(First of all, first for tomorrow and the next two days of leave, because there is something at home, I ask for two days off, these two days can only be one change, I hope you can understand!) Thank you for your continued support and love! ）

For half a month, the "Pacific" has been sailing on the Yangtze River, the speed is sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and even sometimes it will hide in the reeds by the river for two or three days, which is also no way, after all, the long hair is based on Jiangning, and the river surface around Jiangning is full of all kinds of ships of different sizes with long hair, and there is a great tendency to screen the river, so that the "Pacific" has to hide in the river all the time, waiting for the opportunity, and after hiding for seven or eight days, with the destruction of Jiangning City, hundreds of thousands of Taiping troops poured into Jiangning City like a tide. Naturally, no one asked about this river, so the "Pacific" quickly passed through Jiangning with maximum horsepower under the cover of the river fog with the help of the wind, and even so, it was still attacked several times on the river. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

After forcibly crossing Jiangning, the next voyage was smooth sailing -- the officers and troops did not have a sailor division on the Yangtze River, and even the water camps that had previously investigated and collected illegal salt were also empty for the long-haired sweep along the river, not only the water camps of the official army, but also the fishing villages on the bank of the river were mostly covered by the long-haired water, so that the river road from Jiangning to Wuchang actually showed the appearance of "a thousand miles without boats".

However, this is not necessarily the case.

After driving through Jiangning, the "Pacific" has been traveling along the river day and night, and if it were not for the limited coal load, I am afraid that it would have used a steam engine all the way. For the people on board, the sight of the towns along the river burned in the flames of war did not arouse much sympathy from them.

For almost every one of them, the only thought was to rush to Huangzhou.

For the crew on board, what they had in mind was very simple - 200 taels! As long as the merchant ship successfully arrived in Huangzhou, all the sailors on board could get a reward of 200 taels.

Of course, for Xi Zhimo on the ship, his idea was very simple, just to live up to the trust of the young grandmother who wore Western-style men's clothes, and in order to be able to hide people's eyes, she even cut her hair into a foreign-style short haircut.

"Fucai, the captain said just now that he would arrive in Huangzhou soon!"

Again, Xi Zhimo looked at Zhu Fucai beside him, thinking in his heart that this person should be a loyal servant of the Zhu family, and he hardly saw him speak, but in the past half a month, he found that this person would always stay outside the young grandmother's cabin door. Until now, he still remembered the murderous intent in Zhenjiang's eyes when he mentioned that it might be difficult to pass through Jiangning.

That fleeting killing intent, although it was only for a moment, left a lingering shadow in Xi Zhimo's heart, so that until now, he still remembered that look, and of course, the cold sweat that broke out of his back.

"I'll tell the young master!"

The taciturn Zhu Fucai nodded in response, and left, because he came to Wuchang with the young master last time, and calculated the time, and it was almost time to arrive in Huangzhou. As for the so-called "young master", it is actually a young grandmother disguised as a man, and on the ship, he always calls her "young master".

For Xu Lingyun, who lives in the cabin, in the past half a month, she has not been able to sleep soundly for a day, she has almost never been out of the cabin, all she thinks about is to be able to arrive in Huangzhou as soon as possible and reunite with her husband.

At noon that day, Xu Lingyun, who was sleeping in the cabin, was holding an American-made revolver in her hand, which was given to her by Liu Yixuan and her last reliance on this ship.

"Knock knock!"

The knock on the door outside the cabin woke up Xu Lingyun, who was sleeping in a kimono, and then she heard Zhu Fucai's voice.

"Young master, it's almost time to Huangzhou!"

It's time to Huangzhou!

Xu Lingyun almost slammed to the hatch and opened the hatch.

"Arrived in Huangzhou?"

Suddenly, at this moment, several sloops suddenly appeared on the river ahead, and under the clear day, the sloop had apparently noticed the foreign ships in the river, and sailed towards the "Pacific" with their sails puffed. Everyone on the ship was suddenly very nervous, and the sailors ran to the gun position one after another, and began to fill the gun chamber with gunpowder, and Zhu Wang even ran into the cabin, shouting urgently as he ran:

"Young master, it's not good, I ran into a long hair in front!"

