Although it is not as prosperous and lively as Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong and Kowloon, it is also longing for sails and noisy people.

A 1,500-material sand boat leans on a remote berth, its hull is old, and it looks old. It's really inconspicuous to be crammed into a bunch of newer, larger Chinese and Western style sailboats.

The gangplanks on the ship had been put on the dock, and a group of hard-working people who had been waiting on the dock for a long time rushed up to find a job carrying a big bag, but the people who came down from the boat were leading the horses, and there were some small furs and medicinal herbs for these horses to carry.

The coolies dispersed in despair, and at this time another Western four-wheeled carriage came by, still a large carriage drawn by four horses, and the edges of the doors and windows of the carriage were still gilded, and the sun almost glittered in the eyes of the people. The top of the carriage was piled with leather suitcases, which looked rather heavy, and the coolies hurried up to look for business. The door of the carriage opened, and first a richly dressed and slightly chubby man stepped down, and then two bright and beautiful women, one of whom was actually a blonde and blue-eyed Westerner, holding the man in a gorgeous costume, who seemed to be his woman. One of the two men in dress standing on the deck of the sand boat saw this scene and immediately showed a sarcastic expression on his face.

"What a prosperous era of the Ming Dynasty, there is a smell of Zhumen wine and meat everywhere, and there are frozen bones on the road!"

The person who spoke was naturally the leader of Bohai Gong Yixin, and Su Shun was obedient.

"These people are already very good, how can there be dozens of big people in the account (big copper yuan) when they carry a big bag on the dock for a day, but they don't come when they want to, they are all covered by a master."

It was the owner of the ship surnamed Cao who spoke. He saw Su Shun's puzzled expression. He explained with a smile: "The land and water wharves in various parts of the two rivers are either the territory of the Red Gang or the territory of the Green Gang. If you're not from the Green and Red Gang, don't think about doing things on the docks. ”

"What's the matter, the government doesn't care?"

"The government doesn't care about the affairs on the rivers and lakes, as long as it doesn't break the order, the government is happy to have someone to help them maintain order."

"Hmph, it's all some smoky rules!"

Guerjia standing beside Su Shun. Yuan Bao shook his head and smiled bitterly, and the rivers and lakes were not only there on the first day. The coolies at the land and water wharves in the Qing Dynasty also participated in the gang. This Su Shun has always been high, do you really think that the Qing Dynasty is the prosperous era of Haiqing Heyan?

"Yuanbao, look, who is the person who got off the car?" Su Shun suddenly pointed to the man in the fancy dress who was holding the foreign girl and asked Guerjia beside him. Ingots.

"What kind of comprador is that......?"

That Master Cao replied in a slightly envious tone. The word comprador was very derogatory in later generations. But at the moment, it is a compliment, and it is a word of consent for the big guy! Of course, Confucian scholars don't look down on this kind of nouveau riche, but Master Cao is not a Confucian student, so naturally he doesn't have this kind of pedantic concept.

"That's the white ......," Gualja. Yuan Bao looked at it and was stunned, the man in Chinese clothes turned out to be his cousin, Bai Siwen, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Qing Dynasty!

"It's Bai Siwen!" He leaned into Su Shun's ear and whispered, "Sixth Master, don't show up yet, let the little one go and ask questions first." ”

Su Shun nodded and did not speak. Gualca. Yuan Bao got off the boat in three or two steps and walked in the direction of the carriage.

Bai Siwen was holding the beauty in one hand at this time. Shaking a paper fan in one hand, his eyes swept over the river outside the dock. Seems to be looking for something.

By the way, he is no longer called Bai Siwen now, but has changed to his own brand name Enming, known as Bai Enming from Guangzhou, and he also received a passport issued by Daming River Customs in Shanghai registered with the name Bai Enming. After he escaped death from Japan, he was already determined to change his face and be a Ming obedient citizen. Even the identity of the Manchurian Zhenghuang Banner was thrown away and changed to a Han Chinese.

