After making up his mind, Chen Kai sent Li Jianjie's department back to Chaozhou Mansion. He is a rider, and he is not useful here at this stage, but he can replenish and recover more quickly there.

The plan is to expand the stronghold on the island, and a lot of wood is left over from the last time the island was used to transfer the people, but it is enough, that is, it will not take much time to prune off those branches that have taken root and sprouted and regrown. The only thing that made Lin Cha a little disappointed was that the fragrant wood here and all the ones suitable for felling had been shipped back to the Zhongzuo Institute, and his plan to make extra money could only be put on hold for the time being.

The stronghold was strengthened and expanded little by little, and Chen Kai soon received a letter from Chen Qice. In the letter, Chen Qice apologized for not being able to explain to him in front of Lian Chengbi, and said that he would give Chen Kai some help in the defense area he inspected, but when he went out of the defense area, or something too conspicuous, he couldn't help, because as far as he knew, Lian Chengbi's attitude was not limited to the governor of Liangguang, but the collective will of the civil officials of Guangdong, and even the generals of Guangdong.

"It's not that we're afraid we'll share their cake in the future, well, sugar cakes."

Chen Qice is much older than Chen Kai, but the friendship between the two is based on fighting together and sharing the spoils together, not to mention that Chen Kai has life-saving grace for hundreds of thousands of fellow villagers, including some of his distant relatives, as well as interests and subsidies in maritime trade, which makes Chen Qice have to carry out limited "yang and yin violations".

This is undoubtedly a good thing, because after the last fattening, the strength of Chen Qice's department is much stronger than in history, and now it is like the number one fleet among the naval divisions of the Ming Army in western Guangdong. Although there is still a lot of water in it, but the Ming army and the Qing army limited to western Guangdong are already a behemoth, with Chen Qice's help, even if it is limited help, things will become much easier.

But, even so, the difficulty remains. In the more than a year since the Ming army withdrew from the waters of the Pearl River, Shang Kexi reached an agreement with the Macao side that the Portuguese in Macao would no longer participate in the war between the Ming and Qing dynasties, or that they would no longer continue to help the Ming army pull their hands off, so it was useless to find them if they wanted to rent flute-shaped boats to transport people.

In addition to this, the Qing army seems to be secretly rebuilding the water division. The chief soldier of the Navy Division is called Gai Yipeng, what he used to do, where he came from, and even the scale of the rebuilding of the Navy Division is not very clear. However, the Qing court's formulation of the Guangdong naval division was magnificent, with two deputy generals under a general army, and a total of seven battalions and 6,000 soldiers, which was clearly intended to be used to sweep away the strength of the entire Guangdong Sea.

It's a pity that in the last Pearl River water battle, Chen Kai put the foundation of the Qing army's Guangdong naval division back to before the liberation.

The current problem, the scale is small, is certain, but Du Yonghe and Wu Wenwen have already cleared up. Although the Qing army did not have the right to control the sea, it was no longer in the same predicament that it did not even have a naval division, and this problem was gradually magnifying, and sooner or later it would become a big problem.

Of course, for now, Lin Cha's fleet is still enough, and without the unanimous cooperation of the Ming army in western Guangdong, what can be done will be much smaller. In this case, it is better to base yourself on the present.

The sailors gained a foothold on Hong Kong Island, their stronghold gradually expanded, and the docks were struggling to recover. In the past ten days, Chen Kai privately sent someone to contact Chen Qice, and Lin Cha relied on his understanding of the hydrology and waterways of the Pearl River Estuary to build a simple camp and beacon tower on a series of islands around the Pearl River Estuary, so as to monitor the flow of ships throughout the Pearl River Estuary.

The patrol system of the Ming Army's naval division was re-established, and then Chen Kai brazenly issued a ban on driving in the Pearl River Estuary without holding Zheng's tokens in the official office on Hong Kong Island!

This ban is the Zheng Group's licensing system during the Zheng Chenggong period. This law has been enforced in the Taiwan Strait for many years, the Qing army entered Fujian, and the Zheng group once lost its ability to enforce after the collapse of the Zheng group, but after Zheng Chenggong regained control of the Zhongzuo Institute, the maritime authority of the Zheng group was gradually restored, and Zheng Chenggong was gradually extending the card system to further places.

