In Zhoushan, Gan Hui, Yu Xin, and Wan Li fled from Taiwan in early May, and after they left, Zheng Zheng surrendered to Zheng Jing, and Zheng Jing moved to live in Xiamen.

Although Gan Hui and the others wanted to flee alone, there were still many followers, and there were a total of 20 ships and more than 500 soldiers and generals in the headquarters, all of whom were Gan Hui and others' henchmen, who fled because they were loyal to the main general or were afraid of being implicated. The defeat of Nanjing caused the power of these three men to be greatly reduced, otherwise there might have been more people who fled with them. In addition to these soldiers and horses of the Yanping Domain, there were more than 10,000 Guangdong fishermen, all of whom were Zhou Yu's subordinates, who were first rescued by Gan Hui to Taiwan, and when Gan Hui fled, most of them voluntarily went to sea again and followed Gan Hui to Zhoushan.

There are only 500 people in Zheng Jun's family who fled, and there are only more than 1,000 people including his family, so Zhang Huangyan is a lot more relieved. The number of people is not too much, and it is not a big deal for Zhoushan to take them in, Zheng Jing will most likely sell Zhoushan a face, so as not to chase after him, Zhang Huangyan must return the people, after all, the two sides are still fighting side by side to resist the Qing Dynasty; If Gan Hui and the others brought hundreds of ships and two or three thousand elite soldiers, Zheng Jing might be worried about the aftermath and insisted that Zhoushan fulfill its obligations as an alliance and hand over the rebellion to Jinxia.

After learning of Zheng Chenggong's death, Zhang Huangyan was heartbroken, and in Deng Ming's previous life, Zhang Huangyan lost his fighting spirit, disbanded the army, and was determined to die for his country. But now although Zhang Huangyan is sad, he is not desperate, not only did he not disband the army, but actively planned how to bear the burden of Zheng Chenggong's previous burden.

Zheng Chenggong's most important role during his lifetime was to contain the heavy troops deployed by the Qing court in Guangdong and Fujian, and now that Jin and Xiamen are still in the hands of the Ming army, Zheng Jing is still stationed in the two places with tens of thousands of troops and nearly 1,000 warships, then Zhang Huangyan feels that the heavy troops of the Qing army in Fujian and Guangdong and the Geng and Shang feudal domains cannot move east or north - this strategic burden Zhang Huangyan feels that he does not need to take over for the time being.

When secretly relieved, Zhang Huangyan thought of Zheng Chenggong's second role, that is, to control maritime trade and find a source of military spending for the Ming army. At the beginning of this month, the Japanese who were temporarily living in Zhoushan were looking for various excuses to return to China, which was undoubtedly an ominous sign; And the Dutch, who were polite and wanted to seek cooperation, also sailed out of Hong Kong one after another. Of course, they did not dare to say it explicitly, but the Dutch believed that after Zheng Chenggong's death, the Batavian parliament would most likely change its policy in East Asia again and re-lean towards war with the Ming army - they guessed correctly, in Deng Ming's previous life, after learning about the latest developments, Batavia decided to cooperate with the Manchus, refused to pay the strait tax to the Ming army, and used force to defend navigation rights and fight for trade rights with Japan. As Jin and Xiamen changed hands, the Ming army did lose control of the strait, and Taiwan's income turned to rely on the income from cantonment.

Although Zhang Huangyan smelled the smell of danger, the danger had not yet become a reality immediately, and the situation in the southeast made Zhang Huangyan particularly worried, so he did not have time to carefully consider the issue of maritime trade. In Zhang Huangyan's view, trade was just a backup fund-raising method that had to be done as a last resort after the loss of the land base - porcelain, for example, if Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province could not be controlled in the hands of the Ming army, Zhang Huangyan would not be able to sleep steadily.

Although Deng Ming led the Sichuan army to the south of the Yangtze River several times, the officials of the Qing court in the southeast felt that it was not easy for Deng Ming to come to the southeast, just by looking at the map, you can know how far away Sichuan is, and there are young generals like Zhou Peigong growing up - although everyone knows that Zhou Peigong can only protect himself when facing Deng Ming, but there is such an old enemy, Deng Ming can't have no scruples at all, maybe he will be successfully ambushed by Zhou Peigong next time. Zheng Chenggong, the person who had a strong deterrent to the southeastern provinces, and now that the king of Yanping had died, Zhang Huangyan felt that he had to shoulder the task of deterring the Qing army in Jiangnan.

