At the beginning of November, the Jinhe Bay was full of people again, and unlike the previous voyages, this time the disciples of Jinhe Bay went to war, and almost every family had sailors who went to serve on the ship. Whether it is the Tanka people, the Li people, the Southeast Asians, the Europeans, the Arabs or the Han people in the north, it is now a mood and an exhortation. It's all worried that your children will never return, and you're telling your children to be careful, and your parents and children are waiting for you to come back......

"Don't worry, in normal wars, the officials are the last to die, because they are all at the back. As soon as I noticed that something was wrong, I immediately drove the boat away, and no one else could catch me. Hong Tao is also vulgar, holding several children, and being surrounded by several daughters-in-law in the middle. However, his mouth was not idle, and if these words were heard by others, it was estimated that the docks would immediately mutiny. What kind of commander is this Nima, before he set out on the expedition, he thought about how he would escape, or leave his compatriots and run away, and go out to fight with such a person, whose parents can rest assured.

"No, we have to build more cargo ships!" Bidding farewell to his father and fellow villagers, the fleet began to assemble on the sea at the mouth of the Golden River, and the more Hong Tao looked at it, the more awkward it became. It's too messy, it's not in line with his slight cleanliness, the deck is full of people, just like the wet market. Due to the large number of Mamluk cavalry, Hong Tao had to bring three cargo ships to load their horses and forage, which was not enough, and the bilges of the seven warships had to make room for horse rings. Fortunately, these Mamluk soldiers loved horses very much, and they slept with their war horses, and they usually had enough ventilation on the deck.

"Mercy, you come to command for me and sail directly to Mingzhou." But Hong Tao didn't think so, a short voyage could be improvised, but if it was a long distance, not only these soldiers would not be able to stand it. The density is too great and the horses can't stand it. Now he was already designing a special horse carrier in his mind, too small to be, at least of the tonnage of the Jinhe, removing two layers of gun decks, and adding an extra deck on top of it, all of which would be made into special cabins. Specially used to transport horses. This allows for centralized management, freeing up the compartments of other ships in the fleet to carry soldiers. In the future, there will be no shortage of landing operations, and we will have to think of a larger and more suitable boat for transporting soldiers and horses to the beach, instead of the current lifeboat, which is too small to fit a few people at a time. With these thoughts in mind, Hong Tao handed over the command to Mercy and went into the captain's room to work again.

Just as Hong Tao was leading the fleet north from Jinhe Bay, a meeting was being held in the Southern Song Dynasty court in Lin'an. The theme of the meeting was Hong Tao and the private armed forces behind him. Beginning in August, the Mongols launched an attack on all fronts from the west, center, and east, and the Southern Song defense line was in a hurry. The western road has been broken through by the Mongol army, and the important town of Chuzhou is also in danger, and Gao Jia, who is defending the city, has lost contact with the outside. In October, Zhao Xiang, the general of Dengzhou, the gateway to Xiangyang, surrendered, and then Xiangyang was also besieged, and the form was not optimistic. The east side is also not optimistic. The defender of De'an (Anlu, Hubei) Shang Quan rebelled and broke through the Huaixi defense line with the Mongol cavalry. All the way to the east, it surrounded Huangzhou and threatened Shuzhou and Gwangju. If the second line of defense is broken through again, then the Mongol army will touch the Yangtze River, and through the Yangtze River, it can go down the river and go straight to Jiankang and Lin'an.

"Zhongqing's family. The battle situation is so chaotic that I don't know if there is a good plan. At this time, Song Lizong was only in his early thirties, but he looked much older than Hong Tao and very thin. Originally, last year was the happiest year after he ascended the throne, but Minister Shi Miyuan died. The feud Jin Kingdom was destroyed by the joint efforts of the Mongol and Song dynasties, and as an aspiring and idealistic king, he was just about to make a big move, but before the smile on his face disappeared, the Mongol army had already attacked, which caught him a little off guard.

"Official, I don't know if you still remember the Qiongzhou Luo who came to Angen with a sea boat pulling a big food horse two years ago?" There are several important ministers in the study, and they don't have a good way to deal with the current war situation, and when they heard the emperor's question, everyone looked at each other, and in the end, Zheng Qingzhi, who had just been promoted to the prime minister of Zuo, took the lead. However, instead of answering the emperor's question head-on, he asked another question.

"Qiongzhou Roche...... I remember that the big horses were still in the garden...... I don't know why the prime minister mentioned this person at this time? Song Lizong made Zheng Qingzhi stunned, now is a military meeting, why do you have nothing to mention those horses?

"The official family doesn't know that these horses are not owned by the Luo family, they all come from a Nanyang maritime merchant. This person's surname is Hong Mingtao, and he is said to be a native of extreme South Australia. The minister asked people to carefully check that this extreme South Australia does have a place, but it is thousands of miles away. This person's ancestral home is a generation of Han people living in Xijin Province, who have settled overseas since the Tang Dynasty to escape the war, but he has always cherished his homeland. It is said that his navigation skills are extremely clever, driving a boat out to sea like walking on the ground, those big food horses are he went to the big food country to get back, and in the Nanning army raised a horse farm, specifically for the Song Dynasty horses. The required expenses do not need to be paid by the imperial court, and only need to be exchanged with the great cannibals with local iron ore. Zheng Qingzhi still didn't answer Song Lizong's question directly, but told Hong Tao's origin in a rambling manner, and there were many words of praise in his words.

