Chapter 162.2 - Captured Japanese Invaders
One of them ware sea merchants who were originally gathered together by Cheng Yongzhen. But now that Cheng Yongzhen was gone they planned to continue being sea merchants. Another group was local people employed by Cheng Yongzhen. Now that Cheng Yongzhen was gone they planned to go back to farming and third group… become pirates.
After Jiang Zhen learned of this incident, he has strengthened his protection, but the effect was not very good. Recently, there have been many pirates on their side of the sea.
By the way, pirates during this time not only robbed on the sea but also on land before fleeting back to the sea.
The next day, Jiang Zhen went to the beach.
When going to the seaside he used to bring Zhao Jinge and their children with him but recently the seaside was not peaceful, he didn’t even dare go there alone let alone bring anyone with him.
As a result as soon as he arrived at the seaside, someone come to report: “Boss, last night we were attacked by pirates!”
“What?” Jiang Zhen wanted to rob the ship, Jiang Zhen finally understand, what pirates needed the most was the ship!
“How it go?”Jiang Zhen asked.
“Boss last nigh that group did not fight with us, we wounded a dozen people but fortunately no one died. We also no let them rob anything and were able to capture them alive.” The man said.
“Show me.” Jiang Zhen said.
Jiang Zhen was soon taken to see the captured people.
These people were all dressed like Japanese ronin, not only that, but after seeing him they began to “mumble” and speak in Japanese.
Jiang Zhen has been doing business with the Japanese ronin or several years, but there weren’t many people under his command who could speak japanese.
At this time, Daqi was very powerful so Japanese ronin were scrambling to come to Daqi and learn Daqi dialect so Daqi people didn;t even try learning Japanese since all those Japanese ronin could speak Daqi language!
However, although his men couldn’t speak it, Jiang Zhen could.
The more he listened to the Japanese ronin language spoken by these people, the more he felt that something was wrong.
Among these people, a few of them spoke normal Japanese with a very pure accent but few of them… were simply talking nonsense, they learned simple words from those Japanese ronin and repeated them without any sense.
They ware pretending to be Japanese ronins?
Jiang Zhen who noticed this felt it was little funny.
Pirates at this time, in order to keep people from discovering their true identity, would sometimes pretend to be Japanese ronins but he didn’t expect to meet them now.
“Can’t speak human language?” Jiang Zhen looked at these people with a smirk, then he said to his men, “Cut their tongues out.”
“Yes! Boss!” Jiang Zhen’s men answered and moved to cut the tongues of those people.
Jiang Zhen had actually never given such an order before, since he never let his people cut other people’s tongues before, but Jiang Zhen often liked to scare people.
Jiang Zhen’s men knew very well about Jiang Zhen’s love of bluffing, so they naturally also know that at this time he was trying to scare people.
It’s just that Jiang Zhen’s men might knew it but those people didn’t.
At first, they were still holding on, gibbering to continue talking nonsense, but seeing Jiang Zhen’s men with knives coming closer and closer they finally couldn’t sit still.
“No, you can’t do that!” The men were so frightened that they screamed.
“You can talk properly now?” Jiang Zhen said. He doesn’t usually kill people and since these pirates hadn’t killed his men, he wasn’t going to do anything to them.
But even so, he was still going to interrogate them properly.
“Are you trying to scare us?” A middle-aged man inside asked.
Jiang Zhen did not say anything, just smiled as he looked at them.
These people looked at Jiang Zhen for a while, but the middle-aged man suddenly said: “Boss Jiang, I have something to talk to you about alone.”
Jiang Zhen looked at him and smiled: “What do you want to say?” These people didn’t look like ordinary pirates.
“It must be said alone only!” The man immediately said.
Jiang Zhen thought for a moment and then had someone bring him into a room next door.
The man was brought in with his hands tied. After entering, he first looked around to make sure that no one was around and finally said: “Escort agency boss Jiang, I am Wang Ruicheng.”
