Chapter 10 Mountain Thief

However, as soon as such an opinion was put forward, it immediately attracted opposition from others, because although the officials are not making money now, their status is really important. At present, they do not have a foothold close to the Daming coast on the coast of China. For so many years, they have been trying their best to find such a place.

Now it's not easy to occupy a big man. Although a group of seawolves have emerged in the air and rose strongly on the sea, they originally wanted to take the opportunity to eliminate this hidden danger with the help of the official of the Ming Dynasty, but this time they beat the Dutch down and made them steal the rice without eating the rice, making the old man now Status is not guaranteed.

If they evacuate the officers now, it is equivalent to giving up the last bridgehead on the coast of China, and it will be difficult to find such a place in the future!

What worries them more is that the leader of this group of sea wolves seems to be very clear about the current situation in Europe. They know that their Dutch maritime hegemony is being challenged by the newly rising British, and they have no choice but to take him now, so they are so fearlessly threatening them.

If they withdraw from the staff now, then it is unlikely that the sea wolf will really dare to rent another staff to the British to set up a business hall. Nowadays, although the British are not strong in Asia, some of the British have seen the huge wealth of Asia, and they have tried to find it here many times over the years. A foothold.

A few years ago, the British united with them to try to capture Macao occupied by the Portuguese, but because the Portuguese were well prepared, they returned.

If the sea wolf really proposes to rent a place to build a business hall for the British, it is estimated that the British will run happily. As long as the British taste enough benefits here, they will definitely transfer more ships and troops from Europe to compete with them. The resources on the side, in that case, will really attract the wolf into the house.

Although sea wolves are rising strongly now, at least they have not planned to completely expel them from Bay Island, or at least they are allowed to rent Dayuan Port as their commercial port. If they withdraw now, they dare not think that their trade with Daming will be gone in the future.

Another point is that Peter attached a relatively complete evaluation report on the strength of the sea wolf in the news sent back, which includes various situations around Tamsui City and the current maritime combat effectiveness of the sea wolf. This evaluation report also makes the senior management of the East India Company very difficult. .

If Peter is not exaggerating, it is basically impossible to easily defeat this group of seawolves with their current strength. Even if they concentrate their forces and finally win this battle, it is estimated that it will be a protracted battle, and the losses will certainly be quite huge.

For the company, they can't afford such a loss at present. Once they lose both sides with the sea wolf, it is estimated that Westbank and the damn British will definitely be very happy. At that time, they will definitely take the opportunity to attack the company and expel them from the currently controlled colonies and take away their fruits.

So after thinking about it, after repeated discussions, the senior management of the Dutch East India Company, although reluctantly, had to pinch their noses and admitted it. In accordance with the agreement reached between Peter and Sea Wolf, they began to implement this agreement and officially signed the lease of the staff from Sea Wolf. Agreement of Hong Kong.

As for the Spaniards, not to mention, when they learned that the sea wolf had defeated the Dutch again and won a comprehensive victory in the official war against Fujian, they did not fart, so they sent the compensation they had agreed with the sea wolf to Danshui City.

In a short period of time, there is no need to worry about what the two families will make in Taiwan.

Since the beginning of the trend of overthrowing Wei in Beijing, the whole government and the opposition have surged. After Emperor Chongzhen forced the death of Wei Zhongxian, he did not stop and began to launch a great purge against the remnants of the Wei Party.

After Wei Zhongxian's downfall, a large number of Wei Zhongxian's party members have been dismissed one after another. They have been dismissed their officials and returned to their hometowns for retirement, and even many people have been exiled thousands of miles away. Many people have even ended up with a full family.

Another large number of Donglin Party members who had been persecuted by Wei Zhongxian's party have been reinstated one after another, and some people with good physical conditions have been treated as officials. For a while, they raised their eyebrows and breathed at the Lin Party members in the Middle East.

But all this doesn't seem to have much to do with Yu Xiaotian, because after Yu Xiaotian was touched, Chongzhen ascended the throne. After he ascended the throne, he was busy dealing with Wei Zhongxian for a long time and did not have much energy to pay attention to more things. Such a Fujian coastal defense general like Yu Xiaotian, at best Among the Daming officials and the military, it is just a small shrimp, so Yu Xiaotian's little life in Fujian was quite good under the circumstances of being in collusion with Xiong Wencan.

Xiong Wencan will rely on Xiaotian as his arm, while Yu Xiaotian will return the favor. He also carried out Xiong Wencan's orders quite crisply, which can almost be said to be a must-do order and never procrastinating.

At first, Xiong Wencan mainly focused on the Pingjing Sea and paid attention to all kinds of banditry on the coast. Often, once he heard the police, he immediately ordered Xiaotian's men to attack. Yu Xiaotian has always reacted quickly to this, and basically he could hear the police. This makes those officials in the state capital and counties along the coast basically There is nothing to say, so in just more than half a year, Yu Xiaotian basically won the title of a general, and all the prefectures and counties along the coast regard him as a backer.

