1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 384 The End of Chongzhen's 13 Years
1640, the 13th year of Chongzhen, was an extremely turbulent year for the entire Far East, with famines, turmoil, wars, and deaths flooding various countries and regions.

In Daming, the drought in the north and the torrential rain in the south led to constant famines, which caused the resurgence of the refugee riots, which could not be suppressed. It was like weeds growing in the wild.

In mid-June, Li Zicheng was besieged in Yufu Mountain (east of Fengjie County, Sichuan Province). At that time, many people from the rebel army surrendered to the official army. Li wanted to commit suicide, but he persuaded his adopted son Shuangxi to stop him.His subordinate Liu Zongmin killed his wife and told Li Suo, vowing to obey the king to the death.When the strong men in the army heard about it, they also killed many wives and sons, vowing to obey Li Zicheng.Li Zicheng burned all his belongings and entered Henan from Yun and Junqing in September.

Although Zhang Xianzhong was defeated, he was still full of energy. After crossing the river, he was stationed in Wanqing Mountain. At this time, Yang Sichang came up by boat from Yiling Shuo.However, Zhang Xianzhong's power has become strong, and he successively captured Dachang and Kaixian, attacked Jianzhou in the north, and will enter Hanzhong.It also attacked Mianzhou, Luzhou, and Kaixian County.When Yang Sichang was in Chongqing, he summoned He Renlong and Zuo Liangyu to help, but none of them came.

In May, Su, Song, Hu and other prefectures experienced heavy rain day and night.

In August, there was a great famine in Puzhou Prefecture, and all the plants and trees were eaten up. The government dug a pit outside the city gate to bury the starved dead. cannibal.

In September, there was a plague of locusts in Yizhou, Shandong. The locusts were everywhere, with hundreds of trees without leaves, thousands of miles of red land, and two thousand wheat buckets.The people dug grass roots and peeled bark, father and son ate each other, bones criss-crossed, babies were donated all over the road, many people set up grass bids for sale, and those who wandered through the ravines were not counted.

In December, Chongzhen issued an edict to increase the tariffs of the whole country.Gein was in dire straits, so the tariff was increased by 12 taels, and the merchants and people became increasingly impoverished.

The Songjin War in Liaodong also slowly drew the prelude as the soldiers of the Eight Banners encircled Jinzhou and Hong Chengchou was ordered to supervise the army outside Ningjin Pass.If history slides according to the existing track, two years later, the last battle outside the Great Ming Pass will wipe out all the elite Ming troops outside the pass, and Jiannubing Peak will enter Shanhaiguan.After decades of continuous war between Ming Dynasty and Jiannu, they completely lost the initiative outside the pass.

In Nanyang, the war between Hanzhou and the Netherlands is still going on. To everyone's surprise, the Dutch East India Company, the maritime ruler of the East Indies, is facing the new Hanzhou forces and is frequently attacked by the opponent. , Not only were several colonial strongholds breached by Hanzhou, and a large number of people were captured, but also on the vast ocean, their merchant ships were repeatedly attacked by Hanzhou ships, causing heavy losses.

In Luzon, the tyrannical Spanish colonists, just to avoid possible foreign attacks and avoid being flanked by Ming people inside and outside, brazenly raised their butcher knives and carried out an indiscriminate massacre of nearly [-] Ming people outside Manila. .In contrast, the Ming people of the Kalamba uprising were enraged and beheaded some of the Spaniards and native servants they had captured in the early stage, and vowed to slaughter all the Spaniards in Luzon.

So far, there is no room for maneuver between the Luzon Ming people and the Spaniards, forming an endless situation.

In view of this, on December 1640, 12, Zheng Zhilong, the commander-in-chief of the Fujian Province and the commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty, read the three armies in the school grounds outside the city of Quanzhou. The tragedy.

