Chapter 207: Going Down to Jiangnan and Arms Trading

Since Jiajing banned the sea, the shipbuilding industry on the bright side of the Ming Dynasty has been in a state of comprehensive shrinkage, and the sea has not been given up, and a ghost ship has been built. Naturally, a ship on a river cannot sail on the sea, because the strength and structure are not exactly the same.

The Cao troop transport ships in Tianjin Wei and Dengzhou were all ships of about 200 materials, and the number of soldiers and grain was not very large.

There are countless private traders on the sea, and there are also fishing boats secretly fishing outside, and the shipbuilding industry must still exist, but it is not living in the sun. Although Jiang Feng's sphere of influence is now in the Dengzhou area, his eyes and ears are all over the underground world of Shandong.

After spending money to hire the ships of the Xia family to block the sea passage of Shandong's salt farms, although the effect was good, and the Xia family, which was also a maritime merchant and a pirate maritime armed group, was armed at sea in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Minyue, and other places where pirates were everywhere and pirates were rampant, and when facing the salt barons and ships on the sea in Shandong, they were naturally invincible.

However, such a good effect has left a shadow in Jiang Feng's heart, although Jiang Feng and the Xia family have a good cooperative relationship, but just like Jiang Feng has always wanted to annex the Xia family's fleet, Jiang Feng has never felt that the Xia family is not greedy for his own private port and more and more money, so it is another form of confidant, so when the Xia family's fleet is cruising on the sea surface of Shandong. Jiang Feng's subordinates closely monitored the Jade Tower, and as long as there was the slightest problem outside, they were ready to kidnap people.

Moreover, Jiang Feng has been urging Liu Twelve and Liu Thirteen, who used to be on Weishan Island, to use their old connections to find shipyards and pirates for private ships in Shandong, and the strength he has now is only a dozen medium-sized sea ships, and the dozen or so sailors on the ship, that is, hundreds of people who can be used at sea, and God knows how many nails and ears of the Xia family are among these people.

The local bandits in Shandong are not inferior to other places, but here they are all local strongmen, belonging to the kind of bandits and robbers who go out to sea from a certain place in a small boat and then go ashore to loot, and their nature is not fundamentally different from the local green forest road.

Therefore, the shipbuilding industry of the underground society is also relatively shrinking, and the largest ship that can be built is more than a hundred materials, which is a unit for calculating the displacement of ships in ancient times, and Jiang Feng does not have any essential concept.

However, when he and Zhao Xiucai and Tie Dan were in the vicinity of Tianjin and Dengzhou, and when they bought sea intestines, the ships they took from the guard to transport supplies were capable of carrying dozens of people, and if they were carrying goods, they were pitiful, this was a ship of one hundred materials, but the smallest fleet of the Xia family was also two hundred materials. Even the ten ships in his hands are all ships of about 300 materials, so this small boat of more than 100 materials will be of ghost use.

As for buying it in the south through the channels of the Xia family, it is even more impossible. Looking at the increasingly powerful strength and ferocious methods of Jiang Feng's subordinates, the Xia family was also worried that they had gained a foothold in the north with great difficulty, and had made quite a huge profit, if Jiang Feng had such power in his hands, he didn't even have to think about it, he would soon be kicked out, so every time Jiang Feng brought up this topic, Xia Cuiyu was giggling and fooling the past.

But this time Jiang Feng has already made up his mind, he must go and build up his water power, this opinion is dissuaded by everyone around, even including Liu Twelve, who is quite extraordinary, in the eyes of these people, although the trade at sea is lucrative, it is not fundamental after all.

Jiang Feng was dizzy, he never thought that these of his subordinates would actually persuade him that now that he has the profit of illegal salt, he should gradually give up the trade at sea, salt is a big profit and stable, the wind and waves at sea are eyeless, too irregular, it is better to gradually dilute it. Such a view is simply nonsense in Jiang Feng's eyes, don't you know that putting your eggs in one basket is a dangerous situation.

There is a suggestion that makes him quite excited, Yanzhou has coal and iron, and Liu Twelve's suggestion that he develop forces over there is quite tempting.

However, the imperial court appointed someone as the commander of a certain guard, and if the commander could act at will, wouldn't it be a joke, but there happened to be a quite suitable reason at this time.

Shandong political history Liu Shunhua was transferred to Zhejiang to serve as the political history, because of various reasons, although it is not said that people take tea and cool, but the scene is also more embarrassing, and the forbidden sea is naturally not able to take the waterway. The only way to do this is to take the Grand Canal, or to go south along the landing route.

