In the middle of the night, Li Wei was suddenly awakened by a noise. He put on his clothes and got up. He came to the window and opened it. He saw that the north direction of the city was shining in the sky, the smoke was rolling, and the streets were noisy. I don’t know how many people rushed to put out the fire. Li Wei frowned. The direction of the fire seemed to be Zhou Ming’s home.

"Dalang, what's wrong?" Zi Tong's voice came from the inner room.

"It's nothing, it seems that somewhere has caught fire." Li Wei was closing the window and walking back to the inner room.

"It's famine and fire again, it's so pitiful." Zi Tong sighed and said to Li Wei again: "You have to get up early tomorrow, come in and go to bed!"

Li Weizheng listened intently for a while, then blew out the light and went into the tent to rest.

The next morning, Li Wei was going out to the military camp. When he rode his horse past the north gate, he couldn't help but stop. It turned out that the alley where Zhou Ming's family was located had almost been burned to white ground, ruins, and blue smoke was emitting curling smoke. More than a dozen yamen runners surrounded him, and people who were not allowed to watch the fun were allowed to enter. There was a faint crying sound deep in the ruins.

At this time, two personal soldiers who were in charge of catching up in the alley last night hurried forward and saluted: "See sir!"

"What's going on?" Li Weizheng asked with a horse whip on the alley.

"Report to the Lord, there was a sudden fire here last night. The fire was so rapid that it burned more than twenty families. After hearing from the officials, thirty-four people died."

Speaking of this, the personal soldiers whispered: "Sir, Zhou Ming doesn't seem to have escaped."

"Then are you sure he was burned to death?"

The personal soldier hesitated and said, "His wife escaped. We saw her kneeling in front of a corpse and crying. However, we really couldn't tell the appearance of the corpse, but the corpse was indeed found in his house."

"Then where is his wife now?" Li Weizheng asked again.

"I went out of the city with others to bury the body."

Seeing the disaster, Li Wei couldn't help but flashed a hint of anger in his eyes. He immediately turned around and said to a personal soldier: "Shisanlang is here to see me quickly."

He urged the horse to gallop towards the military camp. Before he could reach the military camp, he saw Shisanlang standing dejectedly at the door. Seeing Li Wei coming, he hurried forward to salute.

Li Wei glanced at him and said coldly: "Have I asked you to set fire?"

Shisanlang sighed and said, "I am incompetent. Before I even arrived at the place, the fire started to burn."

Li Weizheng was stunned and asked hurriedly: "Didn't you put the fire?"

Shisanlang shook his head, "I will never dare to set fire without authorization. The fire is indeed not what I set."

Li Wei was just startled, and he hurriedly ordered his personal soldiers, "Go and catch Zhou Ming's wife quickly and question her the truth."

Not long after, the personal soldiers came back to report, "Zhou Ming's wife was really unaware. She said that when the fire broke out, Zhou Ming originally escaped with her, but later ran back to get the money, and never came out again."

There is a high possibility that Zhou Ming will be burned to death, but the unknown cause of the fire has always left Li Weizheng with an indelible shadow in his heart. As time goes by, the fire has gradually been forgotten.

On that afternoon, the sky above the Shandong Peninsula was dark clouds, lightning and thunder suddenly started to rain heavily, and it was white. Whether it was the people, officials, soldiers, whether it was the elderly or children, they rushed into the heavy rain and cheered, jumped, laughed, and cried. The entire Shandong Peninsula was immersed in the extreme joy of drought and rain for a long time.

In the next ten days, several heavy rains continued, and the drought on the Shandong Peninsula was finally alleviated. The refugees began to return home one after another. Li Weizheng also started his busy work. He went to Weihaiwei several times to handle the military affairs there, and prepared to arrange a military ship to send 300,000 taels of silver to Tianjin Guard. Just when Li Weizheng was busy with military affairs, his performance report was also delivered to the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of War handed over Zhu Yuanzhang's imperial case.

In the imperial study room, Zhu Yuanzhang was standing in front of the window with interest and looking at the scenery in the distance with the thousand-mile eyes presented by Li Weizheng. The items that were originally vaguely visible were presented to him in a niche. The scenery that was originally invisible fell into Qianli's eyes. Since he got this thousand-mile eyes the day before yesterday, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't put it down and took it with him at any time, even putting it under the pillow when he was sleeping. For this reason, he specially ordered people to make a soft cover and carefully preserve the thousand-mile eyes.

