Chapter 112: Human Traffickers in the South China Sea
If you eat 300 lychees a day, you might as well grow up to be a Lingnan native. The weather must not have been so hot when Su Shi wrote this famous saying. Many people in a special caravan that just passed through Huizhou were saying this. What about special?
This is because although the entire caravan is heavily guarded, no one has ever seen them stop to buy anything. Instead, they are driving south day and night. Moreover, this group of people have different accents and dress up in different styles. They are civilized, military and even...
There are also ** imams who came from far away from Shaanxi
A young man dressed as a Confucian scholar wiped the sweat from his head and asked the middle-aged man next to him in Mandarin mixed with Jiangsu and Zhejiang accents: "Master Gao, we are at Nanhaiwei just ahead.
Are you entering the city now?"
The middle-aged man surnamed Gao looked up at the sky and agreed: "Okay, everyone is tired these days. Now that we are in the field, we are not afraid of exposing our identity."
"Then let me go and make arrangements now?" It's too hot today. It's only May and it's like this. How can we live in summer? The Confucian scholar is also scared when he thinks that he will stay here for several years.
The middle-aged man surnamed Gao shook his head and refused: "That's no need. Brother Ma went to the city to find his nephew a few days ago. He should have prepared a place for us to stay."
This middle-aged man surnamed Gao teased Wang Ziyong and others. Gao Yingxiang fled to Luoyang with his family. He originally thought that he would be able to live a stable life from now on. He never expected that he would be raped by the Zhenguo general as soon as he settled down with his family.
Targeted! Now Gao Yingxiang is the seventh-grade minister secretly appointed by the imperial court, but he doesn’t know which department he belongs to; but what he is responsible for is really embarrassing to show to others. To put it nicely, it is called guiding the refugees.
If you don’t like it, it’s called human trafficking! But what’s the point? It took several generations of the Gao family to have such an official. For this reason, Gao Yingxiang’s mother was so happy that she knelt in front of the ancestor’s memorial tablet and talked nonsense for several days.
"Uncle Yi, you are such a good boy. You will take office in two days, and we still have to take people back!" Even though what Gao Yingxiang did may not sound good to say, he was also very happy at what he did. Those who came from various disaster-stricken areas
The people who were deceived have now been properly resettled. In his opinion, he is doing good deeds and accumulating virtue.
"Hey, why do you think the young general fell in love with such a poor place? And the Dan family, I don't know if they are willing to abandon their family and go north with us!" Gao Yingxiang babbled to himself,
While looking at this young man with envy, he stopped when he got here. It was said that he was going to Xin'an County to be some kind of county magistrate. However, he was more unlucky and had to recruit nearly 50,000 young men from the Dan family to be handed over to Zhang Guowei in Shandong.
"This... I really can't understand this, but since the emperor and the general have made arrangements, let's just get things done!" The Confucian scholar known as Yibo is Zhou Fengxiang, a Zhejiang native who just won the Jinshi last year. He was able to enter Chongzhen's
The small circle was also recommended by two fellow villagers, Gu Xichou and Zhang Guowei. Of course, his being reused had nothing to do with these two people. It was because he was really capable and put forward the idea of establishing schools, teaching farmers and mulberry trees in front of the emperor.
Received unanimous praise from people including Li Guopu
Gao Yingxiang didn't understand why Zhu Youcong sent himself all the way here to recruit people while suppressing bandits. There were a lot of refugees in the north now, and it was too busy to settle them. As a man from northern Shaanxi, of course he
Who would have known that those Dan family members who were favored by Zhu Youcong had been wandering at sea all year round and were born navigators?
Zhu Youcong had long wanted to build a new navy, but as the saying goes, it takes ten years for an army to build a hundred years for a navy. He has really been working hard to build a new army in the past ten years, and he has never had time to spare. But this time the Tatars sent troops to remind him
With him, it’s time to start planning to build a navy. Otherwise, how can we deal with enemies from the sea just relying on Ming’s current strength and the few manpower Zhang Guowei recruited in Lingshan? Zhu Youcong is not the shameless old monster who wants to be
The Tatar Emperor doesn't think he can live another hundred years at all. Using Dan family members as sailors can at least save him several decades...
Xin'an County, where Zhou Fengxiang is about to take office, may not be well-known now, but it is a small port under its jurisdiction. In later generations, there are really few people who don't know about Hong Kong! Of course, it will be the Pearl of the Orient and the financial center of Asia in later generations.
Whether the name will be used to refer to the entire island has yet to be reviewed, so who wants to rent this place? Okay, cede that shabby island of yours to me permanently, and I will lend you this small county town for an hour.
Well, it’s easy for everyone to discuss, isn’t it? For a cup of tea, I’ll charge you a token fee of tens of millions of taels of gold! Don’t you want it if it’s too expensive? You can’t blame me, so I’ll reluctantly change the use slightly. From now on, here
Like Jinzhou, which is now recaptured by Zhang Pan, it will become the mainland naval base of the Ming Dynasty. It will never be a civilian ship carrying various flags and loaded with goods, but a giant ship and cannon that cruises around the oceans and sets off some fireworks when nothing happens.
Remind people not to forget the existence of the Ming Dynasty Navy
"Commander Nanhai, the last general, has met Mr. Gao!" It would be better if he was a civil servant. Gao Yingxiang, a small seventh-grade minister, could actually make the general guarding Nanhai come out of the city to greet him in person.
