Zhang Dascara didn’t know where they were going. This area of Guang Ninh was not a target of pirates, unless those small groups of pirates who were neither Vietnamese nor Chinese, who were fishermen and robbed fishermen, were interested in operating here. Zhang Dascara
La looked down on this group of people, and Chang Shide confirmed a truth from him: any social group has a hierarchy.
However, Zhang Dascara is still familiar with the sea conditions in this area. When he first started his career, whenever he couldn't survive, he would sneak to Jiangping to take shelter from the wind. This place is on the border between China and Vietnam.
It is under the jurisdiction of Vietnam, and the residents are all floating people who are half fishermen and half bandits.
At this time, the first dispute arose. Bei Kai wanted to go to Hongji - his task was to find coal. Only then did Chang Shide find out that he was from the exploration team. Chang Shide wanted to get rid of the sugar as soon as possible, although
He knew nothing about the ancient geography of Vietnam, but it was obvious that Hon Kee would not have a buyer for sugar.
"It doesn't matter if you want to dig coal. You can slowly investigate and explore. The problem is what to do with the sugar on the ship?"
In the end, Chang Shide won - bags of candy obviously couldn't last long under the scorching sun of the South China Sea.
The ship sailed to the north under the command of Zhang Dascara. There were more ships on the sea, all of which were two-masted fishing boats. Zhang Dascara asked everyone to prepare their weapons and occupy the surrounding sides of the ship and the commanding heights.
Location.
"Pirates?" Chang Shide was a little nervous.
"When I can't beat you, I'm a fisherman," Zhang Dasla spat, "Monkeys are very thief-eyed. If they don't dare to rob, they will steal. They want everything."
"What is the attitude of the Li Dynasty towards Ming merchants?" Chang Shide was a little nervous as this was his first time engaging in foreign affairs and trade.
"Issuing a document is one thousand taels of silver a year, so I'm naturally welcome." Zhang Dascara disagreed. He knew a little about the origins of Australian maritime merchants. They had guns, cannons and iron ships, but they stayed in Lingao.
The local owner was very disapproving, "We're going to a more desolate place, so we probably won't need this much."
"Where to go?"
"Why are you asking so much? You'll find out when you get there." Zhang Dasc waved his hand, not showing any politeness to the boss.
Sure enough, the bandit spirit has not diminished. Chang Shide cursed secretly, and suddenly became worried. This big scar must have many accomplices in the pirate gang. The thousand stones of candy on the ship are worth a thousand taels of silver. If he gets involved,
What thief was thinking... I couldn't help but break into a cold sweat, touched the pistol on my waist, and hurriedly went to find Bekai, muttering that what should I do if this fat black pirate was unreliable?
Bei Kai said: "I can't help whether he is reliable or not. Wasn't this man recruited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? There are brothers from our New Army on the ship. Thirty or forty guns can't deal with him? It's okay."
Not long after, a town appeared on the coastline. It looked very similar to a small Chinese county such as Lingao, but without a city wall. It seemed to be the mouth of a large river. Along the river bank, there were stone piers and wooden structures.
The pier is full of various large and small ships, some of which are obviously large ships from China.
Zhang Dascara asked everyone to put the rifles and cannons below the deck, where officials from the Li Dynasty were stationed. Before they even landed on the shore, a small boat rowed over. A thin man with sinister features and sly eyes, dressed like a Ming Dynasty man.
Wearing an official's turquoise official robe and a black gauze hat, he climbed up with unusually agile hands and feet. Zhang Dascara hurriedly greeted him. After the two of them chattered something that no one could understand, Zhang Dascara turned to Chang Dascara.
Teacher's morality:
"He said that we can put our ship in the name of another Chinese ship that has paid money, but he only needs to pay him 200 pieces of Spanish silver."
"Mom, it's as black as a crow in the world." Chang Shide cursed. Seeing the evil look on the big man's face, the Li Dynasty official couldn't help but push up his small chest and hold up his black gauze hat to show his
"mighty".
