In fact, Lin Jin's idea of using Wu Jiugong to change the world was just a whim for her, and she didn't think that it could really be done, so after she gave out the salt drying method, she let go of her hands.

But what she didn't expect was that Wu Jiugong really integrated the Cao Gang and the salt merchants together and held them in their hands.

When she first learned the news, Lin Jin was very surprised, and even suspected that Wu Jiugong was lying to her, but after careful understanding, after discovering the status of the salt merchant and the Cao Gang, she understood.

When it comes to salt merchants, whether it is in this era or in later generations, the first impression that comes to mind is "wealthy".

The salt merchants did have money, but their lives were not easy. The imperial court knew that they had money, so they would ask the salt merchants to donate money for birthdays, military expenses, and disaster relief expenses such as the emperor, the empress dowager, and favored concubines and princes; Officials big and small also take bribes by eating and taking cards.

Although the salt merchant has a rich family, he can't withstand layers of exploitation. To make matters worse, they had no way to rise, and even though the imperial court had now allowed the children of merchants to participate in the imperial examinations, there were restrictions, and salt merchants were not included. Therefore, the salt merchants were just a group of "meat pigs" kept in captivity by the imperial court, and whenever the imperial court or officials were short of money, they would attack them.

If the salt merchants didn't realize this at first, then after a long time, as long as they are not fools, how can they not find out their own situation? But even if you do, what can you do?

The salt merchants want to change this fate to be slaughtered, they can only hope that the family can produce a promising child who can help the family change the court, just like Wu Jiugong's father did back then.

In fact, if Wu Jiugong hadn't been involved in the imperial examination fraud case, with his qualifications, the chances of passing the imperial examination as a jinshi were very high. At that time, even if he can't complete the transformation of his family's class from a merchant to a scholar, it will definitely be no problem to become a farmer.

However, the imperial examination is difficult, and it can be seen that qualified children are even more rare when they are young, so this road of cultivating children is not easy.

Therefore, the Salt Chamber of Commerce did some good deeds, such as building bridges and paving roads, subsidizing neighbors, and relieving the poor,...... Strive to make a good name. It is hoped that when the court or officials raise their butcher's knives against them, they will raise their hands slightly in consideration of their good reputation for generosity.

The salt merchants also knew that this kind of practice of handing over their fate to others was not advisable, but what could they do in this official-oriented society where the way of becoming officials was closed to them?

Therefore, most of them who are powerless to fight against fate have chosen to drink today and get drunk today, so in daily life, they spend all day and night, spend money like dirt, how to be extravagant, how to come.

The salt merchants belonged to the money bags of the court and officials, and the status of the Cao Gang was inferior to that of the salt merchants, at least the salt merchants were rich, but the Cao Gang did not even have money.

The Cao Gang is a half-black and half-white group born with the emergence of the Grand Canal. As a group that has always been in a semi-gray embarrassing position, the imperial court's attitude towards them is to use and defend.

The reason why it is used is because it involves Cao Yun and is inseparable from Cao Gang; They were guarded against because the members of the Cao Gang were mainly proletarian young male shipwrights. With so many young adults getting together, if one of them doesn't get it right, it is very likely that something will happen to a rebellion or something.

Because of the need to transport salt to various places, the salt merchants and the Cao Gang have long been in contact, but this connection has always been a very loose cooperative relationship between customers.

Some people in the Cao Gang have fists, and salt merchants have money, and uniting them together is indeed a huge force.

Wu Jiugong has the ability to hold this new force in his hands, which is a good thing, but because of the problem of the pattern, if there is no Lin Jin, after this force is discovered by the government, it will be dismantled through division, co-optation, infiltration, suppression, co-optation and other methods, and it will not be able to succeed.

But there was a bug in Lin Jin, and when she knew that Wu Jiugong had really united the Cao Gang and the salt merchants, she gave him a map of Luzon and a chart to Luzon.

Although she didn't say anything, it did not prevent Wu Jiugong from jumping out of the domestic circle of influence and looking at the problem from another angle, so that she had a strategy to go to Luzon and use it as a base point for development.

As for the feeling that the ancients said that it is difficult to leave their homeland, it is not that they are difficult to leave their homeland, but because they leave their homeland, and it is not better to go elsewhere than to live in their hometown. In that case, then why leave?

When they realize that they will have a better life if they leave their hometown and develop in other places, most people do not hesitate to choose to leave, because it is human nature to pursue a better life.

More importantly, the people of the country have a deep land plot, and many people in the ancients would buy land after they became rich. Don't those who run businesses know that doing business is much more profitable than farming?

Of course they know. But land can be passed on to future generations, but business talent is not guaranteed to be inherited, and although land is not as profitable as business, it is more secure.

But now it is a prosperous era, and a prosperous era means that unless it is a wasteland, otherwise, the land is ownery, and it is not the turn of the salt merchants and the Cao gang at all.

