Li Zhi's fleet crossed the East China Sea with twelve surrendered ships loaded with cargo and entered Hsinchu Port.
Zheng Hui was very happy to see Li Zhi's large fleet arriving, and led all officials from Hsinchu to the dock to greet Li Zhi. Li Zhi reported the success of the Jinzhou battle to Zheng Hui. Zheng Hui is now the third-rank commander of the Qianshi.
He served as "Sea Commander" and wore red official robes. Many of his subordinates also had official status. They were in command of the guards, Qianshi, Qianhu and so on. They all wore official robes, either red or green.
It looks like a crowded place.
Zheng Zhilong's merchant ship was fully loaded with Japanese specialties such as brass, figurines and other Japanese specialties. It took several days to unload them all. The richness of the loot made Zheng Hui and the people of Hsinchu eye-opening. But what surprised Zheng Hui the most was, of course, that
Ten ironclad ships.
Zheng Hui has seen ships that do not use paddle wheels. In the past few months, Li Zhi has also transformed five large pointed ships into propeller-type ships. These merchant ships have made several trips to Hsinchu, so officials in Hsinchu have seen propeller ships. But the hull
This was the first time Zheng Hui had seen the armored battleship outside.
The ironclad ship painted with gray tree paint was equipped with thirty-two heavy guns. It looked like a bunker on the sea. It exuded a murderous aura and made Zheng Hui feel excited. In this era, a five-hundred-ton ironclad ship was already considered a giant ship.
.With such a giant steel ship, it is not a problem to defeat Zheng Zhilong.
In the past few months, Zheng Zhilong's detective work on Hsinchu has become more intensive day by day, and it is obvious that he will attack Hsinchu soon. Zheng Zhilong claims to have one hundred thousand sailors, which makes Zheng Hui very worried. Hsinchu is Li Zhi's hard work, and even more so 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 Zheng Zhilong?
Now that Duke Guo's army has arrived, he is no longer afraid of Zheng Zhilong.
As soon as Li Zhi saw Zheng Hui, he asked: "Zheng Hui, is Zheng Zhilong in Beigang or Jinjiang?"
Zheng Zhilong's lair is in Jinjiang, Fujian. In addition, Zheng Zhilong has a port in Taiwan called Beigang. Sometimes Zheng Zhilong will also go to Beigang.
Zheng Hui was stunned and said: "My lord, Zheng Hui doesn't know. His subordinates are only busy raising the walls of Hsinchu City these days, but they have not thought about spying on Zheng Zhilong."
Li Zhi smiled and secretly said that Zheng Hui was not good at military espionage activities.
Zheng Hui cupped his hands towards Li Zhi and said: "Why don't the Duke go to Hsinchu to rest for a few days first? I built a palace for the Duke of Hsinchu in Hsinchu City. Although Hsinchu is in ruins and is in need of reconstruction, it is crudely built, but the Duke can still come in and rest for a while."
Li Zhi nodded, then mounted his horse and headed towards Hsinchu City with his entourage.
Exiting the harbor of Hsinchu Port is a thousand miles of fertile fields. At this time, early rice has grown, and only green rice fields can be seen on both sides of the official road. Those rice stalks sway from side to side with the spring wind. From a distance, they look like undulating waves, which is very strange.
It’s beautiful. There are many scarecrows built on the ridges of the rice fields to keep birds away, and 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 farmhouse villages with smoke rising from their cooking stoves. Those villages are often built on higher ground, with cement brick houses and tall chimneys. Because Taiwan is so vast and sparsely populated, farmers’ houses are all built high.
It is very large, with a spacious yard, and 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 Tianjin.
Li Zhi asked: "How many people are there in Hsinchu now?"
Zheng Hui replied: "There are now 150,000 land-owning farmers, all of whom have been allocated fields and houses. There are also 50,000 land-opening farmers who have just entered the island and are arranged in the 'land-opening camp'."
Li Zhi nodded and continued walking to Hsinchu City. The official roads in Hsinchu were well built, flat and solid. What surprised Li Zhi was that almost all the farmers on the road were wearing silk clothes. It seemed that farmers in Hsinchu had to wear satin clothes when they went out.
It looked respectable. From time to time, Li Zhi saw a carriage pulled by four horses, with 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? From farmers? Li Zhi was very curious. Zheng Kaicheng and others had never seen such carriages before, and everyone was full of surprise. Halfway through, Li Zhi 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.
Li Zhi 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 the 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 round trips every day, and the price is ten coppers."
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 were already so wealthy that they would be willing to take ten copper coins for a ride. Ten copper coins was enough for a meal of white rice. If I were in Shandong, I would probably have to take a stick.
Even the peasants who beat the peasants would not be willing to ride in this carriage.
When the man said this, he forgot Li Zhi's second question and stood there with his hands down. Zheng Kaicheng smiled and said: "Man, the Duke asked you what you are doing in the city?"
The other people around the man were startled when they heard the words "Guo Gong", and immediately knelt on the ground and kowtowed. The man did not notice the meaning of these three words, and replied carelessly: "Guan Ye"
, I went into the city to buy goods for my wife and sons. I heard that Duke Jin’s merchant fleet had arrived, so I went into the city to see if there were any fresh goods to buy, and by the way, I went to watch the play. "The Battle of Jinzhou" in Cuiyu Pavilion.
》The big play has been running for half a year, but I haven’t seen it yet. I must squeeze in and take a look this time.”
Li Zhi 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 two hundred seats. If the standing tickets are sold out, you can only buy the tea seat in the front row, which costs forty cents."
Money alone.”
The man thought for a while and said: "This time, even if I spend forty cents, I want to see this big show. Otherwise, will my trip to the city be in vain?"
Li Zhi thought for a while and asked: "You spend money so lavishly, don't you need to raise children?"
The man smiled and said: "I'm joking, sir, what kind of money is this? I have given birth to a son and a daughter in the past three years, and they have been fat and healthy. I am going to the city this time to buy wooden horses and rubber ball toys for my eldest son."
Li. Now my husband and I share the 40 acres of paddy fields owned by the Duke, and our annual income is about one hundred taels of silver."
As he was talking, the man suddenly remembered that Zheng Kaicheng had just mentioned the three words "Gonggong". When he reacted, he finally realized that the official in front of him was Li Zhi, the "Gonggong". He was so frightened that he knelt on the ground with a plop.
"The Duke is here, I have seen the Duke."
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 voice: "Your Excellency, the people can come to Hsinchu and live a good life thanks to you. I remember back in Baodi County, Tianjin,
My wife and I didn’t have enough to eat all year round. We only had one set of cotton-padded jackets in the winter, and we almost froze to death. At that time, we finally gave birth to a daughter, but she also got sick from hunger and died young.” 8
