Family Rise: Beginning with Grandfather.

Chapter 627: Blocking the Route
"After we defeat Yang Zhengshan, we will send a large army to besiege Xingyue Island. If they know what's best for them, they will surrender!" Hou Fangjin said gritting his teeth.

Wen Qing frowned, "Our goal is not to destroy Xingyue Island."

Hou Fangjin laughed, stroked his long beard and said: "We don't want to destroy Xingyue Island, we want to let Xingyue Island understand our strength!"

"If they don't have a clear understanding, they will definitely feel dissatisfied in the future!"

"So in order to make them surrender completely, we must march to Xingyue Island. If possible, we'd better seize some of Xingyue Island's merchant ships!"

"Only then can they be willing to be driven by us!"

Wen Qing thought about it and felt that it was right.

If you want to make a powerful force surrender, you must use a force that they cannot resist.

"Well, I will dispatch the navy north as soon as possible. It will take about ten days for 20,000 navy soldiers to reach the nearby waters!"

Although the Tarot Dynasty was not very powerful, it was still a dynasty after all, with a population of over 10 million.

Moreover, the Tarot Dynasty is an island country, and its most elite army is the navy.

With the strength of the Tarot Dynasty, they can gather a 100,000-strong navy, but they also have enemies that they need to guard against, so they cannot mobilize their entire army. At most, they can mobilize 20,000 navy for an expedition.

"The navy is secondary. The key is the innate warriors! I wonder when Mr. Xiang will arrive?" Hou Fangjin asked.

Although he was unwilling to boost others' morale and destroy his own prestige, he knew how powerful Yang Zhengshan was. It would be difficult for their Shenmu Sect to fight against Yang Zhengshan with only their strength, so they needed the top powerhouses of the Tarot Dynasty.

The Mr. Xiang he mentioned was named Xiang Anxu. He was the strongest innate warrior in the Tarot Dynasty and also a well-known sword god in the surrounding sea area.

This ten thousand miles of sea area is not an imaginary number, but refers to the area from the southeast sea area of ​​Dayong to the storm sea area, which is about ten thousand miles long.

Among them are twelve dynasties, large and small, and thirty-four island forces.

To be called an island force, it must have innate warriors, otherwise it is not qualified to be on the stage.

Adjacent to the Wanli Sea are the Storm Sea to the east, the Garo Sea to the west, and Dayong's East China Sea to the north, which can also be called the Beiqiong Sea. There are relatively few islands in that sea area and there are almost no forces.

As for the south, it was another vast land with many dynasties and empires.

The southeastern waters of Dayong are the Wanli Sea, but the Wanli Sea spans thousands of miles, while the southeastern waters of Dayong are just some islands and dynasties in the southeast of Dayong.

In Dayong, the Lu Sheng Dynasty was already the most powerful dynasty in the southeastern sea area, but in the Wanli Sea area, the Lu Sheng Dynasty was just a younger brother.

There are many powerful forces in the Wanli Ocean. Each of these forces is not as good as Dayong, but if they are viewed as a whole, their strength far exceeds Dayong, especially in the number of innate warriors, which is four or five times that of Dayong.

The fact that Xiang Anxu was able to make such a great name for himself in the vast ocean shows how powerful he is.

Wen Qing smiled and said, "Master Xiang is here, on my boat, but Master Xiang doesn't like crowds, so he hasn't gotten off the boat yet!"

Xiang Anxu didn't dislike the hustle and bustle, he just didn't like those weird guys in the Shenmu Sect.

"That's good, that's good, haha, Brother Wen, please have some tea!" Hou Fangjin said with a smile.

"No more drinking. Business is more important. I still need to mobilize troops, so the sooner the better!" Wen Qing stood up and said.

Hou Fangjin heard this and stopped trying to persuade him to stay. He smiled and said, "Then I'll take Brother Wen home!"

……

On Xingyue Island, the New Year atmosphere has not yet faded, and the people are still immersed in the joy of the festival, but the Yang family business and the navy have already taken action.

The first to take action was the Yang Family Trading Company. On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, the fleets returning for the New Year set sail one after another.

With Shenmu Island blocking the east, all eastern fleets have stopped sailing eastward and instead followed the western fleet to the many dynasties in the south of Dayong to purchase food, fodder, medicinal materials and other supplies.

The western fleet will continue to trade as it should, and the nine eastern fleets are sufficient to provide logistical supplies for the army.

This was the first time the Yang family launched a large-scale war after occupying Xingyue Island.

In the past, at most they would mobilize the Xingyue Island's own navy, but this time they are going to drag the Tenglong Guards into action, and the scale of the event is no less than the encirclement and suppression of the Xingyue Sect back then.

The next to take action was the navy of Xingyue Island. Two thousand navy soldiers were already cruising in the waters east of Xingyue Island, intercepting all passing ships.