Since the establishment of the licensing system in the Pearl River Estuary, ships have recently been bustling with ships, like crucian carp crossing the river, to and from Hong Kong Island on the east bank of the Pearl River Estuary. For a while, it was as if the center left had been copied here.

Entering the waterway between Tsing Yi Island and Hong Kong Island, Chan looked out at the harbor in the distance, and there were many ships docked, like him, who had just arrived or were about to leave. But what is more conspicuous is the warships of the Ming army, one by one without shying away from the muzzles of the cannons, and there seem to be some corpses hanging high on the dock in the distance, and he can't help but shiver when he sees it.

The big boat was guided by a small boat to dock at the port, and the ropes thrown from the boat were tied to the bollards, and the trestle bridge was built, and Chen Yuanliang got off the boat.

He is a native of Anqing Mansion in Nanzhili, and when he was young, he went to Nanyang with his father to do business, and his family moved over, and now he is only twenty-five or sixteen years old. This was the first time he had returned with his crew and men as a young owner, but the situation in Guangdong had changed a little too much in the past two years, and his father did not advise him to go ashore directly, but to go to Macau first, talk to the Portuguese there, and understand the situation. After all, if they tie their hair like this, it is easy to lose their heads when they reach the territory of the Qing court.

Originally, it was going straight to Macao, but it was stopped by a warship of the Ming army on the way. The Ming army showed his identity and attitude, his family was a Chinese businessman in Nanyang, and naturally he knew the power of the Zheng group, so he simply turned the direction under the guidance of the Ming army's ships and came here to pay the salary.

The rating is valid for one year, but the price is not cheap. Paying this means that the profit margin of their trip will drop significantly. However, Chen Yuanliang heard his father talk about the Zheng family's dominance in the coastal sea, and now that the Ming army has blocked the card at the mouth of the Pearl River, he does not dare to disobey in the slightest, for fear that it will lead to the displeasure of the Ming army, and then it will be the end of the ship's destruction and death, which is not a joke.

After getting off the boat and not looking at the corpses as much as possible, Chen Yuanliang took the servants to ask for directions and went straight to the official office. He is here to pay the license and receive Zheng's brand, so he naturally has to hurry up. Just walking, getting closer and closer to the official office, but he was soon dragged by the accompanying housekeeper, and after a little pointing, he saw several men with high noses and deep eyes, dressed in European clothes, coming out of the official office, and there seemed to be some displeasure on their faces, but they didn't dare to shout loudly, or seemed to be afraid of being seen by others.

Continuing to walk towards the official office, Chen Yuanliang and his entourage staggered past those Europeans. Listen carefully, it's not the official dialect or dialect of Middle-earth, but Chen Yuanliang has been in Nanyang for a long time, and he has a lot of time dealing with Europeans, but he can also hear a little meaning.

“…… This Mr. Chen is really hard to talk to, we have been dealing with them for some years, especially after the end of the previous year, the transaction is not too big, but they are also safe with each other, and now even we have to pay silver to cross, it's really ......"

"Dear Jose, how can you learn from those Chinese to talk about friendship. The last time Mr. Chen chartered the boat, he gave the silver, and afterwards he matched us with that Mr. Zheng according to the agreement. This time, they want to set up a card at the mouth of the Pearl River to collect taxes, and they also said that they will give us half a year to discuss with that Mr. Zheng, which is already counted, well, in Chinese's words, it can be regarded as benevolent and righteous......"

The two Portuguese were still chatting, Chen Yuanliang vaguely heard some doorways, and did not continue to go far, but stopped here, and did not react again until a while.

"Sold all the goods on the ship here."

"Young owner, didn't the master say that he was going to Macau to sell it?"

The housekeeper was a little puzzled, but Chen Yuanliang was already so excited that he couldn't help himself: "No, Chen Shenjun, who rescued Guangzhou, is here, let's go all the way to do business with those Franc machine people, what are we doing, don't go!" ”