How big is the gap?

A sextant is not enough to explain the problem, but when the night passed and the morning sun rose, Liu Yi suddenly had a feeling of enlightenment. Because the fleet has arrived at the point of this trip - Drifting Yujin.

It's not the first time Liu Yi has come to Drifting Yujin, the last time he came here, it was an autumn when he was on a study tour. At that time, he felt that the scenery of Piaoyujin was very good, and he also praised the person who named this small port, thinking that the name was apt and famous.

The elm tree is a kind of tree that can be seen everywhere in Youzhou, and in this area of Quanzhou, a white elm tree with large leaves grows a lot. Every autumn when the grass and trees wither, the elm leaves fall all over the ground, blown into the river by the autumn wind, like a small boat, flowing eastward and straight into the Hanhai.

This is a very poetic scene, especially in such a sparsely populated place full of natural scenery, which can especially lead to sadness and contemplation.

Although he hasn't been here since, Liu Yi can be sure that this small port must have maintained its original appearance before the Qingzhou army marched north. Even if there is a change, it will only become more sparsely populated, and it is definitely not the other way around.

However, after many years of absence, when he revisited his old place, he was full of shock, and the place had been turned upside down!

When inquiring about the information about the war in Youzhou, Liu Yi had imagined what Piaoyujin should be like after being used as a shipping hub by Wang Yu. The first thing that came to his mind was a heavily guarded city or camp, full of granaries like small hills, surrounded by heavy guards. Impregnable.

More than half of the Qingzhou Army's northern expedition was transported by sea. Isn't it supposed to be the case with the millions of grains and grass that have been hoarded in Drifting Yujin?

But now. Liu Yi didn't see the heavy security and high walls and deep trenches he imagined, he only saw a place where people and horses were buzzing, like a super-large-scale market or a construction site.

Dozens of causeways protruded from the shore, and ships docked at the ends, leaving and docking. Whenever a new ship docks, a group of people will rush over with carts or sleeves rolled up, and pick up the cargo from the ship in a step-by-step manner. Round-trip transportation.

There are warehouse-like buildings on the shore, but these goods are usually not delivered to the warehouses, but are sent directly to the cargo ships docked at the estuary. The sailors on board would also help, and when all the cargo had been removed, they would open the doors of the warehouses and remove some of the goods from them and transport them to the ship.

After all this is done, the undamaged ship will begin to prepare again. But apart from the ship itself, the sailors and cargo on board are completely different.

The disembarking sailors smiled and waved goodbye to the sailors who got on the boat. Then the ships left the port one by one, and after the speed of the voyage was raised, they formed a formation and sailed away.

Everything on the pier. It looks like it's so chaotic, but in the chaos, everything seems to be in rhythm. In order. This conflicting feeling is indescribable. I don't know, as if there is a kitten scratching in my heart. It's very itchy.

Although there are dozens of docks, they still don't look adequate, and many ships are lined up outside the port, even Tai Shici's fleet with an important mission is no exception.

The estuary is similarly overwhelmed.

In fact, the estuary is also an important landscape of Piaoyujin, where the waters of Qingshui Heqi, Zhang, Huan, Hu, Yi, Wei, Gu, Hutuo and other waters flow into the sea together, forming a fan-shaped river structure where all currents are unified. But even with such a channel to divert the stream, the estuary was still crowded with cargo ships, like a school of fish in a fishing net.

Liu Yi has done maritime trade, pirates, and even transported people, but he never imagined that sea trade, or sea transportation, could be done on this scale in this way.

"This is really ......" He had no time to delve into whether Tai Shici was honestly queuing up, whether he was contemptuous and neglectful of Liaodong, but he just let surprise and shock fill his heart, but he couldn't find the right words to vent this emotion.

"It's breathtaking." Gongsun Du walked out at some point, stood beside Liu Yi, sighed, and said what his confidant Ai wanted to say but didn't say.

“…… Truly. Liu Yi praised from the bottom of his heart.

What the port saw was not an incredible move. From these years of maritime trade, Liu Yi has realized a truth, doing business is not about how high the profit is in a single transaction, but how fast the flow is.

In the past, Liaodong went to Qingzhou, and it went back and forth twice a year at most. At the beginning, there was no fleet in Qingzhou, and the sea trade was dominated by Liaodong, and he could buy low and sell high at will.

After Tai Shi Ci crossed to the east, Qingzhou's own sea ships became large, and began to go to Liaodong on their own to start trade, and some caravans could come and go once a month, and the surging trade volume and profit amount, the Gongsun Du and Liaodong generals were almost scared to jump a few feet high on the spot.

Even though the price of the maritime merchants in Qingzhou was half lower than that of the Liaodong government, the surging trade volume still made up for the lack of profit from a single trade. Not only did it make up for the shortcomings, but Liu Yi calculated that the actual trade volume had actually increased by multiples, and it had increased by more than one or two times!

However, these profits did not go into Gongsun Du's pocket. Qingzhou maritime merchants ship shipments, of course, make a lot of money, they will be sold when they arrive in the port, and they will not do the mode of staying, which is also destined to let those local tyrants with a keen sense of smell take advantage.

