Soon after, the northbound fleet, which had arrived near Guangzhou in advance, also received news of Xiao Lang's troops. Compared with the previous ones, the operation of the northbound fleet this time was much dragging on - there was no way, the team was mixed with the army and ships of the Ming Dynasty, and it was impossible to get up quickly.

This time, the officials of Liangguang were very enthusiastic about them, because after the restoration of the "Shenwei Dingyuan General" was completed in Luzon, the 500 sailors attached to the ship were all from Liangguang and Fujian sailors. Taiwan's Zheng family also got involved, providing a number of auxiliary ships and sailors, so that when they reported to Beijing, "Qiongzhen, Liangguang, Fujian, and the guerrilla general Zheng jointly served the imperial court to form the Tianjin Naval Division" -- the anchorage of this great general had been set at the port of Tianjin, and the remnants of the Dengzhou Naval Division would be merged into the new Tianjin Naval Division.

In the past few days, Xiong Wencan, the governor of Liangguang, has held a banquet almost every day to entertain the people of the northbound fleet, and the governor of Fujian has also sent representatives of his cronies, and Zheng Zhilong of the Zheng family has personally appeared.

The enthusiasm was so hard that the people of the northbound team had to wander between the gardens every day - in those days, the dignitaries were accustomed to borrowing the private gardens of the local wealthy. And since he ate other people's food, of course, he had to return the invitation, so he held a reception at the Guangzhou branch of the trading company, that is, the manor outside Liu Mingqiang and Liu Dayuan...... After such a delay, the northbound fleet, mainly composed of four large ships, stopped in the port of Guangzhou for seven or eight days, and there was no sign of leaving until now.

Standing on the top terrace of the "Sky Castle Tower", which can be called the tallest building in Guangzhou Prefecture, you can just overlook the whole picture of the port not far away -- the various branches of the Qionghai Trading Company are extremely dependent on shipping, and the location of Liu Mingqiang's manor is naturally as close to the port as possible. Since the castle tower was built, one of his personal hobbies has been to sit here and observe the harbor with a telescope to judge the shape of commerce, which is quite accurate in most cases.

However, there are many guests on this terrace today, and Liu Mingqiang naturally gave up the best position to let everyone enjoy the surrounding scenery. However, when everyone looked at it, they generally felt that the best view was from the port. Especially when there are four Western galleons moored in the current port, how can they look proud of it.

"I'm afraid there have never been so many Western galleons gathered in the port of Guangzhou at one time, right? According to normal history, I am afraid that this kind of scene will not appear until the end of the Qing Dynasty. ”

When Wang Chen, a master of painting, saw this scene, he suddenly suffered an occupational illness, and he couldn't help but take out a pen and paper to paint this scene, and at the same time, he became more and more proud of the achievements of their collective.

But Liu Mingqiang, the little fat man next to him who was more familiar with the local situation, immediately raised the bar with him:

"We don't know what history has been. But in this time and space, when Wang Zunde, the governor of Liangguang, united with the Anglo-Dutch fleets to attack our Hainan Island, he gathered in this port of Guangzhou, and the size of the fleet must have been larger than it is now--Later, our Qionghai chased in, and the Western ships sunk in this port alone are almost equivalent to those moored today--you look at the warehouse at Xiguan Wharf. It's all made of salvaged wooden planks from the wreckage of a Western ship, look at the scale...... I've always wanted to advocate that it should be the spoils of our Qionghai Town, but the old man thinks we can't be too greedy......"

Wang Chen pursed his lips, and said in his heart that it would be strange if you kid dared to openly make such a request in the local area and not be beaten by others, and he didn't pay attention to him, and sketched the lines on the drawing paper by himself. And the other buddy next to him remembered something from this, and smiled with feeling:

"O Governor of Liangguang! I think when we first came to the Ming Dynasty, we heard the name of the Governor of Liangguang, which really felt like a great official! It has only been three or four years now, and the Governor of Liangguang is standing at our feet. Letting Guo Yi go to socialize is already considered to give him face......"

Hearing him say this, everyone couldn't help but look into the garden below the castle tower -- Xiong Wencan, the governor of Liangguang, was chatting happily with Mr. Guo Yi, the current member of the management committee and head of the delegation. There is also a ring of officials and gentry from Guangzhou around, and Guo Yi's experience and conversation are not enough to deal with those Jinshiju people, but what does it matter-at the moment, Xiong Wencan needs to please them, not the other way around. So it doesn't matter how Guo Yi talks nonsense, anyway, the responsibility for maintaining the atmosphere of the conversation lies with Xiong Wencan's group.

