PS. Present the May Day update, don't hurry up to play after reading, remember to vote for the month first. From now on, you can enjoy double monthly passes for the 515 Fan Festival, and you can also take a look at other activities with red envelopes!

A rather wide wooden plank road connects Seongsan Island, where the fire*medicine workshop is located, with the Risheng Peninsula, where Settlement No. 1 is located; Under the plank road, every twenty meters is a stout stone pier, no matter how big the wind and waves blow away the plank road, it can be quickly rebuilt; On the north and south sides of the boardwalk, at the deepest part of the water, there are several long piers stretching out towards the sea, which can ensure the docking of boats even at low tide.

This is the main dock area in Chu Fan's plan - there is also a peninsula to the south of Settlement No. 1, which is the future storage area, and a tall rammed earth wall is being built.

On the second pier to the south, Chu Fan was dressed in a white robe and was waving towards a small fleet of boats that were gradually moving away on the sea; Standing behind him was a crowd of people led by Chen Sang-in, including the heads of the Myeongsu-dong families, who had come to see Zheng Cai off.

Overall, Zheng Cai's visit was quite successful.

Although the goal of resolving the grievances between the six families has not yet been fully achieved, it has already made a good start - what the Zheng family should do next is not something that Zheng Cai, a small character, can do, and Zheng Zhilong himself must come in person.

The marriage between Chu Fan and Yan Ruxue has been set for the second year of Chongzhen, that is, the eighth day of the Lunar New Year in 1629 AD, and it will depend on whether Zheng Zhilong dares to come - if he dares to come, it means that he really wants to reconcile with the six families; If you don't dare to come, you can't afford to say anything, and the Fuliao army and the Zheng family are only afraid that it will be difficult to escape a battle.

Therefore, after negotiating the general framework of business cooperation between the two sides with Chen Shangren, Zheng Cai left in a hurry - he also had to rush to Hakushima to visit Li and Yang to pave the way for his uncle's visit.

As for business and trade cooperation, the framework agreed by the two sides is: Xiancao cigarettes will be provided to the Zheng family first; Snowflake candy is 10,000 catties. Subsequently, the Zheng family was responsible for purchasing sugarcane for Niu Dao, and the share was determined according to the amount of sugarcane purchased by the Zheng family; As for the glass mirror, Chu Fan still adheres to the policy of luxury hunger marketing, and only gives the Zheng family thirty pieces in the first batch - this has already made Zheng Cai overjoyed, because the scarcity makes him think that the production of glass products is a very difficult thing, and he thought that Chu Fan could provide three or five pieces It is already very remarkable. Who knew that there were so many at once!

As for the refined salt that Chu Fan was most concerned about, Zheng Cai said very cautiously that he could only eat 5,000 catties to test the water first-that is, the output of the experimental field for half a month, which made Chu Fan very disappointed.

However, after Zheng Cai learned about the terrifying output of Niudao refined salt, he also reciprocated and provided Chu Fan with an idea, that is, private salt official sale!

Originally, the salt introduction system of the Ming Dynasty was stipulated as follows: salt merchants needed to obtain salt quotations, that is, salt sales licenses, from the salt road yamen, and then buy salt from designated salt farms, and finally traffick it to designated areas for sale. This is the so-called official salt.

And Zheng Cai's idea is to take advantage of the quality gap between Ushishima refined salt and official salt to make a fuss about the salt merchants' purchase of salt - as long as the interests of the salt factory officials are not damaged, they are of course willing to replace their own coarse salt with better quality Ushishima refined salt; Of course, salt merchants are even more eager to do so, you must know that the price difference between refined salt and coarse salt in the market is now as much as seven or eight times!

However, because there are few salt farms in the south and the scale is not large, the Zheng family basically has no way in this area; If you want to sell salt privately, you must cooperate with powerful salt merchants who can influence officialdom. This can only go to Yangzhou to find a way - it is the location of the Yandao Yamen, and it is the nest of the salt merchants!

After hearing this, Chu Fan suddenly realized that this kind of trick of stealing beams and changing pillars was actually not uncommon in his later generations. It's just that I'm not familiar with the salt introduction system of the Ming Dynasty, so I can't think of this trick.

Looking at the shadow of the sail that was gradually moving away, Chu Fan muttered in his heart: His wedding date is less than two months, I don't know if Zheng Zhilong will dare to come by then?

