Rescue soldiers are like fighting fires, and after Zhao Hao roughly asked about the situation, he began to arrange for troops to rescue. Donghai County is located on the sea, the ancient name is Yuzhou, one of the ten continents in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", it is said that the end of Qin Tian Heng lived here, so it is also called Tian Heng Island, and has always been an important place for the northeast frontier. He considered that there was no formed forbidden army near Haizhou at present, and the only mobile force that could be mobilized at the moment was the Fourth Army of the forbidden army stationed in Xuzhou, but the two places were more than 400 miles apart, and there was no waterway, so even if they set off immediately, they would only arrive in a few days, and they would have to patrol the sea by boat, and they could only collect the corpses when they arrived at the place.

Zhao Yu pondered for a moment, and remembered that after completing the task of transporting troops from Jiangdong to Huaibei, the First Water Division was still stationed in the Lianshui Army, tasked with protecting the Huaihe River estuary and canal. It is much closer to Donghai County from the sea, and one day and one night is enough to reach the East China Sea, and you can independently complete the task of annihilating the pirates at sea and landing on the island to recover Donghai County. At the same time, it could enter the interior of Haizhou from the mouth of the Yanhe River, bombarded the bandits besieging Huairen County with naval artillery, and assisted the defenders in defeating the bandits.

As a result, Zhao Yu immediately ordered Dong Yicheng to send troops to rescue Haizhou, and temporarily stationed here after repelling the attacking bandits, guarding the sea while clearing the bandits to ensure the smooth passage of the sea route. The arrangements had been decided, but he still felt that it was necessary to find out the way of the pirates as soon as possible and exterminate them as soon as possible, otherwise if they were allowed to wander, they would inevitably continue to harass the coastal prefectures and counties and the merchant ships that passed by, and affect the development of maritime trade.

In the past two years, during the trade wind season, Zhao Yu would order the navy to go to sea in the name of escort, not only to show off his force to Meng Yuan to deter the enemy, but also to expel pirates and protect the sea trade routes. In recent years, the Great Song Dynasty Navy has faced four main forces of pirates:

One was the forces of Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan, who rebelled against the Song Dynasty and were later defeated by the Song army in the battle to recover Jiangnan. In the war to destroy the Song Dynasty, Kublai Khan formed a powerful naval army and subdued the Song naval army. In order to transport grain from the south of the Yangtze River to Dadu, in addition to reopening new canals, Meng Yuan also opened sea routes to meet demand, and this task was entrusted to Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan.

Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan were born as pirates, and the two became an important force in the Yuan Water Army and were awarded the title of Guanjun Thousand Households. The Yuan army captured Lin'an, and the ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty suggested that Prime Minister Boyan transport the treasury of the Southern Song Dynasty, including archives, charts, and sacrificial utensils, to the capital of the Yuan Dynasty at that time, Yuan Dadu, for the revision of Song history. However, at that time, the Huaidong region was still under the control of the Southern Song Dynasty generals, so Boyan thought of sea transportation, and he gave this task to Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan, and it was successful.

A few years later, because the grain transported to Beijing through the Grand Canal was delayed, and the freight of inland grain transportation was expensive, Boyan remembered the matter of transporting the Song Dynasty's treasury through the seaway. After he reported this law, Kublai Khan weighed the pros and cons of different water transportation schemes, decided to adopt the suggestion of Prime Minister Boyan, ordered the construction of sea ships, recruited a large number of shipwrights and crew members who were familiar with the sea conditions, and appointed Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan as the ten thousand households that transported grain by sea and were responsible for sea transportation.

At that time, the cost of building a large ship with a displacement of 1,000 yuan was about 1,700 yuan. With such high profits, the merchants on the sea route certainly did not miss the opportunity, so Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan's men immediately gathered tens of thousands of salt merchants, salt workers, ship owners, fishermen, water transport officials and sailors, and the two also invited pirates from the southeast coast to join.

This policy gave merchants huge profit margins, encouraged them to participate in many parties, and finally the grain transportation was an unprecedented success. After that, in order to usurp more trade profits, the Mengyuan court began to take shipping into official ownership and implemented the 'official ship' system. At that time, private business at sea was strictly restricted, and all family wealth was confiscated if discovered, with the exception of the merchant ships sent by Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan, whose trade was tacitly approved by the imperial court.

The two former pirates were "dutiful" and thus shared in the profits of trade with Japan, Korea and Southeast Asian countries, and were given the right to mint their own banknotes. In addition, Zhu and Zhang's power soon spread from the sea to land, becoming the richest and most powerful people in southeastern China, and owning a large number of private seagoing vessels.

However, the good times did not last long, and the sea route grain transportation led by Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan quickly failed under the blows of the Song army, and the two escaped and were dismissed. But they still had a large number of warships and wealth in their hands, so they secretly started their old business, that is, they did smuggling and trading, and when appropriate, they would rob merchant ships, especially the merchant ships of the Song Dynasty. It can be said that Zhao Yu 'created' a pirate.

