Huo Shiqi stared and listened to Erya muttering in his ear, frowning while listening, and when Erya finished speaking, the word "Sichuan" had already been saved in the center of his eyebrows. He lowered his eyebrows, held the tea cup in his left hand, held the empty fist in his right hand, and slowly rubbed his thumb against the rim of the cup, and muttered for a long time before shaking his head and saying, "I think, this idea is not good, we can't do this business in the sea......"

Erya has been planning this for several days. She first talked about moving Yue'er, and then found Gao Xiaosan and the two big stewards at home, and several people summed up the gains and losses over and over again; ran to her mother in person, and took the opportunity of her younger brother to sleep and talked to her mother about the benefits and disadvantages, I don't know how much effort and how much energy it took to get her mother to agree with her idea. Originally, I wanted to take advantage of this to invite credit in front of my father, but who knew that what I got was not a compliment but a scoop of cold water on the head, and he pouted: "You haven't listened to me, why don't you let me do this for a living?" ”

"It's not that Dad is deliberately stopping you, but this business really can't be done. You don't understand, this is a ...... deal."

"Why don't I understand?" Erya angrily cut off her father's words and said, "I don't understand, the third brother always understands, right?" He said he could do it, why did you still hold back? If I knew you wouldn't allow it, I wouldn't tell you! She blushed with rage, and turned her head away, pretending not to see her father with the teacup half empty.

The eldest girl rubbed one of her father's sweat coats under the dripping eaves, and when she saw that her sister and father were stiff in less than two sentences, she hated the second girl with her eyes, and gave her a look, asking her to quickly refill the tea soup for her father. Is there anything you can't say well? What's the use of being in a hurry.

Erya pouted at her sister, but still took the teapot, refilled the tea for her father, and climbed one of her father's arms and shouted in a greasy voice: "Dad, listen to what I tell you......"

Huo Shiqi, who was sitting on the small stool, was pulled by her, and the half-hot tea soup was spilled on his hand, so he quickly turned the tea cup and glanced at his daughter: "It's useless to shout 'mother', if you don't allow it, you don't allow it." He took the wet hand towel handed over by the eldest girl and wiped off the tea foam on his hands. You don't understand the power of this business......"

"Little third brother, he understands ......"

"He doesn't understand either!"

“…… Only you know? ”

"I don't understand either!" Huo Shiqi was angry.

The second girl flattened her mouth and stopped talking.

Huo Shiqi looked at her and didn't speak. Erya is also seventeen years old this year, and it is time to find her in-laws, but she will stay at home if she is not high or low, and she will definitely feel uncomfortable. She was impatient with the boredom of the house, and wanted to find something to do, which he could understand; She saw that her mother and sister had a lot of housework to do, and she couldn't care about coming to the warehouse, so she ran to the warehouse to help, which made him very happy. Not to mention whether she can help, or simply help in the warehouse, in short, he is very relieved that it is better than the east to watch the play and the west to make trouble! To be honest, even if Er Ya makes the warehouse upside down, or is in a mess, he won't care. Today's Shanghuo family is not short of this money! But the business of going to sea and taking boats is different from what it used to be. This trade can't be done!

"Why can't you do it?" Erya said unconvinced, "So many people are doing it, and they have been doing it for decades, others can do it, why can't our family do it?" ”

Huo Shiqi furrowed his brows and said slowly: "You don't understand the livelihood in this sea. Gao Xiaosan has the ability, but what he does is business on land, and he is also hearsay. I don't know how to make a living at sea. But I know that the risks are many times greater than on land. You can't just see those maritime merchants pulling out a shipload of goods in exchange for a shipload of money, have you ever thought about whether there are more ships going to sea or more ships coming back? Ten boats go out, and half of them come back, and God blesses them. ”

Erya really didn't speak this time. She knew that her father's words were a bit exaggerated, but Gao Xiaosan and Mr. Yao, the tent housekeeper, both said that the boats that went to sea in Quanzhou were ten when they went out, and three or two less when they came back, which was really common.

"What you think about is nothing more than the great profit of being a maritime merchant. But are all those who go to the sea to do business make money? I don't think so! Huo Shiqi lowered his gaze and continued slowly, "The trading at sea, first, depends on the sky and eats, which is far less stable than the trading on land; The second is the large cost of pressure, buying a ship, hiring a shipwright, hiring a master craftsman, and purchasing goods, which one is not tens of thousands of dollars? You can only go once a year, and if you want to make money, you can only spill a lot of money first; In order not to lose money, ships, goods, craftsmen and shipwrights have to prepare two or three more copies, so that if the sea is shipwrecked by wind and waves, the remaining goods will be sold out in the local area, at least they can keep their money from losing money. ”

At this moment, not only did the eldest girl look at her father in surprise, but even the second girl, who had just inquired about going to the sea from Gao Xiaosan, was also a little confused. She looked at her father in amazement and admiration, and then said, "You, how do you know this?" You...... Have you also worked as a maritime businessman? As soon as she said this, she immediately knew that she had said the wrong thing, covered her head with her hand, shrunk her head and let her father knock on the top of his head with the handle of the fan, and asked, "Then where did you hear that?" ”

"I can occasionally see documents talking about maritime affairs in the newspaper, and I have seen them twice in the military newspaper, and they are also in the books." Huo Shiqi squinted his eyes and shook his fan and said. In fact, most of what he said just now was improvised by him. But he wasn't wrong to say that. If he hadn't paid attention to the articles in Di Bao about the progress of Quanzhou's sea trade, he probably wouldn't have said it so methodically. In other words, he still doesn't know what the "sea" looks like, and he is still seasick, and he has never been on the cargo ship from Ge Pingshun Yanshui to Yanzhou.