On the blue sea, the Star-Moon Navy divided into four fleets and patrolled the surrounding waters.

The Xingyue Navy has two thousand soldiers, divided into two thousand commanders, four battalion commanders, and twenty sentry commanders.

Each captain had a large Fu ship, two Haicang ships, and a dozen small eagle ships and speedboats.

Unlike the Tenglongwei, although the Tenglongwei Navy has replaced many warships in recent years, they still retain a large number of small ships to deal with naval battles in different situations.

The Star-Moon Navy has basically given up on small combat ships, and most of the small ships they carry are logistics ships and communication ships.

Therefore, the main combat force of the Xingyue Navy lies in the Dafu ship and the two Haicang ships.

The four naval fleets are enough to blockade the surrounding sea area of ​​300 miles.

The blockade of Xingyue Island had a huge impact on Shenmu Island. The fleets heading to the East for trade included not only merchant ships from Xingyue Island and Tenglongwei, but also many fleets from Dayong, Lisheng Dynasty, Desheng Dynasty, and Lusheng Dynasty.

If these fleets want to go to the East for trade, they need to pass through the route north of Xingyue Island, then head east along the route, enter the waters of Shenmu Island, and then go to the waters of the Longdan Dynasty.

Although Shenmu Island also conducts some maritime trade, their main income comes from tolls and port berthing fees.

Now that Xingyue Island has closed its shipping routes, all ships cannot go to the waters of Shenmu Island. Shenmu Island can no longer collect tolls, and the port of Guiyun Island has become deserted.

At the same time, a large number of sea vessels also crowded into the North Ring Island Port.

There is no way. Merchant ships cannot pass through and can only dock at Beihuan Island and wait for the route to be opened.

As the largest external port of Xingyue Island, Beihuandao Port has very complete facilities.

There are not only several restaurants and inns in the port, but also many shops opened by merchants from all over the place.

There are four circular islands in Xingyue Island. The other three are mainly used for farming, but the North Ring Island is a prosperous commercial area.

Xingyue Island also collects tolls and ship docking fees, but the fees are much less than Shenmu Island. However, the blockade of the route still affects the business of many sea merchants, so there is a lot of noise on Beihuan Island at this time.

Sato Ken was a maritime merchant from the Tokugawa Dynasty.

Talking about the maritime trade of the De Sheng Dynasty is actually quite nonsense.

When Tenglongwei first developed maritime trade, it first opened a trade route with the Desheng Dynasty, but at that time Tenglongwei only cooperated with a daimyo of the Desheng Dynasty.

The cooperation between the two parties was very pleasant. The daimyo continued to grow and develop with the profits from maritime trade, and then was targeted by the Shogun's shogunate of the Tokugawa Dynasty.

The result was that the daimyo was placed under house arrest, and the maritime trade between Tenglongwei and the Desheng Dynasty came to an end. The Shogunate imposed a maritime ban, prohibiting any merchant ships from going out to sea and any foreign merchant ships from entering the country.

Therefore, the maritime trade between Tenglongwei and Desheng Dynasty stopped for three years.

Later, the Tenglongwei Navy became powerful. Yu Tonghai led the Tenglongwei Navy to circle the port of the capital of the Desheng Dynasty several times, forcing the Shogun's office to open up maritime trade.

However, at that time, the Shogunate only selected one port for trade, and all trade had to be dominated by the Shogunate.

Yu Tonghai couldn't really attack the De Sheng Dynasty. After all, in name the De Sheng Dynasty was still a vassal state of Dayong, but this vassal state had some traitorous attributes.

The Shogunate restricted the scope and volume of maritime trade, but smuggling within the De Sheng Dynasty became increasingly rampant.

Then, until a few years ago, the Shogunate once again implemented strict maritime bans, cracked down on smuggling, destroyed many smuggling ships, and killed many maritime merchants.

They even intercepted the Yang Family Trading Company's fleet, killing more than 200 of the 400 guards and sailors on board, and finally captured more than 100 of them and forced them to mine.

The Desheng Dynasty kept this matter extremely secret, and it took the Yang family business and Tenglong Guard two years to find out the truth.

The result was that the Xingyue Navy patrolled the waters near the Desheng Dynasty for more than a year.

Don't you allow ships to go out to sea for trade?
Well then, I will help you ban the sea. Anyone who dares to go out to sea will be thrown into the sea to feed the fish.

With the help of the Xingyue Navy, tens of thousands of navy soldiers of the Desheng Dynasty were thrown into the sea to feed the fish.

Finally, the Shogun's Office was completely helpless and signed a humiliating treaty with Xingyue Island, allowing the merchant ships of Yang Family Company and Tenglongwei to trade in all ports of the Desheng Dynasty.

