Lu Ming

Chapter 483
Just as Mei Fuxi received the order, a fleet stopped outside Dagukou.After reorganizing the formation, the fleet began to slowly go up the Haihe River, avoiding the bright and dark reefs marked by buoys along the way, and headed for Dazhigu dozens of miles away.

The people who traveled through with military wireless telegrams naturally wouldn't tell the locals that the fleet had arrived.However, in the face of interests, the indigenous businessmen groups have already had countermeasures.

The masters arranged fast horses and lookout posts at the mouth of the Haihe River, and the moment the fleet arrived, the bustling Dazhigu commercial port became busy.

Countless people stood on the pier looking forward to it, and children ran wildly along the shore. The news was spreading at lightning speed.Merchants from the surrounding areas will come over in the next few days and eat up the seafood shipped from afar like ants.

In previous years, every summer and autumn, there would also be the Southern Fleet coming to Tianjin with the south wind, so the locals are no strangers to the fleet.

The reason why the aborigines are so excited about the fleet from Yizhou is that apart from ignoring the wind direction and out-of-season reason, profit is the biggest driving force.

The goods pulled by ordinary open ships are nothing more than some local products in the south of the Yangtze River. The most valuable are all kinds of silk goods, in addition to many daily necessities and grains.

However, the Yizhou ship warehouse contained high-value commodities such as kerosene lamps, kerosene, glass mirrors, canned lychees, thermos bottles, tinplate, wheel bearings, and brick machines.

This is equivalent to condensing wealth. It looks like a fleet of ten ships, but the total price of goods far exceeds the traditional caravan composed of dozens of sand ships.

Yizhou goods are not only of high value, but also never worry about sales. No matter where they are shipped, they will be swept away and will always be out of stock.This is also the driving force behind the rush of merchants: every Yizhou fleet arrives at the port, which can give birth to a group of rich people, and can make a lot of money for merchants from all over the place.

So when the fleet went up to Dazhigu, the banks of the river were already full of people, and the wharf was full of merchants who were waiting for their wealth to dock.

The fleet arriving in Tianjin this time is still composed of the same 800-ton new lock ship.However, with the passage of time, new ships have been launched in the shipyard one after another, so the number of the fleet has increased to twelve ships this time.

With a total of more than 5000 tons of goods, many indigenous laborers unloaded them day and night, and within two days they were all diverted to the warehouses of wealthy merchants in various places.

In the Beijing-Tianjin area of ​​the Ming Dynasty, capital was in circulation. 5000 tons of goods may seem like a lot, but with the support of Jingcheng Capital, they were all bought by the natives, and no slow sales occurred.

The direct consequence of this is a huge amount of payment for goods.But the time travelers from later generations would definitely not bury the silver in the cellar.These funds will be used on the spot and re-participated in the economic cycle.

As before, the largest expenditure item in the payment is always people.

The current relationship between Taiwan and Ming Dynasty is, to put it bluntly, the relationship between the colony and the suzerain country.Of course, this only refers to the economic aspect - through the public output of industrial products, Ming Dynasty provides the market, raw materials and population.

During this process, Daming had a huge trade deficit.But at this point, Daming is not worried about paying, because there is an almost unlimited currency: people.

The fleets brought in so much cargo that in the end most of the proceeds were exchanged for people.

It is expensive to raise a person.

Collecting refugees seems to be free of money, but traveling through the people has to spend a lot of money to buy food and clothing locally in Tianjin.

Not only that, but also to provide them with materials to build camps and medicines to treat diseases.In the cold north, to provide fuel, equipment and hot water, and so on.

In short, after the money is in hand, it flows into various channels of society again.In the end, what they got in return was a shaved head, wearing coarse work clothes, and a vast number of northerners were stuffed into the cabin, both men and women, women first.

This fleet, because there are many other people on board, only half of the ships are filled with refugees, and the rest of the ships are reserved.A few days after the unloading of the cargo, the fleet was ready to sail back and began to board people.

The first ones to board the boat were, of course, the refugees.

The ruddy-faced refugees dragged their families along and lined up on the springboard silently, without crying or crying to say goodbye to life or death.

Fear stems from the unknown - some locals who have been to Yizhou before now come back as preachers, so people already know that Yizhou is a good place.In addition, everyone has been fed and clothed under Cao Dashuai's hands, and they are not bullied and paid for work, so people's resistance has been resolved.

The next ones to board the boat were land buyers who organized a delegation to Yizhou for inspection.Most of these people are the masters and housekeepers in charge of the family, and they belong to the wealthy class, so they generally live in the upper class with their entourage, and the living conditions are relatively good.

Those who boarded the boat afterwards were businessmen who went to Yizhou to do business and look for opportunities.

The same businessman has different financial resources and different treatment.Some people carry parcels to squeeze the steerage, and some people live in private rooms with their concubines and maids. There is a big difference.

The last ones to board the boat were naturally the soldiers under Chuan Zhonghe.

On the morning of May 1630, 5, Zhang Dongdong and his party stood on the bow of the flagship ship, bidding farewell to the two left behind.

