Yang Peng's fleet, carrying twelve Fu ships surrendered by the Fujian government, crossed the East China Sea fully loaded with goods and entered Hsinchu Port.
Zheng Hui was very happy to see Yang Peng's large fleet arriving, and led all the officials in Hsinchu to the dock to greet Yang Peng. Yang Peng reported the success of the Xixia War to Zheng Hui. Zheng Hui is now a member of the third rank of Jinyiwei Zhengdu, commanding the Qianshi. He serves as a "maritime general" and wears a red official robe. There are many people under him who also have official status. There are a lot of guards, commanders, Qianshi, Qianhu and so on. They are all wearing official robes, either red or blue, and they look like a crowd.
The merchant ship of Fujian Counselor Liu Xianglong was fully loaded with Japanese specialties such as brass and terracotta objects. It took several days to unload all the goods. The richness of the loot was an eye-opener for Zheng Hui and the people of Hsinchu. But what surprised Zheng Hui the most was of course the ten armored ships.
Zheng Hui had seen ships that did not use paddle wheels. In the past few months, Yang Peng had also transformed five large pointed ships into propeller-type ships. These merchant ships had made several trips to Hsinchu, so officials in Hsinchu had all seen propeller ships. But this was the first time Zheng Hui had seen a battleship with an iron-clad outer hull.
The ironclad ship painted with gray tree paint was equipped with thirty-two heavy guns. It looked like a bunker on the sea, exuding a murderous aura, which made Zheng Hui feel excited. In this era, a five-hundred-ton ironclad ship was considered a giant ship. With such a giant steel ship, it is not a problem to defeat Liu Xianglong.
In the past few months, Liu Xianglong's detective work on Hsinchu has become more intensive day by day, and it is obvious that he will attack Hsinchu soon. Liu Xianglong claimed to have one hundred thousand sailors, which made Zheng Hui very worried. Hsinchu is the hard work of Yang Peng and even more so of Zheng Hui. Zheng Hui has been busy building in Hsinchu these years and finally built Hsinchu. How could he be willing to hand over Hsinchu to Liu Xianglong?
If Prince Yan's army comes, he will no longer be afraid of Liu Xianglong. As soon as Yang Peng saw Zheng Hui, he asked: "Zheng Hui, is Liu Xianglong in Beigang or in Jinjiang?" Liu Xianglong's lair is in Jinjiang, Fujian. In addition, Liu Xianglong has a port in Ryukyu called Beigang, and Liu Xianglong sometimes goes to Beigang.
Zheng Hui was stunned for a moment and said, "My lord, Zheng Hui doesn't know. My subordinates are only busy raising the walls of Hsinchu City these days, but they didn't think of spying on Liu Xianglong." Yang Peng smiled, secretly thinking that he has a lot of advantages. The shortcoming is that Zheng Hui is not good at military espionage activities. Zheng Hui cupped his hands towards Yang Peng and said: "Why don't King Yan go to Hsinchu to rest for a few days? I built a Prince Yan's Mansion in Hsinchu City. Although Hsinchu is in ruins and waiting for renovation, it is crudely built, but it can still allow King Yan to come in and rest for a while."
Yang Peng nodded, then mounted his horse and headed towards Hsinchu City with his entourage. Exiting the harbor of Hsinchu Port is a vast expanse of fertile land. At this time, the early rice has grown, and only green rice fields can be seen on both sides of the official road. Those rice stalks swayed from side to side with the spring wind. From a distance, they looked like undulating waves, which was very beautiful. There are many scarecrows set up on the ridges of the rice fields to keep birds away. Rice farmers in twos and threes are working in the fields with their trousers rolled up, creating a pleasant and intoxicating pastoral scene.
Far away on the road, from time to time you can see farm villages with smoke rising from their cooking pots. Those villages are often built on higher ground, with cement brick houses and tall chimneys. Because Taiwan is vast and sparsely populated, farmers' houses are built very large with spacious yards. There are often five or six houses in the yard.
From a distance, those farmers' yards look nothing like the houses of small farmers, but rather like the houses of small landowners in Cangzhou. Yang Peng asked: "How many people are there in Hsinchu now?" Zheng Hui replied: "There are now 150,000 land-owning farmers, all divided into fields and houses. There are also 50,000 land reclamation farmers who have just entered the island, and they are arranged to open up wasteland." In the camp."