Erya said, "Actually, I ...... What the little third brother means is that we are not in a hurry to spend a lot of money, we can run a few times with people to the boat first, and then talk about it when we find out everything along the way. She revealed her bottom in a word. Whether it is her or Yue'er, or Gao Xiaosan and the two chief stewards, they actually don't know how big the sea is, and they don't know what the risks of being a maritime businessman are. They are more likely to be hot-eyed, and others make a lot of money from the sea. A few landlubbers with black eyes sat in Yanzhou City, thousands of miles away from Quanzhou, looking forward to the glorious cause of making money from the sea with great enthusiasm.

Huo Shiqi, who is also a landlubber, did not hear the big mistakes in his daughter's words. However, with his natural shrewdness and insight cultivated by experiencing the world, he pointed out that these were his daughter's delusions: "I go to the sea with others to learn skills, and I don't know what year and month I have to learn." Putting so much money there is neither profitable nor unusable, which in itself is also a loss. "What else do you do with that? It's better to buy land.

"Let's not hurry to let go of the warehouse here, and then throw away a little money and go to Quanzhou to explore the way. When the semicolons from other places are withdrawn, the pack horses that our warehouse can gather are at least forty percent more than now, or we can simply use the money to buy the boats on the Yanshui River, and cover the military losses from Yanzhou to Geping and then to Liuzhen. Erya raised her little face and said confidently. Hmph, she has her dependents!

The daughter was only halfway through speaking, and Huo Shiqi laughed. Throwing away a little money to explore the sea route? It's easy to say, but can it be done? Those sea merchants, who are not the sea journeys that have been explored by generations and decades of money and hard work, how can outsiders like Gao Xiaosan easily listen to the past? Isn't this ruining your own job? Covering the transportation of military rations and ordnance from Yanzhou to Liuzhen is even more whimsical. Yanshan is a few merchants who have lost the army, and the owners are all with Xuntian, what does Liu Ji Warehouse use to squeeze people's houses? The Wei Mansion and the Mu Mansion actually made an exception for Liu Ji's surname Liu. If you really want to squeeze others, it must be Liu Ji himself who is squeezed out! The monk came out and couldn't speak. What's more, he felt that it was impossible for the monk to speak for Liu Ji in this matter.

He originally thought that after Erya listened to his words, he would definitely move out of the monk to fight for a few words. How do you know that Erya doesn't say anything at all.

"Then let's be a maritime merchant." Erya said, "That's what you said, so much money is put away, and it is a loss in itself." The matter of withdrawing the semicolon has been decided, the money is gathered in Shangjing, and the third brother is ready to go to Quanzhou. Listen to you, we don't vote...... After throwing stones and asking for directions, I directly bought or rented two big ships, and then invited one or two clever seafarers to wrap a caravan and go to sea. ”

The daughter said it proudly, but Huo Shiqi was taken aback. How much does it cost to buy a ship, hire people, and prepare goods?

"The warehouse now has no debts, and it can be sold for 6,000 yuan with pack horses and houses. The mother nodded, and took out 600 yuan, and Yue'er could still take out more than 3,000 yuan. That's almost 10,000. If the sixth uncle is also willing, he can at least make a thousand. "The second girl counted it as carefully as she did with her fingers, and finally raised her face and said proudly, "Twelve thousand times, let's go back to the sea next time!" ”

"No way!" Huo Shiqi hurriedly spoke. He must stop his daughter's crazy moves. He couldn't watch Erya smash the money into the water! It's a real smash into the water! Moreover, as far as he knows, there seem to be only two trade routes to the sea in Quanzhou, to the north to Goryeo and Dongwai, and to the south to Dayue and Zhenla, both of which are familiar roads. Two roads and four places, the turf everywhere has been stepped on densely by the Da Zhao people, where are how many opportunities to make money left? It's better to guard the warehouse and do some land business honestly.

"What about Da Yue and Zhen La? And then west from Chenla? Seeing that her father frowned, the second girl narrowed her eyes and laughed. It seems that there are places that her father doesn't know. "Those Hu people in Quanzhou, where did they come from? And those dark Kunlun slaves brought by Xihu, where did they find them? She took out her purse, carefully took out a few thin, messily drawn silks, and spread them on the small table. Dad, what do you think this is? ”

Huo Shiqi glanced at Bo Juan. He could see at a glance that the thin silk was not a painting, but a map, which he had seen a lot in the Admiral's Palace. He immediately recognized that this was not a map used in the army. The landscape on the thin silk is more crude and simple than the map used by the Qiantou Guard, I don't know how much, and it is a little stronger than children's graffiti, it seems that it is just marking the direction of mountains and rivers. Some mountains and rivers are surrounded by lines, while others have nothing but blank space. In addition to a few black lines of unknown reason, there are also sparsely painted several large black spots between the mountains and rivers divided into several large clumps on the thin silk, which may indicate that there is a castle there. There are also inexplicable lines next to the landscape city, which are long and short, and they are like earthworms moving and crawling sideways on the silk...... He looked at a few thin silks, and the things painted on each of them seemed to be the same thing, but if he looked closely, there were differences: the mountains and rivers were all different, the appearance of the "earthworms" and the places they climbed were also completely different. On two maps, in the blank space between the large masses of mountains and rivers, there are also things like snakes or goshawks......

Although he speculated that it might be Yutu, he couldn't be sure if it was or not. First, he has never seen this kind of map, and second, the imperial court does not allow the private collection of maps. He couldn't help but ask, "What is this?" ”

"Sea map."

"Haiyu map?"

"Sea map." Erya said proudly, "The sea map from Zhenla to the west!" ”