The sky was shining brightly, and Zhu Yuanzhang finally restrained the urge to look at the sun with a thousand-mile eyes. The first thing Li Weizheng wrote was not to look at the sun, otherwise it would burn his eyes. Zhu Yuanzhang looked into the distance for a while and then put down his eyes and returned to the imperial table. The eyes were just his leisure and relaxation. Handling the court affairs was his main business. There were many affairs every day, and the memorials sent by various departments were filled with imperial cases. Zhu Yuanzhang had become accustomed to it. He pondered for a moment and once again took Li Weizheng's report from the imperial case. He had read this report submitted by the Ministry of War three times. At first, his instructions were rewarded for military merits, but they were refuted by the Ministry of War. The Ministry of War believed that Li Weizheng had not been approved by the Ministry of War, whether in the Battle of Danluo Island or the Nagasaki Port in Japan. Although there was a reason for the bombardment of Busan, it was suspected of being too arrogant and could not be commended.

The key is the interpretation of Li Weizheng's power to make decisions at sea. The Ministry of War and Li Weizheng's own interpretations are different. The Ministry of War believes that the decisions at sea are not unlimited exercises of power. For some small battles, such as encountering pirates or Japanese pirates at sea, he may be able to decide for himself, but when it comes to major military operations such as disputes between countries, Li Weizheng does not have this power, and the focus is on the incident of bombardment of Busan.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister system and he directly led the six ministries, he also considered his possible decision-making mistakes and retained the position of the clerk in the six ministries and gave them the power to return the creditors. However, Zhu Yuanzhang only appointed the seventh rank to the clerk, which was to use the power of small officials to prevent them from becoming over. Therefore, he approved Li Weizheng's report on his performance that was returned by the clerk in the clerk of the Ministry of War, and attached the opinions of the Ministry of War, hoping that the emperor would consider it as appropriate.

The best way to deal with this matter is to hand it over to the court for discussion, and then make a decision after the court meeting. However, Zhu Yuanzhang did not do this. The key is that selling old military goods to Japan was his own decision, and it did not pass the court discussion. Therefore, handing over Li Weizheng's performance report to the court meeting for discussion will undoubtedly expose the matter of selling military goods. Zhu Yuanzhang once again fell into deep thought.

In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't care about Li Wei's battle in Japan. The report made it clear that he fought because of a group of wolves peeping at the Ming cargo ship. Zhu Yuanzhang believed that the first failure was the sneak attack of Japanese local tyrants. Li Weizheng's battle was entirely out of self-defense, and the Japanese court also recognized it. The focus of the debate was Goryeo. Should we occupy Danluo Island? Should we bombard Busan?

Zhu Yuanzhang walked slowly in the room with his hands behind his back. Although Goryeo admitted to being a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, it kept making small moves behind it. On the one hand, it mainly worshiped the Ming Dynasty, but on the other hand, it still secretly communicated with the Northern Yuan Dynasty. Not only that, the King of Goryeo marched northward during the Ming and Yuan war, constantly eroded the land of the Ming Dynasty, forcing Zhu Yuanzhang to order the establishment of Tieling Guards in the 21st year of Hongwu (not today's Tieling, but in Korea) to prevent the Goryeo Dynasty from invading the northern invasion. Due to the pressure of the Northern Yuan war, Zhu Yuanzhang had to temporarily endure Goryeo and just sent someone to warn the King of Goryeo.

But the Goryeo people not only refused to listen, but instead took advantage of the opportunity that the Ming Dynasty was unable to look east and marched north again, and crossed Yibanling (now Motianling, Korea) to set up the Wanhu Mansion in Jizhou in the ocean, preparing to march north of the Douman River. But at this time, Li Chenggui, who served as the general of the former army, launched a military coup, took over the Goryeo regime, and established a puppet king. He regarded himself as a regent, but the land of the Ming Dynasty was not returned due to Li Chenggui's rule. This dissatisfied Goryeo's new master was humble on one hand and claimed to be a subordinate, while the other party still secretly occupied the land of the Ming Dynasty and refused to return it, which made Zhu Yuanzhang extremely dissatisfied.

It is obvious that Li Chenggui's next step was to kick off the puppet king and establish the new dynasty. At the time of the century-long change in Goryeo, how should the Ming Dynasty treat this new subordinate? This is a question that Zhu Yuanzhang has been considering. Frankly speaking, he agreed with Li Weizheng's approach. When Li Chenggui's new successor was undecided, he beat it to warn him. Whether it was occupying Danluo Island or bombing Busan, it was in line with the immediate strategic interests of the Ming Dynasty. Especially in the decline of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty could moderately take heavy moves against Goryeo.

But Zhu Yuanzhang also had something unhappy, that is, Li Weizheng acted without authorization. Although he gave Li Weizheng the right to make decisions at sea, this was just a kind of thing on the surface, and he did not really let him do whatever he wanted. Zhu Yuanzhang also knew that Li Wei was a temporary decision and it was impossible to report him to take action again, so he finally agreed, but he was unhappy and was unhappy. There was nothing to explain.

