The navy's first escort mission went smoothly, and there were no water bandits on the way, so they went directly south to Songjiang Prefecture (Shanghai area), where a wharf had already been built, and more than 20 cargo ships loaded with yarn escorted by warships began to unload as soon as they entered the port.

The firm set up a branch here, and set up a small fortress called 'Shanghai Fort', and the shopkeeper of the branch began to count the yarn with his hands.

"A total of 80,000 quintals of yarn were shipped this time, yes." The shopkeeper said that he would open a bill to the head of the transportation department of the fleet, and after the two sides counted correctly, the fleet immediately began to load the goods prepared in Songjiang Province.

The cargo ships of this fleet are of different sizes and carry different amounts of cargo, a total of 23 ships, and the total transportation volume is more than 80,000 quintals.

This fleet is an offshore transport fleet that has been formed since last year, and the cargo ships sailing near the sea are much easier to buy than the ships of the ocean trade, and the price is not expensive, and it costs more than 100,000 taels of silver to buy these ships, but the resistance of these ships to shipwrecks is also much lower, and they can only sail in the near sea, and there is a great risk of accidents when they leave the near sea.

From Qingdao Port in Jiaozhou Bay to Songjiang 'Shanghai Fort', the main goods transported are yarn, and from Shanghai to Qingdao, the main goods transported are cotton, and there are some various specialties produced in the south.

Trafficking back and forth, naturally, to maximize profits.

The ship, which was loaded with cargo overnight, sailed back the next day, and the southeast wind blew in the summer, so the speed of the sailboat was much faster.

"This year, the yarn in Songjiang Prefecture is selling very tightly, and this batch of goods will definitely be sold at a good price." The shopkeeper had a pipe in his mouth and instructed the man, "Quickly transport these yarns to the shops and put them on the shelves." ”

Sure enough, as soon as this batch of yarn hit the shelves, it was snapped up by people, and the price was nearly 20% higher than usual, which is the power of hoarding.

Shandong's cotton was bought by the commercial banks, Henan was robbed by thieves last year, and Zhao Yan bought a lot of cotton in the south, which led to the shortage of yarn supply in Songjiang Prefecture, and the price naturally went up.

Many people feel that this year's textile market is very strange and business has become difficult. First of all, there was a sudden decrease in cotton last year, and the market did not react at first, and after the cotton of the previous year was exhausted, many places stopped production.

The price of cotton cloth in the market has also risen all the way because of the suspension of production, and the price is nearly thirty percent higher than that of previous years.

There are also many cotton cloths produced in Shandong on the market, and the prices of these cotton cloths are lower than the prices of cotton cloth produced in other places, and they are also snapped up by local cloth shop owners as soon as they are listed.

The sudden rise of Shandong's textile industry made many people feel very dazed for a while, and they couldn't figure out when Shandong people had the habit of large-scale spinning and weaving.

People generally have not yet reacted, taking advantage of this gap that the trading house has dismantled the hydraulic textile machinery in Songjiang Prefecture and concentrated textile production in Shandong to prevent technical leakage.

…… On the way back to the newly formed First Fleet, one warship continued to escort the convoy home, and the other three warships broke away from the group with two express ships and headed for the sea to the east.

Su Buheng followed the advice of a Fujian crew member named Wen Bangliang and planned to go out to rob.

"Another day's time, we can block the route to the Ben, the Hongyi people and Zheng Yiguan on Dongfan Island have to take this sea route every year, because the Lang people are not allowed to go to the Lang people to trade, the goods of the Lang Ji people are transferred by Zheng Yiguan, and now it is summer, which is the peak period of this sea route." Wen Bangliang pointed to the chart and said.

"Hmmm! But how many warships do they usually send to escort during sea trade? Su Buheng asked.

