Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 549 The Armed Forces of Treasure Island

After a while, Cui'er and Xiaozhu came in with their two children and their personal servant girls.

Li Jing smiled, waved his hand to signal Xiaozhu to sit beside Old Man Chen, and then said to Cui'er, "Sister-in-law, take a rest today and let Xiaozhu take care of my uncle."

"How dare you trouble my sister." Tweety laughed.

He said to the two children: "Quickly kowtow to the commander."

The two children didn't hesitate when they heard the words, they knelt in front of Li Jing and kowtowed.

Chen Dahu's two sons, one is 11 years old and the other is seven years old. They are thick-headed and tiger-headed. Seeing the two children kowtow to him, Li Jing leaned over and pulled the two children up and said with a smile: "Enough, enough, kowtow again, My head is packed."

Turning to Xiaozhu, he said, "Did you give me the child's gift?"

Xiao Zhu smiled and said, "I have given them all."

Li Jing nodded slightly.

At this time, Tweety said, "You came out on official business and even bothered to bring us gifts, how can we afford it?"

Li Jing waved his hands and said with a smile: "I haven't seen the uncle and the child for nearly two years. How can I come here empty-handed? Wouldn't people call me ignorant of etiquette?"

Tweety sighed: "The commander-in-chief and his wife have all kinds of rewards every year, just these rewards, our family can't spend it all in this lifetime."

Li Jing laughed and said: "In this way, Dahu doesn't have to hug money, so I can rest assured."

Everyone couldn't help laughing when they heard this.

Turning his head to look at Wen Qing, Xiao Wu, Xiao Jiu and others, Li Jing smiled and said: "You three toast the old man and Mr. Hu with a glass of wine, and then go outside to have a drink. You can't eat it even if you sit with me. Dinner."

Hearing this, the three of them smiled and went forward to pour a glass of wine each, walked towards the old man Chen and said: "Master, I wish you a long life."

Old man Chen raised his glass with a smile.

The three toasted Chen Dahu again, and then exited the house.

Li Jing stretched out his chopsticks and put a mouthful of vegetables on the plate in front of old man Chen: "Uncle, you eat the vegetables and leave us alone."

Old man Chen silently put the vegetables into his mouth, and he didn't feel his tears streaming down.After wiping his face, the old man Chen sighed softly: "Our Chen family has been honored by Jimin, and I am afraid that we will not be able to repay this kindness in this life."

Li Jing smiled and said: "Uncle, what are you talking about? We came out of the same life and death, and our brothers kowtowed together in the past. Are you always saying that?

I am not Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty. After I became emperor, I would not like others to mention my origin. I never shy away from being a bandit and bandit, and I will never forget my brothers who fought with me.

Don't be so particular about me, you are the old man of our family, everyone should respect you.Next year, the big tiger and the two tigers will fight hard again and finish the errand. I ask the emperor to give you the old title.If you can't be a duke, at least you can be a marquis. "

Old man Chen shook his head: "Jimin, it's their duty for Dahu and Erhu to work hard under your command. You must not be selfish for me. The old man's life is worth it, so there is no need for him to be noble or not. !"

Li Jing said with a smile: "It doesn't matter whether you can confer the title or not, it depends on the performance of Dahu and Erhu."

Chen Dahu laughed loudly and said: "Brother, just for my father to be a knight, I have to do my best to handle the errand for you properly."

Li Jing smiled and raised his wine glass to old man Chen, "Uncle, I respect you."

After all, raise your glass and drink it.

Smacking his lips, Li Jing looked at Cui'er and said with a smile: "Sister-in-law, this Huadiao wine tastes good. Uncle drinks it very well, but it's not strong enough for me and Dahu. I'm here, and you didn't prepare it for me. liquor?"

Tweety heard this and said with a smile: "I am afraid that you will be tired all the way, so I dare not give you a confession."

Li Jing said with a smile: "I haven't seen Dahu for nearly two years. If I don't have a good drink with him, after I leave, Dahu will scold me to death?"

Cui'er glared at Chen Dahu: "He dares!"

Chen Dahu hurriedly said: "Don't dare, dare not."

Li Jing couldn't help laughing when he saw this.

But since it was Li Jing who asked for wine, Tweety ordered someone to heat up a pot of white wine and bring it over.

Of course, Chen Dahu also knew that Li Jing was exhausted during this trip, so he didn't try to persuade him to drink frequently. The few of them drank slowly, and they enjoyed themselves happily.

……

After Li Jing left Fuzhou, Sun Meng, Sun Chuanting, and Liu Erleng discussed it and decided to let Sun Huacheng's troops in Taiwan speed up their attack, quickly deal with the Spaniards in Taiwan, and then return to take down the Portuguese in Macau. , and strive to finish these two things before the year.

After Sun Huacheng received the order, he personally led two battalions of troops to attack the chicken coop in the starry night.

In fact, during the Ming Dynasty, the population of Taiwan was very small, most of the area was under development, and most of the virgin forests.It is precisely because of the small population that Zheng Zhilong immigrated to Taiwan.

However, what Sun Huacheng has to deal with is neither the aborigines of Taiwan nor the immigrants who came later. What he has to deal with are the pirate forces or private business forces that have been entrenched in Taiwan for many years.

To talk about smugglers in Taiwan, we have to start from the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

In the early Ming Dynasty, long-term wars led to economic depression, so the policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business was echoed by the common people. After all, they were worried about eating and drinking, and farming was of course the most important thing.

