Tonghai Yuguo!

These four big characters seem to be very simple, but in the Longwu Dynasty, these four words were related to the use of the imperial court, and when Zheng Chenggong resisted the Qing Dynasty, his military needs were probably dependent on Tonghai Yuguo and overseas trade. It is precisely because of this that the Ming Dynasty after the Xingqian Dynasty naturally understands the significance of the Tonghai Yuguo, from the Northern Expedition after the "Tonghai Yuguo, thought it was military", and then to the current "Tonghai Yuguo", the prosperity of maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty in the four years of Xingqian has far exceeded the past.

The prosperity of overseas trade has also led to the development of Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Haizhou and Tianjin, these cities have prospered because of overseas trade, and among the many ports, although Ningbo Port is not large, but thanks to the geographical advantages - the lake silk and tea in the south of the Yangtze River can be shipped directly from Ningbo, which makes this port stand out among many ports.

Every year after October, when the weather turns colder, the port is busier than in the past. This is the busiest time of the year, because of the monsoon, it is more suitable to sail south after September, when the boat is the fastest, the shortest and the cheapest fare. Commodities often choose this time to go to sea.

When many people first come to some places, they are often surprised by the liveliness of the port, on the sea surface of dozens of square miles in front of the port, there are hundreds of sailboats of different sizes parked, both soft sails and hard sails, now in Daming, although the soft sail has a lot of advantages, but in the offshore navigation, the shipbuilder still chooses the hard sail, because compared with the longitudinal sail, it is more suitable for the changeable wind direction along the coast of the Ming Dynasty. The hundreds of ships waiting to sail out on the sea, from a distance, the scene is spectacular, near the merchant ships, on the sampans, the sailors and the wharf are sweating and loading the sailing materials, and on the wharf, countless Lifu are loading and unloading goods, goods from all over the world, will soon be taken to the world by these merchant ships.

On the docks, the merchants shouted loudly in all sorts of languages, and they occasionally quarreled over business disputes.

But on the wharf, the most attractive thing is probably the rich people in light clothes, surrounded by domestic slaves who serve them - in fact, the Ming people are forbidden to sell themselves into slavery, and the violators are not only exiled by the self-sellers, but also exiled by the buyers, and the Chinese people can still find loopholes in them - I don't know who invented the indentured labor, and obtained the disguised domestic slaves with a long-term labor contract that lasted for 30 or even 50 years.

Of course, now that the Ming Dynasty is in its prime, there are always a limited number of people who sell themselves into slavery, so these rich people now have a new channel. Although it was forbidden for the people to sell themselves into slavery, it was not forbidden to buy domestic slaves, so they bought overseas slaves one after another, and among the many overseas slaves, those white slaves who came from North African pirates and plundered from the countries of Europe and the Mediterranean were often the most popular, and the price was the highest, even as high as a hundred taels, precisely because the number of Annam slaves, Zhenranu and Goryeo slaves was scarce, so they were precious. It has become a manifestation of the rich showing off their wealth.

Just like now, the shipowners on this dock are all accompanied by as few as five or six people, and as many as ten Western slaves and maids, who are wearing the clothes of the Han family, waiting for their masters in front of them, in fact, compared to other women who have been plundered by pirates, they are undoubtedly lucky. After all, if they stay in North Africa, young women are often molested in plain sight and coerced into converting to paganism. Their only function was to produce small slaves for the magnates and sultans. And here, they often find that they are not slaves at all, and even have some degree of freedom.

Of course, no matter how grateful they are to God for taking care of them and allowing them to live their present life and not be slaves to the infidels. But in fact, they are just the slaves and maids of the rich and wealthy of the Ming Dynasty.

And on the wharf, the most pitiful group of people were the people standing behind the wooden fence, most of them in rags, looking blankly at the sailing ships on the sea, they were of all ages, old and young, the only thing they had in common was that they were either criminals or beggars, and they would soon be exiled to all parts of the South Seas, where they would serve their sentences as exiles, and after serving their sentences, they would settle there.

Now in the Ming Dynasty, there are almost no prisons, and compared to prisons, overseas may be the real prisons.

However, there are still some ordinary people on the dock who are ready to leave their homeland to seek a living, either because of their poor family or because of their desire for wealth, all of them are pinning their hopes on overseas, on the strange and bizarre road to wealth. These people were often unable to afford to pay for the ship and had to negotiate with the shipowner to act as sailors to offset the fares.

