Guedes was eyed by the lucrative profits on the route from the Indian Ocean to Europe, although he knew that Portugal blockaded and intercepted the passage of merchant ships from other countries, but who was Guedes?

A few years ago he was a pirate leader!

Will be afraid of the Portuguese's interception, what kind of joke, if you really meet it, go straight to it, and then you don't know who will rob whom!

So after returning to Shanghai, he put up a shelf in the raw silk factory and threw it to the company's subordinates to deal with, while he himself led two merchant ships of his own trading company, loaded with various goods, and began to go south.

The above goods are not ready to be sold directly to Europe, but are ready to be transported to Guangzhou, and he has already begun to prepare for the purchase of silk, porcelain and other goods that are ready to be sold to Europe, and there are already several warehouses hoarded in Guangzhou!

But the ship doesn't run out, anyway, it is necessary to go back to Guangzhou first, and pull a trip back to Guangzhou to make a little money!

After arriving in Guangzhou, he was too lazy to care, and directly sold the goods to those merchants in the Guangzhou Trade Zone, and then drove all four merchant ships in his trading company into the dock of the shipyard for repair.

He is going to go on a trip to Europe, this trip is tens of thousands of nautical miles, if the condition of the ship is not good enough, the ship will sink in minutes after going to sea!

When the ship was being renovated, he also personally went to the sailors' meeting to recruit sailors!

The price he offered was not low, the average sailor had ten taels of silver a month, and the gunner even reached twenty taels of silver a month, and promised that after the end of this trade, a rich bonus would be issued, how much was the bonus? A one-time payment of 100 taels of silver!

After this price was opened, countless sailors flocked to it, this price is very high, you know, ordinary workers in this year, a month's salary is not even one or two silver, and the average soldier of the Tang Army has a monthly salary of just one or two silver.

Ordinary sailors have ten taels of silver a month, and after this trip to trade, there will be a bonus of more than one hundred taels of silver when they come back!

This money, even if it is fatal, they have to earn it!

So I know that running the European route is very risky, almost nine deaths, but I can't stop the enthusiasm of those sailors, these sailors, that are basically risking their lives, the risk is much more than being a soldier.

When they go to sea, they will encounter storms and waves, food and freshwater crises, and scurvy, pirates or pirates from other countries' warships who have temporarily changed careers, and well, including pirates who are temporarily part-time by other maritime merchants, will encounter all kinds of natives.

The whole process is life-and-death, but as long as they can reach their destination, then the cargo on board is enough to make them rich overnight!

Even if it is an ordinary sailor, he can earn a few hundred taels of silver on this trip, and for ordinary people, this silver has become rich overnight.

The price offered by Guedes is not low, and there are a lot of people who come to apply, and Guedes is also carefully selected, his trading company has a lot of sailors, but many of them are unwilling to run European routes, at most they run South Seas and domestic routes, so there will be a shortage of manpower.

He owned four merchant ships, all of them ocean-going ships, one with a smaller tonnage, only more than 400 tons, and two larger ships with a tonnage of more than 500 tons, all of which were typical traditional Galen ships, and a new merchant ship he ordered from the Hong Kong Peak Shipyard, the Linna, with a huge displacement of 680 tons.

This kind of merchant ship is a standard ocean-going merchant ship 680 standard cargo ship launched by the Dingsheng Shipyard under the command of the royal family, and has also been authorized to the shipyards of many state-owned enterprises such as Guangzhou Shipyard, becoming the most advanced and cost-effective standard merchant ship that the Tang Dynasty can build itself, and the Datang Western Company under the command of the royal industry has more than ten such standard merchant ships.

Because they are all built to a unified standard, although the ship is relatively large, the technical content is relatively high, but in fact the construction cost is not much higher than other merchant ships, the hull plus naval guns, sails and other accessories, a 680 standard merchant ship, the price is about 50,000 taels of silver, some expensive, but not too expensive to the extent of outrageous.

The Lena cost Guedes a lot of liquidity, but he thought it was worth it, and if it weren't for the restrictions, he planned to sell the other three ships and buy a few more of these 680 merchant ships!

Although the loading capacity of the other three Galen ships per unit tonnage is larger than that of the 680 type merchant ships, in addition to the large number of loads, the Galen ships are basically worse than the 680 type merchant ships in terms of speed, flexible steering, headwind form, and seaworthiness in complex sea conditions.

Although it is not much worse, but the gap is big on the whole, not to mention that the 680 type merchant ship is designed with reference to the warships of the Datang Navy, and the ship's gun firepower and protection performance are stronger than ordinary merchant ships.

