Dragon Sea Empire

Ryukyu is a small country, and Japan's so-called western daimyos have trade relations with it, especially the Satsuma domain of the Shimadzu family has trade privileges to Ryukyu.Due to the strict maritime ban imposed on Japan by the Ming Dynasty, merchant ships were not allowed to trade in Japan, but trade with Ryukyu was allowed.As a result, the Ryukyu Zhongshan Kingdom became a trade transit point between China and Japan, especially Satsuma.Satsuma warriors gathered at Naha Port in Ryukyu with knives, shouting and rampant in the streets. This is the scene witnessed by the envoys of the Ming Dynasty in Naha when they canonized the king of Zhongshan.

Lu Yun is a subordinate of Xie Mingqinfang, one of the three Ryukyu officials. The Lu family has been in business for generations, and has been robbed by pirates at sea many times. They have a long-standing dislike for the Satsuma clan in Japan.

Xie Mingqin is actually a descendant of Chinese. His surname is Zheng Mingjiong. He is the first official of Chinese origin in Ryukyu history (the highest governor in Ryukyu and the highest rank among the civil servants of the Ryukyu gentry). This time, he sent Lu Yun to go abroad in his private capacity China actually came to attract Chinese businessmen to do business in Ryukyu. As a trading nation, Ryukyu has not sent ships to trade in Nanyang for many years due to competition from Westerners. As a result, Ryukyu has become increasingly impoverished. The only person who is willing to come to Ryukyu is now Chinese businessmen, so the whole country hopes that Chinese businessmen can go to their country for trade.

Yin Feng and Lu Yun learned of this situation during the chat, and readily agreed: next year, the company's merchant ships will be sent to Ryukyu for trade; at the same time, he asked to open a Chinese United Company's business office in Naha Port.Lu Yun patted his chest and said that this is a trivial matter, and he will definitely help.

The crew of the Flying Dragon was busy working under the command of Jr. Barreto.After all, it is the first time sailing and piloting such a warship, and the sailors are still in the running-in period.This group of sailors were mainly Dan people in Hainan, there were also sailors from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, and several of them were also refugees from overseas Chinese in Luzon.

Standing at the bow of the boat, Yin Feng looked at the Xinxing Ship that was driving parallel not far away, full of ambition and in a good mood.This is the first real battleship. Due to the use of rib structure and a large number of iron fasteners, there is no room for cargo on the battleship except ammunition, and the hull is far stronger than Xinxing.

According to Lu Yun's information, the Zhuyin ship sent by Yoshihiro Shimazu, the lord of the Satsuma domain, only had two brigs with a load of 5 catties.To deal with this kind of merchant ship without sea combat capability, in fact, a dual-purpose ship like Xinxing can also deal with it.In order to exercise the combat effectiveness of the entire crew of the Feilong battleship, Yin Feng insisted that the Feilong participate in the operation.

Originally pretending to be a red-haired pirate and letting the authentic Dutch battleship Eunice show up, it can fool people even more.However, the Eunice was too badly injured, and it would not be able to be repaired in a while, so Yin Feng had to forget it.

The two ships cruised all day on the Taiwan side of the northern Taiwan Strait without encountering any ships.Originally, it would take another month or two for Zhuyin's boat to go south, and then there would be a better wind direction.However, this year, the Satsuma clan consumed a lot of jewelry and property in their family collections in order to give gifts to Tokugawa Ieyasu, and they urgently needed to replenish them, so they set off eagerly before the ships of other daimyos.

"Mr. Lu, will the Satsuma clan's ship definitely come to Yaogang?"

Yin Feng has asked this question for the tenth time.

Lu Yun was sweating profusely, and said bitterly: "I will definitely, the needle master and the helmsman on the boat told me."

This is also his tenth answer.

In this era, Japanese ships going south had fixed sea routes, usually sailing close to the coastline, and to get to Hong Kong, Taiwan, the sea north of the Penghu Islands was the only way to go.

Holding Yin Feng's binoculars in his hand, Chen Zhongji looked around the sea curiously, and asked, "Boss owner, since the Japanese are coming to Hong Kong, why don't we wait for them at the port? Do we have to come here to intercept them?"

Yin Feng was full of worries about the company's financial crisis, and gave the boy a chestnut angrily: "You are so stupid, this matter is going to be done secretly, there are so many ships from various countries that come and go to and from Hong Kong, it can't be kept secret at all. , That's why I have to wait for the Japanese here. Hehe, it's not that I'm afraid of the Satsuma feudal lord, if I have 10 warships like the Hiryu, I'll come to find Hiroshi Shimadzu's bad luck."

