In the Great Song Dynasty merchants or colonization overseas, not everyone is qualified. It is clearly written in the laws of the Great Song City Bosi that only those who have a proper position can participate in it.

In other words, the customs administration of the Great Song Dynasty believed that both overseas trading and colonization was a high-risk occupation, and only the noble lords who the imperial court considered to have sufficient risk resistance were suitable for such investment, and only they had such needs.

In the early years of the Hai Song Dynasty, the aristocratic lords operated in overseas territories, and various exchanges between them and the mainland constituted the main body of the entire colonial trade of the Great Song Dynasty. It was under these circumstances that this decree was established.

Of course, looking at it now, this law is obviously a bit taken for granted, and it blocks more than 99% of the members of the Great Song Dynasty from this high-risk, but also high-profit industry, which is very anachronistic.

But it is strange that this law, which is so obviously problematic, has been enforced to this day, and has not changed for hundreds of years.

Therefore, it has to be thought about further, perhaps this law is basically the monopoly of this industry by the nobles and officials of the Emperor and Song Dynasty, just like the privateer licenses issued by England overseas in history, and it is also to set a threshold for this industry that ordinary people cannot cross.

A maritime merchant with recognition is a maritime merchant protected by the imperial court, and a maritime merchant without recognition is a pirate who needs the imperial court to retaliate.

Therefore, at sea in this era, the word piracy is not so purely negative.

However, in the Great Song Dynasty, the real scale can be a big maritime business, then no matter what, you still need to find a court for yourself in the court, now the Great Song Dynasty's maritime frontier is so wide, to the sea, all kinds of intricate relationships, without a formal name, it is really difficult to move an inch.

After all, no one can be a pirate for a lifetime, right?

Therefore, the qualification of overseas merchants in the Great Song Dynasty is also very hot, many nobles, and even their own families don't have to do anything at all, just selling their own qualifications can get a lot of pumping from the maritime merchants, and make a lot of money, and even as far as Li Zhe knows, there are many families in this Dongcheng who do this, and a family can maintain a life by relying on this qualification, which is more cost-effective than running their own barren territory overseas.

In the Great Song Dynasty, the aristocratic lord class, maritime merchants, and colonial markets in various places formed a huge ring flowing with a river of gold and wealth.

For hundreds of years, this law made the entire aristocratic class almost force on the head of the huge maritime merchant class of the Great Song Dynasty, wantonly sucking the blood of these wealthy maritime merchant groups.

Now that Li Zhe has finally inherited his title of baron, it stands to reason that he already has such qualifications, and the news has spread, and it will not be long before someone comes to the door to seek this kind of affiliation.

However, Li Zhe himself did not think of giving up his own participation, unlike those aristocratic rice worms who lay on the money bags of many maritime merchants and lived a luxurious life of drunken dreams, he Li Zheke still had the idea of personally participating in it and earning wealth from it.

Those rice worms are either not good at management, or they are simply lazy, and they have no motivation to participate in colonization in person, but the geographical knowledge in Li Zhe's memory in his previous life, even if it is very limited, still provides him with infinite motivation.

Except for him, who knew that in the primeval jungles and deserts of Africa (Yanzhou), there were buried sea-like gold and amazing cuties—those sparkling and beautiful diamonds that drove the world crazy.

The old housekeeper Uncle Jiu didn't know Li Zhe's inner thoughts, so he was still a little surprised, but he was surprised, and the old housekeeper still did his job conscientiously.

"Back to the master, I've already asked,"

After that, the old butler took out a small notebook of his own, carefully took out his precious crystal glasses from his arms, put them on his face, and then opened the small notebook, turned to one of the pages, and pointed with the tips of his fingers and read:

"The big ship that can go to sea in the port, if it is a new ship, it will have to trouble the shipyard to build a new one, but the construction period of the big ship is too long, I am afraid it does not meet what the master said, so I have to find a way to buy those second-hand ships, I have asked the price, a good ship with a thousand materials, it also costs 20,000 yuan. If, as the master said at the beginning, the bigger the better, then the best big ship sold in the port, there are 2,500 materials, I am afraid it will have to be 100,000. This, this—is it too expensive for the lord to buy this big ship? ”

Li Zhe listened to Uncle Jiu's chatter and knew that the old housekeeper still had some doubts. After all, the government has never operated overseas on its own, and there are no human resources in this field. This large amount of money of tens of thousands and 100,000 yuan in his hand is about to be invested, and he can't help but feel a little uneasy.

But in fact, as far as Li Zhe knows, what Uncle Jiu said in his words, the big ship of 2,500 materials, according to the regulations of the Great Song Dynasty at this time, is converted into the measurement of later generations, which is more than 1,000 tons, and such a large displacement of the ship, even in the later generations, will be thousands of thousands.

Judging from the perspective of Li Zhe, a later generation traveler, this price is actually not expensive to buy such a big ship for a mere 100,000 yuan. The private yachts of the super-rich in later generations are actually only a few hundred tons, and they can be worth tens of millions of dollars.

In comparison, this price is actually quite conscientious, after all, it is a sea vessel.

After listening to what the old housekeeper said, Li Zhe's face did not change, and he already had a plan in his heart.

The price investigated by Uncle Nine is actually not bad, but for him, the current Baron's Mansion, I am afraid that he can only think of the lowest level of two thousand material ships.

There's no way, I'm shy and stretched, it's not so easy to be the home of this baron's mansion!

Speaking of which, in the past half a month, his hands have been much looser, and Mengzhou Daily has given him two surplus remunerations one after another, each time there are thousands of yuan, plus the one-time five thousand yuan that Fang Jueyuan personally sent over the previous time and signed a contract with the Huangsong Publishing House, it can be said that he has tasted the taste of ten thousand yuan for the first time.

But it's okay to sustain a mere baron's mansion with this money, but if you want to buy a sea ship on it, it's a fool's dream.

What's more, the money was quickly spent on the fire hammer workshop in the manor outside the city, on the machine, to buy all kinds of materials, the fire gun workshop alone also cost Li Zhe thousands of times in this month, especially one of the original machine tools specially customized to the general institute and specially used to drill pipes driven by the steam engine, one cost Li Zhe 1,200 yuan. There are other small machines used to boil gunpowder, but it doesn't cost Li Zhe much money.

In this big competition, Wudu was able to complete all the outfit changes and ensure high-intensity training consumption, all thanks to Li Zhe's small workshop.

Now Li Zhe only has less than 4,000 yuan in his hand, and now he has such a small amount of money in his hand, and he is still far from buying a sea ship.