"Baoguo Gong has entered Jiangnan." When Zhang Huangyan told Gan Hui about the information he had just gotten, his face was full of excitement.

Zhoushan's strength obviously cannot be compared with Zheng Chenggong's, and from the end of March and the beginning of April, the attitude of the Qing military offices in the southeast became worse and worse, and the raids on smuggling ships in Zhoushan and Chongming became more frequent and unscrupulous. Zhang Huangyan, who was lonely, had no strength to retaliate at all, so he could only passively raise his vigilance and inform Ma Fengzhi in Chongming to be more careful when martial law was imposed in Zhoushan.

After seeing Zhoushan's inability to fight back, the arrogance of the southeastern government became even more arrogant, whether it was Jiang Guozhu or Lin Qilong, they were afraid of Deng Ming and Zheng Chenggong, who had tens of thousands of elite soldiers and hundreds of thousands of troops, but when facing Zhoushan and Chongming, the face of bullying the weak and fearing the hard was exposed. After tearing up the treaty in Nanjing many times and searching and robbing the cargo ships in Zhoushan, Zhang Huangyan also sent a letter to Zhou Peigong, reminding Zhou Peigong that he would deceive people too much.

However, Zhou Peigong also has an ambiguous attitude towards Zhoushan. Later, a messenger from Lin Qilong came to Huai'an, bringing a message from the governor of Caoyun, saying that the right of way of the river that Deng Ming had won for Chongming when he left could be maintained, but Zhoushan had to raise taxes and fees, and there were many goods that could not be smuggled and had to be sold to the Caoyun Yamen, because Lin Qilong intended to monopolize it. In the future, the river will issue more lists of monopoly goods, and Zhoushan must strictly abide by them, otherwise Lin Qilong cannot guarantee the safety of the personnel of the Chongming smuggling boat entering the canal. Although Jiang Guozhu has not yet made a clear request, it is estimated that he will extort Chongming like Lin Qilong. Zhang Huangyan said that if he did not agree to their conditions, the shipping trade entrusted to him by Deng Ming would probably have a big problem immediately; And if he agreed, he was worried that the Qing court in the southeast would gain an inch, and even asked the Ming army to return Chongming - whether it was Jiang Guozhu or Lin Qilong, they were not gentlemen who kept their promises.

At the end of April, after the news of Deng Mingdong's expedition to Huguang spread throughout the south of the Yangtze River, Lin Qilong and Jiang Guozhu never made new demands; At the beginning of May, Chongming first sent a report that Ma Fengzhi said that the officers and men of the river and the two rivers had stopped their activities to search for smuggling boats, and also returned the boats and personnel that had been stolen earlier. Then Zhang Huangyan heard the news that Deng Ming had left Wuchang on the 6th of last month and had arrived in Jiujiang at the end of last month.

Just a few days ago, Lin Qilong sent several heads, one of which belonged to the envoy of the Caoyun Governor Yamen, who came to Zhoushan last time. The officers and soldiers of the river who came to deliver the letter this time groveled to Zhang Huangyan, saying that the guy who was killed was not Governor Lin's confidant at all, and that the last time he came to Zhoushan was to pretend to be Lin Qilong's envoy, intending to separate the traditional friendship between Zhoushan and Huai'an -- the sharp-eyed Governor Caoyun had already found out that this guy was actually a meticulous work of the Qing court, and after killing him, he specially sent his head to Zhoushan in order to dispel Zhang Huangyan's doubts. The Governor of Caoyun once again reiterated that he would never arbitrarily amend any of the agreements reached with Deng Ming and Zhang Huangyan. When he saw the head, Zhang Huangyan suspected that Deng Ming was getting closer to Nanjing, and sure enough, he received new news about the Sichuan army today.

"Baoguo Gong has already arrived in Taiping Mansion, and he will be able to enter the city of Nanjing again in a few days, whether to occupy Yangzhou and cut off Cao Yun is only in the mind of Baoguo Gong." Zhang Huangyan said to Gan Hui and the others again.

