When Zhu Daolin opened his eyes, it was already early the next morning, and Chu Mei, who was curled up in his arms, was breathing long and evenly, and slept very sweetly.

Throughout the day, Zhu Daolin and Chu Mei did not go out of the door, and Zhu Daolin, who rarely stayed at home, also let go of everything, sat down quietly, and played each other's favorite tunes for Chu Mei one after another, and finally even his father and mother who came back from work at noon were fascinated.

After staying at home for two nights and one day, the anxious Zhu Daolin couldn't sit still any longer, and after lunch at noon on the third day, he solemnly told Chu Mei and his parents that he would leave this time and would be back in three days, so he reluctantly obtained the consent of his family.

In the afternoon, Zhu Daolin drove to the largest building materials market in the suburbs of Jinling, and soon saw thousands of tons of ordinary 425 grade cement stacked outside the steel shed on the edge of the market.

Zhu Daolin got out of the car and asked several people, only to find the owner of the company that had sold the batch of cement, and finally bought 4,000 tons of it at an extra price of 10 yuan per ton, saying that he would pick up the goods by himself before dawn and not occupy the position of the boss to replenish the goods one after another tomorrow.

At eleven o'clock in the evening, Zhu Daolin, who was full of wine and food, drove alone to the building materials market covering a wide area, drove back and forth, and found that the plate area in the north and the steel area in the west were still hoisting overnight, and other ceramics, pipes and other areas were quiet, and the cement sales area near the edge of the market was even more difficult to see.

This situation made Zhu Daolin, who was full of worries, secretly happy, and after careful observation, he got out of the car and soaked in urine, and easily took away his own 4,000 tons of cement, although he did not get the cement quick-setting agent he wanted, but with these 4,000 tons of cement and 1,000 tons of wire rod, it will play a great role in promoting the construction of freshwater ports and defensive fortresses. It can save at least two months of construction time.

At this time, the Tamsui Port already has 4,800 households with a total of more than 11,600 military and civilian personnel, plus the upcoming third batch of more than 2,800 households and 8,200 people, the population of the Tamsui Port is about to approach 20,000, and the construction progress can be greatly accelerated with more people.

Garrison Commander Yang Dading has moved 50 containers to high ground away from the riverbank, lined up in two rows and used as barracks, covered with neat and thick thatched roofs. A large area overgrown with weeds and thorns in front of it has been cleared, revealing a level ground 100 meters square, which seems to have become the garrison of the officers and men of the garrison battalion.

Above the wharf on the east bank of Tamsui changes greatly, rows of neat grass-roofed wooden houses are in order, and the smoke rises in the morning light, which is not only the military and political center of Tamsui, but also an important transit point for immigrants, where immigrants from the mainland live for 5 to 10 days before adapting to their long-term residence. Start building your own home and reclaim the land.

In front of the 300-meter-long coastline to the south of the estuary is a freshwater port under construction, and two rows of neat wooden piles have been laid, and stones mined from under Fortress Hill have been piled up on the shoreline.

Above the coast, 32 unreadable containers are arranged at intervals of about 5 meters, each covered with a thatched roof reinforced with bamboo strips, which is very practical to protect from both the sun and rain, and the ropes are hung between the containers, and various clothes are fluttering in the morning breeze.

Zhu Daolin took one last look at the 4,000 cement and 1,000 tons of steel stacked above the southern shore of Fortress Hill. Skirt the edge of the mangrove forest that stretches for miles ahead, and want to walk through the newly opened flat land to climb Fortress Hill at the western foot of Nanshan Mountain for a panoramic view. But as soon as he took a few steps, he was startled by two three-meter evergreen ring sea snakes that suddenly burst out of the mangrove forest.

The two sea snakes stopped in front of Zhu Daolin about three steps and raised their necks, Zhu Daolin subconsciously pulled out the long sword at his waist and took a step back, the two sea snakes seemed to feel the murderous aura coming, and quickly rushed into the dense mangrove forest, splashing a few splashes and disappearing.

Zhu Daolin, who was terrified, let out a long breath. This is the first time he has seen a green ring sea snake that is ten times more poisonous than a cobra, although he has not learned about it on the Internet before, but he is still shocked into a cold sweat after seeing it with his own eyes.

Zhu Daolin wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. It took a lot of time to reach the foot of a secluded hill, put away his long sword, climbed a narrow hill more than 50 meters high, and walked north along the path carved out by the people with sledgehammers, and looked at the back of the container houses where the 2,000 people lived.

