What is the most fascinating thing in this world?

Some people say it's a beautiful woman, some say it's a fairyland-like view, and some say it's power, but more people will say it's money in unison!

A copper plate is money, and a tael of silver is also money, and it looks like it won't be dazzled, but when a mountain of silver is piled up in front of him, even the emperor Lao'er will lose his mind for a second or two.

In front of Lin Haijiang and the others, there was such a mountain, but it was not silver, but gold nuggets accumulated, yellow-orange-orange gold that glowed darkly.

The chamber was about thirty meters long, six meters wide, and three meters high, four times larger than the house built on the head, but in this not too large space, it was full of fist-sized gold nuggets, and a gold wall nearly three meters high was displayed very abruptly in front of him, and no one could bear it.

Who would have thought that the pirates who made a profit from smuggling opium would secretly hide so much gold on the island, how could there be nearly 10 million taels of gold alone? Still need to do this risky opium smuggling?

Lin Haijiang and the three of them bypassed this golden wall only to find that the wall made of gold nuggets was only more than one meter wide, and there were dozens of large boxes stacked in the back place.

Wang Dongxu opened his mouth wide, he took out a piece of gold from the wall, turned it over, and exclaimed: "Admiral, behind this gold nugget is the 'Ming' of the moon and the same light, I am afraid that it is a thing of the previous dynasty." ”

Lin Haijiang took it out and looked at it, and sure enough, when he looked at the other gold nuggets, they were all marked with the words "Yue" and "Moon" on one side.

How could the gold of the Ming Dynasty appear in the den of pirates? And Lin Haijiang has a huge question, the taxes of the Ming Dynasty are surprisingly low, the wealth is generally concentrated in the hands of the eunuchs and big landlords, Chongzhen can't even allocate military expenses in the last years, the capital is broken and there is not even King Qin's army, where will such a large amount of gold be shipped overseas?

Or is there something you don't know? Is the legend of the restoration of the former Ming Tibetan Jin true? The origin of this batch of gold is probably not so simple.

After interrogation, it was learned that this group of pirates found several shipwrecks in the nearby waters last month, and the degree of corrosion on the seabed was at least hundreds of years, and it was only four or five days ago that this batch of former dynasty relics was salvaged from these shipwrecks.

Luo Sanping, who was not greedy enough, originally planned to sell opium and quietly and secretly with a huge amount of money to settle at ease, why should he be a pirate here and be afraid, but he didn't expect that before the opium was sold, he was knocked on the door.

And Lin Haijiang looked at this windfall, but frowned.

A moment ago, he was still worried about the purchase of warships and the investment in the construction of the old port, but now he had this frightening amount of wealth in his hands, and the amount of money was so large that he was frightened, and it took a while to clear his mind and make a plan for the gold and silver.

An hour later, the number of gold and silver taels in the secret room was counted, with a total of five million taels of gold and three million taels of silver, which made Wang Dongxu, who was in charge of bookkeeping, feel that the income of the Qing Dynasty in a year is not so much, how many foreign warships can be bought.

Lin Haijiang had already stabilized his expression, nodded and said: "These three million taels of silver, I plan to divide it into three parts, hand over 500,000 taels to the imperial court, transfer 500,000 taels for other uses, and the brothers of the water master will each have 30 taels, and then reward them for meritorious deeds." ”

Raising soldiers with high salaries, this is the basic method of warlords to encircle the team, no matter who you are the emperor when you are a soldier, what they care about is whether there is a soldier salary to take, whether there is a reward for silver, and whether there is a blood reward for winning the battle! Whoever gave them benefits was followed by them, and in the late Qing Dynasty, local governors gradually formed the early warlord model through their expanding powers.

As for the disposal of the five million taels of gold, Wang Dongxu didn't dare to ask, he knew that Lin Haijiang must have other plans, that was not the place he should worry about, all the gold was in charge of Lin Haijiang's personal soldiers, first dyed with grass ash and lead powder, and then packed and sealed and transported on the ship, Lin Haijiang sent people to closely monitor every step to prevent news leakage, as for his personal soldiers are all elites who have been repeatedly selected, and they have already accepted the nomination, the only thing that worries him is Jiang Rong'er, for this batch of vital gold, Lin Haijiang doesn't mind letting anyone disappear.