The second is the 'Goryeo thieves' from the Korean Peninsula, and Zhao Yu turned them into Han Kou. The history of piracy has a long history, and the large-scale appearance of pirates on the Korean Peninsula can be traced back to the Three Kingdoms period in China. During this period, the people of the Tsuro, who lived in the eastern part of the Korean Peninsula, that is, the coastal area of the Sea of Japan, were very active in plundering at sea.

According to the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms: Book of Wei", it is recorded that the people of Lulou "took a boat to rob their country, and their neighbors suffered from it." "And the Korean Peninsula is also one of the targets of their raids. In the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Beji people, as the descendants of the Lulou people, naturally inherited the tradition of their ancestors going to the sea to plunder. In addition to the constant attacks on Silla and Baekje, the Begi people even conspired with the weak Baekje to get a "big" vote against Goguryeo and prepare to establish a state, but they did not succeed due to the intervention of the Northern Wei Dynasty.

Then Goguryeo was destroyed by the Tang Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty was unable to suppress and control the region like the Goguryeo people, which led to a huge political vacuum and military turmoil in the region. Originally, it was only in the northeastern corner of the country, and the Tatar people took the opportunity to rise up and establish the Bohai Kingdom. The Bohai Kingdom continued to encroach southward on the territory of Goguryeo, which was controlled by the Tang Dynasty, and was eventually able to enter the Yellow and Bohai Sea regions from the Yalu River.

However, the history of piracy on the Korean Peninsula had just begun at this time. With the continuous decline of the Silla Dynasty, the Korean Peninsula region entered the "post-Three Kingdoms era". A large number of people living on the peninsula were forced to flee to Japan across the sea to escape the war, and many Silla pirates were also involved, so they gathered information for the pirates of Silla and acted as a response to the invasion of the pirates. This situation was a great headache for the Japanese court at the time, so it even began to consider refusing to allow the Silla people to enter Japan.

But for Japan at the time, the influx of Silla people could bring more advanced technology to Japan and provide valuable manpower for them to expand north on the island of Honshu. In the end, therefore, the Japanese court did not ban the Silla people from entering the country, but instead strictly managed the Silla people and sent them en masse to some remote areas. This move caused a large number of resentment among the Silla people. In addition to the constant outbreak of rebellions, some of them even directly joined the ranks of the Silla pirates.

According to modern Japanese historians, it is highly likely that the Silla pirates who appeared at the end of the Silla period were supported by powerful people in the coastal areas of Silla. Because until Goryeo ended the turmoil on the Korean Peninsula, the frequent large-scale activities of the Silla pirates were no longer possible for the bandit group. In the face of the continuous invasion of the Silla pirates, although the Kyushu region of Japan tried its best to guard against large-scale destruction by pirates, it was never able to completely end the invasion of the Silla pirates.

After the establishment of the Goryeo Dynasty, due to the indulgence of the coastal magnates in Goryeo, the Silla pirates not only did not disappear, but began to become more and more complicated. Later, with the resurgence of East Asian maritime trade in the Song Dynasty, the Goryeo pirates continued to raid Kyushu along the Tsushima-Kyushu line. At the same time, the Jurchens, descendants of the Tatar people, and the Amami Islanders from nearby Japan also began to be active again. The three joined forces, and in the third year of Song Tianxi, the Goryeo pirates and Jurchen pirates invaded Kyushu.

After the Mongol invasion of Goryeo, the blow to the Goryeo samurai regime, as well as the two subsequent conquest operations, brought great harm to the powerful forces in the coastal areas of Goryeo, so these local snakes could no longer afford to continue to invest in piracy, and under their brutal suppression, the Han Kou disappeared for a while. In the war of destroying the Song Dynasty and conquering Japan, the Mongols continued to oppress Goryeo, not only ordering it to contribute money and food, but also to join the naval army to participate in the war.

After Zhao Yu recovered Jiangnan, the Mengyuan navy, which had been hit hard, once again levied the Goryeo navy to attack the Song dynasty, but their fate was not good and they were defeated by the Song navy. The remnants of the Goryeo navy returned home and joined the raiders on the seas, they were already an army, well-trained, and soon gained a foothold in this area after returning to their old business.

The third is the Jurchen pirates with the 'Vikings of the Sea'. Like the Vikings in Europe, the cold climate of the Northeast greatly affected the early social development of the Jurchens. Although today's Northeast is a rich land, in the era of the Jurchens, the cold of the Northeast was enough to bring great obstacles to the production and life of the Jurchens.

Because of this, with the increasing population of the Jurchens, a large number of Jurchens entered the sea along the Heilongjiang and Yalu rivers. The main target of their robbery was the Korean Peninsula, which was rich and less dangerous in the eyes of the Jurchens at that time, that is, Goryeo at that time. However, with the increasing frequency of Jurchen activities at sea, these pirates also began to raid along the trade routes of the time, and Japan, which was one of the frequent objects of Goryeo trade, soon became the target of the Jurchen pirates.

The pirates plundered civilians off the coast of Silla, and then sold them to the Dengju area, where they were sold to the Central Plains to become "Silla maidens". They were not satisfied after plundering Tsushima Island and Iki Island, and then set sail and landed in Chikuzen in Kitakyushu, and the local wealthy families had to flee their fiefdoms and let the Jurchens burn and loot everywhere, as if they were in a no-man's land......