Xi Zhimo, who was shocked, immediately said loudly:

"Impossible! I didn't hear there's any long hair left here! Young master, you stay in the cabin first, rich wealth, you protect the young master, I'll go over and take a look first! ”

Walking out of the cabin, Xi Zhimo walked briskly to the bow of the boat and looked ahead with the captain. The dhow in front of it was getting closer and closer, and on the top of the mast hung a banner of "Righteous Division", and on the ship stood soldiers dressed in blue clothes and armed with bows and arrows.

"Who are these?"

Just when everyone was too late to respond, Zhu Wang, who also ran to the bow of the boat, saw an old acquaintance on the leading dhow.

Wang Dalong...... Yes, it's Wang Dalong...... He, he is the one who follows the young master! ”

Zhu Wang's voice was a little excited, although he was not familiar with Wang Dalong, he still recognized that person.

"It's ......"

Wang Dalong, who was in the bow of the boat, looked at the foreign ship that was getting closer and closer, and the familiar foreign ship made his whole person become excited, yes, yes, it must be the ship that the handsome man was waiting for, it must be.

Just when Wang Dalong's whole person seemed a little excited, he only heard a shout on the bow of the boat.

"Wang Dalong, is that you?"

Hearing someone shouting to himself, Wang Dalian hurriedly raised his head and looked at the person standing at the bow of the boat.

"You are? Zhu Wang! ”

The ship has finally docked!

When the "Pacific" merchant ship docked at the Huangzhou wharf, looking at the dozen or so dhows at the wharf, Xi Zhimo still had countless questions in his heart, but these questions stopped at the surprise that he had never had.

The owner is no longer the owner now!

No, it should be said that the owner is no longer a businessman now, he is a bandit, such as a long-haired boat of rebels, with less than 200 soldiers and horses, he captured Huangzhou City, and now Huangzhou Prefecture 8 counties and 1 state are more completely occupied by it, and even together with this "Huangzhou Righteous Army" there are as many as 20,000 people.

Even just an hour ago, the owner led the "Huangzhou Righteous Army" to defeat thousands of officers and soldiers from Wuchang, in short, one news after another reached Xi Zhimo's ears, and he was so shocked that he didn't know how to react.

For Xi Zhimo, he is just a businessman, a pure businessman, and doing business with Zhu Yifeng for the first time is just the instinctive reaction of an ordinary comprador - a 10% commission, which is tens of thousands of taels of silver. As for giving up Jardine Matheson later, it was because he saw his reuse of Liu Yixuan, of course, more importantly, from Liu Yixuan, he knew about the major things that the other party wanted to plot, and naturally he wanted to participate in it.

That's a million opportunities, and one that no comprador wants to miss. Of course, what is more important is that he sees the possibility of "direct export", if foreigners can do things, why can't they? The understanding of Europe makes Xi Zhimo very clear that the foreign trade of European countries is all the responsibility of their own businessmen, and the current business model of acting as middlemen through foreign banks is abnormal.

Therefore, Xi Zhimo is unwilling to miss the opportunity, in the past period of time, he has been busy with this, and has even negotiated with the French about the equipment needed for the machine silk reeling factory, and in a few months, the French will ship those equipment to Shanghai, as for the warehouse by the river, in Xi Zhimo's view, it will also become a silk reeling factory.

In short, for the future, Xi Zhimo has too many plans and intentions, just like the original plan of the owner, first buy native silk, use cheap domestic labor, and then process it into factory silk, and then export it directly to France...... In short, this is a business that will not lose money no matter how you look at it, and it can even be said that it has a bright future.

More importantly, the owner's brother-in-law studied in France, through which he could directly set up an office in France, so as to directly control the export, once the business line between Shanghai and Lyon is connected, within five years, Xi Zhimo believes that Fenghui will become one of the top raw silk export "foreign companies" in the Far East, all of which Jardine Matheson can give him.

Therefore, he chose Fenghui and Zhu Yifeng, but unexpectedly - Zhu Yifeng stopped trading! He, he rebelled!

Just when Xi Zhimo's whole person was in extreme shock, he only heard Zhu Fucai's words sounding next to him.

"Mr. Xi, young grandmother, please go into the city with ......"