Lin Zexu, now nineteen years old, has passed the imperial examination for five years and is now studying at Aofeng Academy in Fuzhou Prefecture.

According to the historical trajectory, Lin Zexu should have passed the imperial examination this year. Unfortunately, the Qing Dynasty has not held any imperial examinations since Chen Gui came to power.

On the contrary, Chen Gu still held imperial examinations every year to select scholars.

In fact, the Lin family had already fallen into decline. Lin Zexu's father, Lin Binri, was so poor that he did not enter school until he was thirteen years old, and was therefore ridiculed by his classmates.

For this reason, Lin Binri brought Lin Zexu to school when he was very young, which allowed Lin Zexu to receive enlightenment early. Therefore, he was able to compose the poem "The sea is boundless and the sky is the shore; when I climb to the top of the mountain, I am the peak" when he was eight or nine years old.

Cai Qian started the battle by landing in Xiamen, cooperating with warships to bombard the coast, and heading north. At first, he was unstoppable and much more powerful than the Tiandihui.

However, because the gentry were slaughtered so heavily, the resistance they encountered became more fierce the further north they went. Although a large number of lower-class people joined their army along the way, the battle was extremely brutal.

By the time we arrived in Fuzhou, we were exhausted.

But the Tiandihui had already taken over the entire Guangdong Province, and Zhejiang was taken over by Lao Piao. If Cai Qian could not conquer the entire Fujian Province as soon as possible, let alone establish his own regime, he would probably not have enough bargaining chips to negotiate with Chen Gu.

So Cai Qian led his exhausted army to attack Fuzhou.

Fuzhou was an important maritime trade center of that era. Relying on maritime trade, the city’s population alone reached 500,000. There were so many wealthy businessmen, gentry, and officials in Fuzhou.

With advance preparations and the military and civilians united, Cai Qian had no chance of conquering Fuzhou. Not to mention being unable to defeat him on land, he couldn't even win the naval battle, which was Cai Qian's best skill.

After half a year of repeated tug-of-war, a talent like Lin Zexu was cultivated. So far, Cai Qian has completely lost his offensive power and has retreated to Putian, and the navy has retreated to Quanzhou.

So after Chen Gu sent an envoy to find Cai Qian, Cai Qian immediately responded and expressed great interest in the naval commander of the Huaxia Department.

But after learning about Lin Zexu, Chen Gu felt that Cai Qian would only be suitable as a deputy commander. After all, although Cai Qian was good at fighting, his administrative skills were obviously insufficient, and he also had character flaws, so he was not suitable to be the commander-in-chief of an army. He was more suitable to be a general.

Chen Gu tapped his fingers on the armrest of the chair and thought for a while, then smiled at Zheng Ming and said, "I really want to go to Fuzhou to see. It's not easy to defeat Cai Qian in a naval battle!"

"Unless we can capture Hanyang and Hankou together, you, the leader, will not be able to leave Wuchang!" Zheng Ming shook his head and smiled, then asked, "The leader seems to value the sea very much?"

"We often talk about the world, but how big is this world?" Chen Gu sighed and said, "It takes several years for the Silk Road to reach the far west, but it only takes one year for foreigners to drive their ships there.

During the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He made seven voyages to the West, each time going deeper than the last, and even further to the East. All of this proves that the world is actually very big.

If it was in the past, it wouldn't matter. Anyway, if you closed the door and said, "All under heaven belongs to the king, and all the people in the world are the king's subjects," no one would refute it.

But this is obviously not the case in the future. For example, the foreigners today, their armies, warships, and even knowledge are not much worse than ours.

If we continue to isolate ourselves from the outside world, I am afraid that one day we will be laughed at and become the Yelang Kingdom.

During the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Han, with the remaining strength of three previous dynasties, shouted out that "If the enemy can go, I can go too." But what about now?
Foreigners can come to China through the sea, but we cannot go to foreigners through the sea. If this continues, how many generations will it take for us to hide our strength and bide our time before we can say: If the enemy can go, I can go too?

Chen Gu knew this time, because when Chen Gu traveled here, he finally achieved the goal of "If the enemy goes, I can go too". Although we did not attack anyone, we did have a counter-attack. But how many years and how many people's efforts did it take to achieve this result?

So if we start working hard from now on, won’t it be easier?

Zheng Ming and Lao Nian both nodded. Although they didn't say anything, they kept Chen Gu's words in mind. As for foreign invasions, there were the Huns in the past, the Qing Dynasty in the future, and countless others in between. Each time was tragic for this nation.

Chen Gu's worries are not without reason.

The Huaxia tribe was just established, and although it had not yet conquered the entire world, it should have considered the issue as its own responsibility.

Chen Gu thought for a moment and said to Cai Xi, "Go back and tell your father that I can't spare any troops to help him conquer Fujian. He may not want me to send troops, but Fujian cannot remain in a state of confrontation.

The area is not large to begin with, and if the two armies confront each other for a long time, it will only accelerate their internal friction, and it won't be long before they won't have enough food to eat.

Let your father negotiate with Lin Zexu, and let them not invade each other within their existing territories, and live their own lives."

Then Chen Gu took out a Chinese law code and handed it to Cai Xi, and continued: "No more innocent slaughter of gentry and dignitaries. From now on, everything should be done according to the law, and the equal distribution of land in the country should be completed as soon as possible!

If necessary, the Chinese tribes can move into Fujian. If not, just ignore what I said."

It is Chen Gu's rigid requirement that the Huaxia Tribe and its allies act in accordance with the Huaxia Code. There is no room for negotiation. Otherwise, they will have nothing to do with the Huaxia Tribe.

As for whether officials from various departments of the Huaxia Ministry should move in, this can be discussed.

"We still need to buy some arms!" Cai Qian said as he took the code. Cai Qian had no objection to the Huaxia Code. After all, local management was inseparable from laws, and the Huaxia Code was always better than the Qing Dynasty Law.

As for them coming up with their own set of laws, forget it. This thing is not so easy to come up with, and whether it can be implemented is even more of a question.

Even the Qing Dynasty Code took countless talented people to come up with it, and the Chinese Code took tens of thousands of people one or two years to create, but it still hasn't been completely perfected.

Just the food, drink and salaries for tens of thousands of people have cost more than one million taels of silver so far.

If we have a code to follow, everyone will feel much more relaxed, and the resistance from the gentry and the powerful will not be so intense.

Of course, the prerequisite is that Cai Qian is willing to act in accordance with the law.

"The issue of armaments is easy to discuss. Just go down and discuss it with the people from the General Staff!" said Chen Gu.

Cai Qian's military equipment was all obtained by looting, and after the fierce resistance of the gentry, the captured items were very few. Now he could only buy them from Chen Gu.

(End of this chapter)