Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 103 Launching
Seeing that Yao Jiangtou made it clear that he could help buy and sell the ship, Yang Chao was too lazy to sigh.

Yang Chao asked directly: "I don't know how much money I should ask this official to pay?"

Craftsman Yao smiled and said, "Not much, one or two hundred taels is enough."

Yang Chao smiled and said: "Okay. One or two hundred taels of silver. I want three ships, each one thousand and five hundred taels of silver, no more. As for the problem of the quota of the ships in the water camp, I will trouble Master Yao." .”

Craftsman Yao was stunned: "How is this possible?"

He didn't expect that Yang Chao didn't think of money to buy the boat quota at all, but it was his responsibility instead.

Yang Chao laughed and said, "Why not? It's only 200 taels of silver, but I'll spend 500 taels of silver. If it works, I'll have all three ships. If it doesn't work, I'll only need this one gone."

Craftsman Yao pondered for a while, weighing the pros and cons. If these warships were sent away, the berth would be freed up to build a few more ships. Moreover, these ships are backlogged here. Only the government is willing to take it away, which is always a trouble.

"Okay, it's a deal!"

Yao Jiangtou has made a lot of determination, but in fact, it may not be necessary to spend 200 taels of silver. Yao Jiangtou currently has quite a few empty boats.

"Then how big is this ship?"

At this time, more than 20 soldiers were also standing on the berth and watching, chattering and discussing. They couldn't help but marvel when they saw that the ship was like a small house.

Carpenter Yao didn't care that they were soldiers, and replied very politely: "The captain is ten feet long, and the width is two feet."

The soldiers didn't have an intuitive impression of the length, so they continued to ask: "How many people and goods can you pull?"

Carpenter Yao said: "This ship has more than 20 cabins, and it can hold 200 people. If it is hauling goods, it can hold [-] to [-] loads!"

"Wow, it's worth two or three hundred cows!"

A soldier had raised cattle before, so he immediately converted.

A group of soldiers couldn't help but let out an exclamation, and the big boat under their feet suddenly became a group of thick yellow cattle in their eyes.

"Carpenter Yao, how did you get into the water?"

Yang Chao was in a hurry to take his boat away.

Craftsman Yao smiled and said, "Don't worry, my lord, please look over there!"

Yang Chao looked along Carpenter Yao's hand, there was a deep waterway connected to the slipway, and Carpenter Yao shook his hand suddenly.

There were people busy in the distance, and then Yang Chao heard the sound of splashing water, and those people opened a sluice connected with the Qinhuai River.

Watching the water flow like a long dragon, there are also boatmen busy on the slipway. The slipway is surrounded by four sides, and there is a sluice on one side. This sluice is a large stone gate, and dozens of people can only open it by stirring the winch.

Soon the water came over and flowed into the lock.

As the water in the canal poured into the dock, the boat that had been lying quietly on the sand began to sway.

The old boatmen in the shipyard were tightly pulling dozens of thick hemp ropes tied to the ship to prevent the ship from shaking too much and hitting the berth.

Jiang Huai, the old water ghost, steered the helm with his chest open, calling out to his old brothers to run left and right on the boat to balance the hull.

"pull!"

cried an old boatman.

The other boatmen were desperately pulling on the rope.

"Strength on the left, loose on the right."

The old boatman continued to shout.

"Strength on the right side, loosen on the left side."

With the shouting, there was more and more water at the bottom of the boat, the boat shook more severely, and the boatmen worked harder. However, under the command of the experienced old boatman, the boat finally floated up peacefully without hitting the slipway.

Soon the dock was full of water, as high as the water level of the canal, and as high as the water level of the river farther away, and rippled gently at the same time.

"Master Yang, it's up to you now."

Yao Jiangtou said, meaning to hand over the boat to Yang Chao now.

Yang Chao gave Zhang Damang a flair, and Zhang Damang nodded, urging the soldiers to take the rope from the boatman.

"Listen to my chant, La!"

Zhang Dawei shouted like the old boatman just now.

"Pull again!"

Zhang Dawei shouted.

The soldiers tried their best to pull the rope, but they were obviously not as skilled as the boatmen, and the big ship shook violently.

"Strength on the left, loose on the right."

Zhang Dawei shouted loudly.

"Strength on the right, send on the left."

Due to the unskilled soldiers, Zhang Damang chanted much faster than the boatmen just now.

However, under the command of Zhang Dawei, the ship finally sailed out of the slipway smoothly. Fortunately, this is a big slipway, otherwise it would definitely hit.

Out of the berth is a canal that leads directly to the Qinhuai River and is close to the Xinjiangkou Wharf.

The wharf at Xinjiangkou is also called Longjiangguan Wharf. On the wharf there is a tax-collecting banknote gate set up by the government, and the banknote gate is called Longjiangguan.

The boat soon arrived at the pier. There were many buildings on the pier, including shops of all sizes, and even more warehouses.

Wang Yihe's grocery store also has a warehouse here.

Yang Chao's first transaction was Wang Xiao's goods.

Today is the first day to leave the ship, so there will be no delay. Wang Xiao was notified before coming in the morning, and Wang Xiao came to the pier early to organize.

This wharf is a civilian wharf, which is different from the abandoned wharf outside the navy camp. Although it looks dilapidated, it can still operate normally.

Because this wharf always has income, the banknote gate set up on the wharf collects tens of thousands of taels of silver from here every year.

But Yang Chao had never met a tax collector, because he didn't have to worry about paying taxes, he was only responsible for the delivery of goods.

This batch of goods from Wang Yihe's grocery store only needs to be transported to Pukou on the other side of the Yangtze River, and the shipping fee is [-] taels.

If there is also goods over there, it will cost 20 taels for one round trip, and this round trip will take less than a day.

Therefore, the freight market is really good now, and Yang Chao's investment is very worthwhile.

Of course, this investment was also very expensive, 500 taels of silver, enough to feed the three of them for a lifetime, all of which was given to Yao Jiangtou.

One thousand five hundred taels, very expensive, not expensive.

One thousand five hundred taels is a huge amount of money, but it is a small amount of money for buying a boat.

My own boat can pull 7000 dans of grain and two to three hundred people. The construction cost of such a large boat is no less than [-] taels, and tens of thousands of taels are not uncommon.

But because the warship was made with materials assigned by the government, and what Yang Chao gave was not the price of the ship, but the regular money for the civil servants and eunuchs sitting on the scene, it was so cheap.

Fortunately, this is a warship, and it is not cost-effective purely for pulling goods, so other officers are more willing to accept real tank boats and shallow boats for more than 1000 taels of silver, and they are unwilling to use this kind of stronger warship. Has been lying in the dock of the shipyard.

Yang Chao is now cheaper.

Of course, this is caused by different perspectives on the problem.

The other officers who use ships are for business, but Yang Chao regards the warship as his capital. This warship, like soldiers, will be his own power in the future.

So this warship was sold to Yang Chao for 500 taels, which was a super-value asset, but for other officers, the price-performance ratio was not as good as a merchant ship that could pull goods.

(End of this chapter)