579 support, opportunity

[I'm back from my hometown today, so I'm going to add more today! ] There is a change in the evening, Lao Yun begs for subscription! 】

"General, just now Han Lushan sent news from Yangzhou that Hong Sheng led the Third Fleet to intercept fourteen large sea ships outside the mouth of the Yangtze River.

All of them were the ships of more than a dozen maritime merchants in Jinling, Suzhou, and Songjiang, and they did not go to Yangzhou City to report, so they went to sea without permission and were arrested.

Hong Sheng pulled all these fourteen big ships back to Yangzhou Port, does the general know how Shi Kefa punished these people? ”

Qian Guangyuan stood next to Li Zixiao with a smile on his face, reporting.

At this time, Li Zixiao listened to Qian Guangyuan's report, teasing the ugly baby he was holding back, and said casually: "Go on." ”

Shi Kefa actually confiscated the goods of more than a dozen maritime merchants from Suzhou and Jinling, a whole fourteen ships, and fined them.

Even the owners of the ships who were responsible for going to sea had to be held in prison for a period of time, and the punishment was simply heavy enough. ”

Qian Guangyuan continued.

"Oh? Did Scofa really do that? Li Zixiao also raised his head at this time, looked at Qian Guangyuan, and asked in surprise.

"Absolutely."

"Hey, this Shi Kefa really dares to do it, a whole fourteen big ships, millions of goods, said confiscated and confiscated, he didn't give face to the dozen or so maritime merchants in Suzhou and Jinling!

In this way, it is estimated that those maritime merchants are going to hate Shi Kefa to death this time. Li Zixiao said with a smile.

"It's not, it is said that the Jinling Lu family, the Suzhou Yang family, and the Songjiang single family all hated Shi Kefa to death, and immediately let the officials of their family go to the court to impeach Shi Kefa.

As a result, Shi Kefa heard that he was impeached by several old and important ministers in the court, but all of them were suppressed by the saint. ”

Qian Guangyuan had to admire Shi Kefa, and he was indeed courageous enough, he basically offended half of the big businessmen in Jiangsu and Zhejiang at one time, and the remaining half did not have a good impression of him.

Li Zixiao chuckled, handed the ugly baby to the nurse next to him, and said to Qian Guangyuan: "What is the use of those businessmen impeaching Shi Kefa.

This crackdown on smuggling was completely done by Chongzhen at the behest of Shi Kefa, and the purpose was not to make money.

Chongzhen is now estimated to have received the news sent back by Lu Xiangsheng from the Songjin front, and knows the real battle situation on the Songjin front.

Chongzhen was probably anxious at this time, and was busy raising money and food to support Lu Xiangsheng, so he did not hesitate to let Shi Kefa attack the maritime merchants of Jiangsu, Zhejiang. ”

"Then General, do you want General Hong Sheng to continue to support Shi Kefa's anti-smuggling operation?"

"Yes, of course. It doesn't hurt us either. ”

Li Zixiao glanced at Qian Guangyuan, understood his worries, and said with a smile: "Don't worry, Da Ming is already terminally ill at this time, and it is impossible to save him with a mere 100,000 taels of silver."

In addition, Shi Kefa's crackdown on the smuggling of maritime merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang can also make us profit from it, and we can even take advantage of the opportunity to grow stronger, so why not do it. ”

"Yes, my subordinates understand. The general was right, Shi Kefa seized the goods of the dozen or so maritime merchants, but he couldn't sell them at all.

Now, he has gathered major businessmen in Yangzhou and asked these businessmen to pay for those goods, and the price is not very high. ”

"Yes, I know." Li Zixiao nodded.

Li Zixiao had already learned about this from the news from Li Zifeng, and even Li Zifeng bought some of the goods on behalf of the shops under the Li family.

After all, Shi Kefa sells these so-called 'stolen goods' at a much lower price than those in the market, and the merchants in Yangzhou can make a lot of profits by buying and reselling them.

At this time, Li Zixiao's mansion included many shops, all of which belonged to the private property of the Li family, and now Li Zixiao was generally handed over to Lin Yuluo and Li Zifeng to take care of them.

"It's good to continue like this on the Yangzhou side, let Hong Sheng lead the Third Fleet and continue to cooperate with Shi Kefa's anti-smuggling."

"Yes, my subordinates understand."

During this time, Li Zixiao has not left Xuzhou, and every day in addition to accompanying his wife and children at home, he will go to the Parade Mansion in the morning and the military camp outside Xuzhou City in the afternoon.

At this time, Li Zixiao on the one hand organized and trained the new army of the White Dragon Army, and on the other hand, he constantly sent people to Shandong to investigate intelligence and infiltrate it.

When the time is right, Li Zixiao will directly send troops north and enter Shandong.

At the same time, Li Zixiao also paid attention to Li Zicheng's battle with the Ming army in Henan.

