Although the fleets of both sides had at least hundreds of guns of various types, the real losses were not large.

Three ships on Zheng Zhilong's side were hit by the dense cannonballs of Li Huamei's fleet, the sails on the ships were shot down and lost their ability to move, and the waterline of the ships began to enter the waterline, and in the blink of an eye, the cabins full of grain were full of knee-deep seawater.

And when the first round of artillery of the Zheng family's fleet was ignited and fired by the instinctive reaction of those sailors, Li Huamei's fleet also suffered losses, and seven or eight shells flew onto the ship, beating four or five sailors into minced meat.

"Second uncle, send a signal! Let's get our fleet rushing up in waves! Zheng Sen saw the weakness of Li Huamei's fleet blocking the Baisha waterway, there were few ships! Although the artillery fire was sharp and the shooting skills were superb, the smoke formed after the artillery was fired filled the sea surface, making people's vision unclear and seriously affecting the shooting effect.

Facing the crazy rush of fortune ships one after another, Li Huamei was also a little powerless.

"Miss! You see! ”

Aggie pointed to the left flank of the fleet.

Looking at the noon sun, under the dazzling sun, several sand boats kept throwing down the heavy grain and rice bags in the cabin to reduce the burden and increase the speed, and rushed straight to Li Huamei's flank from the sea of Putuoyang.

The leader is the sand boat of Shi Lang's family.

From the ignorance of the cannon lit by the hairy sailor on Daqing's head, he knew that this battle must be fought. However, judging by what he had learned in the Nanyue Military Naval Academy, the transport fleet in front of him was clearly a piece of fat meat in front of a child who had been hungry for a few days compared to the fleet opposite.

Li Huamei's side has the ability to eat this fleet. But the appetite is not enough, if there are a few more ships, or a large ship similar to Li Shouhanza's ship, the Zheng family's fleet will not escape doom.

However, in this situation, the Zheng family still has to fight!

So, Shi Lang, who had already quietly retreated to the entrance of the waterway, contacted several nearby sand boats, quietly bypassed Baisha Island, and made a big circle. rushed straight to Li Huamei's left flank!

Seeing Shi Lang commanding several sand boats, he viciously rushed over from the left flank with the sun on his back. Approaching the two ships at the end of the queue, several sailors were busy on the gun emplacements made of grain and rice, presumably reloading the guns.

"Aggie! Signal to the ships. Let's withdraw first. Give them the way! ”

"This? Just let them go?! ”

Aji couldn't understand Li Huamei's thoughts.

"Want to go? Past my eyes. Artillery was also fired, wounding people. If you don't leave some money to buy the road, you can get away?! A touch of ruthlessness appeared at the corner of Li Huamei's mouth.

The flag soldier on the top of the mast waved the signal flag in his hand, and the naval division of the Nanyue Army, which blocked the exit of the Baisha Waterway, quickly broke away from the battle. Watching from a distance beyond the range of the Zheng family's artillery.

"The Shi kid is really good! Fast! Signal the ships! ”

Seeing Shi Lang's move, Li Huamei quickly dodged the passage, and Zheng Zhihu couldn't help but be very excited.

The Zheng family's fleet swarmed by, crossing the Baisha waterway and heading straight for Putuo Island.

After simply replenishing some fresh water for meat, vegetables, and vegetables, Zheng Zhihu ordered all of them to raise their sails and set off for the north overnight.

This time, it was the turn of the Zheng family's fleet to have nightmares again.

Li Huamei's fleet took advantage of the advantage of speed and artillery fire, and no longer intercepted, but suddenly killed in unexpected places, rushed into Zheng Zhihu's marching queue, or used artillery fire to sink several ships and then fly away, disappearing without a trace under the cover of night. Or take advantage of the speed to rush into an inconspicuous corner of the fleet, surround a few lucky boats, and drag them away.

After this battle at sea, in Zheng Zhilong's maritime gang, Li Huamei had a nickname.

"Scarlet-winged Tiger!"

"Second uncle, you lead our red-haired boats to deal with the harassment of Li Huamei's little girl! Brother Shi family, you lead six sand boats to and fro in the fleet to help the second uncle deal with these dog thieves in the Nanyue Army! ”

Faced with Li Huamei's pirate-style play, Zheng Sen did not jump to his feet and scold like his uncle Zheng Zhihu, but calmly analyzed the pros and cons before making such a deployment.

"It's good! These immoral tricks must have been taught to Li Huamei by Zhang Xiaohu's shameless old thief! This is clearly what sharks do at sea! How can she, a yellow-haired girl, know this? ”

In the face of Li Huamei's attacks on the fleet by making full use of the firepower and speed advantages of her own ships, Zheng Zhihu couldn't think of any better way for a while, so he could only use the soft sailboats in his fleet to deal with Li Huamei's fast boats, and use Shi Lang's sand boats that had lost almost all of their grain and rice as auxiliary forces.

