[Originally, I was going to say it in the plot later, but many book friends asked me, saying that the maritime trade center of the Tang Dynasty was not in Guangzhou? Why did you go to Yangzhou? As we all know, a good maritime trade base not only needs a superior location along the coast, but the most important thing is the location advantage of land transportation, and what is more important is the speed of the distribution and circulation of bulk goods! And Guangzhou in the Tang Dynasty and the north of the exchange can only take two roads, one day is to go to Jiangxi, but to pass through the mountains of southern Jiangxi, one is to go through Fujian to Zhejiang, but also to pass through the mountains of northern Fujian and southern Zhejiang, some rare treasures and other small goods are good, but it is impossible to pass bulk goods. However, Yangzhou has more superior water and land transportation conditions, and sea ships can directly enter the Yangtze River to Yangzhou, which is also a major reason why Yangzhou became the largest city in the southeast in the Tang Dynasty. Don't be misunderstood by some books, thinking that the maritime trade in the Tang Dynasty only had some luxury goods, and the merchants of that era were also very shrewd, right?

After all, there is only one life, and in the face of the cruel natural environment, human beings will rarely let go of some hatred and jealousy between each other, coupled with the fate of precarious transmutation, and let the remaining envy dissipate a lot.

The market share is huge, and no one needs to rely on monopoly to maintain their own interests, and as long as you have money, you can buy the ships you need from the Hongzhou shipyard, but it will take some time to reassemble the crew.

As a result, there is no competition, there is no contradiction, and if there is no contradiction, there will naturally be no conflict, and these maritime merchants in the southeast have also maintained peace for decades because of the rare situation.

This can be regarded as a proof that "making the cake bigger" is the only and best way to eliminate internal contradictions!

This is the detailed situation of the Datang Southeast Maritime Business Group today, the family relies on their own hundreds of years of accumulated financial resources and the network of intertwined relationships in the local area to dominate the maritime trade, but the already privileged life makes it impossible for their children to personally devote themselves to the unpredictable waves, except for a few of the most powerful families can form their own fleets and spend great efforts to train sailors, the rest of the weaker families have to spend money to hire outlaws to run ships, but they use their own ships and shipments, so that others can help with the transportation.

That's not a lot of control. As a result, the situation of today's separation but peace of mind has been created!

Qian Xiaojing deliberately hung up on these unruly maritime merchants for two days, and then came forward to meet him, just to obtain more benefits in the subsequent negotiations. After all, the establishment of the City Ship Division would greatly endanger the interests of their group of maritime merchants, and they could only unite to fight against the wolf-like northern families.

So this meeting is a plan, but in fact it is more like a meeting, a meeting on alliances. Of course, this is all tacit!

As the largest family in Yangzhou, the Qian family is also recognized as the first in the Southeast Maritime Business Group, so the alliance was chosen in the Qian Mansion.

Fortunately, the main living room of the Qian Mansion was large enough, and it did not look crowded after nearly 100 people sat down.

Don't look at the noise of these maritime merchants at the door, once they enter the gate of the Qian family, they are quiet, after all, these people understand the principle of strength first.

Qian Xiaojing didn't let them wait anymore, only after the subordinates helped everyone serve good tea, he appeared in the living room!

Straight up to the main seat and sat down, Qian Xiaojing nodded slightly to everyone present, and everyone returned him a bow.

After greeting each other, the maritime merchants had no intention of continuing to greet each other, and a slightly fat middle-aged man sitting in the first place on the right hand arched his hand towards Qian Xiaojing, and said: "The head of the Qian family must also know the meaning of all of us, so we won't go around in circles, since the matter of the city has been decided by the imperial court, it is impossible for us to go against the imperial court, but we must come up with a countermeasure, after all, we can't let the foundation we have worked hard for decades be taken away by outsiders." ”

"Brother Xie is right! Although our old Ye is a rough person, he also understands the truth that one mountain cannot tolerate two tigers, and it is a lie for our gang to say that there have been no bumps and bumps in the past few decades! But after all, there is so much business, and it is not easy for the brothers to go to the sea, how can they have the energy to kill each other?"

"But now these northerners are going south, it's different! They want to come and grab our jobs, the sea is so big, and there is a lot of business, so it's nothing to give them some, but these people want a boat and no boat, and no one wants people, so what can they do to go to sea?"

"Are they going to spend more than ten years cultivating a bunch of people?

