Li Yan stood on the bow of the boat in the wind. Although it was less than March, the temperature in the sea in the south was relatively high, so although he was only wearing a single dress, he didn't feel cold. Just looking at the calm sea in front of him, Li Yan was thinking about his thoughts.

A few days ago, he received news that Silla and Baekje were fighting, and the battlefields of the two countries were now stalemate, which was exactly what he wanted to see, but there was one bad news among them, that is, after the war broke out, the Queen of Silla had not come forward. Although Li Yan guessed that it might be that Silla's Queen was weak after giving birth and was resting in the back, she, the queen, didn't even show her face when the two countries had such a big battle. This made Li Yan feel a little unfavorable premonition.

Li Yan's premonition was indeed accurate. Unfortunately, he was not a god. In addition, Jin Shengman's confidentiality work was done well, so he didn't know that Queen Silla had passed away. The new queen is the Jin Shengman who bit himself. Li Yan and his fleet arrived at Quanzhou, which was across the sea from Liuqiu Island the day before yesterday. Speaking of Quanzhou, it was not the Quanzhou of later generations. The Quanzhou that Li Yan arrived should actually be Fuzhou of later generations. Quanzhou in later generations is still only a part of Fuzhou and has not yet come out. It was not until more than a hundred years later that Fuzhou and Quanzhou were separated. The original Quanzhou was renamed Fuzhou, and the part that was separated inherited the name of Quanzhou.

Lu Qing’s base camp on Liuqiu Island is at the northernmost end of the island, which is the boundary of Taipei County in later Taiwan. Originally, Li Yan and his fleet did not need to go to Quanzhou, and could directly reach Liuqiu from the sea. However, according to the original arrangement, they had to go to Quanzhou to purchase a batch of supplies, such as ironware, seeds, cloth, etc., which were all urgently needed items on the island. Originally, they could also be transported directly from Dengzhou, but the journey was too far, and it was not cost-effective to load them all on the ship. It would be better to just take the money and then go to Quanzhou to purchase. Anyway, the prices were about the same and they were close to each other.

It took two days to purchase, and it was only loaded all the ships yesterday and last night, and then the fleet set sail again this morning, with the purpose of the northernmost end of Liuqiu Island.

Taking the information Li Yan investigated before and the information obtained from Lu Qing, he also had enough knowledge of Liuqiu Island. For example, he knew that Liuqiu Island is actually far more prosperous than he thought. On the side of the mainland, many Han people have moved there, roughly estimated that there are more than 100,000 people. Especially in Tainan area closer to Penghu, it is the main gathering place for Han people. Almost half of the Han people on Liuqiu Island live there, and even towns with a scale of more than 100,000 people have appeared.

However, Liuqiu is different from the mainland. There is no unified regime on the island. It can be roughly divided into Han forces and native forces. Among them, Han forces are around the island, and the middle of the island is the living scope of the natives. The two are constantly rubbing and conflicts break out from time to time.

However, among the Han forces, it was divided into several, such as Lu Qing and others. They were the regional overlords in the southeastern waters and were the largest force on the island, occupying the northern end of Liuqiu Island. Recently, after receiving the support of Li Yan, they began to expand southward. With the guarantee of powerful force, under the banner of Li Yan, most of the Han forces were subdued by them. Now only the Han people are the most concentrated and richest Tainan area, which is the area closest to Penghu.

However, when Lu Qing wrote a letter some time ago, when they expanded to Tainan, they encountered an extremely powerful opponent. Lu Qing didn't even notice that Tainan, the most concentrated place of Han people, was not as fragmented as he had known before. On the surface, this area was composed of several forces, but when he got here, he found that these forces had been connected internally. It can even be said that these forces are actually one force, and this force is in the hands of the same person.

Lu Qing did not pay much attention to this sudden opponent. After all, he now controls most of the territory of the Han people, and the population under his rule is not smaller than that of the other party. In addition, with Li Yan's support behind him, he does not believe that the other party has the courage to resist stubbornly.

Unfortunately, Lu Qing was wrong this time. Regarding his arrival, the Tainan force immediately tore off the surface disguise, quickly integrated the forces together, and launched a confrontation with Lu Qing. What surprised Lu Qing even more was that the opponent's armed force was extremely strong, and several conflicts were equal, and even suffered a small loss occasionally. Now Lu Qing and his subordinates finally began to face the other party, and decided to give up the force temporarily and start negotiating with the other party, hoping to use Huairou's means to bring the opponent down.

