Chapter 167 – Down to the Toyo

Zhao Jinge was very worried about Jiang Zhen.

He was no longer in danger for the time being, but what about Jiang Zhen?

Zhao Jinge sent people to pretend to be ordinary fishermen to go investigate, while he himself with his fleet of ships found a small island to stay on temporarily.

They left too quickly so there were many things that were not fully prepared. Since this island was inhabited they could replenish their food and water.

“Jinge, what is happening?” Zhao Fugui came out of the cabin and found Zhao Jinge.

They were about to go to sleep when they were suddenly brought to this ship by Zhao Jinge without any idea what was happening.

“Father, we have encountered a little trouble.” Zhao Jinge said.

“What kind of trouble? Is there any danger?” Zhao Fugui asked again.

“No, father, don’t worry.” Zhao Jinge smiled at his father and tried to appease him, while not knowing that his own expression was in fact, very uncomfortable.

He hoped that he was wrong and they were actually not in trouble.

He hoped that it wouldn’t be long before Jiang Zhen would come to take them back.

But hope was just hope in the end.

After waiting for a day, Zhao Jinge received news from Jiang Zhen and saw Jiang Zhen’s fleet of ships.

The people on the ship were all unsightly, even Jiang Zhen was still covered with blood.

What happened to them was self-evident.

“Jinge, you are going to be a fugitive with me in the future.” Jiang Zhen smiled when he saw Zhao Jinge.

“Okay.” Zhao Jinge solemnly nodded his head.

Seeing his serious appearance, Jiang Zhen’s smile was not as bitter as before and even showed some sincerity. “Don’t worry, Jinge. The world is big, so there will always be a place for us!”

Although many places in this world were different from the history he once knew and their names were also different, the terrain was still the same.

Since this was the case, there was still an unexplored America here, as well as seas with large areas of undiscovered land.

He regarded Qinghua Island as a way out, but he only hid a lot of people here and hoarded a lot of food and materials. When he had to leave Daqi, he did not intend to be stuck on such a small island.

The Imperial Navy were not vegetarians and there was a whole Daqi behind them. No matter how powerful they were, how could they stop such an endless stream of navy ships on such a small island?!

If they really became trapped, maybe even his men would turn against him first.

Jiang Zhen had made many preparations before, but in the end, he didn’t plan too far. Now without thinking too much, the fog in his mind cleared and he had a specific direction to move forward.

“Boss, what do we do next?” Jiang Zhen’s men asked worriedly.

They were all very confused at this moment.

Although some of them were dissatisfied with the imperial court, their days were good and they never thought of leaving.

As long as they did not have to live beyond their means, people wouldn’t want to rebel.

What they wanted was to live in peace and have food and clothing on their back. However, the imperial court sometimes doesn’t think about this.

“Let’s go to the East.” Jiang Zhen said.

“Toyo?” His people were a little surprised. They thought they would live on Qinghua Island or like Cheng Yongzhen, they would travel to Ryukyu. They didn’t expect that Jiang Zhen would propose sailing to Toyo.

“Ryukyu is too close to Daqi, and it won’t take long for the Navy of Minnan Province to reach Ryukyu. So instead of going to Ryukyu, it’s better to go to the Eastern Ocean.” Jiang Zhen said.

The citizens from Toyo could come to Daqi, so why couldn’t they go to Toyo?

Of course, the most urgent thing was to make a trip to Qinghua Island and take their supplies with them.

As for the people who still remained in Wexing Province…

Jiang Zhen and Zhao Jinge escaped in a great hurry, so many of their Toyo men, as well as many of the families of their subordinates were left behind in Wexing Province.

Jiang Zhen intended to pick up those people, but if they go back now they would only shoot themselves in the foot.

Fortunately, although Qi Qing was a bit stubborn, he was not a bad person. At the very least, he would not allow his men to kill innocent people indiscriminately.

Jiang Zhen sighed. He was not a god, so he couldn’t do everything in the end.

Jiang Zhen took his fleet and went to Qinghua Island first. After taking all the people and supplies on the island, they went to Toyo.

When Sun Qiyun’s men were defeated by Jiang Zhen’s men in Yabian Village, they tried to slaughter the remaining people of Yabian Village to vent their anger, but were stopped by Qi Qing.

However, they still managed to capture some of Jiang Zhen’s men. After extorting confessions by torture, they learned of the existence of Qinghua Island.

Jiang Zhen unexpectedly set up an island overseas, what a wolf of ambitions!

After Sun Qiyun got the news, he immediately ordered all of his soldiers, while also borrowing imperial soldiers from Wexing Province, to go with him to Qinghua Island.

However, the island was already empty when they arrived.

The houses on the island were only half-built, the vegetables planted on the island had not yet grown and there was no one on the island.

“Where did that damn Jiang Zhen go?” Sun Qiyun couldn’t help but ask.

“Ryukyu?” Qi Qing frowned.

Ryukyu was now occupied by Cheng Yongzhen’s old troops and was in chaos, but if Jiang Zhen went over, those people would definitely accept him.

