Chongzhen Undergraduates

"Jing'er, shut up quickly." Aunt Dong You grabbed her son, trying to shut his mouth.

"Shut up! Who is Chen Zhaoniang?" Zheng Chenggong roared loudly, his voice was so hoarse that he could barely hear it.

"It's Zheng Tai's nanny!" Zheng Jing broke free from Dong Yougu's arms and blurted out.

"Pfft!" Zheng Chenggong spat out a mouthful of blood, and then fell on his back on the bed, completely unconscious.

Half a month later, Li Dingguo, who was the in-law of Zheng's family, came to visit Zheng Chenggong who was seriously ill on behalf of the emperor, because Li Dingguo's son married Zheng Chenggong's niece, and the two families became good friends of Qin and Jin.

"Shuai Li, forgive me for not being able to get up and rely on each other!" Zheng Chenggong was very haggard, so thin that only his skin and bones remained, and he spoke quite neatly.

"This is the medicine that the emperor entrusted me to bring to Lord Guo Xing. The emperor said that as long as you visit the pharmacy, you will surely recover." Li Dingguo handed Zheng Chenggong a brocade box. The brocade box is not big. I don't know what it contains. .

"I'm like this, I'm afraid I won't live long." Although Zheng Chenggong took the brocade box, he didn't open it right away, but his eyes were full of decadence.

"Open it and have a look first, you still have to believe what the emperor says." Li Dingguo's expression was indifferent, very calm.In other words, Li Dingguo has always looked mature and stable, and he always behaved calmly. No one could guess what he was thinking.

Zheng Chenggong slowly opened the brocade box. The strange thing is that there is no precious medicine in the brocade box, just a letter from the emperor.Zheng Chenggong was suspicious, wondering why the emperor wrote such a letter to him in this way.It is said that when the emperor speaks to his ministers, he only needs to pass an oral order, and letters are only used between friends.

Opening the letter paper, four words appeared at the beginning: my brother Zheng Sen... At this moment, Zheng Chenggong burst into tears, and all his original resentment and dissatisfaction disappeared instantly.Li Dingguo had already got up, pretending not to see this scene, his face was facing outside, but his face was still calm, he didn't know what he was thinking.

"The emperor already knew about the Zheng family's affairs?" Zheng Chenggong quickly recovered, but his spirit improved a lot in an instant. He asked Li Dingguo, who had his back turned to him.

"Of course, the governor of Taiwan, Yao Qisheng, was originally cultivated by the emperor. How could my wife's behavior in Taiwan be hidden from the emperor?!" Li Dingguo replied.

"What about the scriptures..." Zheng Chenggong asked again.

Li Dingguo turned around and said to Zheng Chenggong: "This is a family matter of your Zheng family. The emperor didn't let anyone inquire about it."

The meaning conveyed by Li Dingguo is very clear. Dong Yougu's incident violated the court's law, and the emperor should know it, and he must know it; and Zheng Jing's affair with his brother's nanny is a scandal for your Zheng family. He inquired about all kinds of things.

"What is the court's punishment for the Zheng family?" Zheng Chenggong asked.

For Li Dingguo to come in person, it is obvious that the court has made a final decision.

"Confiscate all the property of the Zheng family and demote Hokkaido." Li Dingguo said softly.

"This is the gift list that the emperor sent you for retirement in his own capacity." Li Dingguo took out a piece of paper from his sleeve, put it in Zheng Chenggong's palm with his own hands, and patted it.

On this piece of paper, not only the original servants and servants of the Zheng family were listed, but also three big ships and a large amount of company stocks.Its value is not less than half of the Zheng family's property.

"Zheng Sen kowtows to thank the emperor!" Zheng Chenggong struggled and knelt on the ground, thinking about the direction of Nanjing and kowtowed nine times.Then, no one saw a slight smile on the corner of Li Dingguo's mouth.

In fact, any smart person can see that since Zhu Youjian made Tianchuan the king of Hokkaido, the Zheng family's property in the Central Plains should not belong to the Zheng family.To put it simply, the property has been divided for you, so it is better for the Zheng family not to take away the wealth that originally belonged to the land of the Central Plains. After all, the wealth is produced on this land.

Zhu Youjian used this incident to confiscate Zheng's family property, but he did not convict Zheng Chenggong of any crimes. Instead, he let him go to Hokkaido to give him a chance to support his life. This is the contribution of this national hero.

But at the same time, the Huang family brothers were demoted by the court and sent to North America as the first batch of immigrants.

Chapter 697: The First Colonial Fleet

Ocean voyages are extremely hard work, especially after the fleet has completed its last replenishment in the rivers and lakes. Even the fresh water supply is distributed on a per capita basis. It is impossible to live as luxuriously and freely as on land.

On the rough North Pacific Ocean, there is a huge task force sailing from west to east.In this task force, the first class is the civilian ship. The ship is spacious and sparsely populated. It is filled with middle and low-level civil servants appointed from the coast of Daming and Nanyang. Most of them have sailing experience.Those who take the first-class boat can enjoy the luxurious treatment of four people in a cabin. In their free time, they can also read books and go fishing. The meals are taken care of by special personnel, and the rice is served with a small amount of vegetables.The general officials in the Ming Dynasty do not have the experience of ocean voyages, so they will not be selected, but those who can be selected are treated as treasures without exception.

The second class is the navy of the fleet, which does not include the marines, mainly sailors, who are responsible for the navigation of the entire fleet.The treatment of the sailors is also good. The food is the same as that of the civil servants, but they work very hard every day. Fortunately, these people have years of experience in long-distance sailing.