"I also remember the incident of the racecourse......" Song Lizong was even more confused, nodded blankly, and looked at Zheng Qingzhi.

"A few months ago, the Luo family mentioned an incident to the ministers, saying that there was a group of maritime merchants in Guangzhou who heard that the imperial court was going to fight against the Mongols, so they gathered ten sea ships and tens of thousands of stone rice to go up the Yangtze River to transport grain and grass for the front-line soldiers. I approved this matter, and the official family knows that the leader of this line is Hong Tao, who sacrificed horses before! It is said that this person has a strong ship under his command, and he specially escorts the Great Song Dynasty maritime merchants to trade in the Great Food Country, and does not charge huge profits. The southern kingdoms all shy away from his ships, and the Great Food Country once used dozens of warships to crusade against him, and he wiped them all out. Weichen was thinking that if he recruited this person as a helper, he would drive a sea boat to transport grain and grass to and from Jinghu and other places, which would definitely save a lot of people. The imperial court could devote more energy to Sichuan, where the river was so fast that ships could not go up. Seeing that the emperor was also a little anxious, Zheng Qingzhi explained his meaning in the shortest words.

In fact, when Luo Youde came last time, he didn't take the fleet of the Strait Company seriously, and some businessmen were willing to take the initiative to share their worries for the imperial court, which was a good thing, and they didn't have to worry about the imperial court. Even if these businessmen just want to make a good name, they should be encouraged. But with the unfavorable situation of the battle, Zheng Qingzhi suddenly realized that this fleet could come in handy. He should be the person who knows the most about the Strait Company, or Hong Tao in the Southern Song Dynasty, because he has seen this person with his own eyes, but he didn't know Hong Tao's details at the beginning.

If there was a fleet of powerful sailors who could swim upstream, it would not only replace many land transports, but also pose a real threat to the Mongol army. As for whether Hong Tao's fleet has such a powerful force, Zheng Qingzhi is only half-convinced, but it is better than nothing. Even if they were defeated by the Mongol army, they would not have any losses to the imperial court, so why not praise them.

"The person Deyuan said, the minister has also heard a little. It is said that this person coerced the Tanjia bandits, established himself as the king in the South Seas, harassed passing merchants, occupied ports and shipping routes, and many maritime merchants sued the state capital. It's a pity that this person acts extremely stealthily and never lands easily, and he is not from my Song Dynasty, so the state capitals in Guangzhou, Quanzhou and other places are helpless. As soon as Zheng Qingzhi's words fell, before the emperor could express his position, a man with a short beard stood up on the chair next to him, arched his hand at Emperor Lizong, and began to refute Zheng Qingzhi's words.

This person's name is Qiao Xingjian, and his official position is the right prime minister that Zheng Qingzhi had done before. Although Duanping entered Luo fiasco, Zheng Qingzhi, the main battle faction, was not only not responsible, but was promoted to the position of Zuo Prime Minister, where does this thing make sense.

Qiao Xingjian has always been not in tune with Zheng Qingzhi, he is the master and faction, and he is not as eager as Zheng Qingzhi to make contributions, on many issues Zheng Qingzhi said left, he said right. In fact, this situation has existed in all dynasties, and the emperor generally does not allow the ministers in the court to be harmonious, and everyone twists their minds into a rope, so the emperor's power is weak. Sitting in the position of the emperor, the first consideration is not the country, the nation, or right or wrong, but how long he can sit in the seat under his buttocks. Deliberately forming two or three factions among the courtiers is the emperor's way of domination. You don't fight every day, you all fight together to deal with the emperor, how uncomfortable the emperor is, so even if there is no contradiction, he has to create some contradictions for you.

This is a one-sided statement, as Shou Peng said, this person is a pirate, why do you want to raise horses for the court, raise food and ships for the court? Tens of thousands of stone rice, all of which this person exchanged for real money from the southern countries. I have already asked the chief officer of the three armies in Yazhou, since this person appeared, less than two years, the waters near Yazhou, including the port of Guangzhou, piracy has almost disappeared, if my people in the Great Song Dynasty can be bandits like this, wouldn't it be a blessing for my dynasty? As for the matter of the Pu family mentioned by Shou Peng, I have the state capital here, and there are indeed some Pu family members who will not return after going to sea. However, they inquired about the city's sea patrol camp and local maritime merchants, and the news they got was not that they were killed by pirates, but that the great cannibals had an internal strife on the Nanfan Sea Road and were killed by the generals of East Java, which had nothing to do with this flood. In the past three years, the imperial court tax in Guangzhou and Quanzhou Port has risen by 30%, and these 30% are basically paid by the Strait Company. Every year, they bring back countless goods from the Great Food Country, many times more than the Pu family, and the price is much lower. These are all my great Song maritime merchants, Hong Tao does not participate in the sale of goods, and even the ship does not enter the port, please take a look at the official family...... Zheng Qingzhi himself also knows that he is not the only one who has the final say in the court, so since he wants to say it, he is extremely well prepared in advance, and in the face of Qiao Xingjian's questioning, he is prepared. And Qiao Xingjian didn't know what he was going to say today, and he couldn't come up with more evidence, so he could only watch Zheng Qingzhi hand over a bunch of documents to Emperor Lizong. (To be continued.) )