Chapter 199: Eastern Expedition to Japan (III)

The smoke of gunpowder disappeared, and more than a hundred tired Ming soldiers were lying in a pine forest on a high slope. In the distance, a long river flowed to the east like a jade belt. The mist in the morning enveloped the earth, and there was a faint smell of gunpowder in the air.

After a night of fierce battle between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, the Ming army defeated Yoshihiro Ouchi's five thousand troops outside Fukuoka City. Yoshihiro Ouchi led a thousand remaining troops to retreat south, and the two thousand Ming cavalry had already chased after him. The war in the country's slump gradually calmed down. General Li Weizhi led the main force to rest in Fukuoka City, preparing to fight his old opponent Kikuchi Fenga.

The hundred people in the pine forest were soldiers of the 800th household of the 300th household of the Musketeers. They were ordered to clear out the defeated Japanese soldiers who fled the battlefield and went to the local governments of Japan to plunder money. In Feiqian Country, about a dozen such search teams were active everywhere.

The hundred households of this 100-person team in the Songlin are called Zheng Hui. They are a very young and low-level military officer. They are from the Han Dynasty in Liaodong. They are only nineteen years old this year. He inherited his father's position and joined the army. He was originally the chief banner officer. When attacking Yiqi Island, he shot Da Nei Kaitao and happened to be seen by Chen Wanli, so he was promoted to a hundred households.

At this moment, they are already near Nagasaki Castle. Nagasaki Castle has been taken over by another Ming army's Thousand House team. According to the prior plan, their mission has been completed and they can return to Fukuoka Castle at any time. At this moment, everyone is hurrying to take a nap, and they will head east in half an hour.

As a hundred households, Zheng Hui did not rest, but sat on a big rock and looked around vigilantly. The hundred households were equivalent to the company of later generations, with two general flag officers, each general flag had five small flags, with a total of 112 soldiers, of which twelve were small flags and general flags. In fact, there were a total of 100 soldiers. Their hundred households killed four people in the battle last night. In fact, there were only 96 soldiers. Each of them was equipped with a flintlock rifle and a waist knife. They were the most awesome musket team in the Ming army and were envied by other branches of the army.

"Damn it, there is no difference between Japan and my hometown!" A chief flag officer walked up and cursed.

"What do you think Japan looks like?" Zheng Hui asked with a smile.

The chief banner officer named Wu Yide, a native of western Liaoning, 25 or 26 years old, a veteran. He also jumped onto the big stone and sat down and complained: "I heard that Japanese women don't wear clothes, so they ran over, but that was not the case. They were short and fat, with thick legs like radishes, which made them feel uncomfortable."

"No matter how uncomfortable it is, it's a woman! I see you've been crazy about women all the time, but now you're pretending to be noble. Did you do something unclean last night and get rid of the fire?" Zheng Hui looked at him with a smile.

Wu Yide blushed. When searching for deserters in one of their villages last night, he seduced two village women with two cheap silk scarves brought from the Ming Dynasty. Although the fire was released, the feeling was not good, which made him feel very unhappy. However, the Ming army's military discipline was strict and it was strictly forbidden to steal people's wealth and rape women. He did not dare to admit such things. He waved his hand and said, "It's not that! I want to find a woman and go to a brothel, and I won't make trouble in the limelight. But seeing the fat and bloated figure of Japanese women makes me so disappointed."

Zheng Hui understood in his heart, but he didn't point it out, but just smiled. At this time, he seemed to hear something, and immediately stood up and looked into the distance. He looked at it for a while, and suddenly he saw a team of cavalry flying towards this side.

"It's a message sender!" Zheng Hui recognized it, and he quickly jumped off the big stone and ran out of the pine forest. Wu Yide followed.

After a moment, a team of cavalry came at lightning. When the leader saw them, he strangled his horse and took out a token and ordered loudly: "According to the order of the General, we informed all search teams that there were a large number of materials in the family of the Uncle. The whereabouts of the whereabouts of the Damen were unknown. The information showed that they had not left Feiqian Kingdom. I ordered you to go and search. Those who find it first would be rewarded."

After the message officer finished speaking, he turned his horse's head and more than twenty cavalrymen continued to sail westward.

Zheng Hui stood there for a long time, and suddenly turned around and shouted loudly: "Let's get up quickly, brothers, we have work to do."

The Ming army suddenly landed in Feiqianguo, which caused great panic to the Japanese farmers living here. The landlords buried their property and food, let their women change into dirty and torn clothes, and moved their families to old houses in the countryside to avoid being hurt by the Ming army. However, the Ming army's attention was not on them. Soon the farmers discovered that the Ming army was not terrible. Some smart people seized the opportunity and ran to their houses in groups to rummage boxes and dig three feet into the ground while the landlords were not at home.

The small things produced by the Ming Dynasty, such as powder, silk scarves and other items carried by some Ming soldiers, became the crazy desire of the women in Feiqian Country. Whenever a Ming army search team passed by the village, many women would come up with them. The language was not clear, and the women would use body language to express themselves. They had no money and wanted to exchange their bodies for these luxuries that they could not see normally.

