Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 146 (Part [-]) On the River

On the river, a big ship sailed as in the past, followed by one after another, not smaller than this big ship, and there were even bigger ships.

This ship was Yang Chao's warship, and the merchant ship he was escorting was behind it.

There are only ten of these merchant ships each time, but there are far more than ten ships crossing the river, and the number is still increasing.

Therefore, the ships are becoming larger and larger. At the beginning, most of the ships were not as big as the warships, but now they are the smallest ships, and they are all larger than the escorting warships.

Among these ships, some are merchants' own ships, some are rented by merchants, and some are ships delivered by shippers.

In the beginning, the escort ships were all ships from Nanjing and Pukou, but now they extend from Xinjiangkou and Puzikou to the upper and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the goods going upstream to Hexian County and even Wuhu need to cross the river, and they are first transferred to Xinjiangkou by river boats. Come, and then transport to Jiangpu from here.Downstream is much less. After Yanziji, no cargo will be transshipped from here. I heard that there is also a fleet of its own to escort, but the money is very ruthless.

Therefore, the route from Xinjiangkou to Puzikou became more and more busy, and some small boats wanted to take advantage of the east wind and cross the river behind the fleet, but Wang Pu, who led the fleet, refused arrogantly. Anyway, the large fleet opened its sails. It didn't take long to get rid of the boat, and the boat was robbed a few times, so there is no such plan from now on.

Therefore, more and more boats are looking for Yang Chao, and the boats are getting bigger and bigger, so the charges are naturally rising. Now Yang Chao costs 20 taels of silver for each boat.

200 taels for ten boat trips, and 800 taels for four trips a day. The money earned made those businessmen envious, but they had no choice.

So they can only pay for this 'expensive' bodyguard silver. At least Yang Chao's insurance premium is much less than the commission they hired by the bodyguard company. Going to dozens of taels and 100 taels is not too much.

But only those ships that deal in silk, raw silk, leather goods, porcelain, etc. can afford these insurance premiums, and even those in the grain business are unwilling to pay this money. You must know that a ship of grain costs several thousand dans, and it costs several thousand Two silver coins, but because of the government's flat sales, the profit of grain is not as good as that of silk and other goods. The advantage of the grain business is that it is stable and can always get a long-term profit.

Of course, 20 taels is not a small amount. For merchants, if they can spend less, they can earn more, especially some shopkeepers who pledge goods, and they expect to get some kickbacks from it.

It's a pity that Yang Chao's little army man is very hard to talk to, he doesn't want money, he won't go to drink and eat, he beats and scolds them frequently, and if he talks too much, he just doesn't want their cargo ship. There are a lot of goods.

Businessmen are always very proficient in drilling, and those shopkeepers quickly found other ways to make money, and that was partnerships.

Their ships are often not fully filled, and there is always some space left, so they began to recruit those small and medium-sized merchants on the dock who have goods but no ships, or who have less goods and are not worthy of paying insurance premiums, and let these people put their goods on their ships. , Pay them a part of the shipping fee, the quantity is not much, and they will take one or two or two, and this money becomes extra money for the shopkeeper and the clerk.

There were even cargo ships from Liuhe and other places that did not go back immediately after crossing the river. Instead, they stayed at the Xinjiangkou wharf for a few days with an excuse, helping some small and medium-sized businessmen to deliver goods a few times, and the money they earned far exceeded the insurance premiums paid to Yang Chao.

Therefore, the fleet is gradually becoming large-scale, and the goods in a ship are no longer the goods of a large merchant, but may be the goods of several or a dozen small merchants. These big shopkeepers with large ships have become middlemen. Come, they gave Yang Chao 20 taels of insurance premium, and he could receive 40 taels of shipping fee, which was quite profitable.

Wang Pu is on the boat every day. Except for him, the other teams have to rotate for training.

Yang Chao's idea was that Wang Pu's team had killed the Jiang bandits, so with combat experience, it was more reassuring to stay on the boat.

But Wang Pu thought that Master Yang was very satisfied with his team and didn't need to train any more. There was a faint difference between them and the other teams. They were stronger and they were more powerful. Pride spread throughout the Wang Pu team, and there was a gap between them and other teams.