However, Fujian is not just coastal events. The whole Fujian is known to have eight mountains and one water, that is to say, Fujian has many mountains, and hills, river valleys and mountains account for more than 80% of the total area of Fujian.

With more mountains and fewer plains, naturally there is less arable land. In addition, Fujian has a relatively large population. Since the Ming Dynasty, the land annexation of Fujian has been very serious. Basically, more than half of the arable land has fallen into the hands of a small number of powerful relatives and landlords, and the people's life is quite difficult.

So many people took risks because they had no way to make a living. They either went to the sea as a thief, or occupied the mountain as the king and fell into the grass as a bandit, becoming a mountain thief.

Now at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the whole Fujian is full of mountain thieves. There are as many mountain thieves. For large mountain thieves alone, there are dozens of them in Fujian, and the number of small mountain thieves is even more unclear, so that pedestrians walk on land, and business groups of merchants will be robbed by mountain thieves from time to time.

There are even some large mountain thieves, who gather more than ten thousand people, whistling between the mountains and forests, making the officers and soldiers overwhelmed, tired of running, and slightly stronger mountain thieves. In order to survive, they are certainly not satisfied with just doing some cutting trails, so mountains often appear in Fujian. Thieves gathered to attack villages and towns, and even some large mountain thieves have attacked some counties in various places many times.

Originally, a state of balance could still be maintained between Fujian officials and thieves, but with Zhu Yifeng's launch of the campaign against sea wolves, the officers and soldiers were defeated, which greatly reduced the strength of Fujian's officers and soldiers, so that many local governments lost effective control over the jurisdiction, making the momentum of mountain thieves intensified.

After the second half of the seventh year of the Apocalypse, the mountain thieves in Fujian have been in a semi-runaway state. The mountain thieves are rampant among states and counties, making local governments mourn and helpless.

After Xiong Wencan entered Fujian, he was in charge of military and political affairs. Naturally, he could not sit idly by, and Xiong Wencan really wanted to make a difference in this position, so after stabilizing the sea, he began to focus on the mountain thieves inland.

As the mountain thieves became more and more fierce in Fujian, Xiong Wencan repeatedly ordered the Fujian officers and soldiers to clean up these mountain thieves, but the result was a great trouble for Xiong Wencan. Nowadays, Fujian's officers and military forces have shrunk seriously, and the military households of the guard stations have basically existed in name only and are seriously short of personnel.

The limited town army is even more seriously short-staffed. Often, the actual strength of some officers and soldiers is less than 50% of the staff, and some are only about 30%. Among these 30% of the officers and soldiers, only a few soldiers around the generals still have a certain combat effectiveness. As for other officers and soldiers, they are basically the armed forces of generals. Slaves, naturally there is no need to mention combat effectiveness.

Previously, in order to deal with sea wolves, Zhu Yifeng had used all the so-called elite soldiers that could be used in Fujian. However, after the First World War, these so-called elite troops were destroyed, which led to the extreme weakness of the officers and soldiers in Fujian. Only some of the officers and soldiers were not enough to defend the city, let alone go to the mountains to search and suppress mountains. Thief.

So Xiong Wencan sent troops to suppress the mountain thieves several times, but they all returned. If the number of officers and soldiers sent was large, the mountain thieves immediately fled into the mountains and forests, so that the officers and soldiers had no way to pursue them. However, if there were few, the mountain thieves gathered to rely on the favorable terrain and simply shake the officers and soldiers.

Although the mountain thieves are all rabbles, but these people are making a fortune alive, but they are also quite stubborn. Once they start to take action, they can be said to be fearless.

And those armed slaves in the army did not have the consciousness of sacrificing themselves for the country. They were born from their ancestors, and it was not appropriate. As soldiers, they also worked as slaves for the military generals. Usually, they can't even eat enough food. As for the military pay, they don't know how much they can get all year round.

In this way, when they really start, as long as the limited personal soldiers of the officers and army cannot defeat the mountain thieves in a short time, there are often more and more mountain thieves. In the end, the officers and army are powerless and will be defeated.

Even at the end of the seventh year of the Apocalypse, there were guards and bandits in Fujian. As a result, they were killed in the battle. There were even 2,000 officers and soldiers. In Yong'an County, at the border between Tingzhou Prefecture and Yanping Prefecture, the whole army was destroyed by a group of mountain thieves.

Xiong Wencan has a headache for this. Fujian really pressed the gourd and floated. As soon as Yu Xiaotian was attracted to the sea, there were so many large mountain thieves on the land, which made him invincible.

(Or ask for a monthly ticket! Brothers, see if you have it at hand and leave it for me! Ha ha!)