I

Guangzhou, North Gate Tower.

There is a five-story building here, which was built in the early Ming Dynasty, and it was built to have a good view of the whole city.

Zhao Han put down the battle report he had just received, and seeing Zheng Zhilong looking at him, he smiled and said, "Western Guangdong has been captured, only Qiongzhou Prefecture is left. The frontline generals request to dispatch ships to attack the island."

"Congratulations brother," Zheng Zhilong immediately cupped his hands, "Do you need the Zheng family to send a boat to help?"

Zhao Han waved his hand and said, "I don't need it for now, it won't be too late to capture Qiongzhou's mansion when there are enough officials. Does my brother know the situation in Qiongzhou?"

"It's much better there than Dongfan," Zheng Zhilong said with a smile, "there are at least a million Han people in Qiongzhou Island."

The population of Hainan Island in the late Ming Dynasty must have exceeded one million!

Because during the period of Zhu Yuanzhang, the registered population of Hainan Island had reached 291,030 people, which almost exceeded 300,000. Over the past two hundred years, the imperial court has continued to exile prisoners on the island, and there have been civilian immigrants along the coast of Guangdong. There may be two or three million Han people on Hainan Island.

As for the official data, there were only 250,000 people in Hainan at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which was less than that of Zhu Yuanzhang, which is outrageous and nonsense.

Zhao Han got up and pressed the railing, looked across the city of Guangzhou to look at the sea, and suddenly turned around and asked, "Does the Hongfan ghost really dare to come?"

"I will definitely come." Zheng Zhilong said with a smile.

After Zhao Han took back Macau, he immediately informed the merchants that all countries can come to Guangzhou for free trade—except the Netherlands.

With the arrogance of the Dutch in the 17th century, after hearing this news, they probably wanted to rush into Guangzhou City and kill Zhao Han. According to Zheng Zhilong, the Dutch will arrive in Guangzhou within three months.

Zhao Han is in a hurry to drive away the Dutch because he has captured the entire western part of Guangdong.

Guangdong in the Ming Dynasty directly bordered Vietnam. In the future, the coastal areas of Guangxi will all be under the jurisdiction of Guangdong at this time.

North Vietnam's maritime trade has been occupied by the Dutch. Only by driving away the Dutch can Zhao Han buy grain in North Vietnam to solve the problem of food shortage in Guangdong.

After three years of catastrophe in Guangdong, Zhao Han brought a large number of troops and officials. The local purchase of grain is no longer enough, and it is being transported from Jiangxi. The consumption of going over mountains and mountains is very high, and it is necessary to obtain grain imports from North Vietnam as soon as possible.

The cost of buying grain from North Vietnam is lower than that of South Vietnam, and merchants are more active in transporting grain and selling it.

Zhao Han suddenly asked: "Is it easy to attack Taiwan City (Rezheban City)?"

"Easy," Zheng Zhilong said, "If it's just a naval battle, you can make peace with the Hongfan ghosts after the battle. If you capture Taiwan City, it's tantamount to a full-scale war with the Hongfan ghosts."

Zhao Han asked again: "What is the combat strength of the Hongfan ghost's army?"

Zheng Zhilong smiled and said, "It's stronger than Daming's guards."

These words made Zhao Han amused, and after careful questioning, it turned out that they were pretty much the same.

It can't be blamed for the fact that the Dutch army is too weak, just like the soldiers of the Great Ming Guard, it's all because of a problem with their treatment.

The salary of the Dutch Army is extremely low, and even clothes and hats have to be provided by themselves.

Most Army soldiers have to find part-time jobs to make money, or even sneak out of the barracks every day to work full-time.

They came from various sources, and their military training lasted only two months. Anyway, they were trained casually, and they were distributed from Batavia to various colonial strongholds.

Let's put it this way, the training time of the farmers and soldiers under Zhao Han's command is several times that of the Dutch Army.

