After the first precedent, Hongtang officially issued a recruitment order to many pirates in the South China Sea, and many pirates came to visit one after another after learning the news, some joined Hongtang's team on the spot, some hesitated and hesitated to make up their minds, and some were defeated in the face of the conditions written on Hongtang's recruitment order, unable to accept Hongtang's request.

Yao Junsheng took refuge in Hongtang, on the surface, Gan Dabiao threaded the needle and built a bridge from it, but in fact, it was Li Tianyang who deliberately guided him, otherwise Gan Dabiao would not have told Yao Junsheng about Hongtang's welfare and other key points.

In the final analysis, in the battle with the Dutch, although they repelled the Dutch fleet, in fact, the Dutch showed the power of firearms and naval battle tactics, which was indeed much higher than that of the Ming people. Up to now, the Dutch have shrunk on Magong Island, and there has been no other move, so that Li Tianyang and them have not been at ease, and the three departments of Hongtang have been in a state of preparation, beware of every move of the Dutch.

In the case that the firepower and naval tactics are not superior, if the Dutch come again next time, how can Hongtang, whose strength has been greatly damaged, resist the opponent's attack?

The answer is actually very simple, and it is also very helpless, so you can only fight for the head and the number. The strength of the Ming Dynasty was backward on the sea, but it was much easier to fight on its own home turf and replenish its troops and warships than the Westerners who came from afar.

And the pirates all over the sea have become the best source for Hong Tang to quickly replenish his strength at this time: compared to the Hong Tang warriors who are fishermen and farmers, the pirates will definitely have bad problems such as disobedience and trouble, but they are brave and good at fighting, as long as they have a little training, they can go to the battlefield and fight the Dutch, which is what Hong Tang, who can't predict the Dutch's next move and doesn't have enough time to prepare, urgently needs!

Of course, Li Tianyang and them would rather lack than abuse, for those pirates who kill innocents indiscriminately and have a vicious reputation, they are resolutely not recruited, but more newcomers like Yao Junsheng, who are weak and have recently joined the ranks of pirates.

Many of the pirates are already used to being wild, where can they stand the constraints of a team with many rules like Hong Tang, and many of the leaders of the thieves are unwilling to be ambitious, although Hong Tang's welfare is attractive, they want to hug Hong Tang's thighs, but this must be based on the premise that their own team is not broken up and their strength is not weakened.

To put it bluntly, many pirates want to be able to not only receive the high welfare of Hong Tang, but at the same time show off their power under the banner of Hong Tang, but they don't want to be too restrained by Hong Tang and restricted by Li Tianyang.

But how can there be such a beautiful thing in the world, let alone how shrewd Li Tianyang is, where would he do such a stupid thing! Therefore, in the end, under Hong Tang's very demanding requirements, many pirate teams were scared away by them.

Yao Junsheng also had a good opportunity, Li Tianyang and they needed to find a suitable gang at the right time to make an image of opening the door widely. It just so happened that Yao Junsheng had the idea of taking refuge in Hongtang again, and found Gan Dabiao, who had some business contacts, and looked for an opportunity to show favor to Gan Dabiao.

Therefore, after investigating that Yao Junsheng and his gang basically met Li Tianyang's requirements, Li Tianyang secretly signaled Gan Dabiao to contact Yao Junsheng more, and even gave him advice, which led to the scene a few days ago.

Speaking of which, Li Tianyang was lukewarm to Yao Junsheng at that time, but in fact, Yao Junsheng's actions had long been under Li Tianyang's control and prediction. After some operation, it was not that Hong Tang urgently needed to expand his strength, but that Yao Jun was angry and wanted to take the initiative to join Hong Tang, so that Li Tianyang had a lot more initiative in their choices, and it was also very in line with Li Tianyang's style of invisibly manipulating events.

It was precisely because of the existence of such obvious examples as Yao Junsheng and them, and secretly there were Qixintang and the administrators of Jilong Harbor fanning the flames behind their backs, that for a while, Hong Tang had a lot of people coming and going in front of the camp in Jilong Harbor.

However, in the past month or so, although more pirate teams have left because they are dissatisfied with Hong Tang's requirements, there are still many pirate gangs that have been merged into Hong Tang's team. After a rough calculation, there were nearly 20 gangs in total, and more than 1,500 pirates who were familiar with maritime affairs joined Hongtang.

With the addition of these manpower, in terms of numbers, it barely made up for the soldiers who died in the battle with the Dutch more than a month ago. It's just that if it's more serious, these pirates who are used to being wild, have no knowledge of discipline and rules, and have no common sense of serious combat, in terms of actual combat effectiveness, they are definitely not as good as the elite soldiers of Hongtang who died before.

Not to mention that most of these pirate gangs who are willing to take the initiative to join Hongtang are small pirate gangs that can't get along at sea and are squeezed into the remote wilderness, and they don't even have a medium-sized pirate team with a scale of more than two hundred, and nearly half of the pirate personnel's physical fitness and combat quality can be described in one word, that is, the old, weak, sick and disabled!

However, these are all in Li Tianyang's expectations, and when he chose to quickly replenish Hong Tang's strength, it was also a helpless move, no one dared to guarantee that the Dutchman would not go crazy and kill them again to avenge their defeat.

Although the pirate team is small and the quality of personnel is uneven, they have one ready-made thing in their hands, that is, a sea ship that has been improved and has a certain combat ability. Since you dare to call it a pirate, then every group of pirate teams will be equipped with such a guy as a sea ship.

Hongtang suffered a lot of personnel losses, and there were also many losses of warships, and the self-detonating sailing ships carefully prepared for most of the year brought Hongtang the results of three Western warships, but more than 100 self-detonating sailing ships were all wiped out, and none of them survived, so that Li Tianyang and they had to ponder, if the Dutch came again, where should they go to get together so many warships to defend against the enemy.

Compared with the consumption of personnel losses, it takes at least half a year for a warship to be completed from the selection of wood, drying, and other processes, to the final completion, which cannot be solved overnight. Even if Li Tingting and the others have money now and want to go to the Daming coast to buy a large number of sea ships in batches, the shipyards may not be able to come up with a large number of sea ships that can be used.

Not to mention, now after spending a lot of money to compensate the fallen soldiers and rebuild the chicken coop port, the inventory of Qixintang has almost been emptied by Li Tianyang and them, where can they get the silver for Li Tianyang and them to buy sea ships!

Therefore, Li Tianyang and the others began to relax the recruitment conditions, recognizing the pirates to join their Hongtang team, in fact, they also wanted to supplement the sea ships in the hands of the pirate team to their team, as a little vitality to deal with the Dutch fleet at any time.

(End of chapter)