Lu Yun chuckled, thinking that the owner of the ship is really cute and kind, sometimes like a child.

Yin Feng grabbed the binoculars from the hand of the smirking Chen Zhongji, looked at the sea randomly, and looked up at the sailors on the mainmast who were watching. He took a deep breath and said: "It's all caused by lack of money. People are poor and short-sighted! Doing a good business is slow to make money, so I have to make a bad plan."

Lu Yun couldn't help laughing: "Dadong Yin, are you still short of money? I think the China United Company can be compared with the East India Company of the Hongmaoyi."

"Compared to the East India Company? How early is it? Now they are the largest company in the world!" Yin Feng said modestly.

After night fell, the sailors on Wangdou changed shifts, and the captain Ye Hua went up to watch in person.

Yin Feng didn't have any illusions about finding the Japanese boat at night. He didn't have a good rest for several days, and he fell asleep in his cabin.

After an unknown amount of time, he was pushed awake by Chen Zhongji in a daze, rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked at Chen Zhongji blankly: "What's the matter?"

"Found the ship!"

Yin Feng jumped up from the bed, grabbed the binoculars and rushed out of the cabin, but saw that the deck was pitch black, and the sailors came and went in the dark.

"What the hell, why don't you light the lamp?" Yin Feng almost collided with the person opposite, who stood on a pillar and said in a low voice: "You can't light the lamp, for fear of disturbing the Japanese boats. I ordered the lamp not to be lit, Xin Xin Brother Lu also turned off the lights." It was Ye Hua who came, and Yin Feng could vaguely see his slender figure in the darkness.

Yin Feng patted his head: "Yes! You did the right thing! Where is the boat?"

A few people came to the bow, and Ye Hua pointed to some will-o'-the-wisp lights on the front left and said, "It's right there, about three miles away, anchored close to the coast. Judging from the lights, there are two boats moored side by side. .It was too dark to tell whether it was a Japanese boat. I was afraid that I might mistake the person or disturb them, so I should wait until dawn before doing anything.”

Yin Feng nodded: "You are more familiar with matters at sea than I am, so you can decide."

Ye Hua was startled, and immediately understood that this was Yin Feng's expression of complete trust in him, and immediately stood up straight and said solemnly: "Yes, I will definitely not let these two boats go."

Throughout the second half of the night, Yin Feng stood at the bow of the boat looking at the faint lights.

The sky was gloomy, and a thin layer of fog formed on the sea.Ye Hua discussed with Lu Shitou, and the Flying Dragon rushed up to start the attack, while the Xinxing supported and intercepted them from the outside.

Yin Feng does not intervene in the specific command. On the one hand, he believes that the captain of the sea fleet must have the ability to be proactive and make independent judgments. Ye Hua is someone with such qualities; What do months of training battleship sailors do.

In the faint mist, two Japanese boats with the flag of Hachiman Bodhisattva have already revealed their shapes.These are two lucky boats made in China. Most likely they were bought by Chinese businessmen entrusted by the Japanese. They are two-masted ships.

The Japanese ship was still asleep, completely unaware that the two three-masted giant ships with pirate skull flags in Sanli were gradually approaching them with malicious intentions.

The leader of the two Shuin boats, Kawayamaemon, the vassal of the Shimadzu family, just stepped out of the low cabin after a night of sound sleep, took a long breath in the cool and salty sea breeze, and was about to exercise his samurai sword on the deck for a while. Fan, as soon as he looked up, he saw a large ship over fifteen feet long suddenly appearing in the thin mist, and it was already close to about 100 steps away from his own boat.The most eye-catching thing is the black pirate skull flag and the orange-based Dutch flag flying on the top of the main mast of this three-masted ship.

"Enemy attack!" Kawayamaemon instinctively issued a warning.There is no need to think about the meaning of the black skull flag. Huashan, who has gone to sea for trade many times, understands what it means.

Several Japanese warriors stumbled onto the deck, and Huashan kicked one of them away: "Bastard, where is the person on duty? Hurry up and wake everyone up!"

It was too late. Within this distance, the 32-pound heavy gun on the bow of the Hiryu rumbled. The rudder stock in the stern was shattered.The shells left a trail of blood and severed limbs on the upper deck, and two warriors instantly turned into a pile of rotten flesh and blood in front of Huashan.

