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"Join the army, please use tea. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info"

A handsome-looking girl took a tea bowl and gently placed it in front of Luo Bingzhang's table.

When the words of the girl ring came into his ears, listening to the delicate Jiangnan soft language, Zhu Yifeng raised his head and looked at the girl ring who served the tea, her appearance was very pretty and lovely, and her age was about fourteen or fifteen years old, and what attracted people's attention was that her appearance was pretty and pure, but her development was extremely spectacular and very attractive.

Seeing the adult looking up at herself, the pretty face of the girl suddenly turned red, and she glanced at the adult timidly, and quickly lowered her head again, and then retreated by chance. When he looked at the girl ring and retreated, Zhu Yifeng's heart turned upside down, is this considered a blessing?

Since Lingyun became pregnant a few days ago, she called the maid ring who came to wait for her, and they were all fourteen or fifteen years old, young and delicate. In later generations, these little girls are all the owners of the school flowers and school flowers, but now they are just the girls in the house, and they are still ready to "dedicate" themselves at any time.

What kind of Yanfu is there, it is clearly torture.

Every time I look at the delicate appearance of these girls, when I was born, I look at the slightly baby fat face, and then think about their age, no matter how much desire fades away.

Glancing at the turquoise and transparent tea soup. After Zhu Yifeng picked up the tea bowl, he immediately smelled the fragrance of tea, but the light aroma was not the same as the tea aroma he had smelled in the past. Obviously, this is this year's new tea, and maybe it's still a tribute.

"Zhejiang Province shipped 703,800 stone of grain, it is expected that all of its grain will be transported in six batches at the mouth of the Liuhe River, the first batch of cao ships have arrived in Chongming Shijiao on March 9, waiting for the wind to go north, and the other five batches of cao ships are preparing to go north to the sea......"

While Zhang Sen was making a report, Zhu Yifeng looked at the information in his hand.

"Grain by sea? The Manchu Qing Dynasty was a master of learning, and this canal was occupied by the Taiping army, so they started the idea of a sea route! ”

"The Metropolitan Governor, Rong Chen is straightforward."

As soon as the words of the Metropolitan Governor fell, Zhang Liangji said conveniently.

"This grain shipping has become a trend today, although there is a reason for the Taiping Army to rely on Yangzhou, but it is not influenced by the Taiping Army, in fact, from three years ago, that is, according to the 26th year of Daoguang, by the sea to Tianjin. In the same year, Sun Ruizhen, the head of the household department, invited the Qing court to transport the river and the sea, and after that, there was a royal history to invite Jiangsu to promote Changzhou and Zhenjiang, and Zhejiang also integrated shipping. The Qing court sent this construction to the governor of Liangjiang, the governor of Jiangsu, and the governor of Zhejiang, and the governor of Suzhou, Song, Chang, Zhen, and Taizhou all changed to sea transportation, and if it was difficult to ship grain by sea in Zhejiang, please still use river transportation, and the Qing court adopted this proposal, and since then, dozens of counties and counties to which the Susong grain road belongs have been made by sea...... Last year, due to the further obstruction of the canal, Zhejiang's river transport ships were too late, and Zhejiang also changed to sea transportation...... Since then, Jiangnan Cao has been mainly transported by sea, and river transportation has only been supplemented. ”

Zhang Liangji's explanation made Zhu Yifeng just nod slightly, and he didn't care about the history of grain shipping.

"Affected by the occupation of Shanghai by the Little Knife Society, this shipping will be changed to Liuhekou for export. Yu Chongming Shiyao waits for the wind ......"

"As is customary in previous years, when will they transport grain to sea?"

"Back to the Metropolitan Governor, according to last year's practice, he should have gone to sea a month ago, but because of the turmoil in the capital this year, it has been delayed until now, and this year's weather is the same as last year. It should be released to sea in half a month! ”

When Zhang Sen's words fell, Zhu Yifeng had already walked to the map by the wall and stood there, staring at the map with his eyes, at this time, in this Western-style map, in addition to the extremely detailed areas along the river, the map of Hubei and Hunan is also extremely detailed, in the past few months, Wenshan Yishu and the army have been using Western-style surveying methods to redraw the map of Hubei, Hunan, and Guangdong.

"This is where the ships are assembled? Chongming Shiyao ......"

After finding Chongming Shiyao on the map, Zhu Yifeng asked again.

"It's so close to Shanghai, aren't they worried about the knife attack?"

"The governor of the capital, the knife will have no ship, and the Taiping army is also far west of Zhenjiang, and there is also a Qing army sailor here, Ye Mingchen once reported, last year he was instructed by the Qing court, and twice hired 14 large red single boats, 20 medium ships, equipped with soldiers, guns, gunpowder, and 94 large iron cannons in foreign clothes, led by Wu Quanmei to rush to the south of the Yangtze River, it is because of its Chongming, so the Qing military has no fear!"

The "red single ship" in Zhang Sen's mouth is a large cargo ship used by the people of Guangdong for foreign trade, this kind of ship has a large and solid hull, fast travel, and each ship can install twenty or thirty guns. Because of this, the Qing court transferred it to suppress the Taiping Army, which is similar to the armed merchant ships of the Yangtze River Fleet of the Righteous Army, except that the "warships" used in the Righteous Army's fleet were all rebuilt from Western-style merchant ships.

