Since Qian Tiandun was transferred to Fujian in the summer of 1631, he had been dealing with Ming officials for two years, and he had a deep understanding of their habits and ways of thinking. Although it is true that there are Qing officials who are loyal to the monarch and patriotic and unwilling to accept the benefits of Haihan, most officials cannot refuse the temptation of real money, and their attitude is only to see the level of Haihan's bid and the risks they need to take for it.www.biquge.info

After the Haihan entered Zhejiang, they still followed a set of operational methods that achieved good results in the southern region, first bribing and wooing the civil and military officials in the coastal areas, and as soon as the door to the coastal areas was opened, vested interests would take the initiative to lay relations in the inland areas and drag more people into the water, in order to seek greater benefits in the trade system dominated by the Haihan. Therefore, when Haihan first arrived in Zhejiang, almost all the officialdom figures he came into contact with were in Ningbo Prefecture, and the purpose was to take this area down first and make it a springboard between Zhoushan and the mainland.

After throwing out a lot of silver, the civil and military officials of Ningbo Prefecture changed their positions, gave up their initial resistance to Haihan, and began to enjoy the dividends brought by Haihan. Those with more intelligent brains, such as the prefect Qu Yutong and others, have already found agents and directly joined the Haihan trade system to participate in the operation, and the benefits will definitely be more considerable in the future.

The local officials in Ningbo wanted to bring officials from other state capitals into the bureau, which was exactly what Haihan could not ask for. For Haihan, he is not afraid that the Ming officials are greedy for money, but he is afraid that the other party will not mention the conditions, as long as he is willing to make a price, then there will be negotiation. As for the money spent, sooner or later it will be recovered from the local area through trade, which is not the primary problem. What's more, this matter also involves the safety of maritime navigation that worries the command most at present, and whether this matter is true or not, it must be investigated.

At that moment, Qian Tiandun wrote a reply letter to Xu Shaohua, saying what he meant here, and giving the meeting place and approximate time. This news was transmitted from Zhoushan to Guanhaiwei, and then to Linshanwei, and after the commanders of the two guards agreed on their opinions, it took several days to repeat this again. Fortunately, Qian Tiandun took into account the low speed of information transmission in this era, and specially set the meeting time five days later, so it was not affected.

The meeting place between the two sides was set on the southern coast of Jintang Island, which is currently controlled by Haihan, and Gao Qiaonan took a company to the place one day in advance and searched the meeting place within a radius of five miles. In addition, the navy also dispatched four expedition-class and four exploration-class warships to deploy a maritime cordon between Jintang Island and the Yongjiang estuary in case things change.

Qian Tiandun's choice of this place for the meeting also fully considered the positions of the two sides, and although Jintang Island is an island controlled by the Haihan, there are no armed personnel stationed on the island. Its southern bank is less than 10 miles away from the mainland, and less than 20 miles away from the mouth of the Yongjiang River, where the naval division troops are stationed.

Lin Shanwei commanded Wei Shan and Guan Haiwei commanded Huang Tao to arrive on the same boat, and the one who sent them over was Xu Shaohua, the chief sailor who acted as the middleman. After going ashore, he was welcomed into the big tent set up in advance by the Haihan side. Here they finally met the Haihan people, who were rumored to be called "chiefs".

Both soldiers, Wei Shan and Huang Tao have a very good impression of Qian Tiandun, with a dark complexion and a strong body, exuding a confident and calm momentum, and this kind of momentum can only be possessed by people who have been in a high position for a long time, are accustomed to giving orders, and control the power of life and death. The other side even allowed them to carry their sidearms into the negotiation venue, and this courage and bearing were enough to break their hearts.

After Xu Shaohua introduced the two parties in the center, he inevitably had to say polite words such as long-admiring the name, and then Qian Tiandun invited them to sit down and ordered someone to serve tea.

"A few days ago, a friend from Hangzhou just sent tea, saying that it was the Ming Dynasty Longjing picked from the old tea tree in front of Hugong Temple at the foot of Shifeng Mountain, and the two of them saw if it was genuine. Qian Tiandun was not busy talking about business, but tasted tea first.