Gan Hui and others all applauded, they came to Zhoushan for more than a month, and witnessed the changes in the arrogance of the Qing army in the southeast like a roller coaster. Now the three of them only hate that there are too few soldiers and horses in their hands, and they can't help Zhang Huangyan at all.

Just when a few people were in high spirits, a herald suddenly arrived in a hurry, reporting that a huge fleet had been found on the sea, and this fleet was coming from the southwest, and nine times out of ten it was the Zheng family's sailors. This news made the smiles of Zhang Huangyan and the others freeze on their faces. A moment later, Zhang Huangyan, Gan Hui and others rushed to the shore to look, and sure enough, they saw a dense sail heading towards Zhoushan.

"It looks like there are more than a hundred warships, and I'm afraid there are four or five hundred small boats." Zhang Huangyan knew that such a huge sea fleet could only belong to the Zheng family, and he couldn't help but be worried.

"One person does the same thing." Gan Hui could not have imagined that Zheng Jing would really make a big move, threatening allies for a few fleeing people - it is one thing to write a letter to ask for someone, but it is another thing to send troops to ask for help. But now, he doesn't want the Ming army to meet each other: "Zhang Shangshu hand over the last general, as long as he can keep my subordinates safe." ”

After speaking, Gan Hui was about to draw his sword and kill himself, but was hurriedly hugged by Zhang Huangyan's guards. At this time, the face of Shangshu of the Ming Military Department was already ugly, and he immediately sent envoys to Jin and Xiamen after Gan Hui fled, hoping that Zheng Jing would be lenient and no longer pursue these people's rebellious crimes: Anyway, there were few people who did not pose a threat to Zheng Jing, and they had no intention of confronting Zheng Jing.

"When you come here with only one or twenty thousand people, do you want me to give them over?" Zhang Huangyan said coldly. He estimated that Zheng Jun's men and horses were more than 30,000, and since the other party was here to ask for the guilt, then the so many small boats and cargo ships they accompanied would definitely not be filled with family members and goods, but soldiers with armor and armor. However, Zhang Huangyan deliberately said less, so as not to panic the Zhoushan garrison, even half of the number was above the strength of Zhoushan: "What right does the prince have to let me hand over?" He has not yet obtained the approval of the imperial court to inherit the general and the throne. ”

Zhang Huangyan ignored the demands of Gan Hui and others, and ordered Zhoushan to be fully armed. The Zhoushan side will not take the initiative to provoke a battle, but if the Fujian army wants to grab people, then the Zhoushan army will not stand idly by.

Including Zhou Yu of Guangdong, who had fled, and others also nervously picked up their weapons and stared intently at the fleet of the Yanping Domain, which was close to Zhoushan.

Soon, a battleship left the column and headed for the port of Shenjiamen at full speed. Like Xiamen Port, Shenjiamen Port is a sheltered harbor that allows large ships to dock directly, and Zhang Huangyan's headquarters is also located here.

Seeing that only one battleship was approaching, the Zhoushan army, which was bent and armed, looked at each other, not knowing what kind of medicine was sold in the other party's gourd. However, Zhang Huangyan understood in his heart, it is estimated that this is the other party's negotiating envoy, the so-called salute first and then the soldiers, if the negotiation is not appropriate, then there will only be soldiers to meet. Zhang Huangyan ordered his subordinates to put down their weapons first, and he walked up to the shore with a few guards, while Gan Hui and the other three also followed behind Zhang Huangyan.

However, it was not the imaginary messenger who jumped off the boat, but all the children of the Zheng family, and they were not covered like Zhang Huangyan. The first person who jumped off the boat shouted at Gan Hui and them: "Gan Admiral, General Yu, General Wan, you are really here, and I have come to you too!" ”

The person who shouted was named Zheng Zhanxu, and when Gan Hui saw this, he hurriedly stepped forward and saluted: "Young Marquis." ”

Zheng Zhanxu is the son of Zheng Tai, and his father Zheng Tai, as Zheng Chenggong's cousin, has served as a household official of the Fujian army for a long time. During the last Battle of Xiamen, Zheng Chenggong handed over one-third of the fleet to Commander Zheng Tai, cutting off the retreat of the Qing army at a critical moment. In the past, Zheng Chenggong personally sat in Xiamen, so he asked Zheng Tai to set up a large camp in Kinmen, and when he went on an expedition to Taiwan, Zheng Tai was left in the rear by Zheng Chenggong to assist Zheng Jing and defend against the Qing army, and he was also the actual commander of Jin and Xiamen.