Yang Peng nodded and continued walking to Hsinchu City. The official roads in Hsinchu are well built, flat and solid. What surprised Yang Peng was that almost all the farmers on the road were wearing satin clothes. It seemed that farmers in Hsinchu had to wear satin clothes to look decent when going out. From time to time, Yang Peng saw a carriage pulled by four horses. There were more than a dozen people sitting behind the carriage, all of whom seemed to be going into the city.
Where did these carriages come from? Farmer's? Yang Peng was very curious. Han Jinxin and others had never seen such a carriage before, and they were all filled with surprise. Halfway through, Yang Peng couldn't help but stop a carriage and ask.
Seeing the official with many personal guards stopping the carriage, the people in the car knew that they were meeting a high official, so they quickly got out of the car to answer. Yang Peng randomly picked a middle-aged man holding a dry tobacco stick and asked: "Man, whose carriage is this? What are you doing in the city?"
The man put the cigarette rod into his pipe and answered with cupped hands: "Going back to the official, this carriage is a transportation carriage between Dingwu Town and Hsinchu City. It is run by the Zhang family. There are four trips back and forth every day, ten copper coins." You can get on the bus and ride into the city. Nowadays, people in Dingwu Town take this bus when entering the city."
It turned out to be a privately operated public carriage, and the toll was ten copper coins. Unexpectedly, the people in Hsinchu are already so wealthy, and they are willing to pay ten coppers for a train ride. Ten copper coins is enough for a meal of white rice. If we were in Shandong, even if we beat the farmers with sticks, they would not be willing to ride in this carriage.
When the man said this, he forgot Yang Peng's second question and stood there with his hands down. Han Jinxin said with a smile: "Man, the prince asked you what you are doing in the city?" The other people around the man were startled when they heard the word prince, and immediately knelt on the ground and kowtowed. The man did not notice the meaning of these two words, and replied carelessly: "Master, I went to the city to buy goods for my wife and sons. I heard that King Yan's merchant fleet has arrived, so I went to the city. Let’s see if there are any new things to buy, and take a look at the show. Cuiyu Pavilion’s "War of Xixia" has been on for half a year, but I haven’t seen it yet. I must squeeze in and take a look this time."
Yang Peng asked curiously: "How much does it cost to watch a play?" The man replied: "It costs twelve cents to watch a play. But this is for standing room viewing, and there are only 200 seats. If the standing tickets are sold out, We can only buy a tea seat in the front row, which costs 40 cents per person."
The man thought for a while and said: "This time I spent forty cents. I also want to see this big show. Otherwise, will my trip to the city be in vain?" Yang Peng thought for a while and asked: "You are spending so much money." Don’t you need money to raise children?” The man smiled and said: “The official is joking, what kind of money is this money? I have had a son and a daughter in the past three years, haven’t I raised them in vain? This time I went to the city I want to buy a wooden horse and a rubber ball toy for my eldest son. Now my husband and I share the prince's forty acres of paddy fields, and our annual income is about one hundred taels of silver..."
As he was talking, the man suddenly remembered that Han Jinxin had just mentioned the word prince. When he reacted, he finally realized that the official in front of him was the prince Yang Peng. He was so frightened that he knelt on the ground with a plop.
"Your Majesty, I have seen your Majesty." The farmer didn't know whether he was excited or nervous. He knelt on the ground and his voice changed. He shouted at the top of his lungs: "Your Majesty, I hope you can come to Hsinchu and live a good life." Mr. Lai Guo. I remember that back in Baodi County, Cangzhou, my wife and I didn’t have enough to eat all year round. We only had one set of cotton-padded jackets in winter and almost froze to death. At that time, I finally gave birth to a daughter, but she also got sick from hunger and died... "
Yang Peng continued to move forward with his guards and entered Hsinchu City through the west gate. According to Yang Peng's order, Hsinchu City was built in imitation of Tianjing New City. After more than three years of development, Hsinchu City is now quite large. The size of the city is similar to that of Tianjing New City before expansion, and the number of streets is the same as that of Tianjing New City.
This small town is now a commercial center for 200,000 people. All goods shipped from the mainland are distributed here, so wholesale business in the city is very prosperous. Zheng Hui built a large commodity wholesale market in the west of the city. The goods shipped by Lu Hu were sold here to local retailers, who then sold the goods to villages and towns.
Yang Peng's decision changed the fate of hundreds of thousands of people. The new farmers here in Hsinchu are very wealthy and have amazing spending power, so the logistics in Hsinchu city is very active. Taiwan's commodity supply currently mainly relies on Yang Peng's fleet. Gao Ligong organized the purchase of goods in Tianjing New City, and then Lu Hu shipped the goods to Taiwan. Gao Ligong is also a talented person, and the products he purchases are often urgently needed in Taiwan. Therefore, goods shipped to Taiwan sell well.
