Late Tang

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Hangzhou Bay, Qiantang River.

At the port, a fleet of ten Mingzhou ships is preparing to set sail.

"The mainmast, the foremast, the mizzen, and the sails, all of them should be carefully checked again. Changsheng, go and check the fresh water. Big head, get the hell out of here, and don't touch the compass. Is that something you can move? ..”

Xie Cheng, the owner of the fleet, took a deep breath of the sea-smelling air, looking at Hangzhou still shrouded in the morning light and white mist from a distance, his mood was full of complexities.

Finally, he was about to leave the hometown where he was born and raised, where his ancestors lived for generations.

He couldn't help but glanced back at the hatch, where a dozen children were scrubbing the deck.

Xie Cheng is just thirty this year, entering his thirties.He was originally a descendant of the Xie family in Xiling, Yuezhou, near the Qiantang River.The Xie family is a big family in Yuezhou. Although it cannot be compared with the top southern aristocratic families like the Lanling Xiao family, the Xie family is among the top ten families in the Qiantang River area, and even in Yuezhou.

However, although Xie Cheng's father was the current Patriarch of the Xie family, his mother was just a humble maid. The Patriarch's surname was messed up once after drinking, and he had him after October.As a son of a maidservant whose mother is not even a concubine, Xie Cheng's status in the Xie family is very low. Not to mention that he cannot be treated the same as those brothers and sisters, even the status of the concubine's sons is much stronger than him.

In the Xie family, he is actually equivalent to a servant.At least, he couldn't call the head of the family his father from the novel, nor could he call those brothers brothers.

However, as the son of the head of the family, his destiny is better than that of ordinary servants. He also had the opportunity to study with him since he was a child.His fate has long been doomed. If there is no accident, all property and status in the family will have nothing to do with him when he grows up, and he has no right to inherit.But with the Xie family blood on his body, he can also be a good steward, helping to take care of the shops and other things that the Xie family's children are not willing to spend energy on.

However, Xie Cheng, who has studied since childhood, is very smart, and he is not satisfied with this status quo.

By chance, Xie Cheng had business contacts with Li Jing, the king of Andong County, who was only a town general at the beginning, and the business gradually grew bigger and bigger.Li Jing's youth has been on the rise these days, and Xie Cheng's business has also grown by leaps and bounds.

Up to now, Xie Cheng has slowly accumulated a huge fortune for himself while running the business for the Xie family.

But now, he finally decided to abandon everything about the Xie family and move his family to Liaodong with his wife, children and mother.The head of the Xie family also knew about the relationship between this maidservant's son and Li Jing. The money Xie became Xie's earned in these years is the wealth that the entire family has earned in the past hundred years.

At the beginning, Xie Cheng persuaded the head of the Xie family to move his family to Liaodong, thinking that it would bring greater development to the Xie family. This development is not only economic, but may also be related to power.But Xie Chong was hesitant, reluctant to part with Xie's hundreds of years of inheritance and management in Yuezhou.In other words, Xie Chong was obviously a little worried about going to Liaodong, after all, it was the territory of the barbarians.

In the end, Xie Cheng decided to leave the Xie family, and Xie Chong agreed.He rejected the decision made by his son and brothers in the clan to let Xie Cheng go out of the house. He knew the reason why this son could bring the Xie family such a huge wealth in just a few years. Xie Cheng and Li Jing have always been Do business.Although Xie Cheng might not be considered anything in Li Jing's eyes, Xie Chong didn't want to be too extreme.Stay a line in life, so we can meet each other in the future.

Standing on the deck, Xie Cheng's mood was also fluctuating.Although he failed to persuade Xie Chong to move the entire Xie family to Liaodong, he also knew that the concept of hometown was deeply rooted in the Chinese people, and it was not easy for the Xie family to leave their hometown and move the whole family to the wild land of Liaodong.Even though he tried his best and tried his best, it was inevitable that he would fail in the end.

Xie Cheng was not disappointed because of this, he never expected to succeed at the beginning.

Except for the children of concubines like him, or the powerful landlords of declining families, if they have not undergone major changes, they will indeed not be easily tempted by a few words.In the eyes of most people, Liaodong is almost equal to barbarism and bitter cold.