And the pirates of Little Fairy Island rushed once with a fast row, and after being overturned by a few guns of the Dingyuan ship, they all honestly retreated, and almost scattered in a hurry the next day, but the so-called treasure vault on the island only had hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and some antique gold and silver jewelry, and at a glance they knew that they were looted.

In order to chase down these escaped pirates, it took a lot of effort, and these pirates were also extremely cunning, and there were even those who hid in the latrine pit in an attempt to get by, and they were finally searched out one by one.

However, after counting all the corpses of the pirates, Madman Li reported that he had not found the body of Luo Sanping, the big boss? Lin Haijiang, who had been relaxed, became nervous again, if Luo Sanping escaped, then the secret of the gold on the island would probably be difficult to keep.

Later, Madman Li reported that there was another corpse that was not from the island, dressed richly, weathered, and not from the sea, but Luo Sanping's previous secret letter and other things had been deliberately burned, so the true identity of this corpse was impossible to find.

When carrying the corpse, Hou San of the Fifth Battalion of Shui Yong found that there was a beautiful jade plate pinned to the leg of the corpse, looked around and hurriedly put it into his arms, and Hou San, who had made a small fortune, was complacent.

It took three days of hard work to load all the gold onto the ship, when a signal came from the open sea that a merchant ship under the banner of the East India Company approached the island of the Great Fairy.

"Ignorant and stupid Orientals have docked so many pirate ships here, do they want people to know that this is a pirate's den?" Captain Derry snorted at what he saw at the docks, snorting at what he saw at the docks, with a large pipe in his mouth.

When did the British Empire's East India Company fall to the point of smuggling with pirates from the East? Delhi, who had served the East India Company for ten years, was very distressed, if it weren't for the great increase in the anti-smuggling efforts of the customs in Guangzhou, and in recent months, the cargo ships of the East India Company have been attacked by unknown pirates and all the troops have been wiped out, and they have suffered heavy losses, and they have been reduced to doing business with pirates.

"Oriental people's money is really easy to earn, if it weren't for this, I wouldn't have come to this hellish place." After a sigh, Delhi said to the first mate beside him: "Go and transport out the thirty broken guns in the warehouse, and sell the obsolete goods that have been used for more than ten years to these stupid Orientals, and you can also make a small profit. ”

Nearly fifty boxes of opium had just been moved down from the freight elevator, Lin Haijiang took someone to pretend to carry the opium to the small boat, and then stuffed a handful of silver into the bearded first mate, and said with a smile: "This gentleman, I have business to discuss with your captain, please introduce me, if it is done, I still have a lot of thanks." ”

Although he was surprised by the young man's standard English, the first mate was more concerned about the silver he had in hand, and he also smiled, patted Lin Haijiang's shoulder and said loudly: "Follow me, these people in the back will also go up?" Oh, it's silver, right? Then hurry up. ”

Thirty people carried what seemed to be a rather heavy box and followed Lin Haijiang and the first mate onto the boat.

Captain Derry listened to the first mate's report, came to the deck, and looked at the Oriental man who was about the same height as him, he had never seen this person before, and he stared at Lin Haijiang gloomily: "Is it that you want to talk about business?" ”

"Yes, it's me."

"What kind of business, let's hear about it."

"I made a deal with Satan to send some people to hell, we Orientals don't like him, so you can be wronged."

Lin Haijiang pulled out the Helif six-son fast gun from his waist, and with two bangs, the bullets hit the heads of the captain and the first mate respectively, and he died on the spot. The soldiers he brought with him quickly took out the spears from the box, the ammunition had already been loaded, and after a round of gunfire, all the sailors on the deck were killed, and the soldiers who had been waiting below for a long time also swarmed up and killed the sailors in the cabin one by one.

For this business delivered to the door, Lin Haijiang naturally smiled, and he did not have the slightest mercy for the East India Company, a group of demons that almost sucked the bone marrow of the Chinese in history.

When Lin Haijiang returned and arrived in Guangzhou City, it still caused a sensation, and there was even a gambling market in Guangzhou City to bet on which day Admiral Lin would return.