Although Wei Shan and Huang Tao are martial artists, they are not rough people, Qian Tiandun is not in a hurry to cut to the chase, they will not be so uncontrollable, and they each picked up the teacup and tasted the tea at the moment. Although this Ming Qian Longjing is good, it is not particularly rare for them, and they can still buy it if they want to. But the Haihan people have always been known for their shrewdness, so they probably won't just use a cup of Longjing tea to pass the time, and let's see what the way is there first.

Qian Tiandun put down the teacup and didn't mention business, but continued to talk about tea: "In the "Book of Tea" written by Lu Yu, the tea saint of the Tang Dynasty, there are records about tea production in two temples in Tianzhu and Lingyin in Hangzhou. In the Northern Song Dynasty, it had become a tribute tea, and Su Dongpo also chanted poems to praise Longjing tea. The famous tea records collected by Huang Yizheng in this dynasty and the national famous teas compiled by Xu Wenchang also have West Lake Longjing. ”

Wei Shan and Huang Tao glanced at each other, and they didn't understand why Qian Tiandun wanted to talk about this tea leaf, didn't he come this time to talk about the threat of Haihan's trade routes?

Qian Tiandun didn't seem to notice the expressions of the two of them, and continued to say to himself: "In the past, when we first settled in Qiongzhou in the South China Sea, we couldn't drink Zhejiang's good tea at all, why? If we want to drink authentic Longjing good tea, we have to get a high price, and we want to bring it back from Zhejiang, and if we want to drink the new tea produced that year, we have to start trying to get through the relationship at least half a year in advance. But now that we have arrived in Zhejiang, we have found that this thing is not so difficult to buy, and it is not as expensive as we think, we couldn't buy it in the past, but now the situation is different. ”

Qian Tiandun pointed to the teacup that was put back on the table and said, "After we tasted it, we immediately placed an order for three thousand catties of tea with the local merchants. Because we buy a lot of tea, the price is only one-third of that of the southern market, and when we sell tea to the south, we will have at least twice the gross profit. If we sell tea to Annam, Champang, Siam, or even to the people of the West, the profits will be doubled. ”

Wei Shan and Huang Tao listened in a daze, and seemed to understand some of the off-string sounds, but they still didn't seem to understand what Qian Tiandun wanted.

Qian Tiandun asked: "Since the two of you are willing to come here to meet with me, they are both smart people who can understand the situation, I would like to ask you, why can we get a lot of profits from the tea trade?"

Huang Tao groaned: "This is naturally because the production area is too far away from the market. ”

"That's right. Qian Tiandun nodded and said: "The reverse is the same, why did our Haihan goods sell very expensive in the past, and they often have no price? It is because our production area is too far away from Zhejiang, and the goods can only be transported here to sell through layers of transshipment and increased prices." But now it's different, we can produce a lot of things locally in Zhejiang, sell them locally, even if we reduce the price by a cut, but because the supply volume is larger, the benefits we can get will be much higher than before. Previously, we held the investment promotion conference to provide an opportunity for businessmen in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to make a lot of money together. ”

"There is no end to money, and we can earn more money by working together, and we believe that everyone can find their place in our system and play their part. Qian Tiandun said with a smile on the corner of his mouth: "If the two of you are willing to cooperate with us, in fact, we have more things to hand over to you to do, of course, these things will not be done in vain, and there will be rich rewards." ”

"General Qian, can you elaborate?" Wei Shan couldn't help but ask when he heard this.

"Very simply, to help us control the local trade routes, both land and sea, and to control the passage of goods in and out of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, silver will naturally continue to flow into our pockets. Qian Tiandun sensed the other party's eagerness, and then began to slowly turn the topic to business.

As for how to win over and buy Ming officials, Haihan has accumulated several years of practical experience in the south, and summarized and formed standardized operating procedures. Although Qian Tiandun is not an official in charge of commercial and trade affairs, as long as he looks at the relevant information in advance, he can have a good effect according to the script.

First of all, it is necessary to make these officials realize that the money they have obtained is not ill-gotten gains, and there is no need for them to do deviant things in exchange for these gains, and the silver they can get in the future is obtained through reasonable and legal means, and there is no need to betray their country, nor do they need to feel ashamed of the emperor, let alone the risk of losing their officials.