"Western barbarians are cruel and greedy. They slaughtered our Ming compatriots, plundered our Ming's wealth, and humiliated our Ming's wives and daughters. This sincerely damages the prestige of our Ming Dynasty and shames our soldiers and men of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, by the order of the Nanjing Military Department, today The three armies of the colonel will lead the division to attack Luzon and punish the Xiyi." Zheng Zhilong stood on the high platform of the school field and said loudly: "We are going to Luzon, the waves are thousands of miles away, the wind is high and the waves are fierce, and the Xiyi are fierce and sharp. The soldiers were perseverant and courageous, fought the enemy with all their strength, went straight to the dens of thieves, and avenged my thousands of compatriots who died unjustly in the Ming Dynasty."

"In this battle, the wounded are raised by our Zheng family, and the dead are provided by our Zheng family. Those who make meritorious deeds will be rewarded with wealth, gold and silver, and the fame and fortune will be shared with the king. According to the military law of wartime! In this battle, our Great Ming gathered more than ten thousand divisions on land and water, more than a thousand cannons and guns, and less than a thousand and five soldiers gathered by the clowns of the Western Yi. Therefore, our army is prepared to attack, but it cannot Impossible! When I return triumphantly in the future, I will have a drink here with all the soldiers to congratulate my great Ming! Great Ming, ten thousand victories!"

"Da Ming, Wan Sheng!"

Thousands of officers and soldiers of Zheng's Lu Division shouted in unison, resounding all over the field.

"Zheng Zhilong's attack on Xiyi in Luzon this time may not be all because of the death of my nearly ten thousand Ming people at the hands of Xiyi." A few men who looked like businessmen on the side of the school field whispered privately, "I heard that there are many copper mines in Luzon. Moreover, Xiyi has managed Luzon for decades, transported from their eastern territories and accumulated millions of silver in Manila. If Zheng Zhilong broke Manila and occupied Luzon, it would be a huge fortune !"

"The Zheng family started from the sea, so it shouldn't be very fun to make a living by mining on the ground." Another businessman rolled his eyes a few times, "If I wait for the Zheng family to occupy Luzon, I will go to buy a few copper mines , that can also make a lot of money. Does anyone of you have a network to connect with the Zheng family, so that we can occupy the front position in advance?"

"Tang Shiwen, the opportunity counselor of Zheng Zongshu, I heard that he likes antique calligraphy and painting, and he is quite elegant." A businessman said: "I might as well search for some calligraphy and painting from the previous dynasty, and then hold a poetry meeting, and invite him. Get in touch with each other."

Liu Tingke, the prefect of Quanzhou, waited for Zheng Zhilong to finish his swearing-in at the school grounds, and went back to the government office in the city without attending the farewell banquet held by the Fujian Governor's Mansion.Although Zheng Zhilong claimed to have obtained the instructions for the deployment of troops from the Nanjing Ministry of War, he knew that, as the largest military leader in Fujian and the only maritime force in the Ming Sea, Zheng Zhilong's so-called appeal to the Nanjing Ministry of War was nothing more than a formality.In recent years, the Zheng family has basically been freed from the constraints of the Nanjing Ministry of War, and has continued to expand its military power privately, penetrating all parts of Fujian, and it seems to have formed the trend of the tail of the vassal town.

Regarding this, Liu Tingke seemed worried, but there was nothing he could do.With the intensification of the chaos in the Ming Dynasty, the consistent strong and superior position of the literati in front of the generals has gradually changed.Decades ago, a provincial general like Zheng Zhilong was not qualified to speak loudly in front of him, the magistrate.But now, any guerrilla or general on the streets of Quanzhou does not take him as the magistrate seriously.He couldn't even deal with a thousand or a hundred households at will.

Could it be that the chaos of the Ming Dynasty is coming, and it's time for martial arts to manipulate the world again?

----------

On December 1640, 12, in the sea off the northeast side of Taiwan.

Three Hanzhou armed merchant ships slowly parked more than a hundred meters away from a small island. After a while, four or five small boats sailed from the temporary pier of the small island, shouting loudly at the sailors on the big ship.

