Chapter 293: Guests from afar

The sky is clear, white clouds hang on the blue sky, and the sea surface is calm, with only groups of seagulls hovering and chirping on the sea surface. This is the sea surface in southern Guangzhou, eighty miles away from the mouth of the Zerodingyang. A fleet of twenty-five merchant ships is sailing in the endless sea. They are raising their sails and sailing towards their hometown with hope.

Guangzhou has been the trading center in the south since ancient times. Whether in the Tang and Song dynasties, it was a very prosperous port for overseas trade. Until the Yuan Dynasty, it was still a trading port in the south. Although the sea ban was banned for more than 20 years in the early Ming Dynasty, once the sea ban was lifted, the trade industry here developed like mushrooms after a rain and recovered quickly, which was surprising. Merchants of all sizes usually couldn't see it, but in the past or two years, they all jumped out. He tore off the disguise of the farmer and began to reopen his old business.

There is a building complex composed of dozens of warehouses near Guangzhou Port Wharf. Not far away is the Ying Guesthouse where Li Wei was handling the case. Now it has been restored to the Nanfan Pavilion, which is managed by the Guangdong Maritime Mansion Department, and is specially used for merchants from Nanyang to temporarily live. These dozens of warehouses are the sea shops that were just established last year. Compared with the overseas trade and entrepreneurship parks in later generations, some wealthy families with strong capital have already established business names.

That morning, a teahouse next to the sea merchants was full of guests, and business was booming. In fact, it was not just today. It was like this every day. The reason was that news came from the beacon tower near the Haikou of Lingdingyang. The merchants were particularly excited. They gathered in the teahouse early in the morning to wait for the news.

The caravan that went to Nanyang this time was one of the five private merchant fleets after the Ming Dynasty abolished the sea ban. The ship owner was not one person, but consisted of five large merchants. The largest one was called Yuanfutang. There were five ships in this caravan. In addition to these five merchants, there were six official ships. The official ships themselves did not trade, but rented cabins to hundreds of small and medium-sized merchants and collected cabin rentals.

The shopkeeper of the teahouse is surnamed Shi. He is a middle-aged man in his fifties. He is dark and thin. However, he has a lot of popularity. He knows almost all the merchants. The shopkeeper of Shi has been busy since the fourth morning. He also knows that the merchant ship will be coming in the next two days and will be a prosperous business day for him.

Manager Shi has been tired for nearly an hour and a half and is really tired. Most of the customers have arrived. The teahouse is full of people, and the noise is everywhere. Several friends are busy adding tea and serving snacks. Manager Shi has a moment of leisure and is sitting behind the counter and napping. At this time, a person hurriedly walked into the door. As soon as he entered the door, he shouted like a bell: "Manager Shi, is my seat still there?"

Manager Shi was awakened and saw that the person coming was Liu Yuan, a businessman in the tea business, and he was the old customer of his teahouse. He quickly stood up and bowed and smiled, "Why is Master Liu coming now? I'm sorry, there is no seat anymore, but I can find a seat for you where you can see the dock."

"I did come a little late today, but it's worth it! I got a copy of the Beijing News four days ago, and there was a major news on it."

Liu Yuan wiped his head full of sweat, opened his throat and shouted to everyone: "Do you know what's the latest big thing happened in the capital?"

As soon as he finished speaking, more than a dozen businessmen surrounded him. This place is far away from the capital. The fastest newspaper in the capital was six or seven days ago. What these businessmen are most concerned about are the Beijing News and the Daming News Express. These two newspapers are specially published in major events in the court, especially after the summer, various major measures have been introduced one after another, which are extremely conducive to the development of industry and commerce.

"Old Liu, did the Yan army surrender?" A businessman asked anxiously. A few months ago, the two sons of the King of Yan broke out in civil war. Three major battles were fought in Peiping and Baoding Prefecture, killing and injuring more than 100,000 troops. Both sides were injured. The newspaper was published ten days ago. The court decided to send troops to quell the war in Hebei, which made many people who were concerned about the situation in Hebei anxious to know the result.

"Old Liu, last month there was news that the whole country would have to unify the commercial tax. Has the formal provision been released?" another businessman asked.

"None are!" Liu Yuan shook his head and smiled proudly: "It was the imperial court that established an expeditionary fleet and was preparing to escort 500 merchant ships to the West to trade next spring. He is recruiting 2,000 merchants willing to trade from the country. Our Guangdong quota ranks first, with 450 places. Everyone, the opportunity to get rich is here."

The news from Liu Yuan was like a blow-up. There was a loud noise in the teahouse. Nearly a hundred people surrounded Liu Yuan and wanted to steal the newspaper in his hand. At this moment, a "boom!" sounded like a cannon from afar. The teahouse suddenly became quiet. Suddenly, someone pointed to the river and shouted: "Look! Fleet, the fleet is back."

Everyone rushed to the window, and sure enough, a row of white dots appeared on the river in the distance, and were sailing quickly towards this side. They had seen the sails. It was indeed a fleet of ships. The cheers in the teahouse were thundering, and hundreds of merchants rushed out of the teahouse and rushed towards the pier.

The huge dock was already crowded with people, and thousands of dock workers were clamoring, waiting for the fleet to enter the port. More than 100 soldiers maintained order on the dock. Although the merchants were anxious, they could not get close to the goods they purchased. According to regulations, all goods must be entered into the tax warehouse before they could be taken out of the warehouse and were taken away by the cargo owner after paying the tax. Of course, most merchants had partners or nephews to accompany the goods, and could get a list of buyers and sells from them.