To achieve such an effect, they must first understand the basic profit method of Haihan's business model, that is, to profit by controlling the maritime trade channels. The high value of Haihan's goods itself is only part of the profits, and all kinds of commodities produced in the Ming Dynasty and sold at home and abroad will also bring rich profits, provided that the maritime trade routes are in the hands of Haihan.

Haihan, who has deep pockets, can use the liquidity in his hands to influence the price trend of some commodities, such as the Longjing tea mentioned by Qian Tiandun just now, and he can influence or even directly obtain the pricing power of this commodity by sweeping a large number of goods. Tea can almost be used as hard currency in international trade in this era, and mastering the pricing power is equivalent to mastering the market. Although there are also a lot of wealthy businessmen in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, compared with the Haihan trade system that has been formed as a group for many years, the ability to mobilize funds is still very different, and it cannot compete with Haihan at this level of operation.

In this process, Ming merchants would act as agents or compradors to lay channels for Haihan to sell or purchase goods, while what Qian Tiandun wanted the Ming military to do was to do some affairs that were not operated on the surface. For example, it provides protection for Haihan's agents, carriers, and partners, cracks down on competitors who are hostile to Haihan, and provides necessary intelligence for Haihan.

Of course, these are only the primary means, and after a certain degree of cooperation is reached, there will inevitably be further military cooperation. Under the pretext of providing weapons and training on behalf of the Haihan, the Haihan Association provided various forms of military assistance to the local garrisons, and then infiltrated the garrisons through various training methods to support the pro-Haihan officers to take up their posts, so that the local garrisons gradually became dependent on the military aid of the Haihans. These measures have been implemented many times in Fuguang and Fuguang in the south, and have also been proven to have good results and operability. Qian Tiandun hoped that through such cooperation, a peripheral buffer zone would be formed in Ningbo Mansion and its surrounding areas, and even if the Ming court did not want to really start with Haihan in the future, this buffer zone would be enough to help the Zhoushan Islands prepare for war in advance.

As long as we try to make the local civil and military officials in this area have more and more common interests with Haihan, Haihan can take this as the foundation and slowly spread out the layout in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and gradually turn this most prosperous and wealthy area of the Ming Dynasty into a sales market and raw material supply place belonging to Haihan. In this process, leaking a little benefit to these Ming officials is also a normal expense item.

Of course, Qian Tiandun has not yet talked about in-depth cooperation projects, mainly some of the operational methods that these two commanders are currently within their capabilities. In this way, the original purpose of their trip was mentioned in passing, which was the alleged plot to attack merchant ships.

Wei Shan refused to tell the situation at first, and Qian Tiandun didn't ask when he saw this, so he ordered someone to carry two boxes up, and when he opened them, they were full of dazzling silver ingots.

"These two boxes each contained five thousand taels of silver, which were regarded as the hard work of the two adults, and they would be sent to the two adults' ships later. After Qian Tiandun finished speaking, the guards closed the lid of the box and lifted it out.

"Actually, I spent 10,000 taels of silver to buy this information in Hangzhou Mansion, and I think I should be able to buy it, but I can't even buy the other party's head. But I think it's better to use this money to make friends than to spend it in Hangzhou Mansion, is that the truth that the two adults said?" Qian Tiandun said unhurriedly.

Wei Shan swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and did not respond immediately, his official salary for a year is only a hundred taels, plus all kinds of gray income, it will be the end of a year to make two or three thousand taels. This Haihan man threw a box of silver out without saying a word, which really had a great impact on him. As for Qian Tiandun's saying that he would buy intelligence in Hangzhou for 10,000 taels, Wei Shan said in his heart that he needed to pay such a high price, and Lao Tzu said it at half price.

Huang Tao saw that Wei Shan was silent, but he couldn't figure out his thoughts, and he didn't want to offend Qian Tiandun because of this, so he made a round out of it and said: "The inside story of this matter is more complicated, Lord Wei is not unwilling to say it, but he just has to sort out the ins and outs first, right, Lord Wei?"

Wei Shan came back to his senses and replied in a loud voice: "Yes, yes, Lord Huang is right." General Qian, this is what is going on......" (To be continued.) )