Business competition is no less brutal than a real war.

Malcolm knew exactly where Karina's weakness was, and this time he changed his previous aggressive posture and began to give in on his own initiative, throwing bait that the businesswoman could not refuse.

If Karina wants to develop, she can't rely on just one ship, the Jackdaw, whether it's creating a second-hand cargo exchange or trading privately with a pirate ship belonging to the Black Merchants Alliance, all in order to deal with Malcolm's blockade of her, so this time the opportunity is ready-made, and she has no reason to retreat.

In fact, if Karina was given another half a year, with her learning ability, she could solve most of the troubles she encountered at the moment, and thus turn losses into wins, but Malcolm obviously would not give her this time.

"How much money are you missing?" Zhang Heng asked.

"It will take at least seven hundred gold coins to get the business up and running again, but I don't know what's the point of going any further, we're losing a lot of money, the business wasn't very profitable before, but now it's ...... Now every day, every hour, every minute we are losing money. There was a rare hint of frustration and exhaustion in Karina's voice.

Recently, it is also the most difficult time for her business on the island, and what is even more terrifying is that although she is running around all day, but she can't see the hope of turning a profit, the problems encountered by Karina are all aspects, because the speed of expansion is too fast, the talent reserve, the capital reserve can not keep up, the original market can not accommodate so many shipments, customs price increases, local business resistance, these are not a short time to solve.

"The additional 800 gold coins I promised you to invest in the future can be given to you now. In addition to that, I can lend you another 200 gold coins. Zhang Heng said, after going to sea this time, the Jackdaw returned with a full load, Zhang Heng roughly calculated, as the captain and the first batch of veterans, he could probably share the income worth almost 1,200 gold coins, which is undoubtedly a real huge amount of money.

Even if he doesn't wash his hands now and buys two farms or plantations on the island, he can live comfortably, but considering that Roger will have a few more years? Wood also wants to take the fleet to recover Nassau, and Zhang Heng does not want to pin his life and death on the benevolence of others.

Roger, the first governor of Nassau in history? Wood eventually pardoned most of the pirates on the island after leading the fleet to occupy Nassau, but with Zhang Heng's current situation, he may not be able to die well once the British army goes to the island, counting the Scarborough, he has now killed two naval warships, and his current pirate ship Jackdaw was also snatched from the navy, and also participated in the bombardment of Charleston before the Queen Anne's revenge, and not long ago killed Walden, the supreme commander of the British Caribbean.

And now that Blackbeard Titch is missing, Black Prince Sam has been killed in battle, and Honig has retired, Zhang Heng and the Jackdaw he led have faintly become the most powerful pirates on the island.

And if Nassau was really Roger? Wood won, considering that the development of Nassau requires a lot of young and strong labor, and others may be able to save their lives, but Zhang Heng must be the first batch of people to be cleaned up, as long as Roger? Wood is not stupid, and will definitely use his head to make an example of chickens and monkeys.

Therefore, although Zhang Heng has completed the main task, he can't take a vacation, and now he is no longer alone, as the captain of the Jackdaw, his subordinates all point to him to eat, he has to take care of Anne, Karina would have been in no suspense without his support and the competition between Malcolm.

At this point, it was difficult for him to be alone or retreat bravely.

"But in return, my stake will increase by another 10%." Zhang Heng paused and continued.

"There's nothing wrong with that, but are you sure you want to continue, at least in the short term, there's no hope of making a profit."

"What if Malcolm's external threat is dealt with?" Zhang Heng asked.

Considering the huge income brought by this voyage, the sailors of the Jackdaw should have had a long period of burnout, so it should be a long time before the next voyage, and after this legendary World War I, the Jackdaw's position in Nassau was basically established.

Zhang Heng has enough time and energy to deal with the final opponents - the Black Merchant Alliance and Malcolm.

Although judging from the results, Karina's business situation during this period was very bleak, but she did complete the previous strategic arrangement, which brought external pressure to the Black Business Alliance, regardless of whether the current concession was Malcolm's initiative, but it is an indisputable fact that it caused a large-scale expansion of the second-hand goods trading office.

There may not be no voices of doubt within the Black Merchant Alliance, but Malcolm is strong enough that he calculates that he can afford it and Karina can't.

However, with Zhang Heng returning with a large sum of gold, the situation has been completely different, on the other hand, the Black Merchant Alliance has lost five more powerful pirate ships, especially the loss of the Black Prince Sam and his Vader, which has undoubtedly caused a great impact on the Black Merchant Alliance.

Malcolm may not be in a much better position than Karina now.

In the early days of the establishment of the Black Merchant Alliance, the purchase price offered to each pirate ship was very favorable, which was the lowest profit in itself, but now the number of powerful pirate ships in hand has exploded, and it is foreseeable that the valuable loot will also decrease in the future, which will also exacerbate the internal conflict of the Black Merchant Alliance.

Zhang Heng then had a secret meeting with the black gladiator Laeri, and the meeting place was still in Smoked Fish Alley.

The latter also gained a lot during this time, with Leah's guilt, there were almost no secrets in Malcolm's study, Leah took the opportunity to clean the room, and silently flipped through the letters in the study, in order to avoid startling the snake, Leah did not bring out those letters this time, but selected useful information from them and wrote them down with a pen, and then found someone to take the notes to Laeri.

Zhang Heng took the notes and flipped through them, and did see some interesting information on them, in addition to a lot of Leah's impressions and analysis of Malcolm, which is helpful to have a comprehensive understanding of Malcolm, but the news related to Karina's father Fagan is still only the previous letter.

Although it was confirmed from the letter that Malcolm's family was indeed in contact with Count Slaughter, who framed Fagan, it was difficult to make accusations against him without substance, but there was a previous letter that Malcolm had quietly invested in a councillor in Whitehall, who was a sworn political enemy of Raymond's son-in-law.