On the rocking carriage, Zhou Zhong sat there quietly, and in the baggage next to him were the clothes that the bracelet had prepared for him. Zhou Chong's letter to Xie Lingyun two days ago was quickly answered, and the other party arranged the ship in the shortest possible time, and even the carriage he was in was arranged by the Xie family.

Regarding his trip to Shuangyu Port, Zhou Chong did not tell Aunt Wang and Bang'er about them, but lied to them that Li Zheng and Zheng Jing asked him to go out to visit friends and need to leave home for a few days. In addition, Zhou Zhong also greeted Li Zheng and others, asking them not to come to him for the past two days, so as not to be exposed.

After the last conversation with Xie Lingyun, in the next few days, Zhou Chong thought a lot, his plan was very simple, it was nothing more than to accumulate the first pot of gold by writing books, and then use the knowledge of his previous life to make some new inventions to make a fortune.

But then Xie Lingyun unceremoniously pointed out that his idea was too naïve, if he really did it according to his plan, no matter how many new inventions he made, he would be cheaper than others in the end, because there were too few people around him who could use it, and he couldn't solve the problem of confidentiality at all.

In fact, this can't be all blamed on Zhou Chong, although he has tried his best to adapt to the era of the Ming Dynasty from later generations, but after all, the time is too short, and some of the thinking in his mind is still stuck in the later generations. I didn't even take into account that I was in an ancient society where the law was very imperfect, there were no patents in this era, and the new invention you made was not protected by the law, and maybe someone else only needed to spend a little money to buy the method of making the new invention from the workers you recruited.

Knowing the above, Zhou Zhong found that what he lacked most now was not only silver, but also a group of loyal subordinates, otherwise no matter how much he tossed by himself, I am afraid that he could only mix food and clothing at the very end, and even in case of any trouble, he would not even be able to find anyone to help.

It was precisely in consideration of these that Zhou Chongcai agreed to Xie Lingyun's proposal, since Shuangyu Port has the manpower left by his cheap father, although he doesn't know why they don't come to him for Lu, but since those people could follow Zhou Hai before, they can also follow him now, as long as he has this group of people, he will have the confidence to act.

The carriage carried Zhou Zhong all the way to the south, and soon went out of the south gate, and then the coachman let go of the horse's foot force, all the way to the east, and soon arrived at a thousand households in the east of Songjiang Mansion near the sea, called Qingcun Zhongqian, generally called Qingcun Office, belonging to Jinshanwei, is a relatively important coastal defense fortress.

According to the Ming military system, several houses set up guards, guards set up offices, one of which is 5,600 people, each guard is divided into five thousand households, each thousand households are divided into ten hundred households, Zhou Chong he came to the Qingcun office, is one of the five thousand households under the Jinshan guard.

At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang not only closed down the three cities of Quanzhou, Mingzhou and Guangzhou, but also banned the manufacture of large ships with more than three masts, and later intensified, not only did not allow merchant ships to go to sea, even fishing boats were not allowed to go to sea, but also moved the people in the coastal areas inward, which made countless people who lived by the sea complain bitterly, and even rose up to resist after the most reluctance, which made the coastal areas in the early Ming Dynasty a chaos.

Songjiang Prefecture is surrounded by the sea on both sides, and it was also a victim of the sea ban at the beginning, such as the Qingcun Senhu House that Zhou Chong came to, which blocked a fairly long stretch of coastline, and when the sea ban was originally made, everyone was forbidden to approach the coast.

However, after so many years, the government has long turned a blind eye to smuggling, and the Qianhu adults in the Qingcun Qianhu Office are not stupid, seeing so many people involved in smuggling, he can't manage it if he wants to, and he simply participates in the smuggling to provide shelter for the smuggling merchants, and within the coastline under the jurisdiction of the Qianhu, as long as the smuggling merchants give the Qianhu adults a good filial piety according to the size of the ship, then no matter what you are transporting on the ship, you can come and go freely on the sea.

Zhou Chong had heard Xie Lingyun introduce the situation of this Qingcun Thousand Households before, and now that the carriage came here, he couldn't help but be a little curious, so he opened the window on the carriage and looked out.

But to the surprise of Zhou, the sight is a similar building to the village, a thatched roof looming in the bushes, occasionally you can hear one or two dogs barking and rooster crowing, the only sign that this is a Ming garrison thousand households, but it is a rammed earth fortress in the center of those thatched roofs, compared to those thatched houses are indeed very tall, but in fact, it is not more than a foot high, it seems that there should be the real station of the thousand households, but this thousand households because it is rammed earth construction, plus it has been in disrepairIt was already dilapidated, not only overgrown with weeds, but also four or five gaps washed out by the rain, and there was no protection at all.