The merchant fleet in Liaodong only took the Dongyu-Donglai route, but the fleet in Qingzhou was how convenient and how to come, and often suddenly appeared in Liaokou, and even Pingguo, which were not officially controlled by Liaodong, and to be precise, there were no port and wharf facilities in those places, and they were just a barren beach.

Because of this style of the Qingzhou merchant fleet, many places are strong, nothing to do with people to drive cattle, horses, sheep, with fur, ginseng, grass huts and other herbs and other goods on the seaside, found the ship on the fire and set fire, after the two sides contacted, on the first hand of money, a hand of goods direct transaction.

From a monopoly business, it has become like this, of course Gongsun Du will not be happy, and he has protested to Qingzhou more than once. But Qingzhou's answer also made him quite speechless, Wang Yu believed that as long as the businessman paid enough taxes in Qingzhou according to the law, then no matter what he did outside, he was a legitimate businessman and should be protected and maintained by the general's mansion.

Of course, those businessmen will pay taxes, they can find a place to stop in Liaodong, find someone to trade, and when they return to Qingzhou, they can be much more honest, they will take the initiative to find the tax collector of the port, take the initiative to report all the details of the transaction, and pay the tax in a proper manner, so as not to be suspected and traced by others.

Since he has paid taxes, he is a legitimate businessman, and Gongsun Du has lost a lot of profits, and there is nowhere to redress his grievances.

It's not that he doesn't want to learn from Wang Yu and clean up the people below honestly, but the problem is that the situation in Liaodong is different from Qingzhou, there are too many large and small mountains, and it affects the whole body.

Even with Gongsun Du's strength, it is impossible to completely suppress all the local Haoqiang, originally he formed his own fleet and did trade by himself, those Haoqiang had complaints in their hearts, but there was no way to ask Gongsun Du to share with them. Now that there are Qingzhou maritime merchants who take the initiative to send them to the door, how can they let it go?

Just allow you Liaodong Hou to eat meat, and don't allow everyone to drink soup? How can there be such a truth in the world? If Gongsun Du really wants to forcibly monopolize it, it won't take a few days, and Liaodong will be in flames.

Speaking of which, the relationship between Qingzhou and Liaodong has turned from hot to cold, and it is not because of this.

After realizing that he could not solve the problem from the inside, Gongsun Du hit the idea on the head of the Qingzhou maritime merchants. Of course, he would not openly act and directly deal with Qingzhou, he thought of a way to kill people with a knife, and acquiesced in the entry of some Hanhuma thieves, implying that they could pretend to be merchants and rob Qingzhou maritime merchants.

He thought very well, and felt that merchants were all timid and avoided harm and profit, and as long as they suffered a few losses, they would not dare to dock in the field at will, so they could only anchor at the two official ports of Liaokou and Donghao, and trade according to his rules and prices, and re-establish a monopoly.

But I never thought that the merchants in Qingzhou were different from ordinary businessmen.

The merchants behind the merchant fleet have any identity, but the captains and shopkeepers who lead the team are all veterans.

Ordinary businessmen have a deep-seated fear of the ocean, only these veterans are bold, and they have experienced the sea of swords, mountains and fires, are they still afraid of the waves?

It is said that they are veterans, but in fact, these people are not very old, usually in their thirties. The veterans who followed Wang Yu to fight the world at the beginning, if they were not promoted to officers above the rank of governor, they are basically discharged from the army now.

Wang Yu's explanation for this is that it is not easy for these meritorious veterans to die for the rest of their lives, but the swords and guns have no eyes, and the strong men will inevitably die in battle, and they must not let all the heroes die well. Moreover, these veterans have left a lot of wounds on their bodies, and it is not appropriate to let them continue to fight hard.

Some of the veterans work as errands in the yamen, maintaining law and order, and acting as militia instructors once a week to organize local military training. There are also some who go home directly to farm and do business, and after Tai Shi Ci crossed to the east, the new business of maritime merchants rose, ordinary businessmen were afraid, but the veterans of business responded to the call of the commander in chief for the first time.

Although they have retired from the army, the military literacy of the veterans still does not say, if they meet masters like Yan Rou and Xian Yufu, they may indeed be unable to resist, but ordinary horse bandits are here to deliver food.

Strong bows, crossbows, halberds, big lances, and even a veteran of the Destruction Battalion directly took out a giant sword that cut horses, and the horse bandits who were killed and robbed were bleeding like a river, holding their heads and running away.

Gongsun Du suffered this secret loss again, and his favorability towards Qingzhou also plummeted, so there was a later Qingzhou Army's Northern Expedition, and he refused to respond, laying the groundwork for the Qingzhou Army's Eastern Expedition.

In the final analysis, it is the trouble caused by interests.

At this moment, seeing the ships shuttling back and forth, and the popular Drifting Yujin, Gongsun Du was shaken, and he seemed to understand a little bit where the biggest gap between himself and Wang Yu was. (To be continued......)