Daming Yinghua

Chapter 77 National Master Tobacco Pouch
"An official, you go and roast two pieces of venison and warm up a bowl of porridge to warm up Miss Azhu."

In the shelter under the rock, at the cabin door of the sandship, Yan Siqi gave instructions to the young man.

The young man responded briskly, and added: "Try the mussels I dug up, too."

Then he walked to the wind stove that had been built under the fender, greeted another sailor, set up the iron net, and started to roast meat and shells.

Zheng Haizhu said to Yan Siqi: "Brother Yan, this kid told me just now that his name is Zheng Zhilong. An official, is that his small print?"

Yan Siqi nodded: "Yes. Speaking of which, the ancestors of his family moved to Longxi when the Song family was subjugated. Maybe they have the same origin as your Zheng family. But his parents' generation went to Macau from Nan'an .The head leader Li (referring to the Chinese businessman Li Dan), who is kind to me, has a good relationship with his uncle, so let me take him on the boat."

Zheng Haizhu looked at the boy's concentration on the barbecue.

From the day she met Yan Siqi, Zheng Haizhu believed that she would definitely meet Zheng Chenggong's father - Zheng Zhilong.

Because Li Dan, Yan Siqi, and Zheng Zhilong are originally from the same overseas Chinese business group.

Zheng Haizhu turned his eyes back and stayed on Yan Siqi's face.

She soon discovered that Yan Siqi's chin should have been hanged not long ago.

Although the scars were not too long, and scabs had formed, looming in the beard stubble, they looked like centipedes, obviously they had been stitched up.

"Brother Yan, is this a knife wound?"

When Yan Siqi saw Zheng Haizhu's gaze accurately capturing his new wound, his heart warmed.

He pretended to be relaxed and said: "It's okay, Frankie, the knife skills are very bad. It's just a small injury."

Zheng Haizhu said in his heart, there is still a small injury, and a few inches down, his throat will be cut.

Then he asked again: "Why did you fight with the Frankies? Aren't the Frankies in Macau very friendly with Chief Li?"

Yan Siqi took a sip of his wine and said with a sneer, "Although the Frankies in Macau are not good people, they are not devoid of conscience. This time, I will deal with the Frankies from Luzon."

In this world, neither the Ming Dynasty nor Japan differentiated between the two maritime empires of Portugal and Spain. The Ming Dynasty called them the Frankie Kingdom, while Japan called them the Nanban.

Portugal occupied Macau by bribing Ming government officials and paying land rent.

Spain was even more brutal and bloody. Just like Mexico, it directly invaded the Luzon Islands, occupied Manila, and asked the locals to call the archipelago area after the Spanish King Philip, that is, change Luzon to the Philippines.

Therefore, when Yan Siqi mentioned "the Frankies of Luzon", Zheng Haizhu understood that he was referring to the Spaniards.

Sure enough, Yan Siqi told Zheng Haizhu that when their fleet returned north after buying spices and other goods, they passed a seaport in Luzon and saw thick smoke billowing and howling.

A woman rowed a small wooden boat and brought the old and the young to ask for help. Only then did the fleet know that the Chinese businessmen could not bear the repeated tax increases and the Chinese laborers were unbearable to be abused frequently. Chief Lange sent troops from Manila to kill the Chinese when they saw them, which was like massacres.

Yan Siqi was furious, and first ordered to use the small cannon on the ship to smash the Frankie's bow, then lowered ten firewood and water boats, personally brought a hundred young and strong sailors, and went directly to the island to fight against the devoid of humanity. The executioners fight.

It was a small and medium-sized port in the Luzon Islands, and the Frankies only sent about [-] soldiers that day.The current foreigners colonizing small overseas islands mainly rely on strong boats and cannons and firecrackers that require a certain range to frighten the aborigines. If they switch to close combat with knives, they are really not these Fujianese who have been doing physical work all year round and have Japanese sword skills. opponent.

