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Chapter 1 The pirates are fierce

Rescue soldiers were like putting out fires. After Zhao Bing roughly asked about the situation, he began to arrange troops to rescue. Donghai County is located on the sea, known as Yuzhou in ancient times. It is said that Tian Heng lived here at the end of the Qin Dynasty, so it is also known as Tian Heng Island. It has always been a key area for the northeast border defense. He considered that there was no established imperial guard near Haizhou. At present, the only mobile forces that can be mobilized is the Fourth Army of the Imperial Army stationed in Xuzhou. However, the two places are more than 400 miles apart and there is no waterway. Even if you set out immediately, it will take a few days to arrive. You have to patrol the boat and cross the sea. When you arrive at the place, you can only collect the body.

Zhao Bing thought for a moment and remembered that after completing the task of transporting troops from Jiangdong to Huaibei, the First Navy was stationed in the Lianshui Army, and was responsible for protecting the entrance and canal of the Huaihe River. It is much closer to Donghai County from the sea, which is enough to reach the East China Sea for a day and night. It can independently complete the task of annihilation of the sea and land on the island to recover Donghai County. At the same time, it can enter the inland of Haizhou from the mouth of Yanhe River, bombard the bandits besieged Huairen County with ship guns, and assist the defenders in defeating the bandits.

So, Zhao Bing immediately ordered Dong Yicheng to send troops to rescue Haizhou with a fast horse, and temporarily stationed here after repelling the attacking bandits. While guarding the sea, he cleared out the pirates and ensured the smooth flow of the sea. The arrangement was decided, but he still felt that it was necessary to clarify the origin of the pirates as soon as possible and eliminate them as soon as possible. Otherwise, if they were allowed to roam, they would inevitably continue to raid coastal prefectures and counties and pass through merchant ships, affecting the development of maritime trade.

In the past two years, Zhao Bing would ask the navy to go out to sea in the name of escort during the trade wind season. This was not just to show off his force to shock the enemy, but also to expel pirates and protect the maritime trade routes. In recent years, the pirates faced by the Song Dynasty's navy mainly had four forces:

One was the forces of Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan who rebelled against the Song Dynasty and later defeated by the Song army in the battle to recapture Jiangnan. In the war to destroy Song Dynasty, Kublai Khan formed a powerful naval army and subdued the Song naval army. In order to transport the food from Jiangnan to Dadu, the Mongolian Yuan not only reopened a new canal, but also opened a maritime route to meet the needs, and this task was handed over to Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan.

Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan were pirates. They became an important force of the Yuan naval army and were granted the control of thousands of households. The Yuan army captured Lin'an. The surrendered minister of the Southern Song Dynasty suggested that Prime Minister Boyan transport the Southern Song Dynasty's treasures, including archives, charts, and sacrificial instruments to Yuan Dadu, the capital of the Yuan Dynasty, for use in preparation for the revision of Song history. However, the Huaidong area at that time was still under the control of the Southern Song generals, so Boyan thought of sea route transportation, and he handed the task to Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan, and it was successful.

A few years later, because the grain transported to Beijing through the Grand Canal was too late, and the transportation of inland grain was expensive, Boyan remembered the transfer of Song Dynasty treasures through the seaway. After reporting this method, Kublai Khan weighed the pros and cons of different canal transport plans and decided to adopt the suggestions of Prime Minister Boyan, ordered the construction of sea ships, recruited a large number of ship workers and crew members familiar with the sea situation, and appointed Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan as thousands of households transporting grain on the seaway, responsible for seawater transportation.

At that time, the cost of building a large ship with a displacement of thousands of materials was about the white ingots of Zhiyuan Banknotes, and the freight for a thousand stone rice was 1,700 ingots. The profit was so high that the sea merchants would certainly not miss the opportunity. Therefore, Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan immediately gathered tens of thousands of salt merchants, salt workers, ship owners, fishermen, canal transport officials and sailors. The two also invited pirates from the southeast coast to join.

This policy gave merchants a huge profit margin, encouraged merchants to participate in multiple parties, and finally achieved unprecedented success in grain transportation. Later, in order to usurp more trade profits, the Mongolian Yuan court began to collect sea transportation as an official and implemented the "official-owned ship" system. At that time, private business was strictly restricted at that time, and all family wealth would be confiscated once it was discovered. However, the merchant ships sent by Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan were an exception, and their trade was acquisced by the court.

The two former pirates were "duty-governed", so they also shared a lot of profits from trade with Japan, North Korea and Southeast Asian countries. They also obtained the right to mint and print banknotes by themselves. In addition, Zhu and Zhang quickly expanded their power from sea to land, becoming the richest and most powerful person in Southeast China, and owned a large number of private sea ships.

However, the good times did not last long. The sea-transported grain transport households led by Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan were quickly defeated by the attack of the Song Dynasty. The two were dismissed from office after escaping. However, they still had many warships and wealth, so they secretly started their own business, that is, they would rob merchant ships at the right time, especially when they were repeatedly attacking the merchant ships of the Song Dynasty. They killed and seized ships, which became a strong force at the sea in the East China Sea region. It can be said that it was a pirate created by Zhao Bing.

