Chapter 21: Camouflage
Climbing up to the high lookout platform on the mast, Xiao Tianlei looked at the sea level in the distance with the remote vision provided by the Ice Shooter template. The sound of the waves in my ears, the salty sea breeze blowing, there is no scorching sun in this season, and it feels quite comfortable. It's just that the lookout platform rises and falls with the boat, swaying, and it really takes a little courage to stay on it, Xiao Tianlei almost vomited when he came up for the first time, and now he is basically used to it.
Last time, he was chased by some pirates at sea like a lost dog, and he was embarrassed at that time, Xiao Tianlei still remembers it vividly, this time he went to sea, Xiao Tianlei has been preparing for several months, although it is only a ship, but I believe that it can deal with most situations.
In order to make it easier to name, Xiao Tianlei gave the pirate ship he stole a ship name, the Conch.
At this time, the general shape of the conch's hull is basically the same as the original, but there are differences in many details, many places on the ship have been transformed, many mechanisms are hidden, and the two sides are also equipped with flipped shields, and the bow is equipped with a projectile that can fire incendiary bombs, two iron pipes that can breathe fire, etc., it can be said that the conch is armed to the teeth.
In terms of power, Xiao Tianlei's propeller concept was not realized in the end, although a transmission device was made, which was very simple and extremely inefficient. However, some of the sail settings have been modified, adding a few soft sails, which can hold the wind better than hard sails, allowing the Conch to sail a little faster, and more importantly, the Conch can adjust its direction more flexibly.
I believe that as long as you don't encounter a large group of pirate ships, the Conch can get out safely, and even, kill all the pirates, but now is not the time to deal with pirates, the first task is to go to Yazhou Sea City to sell the goods. And for the sake of secrecy, after the Conch enters the sea, if it sees some other ships, it will keep a certain distance and do not intersect with it.
The sea area south of Lingzhou is generally called Qionghai, the pearls produced are very famous, and there is no large number of pirates, mainly because compared to other large states, Lingzhou is really a little poorer, and most of the maritime merchants are visitors from other places, and there are only a few sea ships a year, most of them are large fleets of big gangs, and the general pirates can not afford to provoke. The so-called pirates in this area are mostly smugglers who sell smuggled salt and other contraband, and most of them are small boats, and they focus more on plundering each other than on plundering merchant ships.
Entering the waters of the South China Sea, because of the developed shipping, merchant ships come and go frequently, and there are many pirates. However, pirates are also human beings, and it is impossible to be at sea all day, and it is said that many pirates take the money to the shore to enjoy themselves, and do this kind of knife licking blood, no one knows whether they will be able to come back next time, and they are all in time to have fun.
Anyway, whether you will encounter pirates, many times it depends on luck, this time, the conch's luck is good, maybe there is also Xiao Tianlei in order to avoid other ships, slightly deviated from the normal route, in short, did not encounter a large group of pirates, but encountered a group of scattered pirates. Dare to rob with a few small boats, no strength and no eyes, these are the so-called outlaws, since they don't want to die, of course Xiao Tianlei will send them back to the west with the beauty of adults.
Without someone else's action, Xiao Tianlei can clean it up alone, the sea is windy, and it is difficult for arrows to hit the target. Xiao Tianlei has an ice shooter template, which automatically corrects the shooting trajectory, and once aiming, he rarely misses. Before those pirate ships approached, most of the people on board were killed by Xiao Tianlei, what else did they fight? Flee.
Arrived in the waters of Ninghai, before heading to Haishi, Xiao Tianlei first found a hidden uninhabited island and docked, and all of them changed their clothes.
According to Xiao Tianlei's original plan, all dressed up as overseas aliens, put on white robes, white scarves to cover their faces, and then used some homemade cosmetics and paints, Xiao Tianlei even made some wigs of different colors, mainly Xiao Tianlei and the people he selected, all dressed up in this way, and other ordinary sailors used paint to smear their skin, tie some pigtails on their heads, put on "exotic" sailor clothes, and wear a scimitar.
After dressing up, everyone on the Conch changed their appearance, and the friends were also surprised.
"Brother Lei, I can't even recognize it!"
"Oh, I don't even recognize myself!"
"Could it be that the disguise technique on the rivers and lakes is also like this?"
"Ah, the skin is blackened, and I can't see anyone at night!"
……
"From now on, don't talk less, don't speak Middle-earth or Lingzhou dialect, remember what I taught?"