"The whole team should not fall in love with the stack, quickly rush across the mouth of the Yangtze River, and after crossing the Yangtze River, the Li family's boat will not dare to build a second."

Looking at Li Huamei, who was galloping back and forth on the sea in the distance, Zheng Sen gritted his teeth, "After I go back, I must let my father build more Western galleons!" At that time, let's compete again! ”

After paying the price of more than a dozen Fu ships being sunk and captured, the fleet led by Zheng Zhihu finally rushed through Wusongkou and entered the waters of Jiangbei.

Looking at Li Huamei, who was dying on the south bank of the Yangtze River, she couldn't help but burst into a burst of ecstatic cheers in the Zheng family's fleet, whistles and scolding sounded together, and all kinds of foul language were intertwined.

"Smack!"

Shi Lang slapped a small boat owner, and the shipowner's words just now were not clean to Li Huamei, a female tiger, which annoyed Shi Lang.

"What are you capable of doing at this time? Last night and this morning, when she chased you so much that she couldn't find the tune, where did you scold people? Something I didn't plant! ”

The shipowner covered his cheeks, which were quickly swollen by Shi Lang, but he dared not speak angrily.

In the Baisha Waterway, if it weren't for Shi Lang's immediate decision to sneak attack Li Huamei's fleet from the flank, I am afraid that at least half of the nearly 100 ships would have been sunk or captured by Li Huamei.

This is the evaluation that Zheng Zhihu and Zheng Sen's uncle and nephew jointly gave to Shi Lang. Such a hot character stands on the truth again. "You have the ability to rely on the boat and cannon at sea, or board the ship and jump in hand-to-hand combat to defeat Li Huamei, what kind of hero is playing in this safe place?"

This group of men who beg for a life at sea value strength and backbone.

At that moment, more than a dozen shipowners and officers of all sizes applauded Shi Lang's behavior, and the shipowner had no choice but to knock out his teeth and swallow it in his stomach.

Fortunately, the losses are not particularly large, check out, more than 100 ships, except for more than a dozen ships that were sunk and captured by Li Huamei. Shi Lang's six or seven sand boats threw away all the grain they were carrying in order to pursue speed. The rest of the ships were largely intact.

"Brother Shi, don't worry, the loss on your ship is considered public! In addition, I will go back and tell my father, you will have an extra share when you share the dividends! If only it weren't for you. We're afraid of even greater losses! Zheng Sen comforted Shi Lang very generously.

"Big young marshal. It's a trivial matter if it's not money. However, we in Fujian should also build more clippers like others and install more artillery, otherwise it will be too much of a loss to fight! Shi Lang's face was full of wry smiles.

There were no words on the road. Everyone faced the north wind and transported the ship to the sea of Ningyuan.

At this time, the battle outside Ningyuan City had ended.

In the winter and October of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the Qing army attacked Ningyuan again. Shi Ningyuan will be the governor of the same as Jin Guofeng, and he will command the army of nearly 10,000 people. The Qing army attacked Ningyuan, and the Ming soldiers were timid. Guofeng was angry, and led dozens of relatives to fight hard with the Qing soldiers in Beishangang, and he tried his best to die with his second son and all his relatives.

The governor of the department is also known, and Jin Guofeng, the chief military officer of the Ningyuan regiment, is a native of Xuanfu. He was originally the deputy chief soldier of Jinzhou. Guarding Matsuyama as the deputy commander-in-chief. In February of the twelfth year, in order to cover the raiding operations of Dolgon and others in Guannei to contain the Guanning army, the Qing soldiers began to attack Songshan under the personal command of Huang Taiji. was repelled by Jin Guofeng many times. Huang Taiji was unwilling to fail, and sent people back to Shengjing to transfer 30 cannons, 10,000 shells, 500 gunpowder, and cannons around the city.

In the face of heavy artillery fire, the city and the fortresses were destroyed, and the people in the city could only walk with the door panels. Jin Guofeng's army was only 3,000, and he went out of the city to defeat him suddenly, but he used wood and stone to make up for the bad points of the city, and fought hard to kill the enemy, so that the Qing soldiers repeatedly failed to attack. The siege of the city for forty years will not end. The most reluctant queen Taiji had no choice but to withdraw from the army and keep Songshan from losing. Also because of this merit, Guofeng was promoted to deputy governor with merit, and Ningyuan regiment trained the chief military officer. In terms of merit, the governor of the department knows the same thing, and the shade brocade clothes guard thousands of households.