The wholesale market in Hsinchu is called "Yanwang Market". Yang Peng took a look at the wholesale market and found that all the goods shipped last month had been sold out and there was no one in the market at this time. People were standing at the market door. Retailers eager to purchase goods, wearing clean and decent clothes, all crowded at the entrance of the wholesale market, anxiously waiting for new goods to be shipped from the dock.
Zheng Hui said: "Your Majesty, we mainly used freighters to transport land reclamation farmers and land reclamation materials in the first half of the year, so the transportation of consumer goods was relatively tight. When goods are shipped to Hsinchu City, it often takes less than three days to sell them all. Every time the ship When a team brings goods into the port, it is a big event for merchants."
Yang Peng stood at the entrance of the wholesale market and watched for a while. Not long after, a carriage loaded with fine cloth drove into the wholesale market. The merchants were like civet cats seeing a river fish, waving their silver and surrounding it. The two children sitting in the carriage were very busy, trying to keep accounts and collect money among the money that the merchants pushed in.
Before the carriage even entered the textile area of the wholesale market, all the fine cloth on the carriage was sold out. Not long after, a cart of fine iron drove over again, and another group of businessmen rushed up to buy it. The scene was like buying a train ticket during Spring Festival travel in later generations. Yang Peng smiled, left the wholesale market, and went shopping in other places in the city.
After walking around the city, Yang Peng discovered that there were not only wholesale businesses in Hsinchu, but also a very developed retail industry. There are six streets in the city, three vertical and three horizontal. Among them, the street named Fenghuang Street by Yang Peng is full of large and gorgeously decorated shops. These stores are often two stories high and two or three rooms wide.
There are a dazzling array of products on the store shelves: silks, porcelain, mirrors, tea, famous wines, tobacco, etc., all high-end consumer goods that wealthy Hsinchu farmers can afford. People were coming and going on Fenghuang Street. Well-dressed farmers were going in and out of various shops, carrying large and small bags in their hands.
Han Jinxin said: "Although there are retail stores in various towns and villages, the varieties are limited. To buy high-end products, farmers would rather spend dozens of extra pennies on transportation to go to the city to buy them, because there are more varieties to choose from."
Yang Peng nodded and walked towards the north of the city. Zhenbei Street in the north of the city was also named by Yang Peng. Now it is filled with more than a dozen theaters and teahouses, and every one of them is overcrowded. From time to time, loud cheers could be heard in the crowded theater. It was obvious that the wealthy farmers had a great demand for opera entertainment. Someone was reading a newspaper in the teahouse, and they were reading the "Dali Temple Announcement" that came with the fleet. Although those arrival papers were all issued more than ten days ago, the people in the teahouse still listened with interest.
However, Yang Peng walked around and found no brothels. Yang Peng thought about it and realized that this was because when he recruited farmers to open up wasteland, he mostly recruited young couples. Therefore, there were no women to work as sex workers, and brothels could not be opened.
Han Jinxin and others followed Yang Peng, observing the prosperity of Hsinchu City all the way, and praised: "This city of Hsinchu has been so prosperous in just four years, which is really good. It would be a pity if it was snatched away by Liu Xianglong. "Yang Peng said with a smile: "Not only can Liu Xianglong not be able to rob us, we will also rob Liu Xianglong's. After two days of repairs in Hsinchu, we will go and capture Liu Xianglong's Beigang."
Two days later, Yang Peng's huge fleet sailed out of Hsinchu Port and attacked Liu Xianglong's Beigang. Beigang was developed by Wang Hu, a large merchant, in Taiwan in his early years. It is also known as Bengang. It is located in the west-central part of Taiwan Island, on the right bank of the lower reaches of Beigang Creek. Today this port is the Yang family's stronghold on Taiwan Island. Beigang is four hundred miles away from Hsinchu. Yang Peng's fleet set off at night, sailed all night, and arrived at Beigang in the early morning of April 15th.
There are three Fu ships moored in Beigang Port, probably the merchant ships Liu Xianglong used to communicate with the mainland. Yang Peng used a telescope to observe the port and found that there were not many defense facilities in the port. He only built a few forts recessed into the ground by the river near the port and mounted a dozen red cannons.