"Know, how...... do…… you…… do? ”
“yes? no? ”
"Sprinkle the oil!"
"Goodbye?"
"Smitta?"
"Uh...... So be it......"
The brothers are talking about some "exotic" languages taught by Xiao Tianlei, which are actually some foreign words in the previous life, Xiao Tianlei doesn't remember much, and some of the messy languages he remembered in his previous life are combined together, and they don't need too much, a few common words can be pretended, traded on the sea market, the lingua franca is still the Daxia language, and some gestures, in addition, the common ones are fists, swords and money.
Not only the people of the ship, but also the Conch changed overnight, as long as some of the planks were turned over, some of the sails were replaced, the appearance of the whole ship, the painting of some parts of the ship became different, and a red cross flag was hung, and it seemed to outsiders who didn't know that compared with before, they were two different ships.
Spending so much effort, Xiao Tianlei just wanted to hide the origin of the tobacco, as for whether it could really be kept secret, and how long it could be kept secret, Xiao Tianlei was not sure, and he could only take one step at a time.
The next day, early in the morning, the Conch made a detour and headed for the group of islands where the sea market was located.
Although the sea market is not fixed, it is basically those islands, and the sea area where these islands are located is demarcated by some major powers, which is dedicated to smuggling trade, and pirates generally do not raid here.
There are hundreds of islands, and after searching them one by one, I searched for three days, and finally found a sea market on one island, which is still a sea city with hundreds of large and small sea ships connected to each other.
The Conch slowly sailed close to the sea market, docked at a position on the edge, the thick board of the ship was on the side of a nearby sea ship, the cargo was laid out on the deck one by one, and a few exotic blankets were spread, Xiao Tianlei and several people sat on it, and then waited patiently for the customer.
The strange costumes of the newcomers and the people on the Conch immediately attracted the attention of many people in the market, although they were dressed strangely, but there were many foreign races overseas, and who could completely figure out whether these overseas aliens were bringing valuable goods.
Soon, there were some customers on the Conch, looking around for the novelty goods on the Conch. Novelty products do attract attention, but these customers are all merchants, and they are all goblins, and they don't flock to them because of the novelty of the goods. What made these merchants even more hesitant was that they saw the price of these goods, which was very expensive.
For most commodities in the market, merchants have an approximate price in mind, and merchants bargain with each other on this basis, and do not mark the price explicitly. The novelty items brought by Xiao Tianlei had no price, and he didn't want to bargain with others, so he deliberately wrote the price in the broken Daxia script.
Gold leaf - five taels of silver and one tael.
Dragon's Blood Wine - Ten taels of gold a bottle.
Potpourri - five taels of gold in a bottle.
Even among some contraband in the sea market, this price is considered a high price, and the merchant has to double the price to take it, how many people can afford such a high price? However, Xiao Tianlei's positioning is very clear, originally, these are luxury goods, and he doesn't expect to sell them for ordinary people's money, the target is those powerful people in Great Xia, those people control most of the country's resources, and there are few people who are short of money.
Of course, if the price of goods is more expensive, you are afraid that it is not worth it, and there is no shortage of goods with amazing prices in the market.
Seeing the increase in the number of onlookers, Xiao Tianlei took a pipe, lit a pinch of tobacco, made a puff of tobacco, and then handed it to a merchant, who took it, hesitated, and took a puff.
Silk ——!
The other merchants looked at the merchant, only to see that the merchant's mouth and nose were spewing smoke, and they were suddenly startled, and then became interested, swallowing clouds and spitting fog, which is indeed strange! Looking at the merchant again, the whole person squinted his eyes, with a comfortable look on his face, Xiao Tianlei took the pipe and let the rest of the people try it one by one, Xiao Tianlei believed that as long as he took a puff himself, these merchants should be able to realize the value of tobacco.
When these merchants recovered from the pleasure brought by tobacco, they also fell into silence and silence, but they looked at each other.
No one spoke, Xiao Tianlei was not in a hurry, took out the beautiful green glass, poured out a few cups of dragon blood wine, and did not give it to the merchant to taste, but handed it to the merchant's guard, as a martial artist, he could better understand the value of dragon blood wine.
In addition to the good taste, dragon blood wine can also restore physical strength, I heard that those sect clans also have drugs to restore the strength of the dragon's blood, however, Xiao Tianlei believes that it is definitely not as fast as dragon blood wine, so energetic.
