Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 1016: Three Feet Six

Nan'ao Island was originally a town in Chaozhou Prefecture of Guangdong. In the third year of Wanli, the imperial court set up deputy generals of Zhangzhou and Chaozhou here, set up Shen'ao in the town, and divided it into two camps of Fujian and Guangdong. Shen'ao and Long'ao belonged to Raoping County of Chaozhou Prefecture of Guangdong, and Yun'ao and Qing'ao belonged to Zhao'an County of Zhangzhou Prefecture of Fujian.

It can be seen from this that the ownership of Nan'ao Island is somewhat complicated. From a geographical point of view, it belongs to Chaozhou Prefecture, but in fact it is under the joint jurisdiction of Fujian and Guangdong. Moreover, Nan'ao Island is a relatively special large island in Guangdong. In the middle and late Wanli period, due to the rampant pirates in the South China Sea, the deputy generals of Zhang and Chao stationed here were unable to defeat the brutal pirate groups and withdrew from the island to land. From then on, Nan'ao Island became the territory of pirates.

During the reign of Emperor Tianqi, Zheng Zhilong defeated a group of pirates that had previously occupied Nan'ao and took control of Nan'ao. In the first year of Emperor Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong was recruited by the imperial court and transformed from a pirate into one of the Five Tiger Guerrilla Generals of the Ming Dynasty. Although Nan'ao Island was nominally returned to the Ming Dynasty, it was actually controlled by Zheng Zhilong.

Today, Nan'ao is still Zheng Zhilong's territory, and it is one of his most important territories. Zheng Zhilong's general Chen Bao led his troops to station in Nan'ao. He not only had nearly 10,000 naval and land forces, more than 100 warships, but also held the title of Nan'ao Deputy General (Deputy General). After the court conferred the title, Chen Bao also added the rank of General Dingguo, becoming one of Zheng Zhilong's powerful subordinates.

Speaking of Chen Bao, he can be considered an old follower of Zheng Zhilong. Although he was not one of the members of the Eighteen Zhis back then, he followed Zheng Zhilong as a close follower in his early years, going through life and death together, fighting on the sea, and won Zheng Zhilong's deep trust.

Since becoming the deputy general of Nan'ao, Chen Bao has been stationed in Nan'ao with his troops, helping Zheng Zhilong control the South China Sea and collecting tolls from ships traveling in the South China Sea. This shows Chen Bao's status in Zheng Zhilong's group.

As a general under Zheng Zhilong, Chen Bao was loyal to Zheng Zhilong and was fearless in battle, but apart from these, Chen Bao's character was not very good.

Chen Bao is not tall, but short and fat, with a waist of 3.6 meters, and looks like a short winter melon. If this doesn't make any impression, then think of the thin monk who became short and fat in the works of Mr. Jin, who wrote martial arts novels, and it will be very appropriate.

Not only is he ugly, but Chen Bao also has a bad personality. He is not only cruel but also greedy. During his years in South Australia, his actions have made the local people fear, hate and dread him. Moreover, because of his figure and appearance, people call him "three feet six" behind his back.

Once, Chen Bao passed by the houses near Yanggong Temple in the city and happened to rest at the door of a house. While resting, Chen Bao suddenly heard two people talking in the house, one of whom was saying, "How do I cut this 3-foot-6 sword?"

Hearing this, Chen Bao immediately became furious. He drew his sword, kicked open the door and rushed in, directly hacking to death the two women who were talking in the room. After killing them, Chen Bao discovered a piece of cloth next to the bodies. The cloth was exactly three feet six long, and a ruler and a pair of scissors also fell on the edge of the cloth. It turned out that the aunt and sister-in-law were discussing how to divide the three feet six cloth. They were not mocking Chen Bao at all, nor did they want to kill Chen Bao.

Just because of a casual remark of "three feet six", the aunt and sister-in-law were struck by disaster at home and were beheaded by Chen Bao without any reason. After killing them, Chen Bao not only had no remorse, but kicked the corpses twice and walked away while cursing. After the incident was reported, the people of Nan'ao hated Chen Bao even more, but they could do nothing about him.

Apart from this incident, not long ago, Chen Bao secretly sent someone to kill a local landlord in Nan'ao because he had his eyes on his wealth. Not only did he kill the landlord, he also took his head and publicly announced that if his family wanted to take back his head, they had to pay silver in exchange.

The family of the victim came to Chen Bao and said they were willing to hand over a sum of silver equal to the size of the head, begging Chen Bao to return the head of the deceased. But Chen Bao made a big request, and directly placed the head of the deceased on the table, and then gestured from the ground to the head, saying that if they wanted to take back the head, they had to take out the silver from the ground to the same height as the head.

Such a greedy and shameless face shocked everyone. Although the deceased's family had a lot of money, where could they get so much silver? They had no choice but to give up the head with great pain. After returning, they used the silver to make a silver head for the deceased. In order to prevent Chen Bao from knowing, they lied to others that it was a copper head and buried it instead.

Chen Bao did not know how many similar things he had done. His crimes in Nan'ao were too numerous to list. The people of Nan'ao had hated Chen Bao for a long time, and they wished that Chen Bao would die suddenly one day to relieve their hatred. Not to mention ordinary people, even the gentry could not stand what Chen Bao did. Some people even secretly found Zheng Zhilong through their connections and begged Zheng Zhilong to transfer Chen Bao, the devil, from Nan'ao and give peace to the people of Nan'ao. Unfortunately, Zheng Zhilong ignored all this. Although Zheng Zhilong also knew that Chen Bao was not a good thing and had caused great resentment in Nan'ao, the problem was that Chen Bao could get money for Zheng Zhilong! Moreover, although Chen Bao was cruel, he was loyal to Zheng Zhilong. In addition, the worse Chen Bao's mass base in Nan'ao was, the more reassured Zheng Zhilong would be, because in this way Chen Bao could only rely on himself. If he left himself, Chen Bao would not be able to gain a foothold in Nan'ao. This was also the special feature of Zheng Zhilong's use of people.

