Liu Zhongwen sent Chu Fan home, and went back by himself, and when he left, he said mysteriously that there was a surprise, and when Chu Fan asked him what surprise, he didn't say it, which made Chu Fan more and more curious.

The small courtyard has long been cleaned, the fallen leaves in the courtyard are gone, and the ground paved with blue bricks is washed with water; The stove was wiped clean, and the iron pot was shiny - Zhang's was a person who couldn't see pickles, and they didn't stop taking Chu Qin's tea these days.

Chu Fan didn't have the heart to look carefully, and after hurriedly entering the house, he asked Xian Cha to invite Ge Bi - not to mention what business he was doing for the time being, he had to figure out the matter of the sea voyage first.

"Young master, it doesn't cost much silver on the sea!"

After Ge Bi came, he sat on the stool and talked to Chu Fan - he was dressed very well today, but the beard on his face made him look old, and he didn't look like a thirty-four-year-old person.

Chu Fan sat at the table, using a brush to record the knowledge he found useful.

"Our ship has to use twenty or thirty men, and we will have to stay at sea for almost a month, and the grain and vegetables will reach the sky...... When you get to the Japanese country, it is cheaper, and the Japanese silver is cheap and expensive, and we generally use money...... Jiajing has always had a lot of money, enough for thirty people to eat for several days...... It's just that the food there is very strange, and I still can't get used to it after so many trips......" said Ge Bi took out the cigarette stick on his waist, stuffed the tobacco and lit it, and the room was immediately filled with the choking smell of dry tobacco.

Chu Fan choked on the smell of dry smoke and coughed lightly, and he found that Ge Bi was always entangled in his speech, so he had to interrupt him and ask, "How many days exactly?" Three days? Five days? ”

"Five days." Ge Bi thought for a moment and said.

Chu Fan calculated, Jiajing's big money has always been worth one or two taels of silver, that is to say, thirty people need to use about seven taels of silver a month, even if they stay in the country for ten months, it will only be seventy taels of silver, plus twenty taels of back and forth, a total of less than one hundred taels, it is indeed a small head.

"Young master, in fact, what really spends money on the sea is repairing ships!" After taking a pot, Ge Bi knocked the cigarette stick on the leg of the stool.

"Oh? How much will it cost? Chu Fan asked with some surprise.

"If there is a slight problem with this sand boat, we will repair it ourselves, and we are afraid that it will encounter a storm, run aground or something, and the sail will be broken or the board will be damaged, then we will have to go to the shipyard to repair it," Ge Bi said. Most of the North Korean side is in Jemulpo (crab note: today's Incheon); The country of Wa is Nagasaki, and Hirado can go there, but it's still a little bit out of the way......"

Seeing that Ge Bi digressed again, Chu Fan hurriedly interrupted him, "We don't care where it is, Uncle Ge, you just say directly, how much silver does it usually cost to go out to sea to repair a ship?" ”

"That's hard to say...... It depends on luck, if the road is calm, maybe you don't need to spend a tael of silver...... If you have to change the whole sail, it will cost you seventy or eighty taels of silver...... Who knows for sure when it comes to luck? When you go to the sea, you can only look at God......" Ge Bi began to digress again, making Chu Fan have no choice, so he had to estimate two hundred taels.

"There's another fee, but I don't know how much," Ge Bi seemed to remember something, stopped putting tobacco into the pot, looked up and thought about it, and said, "The master did it himself, I accompanied him twice, and I won't let me in when I walk to the door......"

"Ahem, Uncle Ge, where are you entering?" Chu Fan hurriedly interrupted him, otherwise he didn't know how far he would digress from the topic.

"Nagasaki Town, Hosokawa Fujiwara Shiro's family," Ge Bi lit the smoke pot and sucked it up, "It was from him that we got the seal...... This thing is rare, and there are few of us in Shandong maritime merchants, so there are more in Fujian and Guangdong...... There are also many red-haired ghosts...... If you don't have a red seal, you can't sell the goods, so you can only sell them to Fujianese people or red-haired ghosts at a low price. ”

Chu Fan understood, this Hosokawa Fujiwara Shiro - the name of the Japanese people is really long - should be an official, and his father obtained the Zhu Yin by giving * bribes, and the Zhu Yin should be a trade license or something, but how much should it be sent? After thinking about it, he wrote on the paper "Communication PR fee: five hundred taels".