In history, Zheng Chenggong attacked the city of Rezalan, and there were three fortresses in the Netherlands. Among them, Fort Promincia had a serious shortage of gunpowder reserves, and even the matchlocks of the matchlock guns were moldy. The Dutch army in the fortress was busy working all day to make a living.

The Dutch reinforcements at that time were even more nonsense. The fleet set off from Batavia and only transported six or seven hundred troops.

Of these hundreds of army soldiers, only 200 were sent to support Taiwan, and the rest came to attack Macau, which made the Portuguese in Macau look confused.

I feel that as long as they land and fight, the Dutch army is a bunch of psychopaths.

Zheng Zhilong glanced at his son, and said: "I'm leaving, so Quanzi can go to Ji'an Mansion with my younger brother. It's good to let him go to Jiangxi to see the world."

"Father, I still have to take the Juren examination." Zheng Sen said.

"What Juren exam?" Zheng Zhilong was very speechless, "Fujian is gone before you are admitted to Juren, where are you going to take the exam?"

Zhao Han smiled and said, "It's okay, I'll host it when the time comes."

Fujian is easy to win, and then the three-way march will be made.

All the way from the lead mountain to the south, all the way to the east from Chaozhou, all the way to Fuzhou from the sea.

Since ancient times, Fujian has been an indisputable land for military strategists.

There are mountains everywhere, the land is barren, and the checkpoints are dense. It's useless to beat it down, and it still hits walls everywhere if you really want to beat it. The attacks on Fujian in all dynasties have been incidental.

From another point of view, Fujian can only be divided into separate regimes, and local governments should not even think about fighting to fight for the world.

Just like this time, Huguang and Guangdong fought lively, but Fujian officers and soldiers did not move. Because as long as Zhao Han guards the two checkpoints, with one or two thousand miscellaneous soldiers, tens of thousands of Fujian officers and soldiers can be killed.

Zheng Zhilong is also helpless, half of his foundation is in Fujian, and half is in Taiwan.

Even if they occupy the whole of Fujian and Taiwan, Zheng Zhilong can only be on the sidelines, and Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Guangdong can all beat Fujian. There is no way, the terrain is like this, just like Shandong, it can only be separated for a short time, and it cannot compete for the world.

After the Song Dynasty, in the entire south, Jiangxi was the most suitable place for Longxing!

Chen Youliang occupied Jiangxi back then, if it wasn't for Zhu Yuanzhang's bad luck, it would be hard to say who would win.

Zheng Zhilong is well aware of Fujian's disadvantages, so he has no ambition to win the world. He sent his son to Jiangxi to make plans for the future, hoping that his son could be reused by Zhao Han.

Moreover, he does not want his son to be a general, but prefers his son to be a civil servant.

After two days.

Zheng Zhilong led the fleet to leave and took away many goods from Guangzhou.

As for Zheng Sen, he stayed as Zhao Han's entourage, helping with some simple official documents every day.

"General Town, why are there so many reserve officials?" Zheng Sen asked curiously with a document in his hand.

Zhao Han said with a smile: "Settled and divided the land."

"It's too much." Zheng Sen said in surprise.

Due to the rapid expansion of the territory, a large number of grassroots officials are urgently needed. Zhao Han also transferred 100 official officials and 200 reserve officials from Jiangxi, and recruited reserve officials from Guangdong at the same time.

The specific operation is that one official official is the main official, with two Jiangxi reserve officials and four Guangdong reserve officials. As long as the work of registering and dividing land is completed, the regular officials will be promoted to officials, all the reserve officials will be converted to regular positions, and some of them will become officials directly if they do well.

"Total town!"

Zou Guangdi sent a list: "The army has investigated clearly."

Zhao Han checked it carefully and heaved a sigh of relief.

The Datong Army on the Guangzhou side, the high-level generals are all fine. The middle-level officers found two of them, one for accepting 80 taels of bribes, and the other for stealing property by ransacking their homes. In addition, there are six low-level officials and more than 20 soldiers who have hidden property.

"Drag to the pier and execute in public!"

Zheng Sen followed Zhao Han to the city tower, watched the execution at the pier, and his heart was greatly shocked.