Not far away, there are Hu Wen and Wang Jiaojiao. Zhu Yueyue, as well as Su Duxue and other female members of the world - this time there are really a lot of female comrades in the delegation, and they really regard this as a tour. They need to entertain the families of those officials. This task is also not difficult, because those official wives and noble ladies also shoulder the same mission as their husbands or elders. So no matter how they look at these short-haired women, no matter how they feel in their hearts that the fancy clothes on these short-haired girls are full of dusty feminine atmosphere, they have to make a look of joy and admiration on their faces, and praise the many new tricks made by the short-haired girls.

On the other side of the garden, however, there is a third small group of foreigners centered around Jack and Anna - not only Westerners, but also a number of Central Asian faces, Hu merchants from Ottoman Turkey and India.

As one of the few port cities in the Ming Empire that has been open to the outside world for a long time, Guangzhou still has a large number of Hu merchants, and some have even settled here for many years. However, according to traditional customs, they had their own social circles and business channels, and basically had little contact with the local gentry groups of the Ming Dynasty who were so-called "cultivators and heirlooms". For officials, they only bribe with gifts, just ask not to do bad things.

But in Liu Mingqiang's place, there is a lot of interaction with them - the main focus of the Qionghai Company is foreign trade routes, cotton, silk, sugar, porcelain, glassware and spices are the favorite goods of those foreign people, not only Westerners, but also those Arab merchants from the Islamic world. The 17th century was the height of the Ottoman Empire, and the Sultans, Caliphs, and Pasha had far more gold and silver than the Europeans, and Canton was the place where these people were concentrated. The reason why the Guangzhou branch of the trading company presided over by the little fat man Liu Mingqiang has been able to develop rapidly is largely because of this trade route to the Islamic world.

Liu Mingqiang held a banquet this time, and invited a lot of Arab businessmen who usually have good relations to come together, so that they could see the majesty of the Qionghai Trading Company -- even the governor of the Ming Dynasty and Guangxi wants to curry favor with us, and you can get to know each other better in the future!

At this time, however, the people around Old Jack were talking about medicine, which was a great place to be in the Islamic world, especially in medicine. Modern European medicine has largely absorbed the development of Arab medicine. In particular, there happened to be a famous doctor from afar among this group of Arabs, and when he talked with Old Jack, the "short-haired miracle doctor," they both were greatly surprised—they talked very speculatively.

Jack's side, since coming to this era, in addition to the group of modern companions, he finally met a peer with a little modern medical concept. Especially with regard to surgery, Arab doctors were much more tolerant of dissecting the human body than the Ming and Europeans. Old Jack talked to him about all parts of the human body, and he definitely didn't have to worry about being treated as a butcher or a pervert.

And in the eyes of the Arab doctor, Jack's knowledge and level are far beyond his imagination. Many medical ideas, he only had a preliminary idea because of years of research, but the colleague in front of him can already clearly point out the key points and results, and even point out the additional problems that may be brought in advance, which is really amazing.

The two of them talked speculatively, and everyone around them was a little dumbfounded - the topic was too professional to intervene, and the two were still talking in Latin! There are very few people in the neighborhood who can understand this language. It was Anna who was working hard to translate for her husband so that the audience around her would not be stared at.

But it is precisely because what they are talking about sounds quite high-end and high-end, and a group of people gather around them regardless of whether they understand it or not - the point is that although there are not many words translated by Anna, most of them involve the organs of the human body. People always pay the most attention to their bodies, and those Hu businessmen are rich and powerful, who doesn't want to live for two more years?

And the lively conversation here gradually attracted several other crowds, including Governor Xiong Wencan, Governor Xiong, and the female family on the governor's wife's side, and a group of people also came over out of curiosity. When they hear that they are talking about human health, most people can't help but want to listen to it more. Although the two people who were talking about it were not native to the Ming Dynasty, and the theories they were talking about were very strange, they could not stand up to the reputation of these two people—the famous Arab doctor was said to have worked as a royal physician in the Sultan's palace, and was extremely popular among the Hu merchant groups in Guangzhou. And Old Jack's reputation as the first short-haired doctor has long spread inside and outside the Guangzhou Mansion. Although the content of their discussion sounded very different from the theories of traditional Chinese medicine, since those Hu Shang and Shorthair could accept it, these Ming gentry had to make a look of listening with relish. (To be continued......) T