1640, the thirteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, was an extremely unstable year for the entire Far East, with famine, turmoil, war, and death flooding every country and region.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were droughts in the north, heavy rains in the south, and constant famines, which led to the resurgence of refugee riots and inexhaustible suppression, just like weeds growing in the wild, one crop was extinguished and another sprouted.

In mid-June, Li Zicheng was besieged in Yubeli Mountain (east of Fengjie County, Sichuan). At that time, many rebels surrendered to the army. Li wanted to commit suicide, but his adopted son Shuangxi dissuaded him. Liu Zongmin, his subordinate, killed his wife and told Li Suo that he would die.

When the strong men in the army heard about it, they killed their wives and children and swore to follow Li Zicheng. Li Zicheng burned all his baggage, and in September, they all rode lightly into Henan from Yun.

Although Zhang Xianzhong was defeated, his energy was still strong. After crossing the river, he stationed in Wanqing Mountain. At this time, Yang Sichang came up from Yilingshuo. However, Zhang Xianzhong's power was already strong. He successively captured Dachang and Kaixian, and attacked Jianzhou in the north.

Entering Hanzhong, they also attacked Mianzhou, Luzhou, and reached Kaixian. Yang Sichang was in Chongqing Mansion, summoning people to congratulate him, and Zuo Liangyu came to help, but none of them came.

In May, there were heavy rains day and night in Su, Song, Hu and other prefectures. The water suddenly broke out and surged suddenly, destroying countless houses and hundreds of thousands of victims. People ate grass and trees, leaving their wives and dead to sleep on.

In August, there was a severe famine in Puzhou Prefecture. All the vegetation was eaten up. The officials dug pits outside the city gate to bury the starving dead. The burials were full, and the hungry people rushed into the pits to cut and eat their flesh. There was even a father and son couple.

Eaters.

In September, there was a locust plague in Yizhou, Shandong. The locusts were all over the fields. Hundreds of trees were leafless, the ground was thousands of miles long, and there were two thousand bushels of wheat. The people dug up grass roots and peeled off the bark. Fathers and sons ate each other. Skeletons lay everywhere. Babies were abandoned all over the road. Many people put up grass on their own.

Bid for sale, and those who wander through the ditches have no hope.

In December, Chongzhen issued an edict to increase customs duties throughout the world. Since his income was running low, he increased the customs duties by 200,000 taels, while the merchants and people became increasingly poor.

The Songjin War in Liaodong also slowly came to an end as the Eight Banners of the Slave Army besieged Jinzhou and Hong Chengchou was ordered to supervise the army outside Ningjin Pass. If history follows the current track, two years later, this Ming Dynasty war will

The last battle outside the Pass resulted in the annihilation of all the elite Ming troops outside the Pass, and the Jiannu soldiers advanced to Shanhaiguan. After decades of war between the Ming Dynasty and the Jiannu, the Ming Dynasty completely lost the initiative outside the Pass.

In Nanyang, the war between Hanzhou and the Netherlands is still going on. What surprises everyone is that the Dutch East India Company, the maritime ruler of the East Indies, is facing the new Hanzhou forces and is being attacked frequently by the other side.

, not only were several colonial strongholds conquered by Hanzhou and a large number of people were captured, but also their merchant ships were repeatedly attacked by Hanzhou ships on the vast ocean, causing heavy losses.

In Luzon, the tyrannical Spanish colonists, simply to avoid possible external attacks and to avoid being attacked by the Ming from both inside and outside, brazenly raised their butcher knives and launched an indiscriminate massacre of nearly 10,000 Ming people outside Manila.

In contrast, the Calamba Uprising was so angry that they killed all the Spaniards and native servants they had captured earlier, and vowed to massacre all Spaniards in Luzon.

At this point, there was no room for maneuver between the Ming people of Luzon and the Spaniards, and a fight to the death was formed.

In view of this, Zheng Zhilong, the general military officer of Fujian Province in the Ming Dynasty and the title of governor of the department, held a grand review of the three armies in the school grounds outside Quanzhou City on December 15, 1640. Afterwards, he denounced the atrocities and crimes committed by the Western barbarians in Luzon and read a number of people from the Ming Dynasty in Luzon.

tragedy.

"The Western barbarians are cruel and greedy, slaughtering our fellow Ming people, plundering our Ming people's wealth, and humiliating our Ming people's wives and daughters. This has sincerely damaged the prestige of our Ming Dynasty and brought shame to our Ming soldiers and men. Therefore, under the orders of the Nanjing Ministry of War, today The three armies of the senior college led their troops to attack Luzon and punish the Western barbarians." Zheng Zhilong stood on the high platform of the school field and said loudly: "We are going to Luzon with thousands of miles of waves, high winds and strong waves, and the Western barbarians are fierce and have sharp cannons. The soldiers persevered and fought bravely, killing the enemy with all their strength, going straight to the den of thieves, and avenging the unjust deaths of thousands of our compatriots in the Ming Dynasty."

"In this battle, the injured were raised by my Zheng family, and the children of the deceased were provided by my Zheng family. Those who have done meritorious service will be rewarded with wealth, silk, gold and silver, and the fame and fortune will be shared with you. But if there is anyone who is timid and refuses to advance, he will be punished. Act according to the military law in wartime! In this battle, our Ming Dynasty has gathered more than ten thousand water and land divisions, and more than a thousand cannons and muskets. The Xiyi clowns have gathered less than a thousand and five soldiers. Therefore, our army is well prepared to attack, but we can't. Invincible! One day when I return in triumph, I will have a drink here with all the soldiers to congratulate me on the power of the Ming Dynasty! The Ming Dynasty will be victorious!"

"Da Ming, Wan Sheng!"

