Cheng Jun, a merchant from Panyu, took the ship, went out of the Naval Division, and looked back at the waters to the north. On the wide water, the sail shadows are dotted, the floating light is golden, and people in a hurry get on and off the boat, a busy scene. But he didn't see this, he couldn't see Panyu City far away, where his family and his newborn son were there. He went back and forth between Panyu and Xu Wen to do business, and every time he went to sea, he felt that he might not be able to come back, but for the sake of his livelihood and for the sake of his family, he had to go to sea without hesitation.

If nothing else, just because Xu Wen has cheaper goods there than Panyu.

Xuwen is the southernmost county of Hepu County, adjacent to the sea and facing Zhuya across the sea. After Xu Wen, the number of pirates increased suddenly, and the risk increased dramatically, so many Yi merchants chose to trade in Xu Wen for insurance, and after the pirates robbed the passing ships, some unused or inexhaustible goods also chose to trade in Xu Wen, Xu Wen has become a well-known market, known for its complex sources of goods and cheap prices, compared with Panyu City, Jiaolu City is not much better.

Cheng Jun took the risk to Xu Wen for the price difference, and ran once or twice a year to ensure that his family had enough food and clothing. Many people in Panyu City do this business, of course, the profit is large, the risk is also big, maybe one day when you encounter pirates, it will be miserable, the goods are robbed, and even people are robbed and sold, there are not many people killed, as long as they do not resist, pirates generally do not kill, usually sold far away as slaves.

Cheng Jun has been running on this road for ten years and has been robbed three times, but fortunately his life is not in danger, which is considered lucky, but he doesn't know when his good luck will come to an end. Every time he goes to sea, it is a life-and-death farewell for him.

He touched the copper pendant on his chest, which his wife had just begged from the temple of the sea god Niangniang, which was the most popular incense in Panyu City, and it was engraved with the statue of the sea goddess Niangniang, which cost 1,200 yuan, and his wife also burned incense for a whole month.

The sea god mother blesses, bless me to return safely, and I can see my wife and son. Cheng Jun carefully put the copper pendant back into his arms, walked down the stone steps made of bluestone slabs, walked to the dock, and was just about to get on the boat, a tall and sturdy young man arched his hand at him, and asked very politely: "Dare to ask if you are a Panyu merchant who goes to sea?" ”

Cheng Jun didn't answer, but looked at this person carefully. This man is not like a local, although the smile on his face is very kind, but there is a dangerous aura in his whole person. Cheng Jun knew that there were many pirate spies here in Tuen Mun Shan, and they would see which ships were valuable in advance, and then inform their accomplices at sea to take action.

He felt that the man in front of him was a bit similar, because he had a formidable murderous aura in him.

"Hehehe......" The man saw his concern, and pulled open his collar, revealing the brown single coat inside. Cheng Jun was taken aback, this is a costume worn by the Jiaozhou Sailor, how could it be on this person? He was puzzled, and the man handed over a bamboo talisman again: "I am the Jiaozhou Navy Division under the command of General Sun Jun of Henghai, and I am on the order of General Sun to escort the sea." ”

"Escort to the sea?" After Cheng Jun carefully checked the bamboo talisman, although he had no doubts about the identity of this sailor named Zhao Sleeve, he still didn't know what escort was, could it be protection along the way? Cheng Jun felt that his idea was too ridiculous, the sailor only collected money, and if he wanted to protect the people of the government, when would he come to protect the businessman.

"Yes, we have a team of warships to go to sea with you and escort you all the way to Xuwen." Zhao Sleeve smiled gently, put away the waist card, and then smiled again: "Because you have to charge a certain fee, the general is afraid that you can't afford it too much, so you have to gather a few caravans to go to sea together, so that you can pay less money." ”

Cheng Jun pursed his lips, but he believed it, this was not an escort, and he came to scrape oil again. Although he is unwilling, he does not dare to offend the soldiers of these sailors, otherwise, the pirates may not be able to meet them, but the sailors will definitely wait for you. He bared his teeth in pain: "How much does it cost?" ”

Zhao Sleeve smiled faintly: "According to the size and number of boats, each boat below 100 stones is 100 yuan, each boat from 100 stones to 300 stones is 300 yuan, and each boat above 300 stones is 500 yuan." ”

Cheng Jun was a little reluctant, but he didn't dare to disobey, he estimated it from his heart, and took the chain containing the money from his entourage Cheng Yuan: "I have a total of three boats, two of 250 stones, and one of 350 stones, a total of 1,100 yuan." Here's the receipt for just paying the tax, you can take a look at it. ”