The third-class ships were surrounded by Japanese captives and mercenaries recruited from Nanyang, and they were also the largest number in this fleet.The Huang brothers took a third-class boat, slept in a Datong shop, and provided simple meals, mainly pickled vegetables and fish, and the staple food was old rice porridge.And this ship is not the worst in the entire fleet, what is even worse is the ship that transports Japanese coolies, it is the fourth-class transport ship, and there are so many people that half the ship is packed.

On those ships, people are transported as cargo, and the crew is also from Japan. All the supplies are delivered daily by supply ships, and there is no more.The construction of various places in Ming Dynasty is in full swing, so it is impossible for the Japanese labor force to be allocated to the fleet too much, and the number of labor ships is slightly less than that of the third-class ships.

Brothers Huang Wu and Huang An never imagined that they would end up like this today, in the status of exiles, on a boat with a group of Japanese captives, without any care.Since there were many Han criminals on this boat, there were frequent fights between the Han and the Japanese. The Huang brothers discovered that there was a leader on the Japanese side who was particularly agile. It took them half a month to get to know that the other party was called Hattori Zhengchen.

On this day, another fight broke out between the two sides. The cause was that the Han criminals headed by the Huang brothers robbed an extra bucket of gruel, which caused serious dissatisfaction on the Japanese side.

"Hey! Shorty, how about we make peace?" Huang Wu shouted to Hattori Zhengchen with a swollen and bruised face.

"You Han people are cunning and cunning, I don't believe it." Hattori Zhengchen obviously took advantage of it, and he didn't have any injuries.

"Don't believe me! I can connect with them and get more food." Huang Wu pointed to the fleet of civil servants in the distance.

"Your conscience is greatly damaged. Don't be a liar." Hattori Zhengchen would not easily believe Huang Wu's words. If he could really get food, why would he drag them into the Japanese?

"Don't believe me, our brother used to be an official of Ming Dynasty." Huang An added proudly.

What he said is true, if the two brothers hadn't been officials, they wouldn't be the leaders of criminals.In fact, the sailors of Ming Dynasty still favored them, at least they mentioned their identities in front of this group of criminals.

"Why do you want to help us?" Masato Hattori is good at Chinese now, after all, he is not an ordinary person.

"We are all locked together. If we want to get more food, we can only act together." Huang Wu gave a reason.

"You didn't lie?" Hattori Masato thought that the reason was reasonable, and was a little moved.

"I lied to you that you are my grandson." Huang Wu said quickly, because few people could react because he spoke too fast.

"Deal." Masato Hattori agreed with hesitation.

An hour later, Li Yan was looking at a map of the Americas on the flagship when one of his subordinates broke in and said, "Sir, there is a prisoner ship making trouble, saying that they are from Ming Dynasty and should not be treated so badly."

"Oh! Which ship is it?" Li Yan didn't look up, but he didn't seem angry either.From an emotional point of view, even criminal prisoners are better than those Japanese.

The fleet belongs to the nature of land reclamation, and of course it is impossible to directly send ordinary immigrants there, so this fleet is mainly composed of Japanese coolies, Japanese prisoners of war, mercenaries and prisoners.According to the emperor's original words, if he wanted to gain a foothold in a completely unfamiliar land, he had to send a group of ruthless characters first.

This weekly trip, the entire operation plan was completed by Zhu Youjian and Li Yan. Among them, how to establish a foothold in America and what method to adopt in advance, the two of them have discussed many times.What needs to be discussed most is not whether America can be colonized, but how to occupy America in the shortest possible time.America is a strange continent, where human beings are still in a semi-primitive society, and using conventional means is useless.

Such as war!

If the Ming Dynasty sent troops there, without outpost colonies, they would not even be able to provide basic supplies.And if we learn from the Europeans to slowly establish colonies and then develop, I am afraid that it will take at least 50 years to meet the conditions for large-scale army landings.Otherwise, a small number of troops will not work, and a large-scale army needs to consider logistical supplies.In this place where not even iron can be found, is it possible to cut the gap with a knife and fight with stones?

The occupation of America by Europeans was the result of a small number of immigrants establishing colonies, and then the colonies were connected into colonies, bit by bit eating the territory of the indigenous people.The whole process took nearly 300 years.

Daming couldn't wait, or Zhu Youjian couldn't wait to slowly establish a base area. If the occupation of America lasted for more than 50 years, the number of Europeans staying in America would increase several times.You must know that when the Europeans officially colonized the Americas on a large scale in the 17th century, Ming needed a much faster colonization method than the Europeans to race against the Europeans.

"Number 0717, there are half of the Japanese captives and half of the prisoners on board." Li Yan's men quickly replied.

"Are Huang Wu and Huang An on that boat?" Li Yan asked immediately.The fleet was planned by him alone, and Li Yan knew which ships were composed of those people.

"Yes, that boat."

"Go and bring the Huang brothers over to see me." Li Yan raised his head and thought for a moment, then ordered.

The reason why Li Yan agreed to see the Huang brothers was because he realized one thing, maybe the Huang brothers already understood the purpose of their trip.Because the Huang brothers used to be members of the Zheng family, and they had been with Tian Chuan for a period of time, and that was the time when Tian Chuan was exploring America.

Chapter 698: Cunning Huang Wu

"The villain sees Mr. Shoufu!" Huang Wu didn't look up at all when he entered Li Yan's room, and kowtowed to Li Yan with his head down.

"How do you know it's me?" Li Yan asked curiously.