Ye Mingchen and Bai Gui took a group of officials to greet them at the dock in person, and when they saw that the fleet looked like they had experienced the war, the number of ships was as much as two percent less than before, and there were many traces of damage when they came back, and a small number of soldiers who came down were also injured, not to mention those who could only lie on stretchers and carry them down.

Seeing the inquiring gaze of the Governor of Liangguang, Lin Haijiang looked up to the sky and sighed, pretending not to see the disdainful eyes cast by Jiang Rong'er beside him, he took a few steps forward and grabbed Ye Mingchen's hand tightly, with a sad expression on his face.

"My lord, this humiliation is a disgrace to the mission, and it has lost a lot of manpower."

"It's okay, it's okay, Admiral Lin will come back safely, how are the bandits clear?" Ye Mingchen also sighed in his heart, he went out in such a big battle, and came back like a wanderer, it seems that there are more people who talk about right and wrong in the future, and he was about to say a few words of comfort, but he saw dozens of soldiers not far away staggering over with more than a dozen boxes, it seems that the objects contained in the box seem to be quite heavy?

"That's?"

"Oh, this one, it's some pirate trophies, it's nothing, open it for adults to see." Lin Haijiang pretended not to care and waved his hand.

A group of officials widened their eyes and surrounded them, all to see what kind of ugliness this Admiral Lin would be, it wouldn't be because he collected a bunch of tattered weapons from the bandits to make up for it, look at the hard work of these soldiers, ** is not far from ten.

"Why are you stunned, open them all." Lin Haijiang shouted impatiently, and the surname Suo opened a box with one hand.

Columns of silver bars, at first glance a little dazzling, Ye Mingchen gasped, these silver? Isn't it in the other boxes? He was about to ask, but he heard Lin Haijiang whisper: "A total of 500,000 taels, I met a few Nanyang bandits who were not afraid of death, and the brothers fought bloodily to destroy each other, and these were all searched from their old nests." ”

"500,000 taels!" Ye Mingchen took a deep breath, it seems that the business of this bandit is indeed very profitable, Lin Haijiang can come up with 500,000 taels, Ye Mingchen believes that Lin Haijiang's hands will definitely be several times this, but when the soldiers let go of the army to start a war, which one is not looking forward to Yinshan and Yinhai? There are few people who are willing to spend money on military training, and it is far more useful for the silver to fall into Lin Haijiang's hands than to hand it over to the imperial court.

Bai Gui looked at the devastated warship of the Guangdong Navy Division and sighed: "It is said that this Nanyang pirates are rampant, in the past, my Guangdong Navy Master stayed at home, Yelang was arrogant, even the elite trained by Lord Lin also ended up in a miserable victory, this Nanyang bandits should not be underestimated!" ”

A group of officials on the side hurriedly echoed, and Lin Haijiang nodded cautiously and said: "Lord Ye, Lord Bai, Lord Mingjian, today's battle is the defeat of my warship, and the victory depends on my Jian'er forgetting to die, and the sailor warship of my great country in the Celestial Empire is not as good as the sea bandits?" Brother, I can't swallow this breath! ”

As soon as Lin Haijiang's words came out, almost all the officials stared at them and didn't dare to speak, this is a criticism of the government! Ye Mingchen glanced at Bai Gui, the two of them met, Ye Mingchen smiled slightly and arched his hand: "How can we sit idly by, Ming said that I and Lord Bai jointly signed the Zezi, and implored to rebuild the Guangdong Navy Division and increase the shipyard!" ”

Since the governor and the governor have opened their mouths, the officials present have said that they will play together, Ye Mingchen and Bai Gui can be said to have played a good show at the dock, and the focus of this play is not in the imperial court appropriation and silver, but in the reopening of the shipyard, shipbuilding and cannon casting are major events, and no court will is equivalent to rebellion, so Ye Mingchen decided to take advantage of the joy of handing over the silver to the emperor to implement the matter.

Although the 500,000 taels of silver bars escorted in Guangzhou could not solve Xianfeng's big problem, it also made Xianfeng really happy for a few days.