Many men even encouraged their wives and daughters to seduce the Ming army and earn some pocket money from them. However, as the Ming army strengthened military discipline and supervision, this chaos finally ended after three days. However, the local farmers found that the Ming army search team seemed to be looking for something. Soon there was a saying spread in the Feiqian Kingdom. The countless treasures of the Danai family quietly moved on the eve of the battle with the Kikuchi family. Now they are missing. The Ming army is looking for this wealth. The entire Feiqian Kingdom is in full swing. The Danai family has been a giant in Kyushu for hundreds of years. They sent a large number of family soldiers to pretend to be pirates to rob the Ming and Goryeo. The accumulated wealth can be imagined. Countless farmers who are eager to make money have joined the treasure hunting team.

Three days later, Zheng Hui's team arrived at a village called Sakurano Valley north of Nagasaki. They no longer walked, and everyone rode their horses. The horses were found from the landlord's house. They requisitioned them without hesitation. In the past three days, they had almost traveled all the villages and towns near Nagasaki, but they still found no clues. Helplessly, they could only continue to search north.

Sakura Valley is a medium-sized village with three or four hundred farmers. It is located in the mountainous area, the place is relatively remote and the news is very slow. Almost everyone did not know that the Ming army had landed in Feiqianguo. So when Zheng Hui and the others arrived, it immediately caused a commotion in the village. Every family closed its doors and doors, and there was no one on the street. Everyone hid at home, looked out from behind the window, and looked out in horror through the cracks of the door.

Zheng Hui stood in the village and looked around for a while. He felt that it was unlikely that the Damen would hide his wealth here. He was about to order to leave, but Wu Yide came over with five or six villagers. He said excitedly: "Zheng Baihu, I have found a few Chinese-speaking people."

Zheng Hui was overjoyed. What bothered them the most now was that they could not understand the language. They wanted to offer rewards to collect clues, but no one could understand what they meant. Someone here actually understood Chinese, which really surprised him.

Several villagers ran over and lay on the ground and burst into tears. Wu Yide sighed and said, "They are all Han people from the Ming Dynasty. They were captured by Japanese pirates as slaves. Some have been there for more than ten years."

Zheng Hui quickly dismounted and helped them up. He felt sad. What would it be like to suddenly see his own army for more than ten years?

Zheng Hui did not know that almost all search teams encountered this situation. Feiqianguo was one of the old nests of Japanese pirates. A large number of Han men and women were captured by Japanese pirates and were resold from here to various parts of Japan as slaves.

Several Han slaves wiped their tears and cried: "We miss our hometown every night, and many people have died in despair. There were more than a dozen Han people in this village, but now there are only four of us left. I begged the general to take us back to our hometown."

Zheng Hui nodded, "Don't worry! I will definitely take you away. You can go back to pack up now and go with us later."

Three Han people agreed and ran away, while another middle-aged man hesitated and hesitated: "General, I have something I want to tell you, I don't know if you are interested."

"That's right. About four months ago, an army suddenly came here, transporting many large boxes. At that time, they requisitioned a group of civil servants, and I was one of them. In the end, the boxes were transported to a small island offshore called Shuangfukushima and hid. The master and I were taking care of the carriage on the shore and did not get on the boat. Later, I saved a man who had swam back from the sea. He told me that all the recruited civil servants were killed by them. He escaped by luck, but in the end he died. My master and I quickly ran away before we escaped. We dare not say this matter, I wonder if the general is interested in this matter."

Zheng Hui was extremely happy. He grabbed the man's arm and said anxiously: "You will take us to Shuangfukushima now."

With the translation, things became much easier later. Zheng Hui immediately recruited more than 200 civilians and rushed to the beach together. The large ships on the beach had been burned by the Ming army, leaving only some small fishing boats that could not be sailed far away. Fortunately, Shuangfukushima was not far away, only ten miles away from the coast. Zheng Hui collected more than 20 fishing boats, leaving a few people to watch the horses, and more than 20 fishing boats sailed towards Shuangfukushima.

An hour later, the fishing boats arrived at this bare deserted island one after another. The island was not big, covering an area of ​​about dozens of acres. In fact, a small hill protruded from the sea. Everyone went to the island. The Han man led the Ming army to a cave in Shannan. He pointed to a huge rock blocking the cave and said, "General, my master and I came here once two months ago, but we were unable to move the huge rock and returned without success."

Zheng Hui ordered a few people to move forward and push the huge rock, but it was like a dragonfly shaking a tree, and it didn't move at all. I really didn't know how the original person blocked the hole. Zheng Hui pondered for a moment, then ordered someone to take a thunder of the sky, and dig a deep hole one foot wide beside the huge rock, putting the thunder of the sky, and everyone avoided it from afar. After a moment, there was a loud noise of the mountain collapse and the earth cracking, and a stream of white smoke rose, and countless gravels splashed over, hitting the body in pain. When the dust fell to the ground, the huge rock was blown into three sections, revealing a dark hole.

The soldiers were overjoyed and went forward to pry off the remaining stone. The hole was completely exposed. The hole was not deep. Under the sunlight, you could clearly see the situation inside. Dozens of large boxes were neatly placed, and each box was written with numbers in pen. Japanese characters were used, which could be distinguished at a glance, 10,000 taels of silver, 5,000 taels of gold, etc., and two large boxes were filled with various rare treasures.

Zheng Hui initially estimated that the amount of gold and silver was at least one million taels of gold and silver alone, not to mention those rare treasures that were priceless. Although he was extremely excited, he also knew that it was of great importance. With one hundred of them alone, it might be difficult for them to protect this batch of wealth. He immediately sent people to Nagasaki and asked the Nagasaki garrison to send large ships to support him.
Chapter completed!