"Okay, just give it to him. Is there any other money to spend?" Chang Shide knew that unless he commanded a fleet to bombard this place, there was no way he could land ashore without paying.
"There is also the tax on the import and export of goods," Zhang Dascara said. "You can pay less by spending a little money."
"Grandma's," Chang Shide's curse escalated, but this is good, at least he can spend less money, "it's a deal."
Zhang Dascara turned around and muttered with him for a while, and finally settled the deal for three hundred and ten Spanish silver dollars - the big head's personal benefits and the small head's taxes. As for what was the cargo on the ship, and what were they planning to transport?
, this monkey-like official didn't care. Not only that, even the water bills for the import and export were issued, with the Chinese character for "water" on them. It seemed that everyone was happy, except the Li government.
Now the ships are entering the port. According to Zhang Dascara, this place is called Haiyang. It is a naturally formed trading port. Chinese maritime merchants often come here to trade, transporting large quantities of salt, porcelain, sugar, cloth, ironware and other items.
goods, mainly raw silk and betel nut.
Chang Shide asked curiously: "How do you know these thresholds?"
Zhang Dascara scratched his scalp: "Back then, our boss was also a maritime businessman -"
"Oh, that's right." Chang Shide thought about it, and the merchants and pirates in this time and space were basically the same group of people.
Bei Kai whispered to Chang Shide: "This should be Haiphong Port."
"how do you know?"
"A map." Bekai opened the book in his hand and pointed: "This river should be the Jingtai River. It is located on the northeast side of the Red River Delta, close to the northwest shore of Beibu Gulf. Comparing the landform features, it can only be here.
.”
Le Lin also joined in and said: "Yes, I just measured the longitude and latitude..."
"Just pull him down. Yesterday you said we were near Saigon."
"Did you make a wrong calculation yesterday? Today's calculation is correct -" Le Lin still wanted to argue.
"Okay, okay, let's go ashore."
Chang Shide and Bei Kai went ashore under the leadership of Zhang Dascara. They brought ten soldiers ashore in casual clothes to accompany them for protection. Although the houses here are small and simple, the market seems to be prosperous, with people coming and going.
Most people are wearing ocher-colored coarse cloth. In addition to their appearance and stature, their clothing is quite similar to that of the Ming Dynasty. Some people can be seen as the people of the Ming Dynasty. Like all places in Southeast Asia where Chinese maritime merchants set foot, this place is a Chinese-Vietnamese mix.
The city where people live. Chinese merchant ships continuously bring goods. A large number of goods tied with straw ropes are piled on the dock, and the amount is quite amazing.
"There are many people in the Ming Dynasty here," Zhang Dascara introduced enthusiastically. "Some of them took local women as wives and have lived here for several generations. The maritime merchants who come here like to marry here.
Concubine - a woman is worthless, so she has a comfortable place when she comes to do business."
Chang Shide couldn't help but reconsider his plan to travel to Vietnam that year, but unfortunately his wife killed him in the planning stage.
Chang Shide didn't care to watch. He was not familiar with the place here, so he could only believe that Zhang Dasca was dead. He asked several trading houses about the price of sugar, and the price was between seven and eight taels. Then he asked a grain store here.
Okay, the price of rice is five yuan per stone. He was absolutely satisfied with the price, but he immediately discovered a fatal problem: the merchants here were accustomed to credit, and after the sugar was handed over to them, the account could not be settled until the second year. But buying
Rice, however, requires cash.
Moreover, the merchants in these trading houses had an obvious feeling of distrust towards this unfamiliar face, and they would wait for a long time before answering any questions they asked.
"What kind of rule is this!" Chang Shide felt very annoyed. He was about to say "these monkeys", but then he remembered that the bosses of these trading houses should all be merchants from the Ming Dynasty based on their clothes and appearance.