The chubby middle-aged man surnamed Xie sat opposite an old man with gray hair but a strong body, the old man looked very hard and strong, the weather was still cold, but he was only wearing a thin cloth shirt, there was no age spot on his face, but there were some ravine-like wrinkles, gray hair, gray beard, and he didn't take care of the mess, but he looked like he had a sense of power in it.

This person is the leader of the largest sea gang in Yangzhou City, surnamed Ye Mingkai, and has thousands of people under his hands, all of whom are sailors, and those families who can't afford to raise sailors at home always come to him to rent some people.

And Ye Kai has been running boats with the original boss since he was a teenager, at that time there were only a few dozen people, and over the decades, the scale of this sea gang has become larger and larger, until now there are thousands of sailors.

As mentioned before, there are few fights between maritime groups, and the same is true between the sea gangs in this Yangzhou city, because the sailors rely on their skills to eat, unlike ordinary gangs in the rivers and lakes, which need to fight for territory, and if they can follow an experienced captain during the voyage, the mortality rate of the sailors can be reduced a lot.

Therefore, Ye Kai's Sea Gang has the longest incident, and there are many excellent captains in the gang, and the craftsmanship of this era is all worn by master and apprentice, as for those experiences, routes, etc., they are even more of the top secrets of the captains!

Relying on the navigation resources accumulated over the years, Ye Kai's sea gang is getting bigger and bigger like a snowball, and others are helpless when they see it.

Although the Sea Gang is different from the ordinary gangs, after all, they have to manage a large group of people, and they must ensure that their wealth is not spied on, and the sea trade is not very peaceful, so the Sea Gang will also select some excellent sailors to teach martial arts from an early age, which can also form a force that should not be underestimated.

And Ye Kai, as the leader of it, has long been a master of foundation building for many years!

It is precisely because of these reasons that Ye Kai has a position to sit side by side with these wealthy families.

"Ye Dangjia is right! Why should we give away the country we have spent decades building for nothing?" , a middle-aged man in his thirties who looked younger in the middle of the room shouted.

"That's right! How many people have we died for the current situation? They don't want to take them!"

"That's it! Those people in the Central Plains family are usually self-righteous, and they feel that their thousand-year-old inheritance is high, and they call us 'Southern Barbarians', why?"

"I'm just a group of lackeys who stayed behind to be a group of lackeys for the aliens when they were in chaos! If we want to say that Huaxia is Zhengshuo, we are orthodox!"

"That's it, then the Li family child is just a mongrel with some Di Yi blood!"

……

"Ahem! Okay! Today we are here to discuss countermeasures!" Qian Xiaojing saw that the more the people in the hall talked, the more outrageous it became, and hurriedly stopped it.

"Brother Qian, is there anything to pay attention to?" The middle-aged man surnamed Xie saw that Qian Xiaojing finally spoke, so he hurriedly asked.

It's really hard for them to sing a double reed this time!

Qian Xiaojing shook his head helplessly, and it is not good to continue to pretend to be stupid now: "The big guy also knows the current situation, the first stop of the City Ship Division is in our Yangzhou City, and the first director is Cui Jianyu of the Boling Cui family in the Seven Sects and Five Surnames!"

"If we want to break our wrists with the seven sects and five surnames, we can't rely on the strength of one family alone!

"I don't know what you think?" asked Qian Xiaojing after finishing speaking.

Everyone present was silent for a moment, made eye contact with each other, and finally looked at the middle-aged man surnamed Xie and Ye Kai.

Coincidentally, the maritime merchants in the field are basically divided into two categories: family forces and sea gang forces that started as ordinary sailors, sitting on both sides respectively, and the middle-aged people surnamed Xie and Ye Kai are the mainstays.

The middle-aged man surnamed Xie, who is slightly chubby, is not much younger, but is a descendant of the Xie family, a prominent family since the Han Dynasty. The Xie family mentioned in the article is them!

But because the family that moved south after the Eastern Jin Dynasty was still slightly inferior to the Qian family, a native family, they could only live under it.

The middle-aged name surnamed Xie is Xie Dongmin, and he is now the patriarch of the Xie family!

At this time, it is naturally up to him to speak.

"Brother Qian, to be honest, we had already discussed this alliance before we came! Now that the strong enemy is pressing the border, we should be united!" Xie Dongmin said lightly.

When Qian Xiaojing heard this, he turned his head to look at Ye Kai on the side, only to see Ye Kai nodding in the same way.