1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1992
Just as Ji Yuanqing thought, Gong Shiqi was not completely ignorant of the situation of the Jianghuai Salt Industry, especially after arriving in Zhoushan this time, apart from the recent attacks in the files provided to him by Wanfa, there was nothing left. The following content is basically all kinds of information related to the industry, which naturally also includes the interest struggle between the Shanxi salt merchants and the late Huizhou merchants.And before Gong Shiqi set off, he already had some special plans for this, but he didn't want to announce his plan in the form of an order, but planned to test Ji Yuanqing's attitude first, to see if this partner could get along with him. Keep pace with yourself.

Ji Yuanqing's idea basically met Gong Shiqi's expectations. Taking advantage of the internal contradictions of Yangzhou salt merchants was an easier way to make a breakthrough in their view.Since the positions of these salt merchants are different, traditional methods such as pulling one group to fight another group may work.

But there is also a prerequisite for this, that is, they must first investigate clearly which faction of salt merchants are adopting a radical confrontation attitude towards foreign salt, so that they can be targeted, and what should be fought and what should be pulled.

Of course, this is only a theoretical plan, and the actual action is definitely not as smooth as expected.When Haihan built the salt field in Ningbo, it was not that there were no salt merchants from the north who came to test their attitude, hoping to monopolize the output of Ningbo salt field, and the conditions offered were not bad.However, Haihan considered that the good situation he managed to achieve in Ningbo Prefecture needed to be continued and expanded through salt industry operations, so he finally rejected the proposal of Jianghuai salt merchants, and at most could only give them local sales agency rights. It is obviously impossible for the other party to be satisfied with the answer, so the negotiations between the two parties quickly fell through, and no actual agreement was reached.

At that time, the two salt merchant camps sent people to come to contact them, so in fact, in order to ensure the good situation of Ningbo, Haihan had already offended both groups of salt merchants.Now, if he intends to win over one faction, Haihan may need to make some concessions in terms of salt industry management, otherwise, it will be difficult to find other ways to win over one of the factions.

At that time, the higher authorities rejected the cooperation intention of the Jianghuai salt merchants, whether the decision to support the local forces in Ningbo was correct, and whether there would be other better ways, Gong Shiqi and Ji Yuanqing did not dare to speak rashly.Now that something has happened, their job is to solve the problem, not to hold the source of the conflict accountable.

Besides, given the speed of Haihan's external expansion, they believe that the current approach is quite restrained. You must know that just two or three years ago, Haihan would directly send troops to Hangzhou City to block the Qiantang River and force Zhejiang to fight for the ownership of Zhoushan Island. The government pinched its nose and signed the alliance under the city.If the current shit happened at that time, I am afraid that General Shi Diwen would have brought the East China Sea Fleet straight to Yangzhou.

However, since the current situation is no longer convenient to use military means to solve the problem, they can only retreat and use other methods to achieve their goals.Perhaps there are no simple and crude military methods that have quick results and curative effects, but they will try their best to achieve the predetermined goals.

Sure enough, Gong Shiqi quickly shared the information he had, and asked someone to take out part of the files provided by Wanfa, and explained to Ji Yuanqing: "At that time, the Jianghuai salt merchants who came to Ningbo to contact the salt field, in fact, all of us here I have followed up and investigated, but I need to ask Brother Ji to help identify which camp they belong to."

Gong Shiqi spoke politely, but Ji Yuanqing understood that this was the opponent's trump card showing him step by step.At the beginning, I pretended not to know anything and asked myself for advice, but in fact, the other party's information may not be much worse than my own. Even the so-called help to identify now is probably just a formality, and I arranged for myself a step up Down.

However, Ji Yuanqing's perspective on problems would not be so limited. Looking at it from another perspective, this might not be a bad thing. The more Gong Shiqi knew about the situation in the industry, the less likely he would make mistakes in his subsequent actions.Ji Yuanqing was a little worried at first that Gong Shiqi would direct this operation as an outsider, and he might resort to stupid tricks because he didn't know enough about the local situation, but now it seemed that he was a little worried. He seems to be a straight-tempered person with no scheming, but in fact, his work style is extremely meticulous and meticulous, and he is indeed worthy of being a gold medal fighter under the Ministry of Security.

