1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2186
Although Hui-registered salt merchants have some contacts in Yingtian Prefecture, they can temporarily make Yangzhou officials dare not make small actions too obvious, but these high-level contacts have to use a lot of money to continuously support them, and silver is something they can do Give, of course, the opponent can give it, it can't be just to see who is more willing to spend money at this juncture.

As the battle in Yangzhou has become more and more fierce, the main business of Huizhou salt merchants has been greatly affected, and the income has been greatly reduced. It is really difficult to compete with opponents for financial resources.Considering that opponents may also pay for their own protective umbrella, Dai Yingda and others dare not fully rely on the protection from Yingtianfu.

Under such circumstances, it becomes more and more important to receive military assistance from Zhoushan.Although there are still some disputes over the details of cooperation among Hui-based salt merchants, everyone agrees that Haihan's support must be obtained at the moment, and a certain degree of compromise can be temporarily made for this purpose.

It's not a big problem for Hui-based salt merchants to spend money and people. After all, it's time for life and death, and it's time to wait if you don't fight at this time.Moreover, the credibility of Haihan people is much more reliable than that of officials who only recognize money but not people, so there is no need to worry about the position of this partner being swayed.

Of course, the most important thing is that when they go to ask the people in the government, they are just opening their mouths. At best, they can only ease the situation, but they cannot fundamentally solve the problem.But it's different when it comes to Haihan. The Haihan people are not just bluffing. As long as their vital interests are involved, they will never be ambiguous.What kind of posture will they take? Yangzhou already had a precedent last year.

Even if the Haihan people emphasized that the so-called aid did not include extreme measures such as sending troops, in the eyes of Dai Yingda and others, it was far better than the useless guns of local officials.What's more, Haihan has made it clear that they can open the sale of high-level weapons to them, and will also provide short-term military training to the personnel selected by the salt merchants to help them form their dream musket team.

Hui-based salt merchants have always believed that the biggest disadvantage of their side is that the force is not strong enough, and they lack a team that can fight tough battles. The cooperation with Haihan can just solve this problem that has plagued them for a long time.If you take a long-term perspective, this method of solving the problem is obviously more cost-effective than paying Haihan to send troops.After you have your own musket team, you don't have to pin your hopes on others for many things.

Of course, the Musketeer team did not have it immediately. The training time suggested by Haihan may be as long as a hundred days. During this period, Huihan salt merchants still need Haihan to provide force protection.

"When Jindun's brothers arrived in Yangzhou, the old man immediately felt much safer! I believe that with shopkeeper Yuan leading the team to sit here, those young people in Yangzhou city should have restrained themselves!" Dai Yingda made no secret of his gratitude to Yuantao. Feelings.

Other salt merchants are also unequivocal, and have started a new round of fancy touting.If Yuan Tao hadn't traveled around in the past few years and had come into contact with many wealthy merchants in the Ming Dynasty, he would probably have been stunned by their series of flattery.

But Yuan Tao knew very well that a businessman was a businessman, and even if he flattered, he would still calculate the reward. Besides, these guys who could stand out in the highly competitive salt merchant group must be as good as hell.Touting himself now is probably to make things smoother when he asks him later, and maybe he will encourage him to take the initiative to solve their opponents in Yangzhou city for them.

Yuan Tao replied calmly: "You are welcome! Yuan's visit to Yangzhou is mainly to complete the tasks handed over to you and protect your personal safety. If someone has no eyes and comes to ask you for trouble, then The brothers under Yuan will naturally teach them how to behave."

Yuan Tao deliberately re-emphasized the content of his mission. Jindun only came to Yangzhou to protect the personal safety of Hui-registered salt merchants, and had no other action content.

Dai Yingda didn't change his expression after hearing the words, and still responded very calmly: "The situation in Yangzhou is complicated, and then there will be shopkeeper Lao Yuan!"

Yuan Tao felt that the conversation was almost the same now, and there were still some more sensitive topics. He preferred to communicate with Dai Yingda in private, but it was obviously not a suitable environment right now.Yuan Tao proposed that he wanted to see where his subordinates were staying.

