Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 17
According to Zheng Zhihu's confession, Zheng Zhilong was supported by the Taiwanese authorities and Huang Hexing's headquarters. As long as Li Dan and Yan Siqi died, the Dutch would use force to help him ascend to the throne of the gang boss.

At this time, the armed forces of Li Dan's gang were concentrated in the Singang area in central and southern Taiwan. They lived next to the Dutch in the south. There was a close trade relationship between the two sides. It can be said that [-]% of the goods sourced by the Taiwanese authorities came from Li Dan. gang.

Li Dan's advantage lies in the supply of goods in Fujian and the market channels in Japan. His brother Xu Xinsu is his agent in Fujian, and behind him are the local gentry who the government can do nothing about.In addition, in Japan, Li Dan's backing was Matsuura Takanobu, the lord of the Hirado domain, and he himself could also speak to the senior officials of the Tokugawa shogunate.

But when it comes to Li Dan's naval force, it is almost meaningless in front of the Dutch's powerful ships and guns.

Later, when the power of the Zheng Group was at its peak, the Battle of Liaoluowan was won by a surprise attack by an arson ship, while the Battle of Taijiang was won by an absolute advantage in numbers and luck.Both naval battles were won in offshore waters, so the battle-loss ratio is not good-looking. If they were fought in distant seas, there would be basically no chance of victory.

Zheng Zhilong has the support of Huang Hexing, and the supply channels in Fujian are not a problem. He himself was born in a family of sea traders, and there are many uncles and brothers in the family who travel by sea.He was also popular with Matsuura Takanobu in Japan, and even went to Edo to donate medicine to Tokugawa Hidetada. As long as the Li family and his son died, there was a chance to replace him.

To take a step back, even if the joints in Japan cannot be opened, wouldn't there still be a market channel in the Netherlands?Everyone followed Li Dan just to get money. If the eldest brother were to do business as usual, who would fight Hongmao over this?

All Zheng Zhilong lacked was force, and the Dutch helped him make up for this deficiency.

The result of this interrogation was basically similar to what Lin Hai had guessed. As expected, Headquarters Huang Hexing had a hand in this matter.He knew that Huang Mingzuo's trading partners were mainly Spanish people in Luzon. The current situation was that the Netherlands had the upper hand, and merchant ships going to Manila were often robbed by red hair. This old boy definitely had the motive to bring down Li Dan.

But the motivations of the Dutch are worth pondering. What good will it do to them to bring down Li Dan, who has been working together for more than ten years?
Xu Xinsu had a head-to-neck relationship with Li Dan, and killing Li Dan would probably cut off the existing supply channels.What if Huang Mingzuo is playing dirty tricks and doesn't supply goods to Zheng Zhilong after the deal is completed? The Dutch will have no choice but to drink from the northwest wind and then go out to seek market opportunities?
The Dutch are businessmen, not the style of sea coachmen.As far as Lin Hai knew, the Dutch in this era were very cruel to the natives of Southeast Asia, but they were cowardly to the powerful countries in East Asia. Seeking market power by force was the last resort in desperation.

In the Banda Islands in Indonesia, the Dutch slaughtered all the local indigenous people and directly occupied the largest nutmeg producing area.However, in the face of a mature feudal country like Japan with a population of 2000 million, it was able to sentence and jail the Taiwanese governor who had offended the Japanese during diplomatic frictions. After being imprisoned for a few years, he was afraid that the Taijun would be unhappy and directly handed the person over to the shogunate for disposal.

Lin Hai really couldn't figure out why the Dutch gave up on Li Dan and instead supported Zheng Zhilong, who had an unstable foundation.He originally thought that the Dutch providing chronic poison to Zheng Zhilong was a personal act, but now it seems that the Taiwanese and Dutch authorities are entirely on Zheng Zhilong's side.

What’s even weirder is that Zheng Zhilong got the chronic poison a year ago and tested it on several people.At that time, Zheng Zhilong had only made his debut for a year and had just moved from Hirado to serve as a translator. How did the two sides get together so quickly?
In any case, now that Zheng Zhilong's conspiracy has been exposed, Li Guozhu will definitely rush back to Taiwan immediately.As soon as he returns, the Dutch will definitely realize that the conspiracy has been exposed, and the table may be turned over by both parties.