Qi Qing and Sun Qiyun become silent for a moment, then they headed for Ryukyu again. Unknown to them, Jiang Zhen’s fleet was making its way to Toyo.

Toyo was also an island but it was very large.

Jiang Zhen had been there a long time ago.

When he came here before, he was welcomed by the people, but this time the situation was different.

Ronins in the past were docile, but in the past two years, they changed a lot.

They learned that the people of Daqi were not as strong as they thought, and that robbery made money much faster than an honest business.

Previously, the price of the things sold to them by Daqi was always high, which was obviously cheating them, so why would they buy things from Daqi now?

They might as well just rob them!

So when Jiang Zhen and others docked, they met a group of eastern ronins who tried to rob his fleet of ships.

Daqi citizens were afraid of the ronin and didn’t dare resist them, but Jiang Zhen and his men were not ordinary people.

Jiang Zhen killed or captured all the people who came to rob them.

“We just stopped nearby for a while, and were attacked. A lot of my people were injured so we want to recuperate here,” Jiang Zhen said to the Toyo officials who came over. Afterward they directly occupied a piece of land by the sea.

Nobody bothered about them.

There was also an Imperial Family in Toyo, but it was divided and the two sides fought with each other without any rest. In recent years, due to intense infighting, the people’s lives have been very bad.

Because of this, many people in Toyo wanted to leave and go to Daqi.

The Imperial Family of Toyo had reached the point of no return, so they had no time to drive Jiang Zhen away.

When they found out that Jiang Zhen had brought many smiths and could even build weapons, they started to make friends with him. It was their hope that Jiang Zhen would sell them weapons.

Jiang Zhen agreed.

His weapons would be sold to both sides. He also began to take in those displaced ronins and then taught them the language of Daqi.

Ronins and the people of Daqi spoke different languages and many of their habits were also different. Still, a majority of the common people still had the same basic line, they all wanted to have something to eat and warm clothes to wear.

Jiang Zhen’s men would not kill them at will, and were even willing to give them food. They were just asked to learn the language of Daqi, so what does it matter?

Although many people from Toyo had already begun pillaging Daqi, for the vast majority of Toyo, Daqi was still their heavenly kingdom, a very prosperous and strong place.

To learn the language of Daqi, some of them even felt honored.

Of course this was not all that Jiang Zhen did.

In this day and age, the sanitary conditions were not very good so he couldn’t stand having long hair. When they arrived in Toyo, he took the lead in cutting his hair short. Noticing this, all his men followed suit.

As a result, the men on Jiang Zhen’s side had short hair.

Later, even those ronins followed suit and changed their original strange hairstyles.

Jiang Zhen occupied more and more territory, while also making a lot of money by doing business.

In the second year of Jiang Zhen’s arrival in Toyo, the Daqi Navy was still fighting with Cheng Yongzhen’s leftover army and the Toyo invaders along the coast of Daqi. Jiang Zhen sent his men back to Daqi disguised as ordinary sea merchants to take away any of his subordinates left behind who were willing to move to Toyo. What’s more, he retrieved most of the families his men didn’t have time to bring with them.

Only a small number of them were not brought back with them. Some were unwilling to go, while others, because of their husbands’ sudden departure, had already married others.

Those willing to move, Jiang Zhen was able to secret away with the help of Zheng Yi.

He had become the first target of the now grown-up Majesty, but the Zheng family was still fine.

The Zheng Family’s Changhe Salt Farm was well managed and had stabilized the price of the salt, not to mention earned quite a lot of money for the Imperial Court. They also didn’t have under their hands such armed forces like Jiang Zhen, so His Majesty left the Zheng Family alone.

The Second Lord Zheng has always been a person who knows what he’s doing, so naturally he didn’t disagree with the young Emperor.

In the end, His Majesty was the Empress Dowager’s child so the Empress Dowager was also very tolerant of His Majesty. How could they go against him?

After Jiang Zhen brought these people to Toyo, he had even more manpower on hand. At the same time, some of Cheng Yongzhen’s old troops were scattered by the Daqi Navy. Some of them became so desperate that they chose to defect to Jiang Zhen.

Once the most powerful person on the sea was Cheng Yongzhen, but now, it has become Jiang Zhen. Just under Jiang Zhen alone, there were about 20,000 to 30,000 strong young men.

This number might not seem particularly large when compared to the millions of troops in Daqi, but in Toyo it was already a powerful force.

In particular, Jiang Zhen has been trading with some of the remaining sea merchants in Daqi.

He bought many of Daqi’s craftsmen, weapons and food. He armed his men, and began to take in more and more Toyo ronins.

The two sides of the Imperial Family that fought with each other all this time did not realize that something was wrong until it was too late.

After years of warfare, they had long since run out of many weapons on hand, and had no food.

If they had been pushed back many years and the technology was more developed, with newspapers and other publications, maybe they could still mobilize the people of Toyo to resist invaders together. But the Imperial Family, to many people of Toyo, was only a vague concept.

What’s more, Jiang Zhen has never done such a thing as massacre innocent people and has always been very friendly to Toyo citizens.