The Fourth Lingshi Financial Crisis

Chapter 170 Fleet Corruption
The cultural level of the volunteers recruited by the Sea Cliff Fleet is generally not high.

Because of his ability to read and write, Shen Xiaotao was not assigned to the Marine Corps, but became the ballista of the Yuxiang.

As the largest arms supplier in the outlying island area, the Haiya Chamber of Commerce is one of the very few comprehension chambers of commerce that has mastered the technology of making mortal weapons.

Before this expedition to the outlying islands, the decks of all the merchant ships of the Sea Cliff Fleet were urgently installed with the latest models of ballistas. It is said that these ballistas were designed with the help of the Immortal Master of the Golden Knife Gate, using the most cutting-edge mathematical knowledge.

Mathematics is the exclusive knowledge of fairy masters, and ordinary mortal soldiers can't understand it. However, for the ballista manipulators who operate the ballista, after a few days of training and learning to use the prefabricated scale of the ballista, they can be temporarily employed. This is not a problem at all for Shen Xiaotao, who is very capable of self-learning.

In the era of great geographical discovery on the earth, the life of sailors was extremely miserable.For the ancient ocean-going ship owners, seafarers were pure consumables. The death rate of the seafarers engaged in the triangular trade was basically the same as that of black slaves. It was normal for [-]% of the crew to die after a voyage.

Although the conditions of the ocean-going merchant ships of the Sea Cliff Chamber of Commerce are much better than those of the earth in the era of great geographical discovery, except for the flagship Ruicheng, which has various life support and is like the Sea Palace, the living conditions of the other merchant ships are still very bad. There is no sense of comfort.

The crew can only live in the Datong bunk. Dozens or hundreds of people are squeezed into a cabin like sardine cans. There is very little private space, usually less than one square meter, and the ventilation is not good, and the "life atmosphere" is everywhere.

And because of the lack of the luxury fairy array that improves the quality of life like the Ruicheng, and the shipbuilding technology in the Kyushu cultivation world itself is not superb, the seawater will seep into the cabin from the bottom of the ship, soaking wood, garbage, food, goods and other things to stink , The combination of damp, body odor, musty and other unpleasant smells makes it difficult for ordinary people to bear.

After finally waiting for the sunny weather, Shen Xiaotao used the excuse of oiling the ballista to go to the deck to get some air.

Since Shen Xiaotao is not an official seaman of the Yuxiang, and he has nothing to do with the ship when he has no combat missions, so he just basked in the sun and started working as a foreign worker, and no one would come to discipline him.

At this moment, he suddenly noticed that two majestic cultivators came out from the deck of the Ruicheng next door, and beside them was a steward of the Sea Cliff Chamber of Commerce in a gorgeous cloak, who was explaining something with a smile beside the two cultivators. what.

This made Shen Xiaotao wonder: "Group Leader Qin, who are these two immortal masters?"

The ballista of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce requires three people to operate, two of them are drawn from the volunteer army temporarily recruited, and the leader of the team is an official employee of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce. Shen Xiaotao's team leader Qin Tai is a Haiya The old seaman of the Chamber of Commerce.

Team leader Qin was a gray-haired middle-aged man, about 50 years old, dressed in a dirty Haiya Chamber of Commerce employee uniform, and his bare bronze-colored skin was covered with chapped marks caused by wind and sun.

On the sea, fresh water is more important than food and money. Seafarers can only get a certain amount of fresh water every day. Not to mention bathing, even simple washing is a rare luxury. Most seafarers usually look like this.

Looking in the direction of Shen Xiaotao's finger, Team Leader Qin said with a smile: "That's Manager Han from the Haiya Chamber of Commerce and Consultant Yang from the Qingning Chamber of Commerce. Where did you get it on secondment?"

Is he Consultant Yang?
In Shen Xiaotao's stereotype, this famous legend of the Qingning Chamber of Commerce in Haiya City should be a dignified middle-aged man, but he did not expect him to be so young...

Team leader Qin couldn't help but give Shen Xiaotao a shudder when he saw Shen Xiaotao's dazed look.

Seeing the way Shen Xiaotao covered his head after suffering the pain, he couldn't help laughing and cursing: "What are you thinking about? The affairs of these big people have nothing to do with us, but our own affairs. Don't accidentally mention it. mouth!"

With that said, Team Leader Qin looked around to see if there was no one around, and secretly took out a crumpled and dirty spirit stone coin from his pocket and handed it over.

Seeing this Lingshi coin bill, Shen Xiaotao asked in surprise: "Team leader, what do you mean?"

Team leader Qin made a silent gesture, and then said softly, "You're welcome, this is what you deserve!"

Shen Xiaotao quickly declined and said, "But I didn't do anything!"

However, Team Leader Qin chuckled and said, "Xiaotao, you have already done us a great favor by not reporting us to the captain!"

After finishing speaking, he didn't care about Shen Xiaotao's opinion, and abruptly put this spirit stone coin into his pocket.

Shen Xiaotao originally wanted to refuse, but after thinking about what He Mingyuan taught him these days, he knew that he could not accept the money, so he could only smile shyly and say, "Team leader, thank you!"

The white-haired Team Leader Qin also showed a satisfied smile.

He patted Shen Xiaotao's shoulder with his big dirty hand, and praised: "You are very good, a sensible young man like you is rare nowadays. This is obviously a matter of hello, me, and everyone, but There are always some people who are stupefied and blue-eyed and want to make trouble, but in the end it is themselves who are unlucky!"

Shen Xiaotao knew why Team Leader Qin wanted to give him money.

Although the Haiya Fleet looks so mighty and majestic, Shen Xiaotao has long realized that this fleet is rotten from the inside to the outside, and the old team leader in front of him is one of the countless moths on the Yuxiang.

Team Leader Qin has been a sailor in the Haiya Chamber of Commerce for most of his life, and he has already figured out his own way to make a fortune. Every time he boards a ship for a long voyage, he will put a lot of damaged marine parts in his pocket. When docking, he would use these damaged parts to secretly replace the intact parts on the ship.

Then team leader Qin will report to the captain for repairs, saying that the ship's accessories are broken and need to be replaced with new ones.

Of course, none of these boat accessories were broken at all.

He just needs to find a familiar craftsman to go through the motions and secretly replace the intact ship parts. As for the maintenance cost of the replacement parts, he and the craftsman will share [-]-[-].

The money the old team leader earned through this method was probably several times more than his own salary.

But as the saying goes, there is only a thousand days to be a thief, but there is no thousand days to guard against a thief. Yesterday, when Team Leader Qin was secretly dismantling the complete parts, Shen Xiaotao happened to break them by accident.

If he didn't have the knowledge taught by the Qingning Chamber of Commerce, Shen Xiaotao would definitely report the matter to the captain of the Yuxiang. It is certainly not as simple as it seems on the surface that the habitual corrupt criminals have not been discovered for so many years.

So he pretended he didn't see it, and he didn't take the initiative to report, but adopted a tacit attitude.

As a result, as soon as I came to the deck alone today, Team Leader Qin took the initiative to find him. Not only that, he also secretly stuffed a Lingshi coin in his pocket!

Shen Xiaotao knew that this was the hush money the other party paid him. Not only that, but he also knew that he was definitely not the first person to find out that Team Leader Qin was tricky.But listening to Team Leader Qin's sullen tone just now, those guys who refused to accept the hush money and insisted on reporting Team Leader Qin to the captain must have no good end.

(End of this chapter)