Zhu Yuanzhang sat down and carefully read the opinions of the Ministry of War to the Ministry of War to the Ministry of War. He knew that this was actually the meaning of Sun Jiatai, the Minister of War. Sun Jiatai was worthy of being a veteran in the officialdom. After understanding his thoughts, he was nominally a fence, but in fact he hit Li Weizheng's key point: "Unauthorized", the tree attracts wind. It seems that Li Weizheng has begun to be hostile. Zhu Yuanzhang pondered for a moment and then made a new instruction on Li Weizheng's performance report.

Early that morning, on the dock of Weihaiwei, Li Wei was standing at the bow of the treasure ship, looking at nearly a thousand soldiers carrying large boxes filled with silver onto a lucky ship. Dozens of soldiers conducted the final inspection on the ship before going to sea, and the other five guard ships were also ready to set off.

Suddenly, a soldier pointed to the viewing platform on the hill and shouted: "Sir, there is something happening on the viewing tower."

I saw a pillar of smoke rising from the viewing tower, and then a cannon sound came. One smoke and one cannon means that there was something on the sea. Li Wei was immediately taking the "Qianliyan" and looking at the sea, he seemed to see a small black dot. The small black dot gradually became bigger and it was a ship.

"Send a ship to sea immediately to check the information."

A team of military ships quickly left the dock and greeted the ships from afar. Soon, the military ship intercepted the ship and brought it back. Li Weizheng also got off the treasure ship and came to the dock, waiting for the arrival of the ship.

The ship gradually landed. It was a half-old four-masted ocean-going sea boat. There were only five or six sailors on the sea boat. They looked like people from the South China Sea area. One of the burly men wore a Luzon-brimmed hat and stared at Li Weizheng tightly. Although the hat covered most of his face, Li Weizheng felt that he seemed a little familiar.

The hundred households who went to intercept came up to report: "Sir, they said they were Luzon sea ships. When they went to Goryeo trade, they encountered a storm and were blown to the Bohai Sea. We checked the documents and found that there was indeed an official seal from Luzon. They asked for support from Tamsui."

"Can they speak Chinese?" Li Wei was a little surprised.

"Sir, I will say." The man in a big brim hat walked forward quickly and 'Plop!' fell to Li Wei-fai, his voice became extremely excited, "Sir, do you still know me?"

"You are..." Li Wei was just right to see him take off his hat and reveal a wide dark face. His nose was extremely huge, as if it was a sign. Li Wei was immediately recognized by him. He said in surprise: "You are Chen Wanli!"

Chen Wanli was the smuggler Li Wei rescued in Guangzhou. When he saw that Li Wei was recognizing him, he quickly kowtowed twice, "The villain is Chen Wanli, and the adults still remember me."

Seeing that Li Wei was familiar with the visitor, Baihu next to him relaxed his surveillance and ran to arrange for people to send them a water to the boat. When Chen Wanli saw Baihu walking away, he immediately whispered: "Sir, I'm not a storm, I'm here to find you specifically. I heard that he is an official in Weihaiwei."

"What are you asking me for?" Li Weizheng asked with a smile.

"Did you forget it? You asked me to bring some Luzon specialties, and I came here this time for this."

Li Weizheng was overjoyed. He almost forgot about this matter. He hurriedly asked, "What did you bring?"

"Sir, please follow me."

Chen Wanli led Li Weizheng onto the boat. He shouted a few words. Several Luzon people immediately moved out more than a dozen large vine baskets from the cabin. Li Weizheng recognized it at a glance. The vine basket was full of sweet potatoes that he had told Zhu Yuanzhang, and small buds had already grown on them.

Chen Wanli smiled proudly and said, "If I guess correctly, this must be what I want!"

Li Wei was suppressing the excitement in his heart, and he nodded slowly and said, "Yes, this is this thing."

"Sir, this sweet potato was brought to Luzon by some Boninesians over the ocean more than ten years ago. Even Luzon has not been planted on a large scale. When planting, it is buried in the soil first. After the seedlings grow, the seedlings can be planted successfully. The soil in Shandong is particularly suitable for harvesting in autumn."

Speaking of this, he took out a roll of paper and handed it to Li Weizheng and said, "This is the method of planting, and adults can plant according to it."

Li Wei was waiting for this thing. He gently stroked these sweet potatoes that could save the victims, and felt infinitely moved. After a long time, he stood up and asked, "What else?"

"There are nothing else. I brought some vegetables, but they were broken on the way, so I had to throw them away. I would have known that I would have brought the seeds."

Speaking of this, Chen Wanli suddenly smiled mysteriously and said, "There is another thing, sir, please follow me."

The two entered the cabin, and Chen Wanli took out a box from the bulkhead and opened it.

Li Wei saw that the box was covered with pieces of paper, so he took out one piece and peeled off the paper outside, revealing a piece of black paste, emitting a faint fragrance.
Chapter completed!