However, Luzon not only has a large area of ownerless land, but more importantly, there are also Chinese people there, and the situation there is similar to Penghu recovered by the imperial court a few years ago, it is not very far from the inland, and there are ships coming and going.

All these conditions mean that moving to Luzon is better than staying there.

……

Although Wu Jiugong, like Lin Jin, was happy to take Luzon, he was also dissatisfied, "Since you took out the map of Luzon and the nautical chart to Luzon, the Chamber of Commerce began to send people to investigate, and the various situations that came back all showed that Luzon was a suitable place to live, but it took three years to get it, which was too slow." ”

At that time, when Britain monopolized trade and colonial expansion around the world, it did not use the name of the state, but in the name of the East India Company, so Lin Jin formed a salt ship chamber of commerce with the salt merchants and the Cao gang, and usually acted in the name of this chamber of commerce.

Lin Jin smiled: "It's understandable. Although the Cao Gang has been begging for a living on the water, the sea is different from the big river, and they need to adapt. And to go to Luzon, you have to have a sea boat. Sea boats are not something that can be bought and obtained at once.

Moreover, whether to settle the family business in Luzon is not so easy to decide, and it must be carefully considered. Moreover, Luzon was controlled by Westerners before, and if you want to get it, you have to fight at least one ......"

Wu Jiugong sneered and said: "There are only one or two hundred Westerners who control Luzon, not even a fraction of the number of Cao Gang, and those Westerners are far away from home, one of them dies, and there is not even a single soldier to replenish, so they can't be compared with us at all."

After getting the map of Luzon, the sea ships bought by the salt merchants arrived in the hands of the Cao Gang in less than two months, but it was not long ago that the Chamber of Commerce finally made up its mind to conquer Luzon.

Yes, those Westerners have foreign guns and cannons in their hands. But a few years ago, when the imperial court recovered Penghu, Penghu invited Westerners named Dutch to help. As a result, in the naval battle, we defeated the Dutch and successfully recovered Penghu. It's only been how many years, and it's only been more than ten years, and those Westerners' weapons haven't grown, so what's there to be afraid of? ”

Lin Jin tried to defend it: "It's not something to be afraid of, fighting is a ,...... to die."

Wu Jiugong interrupted her with a laugh: "What is a dead person? Begging for a living on the water, in order to be able to firmly control Cao Yun and not let others interfere with it, how many people will not die in the Cao Gang one day?

Take Luzon, that is the eternal inheritance of the descendants.

Cao Gang's guys who don't have a house and no land, even if they work on the water for eight more lives, they can't earn an acre of land, and they may lose their lives at some point, and they will be poor ghosts until they die.

Fighting Luzon, even if he dies, in addition to the generous pension silver, there are 500 acres of land, where can I find such a good thing? ”

Lin Jin said with some surprise: "It's not the Cao Gang who is pulling the hind legs, but the salt merchant?" "There is no salt merchant to pay for the logistics, and there is no one in the Cao Gang.

Wu Jiugong smiled and sighed: "Yes, I originally thought that it should be the salt merchant's side that agrees the most, but I didn't expect it to be the Cao Gang's side that is the most active." I now fully understand Mencius's sentence 'Those who have constant birth have perseverance, and those who do not have constant birth have no perseverance'.

To be honest, if it weren't for the moving benefits of the salt drying method you came up with, the salt merchants probably wouldn't have been able to make up their minds in the end. ”

It's not that Lin Jin took out the salt drying method, it's that the power of capital is powerful enough.

You know, as soon as there is a proper profit, capital is emboldened, and if there is a profit of ten percent, it is guaranteed to be used everywhere; With twenty-five percent profits, it becomes active; With a 50 percent profit, it takes a risk; For the sake of 100 percent profits, it dares to trample on all laws, and with 300 percent profits, it dares to commit any crime, even risking hanging its head.

Don't look at the salt merchants who spend a lot of money every year to buy salt, but while they will sell official salt, most of the salt merchants are also doing private salt trading.

In fact, the salt drying method has been accurately recorded in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, although it is not as complete as Lin Jin's take, but it is much more advanced than the decoction method used now, but it has not been promoted.

Not only was the power of the original vested interests opposed, but also because the imperial court did not support it.

As a resource sold by the government, salt has always been firmly in the hands of the imperial court and is one of the major sources of income for the imperial court.

In the decoction method, the imperial court can control the number of stoves and iron pots by controlling the number of salt produced each year, so even if there is private salt flowing into the market, it is also within a controllable range; As for the salt drying method, it is difficult for the imperial court to grasp the specific production quantity, which is easy to cause the flood of private salt, so the imperial court knows that the salt drying method is superior, but does not support it.

Although the salt drying method was not supported by the imperial court, it was very popular with salt merchants, so under the impetus of capital, whether the salt merchants were willing or not, they were tied to Lin Jin's career.