After the general situation was clarified, Chu Fan asked about many details, Ge Bi was still off topic as always, and it took more than an hour for Chu Fan to finally have a comprehensive understanding of the Japanese Maritime Trade.

As Chu Fan predicted, the risks of maritime trade in this era come from three aspects, according to the degree of threat, which are piracy, storms, and policy impact.

The coast of Shandong and North Korea have fewer pirates and fewer storms, which can be regarded as relatively safe; The greatest danger is off the coast of the Wa Kingdom.

The Fujian-Cantonese maritime merchants, as well as the red-haired ghosts—the Portuguese and the Dutch—were merchants in the port of Nagasaki, and they were pirates when they went to sea, and it was common to kill people and steal goods; The offshore waters of the Japanese country are also stormy, and if you are not careful, the ship will capsize and die.

As for the impact of the policy, in the final analysis, it is a problem that public relations are not in place, public relations are not in place, don't want to sell any goods, don't want to buy anything; PR is in place, nothing is a problem.

After Ge Bi left, Chu Fan flipped through the book full of numbers and calculated, how could he get a thousand taels of silver for sea navigation and public relations and communication.

"Young Master," he was calculating, when Xiancha's pretty figure appeared at the door, "Are you done?" Let's go see my wife. ”

Chu Fan chuckled in his heart, raised his feet and walked to the main room, "What's wrong with my mother?" ”

"Mrs. is sick," Xiancha said after him, "from the cold." ”

Chu Fan was silent. In a few days, the Zhang family suffered the pain of losing her husband one after another, raiding the house, and had to support the people and clean up the yard, but now she finally couldn't support it and fell ill.

When I entered the main room, I saw Zhang lying crooked on the bed, and Chu Qin was sitting at the head of the bed with a bowl of water, feeding her.

"Mother, what's wrong with you?" Chu Fan stepped forward as he asked, and after a closer look, Zhang's eyes were dark and his eyes were red.

"I'm fine, but I'm very soft...... If you should be busy, you should go and don't delay. Zhang looked at him weakly, and spoke a little gasp.

Chu Fan felt guilty in his heart, he was busy with work during this time, and he didn't pay attention to the old lady's body.

Stretched out his hand and tried Zhang's forehead, it was terrifyingly hot, he turned his head and asked Chu Qin, "Sister, how long has my mother been like this?" ”

"After eating at noon, my mother felt uncomfortable," Chu Qin put down the bowl and said softly, "I just invited Lang Zhong from the village to come and see, saying that he was brave the wind and cold, and opened a prescription." ”

Chu Fan took the prescription and looked at it, there were seven or eight flavors of medicine such as bupleurum and licorice written on it, and he put the prescription into his arms and said, "I'll go grab the medicine." "They don't have a pharmacy in the Wanzikou area, so they have to go into Dengzhou City to grab medicine.

Just about to go out, Chu Fan stopped again and told Chu Qin, "Sister, you hurry up and get some well water, the cooler the better, get a towel soaked and put it on your mother's forehead." ”

Hearing that Chu Qin was crisp, Chu Fan went out. From the mouth of Wanzikou to the south gate, exactly eleven miles away, Chu Fan rode a mule and arrived in half an hour.

Entered the city and went straight to the largest pharmacy in Dengzhou, "Jishitang", and handed over the prescription to the pharmacy guy.

"Childe's family has someone feeling cold?" The pharmacy guy asked after reading the prescription.

Chu Fan nodded.

"Childe, although your recipe is peaceful, it comes slowly, why don't you try this flavored medicine?" The pharmacy guy enthusiastically recommended it, and turned around to take down a piece of medicine wrapped in soap-sized mulberry paper from the medicine shelf.

"What is this?" Chu Fan watched him open it curiously, and a choking smell of urine came to his nose.

"This is called Ah Bian, we entered from Yangzhou, and it has a miraculous effect on treating wind and cold, a few days ago, Zhang Yuanwai in the back street of Tianfu suffered from wind and cold, and this medicine is good." The pharmacy guy gushed about it.

Chu Fan approached and stared at the black-brown medicine brick for a long time, he felt that this Ah Bian was very familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen it for a while.

"What's the price of this Ah Bian?" Chu Fan straightened up and asked.

"A fair price, two coins and a tael of silver." The guy responded.

"It's too expensive...... Forget it, let's catch it for me according to the recipe. Chu Fan thought for a while and said.

On the way back on the mule, Chu Fan was still thinking.

That black Ah Bian, where have you seen it?