Moreover, it was not the first time that the Governor's Office had dealt with them, and in order to ensure the "freedom of navigation" in the Jiangkou area, the Governor's Office would pay them heavy bribes every month, no less than 10,000 taels per month. And this Guangdong guest army, although the ship and cannon are good, but the life in Jiangsu is not easy, because its monthly salary can not be supplied in time, so it privately set up checkpoints, rob business travelers, and then trade with the Taiping army to enrich themselves. As for the "protection fee" collected by the governor's office, it is normal.

"Oh, it turns out that our Admiral Wu is guarding there! No wonder, no wonder ......"

Because the Qing army east of Zhenjiang only has such a water force composed of twenty red single boats, Zhu Yifeng naturally understands it, but he didn't expect that they would be stationed in Chongming.

"This Governor Wu has received more than 30,000 taels of silver from us in the past few months!"

Mentioning this matter, Zhu Yifeng's tone was a little dissatisfied, he was actually charged "protection money" by such a group of "amateur navy", which is tolerable and unacceptable...... Well, now naturally there is no need to endure it anymore.

At that time, the fleet had only four warships, and the artillery was only 72, and there were 20 red single ships, 94 foreign cannons, and 132 iron cannons, and those red single ships all came out of Chen Village in Shunde and other places, and they had always been engaged in oil sales, and traveled to and from Luzon and Siam countries. All the helmsmen and sailors are fathers and sons, and they all work together to move forward when they encounter the enemy, and there is no risk of the Qing army prevaricating and dispersing, and the fleet naturally regards it as a strong enemy......"

"Okay, Fengda, don't praise them, although compared to the Qing army sailors, they are indeed far superior to them, but in fact they are just a group of rabble!"

Now the reason why Zhu Yifeng will make this evaluation is entirely because of his understanding of this Guangdong guest army, the 30,000 taels of silver were not spent in vain, through the payment of silver, the fleet has a full understanding of it, but it is just a group of rabble that even Western sailors can't catch up, and it seems to be brave, completely because they have to resist pirate attacks at sea, and when it comes to tactics and training, they are not the opponent of the fleet at all.

What's more, now the Yangtze River Fleet has 7 warships! Well, in fact, like them, they are all armed merchant ships. Despite this, he also has full confidence in the face of this group of rabble.

"Well, everyone has seen Zilin's report, there is a Nanling Ridge between Hunan and Guangdong, which can be described as a high mountain and a long road, according to its estimates, if you want to use a railway here, you have to work for tens of thousands of years, and in the short term, the possibility of building a railway is not great......"

Originally, Zhu Yifeng thought that if the banner people in Jingzhou and Guangzhou were concentrated and built the railway day and night, maybe it would be repaired in two or three years, but who would have thought that there were hundreds of kilometers of mountain roads and many rivers blocking it.

"Under the high mountains and far roads, it is not easy to build railways, and in this case, ensuring the smooth flow of the Yangtze River channel is the first major task of the governor, so ......"

After a slight pause, Zhu Yifeng looked at Zhang Liangji and Luo Bingzhang, who had been silent, and said.

"This governor plans to send a fleet to recover Chongming! Take control of Eguchi! ”

Before that, this was just a thought, but now Zhang Sen's information made Zhu Yifeng see an opportunity, compared to seizing Shanghai, seizing the Jiangkou under the control of the Qing army, it would not arouse the dissatisfaction of the Taiping army, after all, for them, Chongming is just a desert island, but mastering Chongming is undoubtedly equivalent to mastering the mouth of the Yangtze River.

"The Metropolitan Governor, if the minister expects it to be true, this Chongming is certainly going to be taken, I'm afraid that in addition to Chongming, the Metropolitan Governor is afraid that he has seen more than 70 million Shicao grains in Zhejiang!"

Luo Bingzhang looked at the Metropolitan Governor and smiled.

"That's more than 700,000 stone grains!"

Zhu Yifeng couldn't help but sigh, if it weren't for the 700,000 stone grain as bait, I'm afraid it would really not be easy to make this determination.

"The current grain price of our two lakes is 225 cents and 1 stone, and what we sell to the Taiping Army is between 325 and 4 taels, if we sell these 700,000 stone grain to the Taiping Army, we can sell at least 2.5 million taels of silver, and now it is the time to use money in Fuzhong, and this batch of grain must not be transported to Tianjin!"

In the face of millions of taels of silver, how could he let it go, and even now Zhu Yifeng is more worried about whether this grain will be grabbed too late, if that is the case, the fleet will first deal with the Guangdong fleet at the mouth of the river, and then directly enter the sea to intercept the grain fleet.

"What the Metropolitan Governor said is extremely true, these grains are all the fat and people of our Han people, even if they are transported to Tianjin, they are also sent to the banner people, rather than let those banner people squander, it is better to take them from the governor's mansion, and then sell them in Jiangning, in exchange for silver goods to help the needs of the government."

While Zhang Liangji agreed, Zhu Yifeng looked at Zhang Sen and said.

"And, besides the silver, Ben Du has another idea, Fonta, you should start planning this matter......" (To be continued.) )