When Zheng Chenggong and Zheng Jing's father and son clashed, Jin and Xia's hearts were fluctuating, and Zheng Jing begged his uncle Zheng Tai to save his life. In the end, Zheng Tai came forward to stabilize the hearts of Jin and Xiajun, and wrote a letter to Zheng Chenggong in the name of his cousin, asking him to forgive Zheng Jing once. For the Zheng family, Zheng Tai was not only a respected minister, but also a benefactor of Zheng Jing. When Zheng Jing sent troops to attack Zheng Zheng in Taiwan, Zheng Tai still stayed in Kinmen to ensure that this base area that Zheng Chenggong had painstakingly operated for more than ten years would not be attacked by the Qing army.

After Zheng Raid surrendered, Zheng Jing first sent Zheng Raid back to Kinmen to Zheng Tai to take care of, and then rushed back to Xiamen in person, announcing that he would hand over all the powers of Jin and Xiamen to Zheng Tai. When Zheng Tai was ordered to go to Xiamen to handle the handover, Zheng Jing suddenly made a difficulty, arrested Zheng Tai, and charged Zheng Tai with planning to support Zheng Zheng and betray him. Zheng Tai died that night, and Zheng Jing announced to the public that he committed suicide in fear of crime. Taking advantage of the chaos of Zheng Tai's subordinates, Zheng Jing began a large-scale hunt, claiming that there were many conspirators involved in the rebellion.

Because Zheng Jing claimed to have returned to Xiamen to handle the handover, he did not bring too many troops. Zheng Zhanxu refused to be restrained, so he fled with the garrison of Kinmen. While Zheng Jing was being suppressed in Xiamen, Zheng Zhanxu loaded more than 10,000 garrisons in Kinmen and their families onto the ship. In Deng Ming's previous life, Zheng Zhanxu went to surrender to Li Shutai and Shi Lang of the Fujian Qing court, and this time because Zhoushan was still in the hands of the Ming army, they fled to Zhang Huangyan.

Immediately behind Zheng Zhanxu was Zheng Xian, and after seeing Gan Hui and others, Zheng Zheng was also afraid.

"Zheng Jing killed Jianping Hou (Zheng Tai), under the pretext that Jianping Hou wanted to support me to make trouble...... "Zheng Tai has always been Zheng Jing's strong backing, Zheng Jing himself was sent by Zheng Jing to Kinmen and handed over to Zheng Tai, but it did not prevent Zheng Jing from using this as a crime of killing Zheng Tai: "When the subordinates of Jianping Hou were wantonly hunted down in Xiamen, the charges of executing them were all conspiring with me to make trouble, if I was caught again, how could I live?" ”

After listening to Zheng Zhanxu and Zheng Xi explain the cause and effect, Zhang Huangyan hurriedly took them to the camp to rest, and at the same time led the fleeing Kinmen Ming army to land. These more than 10,000 officers and soldiers and tens of thousands of military dependents were all frightened birds, and after fleeing from Kinmen in a hurry, they rushed all the way to Zhoushan.

……

That night, Xiamen, another fleet fled from Xiamen Port in a hurry. The port of Xiamen behind it was in flames, and Zheng Jing's subordinates, who occupied the port, saw that the "enemy" had fallen into the sea and fled, and immediately set fire to most of the warships that had not had time to leave, and pointed to the fleet in the night and cursed.

"General Chen, where are we going?"

Fleeing to sea, on the flagship of the fleet, a black-and-gray general gasped for breath and asked his commander-in-chief.

The general who was asked was Zheng Chenggong's right tiger guard Chen Python.

In the victory of Xiamen, Chen Python refused to obey Chen Peng's surrender order, and personally led more than 100 people to charge Shi Lang, who led 20,000 people to land, and drove Shi Lang off the sea. After the great victory, Zheng Chenggong promoted Chen Python to the commander of the Right Tiger Guard, and the Left and Right Tiger Guards were the personal guards of the feudal lord when Zheng Chenggong went on the expedition, and his status was similar to Deng Ming's Three Walls and Rangers, but the establishment was larger. When Zheng Chenggong attacked Taiwan, he took the Left Tiger Guard, and Chen Python was ordered to lead the Right Tiger Guard to defend Xiamen, which was equivalent to the commander of the Xiamen garrison.