Originally, he still had illusions about the Russian Empire, but the battle of Osaka Bay completely chilled his heart. The Russian Empire turned out to be a shelf! What does the Pacific Fleet sound so powerful, but it was beaten by the younger brother of the Ming Dynasty, Japan, with heavy losses, 24 warships sunk, 4 were injured, 8 were injured, and no less than 3,000 people died. What hope does the Qing Dynasty have for if this continues?

So Bai Enming also wants to open it, let's do business honestly, anyway, he has already found the Nth pot of gold now, and he can also speak English and Russian, and has made a lot of foreign friends in Hong Kong, so he is really not afraid that he will not find a way to do business.

This time he "took the risk" (in fact, there was not much risk, few people in Ying Tianfu recognized him, it was Zhu Jishi and Maria. Clementina, Madame Durán and Rodriguez) were in order to acquire land. After all, he has seen the world in England, and he knows that once a country's industry and commerce rise, the capital and the industrial and commercial center cities will definitely expand to the periphery, and the price of land will definitely rise. Da Ming is about to start the great development of industry and commerce like England and France, and now if he doesn't buy the land of Ying Tianfu, when will he wait?

And Bai Enming's business experience does not stop there, he did not buy land in Yingtian City, but bought farmland in the suburbs. One acre is two or three hundred yuan at most, although it is several times more expensive than ordinary farmland, but it is much cheaper than the land in Yingtian City. He estimated that in a few years, when the area of Ying Tianfu expanded a little, the land he bought now could rise to at least 1,000 yuan per mu!

However, buying and selling farmland is not as easy as handing over money and getting goods in the other. Because the land in the south of the Yangtze River, especially near Yingtianfu, is relatively concentrated. Most of the land was owned by the gentry and the magnates, cultivated by tenants. The sale of land involves the resettlement of tenants, who are often reluctant to leave the rented land, even though they are too hard. Because once they lose this land, it will be difficult for them to rent land on the same terms - although most of the tenants work day and night, they are busy all year but they cannot save money, not only can they not save money, but they also have to borrow a sum of money to barely survive. Therefore, all of them owe debts to the landlord, and the landlord is already very kind to them without asking them for debts. How can I pay a settlement fee?

Once these empty-handed peasants leave the land, it will be very difficult to find another lease of land. Because the overpopulation in Jiangnan in this era is so great that it is simply the landless peasants begging the landlords to exploit it! Therefore, a deposit is required to rent land, and it is difficult for a farmer who does not have a big son in his pocket to rent land, and even if he rents land, the rent is so high that he cannot pay it at all, and he can only pawn his wife and children to pay it off. So Bai Enming didn't have much effort to buy land, but it was a big headache to quit the tenant.

He has no power in Yingtian, and his identity is "black", so he naturally does not dare to sue the public, nor does he dare to persecute too much. I had no choice but to hire the thugs of the Green Gang to bluff, and then come forward to be good people, even coax and scare, and even put tens of thousands of yuan to trick more than 100 tenants into reporting the name of the collective farm, and finally received nearly 2,000 acres of land in his hands. However, the collected land cannot be idle, because the idle land is still subject to taxes! An acre of land is paid at least one and a half yuan a year (he is not a gentry, so he has to pay taxes according to the long price of the people), and two thousand acres is 3,000 yuan!

But Bai Enming will no longer lease the land to tenants, a landlord like him who has no power is okay when he meets an honest tenant, but if he encounters a "bad tenant", he can't even collect the rent, and he will have to coax them away with money in the future.

So Bai Enming used the land he bought to set up a ranch to raise cattle and sheep - now there are many powerful people and foreigners in Yingtiancheng, so the expensive beef and mutton and dairy products sell well, and the price is relatively expensive. In addition, the textile industry in the Jiangnan region has developed rapidly, and not only Western-style cotton spinning and silk textile industries have emerged, but also wool textile industries using wool as raw materials. Therefore, raising sheep has also become a good business, and the same land used for pasture is more profitable than renting it to farmers, and it is also easy to worry and effort. So Bai Enming arranged for his Japanese concubine Jue Ji to manage the ranch in Yingtianfu, and then put Anna. Maria arranged in Hong Kong, and she traveled between the two places.

Wishful thinking is very good, but unfortunately I met an old acquaintance when I left Ying Tianfu. (To be continued......)