"Why did Hongmao help your brother murder the old captain?" Lin Hai continued to interrogate Zheng Zhihu.

Before Zheng Zhihu could speak, he was interrupted by Li Guoshu: "Brother Lin, it's getting late today, so we'll stop here. Come with me, and I'll have a few private words with you."

Li Guoshu took Lin Hai to an empty room and knelt to kneel to Lin Hai: "Brothers are blind and do not recognize Jingshan jade, so they almost killed their benefactor unjustly. If my benefactor hadn't rescued me, my father and son would not have any bones left!"

Lin Hai supported him: "Brother, don't be like this. Now that the truth has been revealed, we need to deal with it earlier. I wonder what you want to do?" Li Guozhu saw that he was unwilling to accept the courtesy and knew that he had other demands, so he did not force himself. , stood up and paced back and forth in the room. After a long time, he finally said something through his teeth: "When I return to Dongfan, I will first advise my father to return to Japan as soon as possible, and then we will deal with the rest of the matter."

Lin Hai did not expect that Li Guozhu hesitated for a long time, and finally wanted to give up Taiwan, which he had been operating for nearly ten years, and return to Hirado.It seems that Mr. Li is quite afraid of the Dutch and does not dare to lift the table at all.

In the original history, after Li Dan died, Li Guozhu also pinned his hope of revenge on the Dutch.

However, at that time, most of the armed forces of Li Dan's gang were controlled by Zheng Zhilong, and Li Guo's assistants were limited.But now, Li Dan is fully capable of competing with the Dutch offshore. It is hard to say whether he will listen to Li Guozhu's advice.

Lin Hai couldn't say much about this, he just reminded: "Brother's men must bring all of them back to Dongfan, and no one can be left behind."

Li Guozhu nodded, he had already considered this section.Zheng Zhilong has been plotting for a long time. Who knows if there are any of his men on these two ships?If he didn't take him with him on the ship, Zheng Zhilong's men would also have to go to Taiwan as soon as he left. Then it would be a question of who was faster and who was slower.

He seemed to be seeing off a guest, and said with a cupped hand: "When I go back this time, good or bad luck is unpredictable, so I won't invite Brother Lin to accompany me. I have received great kindness from my brother this time. If I can be useful to Mr. Li in the future, I can go up to the foot of Daoshan Mountain." In the sea of ​​fire, if you frown, you are not a good man.”

Having said this, Lin Hai stopped being pretentious and said shamelessly: "I'm ashamed to say that, brother, I have something to ask for. The boat at Chenji Shipyard needs half a month to be repaired. Can I lend it to you?" Brother, use it for half a year?”

Li Guozhu said: "Brother said this word "borrow", which is a slap in my brother's face. What is a ship worth? I came to Haojing this time, and I have a batch of raw silk. I paid a deposit last year, and now I have no time to receive it. I think it is for my brother. Thank you. I hope that my brother can regain his family business as soon as possible and that we can meet at sea one day."

When we came out of Wu Ji Inn, it was already sunset.Lin Hai had an emerald ring in his arms, and a note made of mulberry paper with the words "Paid for eight hundred loads of Qili Spring Silk and delivery in March of the fifth year of Tianqi" written on it.

At Chenji Shipyard, Li Guozhu went to tell shopkeeper Chen that he wanted to give the seagoing ship that was still being repaired to Lin Hai.Shopkeeper Chen received such a favor from the Li family. Although he was surprised, he didn't ask any more questions. He just secretly lamented that it was so difficult to recruit such a capable accountant. Now he was afraid that he would not be his boss.

Lin Hai walked on the way home, his steps extremely brisk.The funds to go overseas were finally secured, and Li Guozhu told him that the silk goods were worth 5000 taels of silver!

Of course, this offended the Dutch, Zheng Zhilong, and Huang Mingzuo to death.The wings of his little butterfly have begun to flap. I hope the Li family and his son will know the plot in advance and be able to make a smooth comeback in Bo Yun's treacherous Dongfan situation.

(End of this chapter)