

During these seven years, Liu Xiang looted and plundered the coastal areas including Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang provinces many times, burning and killing everything he went, and his destructive power was extremely strong.

From this point, it can be seen that the range of effective coastal defenses in the Middle Ages was very small: after Zheng Zhilong occupied Xiamen, Liu Xiang and other pirates led crowds to invade and plunder along the coast of Fujian many times.

This is tantamount to swaggering past the gate of Zheng's defense area. However, Zheng's does not have the kind of strict sea blockade ability-hostile pirates, and a large group of pirates can easily bypass Xiamen and go to Fujian in the north. Zhejiang coast.

So after the traversing crowd occupied Xiamen, Liu Xiang also acted in the same way as in history.

Of course, there is still the respect that should be given, after all, the strength demonstrated by the Kun people is not comparable to that of Zheng Zhilong in history.Therefore, before Liu Xiang led the main force to Guangdong, he deliberately arranged several groups of varying numbers of troops to invade the coast of Fujian from different routes.

If the traversers are unable to cope, then tens of thousands of people will come to help them later.Yes, it's an easy round of trial and error without getting pregnant.

However, any seemingly normal traditional methods will not work when encountering a certain mysterious force.

After snatching a few at the mouth of the Pearl River, shopkeeper Liu, who was thinking about his next move, became pregnant on the spot when he received the newsletter—all the divisions he sent out were wiped out.

There are more or less people in these divisions, and the most is a gang of 500 boats with 10 people.The remaining two groups have fewer people and ships, but they are all elite pirates who are familiar with the sea conditions in Fujian and Guangdong and have experienced many battles.

However, things are so weird: whether they are going on the Xiamen line, the Penghu line, or the middle line of the strait, the three pirates have different departure times and are not in contact with each other. All of them were intercepted by enemy ships on the Xiamen line, and then many In this way, he fed Neptune.

The battle scene was extremely short, and the Liu family pirates finally experienced the powerlessness that Li Kuiqi had experienced before: the No. 1 Youguang-class ship, which ignored the wind direction, surrounded 10 Chinese ships in the sea with only one ship , Keep bombarding around the circle.The pirates on the ship were like chickens in a cage and were beaten to death with dense artillery within the circle.

The so-called running around is of no use at all: it's like chasing an old cow with a fast horse. It sank in the sea.

The 1-on-10 battle ended like this, and the pirates felt very unreal.

The encounters of the other two small groups of people were similar: two patrol ships equipped with only a few artillery pieces easily captured the five pirate ships, and all the pirates who suffered heavy casualties were escorted back to Xiamen and driven into the coolie camp.

Fortunately, Xiamen is in the construction period, and there are many long-term and short-term workers sent from various places, so the spies easily contacted the group of unlucky people who were driven to build roads, and then learned everything.

Then Liu Xiang also knew.

Then shopkeeper Liu was so angry that he became pregnant. Who said that if you try it, you won't get pregnant?

(End of this chapter)