Late Ming Dynasty: Conquering the world starting from riding and cutting

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Drag the timeline to Yingtianfu Longjiang Port half a month ago.

"Brother Zuo, do you think you will offend the Donglin Party by doing this?" Qin Hao began to have bad intentions.

You, Zuo Guozhu, are a double-faced character. Your father is from the Donglin Party and your father-in-law is from the Eunuch Party. I really don’t know which way you are going, so Qin Hao still has to ask clearly.

"I'm afraid Brother Qin may have misunderstood me. Even though I'm helping my husband, I don't have anything to do with him." Zuo Guozhu paused and continued, "As for the Donglin Party, what does it have to do with me? I've already I can’t stand them. Besides, although my father is a scholar, he is not a member of the Donglin Party. I’m afraid you didn’t get the gossip from somewhere and were deceived.”

Hearing what he said, Qin Hao suddenly realized: Yes, if Zuo Guozhu's father was from the Donglin Party, Ruan Dacheng, an eunuch, would marry his daughter to the son of his mortal enemy.

"Besides, do I still have issues with some people in the Donglin Party?"

"Oh, who offended Brother Zuo?"

"Actually, the incident is trivial. In the second year of Tianqi, when my father-in-law went to investigate the salt tax in Jiangnan, my family was kicked out of Dongling Academy." Zuo Guozhu laughed at himself.

A scholar was kicked out because he offended someone in his family, and the matter was probably not trivial.

Although Zuo Guozhu spoke calmly and looked indifferent now, Qin Hao knew how angry he was at that time. I wanted you to study well on your own, and I didn’t think about joining any party struggles, and you would be retaliated against because someone around you did.

No one can bear the feeling of sitting down!

As a result, Zuo Guozhu lost his reputation in the literati officialdom, and now he can't even be replaced for an official position. Reputation is the most important thing in the Tianfu officialdom, and it is extremely difficult for those with an unclean reputation to get an official position.

Unless you can get the emperor's handwriting from the capital, there are many ways for literati to prevent you from becoming one.

"It's really irritating and hateful. I must give these Donglin Party members a small punishment this time to vent their evil anger on Brother Zuo!"

"Oh! Can you tell me how to deal with the Donglin Party?" Zuo Guozhu immediately became interested when he heard that he was going to deal with the Donglin Party.

"Brother Zuo, let me ask you, what does the Donglin Party rely on?"

"One is reputation, and the other is salt merchant."

"Which is more important."

Zuo Guozhu's face was heavy. For a moment, he couldn't tell whether his reputation or the money of the salt merchant representative was more important.

It should be said that the most important thing for this scholar is reputation. If you don't have reputation, you won't be an official. If you still need reputation after becoming an official, you can't prey on the people and harm the country. However, the small salary set by the founding of the Ming Dynasty is not enough for them to support their family. Yes, of course some people will be sneaky.

The Donglin Party is doing the best among them, doing business with salt merchants in the southeast.

Those children of salt merchants went to Donglin Academy to study. Donglin Academy pointed out the country and Zang Fu, and Gu Xiancheng controlled the government in Wuxi. Naturally, he wanted to benefit himself and the class he represented. This is just like the US presidential election. The people elected by various financial groups naturally have to work for their owners.

Therefore, the Donglin Party and big businessmen such as salt merchants, tea merchants, porcelain merchants, etc. are originally two sides of the same coin.

The Ming Dynasty should collect more than 10 million taels of salt tax every year, but the actual revenue collected into the national treasury is only more than 2 million taels. It can be seen that half of the country in the southeast does not have the surname Zhu long ago!

After thinking for a moment, Zuo Guozhu hesitated and said: "They are probably salt merchants. Without the support of money, the Donglin Party would not be able to grow into a cross-current in the official circles of the Ming Dynasty, forcing His Majesty to appoint Wei Zhongxian to fight against them."

"Brother Zuo, good advice! To deal with the Donglin Party, we must kill their money bags, and the lifeblood of those salt merchants is the salt quotations and nests in their hands! A piece of salt quotation weighs three hundred kilograms, and they can increase the loss to thousands of kilograms. , the amount of smuggling and leakage is appalling!”

"That's right! Several stewards of the Salt Gang said that in fact, the biggest private salt dealer is the salt merchant! The official price of salt is forty cash per catty, but what about them? They can sell it for fifty cash just sitting on the ground in Yangzhou. If it is shipped to Shandong and Henan, it will cost 60 cents. If it is transported to Nanzhili, it will cost 75 cents. In Shaanxi and other places where there is a shortage of salt, the price will be 80 cents. Some of them can be sold for more than 100 cents. What's more? That’s three hundred coins per pound!”