In the following years, the maritime trade business of the Desheng Dynasty developed, and countless maritime merchants emerged and followed the fleets of the Yang Family Company and the Tenglong Guard to go out to sea for trade.

The consequence was that the daimyo in many coastal areas of the Tokugawa empire became increasingly powerful, and the Shogunate's control over the Tokugawa empire was reduced to its lowest point.

A great chaos broke out within the Tokugawa Dynasty. At first, the coastal daimyo fought against the Shogun's government. Later, the Shogun's government joined forces with the inland daimyo to fight against the coastal daimyo.

Until now, the Shogunate could only live in the royal capital with a few younger brothers, and those daimyo along the coast began to fight among themselves again.

Sato Ken was a maritime merchant from Satsuma Domain, which was now the most powerful domain of the Tokusei Dynasty. Sato Ken was not only a maritime merchant, he was also a close confidant of Satsuma Domain's daimyo Shimazu Saizan, and could also be understood as Shimazu Saizan's maritime agent.

Sato Ken's main responsibility is to help the daimyo Shimazu Saizan manage the business on Beihuan Island, and also to maintain good relations with Xingyue Island on behalf of Shimazu Saizan.

At this time, Sato Ken was standing on the street outside the North Ring Island Port, looking at the noisy merchants with a frown on his face.

The shipping route was blocked and the Satsuma fleet was unable to pass. Just now, several large sea merchants from the Satsuma clan came to him and wanted him to ask the people from Xingyue Island about the situation.

To be honest, Sato Ken is a proud man. He is very reluctant to deal with the people from Xingyue Island because they have no confidence at all when facing the people from Xingyue Island and they have to be servile no matter what they say or do.

However, he had to do what those big merchants asked of him, because the interests of those big merchants were the interests of his master, Shimazu Saizan.

His duty here is to maintain good relations with Xingyue Island and deal with the conflicts and troubles between Satsuma Domain and Xingyue Island.

The present trouble was his duty.

Sato Ken sighed deeply, and finally walked towards the government office on North Ring Island with a helpless look on his face.

The government office on Beihuan Island is the same as that on Xingyue Island, with one councilor and one military officer, similar to the organization of a county government office.

However, the main responsibility of the North Ring Island government office is to manage the port, and its main source of finance is the port's ship berthing fees, tolls and commercial taxes on the island.

As for the land tax, Beihuan Island is small to begin with, and a port and a town were built there, so the farmland is less than 10,000 acres. The annual land tax is not as much as the ship berthing fee at the port for one month.

The political councilor of Beihuan Island is Yang Jide. As you can tell from his name, he is a member of the Yang family and the great-grandson of Yang Zhengshan.

However, Yang Jide is already twenty-five or twenty-six years old this year, and his grandfather is none other than Yang Mingwu.

Although Yang Mingwu did not come to Xingyue Island, he sent his two sons, four grandsons and three granddaughters to Xingyue Island. He only took his eldest son with him, and the eldest son also stayed on Xingyue Island for five years.

At this time, Yang Jide was also overwhelmed. Once the route was closed, not only Shenmu Island was affected, but a lot of troubles also occurred on Beihuan Island.

"Sir, Sato Ken of Satsuma Domain requests to see you!"

"Let him wait!" Yang Jide said impatiently.

Now he had no time to care about the people from Satsuma Domain. The maritime merchants from Daiei were enough for him to deal with.

You must know that the sea merchants from Dayong have close ties with the Yang family or Tenglongwei. If they didn't have this relationship, they wouldn't dare to travel thousands of miles to Beihuan Island.

But since they are related, Xingyue Island will naturally take care of them. We can't ignore these partners.

Yang Jide first went to the teahouse to meet the steward of the Xue family. The Xue family was the Xue family of Haichangbo Xue Changan, and they were the in-laws of the Yang family.

Then he went to meet the captain of the Zhu family. This Zhu family was not the Zhu family of Dihuo Island, but the Zhu family of Anshun Earl Zhu Rong, who was also a relative of the Yang family.

The Anshun Marquis' Mansion had no maritime business before, but after getting on board the Yang family's ship, the Anshun Marquis' Mansion began to prosper.

They initially only provided goods for the Yang family business, and later began to get involved in maritime trade.

However, they are relatively small in scale, and it took them ten years to put together a fleet. As a result, this fleet is now stuck in Beihuan Island.

If the fleet of the Anshun Marquis's Mansion was blocked for a year or two, it would have a great impact on the Anshun Marquis' Mansion.

After all, the Anshun Marquis' Mansion is not like the Haichang Marquis' Mansion. The Haichang Marquis' Mansion has been engaged in maritime trade for more than 20 years and has long been rich. Even if it suffers some losses, it can afford it.

But the Anshun Marquis's fortune is still small and cannot withstand any turmoil.

(End of this chapter)