Chapter 281 Determining a Strategy: Unifying the Seas and Territories
Yin Feng made it clear that a government agency would be formally established, and everyone present immediately understood what he meant: This means that the China United Company has officially taken the first step in establishing a country.
Zeng Qi stood up and said: "We all have the same purpose. There is no reason for the country we have worked hard to build and the wealth we have earned to be handed over to the gang of nerds in the court who will only engage in party fighting, corruption and bribery, and study to death. The ancients said that a snake cannot survive without a head. Whether it is a garrison or a company, we must have a leader. I think this leader can only be Yin Dadong's family. Everyone has no objection, right?"
Everyone shook their heads like rattles and said in unison: "Yin Dadong's family is our leader..."
Through this meeting, Yin Feng basically took the company's decision-making power over the local administrative management of the occupied areas into his own hands, and no longer needed a board of directors.
At the same time, he also made a lot of money from Tokugawa Ieyasu: Tokugawa Ieyasu finally started the battle of Osaka to eliminate the Toyotomi clan at the end of last year. Yin Feng took the opportunity to raise the price and raised the price of the cannon sold to the shogunate. Five times the price. At the same time, he also secretly sold some small artillery and matchlock guns to the Toyotomi family, which were also expensive.
Yin Feng made a total of one million taels of silver from both the shogunate and the Toyotomi family. Moreover, this money was earned by the Chinese army, and Yin Feng could handle it all by himself.
With extra money on hand and without the approval of the company's board of directors, he immediately began to reorganize the Chinese United Company's organization. Two garrison offices of Taiwan and Luzon were to be established. At the same time, five counties were established in Luzon and four in Taiwan. Counties (Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Taitung), Ryukyu and West Borneo each established a county, and the remaining Nanyang colonies were still under militarized jurisdiction by the company and the Chinese Army.
In this way, a large number of employees from the company's commerce department, business information department, and agricultural reclamation department will have to be converted into government administrators. Since Yin Feng stipulates that administrative managers must stay in their jurisdiction for at least three consecutive years, this will affect those who have a large number of shares in the company. Clerks and employees who are good at business are at a great disadvantage, so many people choose to continue to work in the company.
In this way, there was a shortage of local administrative officials in the areas governed by the Chinese Company.
In May of the 43rd year of Wanli, the China United Company sent a message to the entire Ming Dynasty ruling area through its business network and connections in business and politics: Taiwan was about to open its official recruitment process.
This is simply an act of blatant rebellion, but many scholars actually went to Taiwan to take the exam.
The imperial examination in the Ming Dynasty made the only way for all scholars to find a way out was to be an official. In the whole of China, except for being an official, there seemed to be no other worthy goal of studying. Therefore, those children who failed the examination for a long time could not enter the family. The troubled scholars, those nerds who had nothing to do except study, literally a hundred people came from all over the country, and they all thought that it would be good to become an official in Taiwan: at least , this place is still nominally a territory of the Ming Dynasty, and I heard that you can get a high salary as an official here without having to scratch the land.
Yin Feng left all the troublesome matters such as how to recruit these scholars and how to train them to become administrative cadres under the Chinese company system to Mr. Zeng and Zeng Shan. He himself came to the navy port of Jingang to prepare for Ye's expedition to Guangdong. Hua saw him off.
There are no longer any pirates along the coast of Fujian. Hundreds of bays have become seaports under the control of the China United Company. On the coasts of Zhejiang and Guangdong, there are still some maritime armed forces that do not belong to the China United Company.
The Zhoushan Islands off the coast of Zhejiang, Sansuan Island off the coast of Taizhou, and the Nanji Islands off the coast of Wenzhou had some permanent residents in the early Ming Dynasty. During the Hongwu period, the sea was banned. After Tang He patrolled the sea, the residents of these offshore islands were forcibly relocated. They were even given only one day to enter the mainland, otherwise they would be exiled to the army. As a result, tens of thousands of islanders abandoned their homes and property. They did not even have time to prepare boats. They rowed rafts made of door panels to cross the sea and moved to the mainland. Countless people starved to death and drowned. These islands Therefore, it became an uninhabited island, and later became a paradise for Japanese pirates and pirates.
At present, there are still some small-scale pirate armed forces on these islands, making a living by smuggling some goods to the Chinese Company, or robbing merchant ships that do not fly the Chinese United Company's blue flag with Chinese characters.
To deal with these small groups of pirates, Yin Feng simply sent the Feilong battleship and ten three-masted gunboats. After patrolling the coast of Zhejiang, he summoned the leaders of the small armed forces to gather on Sansuan Island.
Later generations of Sangaran Island were called Pirate Island. I don’t know whether it got its name because the island is shaped like garlic, or whether it was named after the island was covered with garlic in the old days and fishermen often used it for food. The terrain of this small island is dangerous and there are many reefs around the island. , the natural caves running through the island have always been a gathering place for pirates along the coast of Zhejiang. This time, there were about a dozen pirate gangs who came to Sansuan Island to gather, which basically included all the pirate gangs along the coast of Zhejiang. During the Jiajing Japanese Pirates Period, Zhejiang The pirate forces along the coast suffered a major blow, and there was no more heroic figures like Wang Zhi. They never recovered. Although there were more than a dozen pirate gangs that came to the island, the total number of pirates they represented did not exceed 2,000.