Unexpectedly, he was able to make meritorious contributions in Songshan in Jinzhou, but he sent the lives of himself and his two sons to Ningyuan City.

Whether it was because of the large number of battalions and poor command or for some other reason is not clear. In short, after he died outside Ningyuan City, the Ningyuan defenders closed their doors, and I didn't care if your Qing army sang a big drama outside the city.

With such a coordinated friendly army, the Qing army was naturally not afraid.

At that moment, Zheng Zhihu sent people ashore to contact the Shanxi merchants and ordered them to tell the buyer that they could come to carry the grain and rice and pay the money.

The shopkeeper of the Fan Ji firm introduced by the intermediary laboriously communicated with Zheng Zhihu in a thick Jiexiu accent, (Think about it, the difficulty of communication between a person from Jinzhong in Shanxi Province and a person from southern Fujian!) "Second master, I don't know how much grain and rice you brought this time, how should the price of grain be calculated? ”

"This?" Zheng Zhihu also scratched his head a little. After careful inspection and calculation, the amount of japonica rice that the entire fleet can sell today is about 150,000 stone. But how to quote is a question.

According to the standard of grain export in Nanzhong, the export price of this high-quality japonica rice at the port is three coins of silver per stone, including customs duties, but it is only the price of spot self-transportation. This is a good deal for Zheng Zhilong's group, which has a large number of ships. Even if the ship is moored at the port wharf, the shipwrights and sailors have to provide food and pay their wages.

However, how to calculate the price of grain here in Liaodong made Zhihu at a loss.

The price of grain in the interior is high, to the point of counting the money and silver of the rice, and I heard that the price of grain in Liaodong is even higher, but I don't know how high the road is.

"The most expensive grain price in Liaodong was eight taels of rice and silver, and one stone was ten buckets. Second master, those are all brown rice, and you are all good japonica rice! ”

"Although they just came back from the Guannai not long ago, and the food is not too expensive for the time being, but now it is no problem to sell it to them, at least forty or fifty taels!"

"That's good! Forty taels and one stone! Forty is clear, and thirty-five taels are received. There are five taels of false head for your kickbacks and guys' errand money! ”

Zheng Zhihu, who is also a businessman, knows the mysteries of the business field, if there is no this. I'm afraid that there will be countless waves from it.

"Forty taels and one stone like this?"

Outside Ningyuan City, Huang Taiji rubbed the plump and crystalline rice grains in his hands, a little puzzled. This group of Shanxi businessmen had never been so kind before, and they dared to ask for fifty taels of silver and one stone of brown rice mixed with three percent of sand and full of rat droppings.

"This is not our rice, but it is trafficked by the Zheng family in Fujian, but our peers have discussed that if the sea road is smooth in the future, our rice will also be handled with reference to this price."

The person trained by Fan Yongdou's family is really extraordinary. Huang Taiji, who said it in a few words, turned his anger into joy.

Ever since Dorgon returned from Kannai with his army. The Liaodong thieves began to smelt iron and cast cannons on a large scale, but in this way, Dolgon's power and prestige began to quietly swell. This is what Huang Taiji does not want to see.

This is why he has to come in person to fight a small Ning Yuan. In the Jiannu army. Take military merit first. Respect for strength. This is the unchanging truth of the nomadic fishermen and hunters of the north for thousands of years.

In addition to winning some military merits for the Two Yellow Banners, the main thing is to establish a new material supply line. Since Li Peiting appeared in Liaodong, a large amount of materials have flowed in and out of Liaodong through his hands. In disguise, it provided Olympic aid for the two white flags. To counteract this impact, Hwang Taiji urgently needed to establish a new supply system.

The Zheng family is what he is optimistic about.

Tong Liuliu, the son of the Han Army's second-class Ang Bangzhang Jing Tong, as the representative of Huang Taiji, brought 200,000 silver and 60 carts of fur ginseng and other goods to the Zheng Zhihu fleet anchored in Lianshan Bay to discuss the handover.

"150,000 stones of good japonica rice, the emperor said he wanted it all." As a member of the Manchurian aristocratic group, Tong Liuliu had a domineering energy, and although he was warned to do his errand well this time, the habit of going deep into his character still made his nature difficult to shake.

"However, the emperor said, forty taels and one stone, although your price is still good, but it is too much, and the treasury cannot take out six million taels of silver for a while. The emperor's decree is to ask you and others, are you willing to accept the trade of furs, raw gold, Dongzhu, ginseng and other things produced in Liaodong? ”

If it weren't for the Fan family's big shopkeeper gently tugging Zheng Zhihu's sleeve, Zhihu would have beaten this arrogant guy out of the way a long time ago.

