The next day it was lively, and the king of Champa sent an envoy, with the equivalent of the secretary of state, that is, the minister dealing with foreign affairs, to the port to ask for a meeting with the head of the caravan.

Ruan Xiaoqi and Hu Cheng met with the foreign minister of Champa on the warship, and as soon as the minister came up, he shouted: "We protest, we condemn, condemn your unreasonable acts." ”

Ruan Xiaoqi picked up the teacup and took a sip gently, tasted it, and said lightly: "Now I know that I protested, and now I know that force is not good?" What did we do earlier, our people were killed, detained, and no one paid attention to the three yamen, so we had to do it ourselves. ”

"Then you can't use force, you can continue to sue you. The administration of justice in Champa is quite impartial. Champa Foreign Minister said.

Hu Cheng waved his hand: "Long story short, just say what you want to do." ”

"Immediately release our governor, hand over the weapons, and surrender unconditionally." The Foreign Secretary said.

When Ruan Xiaoqi heard this, he said: "There is no need to talk about it, our request is to remove this incompetent governor, your country must strengthen management, strictly prevent such things from happening again, and compensate us for the loss of 10,000 taels of silver in the military expenses of attacking the governor's palace." ”

The Foreign Secretary's face turned blue with anger and he shouted: "Protest, protest, we seriously protest." ”

"Get out and go back and tell your king that if you want to fight, you will fight, and if you dare not fight, accept our terms as soon as possible." Ruan Xiaoqi gave an order, and five or six wolf-like soldiers came up and drove out the foreign minister who occupied the city.

In the evening, the war letter of Champa arrived, a war letter sent by a person known as the general of Champa, which still began with persuasion to surrender, asking the caravan to surrender unconditionally, and most importantly, to hand over the weapons, if not willing to surrender, the army of Champa will come to the port tomorrow morning.

Ruan Xiaoqi only replied with one word: "War." ”

The caravan immediately departed from the port, leaving only four lone warships. In the early morning of the next day, the sunny valley was bright, the weather was sultry, and people were sweating early in the morning.

A muffled trombone sounded on the shore, this kind of trombone was blown out by a battle horn more than two meters long, followed by the sound of war drums, knock knock, knock knock.

"Captain, look." The soldier pointed to the Cham army on the shore, and there were dozens of war elephant cavalry, tall elephants with teeth more than two meters long, and on their backs carried large baskets like small houses, in which there were archers and javelinmen wearing feathers.

It was followed by hundreds of cavalry, and finally about three thousand infantry.

Ruan Xiaoqi carefully watched the formation, this guy should be the main force of the Champa Army.

"The red-coated cannons are ready, first hit their war elephants, with flowering shells." Ruan Xiaoqi ordered.

The flowering bomb has also just been developed, and this is the first time it has been used, except for the test.

Thousands of pounds of red-coated cannons aimed at the war elephants that were still miles away, and opened fire with a bang, a total of twelve red-coated cannons in the bow of the ship, twelve flowering shells hit the past, the accuracy was very poor, only four of them hit the war elephant herd, and the bursting flowering bullets splashed in all directions, and an elephant broke its leg on the spot, and three other elephants were injured. The elephant was injured and didn't listen to the command at all, and ran wildly, and one elephant actually ran backwards, causing the team to be in chaos.

"Keep fighting, beating hard, if there is an elephant, it will be awesome." Ruan Xiaoqi said.

The red-coated cannon fired slowly, and the second shot was fired almost three minutes later, at this time the enemy had reached a distance of seven or eight hundred meters, boom boom, boom, the effect of the second time was obviously much better, killing and wounding several elephants on the spot, and the remaining elephants did not dare to charge, so they turned around and ran, scattering their own team. The war elephants were not good, let alone their cavalry, the enemy retreated for several miles, and only then did they organize their troops, and sent the foreign minister over, this time speaking more politely, agreeing that both sides should strike their troops and no longer fight, and also agreed to remove the governor of Champa, but it was impossible to make Champa lose money.

Ruan Xiaoqi and Hu Cheng discussed it, and felt that this Champa was on the road and it was a crime, so they were exempted from losing money, and immediately signed a series of contracts with the New Jeju Maritime Commercial Bank, agreeing to a truce between the two sides and a series of conditions such as punishing the inactive governor.

After this battle, Champa is completely honest, although the country is not large, but the population is large, and the business is quite developed. I like the goods of the caravans, especially cotton cloth, because Champa is located in the tropics, cotton cloth absorbs sweat, and the price is cheap, as for other ironware, handicrafts and the like are also very popular.

However, in half a month, the goods of fifty big ships have been sold out, and the caravan has also begun to handle goods in Zhancheng, but there are too few special products here, nothing more than some ivory, rhino horn, spices and the like, this kind of goods are also expensive in the Great Song Dynasty, but you can't get more, the price will be rotten if you get more, and the caravans will do some goods in small quantities, and then drive back. Also on board are Zhan Gang and Zhan Ming, who are the murderers of the gang and must be escorted back to Shinjeju for trial.