Not long after, the Frankies were defeated and retreated, but the two thousand Chinese merchants and laborers on Hong Kong Island, as well as the original Chinese, had been massacred by [-]% to [-]%, and even many infant babies were not spared by the colonists .The remaining [-] Chinese were taken by Yan Siqi's three lucky boats, escaped from Shura Hell, and were sent to Annan and Penghu respectively.

"Miss Zheng, Brother Yan, please eat."

Young Zheng Zhilong came over with a plate of food, and respectfully placed the grilled food and hot porridge on the low table in front of the two of them.

Zheng Haizhu glanced at the plate, the venison was red and tender, without any burnt color, and it was neatly stacked with the mussels, which made people completely ignore the crude earthenware container.

It is said that Zheng Zhilong in history was able to speak Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch languages. He was very smart and capable. Looking at it now, he behaved calmly and paid attention to details when he was still a teenager.

However, Zheng Zhilong's gentle and elegant face was soon replaced by righteous indignation.

He took Yan Siqi's lead, gritted his teeth, and said, "The Frankies killed 2 people in Luzon more than ten years ago. There are not only merchants and laborers who went to sea to make a living in Ming Dynasty, but also Song people who escaped from the cliff. Descendants. My ancestors of the Zheng family were originally Song people from Nandu. This time, I only regret that my strength and martial arts are still weak, and I can't kill as many Frankie beasts as Brother Yan."

Yan Siqi patted him on the shoulder and said to Zheng Haizhu: "At this age, the heroism of an official is far better than mine. I ordered my men to watch over him on the boat, but he jumped off the boat secretly and swam to the island to kill the enemy. Afterwards I'm also in a cold sweat, if he breaks down in Luzon Xiaogang, I go back to Hirado, how will I explain to Chief Li!"

Zheng Zhilong's starry eyes flashed, and he said with certainty: "My adoptive father will definitely agree with me. When I was young, I heard my adoptive father drink with my uncle once, and wept bitterly when talking about the past. After the disaster in Lu Song, the Ming army in Penghu The commander once went to the court to ask if he wanted to go to war with the Frankies, but the emperor said that he didn't know who was right and who was wrong when the disputes occurred outside the territory of Ming Dynasty. To mobilize troops for a group of untouchables overseas."

"Damn!" Zheng Haizhu couldn't help revealing the standard swearing of a modern person.

He hurriedly concealed it and said: "Relying on commercial taxes to make up for the gap in land and taxes, the dignified emperor who raised officials and soldiers made such a statement!"

Zheng Haizhu knew the history of the almost extinction of Chinese in the Philippines by the Spaniards in 1603. Now, after listening to Yan Siqi's true narration, he knew that such a tragedy happened to overseas Chinese more than once or twice.

And Zheng Zhilong's memories made Zheng Haizhu feel even more uncomfortable.

The maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty are known as merchants without empires in the historian circles. In the age of great exploration, they were not at all like the Western European powers that were fully supported by the royal family, nobles, or emerging bourgeoisie.

It is really embarrassing that Chinese businessmen who are gentle and trustworthy, and advocate peaceful transactions for profit, can only rely on private groups and raising private soldiers to survive in the face of sea gangsters such as the Spanish Portuguese and the Netherlands who aim at bloody plunder and colonization.

The order of this vast ocean should not be like this!
How can there be such a reason for the good people to be slaughtered by others, and the evil ones to kill all directions? !
In the reflection of the slanting light approaching dusk, Zheng Haizhu saw that both Yan Siqi's face that had seen vicissitudes, and Zheng Zhilong's youthful brows and eyes were shrouded in an unspeakable melancholy.

The sailors at the bow and stern heard their words intermittently, and they also laughed and chatted while eating, and became silent.

After a while, Zheng Haizhu took the initiative to pick up a piece of venison and put it in Yan Siqi's bowl: "You still have to eat. If you don't eat, you won't have the strength to protect yourself and save others. Brother Yan, when he was on Daishan Island, You said that Japanese people think deer are sacred beasts, so they eat horses, cows and whales, but they don’t eat venison. Now when you go back to your hometown, you can eat it to your heart’s content.”