Some teams were naturally dissatisfied, but generally they didn't show it, because after all, Wang Pu had killed Jiang bandits, which made them both envious and lamented.

There was only one person, one team, many men and his team, and they were completely honest with Wang Pu, which made Wang Pu very disgusted.

Fortunately, many men did not board the boat every day, otherwise Wang Pu felt that he would fight with him.

Wang Pu knew that many men were dissatisfied with him. When many men were training soldiers, they were often praised by Master Yang, thinking that he was the number one in training soldiers, overshadowing Wang Pu. Therefore, many men often publicly said that it was Wang Pu's shit luck. Jiang Bandit met his soldiers, he would have been killed long ago.

Wang Pu was dismissive of this. The scene at that time was extremely shocking. Life and death were within a hair's breadth. It was Wang Pu himself. It was not killed by Jiang bandits.

But Wang Pu is not in a hurry, because Mr. Yang’s meritorious service document has already been sent up, but it is still in operation. Wang Pu knows that if he wants to become an official, Mr. Yang will have to spend money, so he has nothing to do during this period of time. Regardless of those businessmen bribing himself, he felt that if he gave the money to Mr. Yang, Mr. Yang would use it to buy him an official.

Besides, there are several pairs of eyes staring at him all the time, and he doesn't dare to cheat in front of many teams who are openly and secretly dissatisfied with him. .

Chief Banner is now Wang Pu's only expectation. Among the eight teams, he is the first to be Chief Banner. If you still don't accept him, do you still keep fighting against him?

The only thing that makes Wang Pu feel a little depressed recently is that too many of his soldiers have been taken away, because [-] of his soldiers have killed Jiang bandits, and many of them were directly appointed as corps leaders last time, but they just stayed with him. However, after the recruiting this time, more than half of them were drafted to be team leaders.

Wang Pu had objections to this, and with his efforts, he did not become a bare-bones commander, and there were five people left, and he was six together.

But these five people were somewhat dissatisfied with him. Seeing that more than half of his companions had been promoted to be captains, and they still had to serve as soldiers under Wang Pu, Wang Pu's keeping them was tantamount to delaying their future, and it was tantamount to his own And sacrifice them.

The dissatisfaction of others, the gossip, and the complaints from his subordinates made Wang Pu a lot more angry recently, so he would not lie to those annoying businessmen, and wanted to beat and scold them at every turn.

On the boat, Wang Pu was not as nervous as the other teams, and usually lay lazily on the deck basking in the sun.

"Team Zheng, it's not good, there is a situation!"

A soldier shouted, not Wang Pu, because that soldier was a soldier of many men, and he was calling for many men.

But Wang Pu sat up and looked over immediately.

"Many men guard the starboard side. Chen Baodi guards the rear, and Song Kun guards the front for me."

After shouting a few times, Wang Pu led five soldiers and rushed to the port side.

Many men sneered: "Take care of yourself."

Wang Pu was used to it, so he ignored it. Yang Chao asked him to temporarily take charge of escorting the team. He thought it was a promotion for him, but some people were not convinced, and he didn't file a complaint. When he was in the military, he was the leader of a group of friends, whoever refused to accept would fight until he was convinced, but in the army, Yang Chao's military discipline does not allow fighting, and if he fights in private, no matter right or wrong, justified or unreasonable, he will inevitably suffer. Wang Pu has been through the board for a long time, so he can only endure the cynicism of many men.

What's more, at this time, many men are ignored, because the three small boats are approaching their fleet, and the target is the leading warship, as if they are not interested in the merchant ships behind.

"Old Zhang, let the merchant ship in the back drop anchor, let's go up!"

Wang Pu immediately shouted to Zhang Dawei.

Zhang Dawei was the oldest, but he never made irresponsible remarks on Wang Pu's orders. This made Wang Pu very satisfied. For the first time in his life, he felt that the old man was also good.

Zhang Dawei nodded, waved to the merchant ships behind to let them drop anchor, and then let the warship unfurl its sails, and steered the ship ahead.

A battle is inevitable.

(End of this chapter)