Zhao Sleeve took the receipt and looked at it, it was a certificate issued by Shuiguan, this would not be a problem. Sure enough, one was three hundred and fifty stones, and two were two hundred and fifty stones. He returned the receipt to Cheng Jun, but did not take his money. Cheng Jun looked at him with some surprise, and Zhao Sleeve smiled: "After arriving at Xu Wen safely, we will collect the money, if we encounter pirates halfway and we can't complete the task, we won't collect any money." ”

Cheng Jun wondered if he had heard it wrong, and really wanted to escort him to Xu Wen? If it is, then the 1,100 dollars are really worth it.

"If you want, then hurry up, we already have more than three hundred boats, if I didn't happen to see you just now, we would have set off." Zhao Sleeve said with a smile, turned around and led Cheng Jun forward.

Cheng Jun and Cheng Yuan glanced at each other, and they both felt that their luck was too good, so they hurriedly followed. They hesitated for a while, Zhao Sleeve had already boarded a small warship, there were only ten soldiers on this boat, as soon as Zhao Sleeve got on the boat, they untied the cable and rowed towards the open sea, Zhao Sleeve waved his hand: "You guys come up, our fleet is not far ahead." ”

Cheng Jun didn't dare to slack off, immediately returned to his ship, followed closely, and walked forward not far, that is, the appearance of five miles of road, in a hidden bay, more than 300 ships were ready to go, and seven or eight medium-sized warships were parked outside the port, and there was no battle flag on them, but it can be seen from the standard of the ship that these are indeed the warships of the Jiaozhou Naval Division.

"Zhengping?" A familiar voice came from a ship opposite. Cheng Jun followed the sound, but it was his old friend Ouyang Fu. Ouyang Fu is also a businessman in Panyu, but his family business is much larger than Cheng Jun, and they have had some business dealings between them, and the relationship is not bad.

"Brother Yuan Zhong is also there?" Cheng Jun was very surprised, and hurriedly asked people to pull the boat over, jumped on Ouyang Fu's boat and said hello.

"yes, I've been waiting here for a day." Ouyang Fu took his hand, picked him up on the boat, and said with a smile: "You also go to sea?" ”

"Not really." Cheng Jun looked around and found several familiar faces, and while greeting them, he asked, "You also asked that General Sun to escort you?" ”

"Protect the." Ouyang Fu glanced around, lowered his voice, and said disdainfully: "It's not that you don't know, that Henghai General only has fifteen large and small ships under his command, and it's okay to deal with small groups of pirates, but if you really want to deal with a bigger one, he doesn't have enough for people to eat." If it weren't for the fear that he would find a ballast and say that he would only collect the money when he arrived at the destination, I would ignore him and delay my work for a day. ”

Cheng Jun said with a smile: "Brother Yuan Zhong, your Ouyang family is a big merchant in Panyu, do you know what the origin of this Henghai General is?" ”

"You don't know?" Ouyang Fu smiled a little proudly: "His background is not small. He is the son of the late rebel general Sun Quan, the son of the supreme son, and the son of the Sun family. However, his status as a prince is a little embarrassing, so he was driven to the South China Sea, the dignified general Henghai, but there are only fifteen boats under his command, and he can't get mixed up, and he wants to scrape some oil and water on our heads. You see," he said, with a wave of his hand, pointing to more than 300 ships of all sizes in the harbor, "this trip, back and forth, but in a little more than a month, he will be able to make twenty or thirty gold from us, and this is not counting the expenses on the way." Isn't it smart enough for a water engineer to make money for himself? ”

"Still have expenses on the way?" Cheng Jun's eyelids jumped.

"Absolutely." Ouyang Fu said with a smile: "The food and drink of the hundreds of people under his command have all fallen on us. Of course, Zhengping, don't worry, he can't look down on your boats, and we have paid for a few more boats. ”

Cheng Jun breathed a sigh of relief, it was better to look down on it, otherwise it would be really uncomfortable.

"But then again, if he hadn't gone around the bend to ask for money, I'd have been willing to spend it." Ouyang Fu clapped his hands and said disapprerovingly: "If we can do business safely, we are not short of these money, right?" ”

"That's that, when did Brother Yuan Zhong care about these money." Cheng Jun echoed.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to depart, please leave the port in order." Zhao Sleeve stood at the bow of the boat and smiled loudly at Ouyang Fu and Cheng Jun: "It turns out that you know each other." ”

Ouyang Fu hurriedly returned the salute, he had fifty boats this time, he was the richest among these people, and he naturally became the leader, Zhao Sleeve passed the news to all the merchant ships through him, and he was extremely polite to him.