Lu Junren was very moved and said, "Captain Ruan, thanks to you this time, I didn't expect you to really contribute." ”

Ruan Xiaoqi said: "What's the matter, at the same time, the merchant ships of the big caravan, if there is a problem, as an escort fleet, they will naturally have to contribute." ”

The other caravans also saw it, this matter made everyone very united, only by uniting together can we break out a career, and there is no way out if we always go it alone.

On the way back, Hu Cheng's cargo ship bought millions of catties of pineapples from local farmers in Sanya Bay, almost the price of cabbage. Other fleets also bought some special agricultural products from Hainan, such as coconuts, cashew nuts, pepper, as well as pearls and shells. No matter what you buy, the general principle of the big business bank is fair trade anyway, the price is negotiated between the two parties, and no one can cheat anyone.

In fact, there are a lot of fruits in Hainan, why only coconut and pineapple are chosen, because in the years when there is no cold storage, fruits are the most perishable, even if it takes more than ten days for a steamship to go from Hainan Island to Rizhao Port, only coconut and pineapple can last so long.

The huge caravan returned, and there were no pirates along the way, except for some wind, mainly because the fleet was too large for any pirate to attack.

Ruan Xiaoqi led the fleet to escort the caravan all the way to the vicinity of Rizhao Port, the boiler was turned off, and the sails entered the port.

Ruan Xiaoqi went ashore to find Sun An, who was now in charge of port security, signed a delivery order, and at the same time put the compensation of 10,000 taels of silver from Zhan Gang's family at the port, and handed it over to the military department when he turned around.

Sun An said: "Your trip back and forth is very fast." ”

Ruan Xiaoqi said: "It's still fast, it's been two months, it's autumn again, I have to go back to New Jeju, it is estimated that the Sixth Fleet also has a mission, I don't go back to the huge island without a fleet." ”

Immediately Ruan Xiaoqi returned to New Jeju Island, Hu Cheng and other people from the trading firm began to unload the goods, and when they arrived at Rizhao Port, they arrived at home, and the first thing many people who went to sea for the first time was to sit on the ground with their butts, and no matter how much dust there was on the ground, it felt so good to be down-to-earth, and they no longer had to drift on the sea.

It was the custom of sailors to arrive in port, to rest for three days before talking about anything else.

The shopkeepers and bookkeepers were busy calculating the profits of this sea trade, not counting the things transported back from Champa and Hainan Island, each ship had a gross profit of almost 20,000 taels of silver, and after deducting the thousand taels of silver for the escort of the fleet, and the labor wages were calculated in a mess, there was still a profit of 10,000 yuan.

The news of the arrival of Rizhao Port spread all over the merchants of all sizes on Shandong Road, and many merchants came to buy goods, ivory, rhino horn, spices, pearls, pepper were all best-sellers, and the merchants obtained huge profits. Only the largest amount of pineapples and other fruits carried on each ship is more troublesome, although each caravan can sell a small amount of goods, after all, northerners have never eaten pineapples since childhood, they taste fresh and strange, but in the same way, because they are transported by horse-drawn carriages, mules and horses, etc., the cost of pineapple transportation is high, once the price is too high and consumers can't afford to eat, so pineapple sales become a problem.

Doing business, there are profits and losses, all caravans are ready to dump the pineapples, so as not to rot and pollute the new ships, at this time Hu Cheng spread the word to buy the pineapples of each ship, although the price is not high, but each ship can make a little money.

Hu Cheng bought pineapples and couldn't sell them, but he had another way, and he built an industrial park not far from the port, and there was a new enterprise in the industrial park, called the Rizhao Canning Factory.

There are hundreds of women in the cannery, who have peeled off the pineapples, cut them into large pieces, cooked them in a large pot with sugar water, put them into a white porcelain jar with a small mouth and a big belly, pressed it with a thin iron lid, and then steamed it once through a steamer, and then it came out, and the jar was pasted with canned pineapples.

Originally, pineapples, which were only two or three cents a pound, became high-end canned food as soon as they were processed, and they were transported to various state capitals and cities to sell as much as seventy or eighty yuan a bottle, which was still in short supply.

Hu Cheng was also tired from going to sea, so he decided to go back to Yuncheng and let Chao Gai find another maritime trade leader.

When I came to the Jeju Army, the atmosphere was very serious.

Hu said: "Is there any military matter, I'll avoid it first." ”

Chao Gai said: "There is no need to evade, you are also a member of the Jeju Army." This time the matter is a bit serious, Governor Lin is about to be promoted, and he will be transferred to the household department. ”

Hu Chengdao: "The name is promoted and secretly descended, this trick is wonderful, Governor Lin has no refusal, and the next prefect sent may not be so easy to develop according to our ideas." ”

"The first priority of the next prefect is to replace all the backbones in the Jeju regimental training with his henchmen, if we don't listen to his dispatch, I'm afraid there will be a fight." Wu Yong said.

Zhu Wudao: "I said, don't you have to worry, didn't my brother once say that if you master the army, you will master the lifeline, and the Jeju cavalry, infantry, and water armies are all trained by us, which can be described as an iron plate, even if the emperor Lao'er comes in person, what can I do?" ”

Wang Jindao, who had never said it: "The imperial court looks down on the state capital the most, and this time it will definitely send someone to scrape the ground." ”

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