Last year, Daijiazhuang built a few new yards in order to accommodate other salt merchants who might want to come here for safety. However, the situation has since improved, so these yards have been vacant and have not really come in handy.This time, Jin Dun came to Yangzhou and was arranged to live in Dai's Village. Dai Yingda just put these empty yards to use.

However, there are too many people coming from Jindun, which has exceeded the normal reception capacity of these yards, so all the rooms can only be vacated as bedrooms.

Daijiazhuang couldn't make up so many beds for a while, and in order to avoid attracting the attention of his opponents, he couldn't go to Yangzhou City for large-scale purchases, so this place was arranged to live, but most people could only temporarily lay the floor.

"In a hurry, it's really too late to prepare enough beds for Jindun's brothers, but the old man here assures shopkeeper Yuan that it will be solved within five days!" Dai Yingda, who accompanied Yuantao to visit Jindun's station, noticed that the other party's face was a little worried. immediately explained why.

Yuan Tao nodded and said, "If it takes three or five days, my brothers will be gone after a long time, but if you want to stay here for a long time, you need to maintain a good state to deal with emergencies, so the environment of this station is It is better to trouble Mr. Dai to spend more energy and make the brothers live a little more comfortable."

Yuan Tao can understand Dai Yingda's explanation. After all, the preparation time left for them is limited, and it is not bad to be able to arrange such a compound in the Dai Family Village.However, how long this station will be used, Yuan Tao estimates that it depends on the changes in the local situation. If the opponent wants to avoid Daijiazhuang and attack other salt merchants' manors, those who can't talk about the golden shield will have to split it out. Protect other salt traders.

At this time, the members of the Golden Shield who had finished the banquet also came back one after another. Although they lived in Daijiazhuang, the environment was relatively safe, but these members still performed tasks outside the same way as usual. , the main room roof and other key positions.

"Sure enough, he is a professional, and he does things carefully." When Dai Yingda saw these members come back, the first thing to do was to arm first, and he admired them very much at the moment.

Yuan Tao was accustomed to this for a long time, and when he heard the words, he replied: "Today is a bit late, and it is too late to take over the defense of Guizhuang. I will personally lead the team tomorrow and re-arm Guizhuang."

Yuan Tao's words were taken for granted, and he didn't seem to intend to seek Dai Yingda's opinion again.Dai Yingda gave a wry smile, nodded and said, "Then there is shopkeeper Lao Yuan!"

The two walked to the patio, Yuan Tao backed away and asked Dai Yingda, "Master Dai, have you already selected the people you want to send to Zhoushan for training?"

Dai Yingda didn't dare to be negligent, and responded in detail: "After receiving the news from Boss Ma from Zhoushan, our salt merchants have preliminarily selected more than 70 people from each. Speaking of this matter, I just want to ask Yuan Shopkeeper, how many people should be sent to Zhoushan? What are the specific requirements for the trainees?"

Yuan Tao replied: "You only need to be young and strong men who are healthy and have no disabilities. Of course, it is best to have a good brain, so that you can learn things faster. As for the number of people... You can find some people as appropriate. Control it at [-] to [-]!"

The number reported by Yuan Tao is roughly based on the establishment of a company, which is also the meaning of the Military Intelligence Bureau, so that one is to control the size of the musket team, and the other is to facilitate formation during training.Ji Yuanqing even hoped that Yuantao could first screen the personnel selected by the salt merchant in Yangzhou, and eliminate some personnel whose conditions were obviously unsuitable.

Haihan thought that the Yangzhou salt merchants might be preparing to send a large number of people to satisfy their idea of ​​using force to deal with their opponents, but they didn't expect the salt merchants to be quite restrained. So far, they have only selected more than 70 people. In this way, it even reached the bottom line of Haihan's expected ideal number, and Yuan Tao had to suggest that Dai Yingda increase the number of personnel selected and sent.

Dai Yingda's face was calm, but he was overjoyed. He was worried that Haihan would deliberately hide his secrets and limit the number of people who could go to Zhoushan to learn the "True Instruction" to a very small number, but now it seems that he was thinking too much.If you can have an establishment of more than 100 people, then compared with the opponent's musketeer team, your own side will not suffer in terms of establishment scale.If you add the advantages in weapons, tactics, etc., you can definitely beat your opponent.