But what Lu Qing and the others did not expect was that although the other party agreed to the negotiation, his attitude was extremely arrogant. He did not even see the other party's real controller, and only sent a deputy to come forward. As soon as the other party came out, he asked Li Yan to come in person. Lu Qing had no qualifications to negotiate with them at all.

Seeing the other party's attitude, Lu Qing was naturally very angry and immediately mobilized all his strength to prepare to give the other party a fatal blow in terms of force. After all, after the previous tests, he found that although the other party's force was strong, it was still a little different from himself, especially in terms of weapons and equipment. After all, they all used the standard equipment of the Tang Dynasty, so naturally they were not comparable to that of the forces of an island.

However, just when Lu Qing was about to take action, he was suddenly assassinated in extreme danger, and more than him, he had a few important generals under him encountered killers almost at the same time. However, these killers did not seem to want to kill people. They all stopped suddenly when they were about to succeed at the last moment, took out a letter from their arms and threw it down, and then escaped. The content of the letter left by the killer was the same, and the other party said during the last negotiation, which was to let Li Yan come to discuss it in person.

I didn't think about this assassination at all, and it must have been sent by the other party. Although Lu Qing and others were very scared, Lu Qing was also a person who came through the storm and waves. He was not scared by this assassination. He immediately strengthened the guards of all the important figures under his command, and he doubled the guards around him. But even so, ten days later, he encountered assassination at his residence.

However, this time the three killers only sneaked outside his study and were discovered by the guards. As a result, two of the killers tried to block the guards. The other killer found Lu Qing, put the knife on his neck, and threatened all the guards to stop, only then did they save the two seriously injured companions.

Just when Lu Qing thought he would definitely die this time, he didn't expect the killer to put down the knife again, and then said to him coldly: "If the master had not ordered him, you would have died last time!"

After the killer finished speaking, he and his two companions immediately threw down their weapons and surrendered. After all, they were surrounded by Lu Qing's guards and had no way to escape. As for killing out, it was even more impossible, unless each of them was a super perverted strong man like Hu Li.

Regarding the second assassination, Lu Qing finally felt the other party's sincerity and invited the other party to negotiate again, wanting to know why the other party wanted to see Li Yan? Unfortunately, the other party was not willing to disclose it more, and just promised that as long as Li Yan came in person, they would immediately offer their territory and would never make any resistance.

Although Lu Qing couldn't figure it out, he had no choice but to fight. He definitely couldn't fight. After all, the opponent's assassin was elusive. If he dared to take action, he would probably have lost all his right-hand assistants in a few days, and even his own life would be difficult to protect. If he died, all his efforts some time ago would be in vain, and His Highness King Qi's plan would be hit.

It was precisely because of this that Lu Qing had to send a letter to Li Yan and ask him to come to Liu Ke to see what the other party was thinking? However, when Li Yan received the letter, he was at the busiest time in Chang'an and could not get out of it at all, so he had to delay it again and again until the New Year was over.

Looking at Liuqiu Island, who was already looking at it, Li Yan couldn't help but feel a little headache when he thought of the mysterious force on the island. It would be fine if the other party had only force, but those elusive killers were too tricky. And Lu Qing said that the other party had a large number of killers, otherwise he would not have assassinated several targets at the same time. Moreover, these killers were also very professional. Not only were they strong, but they were also good at stealth and disguising, and they might have fallen into the other party's way by accident.

The reason why he came to Liuqiu this time was to guard against the other party's assassination. After all, the other party's identity was unknown. If he just wanted to deceive him and then take his life with a killer, it would be too bad.

Lu Qing's base camp is at the northernmost end of Liuqiu Island. In fact, it is Keelung Port in later generations. However, Keelung Port at this time was called Chicken Bung, with a completely different pronunciation. The reason for the name Chicken Bung is that Keelung Port has mountains on three sides and faces the sea. There is a mountain next to it very much like a chicken cage, so it is named Jilong Mountain. The name Chicken Bung is also named from the mountain. However, when Li Yan found out, he changed the name Chicken Bung to Keelung, after all, it looks a little better in literal way.
Chapter completed!