Xianfeng's joy was not overdone, and he immediately gave Lin Haijiang a pair of jade ruyi and wore a yellow coat, but Ye Mingchen's son made Xianfeng very worried, the dignified Qingshui Division's warship was defeated by the ship of the pirates? It was only by relying on the courage of elite soldiers to succeed one after another to win?

Xianfeng paced back and forth in the main hall, the huge role of Longwei and Longsheng has made Xianfeng see the power of Western warships, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is also making every effort to buy foreign guns and foreign cannons.

Turning to look at Su Shundao, who was standing with his hands down, he said: "Can Guangdong have a large-scale shipyard and artillery factory?" ”

Su Shun shook his head and said: "As far as the minister knows, no, and shipbuilding and cannon casting are not a one-time effort, they consume a lot of silver, and the effect is very slow, but it is a great plan to strengthen the country, and it must be done!" ”

Su Shun has already regarded Lin Haijiang as his own person, the only difference is that Lin Haijiang has not yet voted for a protégé, and his contradictory words this time are just to build momentum for Lin Haijiang.

Xianfeng frowned and said: "Guangdong doesn't have it, so can Fujian have ready-made shipyards and artillery factories?" ”

Su Shun, who was in the middle of the heart, said respectfully: "Fujian has it, but the Fujian Navy Division and the Guangdong Navy Commander are of the same grade, and they have no subordinates to each other, so they are suspected of crossing the line and abusing their power." ”

Xianfeng frowned and said, "I have high hopes for the Fujian sailors, how did they treat me?" My Long Wei and Long Sheng have ruined them, and Lin Haijiang has given credit to him several times, and I feel that he is too young to be rewarded excessively, so he has ended up with little affection! The Fujian Naval Division and the Guangdong Naval Division were merged, and the Nanyang Naval Division Yamen was set up, and Lin Haijiang opened the Mansion to build a tooth to supervise the Nanyang Naval Division, and the Nanyang Naval Division was stationed in Fujian and Guangzhou. ”

Su Shun was also stunned, is Lin Haijiang's authority too big now? The Qing Dynasty has not had such a young official for so many years, although the previous Guangdong Navy Admiral was in the position and from the second grade, but he was no longer qualified to open the government and build teeth, the military generals are different from the civil officials and feudal officials of the army, and the officials and people dismounted, and the military attaché must have certain merits and qualifications to be able to open the government and build teeth.

Unconsciously Su Shun compared Lin Haijiang with Wei Dongting and other feudal officials of the Kangxi Dynasty, although Lin Haijiang's grade and title have not changed, the power in his hands has invisibly expanded several times.

Young, high-level, powerful, and experienced in the ups and downs of officialdom for a long time, Su Shun knows very well that this is not a good thing, how many young people are not arrogant? This represents that although it is Xianfeng's favor, the emperor is also a human being, and there are joys, sorrows, and sorrows.

However, since the emperor Chrysostom opened, Su Shun could only smile helplessly, he originally only wanted to do personal favors but did not control them, and the favors seemed to be too big, Xianfeng, who was in a hurry, immediately drafted his will and used the seal, which was already a fait accompli, and Su Shun was inexplicably relaxed.

As soon as the news of Lin Haijiang's official seal of the Nanyang Navy Commander to open the mansion and build a tooth came out, the entire Sijiu City seemed to have experienced a small earthquake, Jing Shou and others gathered together to discuss the solution, and no one thought that Su Shun and the emperor would bypass such a big thing with a single word, and the emperor was on the rise, and no one wanted to touch that brow.

The prospect of Shou has already given Lin Haijiang a small shoe, this time obviously can not use the same means, last time his slander has caused Xianfeng to lose two big ships, this time Jing Shou did not dare to say more about the establishment of the Nanyang Naval Division.

The only good thing is that there has always been a force in the capital that is ready to move against Lin Haijiang, and now this force seems to be dormant again.

However, in Su Shun's opinion, it is not a good thing for the opponent to lie dormant, if he can solve those guys who are used to pulling back legs while Lin Haijiang's favor is strong, it is the best, but this force does not seem to be an idle person, and knows how to endure, such an opponent makes Su Shun the most worried, because he wants to train Lin Haijiang to become his most powerful foreign aid, and a military plane without foreign aid is unstable and cannot do it for a long time.

(To be continued)