The huge body of the Feilong looks very uncoordinated among a group of small sailboats. Chen Zhongji, as the plenipotentiary representative of Yin Feng, is climbing the rope net from the Feilong to the ferry boat on the sea. The terrain on the coast of Sansuan Island is steep. , it is impossible to reach the shore without a small boat, and this kind of small boat is a wooden rocking boat commonly used by local pirates. It can shuttle back and forth among the rocks and dangerous shoals to avoid being pursued by officers and soldiers. The locals call it "Guga boat".
Why is it called this? Chen Zhongji asked a local sailor: One theory is that it is a homophonic pronunciation of "street boat". The reason is that the sea is like land, and there are streets where boats can travel. Crossing the sea to ferry is not just crossing the street.
It is said to be "Guga boat". The ferry boats are all wooden boats with rocking oars. When the wooden oars are shaken, they make a "Guga" sound, so the fishermen simply call it "Guga boat", "Guga". , "Guga", Chen Zhongji thinks it is more interesting to call it "Guga boat".
Chen Zhongji, surrounded by a hundred sailors and musketeers, paddled a dozen "cuckoo boats" and landed on the island. Several dark-skinned fishermen had already been waiting here to greet them, saying that they were inviting the boss of the Chinese company to a meeting on the gravel beach. , walked a mountain road, then went down a gravel path, passed through a narrow rock channel shaped like a "line of sky", and entered the gravel beach. The beach area is not large, but it is surrounded by dangerous rocks and reefs. A cave is revealed in the space, with a broad sea view, waves lapping the beach, and the sound of the beach. The gravel beach faces the endless East China Sea, and the various pirate leaders who are having a meeting are waiting for Chen Zhongji in the rock cave.
"What is incorporation?"
"You are using the big one to bully the small ones and not giving us a way to survive,"
"Where is Captain Yin? If we want to talk to him, you have to give us a meal."
"Don't bully people just because you have big ships and cannons. The worst we can do is surrender to our officers and soldiers,"
As soon as Chen Zhongji finished explaining his purpose of coming, the dozen or so pirate leaders started to make a fuss and started shouting noisily.
This cave will be mostly submerged by sea water when the tide rises, and torches must be used to illuminate it in broad daylight. At this time, Chen Zhongji's feet were still being washed by sea water. He coldly watched the reactions of these Zhejiang pirates under the torch light, expressionless. Leaning on a rock.
Gradually the crowd's voice dropped, and everyone looked at Chen Zhongji, the young man from China United Company.
Chen Zhongji stood up, turned around with his hands, and said loudly: "You are all seniors who make a living at sea. I have been ordered to come and recruit your team. I had no intention of using violence. As long as you join the China United Company, everything will be fine." It's easy to talk; otherwise, I can't help. It's not that my company, China, is bullying the weak, but that my ship owner is benevolent and considers everyone." He walked slowly to the largest group of pirate leaders along the coast of Zhejiang: "Boss of Taizhou Linshilin, you and my shipowner have been doing business for eight years. How come my shipowner never gave you less than a tael of silver for the goods you transported out of the land?"
Chen Zhongji did not wait for Boss Lin to speak, and walked up to another pirate leader and said: "This senior is Brother Zhang from the sea. Brother Lu Shilu from our company asked me to say hello to you. Your nephew was arrested by the government. We rescued him through Ning Shaoshen and Luo Qing's relationship, right?"
He turned his back to the entrance of the cave and his tone became cold: "Over the years, you have been living in the cracks between the government and our Chinese navy. Without our Zhonghua Company to help you sell smuggled goods and help you clear the government, you How many people can survive until now,"
There was a sudden silence in the cave. In fact, the noise made by the pirates just now was also a routine bargaining method. Everyone knew how powerful the China Company was, and to fight against it would be to seek death.
Chen Zhongji continued: "As long as you hand over the men and horses in your hands, each of you will immediately get 50,000 taels of silver shares in the Zhonghua Company, and your family members can move to Taiwan. Luzon, your brothers, Captain Yin will all take over: willing to work in farming Those who are willing to continue living on the sea can choose a field in Taiwan, Luzon, and Ryukyu; Captain Yin will select them and arrange them to work in the merchant fleet or navy fleet, with stable wages. You can also get a share of land after making meritorious service,"
…
The pirates in Zhejiang quickly accepted these conditions, and most of the key members of the pirate gangs joined the navy.
On the coast of Guangdong, the work of cleaning up local pirate gangs actually started when Yin Feng was still inspecting the interior. At that time, Yuan Jin and Li Zhong surrendered to the court again, but they were still not reused. In view of their erratic style, the court only The two men were given the position of Chief Inspector of the Inspection Department, which was a low-ranking official. Their gang immediately disbanded. The Jinjiang shipowners Yang Tiansheng and Hong Sheng's fleet, as well as Quanzhou natives Zhang Hong and Lin Fu, had all previously taken orders. Li Dan, but under Yuan Jin and Li Zhong, at this time, they all broke with Yuan Jin and Li Zhong. When Mai Dahai's second fleet began to sweep the Guangdong coast, they surrendered to Mai Dahai off the coast of Macau.