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At present, the most powerful person on the Chinese sea is Zheng Zhilong, and the most powerful Japanese pirate leader is Liu Xiang.
Liu Xiang was originally a subordinate of Zheng Zhilong. To be exact, Liu Xiang cannot be considered a Japanese pirate. It would be more correct to call him a Dutch pirate. However, the Ming Dynasty customarily called all Japanese pirates Japanese pirates, which made the Japanese bear a lot of blame.
Before Liu Xiang, the largest Japanese pirate on the Chinese sea was Zheng Zhilong. In his early years, Zheng Zhilong made his fortune by relying on the Dutch, helping the Dutch plunder Ming Dynasty merchants and attack the Ming Dynasty navy. However, he worked hard but did not get much benefit from the Dutch. Finally, he left the Dutch and returned to his adoptive father Li Dan, who was the leader of the Japanese expatriates. Not long after, Li Dan died, and Li Dan's power fell into the hands of Zheng Zhilong. In addition, the power of Zheng Zhilong's sworn brother Yan Siqi also fell into Zheng Zhilong's hands, making Zheng Zhilong become the most powerful force on the Chinese sea. At that time, he had more than 30,000 men, thousands of warships, and thousands of cannons. Not only did he make the Ming Dynasty navy flee several times, but he also made the Ming Dynasty garrisons in Fujian and other places flee. His power became stronger and stronger, and young and strong people in the southeastern coastal areas competed to join him.
Under such circumstances, the Ming court had no choice but to recruit him several times. In the past, Zheng Zhilong had disdained it. However, as his power grew, he seriously threatened the Dutch interests in this sea area. The two sides fought several naval battles. Although Zheng Zhilong had many warships and subordinates, the Dutch had strong ships and powerful guns. The two sides won and lost in the naval battles. At this time, when the Ming court recruited him again, Zheng Zhilong finally accepted the recruitment and was appointed as the Five Tiger Guerrilla General.
Zheng Zhilong's greatest contribution to history was that he was the first large-scale immigrant to Taiwan. Another contribution was that for his own interests, after joining the Ming court, he fought several major battles with the Dutch and prevented the Dutch from landing in the mainland of the Ming Dynasty. However, the person who triggered these wars was Liu Xiang.
Liu Xiang was very dissatisfied with Zheng Zhilong's defection to the Ming Dynasty court, so he took his men to defect to the Dutch. When Tang Tong set sail with his men, Liu Xiang had just defected to the Dutch not long ago. The situation between Zheng Zhilong, Liu Xiang and the Dutch was calm at that time. Otherwise, with the limited strength of Tang Tong's men, they would not be able to defeat the Dutch at sea.
Tang Tong's establishment of a concession in Satsuma not only caused many maritime merchants related to Zheng Zhilong to run away and complain to him, but also seriously damaged Zheng Zhilong's interests. However, the first person to covet the concession was Liu Xiang.
The Dutch have always been very interested in Japan. Historically, they once used their powerful ships and cannons to blast open Japan's borders. However, in the struggle with the Zheng family interest group, the Dutch were ultimately defeated, allowing Japan to successfully implement a policy of isolation and never interact with the later Qing Dynasty until the warships of Western powers once again visited.
After receiving the information that Tang Tong was setting up a concession in Satsuma, Liu Xiang reported it to his master, the Dutch, as quickly as possible. The Dutch naturally did not want anyone to infringe on their interests. They had already established trading posts in Japan. In the eyes of the Dutch, Japan was already their meal, and they would not allow Tang Tong to steal their interests.
Soon, the Dutch sent three warships and eight thousand soldiers to join Liu Xiang's several large and small warships. With nearly ten thousand men, they ordered the Japanese Satsuma tribe to kill Tang Tong. This news soon reached Zheng Zhilong, who wanted to attack Tang Tong, and stopped his military action. He planned to watch the fun from the side and take advantage of the situation.
Zheng Zhilong knew that Tang Tong had only a few thousand men under his command, a few dozen warships (those small ships without cannons could only be cannon fodder), and nearly a thousand cannons, and that his strength was far inferior to that of the Dutch and Liu Xiang. However, he did not know that Tang Tong now had 5,000 men under his command, all of whom were equipped with breech-loading rifles. In addition, there were nearly 5,000 sailors who were originally on merchant ships, and 10,000 Japanese who followed Hei Pi to become pirates, all of whom had certain combat effectiveness.
In order to make the battle between the two sides more lively, Zheng Zhilong sent someone to tell Tang Tong the news that the Dutch and Liu Xiang were going to attack Xiaocang Castle. After receiving the intelligence, Tang Tong immediately ordered his men to unload forty cannons from the ship to the shore and formed a front line of defense one meter away from the coast. These forty cannons were Western red-haired cannons, each weighing three thousand pounds and with a range of about seven meters. The other so-called cannons on the ship were mostly small copper cannons with a range of only one to two meters. There were also a small number of large copper cannons with a range of nearly three meters, and their accuracy was extremely poor. That's why Tang Tong spent a lot of money to install this kind of red-haired cannon on his ship. As for the enemy wanting to land from other places in Satsuma, Tang Tong was very welcome. In this era, facing breech-loading rifles, Tang Tong would not be afraid of fighting a land battle.
Tang Tong did not send that warship to participate in the battle, but asked Zhang Yiheng and Hei Pi to take five thousand of Hei Pi's men, plus five thousand Ming sailors and five thousand Japanese back to Ming, and recruit several thousand more soldiers and supplies from Ming.
After Zhang Yiheng and his men left, Tang Tong mobilized the Japanese laborers to build countless trenches and more than a dozen watchtowers around Kokura City. In order to deal with the enemy's artillery, Tang Tong also built several thousand bunkers on the coast for soldiers to hide. As for the merchants, when they heard that a war was going to happen here, they naturally ran as far away as possible.
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