When it comes to the price of salt, Zuo Guozhu is not angry at all. It was this salt that made him infamous in the first place. Now that he thinks about it, this salt is really his lifeblood. If his salt had been investigated, he would have been I have to fight for my life.

"Well, with this batch of salt from Brother Qin, I want to see the faces of those salt merchants."

"Hahaha, brother Zuo, just wait and see. When I bring the salt back, I will kill them without mercy."

It’s the fifth day of September, a sunny day.

A group of native laborers trudged up the gangplank carrying heavy goods. Sweat flowed down their skin and was quickly evaporated, increasing the water vapor content in the air.

The natives took a black and red bamboo chip from the hands of the supervisor standing there at the entrance of the warehouse, laboriously stacked the packages on the shelves made of pig iron, turned around and hurried out of the warehouse. They should carry the goods as many times as possible and get more bamboo chips, so that when they get off work, they can receive more wages from the foreman.

Nowadays, everyone knows that you can make money by working here among the Han people, and with your working badge, you can buy all kinds of good things at Han people’s shops at Han people’s prices, such as cloth, refined salt, etc. Make exquisite clothes and all kinds of iron tools: iron pots, kitchen knives, even knives and axes.

Even if you don't work here among the Han people, if you get what the Han people want, you can still get good things from the Han people in exchange. A month ago, Han merchants who went to various stockades conveyed the Han general's decree: "Anywhere there is suitable timber suitable for building large ships, the Han master is willing to pay twenty kilograms of refined salt for each tree." If it’s shipped to the wood factory, add ten more pounds!”

So, the natives set out to find suitable trees in the mountains.

Soon there were mountains of trees suitable for shipbuilding. The natives grinned, holding heavy bags of salt, and happily continued to search up the mountain.

Within a few days, a large amount of wood was piled up in the Taiwan Island shipyard, but it had not been drying for three years. It was still very difficult to build a ship.

But Li Chun was smart and built a drying room near the shipyard to speed up the wood drying process. In this way, in ten days and a half, he could achieve the same effect as drying in the shade for three years.

At present, there are not enough skilled sailors in the Taiwan Navy, but Qin Hao can't care about it. Let Amorim have a few Spanish sailors on each ship to act as coaches, and train and grow at the same time.

At the same time, Li Chun expanded four shipyards in Keelung Port at one go. The production capacity can be used to start four navy sailing ships or schooner trawlers at the same time, or to renovate and transform eight Fuzhou ships.

"My lord, the five new ships are all filled."

Qin Hao said "Oh" and walked along the gangplank to a newly launched warship. However, the suitable role of this ship now should be a smuggling ship, a refined salt smuggling ship!

These newly built scissor sailing ships have finally found their appropriate historical role!

As for the old ships brought by Amorim, they were placed by Qin Hao in Keelung Port as frigates. Firstly, the personnel are experienced and experienced and can train their own navy. Secondly, it is not appropriate for them to transport smuggled salt. , can't speak Chinese, stay in Taiwan to study.

Looking around, in addition to gun emplacements, gunpowder, and various living supplies, the warehouse is filled with fine cotton bags of uniform specifications. "Sir, in addition to the small French cannon, there are ten artillery pieces on each ship. , loaded with eight hundred tons of salt. I tested it yesterday and the fully loaded ship can reach a speed of 11 knots! Although it is slower, ordinary ships cannot catch up." Li Chun proudly showed off that he finally completed it. He took the first step towards his dream of building cannons and ships.

"If I were your enemy and intercepted you on the sea, how would you deal with it?" Qin Hao asked Li Chun a question.

"Load all the artillery and rush over at full speed. If the enemy intends to fire, I will use the firepower of nearly a hundred artillery pieces of the entire fleet to fire first. If the enemy has few ships, I will either sink them or capture them. If there are many ships, I will sail far away, and he won’t be able to catch up with me anyway!”

"Where is the ship that met the navy?"

Li Chun was obviously full of confidence in building his own ships, and said unceremoniously: "Humph! Those Cangshan ships, Fu ships, centipede ships, Haicang ships, and three-masted gunboats, they'd better pray to gods and Buddhas for blessings. Don't Meet me! Otherwise, with their ship’s firepower, gun position, and speed, which one can be my ship’s opponent?”

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