I only heard Zou Guangdi and a Cantonese interpreter announce in Jiangxi dialect and Cantonese respectively: "Datong has strict military discipline and does not take people's property... Now Liu Qian, the first battalion, third general, and fourth sentry commander of the South Military Academy Righteously, accepting a bribe of eighty taels of silver, and privately releasing gangsters Lin Fu and Chen Mingyi, will be executed according to military law!"

Liu Qian was being tied up and dragged out. In front of the onlookers, he shouted towards the tower: "General Town, I violated the military law, and I deserve to die. My son is studying in Luling Middle School. He studies very well. Please don't implicate him!"

After shouting several times in a row, Liu Qian was kowtowing to Zhao Han, with blood flowing from his forehead.

"Tell him that if one person is punished, the whole family will not be affected." Zhao Han said expressionlessly.

The personal guard immediately ran down the tower and said: "The chief town said that if one person is punished, the whole family will not be affected."

"Thank you Chief Town!"

Liu Qianzheng kowtowed three more times and said to the executioner, "Come on."

brush!

The knife flashed, and the head fell to the ground.

The onlookers backed away in fright, and then talked a lot.

If you accept eighty taels of bribes, you will be beheaded. Zhao Tianwang's military law is really strict, no wonder the officers and soldiers are running around everywhere.

Next, the officer who hid the treasure was also beheaded.

Six low-level officers and more than 20 ordinary soldiers were reprimanded on the spot, their personal land was taken back, and they were expelled from the army because their private possessions were worth less than 22 taels.

After reading out the crimes, not only the common people, Zheng Sen was dumbfounded.

One of the soldiers just hid jewelry. Jewelry worth a few hundred coins was punished on the spot, expelled from the army, and one mu of land (based on paddy fields) was taken back.

If someone hides two taels of silver privately, all the land will be taken back.

"General Town," Zheng Sen couldn't help but said, "this is too unreasonable. As long as you are brave in battle, and the jewelry is only a few hundred pennies, why bother to fire an elite soldier?"

Zhao Han said: "This is just the beginning, and every month from now on, we will kill a batch on the pier!"

Who to kill?

Of course it is to kill civil officials who dare to reach out for corruption!

Zou Guangdi announced again: "Fei Ruhe, the head of the Southern Military Academy, is not strict in governing the army. He will be dismissed from all military posts and stay in the army to serve. Ten times with the stick, one mu of land under his name will be taken back!"

Fei Ruhe was dragged out to save face, so he didn't take off his pants in public and beat him again.

"Crack clap clap!"

The people who watched the execution looked incredible.

They were not familiar with others, but Fei Ruhe was the highest military officer occupying Guangzhou, and led troops to conquer half of Guangdong. Before Zhao Han came, Fei Ruhe was the uncle of Guangzhou, and he was in charge of everything.

Such a general was dismissed from office because of some trivial matter?

Then, several high-ranking officers in the military were pulled out and spanked. Some were demoted and accepted, and some were pushed to the end. They were charged with accepting bribes from merchants, but they voluntarily handed over dirty money for confiscation.

"It's dead, it's dead." A merchant trembled because he had bribed these high-ranking officers.

A group of scholars standing at the pier were deeply moved:

"Those who govern the army in ancient and modern times are probably not as strict as the Datong army."

"I heard that General Fei, who was dismissed from office, is still the brother-in-law of Zhao Tianwang."

"This person will win the world, and I want to go out of the mountain to assist him."

"Haha, you still go out to assist. They only recruit reserve officials. If you want to be an official, you have to do things first."

"I have already inquired about it. As long as you become an official, you can be promoted very quickly. Today's Nanhai magistrate, who was born in Jiangxi Juren, also started as a civil servant. If Fujian is taken, the Nanhai magistrate will be able to be promoted immediately. Zhizhou."

"Yes, yes, you can only be an official when you go out of the mountain, but they are promoted quickly. I am going to serve Mr. Zhao. It is too late. I will do it first."

"..."