There were hundreds of sailors in the port. When these sailors saw Yang Peng's huge fleet approaching the border, they hurried to the dock. Yang Peng took a closer look and found that one-third of the Liu family's private soldiers were equipped with crossbows, while the others used spears.
The artillery in the port fort first opened fire on Yang Peng's fleet. However, the distance was more than two miles, and the Liu family's thirteen cannons lacked accuracy. After a round of firing, none of the cannons hit the target.
Yang Peng ordered ten merchant ships and ten ironclad ships to surround Beigang in a semicircle and defeat the fort. Soon twenty ships were in position, and two hundred and forty cannons were aimed at the fort in Beigang. The gunners pulled the ignition rope, and bombs flew towards the fort in the port like raindrops, exploding loudly inside and outside the fort. The design of Liu's fort is recessed into the ground, making it difficult for bombs to hit the target, but once it falls in, it will be a massacre. About a dozen of the 240 artillery shells exploded inside the fort, smashing the Liu family's private soldiers operating the artillery into bloody pieces.
After just one round of shooting, the Liu family's gunners couldn't stand it anymore. Half of the gunners were killed, and the remaining half were splashed with the blood and broken flesh of the dead and wounded. They also lost their fighting spirit and fled the fort in a panic.
Yang Peng asked the cannons to change their targets and began to bomb the more than 600 Liu family private soldiers guarding the dock. However, the scene of more than two hundred cannons bombarding the fort just now scared these six hundred private soldiers. If more than two hundred cannons fired at the six hundred soldiers exposed in the port, how bloody would the scene be? Before Yang Peng's cannon could fire, the six hundred private soldiers collapsed with a roar. The soldiers dropped their weapons and fled in panic into the countryside outside the port.
Yang Peng smiled, waved and said: "The ship has docked, and Beigang is ours too!" The fleet entered Beigang Pier, and Yang Peng found that the port town was not big. There are dozens of rooms and dozens of cargo holds on the dock, which store the supplies shipped by Liu Jiafu's ship from the mainland, as well as the rice to be sold to the mainland. There was quite a lot of rice. Yang Peng's sailors made a rough count and found that there were more than 100,000 shi of rice stored in more than a dozen granaries.
These more than 100,000 shi of grain were probably the annual land tax or land rent of farmers in Beigang, and were worth more than 400,000 taels of silver. At this time, they all became Yang Peng's possessions. The Liu family thought they controlled the southeast sea and were not afraid of others coming to rob them. They even wanted to rob Yang Peng's Hsinchu, but they did not expect that Yang Peng would dare to rob his Beigang.
There is a gorgeous five-entry courtyard to the north of the pier, which is the "palace" where Liu Xianglong lived in Beigang. At this time, seeing Yang Peng attacking, all the Liu family members in the big courtyard fled, and they didn't know where they fled. Yang Peng's soldiers entered the hospital and searched for a while, and only found more than 20,000 taels of silver in a warehouse. . It seems that Liu Xianglong does not have the habit of storing large amounts of money in Beigang.
Three miles east of the pier is a town. There are probably more than a thousand traders and craftsmen living in the town. At this time, I saw someone attacking the dock. The people in the town were hiding in their homes, and the roads in the town were deserted.
Yang Peng rode into the countryside again and found that the countryside in Beigang was in tatters. The common people were hiding in mud houses with thatched roofs. Occasionally, there would be uninformed farmers working in the fields. They were all sallow and thin.
Yang Peng is ready to take over Beigang and manage this place well. Naturally, he cannot let the people be afraid of him. Yang Peng asked soldiers in groups of ten to go deep into towns and villages to publicize his policies:
"The King of Yan is fighting against injustice. He only punishes the culprits and does not harm the people. People should not panic!" "The King of Yan has occupied the entire Hong Kong, and the order of the towns has been restored. The people can go out to business with peace of mind, and the soldiers will not commit any crimes."
The soldiers shouted along the street for half an hour, and the people of Beigang gradually stopped panicking. Yang Peng found ten prestigious village elders and entertained them in a wine shop in the town, trying to understand the basic situation of the entire Beigang.
"Fellow fellow villagers, I am Yang Peng, King of Yan! From now on, Beigang will be under the jurisdiction of the prince." The officials in Beigang who were loyal to Liu Xianglong had already fled, and the people who remained in the town had nothing to do with the Liu family. When these village elders heard Yang Peng's words, they wanted to leave their seats and kneel down, but Yang Peng raised his hand to stop them.
