Chapter 355: A Thousand Sails Race

On the vast sea, layers of waves are surging like mountains. The summer breeze blows across the sea, making waves and blowing sails. The great force pushed the ship fast.

This is a huge fleet, with more than fifty ships, large and small. Among these ships, the largest ones are as high as five feet. It is nearly 20 zhang long, and the small one can only carry 100 stones.

This is the Tang fleet that started from Dengzhou and went to Dongying to trade. These big ships are all Tang Army sailors, but the small boats are those ships of private merchants. Before the weapons such as slapsticks and ramming horns on the big ship were removed, under the urging of their superiors, they were loaded with goods, and together with those civilian ships, they formed a huge fleet and headed for Dongying.

When this fleet cleaved the waves, under the guidance of experienced fishermen, it lasted three months and arrived on the Kyushu Island in Dongying, but the panicked expressions of those Dongying people made Tang Jun stunned for a moment, and then burst into laughter.

The current commander of the Tang Dynasty Navy Division is Zhang Daliang, the general. And the commander of this fleet is also a veteran, named Xu Cheng, who is now in his fifties, and was born as a water pirate before, so he knows everything about this water thing. When Li Daliang was the commander of the navy, he was just a general who commanded a small fleet of five ships, and now he has been mixed up for a long time, and he is still in that position.

By the time Li Shimin issued an edict to implement the strategy of sea trade, this veteran general became the commander of this mixed fleet of officials and civilians with his outstanding skills and knowledge of the sea weather. As for Xu Cheng's deputy, it was a young man who had just graduated from the Military Academy, named Liu Renliang.

As for this Liu Renliang, when Xu Cheng saw him, he was slightly disdainful of this young man who had just graduated from the Military Academy. Look at his skin, it's much whiter than himself, where is he a master who can do things?

Liu Renliang knew about Xu Cheng's contempt, but he knew that he couldn't convince this general born of a water thief with just one mouth, and he had to rely on his hands and brains, and only by making deeds that could impress Xu Cheng would this General Xu look up to himself.

Therefore, Liu Renliang has been conscientious, taking care of this fleet up and down, keeping this fleet in good order, and applying the knowledge learned in the academy to practice. For example, flag language.

Flying different flags on the mast indicates different commands, and sailors on deck wave large flags in their hands and make different gestures, which is also an order. With this flag language and his usual performance, Liu Renliang finally got Xu Cheng's approval.

In addition to Kyushu, the fleet sailed along the coastline, Shikoku and Honshu also went one by one, and even met the emperor of Toei.

When the fleet heard that Toei had called their emperor "Emperor", they were filled with anger. The Emperor of the Tang Dynasty called the "Son of Heaven", but the emperor of this country of projectiles was called the "Emperor". Where is this Datang?

At that moment, some angry soldiers shouted that they wanted to kill the Dongying Imperial Palace, and hold the so-called "Emperor" in front of the steps.

In the end, Liu Renliang and Xu Cheng suppressed these soldiers and prevented them from being so impulsive, but instructed them to pay attention to drawing coastline maps and collecting information about Dongying when sailing in peacetime. When the soldiers heard this, they were overjoyed, knowing that before every battle, they must first collect the information of the other party. Liu Renliang gave such an order, clearly with the idea of attacking Dongying.

While the gathering of intelligence was carried out secretly by the soldiers, Liu Renliang and the others were doing business with the various shogunates and emperors of Japan.

As Zhang Yunwen expected, the value of these goods shipped from the Central Plains or goods to Dongying has increased by at least ten times, especially for things such as pen, ink, paper, inkstone and books, and Dongying people are willing to pay 20 or 30 times the price to buy.

When the goods were sold, Liu Renliang made a rough estimate, and he actually earned a profit of 600,000 yuan in sea trade, which really made him staggered.

I took out some of the money and bought it in Dongying. Especially gold and silver, these guys came back with two full ships. If Zhang Yunwen is here, he will definitely stop the actions of these soldiers, when the common currency of the Tang Dynasty is copper coins, these guys buy gold on a large scale, aren't they afraid that there will be more gold and it will be worthless?

In this way, the fleet took advantage of the fierce sea breeze in summer, crossed the East China Sea, and returned to the Central Plains.

"Your Majesty!"

At the court meeting, Wen Yanbo, who was in charge of the Tiandu Branch, said excitedly: "This time, the fleet has transported back a total of 5,000 catties of gold, 13,000 catties of silver, and countless Dongying specialties, and a total profit of 700,000 yuan!" ”

As soon as this number came out, the ministers were in an uproar. At the beginning, Li Shimin said that sea trade made money, but he didn't expect it to be so profitable, it was simply a cash cow! Those ministers who had families behind them couldn't help muttering that they were waiting for the court meeting to disperse, and then asked their families to organize a fleet and go to sea for trade.

Even Li Shimin was taken aback: "Wen Aiqing, how much did you just say?" ”

"Your Majesty, 700,000 Guan!"

Li Shimin was stunned for a moment, then coughed, and laughed: "I saw the huge profits of this sea trade, so I ordered the sea trade, and now it seems that the order I made is not wrong!" ”

The ministers immediately bowed down at the same time and said, "Your Majesty Shengming! ”

Li Shimin laughed a few times proudly, but his eyes were looking at Zhang Yunwen. If Zhang Yunwen hadn't tried his best to guarantee it at the beginning, I'm afraid that even Li Shimin would have given up this decree because of his own suspicions and the doubts of his ministers!