"Ouyang Jun, for everyone's safety, we will change the flag later, please tell everyone, don't panic. The general promised you that he would not break his promise. If you don't hear it, you won't take a penny. ”

Ouyang Fu smiled: "It's okay, it's okay, the general is willing to escort us, we are grateful, this money is really not a tribute, if it is not for the general's insistence on not taking it, how dare I use this money to insult the general." ”

"Hahaha, Ouyang Jun said with a smile." Zhao Sleeve turned the bow of the boat with a smile and waved away. Ouyang Fu kept smiling sincerely, until Zhao Sleeve walked away, the smile on his face turned into disdain, and he spat into the river with disdain, and ordered people to spread what Zhao Sleeve said to each boat. In a short time, more than 300 merchant ships slowly sailed out of the harbor, lined up in an uneven line, and sailed west along the coastline.

Cheng Jun looked at the warship in the distance, and sure enough, it had been replaced with the pirate's battle flag, he looked at it carefully, and suddenly smiled: "Brother Yuan Zhong, this Henghai general is interesting." ”

"What's interesting?" Ouyang Fu responded absentmindedly, raised his head and looked at Cheng Jun's fingers, and also smiled: "Well, it's a bit interesting, he actually used the tiger skin to scare people, and he can be regarded as a bit of a brain." As soon as this flag was hoisted, a shipload of pirates really didn't dare to come looking for trouble. ”

The smile in Cheng Jun's eyes became more and more abundant, and he turned his head to look at Ouyang Fu: "Brother Yuan Zhong, maybe we can really take a safe trip to Xu Wen this time, the money is well spent." ”

"Value." Ouyang Fu also stroked his palms and sighed: "With this flag, except for urging the signing of the order, ordinary pirates will definitely not dare to come, and maybe even the subordinates of the urging signing will not dare to do it." ”

"This guy is a bit of a doorman." Cheng Jun touched the copper pendant on his chest again, and his nervous mood relaxed a lot. With the escort of the sailor with the pirate flag, the security surname has greatly increased, although it is still difficult to escape death when encountering the urgency sign, but without them, there is no one to run when encountering the urgency sign, and when the time comes, they will pay the money according to the old rules, and the sailor risking the pirate has nothing to do with them.

There are many people who have this idea, they originally didn't have much confidence in the dozen or so naval warships, but as soon as the pirate flag was hoisted, they felt much safer, although it was a fake, but the murderous name that was signed by the order was much more deterrent than that of the Jiaozhou Naval Division.

"Brother Yuan Zhong, aren't you going to talk to this General Sun?" Cheng Jun suggested: "I think this person is much stronger than Shiweike who only knows how to blackmail us, and there may be more opportunities for cooperation in the future." ”

Ouyang Fu hesitated, shook his head and said, "I'm a little tired, I want to take a break, Zhengping, if you're interested, you might as well go and take a look, and come back and tell me about it." I heard that although this General Sun is young, he has a lot of knowledge, and he has no prejudice against merchants, and many people in Yi City know him. ”

Cheng Jun was not reluctant, he knew that the Ouyang family was not a small family like him, and when the situation was unclear, he would not take the initiative to connect with the Sun family and offend the Shi family in vain, not to mention that it was still an embarrassing Sun family. And he didn't want to miss the opportunity, so he let him take the lead.

"Then I'll take a look." Cheng Jun was not reluctant, returned to his ship, asked the ship to sail to the flagship with the pirate flag, and sent someone to greet him. Soon, Zhao Sleeve walked out of the cabin and arched his hand very modestly: "What advice does Cheng Jun have?" ”

Cheng Jun pointed to some of the wine and food prepared on the boat behind him, and said with a smile: "I am very grateful to the generals who have escorted us, and I specially came to meet the generals, thanked them in person, and sent some wine and food to quench the generals' thirst." ”

Zhao Sleeve shook his head again and again: "It's already very ashamed to bother you to bear our usual expenses, and we don't dare to accept Cheng Jun's gift." The general is planning military affairs, and he has no time to meet Cheng Jun for the time being, and I will definitely forward Cheng Jun's good intentions, and I will ask Cheng Jun to cross the ship when I am free. ”

Cheng Jun touched a soft nail and had to go back. Zhao Sleeve returned to the cabin, and Sun Shao, who was sitting around with everyone, glanced at him and said with a smile: "Those people still don't have confidence in us." ”

"It's hard at the beginning." Zhao Sleeve sat down and said very calmly: "It is unprecedented for sailors to escort merchant ships, and it is normal for them to have doubts. General, are we going to do this in the future? ”

"Do you think that's good?" Sun Shao asked rhetorically, his eyes swept over everyone's faces.