Jiang Zhen looked at that man in some surprise. Wang Ruicheng was not anybody, he was one of Cheng Yongzhen great generals and it was said that many of Cheng Yongzhen strategies were created by him.
“Since you are Wang Ruicheng. How could you be caught by me so easily?” Jiang Shen looked at the other person.
“Escort agency boss Jiang, we are only trying to survive!” Wang Ruicheng said with a wry smile: “We are having a hard time these days. The people of the imperial court are after us and even the former head of Cheng family is after us!”
Wang Ruicheng recent days were really hard.
It goes without saying that the people of the imperial court wanted to hunt them down. It was either them or I. As for Cheng Yongzhen family wanting to hunt them too…
Cheng Yongzhen has been a sea merchant for so many years that he has accumulated countless contacts and money. Some of his contacts might already be dead so it was meaningless, but what about money?
Cheng Yongzhen’s men divided Cheng Yongzhen money among themselves. But everyone thought that Cheng Yongzhen could not have so little money.
Wang Ruicheng was one of Cheng Yongzhen’s close friends, so many people thought that Wang Ruicheng should have keys to Cheng Yongzhen private treasury.
Everyone wanted to capture Wang Ruicheng so he had no choice but to shave his own hair and then blend in among this group of Japanese ronin.
Finally, he commanded those Japanese ronins until he meet Jiang Zhen men who beat them up.
In doing so he wasn’t really trying to rob a ship but wanted to gain Jiang Zhen protection.
Jiang Zhen felt that Cheng Yongzhen should never have heard of his own name, but in fact, it was the opposite, Cheng Yongzhen actually knew Jiang Zhen.
Cheng Yongzhen even asked someone to investigate Jiang Zhen, who newly emerged but quickly suppressed other sea merchants in Wexing Province.
It was because of this that Wang Ruicheng learned about Jiang Zhen, finding that although Jiang Zhen seemed very brutal he was in fact very methodical and never hurted innocent people.
Since he was desperate and wanted to find a place to hide, he finally choose Jiang Zhen.
At first, he still wanted to hide his identity so he didn’t kill any of Jiang Zhen men and did things in a measured manner. He felt that Jiang Zhen should not want to kill him if he worked hard.
After doing this for a period of time, when the limelight was over he would naturally leave to find his own subordinates but as result… Jiang Zhen scared them so much that even people under his hands were frightened!
Changing his mind Wang Ruicheng said: “Boss Jiang, although King of Ryukyu was captured he left behind a lot of treasures, which only I can locate…”
“You don’t need to tell me that.” Jiang Zhen said: “Everyone in Wexing province knows that I don’t like to hire the Japanese ronin, so you can leave later.”
“Boss Jiang!” Wang Ruicheng was surprised, he never thought that Jiang Zhen could act so indifferent with such a big temptation in front of him.
Of course, Jiang Zhen could be indifferent. He was not greedy for other people money, nor does he wanted to involve his own family.
The imperial court was now looking for Wang Ruicheng is such a person stayed, once he was found by others…
Instead of talking to Wang Ruicheng, Jiang Zhen went outside and said to his men: “Those people are Cheng Yongzhen disabled group, throw them all out.”
“Yes, Boss!” Jiang Zhen’s men glanced at Wang Ruicheng and said to Wang Ruicheng: “Excuse me.”
Wang Ruicheng’s heart skipped a beat, feeling a bit suffocated.
But Jiang Zhen did not consider his mood.
Soon, the people were sent out.
Wang Ruicheng and his group stood on the dock of Yabian Village, stunned.
Uncle Wang, they let us go! Luckily we are alright!” A 17 or 18-year-old boy said, looking very relieved and happy.
Wang Ruicheng expression, however didn’t show much joy.
They’ve been hunted all this time but now that they couldn’t stay here… where could they go?
Thinking like this, Wang Ruicheng suddenly saw a group of people in uniform approaching them from distance.
There were only eight people in this group, it wasn’t that many people but the feeling they give… Wang Ruicheng soon found that the strides of those people were about the same. Not only that, they walked in the street without even whispering to each other, very seriously patrolling around.