But now, they seldom do this, they go around the docks, asking for all kinds of news, and there is no longing for their loved ones and pain on their faces, only a longing, a desire for wealth, and of course, a determination to do so.

In this bustling crowd, Wen Yujia, who was dressed in a white-washed miner's uniform, looked a little dazed, he was carrying his luggage, although he had the unique aggressiveness of a young man in his eyes, but his expression was dazed. Looking at the unusually busy and lively dock in front of him, he felt not surprise, but panic, and he didn't know where to go next.

In fact, Wen Yu's father did not agree to him going to sea, but he still quietly left home on the day he got his salary, with a simple festival, and ten taels of silver, and after spending all the way, now he only has less than 4 taels of silver.

What's next?

There are no fellow villagers, no friends, everything is on your own.

But how can you rely on yourself?

"Well, there must be a chance, didn't the newspaper say that now those princes are recruiting people everywhere at the docks!"

Although he was a little nervous, Wen Yujia still kept saying this to himself in his heart, constantly cheering himself up, but the dock in front of him confused him, because he could only see the mountains of goods inside, but he couldn't see any so-called "scrambling to pick up people" scenes.

However, despite the trepidation in his heart, his eyes, and the eyes of many people on the dock who wanted to wander overseas like him, couldn't help but turn to the other end of the port, compared to the busyness of this dock, the trestle seemed a little deserted, only a group of sergeants in green uniforms stood with guns, cutting the inn and the nearby dock from the busyness.

Green military uniforms!

This is not the color of Daming's military uniform.

In the berth area on both sides of the 200 fathoms long trestle, there are more than 30 sailing ships of various sizes, including two three-masted cruisers, which are quietly moored in the berth area. It seems that the bustle of the outside world has not the slightest connection with there.

However, the seemingly deserted dock is actually very lively, but it is more organized, sailors and laborers carry all kinds of goods onto the ship, and occasionally, people can see the cannons that are lifted onto the ship by wooden cranes - several coastal defense guns weighing several tons, which do not need to be loaded into wooden boxes.

"Be careful, be careful, that's a 56-pound cannon specially approved by His Majesty, and the royal city will be directed at them in the future!" If you fall, you will cut off your head, and you will not be able to compensate the king! ”

From time to time, you can hear someone shouting loudly in the official language, although the person is cautious in his speech, but he has a high-minded appearance, domineering there to point fingers, and even reprimand from time to time, and their shrill voices and beardless appearances on their faces easily reveal their identity - inner eunuchs.

Although the eunuchs have been abolished, there are still many eunuchs in the capital, and the clan has allowed these poor eunuchs to find a livelihood - those clans often bring a few eunuchs after entering the country, and dozens of eunuchs, it seems that for them, the eunuch is a symbol that shows the identity of the king, perhaps according to the Ming law, eunuchs are no longer allowed to castrate, but it does not prevent them from using those eunuchs who have been driven out of the palace.

As a result, these eunuchs who were originally expelled from the palace and were hungry and cold suddenly turned into the chief managers of various kings and lords of the country, handling all the affairs of the inner government for them, not to mention, these eunuchs can occasionally come in handy.

Of course, there is only one generation of eunuchs, unless they are willing to spend a lot of money to buy eunuchs from North Korea and other places, otherwise, according to the "Da Ming Law", they must not castrate their beloved.

"Brother, you also want to defect to the vassal states?"

Just when Wen Yu's family was standing there a little unexplained, a man in his twenties stood beside him at some point.

"I don't know if my brother is ......"

Wen Yujia hurriedly saluted.

"Okay, you're the same, you also want to find the princes to go over, you see......"

The man pointed to the people on the dock and said,

"Anyone who doesn't work here, half of them have such thoughts, and everyone doesn't want to live a good life!"

Live a good life!

For ordinary people, they naturally yearn for a rich day, but not everyone has that opportunity, let alone everyone can seize it.

"So what? The big guys are all thinking about going to sea to beg for a living, but this begging is different from begging, brother, look at you at most 18, brother, I say to you, this vassal state is a person, as long as it is a person, not crippled or crippled, they will take you over, but the point is, what did you do? ”

The man in his twenties said as he stared at the pier over there.

"Brother, when you get to that place, do you want to be a lord or a commoner?"

Wen Yujia looked at the person who came over to talk to him in surprise, as if he didn't know why he asked like this.

"Do you have any silver? If you have money, go to do something with my brother and me, and I promise that when the time comes, our brother will eat and drink spicy food! ”