From Zheng Cai, Chu Fan felt that the Zheng family was really full of talents, and if the Zheng family could be tied to the ship of the East India Company, the talent shortage under his command would be greatly alleviated.

Just as he was pondering. The bell of the north dock rang, and Chu Fan turned around, only to see a small fleet of ships heading towards the dock in the distance.

The fleet was in tatters, and the sails were covered with patches of all sizes, but where was the ship?

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Seoul. Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Li Liang was wearing a winged crown, wearing a bright yellow pro-dynasty dress Zhou Zhouzheng, sitting behind the bookcase, carefully looking at an old man bowed slightly in front of the case.

The old man was dressed in a crimson court robe with a black panther embroidered on his chest, and it was obvious that he was a military attache from the third grade; Inside the black head, the silver threads are clearly visible; The wrinkled old face is also white, and there is not a trace of variegation; Only those eyes are dark and deep, revealing the composure and calmness that have gone through vicissitudes.

He is the commander-in-chief of this anti-bandit army - Izumi Zhinan, the commander of the Hamgyong South Provincial Soldiers and Horses; For the sake of this 63-year-old veteran, Li Liang spent a lot of effort and more than a month to coordinate the various factions of the DPRK and China.

A thick booklet was spread out on the bookcase, and Li Liang glanced at the number on it and asked in a deep voice, "Quan Aiqing, if you follow your request, you need to levy a total of 42 battalions of horses and infantry of the 4 Dao 5 Army, plus 6 battalions of the Sailor Division, the main army will reach more than 13,000 people, and you will need to support three months' forage and grain...... Dealing with a handful of Ming pirates is too much, right? ”

Quan Zhinan's body couldn't help but tremble slightly when he heard this-the booklet in front of Li Liang was what he drew up for this expedition, and the rest was okay, and the army was what he was most concerned about and worried about.

North Korea, which has been established for a long time, is also deeply troubled by the problem of redundant troops - on paper, the number of Korean soldiers has reached as many as 280,000, but the real strength of a war is only 40,000 or 50,000; Izumi has been in the army for a long time, and of course he knows the truth, so what he wants this time is to be drawn from these forty or fifty thousand people; But in this way, a quarter of the DPRK's military strength will be in his hands, which is a taboo for the ministers.

"Holy Lord of Qi," Izumi Zhinan stood up and arched his hand, "Since the old minister was instructed, he has been studying the reality of this Ming pirate all night...... Liu's private army is the head of our Korean private army, if it is not the old minister's arrogance, in terms of combat power alone, the 8 battalions under the command of the old minister may not be the opponent of the Liu private army! …… With such a strong army, the Ming pirates can count the nights! …… And the old minister carefully interrogated many people who fled from Jeju, and they all said that almost all the pirates were foot soldiers, and they could win all the armor and fine horses with foot soldiers, which was unheard of by the old minister! …… From this point of view, the combat power of the Ming pirates is terrifying, so that the old minister really does not dare to take it lightly...... For all plans, when the momentum of Mount Tai is forced, it can be destroyed in one drum! ”

Li Liang frowned again and again when he heard this-he chose Izumi Zhinan to lead the crusading army, originally for the sake of calmness and seriousness, but he didn't expect this veteran to be much more cautious than he imagined!

Even if it is really as Jeju Mu played, there are thousands of Ming pirates, but after all, they are just pirates, and tens of thousands of elites are required to deal with pirates, isn't that a joke?

Thinking of this, Li Liang patiently negotiated with Izumi Zhinan, and after a lot of words, he finally reduced the scale of the expedition to 8,500 people, and about 3,000 of them were redundant soldiers who had not touched the barrel of a gun for many years; In order to compensate for the disappointment of Izumi Tomoo, Li Liang finally increased the number of cavalry from 300 to 800, which was barely enough to appease the overly cautious old general.

After leaving the palace, Izumi walked to the retinue waiting outside the palace gate—both the household servants he had brought from South Hamgyong Province, and the entourage who had been sent by the Seongsai to give him a share of the merits after arriving in Seoul.

After recognizing and getting on his horse, the old general and his retinue headed towards his lower part of Seoul, and he didn't notice that one of the Qingxi faction's retinues was making an imperceptible gesture to a beggar not far away!

[Thank you for your continued support, this time from the 515 Fan Festival of the Writer's Hall of Glory and the General Election of Works, I hope you can support it.] In addition, there are some red envelopes on the fan festival, get one and continue the subscription! (To be continued.) )