And now running the sea trade, it is all armed merchant ships, the risk outside is too great, there are many pirates, and it will end up in a bad time when encountering warships from other countries or something.

And there is also a situation that those maritime merchants are all good citizens in the port, and they are all in good order in the coastal waters patrolled by warships, but when they meet each other in the remote and distant seas, it is normal for these armed merchant ships to become pirates every minute, and then rob each other.

If a merchant ship goes to sea without a few guns, it will be robbed 100% as a fat sheep!

And there's a good chance it's not a pirate who robbed you, but another maritime merchant!

Guedes is naturally one of them, and in the past few years, while running the boat, he has also robbed the open sea several times!

For the current maritime trade environment, the 680 merchant ship has a great advantage, except that the loading volume is less than that of the Galen ship, and all other aspects are completely victorious!

Moreover, Guedes also prepared that after going to sea this time, he would be equipped with artillery on the Malacca side, and the naval guns attached to the ship when he purchased them were all small and medium-caliber guns, the largest of which was only nine catties, and there were no artillery pieces of more than fourteen catties at all.

The shipyard said that it was just defensive firepower and didn't need too much caliber, but in Guedes's opinion, the bigger the naval gun, the better, the caliber is justice, and the range is the truth!

So he was going to Malacca to buy another batch of large-caliber artillery and replace it.

Running a European route, there are no rows of more than 14 pounds of naval guns on both sides of the ship, he really doesn't have the courage to go!

Guedes was actively preparing to run a European route, and the news somehow spread to the Tang Western Company, and then sent someone to the door, saying that they also wanted to run a European route, and asked if they could go with them.

He also said that if Guedes was willing to set off with the merchant ships of the Tang Western Company, they were willing to take the lead in undertaking the task of engagement when encountering various dangers, especially pirates, and at the same time, 20% of the profits of the sea trade would be shared with Guedes.

As soon as he heard this, Guedes was happy, this is a good thing, he just took them on the road with him, and if he met a pirate, they would fight, and he would give himself twenty percent of the profits afterwards, which is not found in ordinary times.

And he is not worried about the reputation of Datang Western Company, people who run the sea in Nanyang know that in the Datang Dynasty, anyone who dares to add the word Datang to the prefix of the company is a royal industry!

And the credibility of the royal industry is naturally needless to say, it is leveraged!

I agreed on the spot, and agreed to set off together when I was ready!

But when Guedes finished preparing and officially set off, he looked at the fleet of Datang Western Company and looked sluggish: This is your merchant ship? The other two I know are 680 merchant ships, but the other two, are you sure these are not naval warships?

Ying Zihua, the head of the European fleet of Datang Western Company on the side, said: "This ship is Caiyuan, and the other is Guangjin, symbolizing Caiyuan Guangjin, this name is good, I took it personally,"

Returning the source of wealth......

It's really a little bit of knowledge when he has little knowledge, these are obviously two cruisers in the Tang Navy, and he even knows the ship type, this is a third-class cruiser of the Lianzhou class!

Ma Dan, if anyone dares to say that this battleship that has no cargo space at all is a merchant ship, he Guedes dares to twist his head off and use it as a urinal!

Ying Zihua on the side continued to say: "This Fugui and Guangjin, but our Western company spent a lot of money to build, the firepower is more powerful than the cruiser on the navy, and in addition to filling standard ammunition and supplies, it can also load twenty tons!" Escort the fleet to make money without delay, don't you think it's very good! ”

"Twenty tons?" Guedes was already completely speechless, hemp, any merchant ship of this tonnage can carry hundreds of tons of cargo, okay!

Anyway, it's still a warship!

But in the magical country of Datang, where the Western company is also a royal industry, and two cruisers are used as merchant ships, Guedes has no idea except that they have rich money and means to the sky.

I can't hang up the fact that they said before that they could bear the safety of the way, with these two cruisers, oh no, it's the merchant ships with a wide range of resources, and ordinary pirates are no match at all.

At least, this time on the European route, it is estimated that few pirates have the courage to rob a fleet of eight ships, six of which are armed merchant ships, and two are still professional warships.

It's just that he was worried that if he did this, what would those Portuguese think, would they send a naval fleet to intercept it?

Don't meet pirates at that time, but if they are intercepted by warships, then the gains outweigh the losses.

After Guedes told Ying Zihua about his worries, Ying Zihua also showed a trace of embarrassment, and then said: "This thing may happen, doesn't this require Captain Guedes to come, you have been running the sea for many years, you should always know some safe routes, especially those that can avoid the Portuguese blockade!" ”

Hearing this, Guedes sighed, feelings, this is the reason why they found themselves!

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