Compared with these people, it was Xie Xuan, who had been running around Liaodong and the southeast coast of Dengzhou all the year round, who clearly saw the vigorous business opportunities on the territory of Liaodong after it was recovered.As long as it is profitable, businessmen have no fear at all.Not to mention that Liaodong has now become the territory of the King of Andong, who swept Liaodong with 20 soldiers and horses.Even the Northeast is still the territory of those barbarians, but as long as they have enough interests, they still dare to go deep into the tiger's den.

Xie Cheng resold some of the shops and farms he had bought in Yuezhou over the years to the Xie family.In the end, all of Xie Cheng's property was exchanged for these ten Mingzhou large ships, each of which was a five-masted three-thousand-stone ship.

In addition to Xie Cheng's family going north this time, he had also persuaded some concubine sons who were similar to him from rich and weak families without inheritance rights, some poor literati, and even some bold businessmen chasing profits. Set sail, but in the end nearly half of the people flinched.

But he was not depressed. Where they were going and what they were going to do was beyond the comprehension of weak and timid people.

Xie Cheng returned from Liaodong when King Andong attacked Goguryeo.He clearly knows what the situation in Liaodong is like right now. Opportunities and gold are everywhere.

Countless mines have already been explored and mapped, and they can be mined just waiting for businessmen to take money to bid for the mining rights. Those coal, aluminum, black oil, iron, and other minerals are all profitable industries.There are also countless fields on both sides of the Liaohe River. In the Central Plains, one mu of land costs ten guan, but now in Liaodong, one mu of land only costs two guan.For some hillside land like that time, the cheapest one is only five hundred yuan per mu.

In addition, in addition to mining and farming in Liaodong, even greater business opportunities are waiting for them.There are countless workshops, and new products are invented and produced every once in a while. If you grab the distribution rights or OEM rights for the same product, you can make a lot of money.

Among the people who were finally willing to go with him to Liaodong this time, there were about 60.00 businessmen who had followed him to Dengzhou Liaodong for investigation.Xie Cheng has already signed a contract with them, and a group of businessmen finally established a new firm. According to the shares, Xie Cheng owns 200% of the shares and becomes the chairman and general manager of this firm.There are more than [-] literati left. These people are all poor literati.In the end, after listening to the descriptions of Xie Cheng and others, and finally getting a loan of [-] pennies per person from Xie Xuan, they finally decided to go outside the barrier.

Dozens of business partners, plus more than [-] literati, and their families, there are already more than a thousand people.But he has ten boats of three thousand shi, each of which can hold more than a thousand people.Xie Cheng didn't have much capital at this time, except for some local products from Hangyue and other places, their ship had a lot of empty cabins, but they couldn't be filled.

However, the shrewd Xie Cheng would not go northward with an empty boat. Today's Andong County King's subordinates lack nothing but people.According to the regulations issued by the king of the county, all businessmen, as long as they can find a way to introduce new immigrants, as long as they are not kidnapped, they can get a referral fee.Among them, various types of literati have the highest introduction fees, followed by various technical craftsmen, then farmers, and then young men and women, even children and teenagers, as long as they bring them to the [***] site in the town, they can get a lot of money introduction fee.

Except that the people of the Tang Dynasty were not allowed to kidnap and sell slaves, if the caravans trafficked slaves from other fan countries to the territory of the King of Andong, they could enter the official-controlled fan slave store.

After all, the slave trade is the hottest and most profitable business right now, but due to many restrictions on the slave trade, Xie Cheng is unable to do this business.But this time the new firm's first business, apart from doing some silk, tea, and porcelain business, their first major business was to transport people to Liaodong.

An adult craftsman, depending on the skill, can get an introduction fee ranging from five guan to twenty guan from the county king.Even ordinary young adults can get two to five referral fees.Even the lowest children will get five hundred Wen introduction fees.

If a ship holds 2000 people, the introduction fee alone can charge four to five thousand guan. What's more, for this journey to Liaodong, the boat ticket and the meal on the way still have to be charged.In addition, they also provide loans to those who break through the border. Although the interest is not high, the interest is not low, which is also an income.

If ten boats are full, the profit is actually higher than that of grain trafficking.

Thinking of this, Xie Cheng is full of confidence in his new firm.

"Your Majesty, the boat will be sailing soon." A boy servant came up behind him and reminded him.

Xie Cheng came back from his thoughts and hummed lightly.This child is dark and thin, not tall, but his head is not small.Xie Cheng asked his age, and he was almost 12 years old, but it seemed that he was only seven or eight years old.There were more than 3000 such children on the ten boats of Xie Cheng.