"Excuse me, I want to know how many people and fields there are in Beigang. How did the Liu family collect taxes in the past?" The village elders looked at each other, and an old man with a gray beard stood up and replied: "My lord, I'm sorry. I'm rude on a desert island. As far as I know, there are more than 4,000 households in Beigang and a population of 32,000. I don't know how much land there is specifically, but the former housekeeper of the Liu family once invited us to drink and said However, when you talk about the two thousand hectares of fields in Beigang, I think there are two thousand hectares of fields."
Although the old man spoke Mandarin, he had a strong Fujian accent. Yang Peng took a lot of effort to understand and nodded.
"How does the Liu family collect taxes and land rent?" The old man said: "These fields owned by the people of Beigang were cultivated spontaneously by Wang Hu, the 'Old Shipowner of Toyo'. They are private fields of the people, so there is no land rent." But when the Liu family comes, they will receive 60% of our land tax, and the people will have to pay six dou to the Liu family for every stone of grain they receive. The people are very poor."
It turns out that the Liu family set the land tax at such a high level. Although it was a land tax, it was actually no different from land rent. "My prince also collects 60% of the land rent from the people in Hsinchu. The people are very wealthy. Why are the people in Beigang so poor when they pay 60% of the land tax?"
When the village elder heard Yang Peng's question, he hesitated and did not dare to speak, fearing that his behavior of crying about poverty would offend Yang Peng. A fat old man next to him stood up and said:
"Your Majesty, the fields in Beigang are cultivated by the common people on the side of the valley. Irrigation and watering are all carried out by buckets of water on poles. The young couple can only cultivate twenty-five acres of land and are half exhausted. Moreover, Manpower is always insufficient to carry water for irrigation, and the harvested grain is limited. It is good to harvest two dan in a year. After excluding the land tax, there are only a dozen dan left for personal use."
"You can only harvest so little food after a hard year. If you have to feed your whole family, how can the people of Beigang not be poor?" Yang Peng understood what the old man said. The main problem in Beigang is that there are no water conservancy facilities, each citizen has little land to cultivate, and poor irrigation results in low yields, so the people are poor. By comparison, Hsinchu's productivity per man is twice that of Beigang because of its water conservancy facilities.
Yang Peng nodded and said confidently: "Don't worry, fellow villagers, since Beigang is now in the hands of my prince, I will definitely make the people rich in the future. Not to mention that food and clothing will not be a problem in the future, I will also let the people live in Go to a brick house, wear silk clothes, and eat meat!"
When the villagers in Beigang heard this, they all knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Yang Peng. Although they may not believe Yang Peng's words in their hearts, the faces of these village elders have expressions of sincerity.
Leaving five hundred soldiers to maintain order in Beigang, Yang Peng sailed the fleet to the sea outside Beigang. The advantages of Yang Peng's fleet lie in maneuverability and firepower. Only in the vast open sea can the fleet be free. If the ship docks in the port and is surrounded by Liu Xianglong's army, the situation will not be good. The water channel in the port is narrow and the ship cannot maneuver quickly. In the end, it will definitely be surrounded by the Liu family's pirates. When the time comes, thousands of people climb the side of the ironclad ship with swords in their mouths, and no matter how big the cannon is, it will be useless.
Attacking enemy ports is not what Yang Peng's steamships are best at. There are many reefs near the mainland. If an ironclad ship with a deep draft maneuvers at high speed in the shallow sea near the land, it is easy to run aground on the rocks. But if you don't maneuver at high speed, you will easily be surrounded by Liu's pirates whose number is several times your own.
So Yang Peng drove the fleet to the sea outside Beigang and cruised at high speed. On the one hand, it can plunder the Liu family's merchant fleet returning from Japan, and on the other hand, it can intercept the Liu family's navy trying to regain Beigang.
Beigang can bring hundreds of thousands of taels of income to the Liu family a year. Liu Xianglong would not be able to swallow this breath no matter what. Yang Peng's fleet patrolled the waters off Beigang for five days, and indeed encountered Liu Xianglong's huge fleet. Yang Peng was pondering the map on the poop when he suddenly heard a loud call from the lookout. Yang Peng looked up and found that countless spots suddenly appeared on the distant horizon. The spots grew larger and larger, and finally formed a line on the horizon. The straight line becomes thicker and thicker, covering the entire end of the sea from south to north.
Under the bright sunshine of early summer in April, those spots gradually revealed their true colors - the sails of a sailboat. The Liu family's fleet seemed to cover the entire sea surface, and there were no one knew how many warships there were, attacking fifty-three steamships arrogantly.
What happened after all, let’s see what happens next.
