Li Zhi continued to move forward with his guards and entered Hsinchu City through the west gate.
According to Li Zhi's order, Hsinchu City was built in imitation of Fanjiazhuang. After more than three years of development, Hsinchu City is now quite large. The size of the city is similar to that of Fanjiazhuang before the expansion, and the number of streets is the same as Fanjiazhuang.
This small town is now a commercial center for 200,000 people. All goods shipped from the mainland are distributed here, so the wholesale business in the city is very prosperous. Zheng Hui built a large commodity wholesale market in the west of the city, and the goods shipped by Lu Hu
They are sold here to local retailers, who then sell the goods to villages and towns.
Li Zhi'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 logistics in Hsinchu city is very active. Taiwan's commodity supply currently mainly relies on Li Zhi's fleet. Gao
Ligong organized the purchase of goods in Tianjin, and then Lu Hu shipped the goods to Taiwan. Gao Ligong was also a talented person, and the goods he purchased were often urgently needed in Taiwan. Therefore, the goods shipped to Taiwan sold well.
The wholesale market in Hsinchu is called "Tianjin Public Market". Li Zhi took a look at the wholesale market and found that all the goods shipped last month had been sold out. There was no one in the market at this time. Everyone was standing at the door of the market.
Retailers who are eager to purchase goods, wearing clean and decent clothes, are all crowded at the entrance of the wholesale market, anxiously waiting for new goods to be shipped from the dock.
Zheng Hui said: "Guo Gong, in the first half of the year, we mainly used freighters to transport land reclamation farmers and land reclamation materials, so the transportation of consumer goods was relatively tight. When the goods are shipped to Hsinchu City, it often takes less than three days for them to be sold out. Every time
When a fleet of ships enters the port carrying goods, it is a big event for merchants."
Li Zhi stood at the door of the wholesale market and watched for a while. Not long after, a carriage carrying Li's fine cloth drove into the wholesale market. The merchants were like civet cats seeing river fish, waving their silver and surrounding it.
The two children sitting in the carriage were very busy, scrambling to keep accounts and collect money among the money pushed in by the merchants.
Before the carriage even entered the textile area of the wholesale market, the fine cloth on the carriage was sold out.
Not long after, a car of Li's fine iron drove over again, and another group of businessmen rushed up to buy it. The scene was like buying train tickets during the Spring Festival in later generations.
Li Zhi smiled, left the wholesale market, and went shopping in other places in the city.
After walking around the city, Li Zhi discovered that there are 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 Phoenix Street by Li Zhi is full of ornately decorated streets.
Large stores. These stores are often two stories high and the storefront is 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 of which are high-end consumer goods that wealthy Hsinchu farmers can afford. People come and go on Fenghuang Street, and well-dressed farmers are everywhere.
Going in and out of the store, carrying large and small bags in hand.
Zheng Kaicheng 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 cents in transportation fare to go to the city to buy them, because there are more varieties to choose from."
Li Zhi nodded and walked to the north of the city. Zhenbei Street in the north of the city was also named by Li Zhi. Nowadays, there are more than a dozen theaters and teahouses, and every house is overcrowded. From time to time, loud cheers can be heard in the crowded theater.
Obviously, the wealthy farmers have a great demand for opera entertainment. Someone in the teahouse is reading a newspaper, the "Tianjin Daily" that came with the fleet. Although those newspapers are more than ten days ago, but in the teahouse
The people still listened with gusto.
However, Li Zhi walked around and found no brothels. Li Zhi thought about it and realized that this was because when he recruited farmers to open up wasteland, he mostly recruited young couples, so there were no women to come out to work as sex workers, so the brothel could not open.
stand up.
Zheng Kaicheng and others followed Li Zhi, observing the prosperity of Hsinchu City all the way, and praised: "Hsinchu City has been so prosperous in just four years, which is really good. It would be a pity if it was snatched away by Zheng Zhilong.
"
Li Zhi smiled and said: "Not only can Zheng Zhilong not be able to rob us, we will also rob Zheng Zhilong's. After two days of repairs in Hsinchu, we will go and capture Zheng Zhilong's Beigang."
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Two days later, Li Zhi's huge fleet sailed out of Hsinchu Port and attacked Zheng Zhilong's Beigang.
Beigang was developed by Li Dan, a great 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 River. Today, this port is the Zheng family's stronghold in Taiwan Island. Beigang is four hundred miles away from Hsinchu, Li Zhi
The fleet set off at night, sailed all night, and arrived at Beigang in the early morning of April 15th.
There were three Fu Ships moored in Beigang Port, which were probably the merchant ships used by Zheng Zhilong to communicate with the mainland. Li Zhi used a telescope to observe the port and found that there were not many defense facilities in the port. Only a few concave towers were built along the small river near the port.
The fort built into the ground contained more than a dozen red cannons.
There were hundreds of sailors in the port. When these sailors saw Li Zhi's huge fleet approaching the border, they hurried to the dock. Li Zhi looked carefully and found that one-third of the Zheng family's private soldiers were equipped with matchlock guns, and the others
Then use a spear.
The artillerymen in the port fort first opened fire on Li Zhi's fleet. However, the distance was more than two miles, and the Zheng family's thirteen cannons lacked accuracy, and none of their shots hit the target.
Li Zhi ordered ten merchant ships and ten ironclad ships to surround Beigang in a semicircle and destroy the fort.
Soon the twenty ships were in position, and the two hundred and forty cannons were aimed at the fort in Beigang. The gunners pulled the ignition rope, and the shells flew towards the fort in the port like raindrops, roaring inside and outside the fort.
There was an explosion. The Zheng family fort was designed to be recessed into the ground. It was difficult for the explosive shells to hit the target, but once it fell in, it was a massacre. About a dozen of the 240 shells exploded inside the fort, killing the man who operated the artillery.
The private soldiers of the Zheng family exploded into bloody pieces.
After just one round of shooting, the Zheng 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 injured. They lost their fighting spirit and fled the fort in a panic.
Li Zhi asked the cannons to change their targets and began to bombard the more than 600 private soldiers of the Zheng family guarding the dock.
However, the scene of more than two hundred cannons bombing the fort just now scared the 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? Wait until Li Zhi's cannon
After the cannon was fired, the six hundred private soldiers were defeated with a roar. The soldiers threw away their weapons and fled in panic into the countryside outside the port.
Li Zhi smiled, waved and said: "The ship has docked, and Beigang is ours too!"