Liufu is now also a big business, two or three hundred servant families, some of the luggage is soft, if you go on the road like this, it must be the object of coveting by many outlaws, not to mention the current Lunan, known as the "Changyi Army"

A large group of bandits are raging. Presumably needs the protection of people, at this time, Jiang Feng, who is a military general and Liu Shunhua's son-in-law, stood up "decisively".

said that he wanted to escort his father-in-law from Shandong to Zhejiang, and no one would object to such a reasonable request, and soon this request was approved.

At the same time, Jiang Feng's wife Liu Fangrui missed her father, and took the Su family sisters to prepare to go south with Liu Shunhua, and then returned to Shandong to live in Zhejiang for a period of time.

Jiang Feng took away sixty Tie Ding and ten hunters, including Yang Shi and Liu Shisan, all of whom had rotated at sea on a regular basis, and lived on the water, so they were naturally more adapted to the climate of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River. Among the backbone of his subordinates, Zhang Liang stayed to sit in the Qianhu Office of Yantai Mountain, the soldiers and horses of the Jiangfeng Dengzhou battalion were all there, Yang Da was in the left guard of Dengzhou, Zhao Xiucai and Liu Twelve were all moved to Zhuangzi outside the city, and the order to Zhang Liang and Yang Da was that if there was any need to send troops, as long as Zhao Xiucai and Liu Twelve summed it up, they could act.

Then Jiang Feng gave Zhang Liang a private order that if there was anything wrong, Zhang Liang could do it himself in a hurry, and now he left forty iron dings, all of whom were already middle and low-level officers. They are all hardcore trained by Jiang Feng and Zhang Liang when they were in Beijing, and they naturally know who to obey and who to be loyal to.

Of course, Liu Fangrui misses her father and wants to follow Liu Shunhua to Zhejiang to take up her post, and gets Jiang Feng's strong support, and Jiang Feng is also unwilling to leave flaws and weaknesses there when he leaves Dengzhou City.

Around May, Jiang Feng and Liu Shunhua and Weng Son-in-law were both making all kinds of preparations, taking their families and Dingkou to take the official boat on the canal all the way south. The interesting thing is that Liu Shunhua has a large number of Dingkou, and it is the political history of a province, and it is normal for the entourage and the salute carried by more than a dozen official ships, and the number of official ships used by Jiang Feng is not less than that of Liu Shunhua.

After Huang Ping and Jining's river officials set up a feast to entertain them, Liu Shunhua and Jiang Feng and their party set out on their way south.

Dengzhou and Jinan Prefecture border is quite a barren place, can be called a poor mountain and bad water, although there are also official roads here, but it has always been sparsely populated, everyone knows this sinister terrain, too easy to be targeted by the people of Xiangmaqiang, at that time it was a big deal.

In the mountains not far from this mountain road, it is indeed a strongman's cottage in it, and now the famous Chen Deaf on the Shandong Green Forest Road, once upon a time, was entrenched in the vicinity for a period of time, but it is also a matter of the Zhengde period, and then the power of Chen Deaf was greater, that is, he moved to a place closer to the rich town, and it was naturally deserted here.

That is, some bold hunters and people who go into the mountains to collect medicine are resting in this deserted village, but these days are very different, people who want to come here to settle down temporarily are far away and find that there is a blue flag hanging on the bare flagpole, a piece of blue cloth is not clear what the force is, but those hunters and medicine collectors all know, since the flag is hung out, do not approach rashly, this is the warning of the other party, people who can be in this kind of deep mountains and old forests are careful with each other. Otherwise, life is in trouble.

There was a caravan carrying goods passing by on the official road, the merchants and men of the caravan were wearing coarse cloth clothes, obviously not trafficking in any valuable goods, these people walked very slowly, the caravan people were cautious, maybe to guard against possible dangers, maybe they were really tired and wanted to rest. Walking to the place surrounded by mountains, the leader of the caravan shouted, and the surrounding guys stopped to wipe their sweat and pack up their things, and some took out hay to feed the horses, if a person who has many years of experience in walking the trade route sees it, he must be scolded, I don't know whether he is dead or alive, isn't this sitting there waiting for the bandits to come and rob?

There were no people on the road, only scattered people or villagers who were sitting on the side of the road and resting with surprised eyes, and soon, as far as the line of sight could reach, except for this caravan, there was no one to be seen on the road. It probably took less than a stick of incense.

The caravan disappeared, and no one would have noticed it anyway.

Half a day later, in the abandoned cottage in the mountains, the caravan appeared, and the goods carried were spread on the ground, and the people who had been waiting in the cottage for two days were counting and receiving there. The leader of the caravan had a great conversation with a man there:

"According to the previous agreement, you take an inventory, this time there are 100 more knives than last time, and 50 foot bows, by the way, remember to tell you Boss Chen, the weapon is given to you for use, don't be so careful!"