With the merchants looking forward to it, the fleet slowly landed. Everyone suddenly discovered a strange thing. When they went there, there were twenty large ships, but when they came back, they turned into twenty-five ships. Five more ships came. The merchant fleet, which did not need to be Boni, came immediately. Everyone immediately became interested. They could get a lot of good goods, gems, spices, and precious wood from Boni,

The big ships began to dock and unload the goods one after another. At this time, several people came down from the Boni Country's ship. The man in his lead was about 60 years old. He was very excited. After getting off the boat, he actually knelt on the ground and kowtowed to the earth. When he raised his head, he was covered in tears.

"Isn't that Luo Nansheng?" A businessman suddenly recognized the old man, and then other businessmen also recognized him. Yes! It was Luo Nansheng, the richest man in Guangdong back then, and his family fled to Nanyang because he was implicated in the smuggling case of the King of Qin. He actually came back.

The visitor was Luo Nansheng, who was let go by Li Weizheng back then. He had always lived in Boni Country. They owned a large area of ​​land in Boni Country. His younger brother Luo Beisheng was even one of the powerful ministers of Boni Country. After seven years of leaving his hometown, he received news of the change of the Ming Dynasty. He could no longer bear the homesickness and returned to his hometown with five ships of cargo.

"Dear fellow villagers, do you still know me?" Luo Nansheng walked up to everyone and bowed.

The merchants surrounded him and asked in a slight manner: "Master Luo, are you not dead? It was rumored that your whole family was killed by the Japanese pirates."

Luo Nansheng was very moved. People were still the same. Everyone still remembered him. He whispered: "I was not killed by the Japanese pirates. I had no choice but to go away from home. I heard that Li Qianhu was in charge of the Ming Dynasty, so I came back to see my hometown."

Everyone asked him about the market conditions in Nanyang. At this time, Lu Qian, the Si Zheng in charge of Guangdong Maritime Control Department, also rushed over to hear the news. He turned out to be the magistrate of Dongguan County and was very familiar with Luo Nansheng. He smiled from a distance: "Brother Luo, you haven't seen each other for many years, and you are actually back."

Luo Nansheng immediately stepped forward and bowed and smiled, "Mr. Lu, you have also been promoted!"

"Where! Where! The imperial court established the Guangdong Maritime Bureau last year, and I couldn't find a suitable person to manage it for a while. The governor Cao recommended me, starting from scratch, I like to do such things."

Luo Nansheng smiled, and he quickly pulled Lu Qian aside and asked in a low voice: "I want to go to Beijing to meet Li Xiangguo. Can Lord Lu write me a letter of recommendation?"

"This... OK!" Lu Qian nodded and agreed, and he smiled and said, "Actually, you and Li Xiangguo are old acquaintances. If you don't need my introduction, he will see you."

Luo Nansheng had important matters to report to Li Weizheng in exchange for the interests of their family.

That night, Luo Nansheng took the official mail boat to the north.

Unlike Guangzhou, most people in the capital are not interested in overseas trade. They are more concerned about the changes in the current situation. After the autumn, the people in the capital began to look forward to it. Everyone's eyes were almost staring at Hebei. A month ago, the court sent 600,000 troops and divided into four groups, and marched towards Hebei and Shanxi at the same time. The Liaodong army on the north road went out of Shanhaiguan, the Shandong Shengyong on the east road led 200,000 troops to head north, Ping'an on the middle road led 100,000 Henan army on the middle road, and joined with Gao Wei's army out of Tongguan in Shaanxi and marched into Taiyuan. The two sons of the King of Yan killed each other in order to fight for the throne, and their strength had been weakened by most of them. According to the latest information, the total number of troops in the hands of the two was less than 80,000. The time to completely wipe out the forces of the King of Yan was ripe.

This time, the court's march was very cautious. He did not go deep alone, but took steps forward. Whenever he arrived at a place, he consolidated the front line and eliminated the remaining enemies. As the battle report just came, the two armies of the east and west had already besieged Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Gaoxi in the cities of Peiping and Taiyuan respectively, and the city was about to be destroyed.

That morning, it was the sunset. Li Wei was staying at home and had not even gone there. He sat in the study and looked at the newspaper that had just come out. Sometimes, the news of the newspaper was faster than the military newspapers of the court. The newspaper reported the situation in Peking and Taiyuan three times a day in the form of an out-of-counter. Some special commentators analyzed the final outcome.

But Li Weizheng was not very concerned about the reports of Peking and Taiyuan. It would be a matter of time before he could capture two cities. He was concerned about the establishment of the Ming Expeditionary Fleet these days. This is a powerful fleet composed of ten treasure ships, forty warships and more than two hundred supply ships. There were more than 50,000 people in total, equipped with the most advanced firearms of the Ming Dynasty. He was led by Chen Wanli, deputy governor of the Ming Dynasty. The governor of the Ming Dynasty was Li Weizheng himself.

It is October. In another three months, this expeditionary fleet will escort 500 merchant ships to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea for trade. More than 800 merchants have signed up. In addition to the number of applicants from Guangdong and Fujian, this long voyage can be completed and will re-take the Maritime Silk Road in the Tang and Song dynasties.

In Li Weizheng's plan, the second voyage of the expedition fleet would bypass the end of Africa and sail towards medieval Europe. On the third voyage, he planned to cooperate with the Arabs to use the old canal route left by the Abbasid Empire to open up a canal channel connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and establish a maritime trade route between Asia and Europe.

Although it was impossible for Zheng He to voyage to the West, the Ming Dynasty's maritime expansion would still appear and would even become stronger. Just as Li Wei was thinking about the voyage, the guard came to report: "There was a Guangdong businessman named Luo Nansheng asking for a meeting with the adults, and there was a letter of recommendation from the official of the Guangdong Maritime Bureau."

"Ronansheng?" Li Wei suddenly remembered the distant past.
Chapter completed!