In the dim light, Zhou Zhong sat motionless behind the bookcase, his eyebrows tightly knit and thinking about his thoughts. Xie Lingyun has been away for a long time, and Bang'er has come to ask him to eat several times, but he has been rejected by Zhou Chong, because he needs time to digest some information, that is, the secrets about the Zhou family that Xie Lingyun just told him.

Since the beginning of Emperor Xiaozong of the previous dynasty, the Ming Dynasty's maritime ban policy has been very loose, smuggling has become common in the southern coastal areas, and almost all wealthy businessmen with a little wealth have been more or less involved in smuggling, such as the most representative is Xie Lingyun's family, they started by smuggling and became a famous local rich man in Songjiang Prefecture.

In addition to the Xie family, most of the wealthy people in Songjiang Mansion are also involved in smuggling, such as Zhou Chong's father Zhou Hai, who used to often participate in smuggling, and finally encountered a shipwreck, as a result, not only people died, but even the goods sank into the sea.

The Zhou family has not a lot of industries in Songjiang Prefecture, although the business of the Zhou family has been affected in recent years, but there are more than a dozen shops under their names, in addition to fields outside the city, real estate in the city and other industries. But so many industries, in the end, because of Zhou Hai's smuggling failure, all of them were sold by Zhou Zhong and the payment was repaid.

Sometimes Zhou Zhong can't help but secretly wonder, what is his cheap dad smuggling? What is the scale of smuggling? actually lost all the huge family business in one fell swoop? He couldn't figure out these questions anyway, as for Aunt Wang and Steward Xu, they only knew about things at home, and Zhou Hai never let his family ask about business matters, so they couldn't solve Zhou Chong's doubts.

However, today's arrival of Xie Lingyun finally let Zhou Zhong understand some information, according to Xie Lingyun, outside Songjiang City, there are many secret ports in the south of the sea, and the goods on land are generally boarded from there, and then travel south from Hangzhou Bay for a short distance, and soon reach the Zhoushan Islands.

When Zhu Yuanzhang imposed a sea ban, except for the largest island in Zhoushan, where people were allowed to live, the residents of other islands had long been moved inland. But this rough migration did not stop maritime activities, on the contrary, because there were no inhabitants on the islands, providing considerable space for smuggling activities, such as the entire Zhoushan archipelago area, which is the most concentrated place of smuggling along the coast of Daming.

There is a big island in the south of Zhoushan Island called Liuheng Island, it is the third largest island in the whole Zhoushan archipelago, there is a small island called Fodu Island on the west side of the north end of this island, in the middle of the two islands of the big and the small, it is a small strait with good water conditions, the smugglers generally call this strait Shuangyu Gate, there are natural excellent ports on both sides of Shuangyu Gate, coupled with the fact that it is close to the richest area in the south of the Ming Dynasty, so that it has slowly formed a smuggling base in the Ming Dynasty Shuangyu Port, not only the smuggling ships of the Ming Dynasty will come here, the Wa Kingdom, Trading ships from Korea, Ryukyu and other countries will also gather here to exchange trade with smuggling ships from the Ming Dynasty.

Mention the name of Shuangyu Port, there may not be many people who know the Tao in later generations, but it is famous in the history of the Ming Dynasty, mainly because it is the center of the entire Ming Dynasty smuggling activities, in later generations, scholars at home and abroad call Shuangyu Port "Shanghai in the sixteenth century", a few decades later, the first generation of pirate Wang Zhi of the Ming Dynasty, is to occupy the Ming coast here, become a well-deserved king of the smuggling industry, which can know the important position of Shuangyu Port.

Songjiang Prefecture is less than a day's sea journey from Shuangyu Port, which is extremely convenient, which is one of the reasons why most of the wealthy merchants in Songjiang Province are involved in smuggling, and almost all the ships involved in smuggling in Songjiang Province will rush to Shuangyu Port to trade, and the Xie family and Zhou Chong's father Zhou Hai are no exception.

Smugglers are often bold men who ignore the rules of the sea ban and build merchant ships to go to sea and then trade with maritime merchants from neighboring countries. In the process of smuggling, there is no unified rule at all, and all behaviors are not subject to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, which also makes the smuggling industry extremely chaotic, there is not much difference between maritime merchants and pirates, when the two fleets meet at sea, if the strength of the two sides is equal, if one side is strong and one is weak, then most of the strong side will become pirates, the rule of big fish eating small fish is not only applicable in the water, it is still applicable on the water.

The smuggling industry itself is so chaotic that Shuangyu Port, which is the smuggling base, can imagine the chaos in it. Now there are still decades before Wang Zhi unifies Shuangyu Port, and the whole Shuangyu Port is in a period of coexistence of large and small potentials, and Shuangyu Port is composed of three ports, each of which is mixed with countless large and small potentials, adding up to hundreds of them.

Shuangyu Port has a mixed range of forces, but these forces are not like the underworld in later generations, after all, they are all composed of smugglers, mainly to make money, so although there is constant friction in ordinary times, it is rarely solved by force.