It was the first time for Huashan, who survived the catastrophe, to encounter heavy artillery bombardment. For a while, he lost his ability to think, and stood there blankly looking at the pile of flesh and blood in front of him.

Chen Zhongji, who fired the cannon, saw all this through the binoculars, and shouted excitedly: "It's a hit! It's a hit!"

The Hiryu quickly approached Kawayamaemon's ship, and a sailor from Quanzhou shouted in Hokkien: "Brother Tangren, don't come out!" Immediately there was a burst of musket fire, and gunpowder smoke covered the bow of the ship, and the impatient sailors had already fired up.

Hua Shan was hit on the right thigh, but he immediately came to his senses, rolled and hid on the side of the ship, shouting hoarsely: "It's Ming's ship!"

However, no one paid any attention to him at this time, and the boat was in chaos, screaming and screaming.The hull of Feilong was 6 or 7 meters higher than the Japanese ship. The sailors put cables on the side of the ship and slipped down with swords and axes in their hands. In a short while, more than 10 people jumped onto the deck of the Japanese ship.The musketeers on the Flying Dragon formed three rows on the side of the ship, firing continuously with muskets, condescending and wantonly strafing the entire upper deck of the Japanese ship.

Yin Feng felt very bored, and the Japanese boat was almost powerless to resist.On the contrary, a Japanese samurai took out an iron cannon and attempted to shoot at the Hiryu, but was immediately killed by a rain of bullets.Most of the samurai had been shot dead, and only a few of them hid in the cabin with the Chinese sailors and could not come out.

More sailors boarded the other ship and began to search and move forward.

After another Zhuyin ship was awakened, it was busy raising anchor and sailing, when suddenly another large ship appeared beside it, which was Xinxing.There were not many Japanese on this boat, mainly Chinese sailors and agents of some big Japanese businessmen in Satsuma.They were not samurai, and had no interest in resisting at all. At the same time, they also witnessed the tragic scene of Huashan Youemon flying on the boat, so they knelt down and begged for mercy, and surrendered.

On this ship, Huashan was found by the sailors of the Flying Dragon and pretended to be dead in the corpse. When he tried to resist, he was shot and killed by Yin Feng who had just boarded the ship.

"We are from the Tang Dynasty, stop fighting the brothers outside!" A panicked shout came from the cabin.Yin Feng signaled the musketeers to prepare to shoot, and said loudly: "Come out, come out with your hands up!"

After a while, more than 30 Chinese sailors, secretary offices, and officials were escorted to the bow, and squatted on the ground with their hands tied upside down.A few Japanese were spotted among the crowd; the samurai's peculiar hairstyles exposed them, and they were immediately dragged to the stern.

The two boats were completely controlled by Yin Feng's men.On the two boats, all the Japanese people who were found alive were gathered at the stern, and there were about 30 people.

Yin Feng walked up to the captured Chinese crew members and looked at them.They were all terrified, and no one dared to look up at him.Although they already knew that these pirates were not Dutch red-haired barbarians, some Chinese pirates also killed people indiscriminately. Who knows what kind of people they are in front of them?

Yin Feng found that among the group of people, only one dared to raise his head to meet his gaze; a young man with thick eyebrows and big eyes, a strong physique.

Yin Feng coughed, and there was a burst of gunfire from the stern of the boat, which lasted for about half a minute, and all the Japanese were dealt with.Lu Shitou directed the sailors to throw all these corpses into the sea.He had fought many battles with the Japanese ronin from Manila and Nihoncho, and his dislike of the Japanese was second only to Yin Feng.

Yin Feng saw that the Chinese were even more flustered, and was about to say something to comfort him, when the thick-eyed young man rushed out of the crowd and cursed loudly: "Straight mother thief, kill as soon as you want, grandpa, I..."

Before he finished his rhetoric, he was knocked to the ground by the butt of a gun from the Danmin musketeer beside Yin Feng.Yin Feng was about to tell his subordinates to stop, but he saw the young man stubbornly standing up again, standing there straight and glaring.

"Stop!" Yin Feng told the musketeer to stop, and asked the young man curiously, "Who are you? When did I say I was going to kill you?"

"Grandpa's name is Yan Siqi, we... what, you won't kill us?" The young man was a little surprised.

Yin Feng was even more surprised and asked in surprise, "Are you Yan Siqi?"