Those warriors drank the dragon's blood wine, their faces were red one by one, and then they all pulled their own owners to mutter, and those merchants were surprised when they heard it. Dragon's blood wine looks like a high-end product, not to mention the wine itself, in the eyes of these merchants, the bottle of dragon's blood wine is worth a lot of money.
The perfume is simpler, take out a drop, spray it on the businessman and others in front of you, and suddenly, the strange fragrance permeates and lingers for a long time.
After a demonstration, Xiao Tianlei didn't need to say anything, sat down, and just waited for these businessmen to bid, no, it was a purchase, Xiao Tianlei had no intention of bargaining.
Sure enough, a few businessmen ran to the side and muttered for a while, and then came back and began to bargain, obviously negotiating to suppress the price together, but, as a foreign race, the language is not understood, Xiao Tianlei pretended not to understand, no matter what they said, they just shook their heads, pointed to the price, and did not sell any less.
After some strenuous exchanges, Xiao Tianlei finally sold the first basket of tobacco, the first bottle of dragon's blood wine and perfume, and then sold some more one after another, which was not much, after all, no one was sure whether this thing could be sold for the first time, whether it could be profitable, and it could not be too much.
The first day passed, the second day was still tepid, and on the third day, early in the morning, a large group of merchants rushed to the Conch and began to rush to buy it, and many people wanted to buy the whole ship, and as a result, a fierce quarrel broke out, and the merchants hurled insults at each other, and almost fought.
No wonder these businessmen argued, the goods brought by Xiao Tianlei, they immediately sent people to Ninghai to sell, and the profits were several times the amount of profits, and the sales were very good, especially those big people's love, and these things were easy to transport and carry, and they were the best smuggled goods.
At this time, if an auction is held, I believe that it can be sold at a higher price, but Xiao Tianlei did not do that, and still sold it at the original price, continuing to play the role of a rigid foreign maritime merchant, as for the disputes and distribution of those merchants, he did not intervene.
But the merchants fought over the distribution of the goods, and when they brought up a basket of goods from the hold of the Conch, there would be a dispute. A basket of goods was lifted out of the deck, in exchange for a basket of gold and silver, the sea market and maritime merchants are generally traded in cash, and the tickets of Daxia can be exchanged for gold and silver in the guild, but they can't be used in foreign countries, Xiao Tianlei actually wants to receive tickets that are easy to carry, but, considering the identity of the overseas alien race he plays, it can only be so.
So, Xiao Tianlei had to face a happy trouble, five taels of silver for one or two tobacco, it was definitely a huge profit, if all of them were sold, in exchange for five times the weight of silver, it is estimated that the conch could only barely carry it, if all of it was exchanged for copper coins, the conch would have been sunk long ago. Fortunately, it is not difficult to exchange gold and silver in the sea market, but it is not possible to exchange too much in a short time, plus the gold and silver exchanged for dragon blood wine and perfume, the Conch is also loaded with a small half ship.
Although the crew on the Conch did not show it in front of outsiders, the whole ship was immersed in the joy of making a fortune.
Animals will become more fierce and alert when protecting food, and people are the same, so Xiao Tianlei kept receiving small reports that it was a suspicious person on the ship near the conch. Xiao Tianlei naturally also saw that with a 360-degree three-dimensional perspective, there was nothing around him that could hide from his eyes, among which there were indeed ill intentions, but they only accounted for half of them, and the others were just some ordinary martial artists and boatmen, and it could only be said that because of their huge wealth, their brothers were a little nervous.
However, I believe that if the timing is right, these people probably don't mind grabbing a handful of the Conch, and before, those merchants who bought goods may also turn into pirates.
In fact, when the goods on the Conch were sold out, some characters came, saying that they wanted to make a friend, or some big man invited Xiao Tianlei to meet, what a blessing, etc., Xiao Tianlei only didn't understand, and communicated hard for a long time before these people left impatiently.
Xiao Tianlei knew in his heart that these people all represented some forces and big shots, probably on the condition of providing protection, wanting to ask for benefits, and even wanting to know the source of these goods, mastering financial resources, making friends, giving benefits or something, it was all some nonsense, Xiao Tianlei didn't want to have anything to do with these forces, of course, rejecting the "kindness" of these people, perhaps, the Conch left the sea market, and they were the first to send people to loot.
Now it can be said that wolves are around, as long as they go out of the sea market, or even in the sea market, some disasters may occur.
In this regard, Xiao Tianlei had already taken countermeasures, and on the night when the goods were sold out, the gold and silver and some goods were loaded, and the Conch set sail slowly in the night.