After Li Zixiao returned to Jiangbei, he sent someone to send a message to Qi Wei, asking him to cooperate with the Ming army to attack Li Zicheng.

In fact, according to the information sent back by Zhang Fugui, Li Zixiao found that the development of Li Zicheng's strength at this time was no worse than in history.

This made Li Zixiao have to sigh secretly, once an army of thieves like Li Zicheng gains momentum and grows stronger, it will be like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger, and it is difficult to control.

A few days ago, the Ming army had just fought a battle with Li Zicheng's army of thieves in Xinyang, and the Ming army was defeated and retreated to Xinyang.

At this time, Li Zicheng had already led an army of more than 200,000 Liukou to surround Xinyang, and it was estimated that Xinyang would not be able to keep it.

At this time, Li Zicheng's army of rogues was no longer beaten by the Ming army led by Sun Chuanting and Hong Chengchou in Shaanxi a few years ago.

At this time, Li Zicheng's army of rogues not only trained a group of elite veterans in several years of campaigning, but also greatly improved their combat effectiveness.

At the same time, what is even worse is that after Li Zicheng conquered Luoyang, he obtained a large amount of equipment from the Ming army, so that they were not weak in terms of equipment.

Of course, those homeless people who are coerced by Li Zicheng and serve as cannon fodder will not be counted.

Otherwise, if Li Zicheng had more than 200,000 rogues under his command at this time, all of them were equipped with elites, and all of them made his subordinates elite, it is estimated that Li Zicheng would be able to unify the world.

The homeless people under Li Zicheng who serve as cannon fodder are still the same, not to mention the armor, and the weapons may not be available.

They are just pawns for Li Zicheng to launch crowd tactics and consume the Ming army, and what is really powerful are tens of thousands of elite veterans under Li Zicheng.

In the past year of eastward expansion, Li Zicheng continued to attack the city in the south of Kaifeng Prefecture, Runing Mansion and Nanyang Mansion, and even seized a large number of weapons and equipment, grain, gold and silver.

On the other hand, in the past few years, the Ming army has been worse than a year, and it has become more and more unbearable.

It can be said that between Li Zicheng and the Ming army, it is now an exchange of offense and defense, and now it is Li Zicheng's turn to chase the officers and soldiers.

The time was until September, and with Shi Kefa's severe punishment of more than a dozen maritime merchants in Jinling and Suzhou, everyone in Jiangsu and Zhejiang was still panicked.

Helplessly, these Jiangsu, Zhejiang and maritime merchants had to pay taxes to Yangzhou City before they dared to go to sea.

Even, these Jiangsu and Zhejiang still asked Zheng Zhilong for help, but how could Zheng Zhilong care about this.

Zheng Zhilong is only responsible for being at sea and waiting for the 'protection fee' to be collected.

As for whether you maritime merchants should pay customs duties before going to sea, that is a matter for the court and the emperor, so Zheng Zhilong will not be stupid enough to wade into this troubled water!

"General, just now there was news from Xinyang, the day before yesterday, Li Zicheng led people to storm Xinyang for three days, and stationed in the southeast of Xinyang.

General Qi took advantage of the night to lead 2,000 cavalry to launch a surprise attack on Li Zicheng's military camp, and successfully burned most of the grain and grass in Li Zicheng's army.

Now Li Zicheng is worried, without food, Li Zicheng can't stay in Xinyang for a long time.

As long as the Ming army in Xinyang City held out for a few more days, Li Zicheng would inevitably have to retreat. ”

On this day, Zhang Fugui hurried to the barracks and reported to Li Zixiao, who was in the barracks at this time.

"Yes, Qi Wei acted quite fast. The night attack is good, it seems that Li Zicheng has been abusing the Ming army for the past few months, making him relax his vigilance again, haha! ”

After Li Zixiao heard Zhang Fugui's report, he also laughed, Li Zixiao was quite happy to see Li Zicheng deflated at this time.

The reason why Li Zixiao let Qi Wei attack and assist the Ming army in fighting against Li Zicheng was to buy time for himself.

Li Zixiao wanted to ensure that before he led his army into Kaifeng City, Li Zicheng would never be allowed to take the lead, and it was best to drag him in the south.

Li Zixiao didn't want to see Li Zicheng open the seal again in this time and space, and finally let Kaifeng be flooded, and hundreds of thousands of people died.

At the same time, it also made the prosperous and wealthy Kaifeng completely disappear, and it was difficult to restore the previous prosperity situation for decades.

…………………………………

Time continued to go by, and at the end of September, Li Zixiao suddenly got a piece of news that almost disrupted his plan.

"What? Zheng Zhilong's army was defeated? ”

Li Zixiao was also shocked after listening to what Zhang Fugui said, who came in a hurry to report.

"Yes, General, according to the report of our spies lurking in Quanzhou, the Zheng family was indeed defeated this time.