Thousands of officers and soldiers of Zheng's Army Division in the school field shouted in unison, which echoed throughout the countryside.

"Zheng Zhilong's attack on Luzon's Xiyi this time is probably not all because of the death of nearly ten thousand Ming people at the hands of the Xiyi." Several businessmen-looking men on the edge of the school grounds whispered in private, "I heard that there are many copper mines in Luzon. Moreover, the Westerners have been running Luzon for decades, transporting and accumulating hundreds of millions of silver from their eastern territories in Manila. If Zheng Zhilong were to conquer Manila and occupy Luzon, it would be a huge fortune. !”

"The Zheng family started from the sea, and the mining business on the ground should not be very interesting." Another businessman rolled his eyes a few times, "What if I wait to get a few copper mines after the Zheng family takes over Luzon? , that can make a lot of money. Which of you has a way to contact the Zheng family so that we can occupy the front position in advance? "

"Tang Shiwen, the counselor of General Zheng, is said to like antiques, calligraphy and painting, and he is quite elegant." A businessman said: "We might as well search for some calligraphy and painting from the previous dynasty, hold a poetry meeting, and invite him. Keep in touch with each other."

Liu Tingke, the prefect of Quanzhou, waited for Zheng Zhilong to take the oath of office at the school grounds, and then directly returned to the official office in the city and did not attend the farewell banquet held by the Fujian Governor's Mansion. Although Zheng Zhilong claimed to have received the troop deployment letter from the Nanjing Ministry of War, he knew that as the largest military force in Fujian, As the only maritime force in the Ming Dynasty, Zheng Zhilong's so-called request for orders from the Nanjing Ministry of War was nothing more than a formality. In recent years, the Zheng family has basically been free from the constraints and control of the Nanjing Ministry of War, and has continued to privately expand its military power and penetrate into various parts of Fujian. It seems that the vassal town has become the most powerful one.

Liu Tingke seemed worried about this, but he had nothing to do. The literati of the Ming Dynasty had always had a strong and superior position in front of the generals. As the chaos in the Ming Dynasty intensified, some changes had slowly occurred. Decades ago, people like Zheng Zhilong The commander-in-chief of a province has no qualifications to speak loudly in front of him as the prefect. But now, any guerrilla or general on the streets of Quanzhou does not take him as the prefect seriously. Even a thousand-household, hundred-hundred-year-old He cannot deal with them at will.

Could it be that the troubled times of the Ming Dynasty are coming, and it’s time for warriors to control the world again?

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December 20, 1640, in the waters northeast of Taiwan.

Three Hanzhou armed merchant ships slowly parked more than a hundred meters away from a small island. In a moment, four or five small boats sailed from the temporary dock 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. At least there must be a berth that can accommodate large ships." Sun Weiqing watched the sailors on the side of the ship laboriously use the buckets of rice.

The cable was hoisted to the boat below, and he shook his head and said: "Unloading the cargo like this is really time-consuming and laborious."

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

The Xinghe Island mentioned in the mouth of Qi Dajiang is the Japanese Ishigaki Island not far southeast of Taiwan in later generations. This island was created in October when several immigrant ships from Hanzhou encountered a storm on their way back to Hanxing Island from Daming Shandong.

, took shelter from the wind and rain on this island and built a temporary camp on the shore.

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

Prepare.

It is relatively close to Taiwan, less than 300 kilometers away. The island has many mountainous areas, with a mountain of more than 500 meters in the center, while the south is mostly flat land with raised coral reefs. The soil is fertile and suitable for cultivating farmland and building immigrant camps. This is particularly important.

What's surprising is that there are actually more than a hundred Ming people from Fujian living on the island, living in separate camps with three to four hundred Ryukyu natives.

Hanxing Island then sent more than 50 meters of local soldiers, easily controlled the island, and successively moved five to six hundred immigrants, began to build a fortress here, collected food taxes from the indigenous people on the island, and incorporated it into the Han Xing Island.

Under the formal management system of Xingdao.

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

It stands to reason that now that there are more than 10,000 immigrants gathered on Hanxing Island, Hanzhou should not have sent three large ships to accompany Zheng Zhilong to Luzon to attack the Spaniards. But who would have thought that it was Hanzhou who first proposed to Zheng Zhilong the plan to attack Luzon?

They claimed that they had lurking agents in Luzon among the ranks of the revolting Ming people. At that time, as soon as the army landed in Luzon, thousands of armed Ming people would come to meet them, expel the Westerners, and occupy Luzon. It would be a piece of cake.

thing.

Therefore, when the Hanzhou attack fleet went to Quanzhou Port for ship maintenance at the end of November, Zheng Zhilong proposed that Hanzhou had jointly attacked Luzon with the Netherlands and was familiar with the situation there, and asked Hanzhou to also send out

Ships and landing troops accompanied them to Luzon to attack the Spanish.

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

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At the end of 1640, Spain in Manila had received information from Oyster (today's Macau) that Zheng Zhilong, the naval commander of the Ming Dynasty, would send an army of up to 10,000 people to attack the Philippines. The reason for their attack on the Spanish

, in addition to openly claiming to avenge the Spaniards’ massacre of the Ming people, there was also news coming from the trail. Some people rumored that the Spaniards had transported countless gold and silver from distant America, and all of them were piled up in Manila.

.

Oh, God, although for decades, the Spanish trans-Pacific trade fleet has transported tens of millions of pesos of silver from the Americas every year. But each time this silver was exchanged for countless pieces of silk, porcelain, and

Other valuable handicrafts from the Ming Dynasty were then brought back to America.

Although there is some savings in the city of Manila, this amount is far from enough to justify an army of ten thousand people for an expedition across the sea and thousands of miles!
Chapter completed!