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Zhu Daolin's sudden appearance surprised everyone in Tamsui Port, and it was even more surprising that a large number of goods appeared on the north and south banks of the Tamsui River silently twice, but Zhu Daolin never answered the question of how to transport and unload the goods, which made people feel very mysterious.

Not long after, there were "gods to help each other", "General Zhu is from the Daomen, the Daomen is powerful" and "General Zhu is a martial artist descending to the earth" and other sayings, the rumors of Xuan and Xuan in Yuhan Daochang and others intentionally or unintentionally promoted, to appease the people's hearts to play a good effect, there have been many immigrants to ask when to build a Zhenwu Emperor or Sanqing Treasure Palace.

At four o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, Zhu Daolin was discussing the construction of the Tamsui Port with Jiang Zhaohuan, Simeno and others, when he heard the shouts of cheers and excited shouts coming from the riverside, everyone immediately ended the meeting and walked to the wharf.

Vargas on the ship saw Zhu Daolin appear in front of the welcoming crowd from the telescope, and the telescope in his hand almost fell off in shock, when he led the fleet to leave Baoshan Port, Zhu Daolin was still on the dock to see him off, although the voyage was delayed for one more day to avoid the storm, a total of 9 days, but Zhu Daolin should not have arrived at Tamsui Port in advance!

Could it really be that there is a kind of "sailing ship" made by the Tianshu Pavilion that can travel thousands of miles a day with a steam engine installed among the officers and soldiers?

After the "Winter Snow" transporting 800 immigrants berthed, Vargas was the first to get off the ship, came to the smiling Zhu Daolin and saluted, and the first sentence was not to report the situation of the fleet: "General, can you tell me, what ship you arrived on in advance?" ”

Zhu Daolin couldn't help but laugh and replied in a low voice: "It is a few new ships powered by steam power, and the same kind of steam ships have been used to transport goods for me many times before, and you will be able to see it in a few months, I have customized several batches of steam engines and sent them to Jinling around the end of the year, you won't be surprised after you see how it works." ”

"God! I'll definitely see how this amazing steam engine works, and I look forward to that day as soon as possible. ”

Bagas believed Zhu Daolin's explanation, sighed and stepped forward, and reported to Zhu Daolin in a low voice:

"In order to escape the storm three days ago, anchored behind an uninhabited island and reef off the coast of southern Zhejiang for a day and a night, and two hours ago the ships sent a message through signal flags, except for the two 450-ton warships that served as a vigilance, the other seven warships carrying migrants died a total of 343 people, one of whom died a day ago due to bad weather, in order to avoid causing a plague, I had to order to be thrown into the sea."

"In addition, after the storm subsided, that is, when we left the waters of southern Zhejiang and crossed the strait, a fleet of ships came over, their 16 cargo ships were not large, and the two largest brigs had a displacement of about 600 tons, and they were about 9 kilometers away from each other, and they turned around and avoided us to the south."

"I saw from the telescope that 5 of the armed escort ships were flying the black whale flag of the Zheng family in Fujian, and it is estimated that they also saw our red and black white dragon flags, but I don't think they will know that it is your fleet."

Zhu Daolin's expression became solemn, firstly for the hundreds of immigrants who died, and secondly because of the encounter with the Zheng family's fleet: "Although our naval flag has just been used, the white dragon pattern on the flag can remind them of many things, but it doesn't matter, even if they know that it is my fleet, they don't dare to act rashly." ”

"The Zheng family has been trying their best to get rid of their disgraceful pirate status for several years, and their patriarch Zheng Zhilong is now the Sipin Naval Defense of the Ming Army, which is basically the same as my current position, but one level lower."

"Besides, at present, their biggest enemy is not me, but the Dutch and Liu Xianghai, another group of Liu Xianghai bandits who occupy the waters of Guangdong, there have been constant conflicts between them in the past six months, and many people have died, I infer that in the next year, as long as we do not take the initiative to attack, he will not attack us, otherwise we will be attacked on three sides."

Bagaslian claimed that he saw that more and more civil and military officials were gathered around, so he took the initiative to step aside and warmly hugged Simeno and other Spaniards who came forward to salute and greet him.

Lu Qian, the 31-year-old former deputy of the Jiangnan Naval Division, immediately stepped forward to salute Zhu Daolin, gave a brief report on the warship and the officers and men, and humbly stood aside amid Zhu Daolin's praise.

The migrants began to descend from the two warships to the docks, and many of them knelt down and kowtowed with tears in their eyes after stepping on the solid ground.

For all immigrants, it is undoubtedly very painful to move far away from their homeland this time, which is equivalent to just returning from a walk in the ghost gate, and all Zhu Daolin understands their feelings very well, understands their tears and happiness. (To be continued.) )