"In the future, the immigrants on the island must be allowed to renovate the pier on the island, and at least there must be a berth that can dock large ships." Sun Weiqing watched the sailors on the side of the boat laboriously use buckets of rice The cable was hoisted to the boat below, and he shook his head and said, "Unloading like this is really time-consuming and laborious."

"Don't worry, according to Zhang Wenqi's temperament, within half a year, this Xinghe Island will definitely be transformed into another Hanxing Island." Qi Dajiang said with a smile.

The Xinghe Island mentioned in Qi Dajiangkou is the Japanese Ishigaki Island not far from the southeast of Taiwan in later generations.This island was in October. Several immigrant ships from Hanzhou encountered a storm on their way back to Hanxing Island from Daming Mountain. They temporarily took shelter on this island and built a temporary camp on the shore.

Later, after Zhang Wenqi learned about it, she felt that since a temporary camp had been built on this island, she simply occupied it. In this way, this place can complement Hanxing Island and open two immigration gathering places to expand the large number of immigrants in the future. Prepare.

It is relatively close to Taiwan, less than 300 kilometers away.There are many mountains on the island. The central part is a high mountain of more than 500 meters, while the southern part is mostly flat land raised by coral reefs, and the soil is fertile, which is suitable for reclaiming arable land and building immigrant camps.More importantly, there are more than 100 Ming people from Fujian on the island, who live in separate camps with [-] to [-] Ryukyu natives.

Hanxing Island then dispatched more than 50 meters of township soldiers to easily control the island, and moved five or six hundred immigrants one after another. They began to build forts here, collected food taxes from the aborigines on the island, and included them in Hanxing Island. under a formal management system.

In addition to bringing supplies to Xinghe Island, Qi Dajiang led the three armed merchant ships. Their main purpose was to go to Tainan County in Taiwan to join Zheng Zhilong's attacking Luzon army and jointly attack the Spaniards.

It stands to reason that now that Hanxing Island has gathered more than [-] immigrants, Hanzhou should not have sent three large ships with Zheng Zhilong to Luzon to attack the Spaniards.But who knows that it was Hanzhou who first proposed to Zheng Zhilong the plan to attack Luzon, and also claimed that they had hidden secret operations in Luzon in the ranks of the uprising Ming people.At that time, as soon as the army lands in Luzon, thousands of armed Ming people will come to meet them, expel the Westerners, and occupy Luzon, which will be a breeze.

Therefore, at the end of November, when the Hanzhou raiding fleet went to Quanzhou Port for ship maintenance, Zheng Zhilong suggested that Hanzhou and the Netherlands had jointly attacked Luzon and was familiar with the situation there, and asked Hanzhou to also send Ships and landing troops accompanied them to Luzon to attack the Spaniards.

Thinking of Qi Tian's worries about the situation of the Lu Song Ming people, Qi Dajiang did not refuse, and agreed to come to Taiwan to join Zheng Zhilong's army in mid-to-late December.

---------

At the end of 1640, Spain in Manila had received a message from Haojing (today's Macau) that Zheng Zhilong, the naval commander of the Ming Dynasty, would send an army of up to [-] people to attack the Philippines.The reason why they attacked the Spaniards was that apart from claiming revenge for the Spaniards massacring the Ming people, there was even a rumor that the Spaniards had transported countless gold and silver from distant America, and All piled up in the city of Manila.

Oh, God, although for decades, the Spanish trans-Pacific trade fleet has shipped tens of millions of pesos of silver from the Americas every year.But each time the silver was exchanged for countless silks, porcelain, and other precious handicrafts from the Ming Dynasty, and then brought back to America.

Although there are some savings in the city of Manila, this amount is far from enough to be a reason for an army of ten thousand people to travel thousands of miles across the sea!

Could it be that Governor Zheng Zhilong of the Ming Dynasty was poor and crazy?
(End of this chapter)