Yan Siqi's brows loosened, and a gentle smile finally appeared on the corner of his mouth. He took a bite of the venison, praised Zheng Zhilong's excellent craftsmanship, and called out to other sailors to eat with open stomachs. At worst, he would go hunting in the nearby woods tomorrow morning.

Zheng Haizhu ate a few pieces of meat, moved the clay pot in front of him, turned sideways, took out a few things from the bag, and spread them out on the table.

"Brother Yan, can you recognize what this is?"

Yan Siqi took a close look, but saw that on the three-inch wide silk flap cloth bag, there were embroidered Song paintings of flowers and birds that he had only seen in the deacon's house in Hirado Port, Japan.

The cloth bag, together with another long strip of quilted cotton silk cover, is connected with a bamboo round card by weaving a strong brocade belt.

A clump of bluegrass is also carved on the round plate in a shallow and delicate way, echoing the pattern on the bag, the technique and artistic conception are both excellent.

Yan Siqi recognized at a glance that this was a shredded tobacco pouch that Japanese people like to use.

Zheng Zhilong also picked up another pouch of tobacco to look at.He has lived in Macao since the opening of the port since he was a child, and has seen a lot of local and imported good things. At this moment, he is also impressed by such delicate and beautiful hand-made works.

Zheng Haizhu pointed to the seal skin tobacco pouch on Yan Siqi's waist, and said softly: "When I was in Daishan, General Mao asked you what it was. I didn't know until you told me that it turned out that the Japanese country had introduced tobacco from the Frankies. Seeds, rich and powerful men not only smoke, but also pay special attention to the appearance of the pipe. Brother Yan, silk is the same as seal skin, keeping warm and moisture-proof, suitable for tobacco. Silk cloth can be washed. This bamboo hanging tag is also better than Your copper is of good quality and won't rust. I think it must be sold well in Japan."

As Yan Siqi listened, his heart started beating fast, thinking that A Zhu had specially embroidered a new tobacco pouch for herself, but when he heard the last sentence, he suddenly smiled.

It turned out that she still wanted to do business.

However, Yan Siqi's heart is much wider than that of ordinary men. Thinking about when A Zhu jumped onto the boat and walked towards him with a smile just now, his expression was bright and happy to see his relatives, without any shyness or embarrassment. He said to himself, don't think too much, Yan Siqi is already lucky to have such a good girl.

I only heard Zheng Zhilong, who was on the opposite side, started talking about business: "May I ask, Sister Azhu, how long does it take you to embroider such a shredded tobacco pouch?"

Zheng Haizhu talked eloquently: "Embroidery can be complicated or simple. The difficult ones take about ten and a half months, and the simple ones can be embroidered in three to five days. Bamboo carving saves a lot of time. The slow three days and the fast one day. Counting silk and bamboo The cost of each shredded tobacco pouch ranges from five renminbi to one and a half renminbi. There are many embroiderers in Songjiang Prefecture, and they pay enough. Many bamboo carving craftsmen in Wuxi live in Songjiang, so the order volume is large. I'm not afraid. It's just that I brought this most excellent Song painting tobacco pouch, which was embroidered by Miss Han of my master's family. It is absolutely extraordinary and belongs to the works of national masters. You can buy it."

She paused and added: "Of course, if the price is sincere, you can still invite the works of Miss Han's apprentices."

"National master?"

Yan Siqi was still smacking the word, but Zheng Zhilong quickly found the corresponding word in Japanese: "Well, it's the master, the immortal."

Yan Siqi hesitated and said, "Isn't it appropriate to call Miss Qianjin a craftsman?"

Zheng Haizhu agreed with Zheng Zhilong: "There is nothing wrong with it. Craftsmen are not inferior to others. I just think that craftsmen are very clever."

(End of this chapter)