"Let's go and see what's going on at the grain store."
Zhang Dascara said: "Shopkeeper Chang doesn't necessarily need silver. Can rice also be used?"
"Yes, I came here mainly to buy rice." Chang Shide said.
"That's easy." Zhang Dascara said, "Haiyang is a small place. Except for merchants from the Ming Dynasty, I'm afraid no one can come up with eight thousand taels of silver, but the local rich man who can come up with rice in exchange still can't.
If there is less, just give them the candy in exchange."
"Are they willing?"
"Of course I do. What's the market for sugar? Cochin people are not fools either. It's just that they don't have a lot of money and can't get involved."
We took a short rest in a teahouse on the street and replenished some water. Zhang Dascara said that next they would go deep into the Qibali Road inland, where there was a manor owned by local landowner Wu Yujia.
"Wu Yujia's ancestors were also Chinese," Zhang Dascara introduced. "I heard that he came here to escape the chaos of the late Yuan Dynasty. He has been here for more than three hundred years. His family has a lot of land, and he has thousands of servants.
The emperors of Li Dynasty were all polite to him."
"It's true that the crown is crowned after a monkey! Only the Ming Dynasty is qualified to be called emperor!" Chang Shide was not happy at first, but now he got angry.
Zhang Dascara felt a little strange. This group of Australians had no feelings for Ming Dynasty, so he said smoothly: "His family just closed their doors and became emperor, just to live their lives."
After resting for a while, the team continued to move inland. It is spring now, and the subtropical Beiqi land is already bright and springy. Both sides of the dirt road are vast acres of green and golden fields. The green ones are rice seedlings shaking in the majestic wind, golden yellow.
In the fields, there are unharvested rice. Under the hot sunshine, the fragrance of rice and seedlings is emitting. Farmers wearing purple-brown homespun cloth in the fields are doing the work of transplanting and harvesting rice.
A place that can harvest three crops of rice a year is really a natural granary. Chang Shide couldn't help showing a greedy look. There are villages scattered on both sides of the road, low and simple, but they still look very peaceful. The surrounding villages are scattered with greenery
There were bamboo groves, banana and papaya trees, and very slender and straight betel nut trees, towering above all the trees. An elephant came leisurely like a flag. Most of the soldiers had never seen this behemoth, and they all
Somewhat scared.
"Don't be afraid, this is an elephant and it is very timid. Don't disturb it!" Chang Shide ordered.
Zhang Dascara whispered: "Shopkeeper, don't panic, this is Wu Yujia's manor manager who is inspecting."
"Going shopping on an elephant? It's such a big scene."
"Shopkeeper Chang, you just peed twice on the floor of Wu Yujia's house."
"..." Chang Shide was immediately discouraged. The ostentation of this big landowner was indeed not something he could afford.
The person riding the elephant was wearing black clothes, a bamboo hat, and holding a long whip in his hand. Although he was thin, he looked majestic. He was followed by more than a dozen servants in black clothes.
Zhang Dascara ran over and seemed to be talking. After a while, he turned back and said: "The manager will ask the shopkeeper to come and sit in the village. There is a way to do this!"
Although he still had some doubts about Zhang Dascara's reliability, when things came to a close, he couldn't just say that there might be safety issues and not go. So he just went with it.
Chang Shide and his entourage were taken to a Zhuangzi by the steward. The Zhuangzi was a somewhat weird Chinese-style courtyard with carved railings and painted buildings. It was very ornate, but it just didn't look right. Chang Shide and Bei Kai didn't.
After receiving the expected attentive and luxurious reception, after waiting for a long time to drink the tea, a middle-aged man came out. He seemed to have a square head and a straight face. After communicating with Zhang Dascara, Chang Shide knew that this person was not a good person.
He is just a housekeeper in the manor, and I can't help but feel the heartache of being ignored - I am now considered an independent member of the time travel group, and I can't even see you, a rich Vietnamese man?!