The second is the "Goryeo thieves" from the Korean Peninsula, and Zhao Bing made them Korean bandits. The history of this pirate has a long history. The large-scale appearance of pirates on the Korean Peninsula can be traced back to the Three Kingdoms era. During this period, the Yiluo people who lived in the eastern part of the Korean Peninsula, that is, the coastal areas of the Japanese Sea, were very active in maritime plunder.

According to the "Three Kingdoms Book of Wei", the Yiluo people "will take a boat to steal the enemy, and their neighbors are worried about it." The Korean Peninsula was also one of their targets of plunder. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Wuji people, who were descendants of the Yiluo people, naturally inherited the tradition of their ancestors going to sea to plunder. In addition to the continuous harassment of Silla and Baekje, the Wuji people even conspired with the weak Baekje to make a "big" vote against Goguryeo and prepared to establish a country, but failed under the interference of the Northern Wei Dynasty.

Later, Goguryeo was destroyed by the Tang Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty was unable to suppress and control this area like the Goguryeo people, which led to a huge vacuum of political power and military turmoil in the region. The Marines, who were originally located in a corner of the northeast, took the opportunity to rise and establish the Bohai Kingdom. The Bohai Kingdom continued to invade the Goguryeo territory controlled by the Tang Dynasty to the south, and finally entered the sea from the Yalu River and entered the Huangbohai Sea area.

However, the history of pirates in the Korean Peninsula region had just begun. With the continuous decline of the Silla dynasty, the Korean Peninsula region entered the "Post Three Kingdoms Era". In order to avoid the war, a large number of peninsula residents were forced to flee to Japan, separated by a sea. Because there were many Silla pirates mixed in, they collected intelligence for the pirates in Silla and acted as internal responders when the pirates invaded. This situation caused a headache at that time, and even began to consider rejecting the Silla people from entering Japan.

However, for Japan at that time, the influx of Silla people could bring more advanced technology to Japan and provide valuable manpower for them to explore northward on Honshu Island. Therefore, in the end, the Japanese court did not prohibit the Silla people from entering the country, but instead they were strict management of the Silla people and collectively sent them to some remote areas. This action caused dissatisfaction among a large number of Silla people. In addition to the continuous outbreak of rebellions, some even directly joined the ranks of Silla pirates.

According to the research views of modern Japanese historians, the Silla pirates that appeared since the end of Silla were very likely to have received support from the powerful people in the coastal areas of Silla. Because before Goryeo ended the turmoil on the Korean Peninsula, the frequent large-scale activities of Silla pirates were no longer as good as the thieves could do. Faced with the continuous invasion of Silla pirates, the Kyushu region of Japan was as cautious as possible to carry out large-scale destruction, but it was still impossible to end the invasion of Silla pirates.

After the establishment of the Goryeo Dynasty, due to Goryeo's indulgence in coastal powers, the Silla pirates not only did not disappear, but began to become more complicated. Later, with the renewed prosperity of maritime trade in East Asia in the Song Dynasty, the Goryeo pirates continued to plunder Kyushu along the Tsuma Island-Kyushu line and the Japanese Kyushu. At the same time, the Jurchens, descendants of the Marine people and the Amami Island people near Japan, also began to be active again. The three joined forces, and in the third year of the Song Dynasty, the "Daoyi invasion" incident broke out in the "Daoyi invasion" incident of Goryeo pirates and Jurchen pirates invading Kyushu.

After the Mongolian invaded Goryeo, the attack on the Goryeo Wu family regime and the subsequent two campaigns to Japan brought great harm to the powerful forces in the coastal areas of Goryeo. Therefore, these local snakes were unable to continue to invest in pirate activities. Under their cruel suppression, the Korean bandits disappeared for a while. In the war to destroy Song and conquer Japan, the Mongols continued to squeeze Goryeo, not only ordered them to pay money and grain, but also joined the navy to participate in the war.

After Zhao Bing recovered Jiangnan, the Mongolian Yuan navy, which was severely attacked, recruited the Goryeo Navy again to attack Song, but their fate was not good and they were defeated by the Song navy. The remaining Goryeo Navy returned to the south and joined the plundering team. They were originally an army, well-trained, and soon became accustomed to this area after returning to their old careers.

The third is the Jurchen pirates with the "Vikings on the Sea". Like the Vikings in Europe, the cold climate in the Northeast also greatly affected the early social development of the Jurchens. Although the Northeast is a rich land today, in the Jurchen era, the coldness of the Northeast was enough to bring great obstacles to the production and life of the Jurchens.

It is also because of this that with the increasing population of the Jurchens, a large number of Jurchens walked along the Heilongjiang and Yalu River into the sea. The main target they wanted to rob was the Korean Peninsula, which was rich and low in the eyes of the Jurchens at that time, which was the Korean Peninsula, which was rich and dangerous at that time. However, with the increasing frequent activities of the Jurchens on sea, these pirates began to plunder along the trade routes at that time. Japan, one of the frequent targets of Goryeo trade, soon became the target of Jurchen pirates.

The pirates plundered civilians along the coast of Silla, then sold them to the Dengzhou area, and went through Dengzhou to the Central Plains to become "Silla maids". They also worked with the Korean gangs to work with the big votes. They were not satisfied after plundering Tsuma Island and Iki Island. Then they set sail to land in front of Kitakyushu. The local wealthy families had to escape from their fiefdoms and let the Jurchens burn and kill and rob, as if they were in a no-man...
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