The dawn dawned, the sky broke, and the earth was shrouded in a faint mist, like a silver veil.

Cochin, Ha Long Bay.

Known as Guilin on the Sea, there are more than 3,000 islands of all sizes with beautiful scenery.

It is said that dragons were once seen landing here, so it was called Ha Long Bay.

Dragonstone Island, once the Stone Island of Dragonfall.

Li Shimin rolled over, walked out of the stern, stood on the deck and stretched.

On the deck, a group of chain-bound slaves were wiping the deck under the whipping of sailors.

The waves are undulating and waterfowl are flying.

The scenery here is really beautiful, the sea and sky are colorful, and the stone islands are lined up, which is really infinite.

"It's really like the landscape of Guilin, when I passed through Guilin, I was amazed by the scenery of the mountains and rocks, but I couldn't imagine that there was such a place on the sea of Jiaozhi, this is really a fairyland." Whitebeard's first mate looked at the sea and said.

"It is indeed a good place, it is said that this used to be the place where the ancient Yue people lived, but now it is full of Tan people."

"Captain, Ning Changzhen is dead, and the imperial court officials and troops have also recovered the Ningyue Hepu land, so it's inconvenient for us to go over again." The first mate said with some regret, these days they used Xialong Bay as their base camp, haunted the coast of Qinjiang Bay in the Beibu Gulf, landed in various places, and robbed happily, not to mention how happy. But now that Li Jing has led the official army to recover the land of the rebels, it is not very convenient for them, the Sunset Pirates, who are flying the black skull flag, to go over any longer.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, we have robbed a lot of people in the past two months, Hepu pearls, Ningyue rhino horns, Yulin elephant tusks, as well as longan, longan, gold and silver, spices, porcelain craftsmen, etc., enough."

Luo Yi gave Li Shimin a thousand men and horses, and gave him more than a dozen boats, Li Shimin led the fleet to the sea, and in the past two months, rampant along the coast of Qinjiang Bay, and also divided his troops into several routes, went deep inland, attacked Ning's porcelain workshop, gold and silver mines, and attacked his textile workshop.

A lot of money, gold and silver were robbed, craftsmen also grabbed a lot, and a lot of slang barbarians were also captured, and now Shilong Island is full of their spoils, Li Shimin feels that it is enough, even if Luo Yi comes in person, it is estimated that there may not be such rich results.

"With so many things, should we all ship them back to Sunset City?" First Officer.

He is an old man with gray hair, who has been running boats at sea for thirty years, and can be said to be a person who knows if there will be a storm when he smells the sea breeze.

"The craftsmen of the gold and silver mines, the craftsmen of the textile yards, and the craftsmen of the porcelain kilns were sent back first, and the slaves were also sent three thousand. As for the rest, we don't need to send it, we can take it to Song Pingcheng in Jiaozhi County to trade, and we can also go to Nanhai County to buy a bigger ship, just buy a treasure ship like the royal caravan. Li Shimin said.

The first mate was a little excited.

He had seen that kind of treasure ship twice from afar, the hull full of streamlined shapes, the high stern, the several decks, especially the divine cannon and the winch crossbow equipped with the ship, it was really not daring to be next to the side, and the bow of each treasure ship was also equipped with an extremely majestic and majestic statue of the bow of the gods, and a hideous ramming angle underneath.

A pirate ship like theirs will shatter if it touches it.

"It is said that a big treasure ship can cost 8,000 times." The first mate said excitedly.

"Eight thousand? That's a big treasure ship that is not matched with anything, and the materials are definitely not as good as the royal merchant fleet, and it is estimated that you have to queue up, if you want to live on the ship, there is still no reduction, at least you have to start with 10,000 yuan, and it is estimated that you have to add money to withdraw the ship. "Li Shimin knows very well the strength of this kind of treasure ship, Luo Cheng's royal merchant fleet, where is it just a merchant fleet, they are in the name of the merchant fleet, but in fact it is a royal navy fleet.

"As long as we can buy a treasure ship, 10,000 yuan is not expensive, and we are not short of money now." The first mate grinned and said that they had indeed made a big windfall in the past two months.

Raiding a few Ning's gold and silver mines, not only robbed a lot of craftsmen and workers, but also robbed a lot of melted and cast gold and silver ingots, this thing is valuable, although the gold and silver fineness in Lingnan is almost good, it is no problem to refine a little bit of silver for 1,500 or 600 copper coins, and one or two gold can also be exchanged for five taels of silver.

If you are bold and mint some gold dragon and silver tiger coins privately, it will be even more incredible.

However, now the imperial court is extremely strict with the investigation of private minting, and the imperial court gold dragon and silver tiger coins are not easy to counterfeit, Li Shimin does not need to mint counterfeit coins, he only needs to transport the gold and silver to Jiaozhi Port, and naturally there will be a large number of merchants to trade with him, no matter how much, they can all be eaten.

What's more, he still has so many slaves in his hands.

And the boxes of rhino horns, ivory, hawksbill turtles, and pearls that were snatched were extremely valuable, as well as spices.

Pepper, cardamom, galan incense, sandalwood, ambergris, agarwood, yellow incense, these things are not native to the Beibu Gulf, but Li Shimin robbed, in the Beibu Gulf area, these spices, like gold and silver, are used as hard currency, used as trading currency, and their source is in the south of the south of the cochin Linyi, which is the hometown of Kunlunnu, in the depths of the South China Sea, there are many large islands and small islands, and those islands have these spices produced.

The price of spices is extremely high, Li Shimin was only a noble child of the Central Plains, he knew the value of these spices, such as pepper, which was the most valuable goods in the hands of merchants in the Western Regions.

In order to make more money, some Hu merchants even mixed silver dust into the pepper to make a fake, and used the silver dust to pass off as the pepper, but they know how expensive the pepper is.

It is said that in Tessie's Flin (Eastern Rome), pepper was fourpence a pound, white pepper was sevenpence a pound, and ginger was six pence a pound. One pound of pepper is equivalent to a skilled craftsman's wages for a week.

Pepper, cinnamon, and ginger are even directly tax deductible.

Pepper, cloves, and nutmeg are not only spices, but have even become symbols of power and status in the West.

Since Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty opened the Western Regions in China, merchants from the Western Regions began to transport all kinds of precious merchants to Chang'an for sale. At that time, the merchants of the Western Regions, the spices transported, in fact, were still produced in India and Indonesia and other regions, but the spices at that time were mainly transported to Tianzhu first, and then along the Silk Road to the Western Regions, and then through the Hexi Corridor to Chang'an, Guanzhong, this road is very difficult to walk, and the cost has increased greatly, making the spices extremely valuable in the Central Plains.

This is something that can only be enjoyed by noble families.

The batch of spices in Li Shimin's hands actually came from the sea, and with the strengthening of navigation technology, there have been merchants from the Central Plains who have ventured to the South Seas by boat, and even to Tianzhu and the Persian Gulf. Hu merchants also began to come along the routes of the Central Plains maritime merchants.

Spices naturally came from the sea, but the price still hasn't changed much.

"I heard that now the royal merchant fleet makes several trips to the Persian Gulf every year, almost monopolizing the trade of spices to the Central Plains, I don't know how much money I make." The first mate said with envy.

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