Ji Yuanqing didn't say much at the moment, and immediately began to look through the files provided by Gong Shiqi.Sure enough, the records on the dossier are actually quite detailed, and they are somewhat complementary to the information I have.As for Gong Shiqi's bold action plan, he should also refer to the various information collected by the Ministry of Security. Although the content is not comprehensive, it is enough for Gong Shiqi to formulate an action plan.

"The Military Intelligence Bureau should have arranged for you to meet with me earlier, so that we can spend more time perfecting our action plan and making better preparations." Gong Shiqi suddenly expressed emotion: "We spent time on each other. Too much time for probing!"

Ji Yuanqing was slightly startled, she didn't expect the other party to talk about this issue so bluntly.In fact, he didn't have too many sect views, but he could understand why Gong Shiqi had to test himself so carefully. If he was in Gong Shiqi's position, he would probably take similar measures.This is to confirm the partner's thoughts and abilities, otherwise, how dare you easily hand over your back to your partner for cover when it comes time to do it.

"It's okay, this is an inevitable process of building trust. At least we have been going smoothly so far, and there have been no conflicts of opinion." Ji Yuanqing said with a smile: "This is a good start, better than I expected."

Gong Shiqi also smiled, and he didn't ask Ji Yuanqing what kind of situation he originally expected. Since the other party can understand what he did, that's enough. It's extremely difficult to cultivate a tacit understanding so quickly between two people who didn't meet each other before. Very lucky.

The salt fleet sailed into the mouth of the Yangtze River one day after departure, and traveled upstream along the river bank.The location of Yangzhou City is still more than [-] miles away from the estuary. During this period, they can continue to further improve the action plan.

At this time, in Yangzhou City, someone had already received a letter from Feige from Ningbo, and had mastered the itinerary of Gong Shiqi's fleet.

"The people of Ningbo Mansion are really lingering! How dare you send them directly to your door? Do you really think I can be bullied by Yangzhou salt merchants?"

"Calculating the time, they will arrive in Yangzhou in at least two or three days, just in time to prepare and create a little surprise for them!"

"That's right! If you don't give them a hard time, these people will probably never know how to restrain themselves!"

After reading the content of Fei Ge's biography, the several salt merchants who discussed together quickly made a decision to show some color to this foreign salt merchant who knows nothing about the sky and the earth.

However, if they wanted to do something in Yangzhou, even the salt merchants with all-hands and eyes would still have a lot of scruples. After all, this was their own territory.Therefore, in the previous operations, the salt merchants chose to do it in a different place on the other side of the river, in order to avoid directly involving themselves as much as possible.

The first thing they have to do now is not to organize manpower to study when and where to do it, but to greet the people in the government first and get official permission—at least tacit approval.Otherwise, it is likely that people will be killed if this action is taken. At that time, people will go to report to the government. If the government is not prepared in advance, it will be very passive in dealing with it. Even if they want to help the local salt merchants, it will be more troublesome.

Of course, this kind of greeting is not sending someone to send a post, just saying that I will do a big deal in a certain place on a certain day, and I hope that the people in the government can avoid it in advance. For such a big event, the relevant personnel must be sent It is necessary to arrange everything in place, from the magistrate to the head arrester in charge of public security and criminal investigation, and even the head of the local garrison must prepare a benefit.Calculating these costs, they are actually much more than the cost of the action itself.However, compared with the impact of foreign salt on Yangzhou's salt industry, this cost is insignificant. As long as the goal can be achieved, even if it costs ten or a hundred times more, it is still a good deal for the salt merchants.

After Gong Shiqi's fleet sailed into the Yangtze River, it actually completely separated from the escort warships operating in the open sea.These warships would definitely not sail directly into the Yangtze River section unless it was absolutely necessary, and the planned location for them to meet Gong Shiqi and others' retreat was mainly the coastline of Yangzhou.However, the three prefectures and seven counties under the jurisdiction of Yangzhou Prefecture are quite large, and the distance from Yangzhou City to the sea is a full three hundred miles. If Gong Shiqiu and others retreat by land after the operation is over, the distance will be extremely huge. test.