It was precisely because of this that, although Chen Bao caused such a terrible situation in Nan'ao, he was deeply trusted by Zheng Zhilong and sat in this deputy general position for many years.

Over the years, Chen Bao relied on Zheng Zhilong behind him to get a large amount of silver in the South China Sea. This silver also became the main source of Zheng Zhilong's military support. Chen Bao did not treat himself badly during this period. He secretly embezzled a lot of silver and made a fortune privately.

Of course, Chen Bao must have kept the money from Zheng Zhilong. After following Zheng Zhilong for so many years, he knew his boss too well. If he secretly embezzled some money, Zheng Zhilong would naturally not care. As the saying goes, there will be no fish in clear water. As a boss, you have to let your subordinates earn some pocket money, otherwise how can you get people to work for you?

But Chen Bao was different. At first, Chen Bao was somewhat restrained. But as he spent more time in Nan'ao, how could the greedy Chen Bao resist making more money? At first, he made 95% of his money and kept half for himself. This ratio was tacitly approved by Zheng Zhilong. But after a year or two, as he made more and more money, Chen Bao couldn't help but have evil thoughts when he saw so much silver. He gradually turned over 95% to 90%... 85% or even 80% or 70%. Now, Chen Bao directly keeps a small part of the money in his hands. He only turned over 65% of the silver he got every year, and the remaining 35% went into Chen Bao's own pocket.

Of course, this premise was based on handing over enough silver to Zheng Zhilong. Chen Bao was not stupid either. He knew very well that the silver handed over to Zheng Zhilong must not be less than before, so he tried every means to get silver from the sea. Not only did he collect tolls at the instruction of Zheng Zhilong, but sometimes in order to get silver, he also asked his subordinates to pretend to be pirates and do the old business of having no capital at sea. Relying on these little tricks, he not only brought Zheng Zhilong millions of taels of income every year, but also earned almost the same wealth for himself.

Because the silver given to Zheng Zhilong every year was not less, Zheng Zhilong in Fujian also trusted Chen Bao very much and basically did not ask about his little actions. In addition, Chen Bao had been in Nan'ao for a long time and had bribed the brothers in the army with silver, blocking these news and not letting Zheng Zhilong know.

In this way, this secret that was not a secret was kept from Zheng Zhilong, and Chen Bao had been living a carefree life in Nan'ao for several years. But as the saying goes, if you walk on the road at night too much, you will eventually encounter ghosts. In the second month after Hong Chengchou took office in Fujian, Zheng Zhilong finally found out that Chen Bao had withheld Zheng Zhilong's silver. When he learned that Chen Bao had embezzled more than 4 million taels of silver without telling him all these years, Zheng Zhilong became furious, his face flushed with anger, and he slammed the table and stood up.

"What a tall man! How dare you covet my money and get so much? Bastard! Damn it!" Zheng Zhilong was furious and cursed. He felt heartbroken when he thought of so much silver. If Chen Bao only coveted a few hundred thousand taels, it would be fine. He, Zheng Zhilong, was rich enough to rival a country and didn't care about these. Moreover, as Chen Bao was a general under him, it was normal for him to get some silver. But he didn't expect that this bastard actually got so much without telling him!
More than four million taels of silver! How could this be a small amount? Zheng Zhilong's annual income was less than half of it, and he had to support the army, manage the affairs of the upper and lower classes, and add the dividends of his old brothers, etc. After deducting these expenses, the actual amount left in his hands was only a few hundred thousand taels.

But Chen Bao was different. He embezzled so much money without telling Zheng Zhilong. Someone had reported Chen Bao for corruption before, but Zheng Zhilong didn't take it seriously. He even turned a blind eye to Chen Bao's actions in Nan'ao, just to let Chen Bao make money for him.

Zheng Zhilong thought he had never done anything wrong to Chen Bao, and even considered him his confidant. He tried his best to protect him even though he was a little bit shameful. But who would have thought that this bastard actually hid so much from him. Damn it! Damn it!

"Brother! Chen Bao deceived his superiors and subordinates and actually did such a thing. According to the rules, he must not be allowed to stay!" Zheng Zhibao on the side was also very angry and shouted that he wanted to punish Chen Bao according to the family rules.

Zheng Zhiguan was also so angry that he gnashed his teeth. Although he was Zheng Zhilong's cousin and ranked third in the Zheng Group, only after Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Zhibao, even so, his annual income was only a little over 100,000 taels, and this was what Zheng Zhilong gave him out of their brotherly love.

But Chen Bao was just a general from the Zheng family. Without the support of the Zheng family, how could Chen Bao have his current status and position? It is even more impossible for him to be in charge of Nan'ao for many years.

Logically speaking, Chen Bao should not only be loyal to Zheng Zhilong, but also be grateful to him. However, instead of doing so, Chen Bao secretly embezzled so much silver without telling Zheng Zhilong and their brothers. The silver he got every year was more than what Zheng Zhilong finally got. As for himself, there was no need to compare. As the fourth son of the Zheng family, he was tricked by the servants raised by the Zheng family. This was intolerable!
(End of this chapter)