Generally, when there is a conflict of interest between the two parties, everyone sits together to drink tea and negotiate, and when they can't get along, they can only rely on their own abilities, and generally one party's business is completely snatched away by the other party, and the last can only helplessly withdraw from Shuangyu Port for the end. Of course, if the party that has been robbed of business is not convinced, then it is likely to be an armed conflict, but whether the two sides of the conflict win or lose, may be suddenly attacked by a third party, so it is rare for a force to clash in Shuangyu Port.

The above is all the information that Zhou Chong heard from Xie Lingyun about smuggling and Shuangyu Port, and then there is the information about Zhou Chong's father Zhou Hai, among all the large and small forces in Shuangyu Port, there are four of them that are the most powerful, and Zhou Chong's father Zhou Hai is the leader of one of these four forces, and this news makes Zhou Chong quite surprised.

When he said this, Zhou Zhong interjected and asked Xie Lingyun, is the Xie family's power in Shuangyu Port also very strong? It's just that for this question, Xie Lingyun smiled and said nothing.

According to Xie Lingyun's account, Zhou Hai's power controlled one-third of the income of one of the ports in Shuangyu Port, and Zhou Hai had a large fleet in his hands, usually mainly taking the South Sea routes such as Ryukyu and Luzon, and the income each time was tens of thousands, which was definitely the best among the smuggling merchants.

Hearing this, Zhou Zhong was puzzled, in the past, the Zhou family was indeed the richest man in the entire Songjiang Mansion, but there were many rich people at the same level as the Zhou family, and in recent years, the Zhou family has been going down a steep road, and even the purchase of goods has to borrow from the outside, how do you look at it, I don't want to be a rich smuggler, where did the money earned by my cheap dad at sea go?

Xie Lingyun has no way to answer Zhou Chong's question, according to what their Xie family saw, Zhou Hai's smuggling fleet and income in Shuangyu Port are definitely beyond imagination, Zhou Hai has not encountered any great difficulties in recent years, and he should have a huge wealth in his hands, but the facts do not match their guesses, which also makes Xie Lingyun very strange.

Compared with the huge wealth that disappeared secretly, Xie Lingyun said something very important to Zhou Zhong next. When Zhou Hai took the fleet to sea, he was shipwrecked, and none of the ships that went to sea came back. However, when Zhou Hai went to sea, he still left a considerable number of people in Shuangyu Port, and after these people heard the news of Zhou Hai's death, they immediately fell into chaos, and now they have split into three forces, and they will no longer be in the same scenery as before.

Most of the people involved in smuggling in Songjiang Prefecture knew about it, but they all knew about it, after all, smuggling was not a glorious thing, and few people would openly discuss things related to smuggling with others. Moreover, Zhou Hai has never said it to his family, and he has never let his family participate in smuggling, so even Steward Xu and Aunt Wang don't know that their master has such a great power overseas, not to mention Zhou Chong and Bang'er.

After Xie Lingyun introduced the above things, she finally said the reason why she introduced these things, that is, she hoped that Zhou Zhong would give up the plan to introduce the Wang family into the soap business, and only the two of them would cooperate, and as an exchange condition, the Xie family would support Zhou Chong to go to Shuangyu Island and help him take over the remnants of Zhou Hai's potential.

Although it is only a remnant of the force, and it has been split into three shares before, there are still two or three hundred people, who control a part of the port's revenue, and even have several large ships in their hands, so there is absolutely no problem in forming a small smuggling fleet.

Hearing this olive branch thrown by Xie Lingyun, Zhou Zhong couldn't help but feel moved in his heart, he was now worried about the lack of people in his hands, but he didn't expect that cheap dad to leave such a batch of inheritances, and if he could hold these people in his hands, even if he cooperated with the Xie family, he didn't have to worry about the income he deserved being swallowed up by the other party.

It's just that what makes Zhou Chong a little strange is that it's been so long since everything has passed, and Zhou Hai's subordinates don't come to him? No matter how they say that they are also their young owners, when Zhou Hai died, they should have come to them to preside over the overall situation as soon as possible, but the fact is that they did not come to them at all. It seems that there must be an unknown reason for this, and even if I want to accept those two or three hundred people, I am afraid it will not be an easy task, and I will definitely need the support of the Xie family at that time.

Thinking of this, Zhou Chong couldn't help but be a little undecided, if the Xie family could really support him to accept those people left by Zhou Hai, then he would no longer be a lonely person, and he would have some confidence no matter what he did in the future.

But Zhou Chong was worried that Xie Lingyun was deceiving herself, what if it was all lies she made up, or if some key points did not match the facts, even if there was really the residual power left by Zhou Hai, he would not be able to accept it at all?

It was precisely in consideration of the above that Zhou Chong felt extremely entangled in his heart, and finally he asked Xie Lingyun to give himself a time to think about it, but in order to figure out this matter, he didn't even eat dinner.

However, after such a long time of weighing, Zhou Chong finally came up with a solution, only to see him sitting at the table suddenly open the pen and paper, and then write to Xie Lingyun: "I want to go to Shuangyu Port in person, if it is really as Miss said, Zhou Chong agrees to the conditions proposed by Miss this afternoon!" ”