"Okay, since this number, the profit of the sea trade is so huge, then I will order to expand its scale, this time not only to Dongying, but also to Goryeo, Silla states, all countries that can trade with my Tang Dynasty can be included in the scope of trade objects!"

When the news of the huge profits of sea trade spread throughout the Tang Dynasty, those families who had hesitated couldn't hold back and began to build big ships and prepare to go to sea.

For a time, from Shandong to Jiangnan, countless big ships were waiting for them.

At this time, Li Shimin was discussing the matter of Gaochang with Li Jing and other senior military generals in the staff courtyard.

I only heard Li Shimin say: "Ladies and gentlemen, I once excluded the mission from going to Gaochang and proposed to the king of Gaochang to buy cotton seeds, but my Tang mission was attacked in Gaochang!" Come, the specific things will be explained by Zhang Yunwen in detail! ”

Zhang Yunwen stood up, coughed lightly, cleared his throat, and detailed what Wang Xuance and the others had encountered from their arrival in Gaochang Hu, and finally, said generously: "Gaochang was originally a subject country of my Tang Dynasty, but now he is attacking my Tang Mission, but fortunately, my Tang soldiers are desperately breaking through the siege, so there is no end to this!" Gaochang Ko Wentai's behavior is really infuriating, so the minister suggested that a large army be sent to destroy Gaochang! ”

As soon as Zhang Yunwen's words fell, all the generals immediately stood up one after another, saying that they were willing to lead the troops to the battle and completely destroy Gaochang.

Watching these muscular generals compete to behave in front of Li Shimin, Zhang Yunwen moved his eyes to Li Jing.

And Li Shimin's eyes were also looking at Li Jing.

The gray-haired Li Jing pondered for a moment, and finally said: "The minister agrees to send troops to attack Gaochang!" ”

Zhang Yunwen was overjoyed, and was about to say something when he suddenly heard a sharp voice from outside the hall: "The old slave took the liberty to disturb, and I hope that Your Majesty will forgive you!" ”

Suddenly, the hall became quiet.

Li Shimin frowned and said, "If you have anything to say, hurry up!" ”

Zhang Yunwen also complained in his heart that this waiter was uninteresting, and such a warm atmosphere was interrupted by him!

I only heard the chamberlain say: "Your Majesty, an official from the Investigation Institute came outside, saying that there was an extremely important matter to find Master Zhang Yunwen Zhang, so he forced the old slave to come and report!" Well, I hope your majesty will forgive me! ”

Hearing the news, everyone immediately focused their attention on Zhang Yunwen.

Zhang Yunwen was secretly angry in his heart, which guy in the investigation institute was so ignorant, didn't he see Lao Tzu in a meeting?

At that moment, he hugged his fists to everyone in the hall and decided to go out and teach that guy a lesson first.

When I came to the outside of the hall, I saw a figure pacing anxiously. This person is Chen Quankang.

"Your Excellency!" As soon as he saw Zhang Yunwen, Chen Quankang greeted him, "My lord, there is news from the Western Regions!" As he spoke, he shook the paper in his hand a few times.

Zhang Yunwen took the paper, swept it roughly, and suddenly let out a loud laugh: "Haha, God really helps me Datang!" This Wang Xuance is really a generation of columnists! ”

Chen Quankang knew that the matter was very important, and after handing over the note, he disappeared automatically.

Zhang Yunwen rushed into the hall with a note: "Your Majesty, great joy!" ”

Li Shimin had already heard his wild laughter and yelling outside, and when he heard this, he smiled and said, "What's the joy?" ”

Zhang Yunwen immediately handed over the note and said: "After Gaochang King Lu Wentai attacked my Tang Mission, he actually sent troops to attack my Tang Dynasty subordinate country Yanqi, who would have expected that the Tang Mission would flee to Yanqi. Wang Xuance, the envoy of the mission, heard that Gao Chang was coming, entered Qiuci alone, borrowed 3,000 Qiuci soldiers, and 5,000 Yan Qi soldiers with the assistance of the Tang Dynasty soldiers, flanked 5,000 Gao Chang soldiers, and won a complete victory, killing 800 enemies, capturing 1,000, and the rest fled! ”

As soon as they heard the news, everyone couldn't help but take a breath at the same time. They knew about this Tang mission, and there were only thirty-seven people left. The Yanqi State has been under the oppression of Gaochang for a long time, and its military combat strength is really inferior to that of Gaochang's soldiers. Unexpectedly, he defeated the enemy who came from Gao Chang. Of course, a discerning person can see at a glance that the key to defeating Gao Chang is the three thousand turtle soldiers brought by Wang Xuance.

"Haha, this Wang Xuance really has the talent of Su Qin and Zhang Yi, he is really a talent when he concludes diplomatic relations and maneuvers around the countries! When he returns, I will reward him well! After reading the news on the paper, Li Shimin smiled with a smile.

"In this way, this Gaochang soldier is not to worry! If Your Majesty gives me 5,000 soldiers and horses, the old man will definitely be able to destroy Gaochang! An old general patted his chest and spoke.

"The old minister only needs three thousand!"

"The old minister only needs two thousand!"

……

In the hall, the atmosphere began to warm up again!