From the age of four or five to thirteen or fourteen, these children are all orphans of beggars in Minghu and Changzhou of Hangyue.These were all found by him with great pains. It took more than half a year to find these orphans, and they were adopted in his various manors for a short period of time.

Among these orphans, some of the smart and good-looking children were picked out to be houseboys and maids, and when they grew up, they would be sent to their own business firms as apprentices.He planned to give the remaining thousands of orphans to the county king.Liaodong lacks the most population. Although these children can't do anything, Liaodong will not refuse anyone.

These children were orphans in all states and counties, but Xie Cheng wanted to take them away, but he still paid the government a lot of money and food.This is still in the name of adopting orphans. Although the state and county usually ignore these orphans, the increase in the number of local population is actually one of the government's performance assessments.Therefore, the government is not willing to lose the local population. Even the family members and even the tenants that Xie Cheng and his partners took away still invited the patriarch of the Xie clan to come forward, and then spent a lot of money to get the government to issue I got a public certificate.

Without this certificate, you are not allowed to board the ship at the port, otherwise it will be a felony if you are found.

When Xie Cheng went out to sea this time, the tea and silk he brought were all light things, which didn't take up much space.The rest, all pretend to be people.The capacity of the ten ships was 5000 shi, which was supposed to carry 3 people. In the end, Xie Cheng and his partner managed to get [-] people.

For 3 people, Xie Cheng only obtained less than [-]% of the certificates, and the rest were undocumented people. Although many officials were bought with a lot of money, it still took a great risk.

"Anchor lifter! Anchor lifter!"

The voices of more than a dozen big men shouted neatly and loudly, and immediately called back Xie Cheng who was in a trance. He couldn't help turning his head away, only to hear a loud "cracking" sound from the rotating shaft under the mast, but this sound was instantly suppressed. Submerged in the excited shouts of many sailors.The mast on the sailboat was driven by the rotating shaft, and the mizzen mast several feet high, the foremast as high as seven or eight feet high, and the thick mainmast that was more than ten feet high slowly erected the ship.

"Ah, oh, oh!" With incomparable amazement, a sharp child's voice yelled, and Xie Cheng was startled. He looked at the "little boy servant" beside him, but this "little boy servant" was completely Forgetting him, he was both excited and shocked, staring blankly at the giant's mainmast in front of him, listening to a monotonous cry.

This little beggar from the market was obviously seeing such a scene for the first time. Excited, he had already forgotten the rules he had just learned in the Yuezhou manor these days, screaming and jumping without rules at all. .

A smile appeared on Xie Cheng's face, and he understood somewhat.

Back then, when he saw the county king's iron-clad sea falcon warship in Shamen Town, he was not as shocked as before.

The sailors on the ship began to get busy. These sailors were old buddies who had been running the ship with Xie Cheng for many years.The winch under the mast creaked continuously, and the white sail was held onto the mast by more than a dozen sailors. Between the huge mainsail and the front sail, Xie Cheng almost felt that he was shrouded in white clouds. Holding the ship's side tightly with both hands, he tried his best to suppress his excitement.

From today on, I am the owner of this caravan.

Five years ago, he couldn't believe such a result.A maid who gave birth to a son could one day become the owner of a large caravan respected by everyone.Even, maybe one day he can become a knight.In Liaodong today, there are more than 100 jazz and more than 300 knights. These newly released nobles were originally low-level military officers, but now they have become nobles.

Liaodong respected not only soldiers, but also literati. In Liaodong, officials, teachers, and students were all highly respected.And these businessmen, although they are no more than soldiers and scholars, are far more respected than in the Central Plains.According to some rumors, King Anton is going to award honors to some merchants who have made outstanding contributions.This news made Xie Cheng yearn for it, and he was very excited just thinking about it.

A small boat sailed to the front of the fleet quickly, and the people on it were waving flags at them.It was the command ship in the harbor, guiding them to the harbor.

The sailboat seems to be moving very slowly, but other scenes around it are disappearing rapidly, falling behind and getting farther and farther.

Xie Cheng stood at the bow of the boat and watched the scenery ahead.

The sun rises in the east, and the red clouds are so beautiful, just like the hope in his heart at this time, like the bright future, people can't wait to get closer.

The fleet sailed slowly out of Hangzhou Port, and many people who broke through the customs poured out from the decks of the ships, looking back at their hometown one by one. Maybe after this trip, they will never know when they will come back! (To be continued.)