So although Gong Shiqi would make some advance arrangements for the land evacuation route, such as arranging chariots and horses, etc., in fact, their first choice would still be the waterway, and the land route was only the last escape route when there was no other choice.Theoretically, they could even drive a boat across Yangzhou from west to east, take the inland waterway instead of the main stream of the Yangtze River, and directly reach the coastline.

However, the waterways in Yangzhou are quite dense. Even though the Ministry of Security and the Military Intelligence Bureau have extremely high-precision maps, there are still many areas that are blank about the distribution of waterways.This is also because Haihan really does not have enough manpower to send to Daming territory to complete these fine surveying and mapping work, and most of the details on this map come from the large database in Sanya. The discrepancy is quite large, so while they are marching towards Yangzhou, they also have to constantly modify and improve the map in hand.

"Even if we didn't complete the original mission this trip, if we can further improve the waterway map in this area, it will be a great achievement after we go back." Ji Yuanqing stood up and stretched his waist, not without emotion said.This is of course just a joke, but revising the map is really troublesome work. The two of them specially set up a table on the deck, and the two of them took turns to observe the terrain, and then lay down on the table to revise the original map details. It took a long time It's really exhausting mentally and physically.

Gong Shiqi also moved his stiff wrist, and then poured a cup of tea for Ji Yuanqing: "Fortunately, we just do it casually. If I do this job full-time, I'm afraid I will have to report and ask for a transfer back to the field within half a month." The action team has gone to do rough work."

"Either line is not easy!" Ji Yuanqing took the tea and sighed again.In fact, both he and Gong Shiqi had received special surveying and mapping training, and they were not completely unfamiliar with this time-consuming and laborious map drawing work, but they rarely had the opportunity to do it by themselves.And the surveying and mapping they are doing now can't be said to be very precise. Basically, they rely on naked eye observation, and then correct the obvious errors on the map.

It took them two and a half days to complete the voyage from Wusongkou to Yangzhou City.As for Yangzhou City, which is said to be one of the most prosperous cities in the Jianghuai region, almost all the information they have comes from written records.In other words, both of them actually set foot in this city for the first time.

Yangzhou City is located in an important place for water transport. The course of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is not far from the east of Yangzhou City. As early as the Tang and Song Dynasties, it has become the hub of the water and land transportation network in the Jianghuai area. The grain, grass, salt, iron, etc. between the north and the south The transportation of important materials has to pass through Yangzhou, which has also promoted the development of Yangzhou's industry and commerce, and its economy has been in a state of prosperity for a long time.

Yangzhou City is divided into old and new cities. The old city was built at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. There are Haining Gate, Tongsi Gate, Anjiang Gate, and Zhenhuai Gate in the east, west, and south. There is also a small east gate in the east, a total of five gates.However, the area of ​​Yangzhou City in the Yuan Dynasty was small, and it could not keep up with the local industrial and commercial development in the Ming Dynasty. The area between the east side of the old city and the Grand Canal gradually formed a prosperous business district.During the Jiajing period, Yangzhou finally built a new city in the area east of the old city, and formed a pattern of juxtaposing the old and new cities.

The streets and alleys of the old city are straight and square, and most of them are the residences of gentry and government offices, while the planning of the new city is not so particular. In the early days, almost all the salt merchants built houses here, so the land under the circle with more money There are also more, and the land under the circle with less money will be less, and the east and west lands are not particularly regular.But at the same time, the new city is more concentrated with various commercial institutions, so the prosperity is far better than that of the old city.

The destination of Gong Shiqi and his party was the new town where salt merchants lived.In his words, this is called not going into the tiger's lair to catch the tiger's cubs, and going straight to the salt merchant's lair to see how the other party reacts.

Two salt-carrying ships sailed north along the canal to Yangzhou New City. Both of them were amazed at the engineering miracle created by manpower. It is said that this section of the canal was excavated by Emperor Yang of Sui. There are many sights on both sides of the canal along the way. famous tourist sites.

(End of this chapter)