Seeing such a dilapidated Qianhu House, Zhou Chong remembered the soldiers who guarded the city in Songjiang Mansion at the beginning, and Zhou Chong couldn't help but sigh, the entire Ming Dynasty has just passed half, and the military system is already so scattered, how can this kind of army defend the country?

The carriage continued to move forward, but when it moved forward, there was a checkpoint set up by a thousand households on the road, and vehicles that wanted to pass through here had to pay a toll, but Zhou Zhong's coachman only took out a sign of Xie Fu, and the military households guarding the checkpoint immediately let them go with a sneer, and did not dare to stop them at all.

After the carriage passed the checkpoint, it went southeast for a short distance, in front of which is the junction of the outer sea of Hangzhou Bay, as long as it goes out of Hangzhou Bay, even if it enters the range of Zhoushan Islands, and Shuangyu Port is at the southernmost tip of Zhoushan Islands.

As soon as he arrived at the shore, Zhou Zhong was shocked by the scenery in front of him, and saw that what appeared in front of him was a lively port, with large and small ships docked on the sea, relying on wooden trestle bridges, and coolies loading and unloading heavy goods on board.

In addition to these working coolies and smuggling boats, there are also quite a few hawkers gathered in the port, these hawkers and everything, are selling goods to those who get off the boats, shouting one after another, if you don't know in advance that this is a smuggling port, I'm afraid Zhou Zhong will really think that this is just an ordinary bazaar.

"Zhou Gongzi, the dozen berths in the easternmost part of the port are all our Xie family, you just walk over directly, and there will be special people to guide you to the ship!" The coachman stopped the car at this point, and then pointed to the east side of the harbor and said to Zhou Zhong. The port is very busy, a long line of horse-drawn carriages pulling goods waiting to get to the dock, if the coachman wants to drive the carriage up, I don't know how long it will take to wait, so it is better to let Zhou Zhong walk over.

Zhou Zhong looked up at the truck team in front of him, jumped out of the car and thanked the coachman, and then stepped onto the port wharf, first raised his eyes to look at all kinds of sea ships on the sea, most of which were three-masted lucky ships, but the size was generally small, and the length of the ship was basically within ten zhang, compared with the big treasure ship of more than forty zhang when Zheng He went to the South Seas, it was simply too bad.

Zhou Zhong looked at the ships in the port while walking, in addition to the ships themselves, Zhou Zhong also found that the coolies who moved and unloaded the goods in the port had used some equipment, such as pulleys built with some wooden shelves, etc., which saved time and effort, and many merchants' goods were loaded and unloaded with simple tools.

However, it may be that Zhou Chongtai paid attention to the situation on the port, and did not pay attention to the road ahead, but he was accidentally bumped by someone, only to hear the other party's "oops", and then retreated a few steps at once.

At this time, he pulled Zhou Chong's attention back, and after seeing that he had bumped into someone, he immediately apologized: "I'm sorry, I didn't hurt you, did I?" ”

After Zhou Zhong finished speaking, he saw the person he bumped into clearly, and found that the other party was thin, wearing a fat and big torn cotton robe, wearing a dogskin hat, and his messy hair hung down from the hat, covering most of his face, even if it was exposed, it was dirty, making it impossible to see his original face.

The other party was walking well, and was bumped by Zhou Zhong for no reason, and he was a little angry at the moment, and he just wanted to scold, but when he saw Zhou Chong's appearance, he immediately covered his mouth, and then was stunned for a moment, and ignored Zhou Chong's apology, turned around and left quickly.

"Strange?" Seeing the other party's abnormal performance, Zhou Zhong couldn't help but mumble secretly, but he didn't care too much, patted the stains on his body, and continued to walk forward for nearly a hundred meters, finally arriving at the berth area of the Xie family. Compared with the places that Zhou Chong walked just now, this berth is much cleaner and wider, and there are special personnel to direct the loading and unloading of goods on merchant ships, which looks well organized, and the Xie family can start with smuggling, and it is really stronger than other businesses.

As soon as Zhou Chong arrived here, he saw a tall and strong man with a bald head and a scarred face walking towards him, this person he had seen before, when Xie Lingyun went to Zhou's mansion for the first time, it was this bald head who drove the carriage. I saw the other party walk in front of Zhou Chong, and then said angrily: "Master Zhou, please come with me, Miss is waiting for you on the boat!" ”

"Miss?" Zhou Zhong was stunned for a moment after hearing this, and then reacted and said, "What, does Miss Xie also want to go to Shuangyu Port with me?" ”

Hearing Zhou Chong's question, the bald man replied without replying: "Miss wants to take a batch of goods to Shuangyu Port, and I will send you just by the way!" ”

Hearing the other party's answer so faceless, Zhou Zhong couldn't help but be a little annoyed, but looking at the other party's size and the evil aura emanating from the other party, he could only wisely choose to shut up, follow the other party's footsteps and walk towards a tall sea boat.

PS: Sanjiang is the second day, ask for Sanjiang tickets for collection!