Those left behind are Zhang Zhongqi and Yao Jianshe.Zhang Zhongqi is on the surface. He is responsible for the management of Feihu Camp and the construction of Tianjin Outer Port.Yao Jianshe, the head of the Tianjin station, is in charge of commerce and the secret front.

These two people, together with Xue Haiyuan from the capital city, will be the Big Three who will be placed in the north by the crossing crowd for a period of time to come.

In addition, the Big Three also have a common task: to work on Dongjiang Town.

Since Mao Wenlong's death, Dongjiang Town has fallen into extreme chaos.During this period of time, the imperial court not only did not make up for it, but intensified and began to dismember Dongjiang Town. The Donglin Party also tried their best to help Houjin solve this flank threat.

During this period, the core method of the imperial court was to cut off food and salaries.

Since Yuan Chonghuan took office, the method of reducing the supply of Dongjiang Town was implemented, and the imperial court not only inherited it in its entirety, but also intensified it, causing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Dongjiang Town to freeze and starve to death.

Liang Tingdong, the newly appointed minister of the Ministry of War, also expressed his complete distrust of the ability of the Pidao Army to contain the troops. He once said that he planned to withdraw the main force of the Pidao Army to Guanning by water.

As a result, Chen Jisheng, Liu Xingzuo, Mao Chenglu and other high-level officials in Dongjiang Town left after Mao Wenlong's death became completely disorganized when rumors of domestic and foreign troubles arose.

Today's Dongjiang Town is full of desperate officers and soldiers.The original ending of these people was either to starve to death, or to be forced to rebel and then killed by the court, just like those peasant troops.

In the end, this group was completely blackened, from the generals down to the soldiers, all of them were full of deep hatred for Daming.So Kong Youde, Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming and others appeared among them who went to Houjin with advanced artillery technology and subordinates.

In the end, the gates of Ming Dynasty were smashed open by these rebels, Guozuo collapsed, and the country turned to ashes—the Ming Dynasty’s death began from Mao Wenlong to the end of Sanshun King. up.

Because of this, one of the important tasks of the time travelers staying in the north is to absorb the officers and soldiers of Dongjiang Town.

Instead of letting these excellent soldiers who have been fighting against the Tartars in the ice and snow all year round freeze to death and starve to death, it is better to get them here, train after feeding, and become good fighters in the future.

But this work must be done leisurely, otherwise it will easily cause the army to backlash, and it will be bad if it is troubled in the court.So this is still a technical job, and it requires close cooperation between Tianjin and the capital to see success.

After several time travelers standing at the bow talked about this matter for a long time, a loud brass horn sounded from the ship tower—it was time to set sail.

So they cherished each other, and everyone parted ways.

At the same time, Mei Fuxi waved her hands vigorously on the side of the boat, saying goodbye to her family members who came to see her off.As the first batch of military cadets to go to the South for training, Mei Fuxi had the honor to also be on the flagship.

This time, the Mei family has already been honored by Mei Fuxi.Not long ago, Mei's father, as a member of the military, spent 5000 taels to buy a stake in the newly opened Tianjin Tannery Factory.So the Mei family is now tied to Marshal Cao, and they are hardcore followers.

After discovering the flagship's trumpet and flag, the fleet pulled anchor and hoisted their sails one after another, and slowly left the berth, followed the flagship, and slowly sailed along the Haihe River to the estuary.

The speed of the fleet was very slow along the way, so Mei Fuxi, who stayed at the stern to watch the scenery, was able to see both sides of the Haihe River from a strange angle.

Although Tianjin is considered a coastal city, the main city is 80 miles away from the sea, so most Tianjin people have never been to sea.After all, this is the north, and most of the transportation depends on mules and horses, and there are not many people who go to sea to make a living.

May Fuxi has never been out at sea, so he tried to find opportunities to stay on the deck today.In this way, it was not until the evening that the fleet finally completed the 80-mile river course and rushed out of Dagukou.

After entering the Bohai Sea, the fleet adjusted its formation, hoisted its full sails, and began heading south at full speed.

At this moment, Mei Fuxi took advantage of the golden light of the setting sun to see a large construction site not far south of the mouth of the sea.

Dense workers are working like ants on the saline-alkali land at the mouth of the Haihe River. There are piles of excavated soil everywhere, and there is still black smoke rising in the distance. I don’t know what they are doing.

What Mei Fuxi saw was the Tianjin Outer Port construction site selected by the cross-travelers.The documents from the imperial court had already been issued, assigning this barren beach to Marshal Cao for him to build a logistics base.

It is now mid-May, and the fleet could have taken advantage of the last north wind of this year to head south.

However, with the successive establishment of bases along the coast of the continent, the fleet's fuel has been fully supplied, so shortly after setting out to sea, faint smoke began to rise from the chimney of the ship, and the gas system was activated.

In this way, the speed of the downwind boat quickly increased to seven knots.After the non-stop fleet set off from Tianjin, it pulled a straight line in Bohai Bay.So at a certain time during the day the next day, Mei Fuxi, who was lying on the side of the boat, saw a big city on the coast——Dengzhou.

(End of this chapter)