I was the emperor in the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 518 Origin of Pirates

The capital, the imperial palace, and the intelligence department.

The special eunuchs in charge of taking care of the pigeons, which were specially bred to deliver confidential messages, carefully removed the secret letters tied to their legs, and then handed them over to the personnel in the intelligence department who were responsible for deciphering them.

After the news was sorted out, it was collected in the hands of Liu Gang, the head of the intelligence department who was aliased as Tienu.

Few people in the intelligence department knew Liu Gang's name. Outsiders only knew his surname was Tie, and his subordinates respectfully called him Chief Tie.

Although he lost his previous status and glory, but at this time he has gained everyone's approval from another aspect.

This man wearing a ferocious iron mask and sitting on an iron chair all year round has now become a legendary figure in the palace. No one dares to underestimate him.

On this day, a new wave of news came again, and Liu Gang, as usual, carefully compared the news from all parties.
Then deduce valuable information from the few words of the news, and then send it to Li Tian, ​​and let Li Tian make the final decision.

Some time ago, the most important news was probably the news about Prince Zhu Zhanji and others.

It's just that during this time, the news over there has been stopped for three or four days because it is too far away from the coast, and no new news has come.

Some of the previous content is mostly about military transfers in some places, handover of officials and other not very important news.

But looking at it, he noticed from the secret letters that three or four of them were news about suspicious ships appearing at sea.

Some of these news came from fishing boats and merchant ships at sea, and some came from coastal fishermen in Jiaodong and Liaodong.

If it was just a news that a suspicious ship was found at sea, Liu Gang might not pay attention to it, after all, the possibility of misinformation is very high.

But at the same time, in the same sea area, three or four incidents with similar content appeared at the same time, so Liu Gang couldn't help but not pay attention to it.

The compilation of similar news is the main work of Liu Gang and his intelligence personnel.

Based on his many years of working experience in Jinyiwei's secret disc, coupled with his natural keen sense, he thinks this matter is by no means simple.

Immediately ordered someone to compile the news of the mysterious fleet in the East China Sea, the whereabouts of the purpose, and his own views on this matter into a book, and sent it to the imperial study.

It happened that Li Tian was also in the study at this time.

I saw this secret letter for the first time.

Li Tian quickly finished reading the eloquent hundreds of words, staring at the last few words of the secret letter.

"Pirates... Japanese pirates..."

Li Tian's fists were clenched immediately, his brows were slightly frowned, and a chilling murderous aura spread out in all directions.

At this time, it happened that Jiang Bao had something to report and came in.

Seeing Li Tian's expression like this, he trembled with fright.

"Your Majesty, what's the matter, but what happened!"

Li Tian was actually more puzzled than angry at this time. He really didn't understand that the Japanese pirates had been severely injured several years ago.
It has been disappeared for many years, and the troubled times of the Warring States Period in Japan have not yet come. How could there be another wave of Japanese pirates suddenly appearing on the East China Sea?

Seeing Jiang Bao coming in, Li Tian turned his head and asked,
"Jiang Bao, do you remember that in the 17th year of the first emperor, Liu Rong led an army to defeat the Japanese pirates in the East China Sea?"

Jiang Bao nodded and said,
"Of course I remember that Uncle Guangning was awarded the title because of his achievements in this battle, and it was also the Japanese soldiers he trained that defeated the rioters of the White Lotus Sect.

Because these two events happened at about the same time, the old slave remembered them very clearly. "

In fact, Li Tian was not very clear about the situation of Japanese pirates in the early Ming Dynasty.

Some time ago, because of Tang Sai'er's incident, he deliberately consulted the information at that time, and then learned about Liu Rong's fight against the Japanese pirates following the clues of the Japanese soldiers.

He thought that Liu Rong had wiped out the pirates in one fell swoop at that time, but unexpectedly, after five or six years, a new wave of pirates appeared in the East China Sea.

To him, this matter was not insignificant.

Because he has already regarded the export of new cotton cloth as the next economic growth point of Ming Dynasty, and there must be no problems.

However, if cotton cloth wants to be exported to Koryo, Ryukyu, Japan and other countries, it must go out of the East China Sea. If there are pirates entrenched on the East China Sea, it will definitely have a huge impact on trade.

Even being strangled in the cradle is not out of the question.

With a business worth nearly tens of millions of taels a year, Li Tian would not be able to bear it if it was disturbed by mere pirates.

"Go and find Zheng He for me!"

Although this news has not been confirmed yet, since it has already appeared, Li Tian can't just sit idly by.

He was also glad that this incident was discovered early. If he really waited until the merchant ships went out to sea on a large scale without any precautions, if they were picked up by pirates, wouldn't he not even have a place to cry.

Not long after, Zheng He hurried over.

Maybe Jiang Bao had already told him about the situation on the way.

Zheng He was still holding several scrolls of sea charts in his hand.

Li Tian was very satisfied with Zheng He's carefulness, and hurriedly called Zheng He over.

While talking about the newly obtained information, he unfolded the charts in his study together with the charts brought by Zheng He.

"Uncle Bao, I believe you heard Jiang Bao talk about this on the way, what do you think?"

After reading the secret letter and confirming the approximate location of the pirate fleet on the chart, Zheng He said slowly,

"Back then, our family was ordered by the late emperor to go to the west to promote our great tomorrow, and once fought against Chen Yizu, who was a pirate at that time, in Nanyang.
Thanks to the blessing of the late emperor, the first battle was successful, more than [-] pirates were wiped out, and dozens of warships were captured..."

Listening to Zheng He's narration of the matter, although what he said was very plain, Li Tian still made blood boil when he heard it.

It was as if he was personally in the midst of that vigorous sea battle.

Back then, Chen Yizu was known as the strongest pirate in the world, with tens of thousands of pirates and three to four hundred warships.

This scale is no less than that of the legendary pirate groups active in the Caribbean Sea in the Great Discovery Age of later generations.

Zheng He was able to wipe out Chen Yizu in the first battle, in fact, it was due to luck.

It was precisely because Chen Yizu was too arrogant and disdainful of the imperial fleet that he chose to strike a stone with a pebble and be tough from the front.

This gave Zheng He the opportunity to wipe them out in one fell swoop. If they hadn't confronted Da Ming's fleet head-on, but used methods such as harassment and surprise attacks, perhaps the result would be a different world.

Maybe, even now, they may not be able to completely wipe them out.

The reason why Zheng He mentioned this matter was not that he wanted to boast of his achievements, but because the fall of Chen Yizu happened to give Akagi Yoshio who was entrenched in the East China Sea a chance to rise.

Previously, one of them was in the East China Sea and the other in Southeast Asia, and they didn't disturb each other, so they were considered harmonious.

(End of this chapter)