Zhao Sleeve pondered for a moment and said very cautiously: "With the usual expenses borne by merchant ships, the amount of water and food we need to carry is greatly reduced, and we can free up space to fire arrows, which also increases the speed." However, the sailors escorted the merchant ships and spread the word ......"

"Bad reputation?"

"Hmm." Zhao Sleeve replied sullenly, but didn't dare to say more. Merchants are untouchables, sailors are officers and soldiers, officers and soldiers have never collected taxes from untouchables, and have never been said to be guards for untouchables, but Sun Shao himself wants to do business, and Zhao Sleeve still doesn't dare to speak in front of him.

Sun Shao also saw this mentality on the faces of others, he smiled faintly, and did not discuss this issue again, you told them that the merchant is a taxpayer, and the sailor should escort the merchant This sentence is simply a talk about the cow, now is not the time to do ideological work, the current is to fight pirates and make meritorious contributions, only by winning the battle, can you make meritorious service, can you have trophies, and you can make a fortune while training the team. He patted the chart on the deck and pointed his finger at the cliff gate: "The fleet will stop outside the cliff gate to replenish food and water, and it is the most rampant place for pirates, so we will fight the first battle there." Ladies and gentlemen, I am not Bole, and I don't know which of you is a Maxima, but I do know that a real Maxima must be faster than a donkey. In this battle, I want to see which of you is a maxima and who is a donkey. ”

He selected thirteen people from the elite of the Guan family, and this time Bu Qi gave him ten medium-sized warships, and he arranged a leader on each boat, and now he is picking up fire for them, hoping to cultivate and select talents who can be of great use through actual combat.

"Don't worry, general, we will definitely live up to your hopes." Zhao Sleeve and another personal guard, Cai Ping, said in unison. They were originally good at martial arts, and they were also familiar with water warfare, and in the past few months, Shen Xuan taught them the art of war, and often practiced formations together.

"It's good to have fighting spirit, but you also have to be clear that the sea here is not a big river, and when you compare a big river with the sea, it is similar to a small river ditch. Qingxu Sailor is accustomed to Surabaya and Huaishui, and when he arrives in the river, he is beaten by my Jiangdong Sailor and has a blue nose and swollen eyes, and if the Jiangdong Sailor arrives here, I am afraid that his combat power will be greatly reduced. Ladies and gentlemen, be careful, if you want to train the most powerful sailor in the world, it is not something that can be achieved overnight, and I hope you must be mentally prepared for this. ”

Everyone looked at each other and agreed in unison: "Oh." ”

"Okay, the voyage from here to the cliff gate, with Zhao Sleeve as the flagship, and the next section, with Cai Ping as the flagship, take turns to preside over military affairs, and you should pay more attention. Opportunities are always given to those who are prepared. ”

They said yes again, and then they got out of the cabin and returned to their respective ships.

The road was calm, and a few groups of small pirates appeared in the distance, but when they rushed to the side, they were very disappointed when they saw the pirate flag hanging high. Pirates usually don't go easily to meet their peers, unless there is a feud between the two sides, but if the difference in strength is too great, and the prey is very tempting, it is not excluded that there are people who want to eat black, at least they must meet and get some light. So some people obviously saw that there were colleagues here who started first, but when they saw that there were so many ships in this vast area, and the strength of the same people was not very good, they couldn't help but be a little red-eyed and wanted to get a piece of the pie, but when they finally found out that although there were not many of these fellow ships, they were the subordinates of the famous Urging Sign, and they weighed their own strength, and they still left honestly.

The peace of this road has made the last bit of doubt of the businessmen disappear, according to this trend, as long as they do not meet the person who urges them to sign the order, they can reach Xu Wen safely.

In the afternoon of the next day, the fleet arrived at Yamen, and Sun Shao informed the merchant ships that they would rest at Yamen today, replenish food and fresh water, and set off early tomorrow morning. After Ouyang Fu and the others got the news, they went to make arrangements. In the evening, the fleet entered the cliff gate, lowered the mooring, Sun Shao took Shuai Zeng, Ao Lei and others ashore, and went straight to the official office of the Jiaozhou Navy Division here.

(To be continued)