"You are an emperor, that is your emperor, not my emperor. My rice is here, I love to buy it, I don't buy it! Don't come and scare me with that bullshit Tartar emperor of yours! With silver, fur, horses, and raw gold, as long as the price is right, Lao Tzu can accept it! ”

was robbed by Zheng Zhihu, and Tong Sixty was also so angry that his chest fell together, but in order to make the grain and rice on this group of Nanban ships become the best products rewarded by the emperor to the minions, he could only swallow this evil breath. Otherwise, this group of guys sailed north, not far away is Jinzhou City, the head of the ancestral family, Zu Dashou, who has suffered from food shortages, will eat this batch of food at all costs.

Forget it, endure the anger for a while. You'll look good in the future!

150,000 stones of good japonica rice, and the thieves in Liaodong used 200,000 taels of silver and 60 carts of fur as a deposit. The remainder is paid within three days.

"Fan Yuanfa, you and I go back to see the emperor and return to the emperor."

Tong Sixty was unceremonious to Zheng Zhihu, and naturally he was even more angry with the shopkeeper of the Fan family.

They went to Huangtaiji on an errand, leaving Zheng Zhihu to pace back and forth excitedly in the cabin.

The amount of a transaction is six million taels of silver, although most of them have to be offset by commercial goods, cattle and horse skins, but such a transaction is also a huge profit!

"When these grains and rice were shipped from Nanzhong, they cost only 60,000 silver, and when you count the food and labor money of the sailors and shipwrights of the fleet, the maximum amount of silver is 150,000 silver. The rest is all about making money! ”

Zheng Zhihu and his nephew Zheng Sen quickly calculated the harvest of this trip to the north.

"Then those ships and grain and rice we lost, have the second uncle counted them?"

Zheng Sen is a scholar in the end, and he knows that he can't just calculate the surplus, but also calculate the cost, and the more than a dozen boats and the grain and rice on the ship will naturally be calculated into the cost as a loss.

"Of course it did! Sen'er, my uncle has been at sea for so long, and it's the first time that he has made so much money in business! After this trip, I'm afraid that the Ming Dynasty will not have any money for us! No wonder, the Li family has to fight to the death every time to go north to King Qin! It turns out that there are so many benefits to going north! ”

It's pitiful to say, the finance of the Ming Dynasty, on paper, there are tens of millions of taels a year, however, this is composed of many true colors and folded colors, many physical objects, and not escorted to the imperial court, and the Ming Dynasty's tax system and financial system, accounting is very chaotic.

The localities need to be retained, and this is a muddy account, and the food and salary of the troops in many border towns of the guards are directly supplied by the localities, and it is even more confusing.

Summer tax and autumn grain, directly from a certain place to a certain place, a certain government to a certain guard, or even more detailed, a certain household to a certain household, without going through the household department, the military department, oh, there will be an account book report. The empty seal case, one of the three major cases in the early Ming Dynasty, occurred because of this system.

Therefore, although there are many treasures in the Ming Dynasty, but there are few direct income from the treasury, often some trough grain and folded silver, and the Ming Dynasty talks about millions of taels of income a year, mostly referring to the folded silver directly into the treasury.

Places and all kinds of physical objects will be counted together, there will be millions of taels, but except for the good looks on paper, there is no meaning. Even if it is the additional three salaries, it is only more than 10 million silver, where can Zheng Zhihu catch up with Zheng Zhihu This trip is either real money or valuables? But these three salaries have forced the Jianghuai River and the Han Dynasty to be on fire everywhere.

Countless grains and rice, as well as large quantities of salt, tea, sweets, silk, cloth, tobacco, and many other commercial goods brought with them by the shipowners, were carried ashore by the endless stream of small boats to trade with the swarming slaves.

Similarly, a large amount of ginseng, fur, dongzhu, raw gold, medicinal herbs and other goods were transported to the Zheng family's ship along with all kinds of gold and silver jewelry packed in large and small cages, and some of the jewelry was stained with blood stains that had not had time to wipe it clean.

"These things, we can transport them to the capital and Jiangnan, and we can earn at least eight million taels!" Fan Yuanfa's eyes were full of longing for silver dollars.

"Second master, let's discuss, go back and stay in Nigu for a while, and give these things produced in Liaodong evenly in the second half? I'll pay you cash. Don't forget the kickbacks you promised before. ”

Fan Yuanfa looked at Zheng Zhihu with a grin, expecting to get a satisfactory answer from his mouth. (To be continued......)

PS: To clarify, this matter is not intended to be smeared, but objectively exists. And more serious. After the Qing army invaded Beijing, Tong'anhou also used sea ships to transport grain north for profit.