Previously, Wang Ruicheng heard people talk that the fleet under Jiang Zhen were the most difficult to rob because his men were all very strong.
Originally Wang Ruicheng has not taken it seriously, but now in shock, he remembered those who fought against him last night.
Last night, none of Jiang Zhen’s men died, but many of the people under his hands died. Almost all of them were Japanese ronin so he didn’t care, but now thinking about it…
The cooperation between those people was really tacit.
He followed Cheng Yongzhen for a long time. Under Cheng Yongzhen’s hands, there were many fierce people but non of them acted as neat and tidy as Jiang Zhen men.
“Who are you?” The gaze of Wang Ruicheng and others were noticed by the patrol, so they come over and vaguely surrounded Wang Ruicheng and others.
After this side of the dock was almost burned down, Jiang Zhen arranged for more people to patrol and defend it. Making Yabian Village dock now, one of the safest places in the whole Wexing Province. Many small merchants even deliberately moved their homes here.
“My lord, we are here to make a living, how can we make a living here?” Wang Ruicheng asked.
“Daqi people?” The man gave Wang Ruicheng a look and then said: “Take care of yourself and don’t make yourself look so strange. Then you will be able to find a job and stay.”
“What about the Japanese ronin?” Wang Ruicheng asked again, he was left with only ten people under him and six of them were Japanese ronins.
“First take care of yourself, and then learn our Daqi language.” The man added: “If you don’t want to learn our Daqi language you can only do the hardest hard work, but if you learn tt will be different.”
“# ¥% # ¥# & *” Several Japanese ronins beside Wang Ruicheng were living in Daqi for a long time so they were able to understand the language of Daqi. Since they were a little unhappy now, they were unwilling to change their attire and spoke in Japanese. Afraid that the people on the other side would not understand them, they added in Daqi: “I, we, do not change!”
You really don’t want to change? See that man? He is also ronin, but now he has a house and land here and even married a wife.” The man on patrol, pointing to a middle-aged man not far away wearing brocade clothes, looks every way like a very rich person.
It was true that Jiang Zhen did not like japanese ronins.
But if these japanese ronins give themselves a Daqi name, wore Daqi clothes and started to speak Daqi language… he would be very good to them.
Among them, those who performed well would be selected by him as an interpreter to facilitate business with the East.
Now one of the patrolling men was pointing at ronin who was working as an interpreter for Jiang Zhen’s fleet for a long time.
At this time, this ronin no longer thought of himself as japanese. He now firmly believed he was from Daqi and was proud of it.
The japanese ronins around Wang Ruicheng could not help but waver when they saw the man’s appearance.
That man’s life looked too good ……
They left their country to come here, originally because of the war at home they needed to go somewhere else to make a living if they could live a good life in Daqi…
They were immediately no longer feeling as repulsed as they were at first.
However, before they could continue to ask, a horn sound suddenly sounded. After the first horn, more and more horns sounded.
These horns rang through the sky, making almost everyone on the dock hear them. Then ordinary people at docks began to hide in houses while adult men run out of various houses and gathered in different places.
When Wang Rucheng saw this, he was startled: “What’s going on?”
“Enemy attack.” The patrolman, then began to evacuate the surrounding people, saying to Wang Ruicheng and others: “During the emergency, all unknown people must be guarded, come with me!”
Wang Ruicheng and others were startled as they were pulled aside by patrolling man to a place where many other people like them were placed.
“Why is there so much noise about this enemy attack? It wasn’t like this last night ……” Wang Ruicheng couldn’t help but say.
“There were only few people last night so why would they make such a commotion?” Someone said: “So few people could be casually cleaned up.”
After he finished, he suddenly looked at Wang Ruicheng and others suspiciously: “The ones who came yesterday were several Japanese ronins… Could it be you?”
Wang Ruicheng: “……”
Wang Ruicheng was more or less afraid at the moment, lest those people would capture him. But at this time Jiang Zhen was already fully armed and on guard.