Gao Yingxiang didn't have any official authority, so he greeted the visitor with a smile, "Sir, your family uncle and I are all brothers. From now on, if you are happy, you can call me uncle, and if you are not happy, you can talk to us as your peers!"
"Chengzu, I just told you not to engage in such nonsense. You, Uncle Gao, are just such a person and have no airs." Ma Chaotu, who used to be a smuggler with Gao Yingxiang, never expected that he could run so far in glory in his lifetime.
Come meet my nephew who had a runny nose when he returned to Shaanxi to worship his ancestors.
"Uncle, you can't say that, and you can't neglect court etiquette..." Ma Chengzu was a Hui man and a military commander. He had never been favored by civil servants, so he was naturally even more cautious in his actions.
Gao Yingxiang stopped Ma Chengzu from continuing to be polite and said with a smile: "Okay, what's wrong with that? We were lucky enough to meet our general, otherwise we would have to be horse dealers with your uncle!"
"That would be rude!" Ma Chengzu relaxed when he saw that he really had no official airs. "General, I have already prepared a small amount of wine for Uncle Gao and his party in the house to wash away the dust for everyone!"
"Don't be in a hurry now. Have you received the message your uncle brought you? Are you all ready?" It was too hot today and he almost lost the energy to drink due to the sun. Gao Yingxiang decided to finish the business as soon as possible.
Let people go back to the north and stay there
Hearing that business was being discussed, Ma Chengzu regained his caution and replied respectfully: "The general has already invited Yu Fengqi and Sa Zhifu to the mansion on the day he received the order from the Lord. In addition, Wu from the local Dan family has been invited to the mansion.
The elders of the two clans surnamed Jiang and Jiang are also waiting in the mansion!"
In a remote wing of the Nanhai Guardhouse, a group of old men from the Dan family who were suddenly called here were also panicking. As people wandering at sea, they knew their status very well. Although they were also citizens of the Ming Dynasty and had to pay taxes every year,
Officials would never allow them to go ashore easily. Others were seasick, but many of the younger generation of Dan family members were land-sick.
"Uncle Wu, what do you mean by the Commander-in-Chief being so eager to recruit us?" The head of the clan named Jiang was almost confused and couldn't figure out the reason. He has paid the fish tax three times this year, and he will collect it again.
I really can’t take it out!
"I don't know about that either..." Uncle Wu was also quite puzzled. The commander was usually very kind. If any of the Dan family members came ashore, he would just drive them back and never beat or scold them.
He is a pariah like himself, but why did he suddenly summon the elders of the two tribes in such a hurry this time? Could it be that the court doesn't even allow us to stay at the seaside? Then where can we go in these small broken boats without being able to go out to the distant sea?
?…
"Uncle Gao, please invite me. This is the elder of the Wu and Jiang clans!" Just when the old man of the Dan family was still worried about the future, the commander suddenly walked in with a middle-aged man and introduced both parties:
"This is Gao Shilang sent by the imperial court. He is the one who wants to receive you!"
"The common people have seen Mr. Gao!" The old man of the Dan family didn't know what kind of official the minister was, but the power of commanding and making the master grovel in front of him must be not small. At least it was many times higher than the yamen who came to the ship to collect taxes.
"You all get up! Let's talk to them here first, and then you go to Uncle Yi. He has something to tell you." It's not that Gao Yingxiang has any secrets to hide from others, but now that Ma Chengzu and others have been assigned to Zhou Fengxiang, he
I don't have the time to worry about others.
"Come, come, everyone, sit down!" Seeing that everyone was still trembling and afraid to move, Gao Yingxiang reported his family scandal and said: "Don't think that we are an official now, but a few years ago, I was still a horse dealer, no better than you.
Let’s go and ask you for a favor this time.”
"Don't dare! Don't dare! If you have anything to do, just give me your orders. I, the people of the Dan family, will satisfy your requests even if I am a thief. I just ask you not to drive us away anymore..."
"Get up, get up! Get up quickly! We are really here to ask you to serve the court on the emperor's orders this time. We are not here to embarrass you..." Gao Yingxiang seemed to see his own past in these people. We also followed them at the beginning.
We are also afraid of officials coming to our door. As long as the adults make demands, no matter how unreasonable they are, we have to try our best to satisfy them, just to have a way to survive.
"Emperor...emperor's order?" The elders of the Dan family were even more frightened. Even a small official could bully us like that. Now that the emperor has noticed us, is there any way to survive?
"Yes, this time we have been ordered by the Emperor of Ming Dynasty and General Zhen Guo to recruit 50,000 strong men among you to join our Navy of Ming Dynasty." Gao Yingxiang knew very well that it is useless to say good words to people who have been oppressed for a long time, so he might as well
Just let them know your intentions
"Your Majesty, aren't you here to drive us away?" The Dan family can't even go ashore, and of course they don't dare to think about joining the army, but as long as the court has no intention of driving them out to sea, that's fine.
"Of course not!" Gao Yingxiang continued to explain: "The emperor said that those of you who are willing to join the army will be paid fifteen taels of silver per month, and will also receive an additional one hundred taels of money to settle down! If there are those who are not willing to join the army but also want to go north with us,
The imperial court gave each household twenty taels of relocation allowance..."