"Usually there are four or five at most, but it has to be a cargo ship carrying important supplies to be escorted by a warship. Although the Hongyi people have sharp warships, after all, they have a long way to go, and they are widely distributed, and their manpower is greatly limited, and their forces on the southeast coast are no longer able to fight against Zheng Yiguan, and cargo ships are often intercepted by Zheng Yiguan, so they will be more concentrated when they are dispatched. Wen Bangliang said, "With the sharpness of our artillery, even the Hongyi people can't compare with it, and it is extremely easy to fight several times the enemy." ”

Wen Bangliang used to be one of the staff of Yan Siqi, the leader of the Twenty-Eight Brothers Alliance, and then Yan Siqi died suddenly, Zheng Zhilong married Yan Siqi's sister to the position of the leader of the alliance, and at the same time annexed Yan Siqi's power, he was squeezed out of desperation because of his opposition to Zheng Zhilong, and returned to the countryside to become a small landlord.

Wen Bangliang is not very good in the countryside, although life is worry-free, but wealth is never possible, unwilling to be lonely, he happened to meet a high-paying recruiting business house last year, so he planned to go and give it a try.

When he arrived in Shandong Wen Bangliang, he learned that he had defected to a military group whose military strength was no less than Zheng Zhilong's, but Zheng Zhilong's strength was mainly concentrated in the sea, and the strength of Zhao Yan, the general soldier of Shandong, was mainly reflected on land.

At the same time, both maintained extremely high reading power, and neither of them could be effectively restrained by the imperial court.

But Zhao Yan, who is the chief soldier of Denglai, obviously has more development potential than Zheng Yiguan, Denglai has advanced artillery that Zheng Yiguan does not have, and the power of the artillery has reached a level that cannot be compared with Hongyi people and Franco.

The strong ships and cannons of the Hongyi people have been able to run rampant on the southeast coast, but because of too few personnel, after Zheng Yiguan developed, he often used more than ten times as many ships to besiege the Hongyi people, so that the Hongyi people lost the ability to resist, but Zheng Yiguan obviously couldn't help the Hongyi people for a while.

Denglai not only has stronger artillery than the Hongyi people, but at the same time, it is the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and there will always be no shortage of manpower, and it also has the advantages that Zheng Yiguan has.

As long as you manage it carefully, you will definitely be able to override Hongyi people and Zheng Yiguan.

At the same time, Zheng Yiguan also has a very significant weakness, that is, he relies too much on land, and at the same time he is not good at land warfare, which is the so-called unstable foundation.

It's really not good, Denglai soldiers went straight to Shijing, Kinmen and other places in Fujian, Zheng Zhilong has no nest and no source of income for maritime trade, and it will inevitably decline.

Zhao Yan's troops are strong and strong, but there is no problem in holding the land, as long as the land is not lost, there will be a steady stream of manpower and material resources invested in the battle for hegemony at sea.

"Then it will block their route, it is better to grab the sea boats, we are not short of guns now, only lack of ships, and it is too slow to build them ourselves, only two clippers have been built now." Su Buheng nodded and said.

…… Three warships converted from Fuchuan, plus two 200-ton clippers built by the Longmen Shipyard, arrived on the route to the Yuben trade the next day.

The three battleships waited in place, and then scattered the two clippers to reconnoiter the surrounding waters.

The two clippers are very fast, have very little drag due to the hull length and width being designed to be 6:1, and can travel in any wind.

The speed per hour is 10~20 knots, mainly depending on whether it is in the form of downwind or upwind. However, due to the design of the clippers, the hull is too low, and the hull will be unstable after being fired with artillery, which is not suitable for combat use, so the First Fleet is equipped with clippers for reconnaissance.

Historically, these ships were once widely used to transport opium and tea, and frequently shuttled across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

After sending the clipper out to find the target, Su Buheng and the sailors on the boat began to take out fishing rods and fish in the sea. There is generally no training after going out to sea, and crews must always maintain sufficient physical strength to prepare for any encounter at sea.

(To be continued)