But as time went by, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the economy developed, there were more rich people, and the gap between the rich and the poor became larger. The original policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business became somewhat unworkable.

Because after people have money, their pursuit of material things begins to increase, and at this time the inevitable business begins to flourish.

If the rich people are only pursuing materials from their own country, then there is no big problem. After all, although the prices of things produced in this country vary from place to place, the profits are not too high.

However, Ming Dynasty also had a tribute trade system, and many good things from foreign countries would enter Daming in the form of tribute.Such as ivory, rhino horn, jewelry, spices and so on.

So overseas trade was inevitable.

It's just that Daming implemented a maritime ban policy, strictly prohibiting businessmen from conducting overseas trade in private.

Precisely because the imperial court banned overseas trade, overseas materials were expensive in Ming Dynasty.Similarly, some materials of Ming Dynasty were copied at sky-high prices in foreign countries.

In the face of huge profits, businessmen began to smuggle in order to make huge profits.

Later, seeing such huge profits in overseas trade, not only businessmen secretly smuggled, but many local officials also colluded with private businessmen to make huge profits.

This kind of behavior will undoubtedly be severely cracked down by the court.

But in the face of interests, those private businessmen did not give in, and began to form gangs and form armed forces to fight against the court. (Deng Maoqi uprising in Fujian during the Zhengtong period, in fact, many of the participants were private businessmen along the coast.)
To form an armed force, you need not only weapons, but also people. Private merchants have money, and weapons can be bought with money, but people are not easy to deal with, because the people of Ming Dynasty are not so bold enough to fight against the imperial court, so private merchants have been armed in the early stage. Nothing happened.

But in the end, the court solved the problem for them.

After the mid-Ming Dynasty, land annexation was serious, and there were more and more landless farmers. In order to avoid taxes, farmers in the inland fled and became refugees. Many refugees went to the economically developed southeast coast to seek a living.

After these refugees arrived, they did not immediately find jobs. In fact, most of them had no jobs at all.

In this case, some people became robbers, and some people joined the armed forces of merchants.

The names are different, but the things they do are similar. In the end, they are all against the court.

Many people know that Japanese pirates made troubles along the southeast coast in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. In fact, Japanese pirates began to exist from the end of Yuan Dynasty. Just run away.At this time, the main members of the Japanese pirates were Japanese, and occasionally some Chinese participated.

However, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, that is, during the Jiajing period, Japanese pirates began to prevail, and the entire southeast coast was affected, which lasted for more than forty years.

At this time, the Japanese pirates were quite complicated, including not only Japanese and Chinese, but also Portuguese and Southeast Asians.There are hundreds of shares accumulated before and after, and the large gang has tens of thousands of people.

Moreover, the equipment of these Japanese pirates is even more advanced than before. They used birdcracks and Franco cannons that were not available in the regular army of the Ming Dynasty at that time.The warships are not the small sailboats of the past, and there are even larger gunboats than the Daming Navy.

Compared with the early days when the Japanese pirates fired a shot to change places and ran away when they saw the regular army, the Japanese pirates at this time often beat the regular army to the ground.

The so-called heroes in troubled times, after many years of Japanese pirates rampant, Ming Dynasty finally produced two heroes: Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang.

Under the leadership of these two men, Yu Jiajun and Qi Jiajun launched desperate fights with the Japanese pirates along the southeast coast, and finally expelled the Japanese pirates from the territory of Daming.

The Japanese pirates who escaped from the Ming Dynasty fled to Taiwan. For example, in the 44th year of Jiajing, the pirate Lin Daogan fled to Taiwan under the military suppression of Yu Dayou.

It can be seen that the Japanese pirates cannot be so powerful based on the robbery gangs formed by the Japanese and refugees alone, because these weapons cannot be owned by these people. It is precisely because of the participation of private businessmen and Portuguese that these people have such weapons. weapons and ships.

As for why private businessmen become robbers, the reason is very simple. Although smuggling trade is huge profits, after all, it requires capital, while robbery does not cost capital, and the money comes in faster.

The reason why the fleeing pirates or private businessmen ran to Taiwan was because at this time the most frequent trade with private businessmen was the aboriginal tribes living in Taiwan, and many aborigines were members of private businessmen. , it can be said that Taiwan is an important stronghold of the private businessmen of the Ming Dynasty.

Under the powerful offensive of the Ming government and army, the private businessmen who survived by chance finally stopped doing robbery business in the mainland of Daming, and began to concentrate on making a living at sea.

However, the private businessmen did not give up their arms, because if they wanted to engage in maritime trade, they would be a meal for pirates without their own arms, and some private businessmen even started their own business as pirates.

Therefore, strictly speaking, the pirates along the southeast coast at the end of the Ming Dynasty were all merchants and pirates, and pirates and merchants.

Until Zheng Zhilong was born, the pirate forces in the southeast coast were integrated, and they monopolized the right to maritime trade. Some private businessmen still controlled certain armed forces, but these people did not dare to confront Zheng Zhilong.

Moreover, most of these armed forces are entrenched in Taiwan (the local ones were all eliminated by Zheng Zhilong). For example, some of the members of Shibazhi have defected to the Dutch and are active in southern Taiwan.There are also some private businessmen who have defected to the Spaniards and are operating in the northern part of Taiwan.

(End of this chapter)