To be more precise, it was not the Zheng family's fleet that lost to the red-haired ghost at sea, on the contrary, the Zheng family has always had an advantage in the naval battle with the red-haired ghost.

This time, the Zheng family was defeated by more than 20,000 horses sent by them to land in the Ryukyus and attack the red-haired ghosts in the southern Ryukyus Dayuan (present-day Tainan area), and the two cities of Geransha and Prominsha.

More than 20,000 soldiers and horses of the Zheng family, after landing in the North Port of the Ryukyus, immediately went all the way south and went straight to the two fortified cities built by the red-haired ghosts.

But I didn't want to, the two castles of the red-haired ghost were built to make them strong, and the Zheng family's more than 20,000 people attacked it for more than a month, but they didn't beat it down.

A week ago, the red-haired ghost took advantage of the Zheng family's army to attack the city for days and was extremely tired, so he took the initiative to attack and launched a night attack, burning the grain and grass of the Zheng family's army.

Without food and grass, the morale of the Zheng family's army fell, and they had no choice but to retreat, but they were attacked by the red-haired ghost and drove more than 10,000 people of the Zheng family all the way to the sea. ”

Zhang Fugui said excitedly.

"Is the information reliable?" After Li Zixiao heard this, his brows furrowed, and he asked Zhang Fugui.

"Before I came, I had asked the people lurking in the Zheng family to confirm it again and again, and it was indeed right. For this reason, Zheng Zhilong almost beheaded an old minister of the Zheng family. ”

Zhang Fugui confirmed.

"Hey, it's a pity, I thought that Zheng Zhilong might be able to drive the red-haired ghost away from the Ryukyus this time, but now it seems that I overestimated Zheng Zhilong.

In this situation, even if the Zheng family is at sea, they have defeated the fleet of red-haired ghosts.

But if the two castles built by the red-haired ghost in Dayuan can't be conquered on land, then the Zheng family still can't get rid of the red-haired ghost. ”

Li Zixiao said with a little pity.

He really hoped that Zheng Zhilong could drive away the Dutch who were entrenched in the southern part of the Ryukyus, so that Li Zixiao would be saved a lot of things in the future.

It's just that Li Zixiao's eyes lit up immediately, and an idea came to his mind, and he whispered: "Maybe this time Zheng Zhilong's men and horses were defeated in the Ryukyus, it was a chance for us!" ”

Li Zixiao wants to get involved in the southeast sea, it is not a day or two, but for the time being, Li Zixiao does not want to tear his face with the Zheng family, so he has not let the White Dragon Army Navy go south.

But if at this time, Li Zixiao can go south in the name of rushing to help the Zheng family, then the Zheng family has no reason to stop them.

What's more, if Li Zixiao can send a team of men and horses to occupy the two red-haired ghost castles of the Ryukyu lords.

That would be equivalent to giving them the White Dragon Army Navy a foothold in southern Ryukyu.

Li Zixiao knew that at this time, the Dutch in southern Taiwan occupied two castles, which were the area of Kaohsiung, Taiwan in later generations.

It was suitable for building a port, and once the White Dragon Army could occupy it, they would immediately be able to build a harbor there, so that the White Dragon Army Navy could get a supply base in the southeast sea.

This will play a vital role for Li Zixiao to control the southeast sea in the future.

can even let Li Zixiao get a reason to officially enter the southeast sea, and when Zheng Zhilong wants to stop the White Dragon Army Navy, it is not suitable.

Even if in the end, Li Zixiao has to compete with the Zheng family in the southeast sea, it will be even more important to get a big member.

Li Zixiao's low groan was heard by Wei Hong on the side, and Wei Hong immediately understood Li Zixiao's thoughts and asked, "Does the general want to take the opportunity to send troops to Ryukyu?" ”

"Well, it's an opportunity for us." Li Zixiao nodded in acknowledgement.

"I'm afraid that Zheng Zhilong's old fox won't give us this opportunity, and the Zheng family has actually been guarding against us and is unwilling to let us go south at sea."

Wei Hong said on the side.

"I know, so we need an opportunity, but it seems to have come." At this time, Li Zixiao showed a smile on his face.

"What's the trigger?" Wei Hong couldn't help but ask curiously.

Now all the people present are Li Zixiao's henchmen, and Li Zixiao has no need to hide it, and said with a smile: "I just received a message from Hong Sheng from Yangzhou yesterday.

They said that they intercepted a sea boat near the mouth of the Yangtze River, but they originally thought it was smuggled by sea.

But when they boarded the ship, it turned out to be a sea ship returning from the South Seas.

That's not the point, the point is that this ship is carrying a red-haired ghost who actually recognized our flag, found Hong Sheng, and kept saying that he wanted to see me.

Hong Sheng felt that this matter was not simple, and he didn't dare to slack off, so he sent someone to inform me overnight, and this is the opportunity for me to say. ”

(End of chapter)