But besides the joy, Dai Yingda also has some hidden worries. The 70-odd young men selected by their families are almost all the elites trained by each school. Not only can they read and write, but most of them have practiced some martial arts skills , It can be described as a talent with both civil and military skills.It is not difficult to expand the selection. After all, the seven surnames are also big families, and there are many descendants. It is just that the people who are selected again may not be as reliable as these dozens of people, and there will definitely be a gap in personal ability.

In addition, Dai Yingda has another concern that he did not dare to mention to Yuantao, that is, he was worried that these elites would be brainwashed by the Haihans during training in Zhoushan, and they would become subordinates of the Haihans, and marry them for nothing. Clothes.

This is not to say that Dai Yingda is unfounded. Before that, he had specifically learned about Haihan's methods of attracting immigrants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang in recent years.Some people are poor people in various places who take the initiative to go to seek a livelihood. In addition, Haihan people will entrust intermediaries such as dental shops in various places to hire artisans with certain production skills to settle in Haihan with high salaries.

In addition, Haihan will hold some completely free activities from time to time, inviting young literati from various places and businessmen with certain backgrounds to visit Zhoushan and other places.After this kind of activity that seems to be traveling in the mountains and waters, some people often choose to move to Haihan to settle down, and even soon become Haihan nationals, abandoning their existing identities to become Haihans.

According to the information that Dai Yingda has inquired, Haihan will continuously instill various consciousnesses on these people during this process, making them believe that the Haihan Kingdom is the ideal country on earth that can realize their dreams, so they give up their existing identities to join the Haihan Kingdom. Chinese.

Haihan spared no effort to absorb these people, naturally because of their special social value.Although Dai Yingda hopes that Haihan can save the current unfavorable situation of Hui-born salt merchants, he also does not want the elites among the younger generation of the seven surnames to be bewitched by Haihan and become their pawns, or even change their identities to Haihans.

This time, the training time may be as long as [-] days. Imagine staying in the closed environment of the military for such a long time, it is difficult to guarantee that they will not be brainwashed by the Haihan people.If the soldiers that they trained at a large price were finally obeyed by Haihan, and maybe they would monitor themselves in turn, wouldn’t it be a big loss?
Worrying about returning to worrying, Dai Yingda had no way to prevent this from happening. For the self-protection of the seven surnames, he had to hand over these juniors to the Haihan people and let them receive all-round training.What will it be like in the end? Can these people continue to be loyal to the seven surnames when they return from their studies? Dai Yingda can only pray for God's blessing.

Then Yuantao continued to say: "Master Dai, if these people you have selected have foreign surname children, you must remember to check their family background, and beware of sending people from the other family to mix in, then there will be endless troubles! , Who will command these people in the future, it is best to decide early, otherwise when they come back, the commander's position may be robbed."

Only then did Dai Yingda understand why Yuan Tao chose a one-on-one occasion to talk to himself about this matter. This team will definitely become a weapon for Hui-based salt merchants in the future, and those who want to master this weapon will definitely not Little, if it is not done well, it is very likely that this team will become torn apart at the beginning of its formation. Yuan Tao's reminder is indeed necessary.

"Thank you, Manager Yuan, for your suggestion! We have already reached a preliminary agreement on the selection of the commander, and Dai Chengrong, the dog, will be appointed. As for the family background of these candidates, we will also check carefully to ensure that nothing goes wrong."

Dai Yingda felt that Yuan Tao was quite kind. If there were ghosts in the stomachs of Haihan people, he could not raise these questions at all. Now it seems that he is overthinking things.

Yuan Tao was thinking back to the young man he had met at the reception banquet before, and it seemed that he didn't have much conversation with him.After all, almost all of the tablemates at the time were his uncles and elders, and there was no chance for him to speak.

In such an important position, Dai Yingda's ability to excel and not avoid relatives, and to be recognized by everyone, also shows that his prestige among the seven surnames is indeed very high.Yuan Tao decided to wait until tomorrow to talk to this young man to see what his condition is.

But before that, Yuan Tao had to get a good night's sleep. It had been a long time since he had been on the boat for several days in a row, and the rest was not very good. Now he had to make up for the sleep of the past few days.

(End of this chapter)