After Zheng Jing searched for and killed Zheng Tai's subordinates, he began to purge further, and those former retainers of the Zheng family who did not unconditionally side with him in the previous father-son dispute suffered one after another. Zheng Jing first sent troops to monitor Chen Python's army, and then ordered Chen Python to visit him. But Chen Python already knew what happened to Zheng Tai's subordinates, and refused to stand still, so he actually resisted the order and led the Right Tiger Guard to openly mutiny.

Chen Python raided and occupied the port of Xiamen, and many Ming generals heard the news and brought troops to join Chen Python, side by side against Zheng Jing's army, and soon the rebels exceeded 20,000. Seeing that the rebels were strong, Zheng Jing did not immediately suppress them, but sent people to persuade them to surrender.

While bargaining with Zheng Jing, Chen Python and others secretly prepared grain, grass, and fresh water, and escaped from Xiamen tonight while it was dark, and set all the port facilities on fire when they left.

"Go to Zhoushan." Before escaping, Chen Python had already negotiated with the other defectors, completed the assembly outside the Kinmen Sea, and then hoisted his sails and headed for Zhoushan.

In Deng Ming's previous life, the desperate Chen Python circled in the Fujian Sea for several days and surrendered to Shi Lang, a defeated subordinate who had been beaten by him and fled. At this point, most of the heroes and heroes gathered by Zheng Chenggong in ten years and gathered from the four provinces surrendered to the Qing court with their ships and families, so that the Qing army in Fujian could easily obtain a sailor who was on par with Zheng Jing. Li Shutai and Shi Lang, who were originally empty-handed because of the Huangwu ban on the sea, relied on these tens of thousands of Zheng family soldiers and horses who defected to them, and easily won the impregnable Kinmen of Zheng Chenggong's era, but for Xiamen, the base camp of Zheng Chenggong's business for nearly 20 years, Li Shutai and Shi Lang still did not dare to attack lightly.

Seeing this, Zheng Jing lost the fighting spirit of resistance, and ordered the whole army to abandon Xiamen and flee to Taiwan. Zheng Jing's original intention of returning to Xiamen from Taiwan to murder Zheng Tai was to unify the affairs and establish his supreme authority. And he did achieve this goal, at the cost of handing over all the elite soldiers left by his father, hundreds of warships, and the painstakingly managed Jin and Xiamen to the Qing court, and losing absolute control of the Taiwan Strait, as well as Zheng Tai, the head of the Zheng family's maritime trade, and most of the partners in the mainland, Japan, and Luzon who were in charge of Zheng Tai.

……

At this time, in Luzhou Mansion, Deng Ming also accepted private greetings from officials from all over Jiangnan, as well as the blessings of these Qing court officials for the martial arts of the Ming army.

When entertaining these officials, Deng Ming wrote a handwritten letter to Jiang Guozhu and Lin Qilong, and the content of the two letters was exactly the same: "General Han's name is to go down to the south of the Yangtze River with 700 or 90,000 warships, of which 40,000 are in armor. ”

"That's it?" Ren Tang asked in surprise, when he saw Deng Ming writing a letter, he came over with great interest to give full play to his literary advantages. The Ming army had learned that the attitude of the southeastern government towards the Zhoushan army had changed a lot recently, and Ren Tang planned to denounce Jiang Guozhu in the letter for their ill-intentioned and treacherous intentions.

"Yes, that's it. Well, not many words, that's already a lot. Deng Ming threw aside the two letters, or two notes, re-spread the paper, and wrote again: "Forty thousand armor." ”

"Alright." Deng Ming signed his name at the end of both letters, pressed his seal heavily, and ordered the two letters to be sent to Nanking and Huai'an immediately.

Deng Ming explained to Ren Tang: "Governor Jiang and Governor Lin are two illiterate people, and they don't know the other words, so they know the word 'armor'. The last time I signed an agreement with them, I wrote too much and more than they could read, so I don't blame them. This time my letter was simple and clear, and the two of them would surely be able to read it. ”

(End of chapter)