Li Nai still had something to go to Guangzhou to deal with, so he didn't personally send them to the dock to board the ship, but only called a steward to show them the way, and by the way, he also helped them carry these wooden boxes containing gifts.

It was already dark when they arrived in Lijiazhuang last night, and they went out early this morning to see the true face of this place. The main road in this Lijiazhuang is enough to have a zhang four or five wide, and the two cross-shaped main roads of one east and one east and one north and south are all paved with cement, which is very smooth. There are street trees planted on both sides of the road, and there are small flower beds, stone benches, stone tables, pavilions and other facilities every ten zhang or so on the side of the street, and the environment is by no means seen in ordinary farm farms.

Yan Mingjun couldn't help but praise a few words after seeing it, and the steward responded proudly: "The two main roads in the village, this layout and construction, are all copied from the landscape avenue of Sanya Shengli Port, hundreds of laborers were dispatched, more than 20,000 taels of silver were consumed, and it took nearly a year to build. ”

"It turns out that the place where the Haihan people live is like this!" Yan Mingjun suddenly replied.

The steward shook his head and said: "The old men of Haihan have a lot of skills, Honzhuang is just imitating, but they can't copy the original appearance of Sanya, if the two adults go to Sanya in the future, they will naturally understand." ”

At the beginning, after Li Nai saw the landscape avenue built by Haihan in Shengli Harbor, he felt very meaningful, so he asked a painter to paint it and bring it back to Lijiazhuang, and after obtaining the consent of his father Li Jifeng, he remodeled the main road in Lijiazhuang according to the style of Shengli Harbor Landscape Avenue. Of course, the design and organization of the construction is also part of the efforts of the Haihan Construction Department. As for the cement used here, it was all transported back from Shengli Port by "Fu Ruifeng" by his own ships, anyway, the fortifications of Lijiazhuang also need to use a lot of cement, and it is not too much of a problem to transport ten more ships and eight ships.

If another family wants to carry out such a big project, more than 20,000 taels of silver will definitely not be able to do it. Li Nai also relied on his relationship with Haihan to pull goods directly from the cement kiln at a price close to the cost price, and then transported them back to Lijiazhuang by himself, so he was able to control the cost to this process. After seeing the results of the renovation of Lijiazhuang, some wealthy businessmen who came and went here also had the same thoughts, and the project of Lijiazhuang greatly promoted the development of Haihan cement industry. Of course, compared with Sanya's Landscape Avenue and Shengli Fort, it is indeed still a small thing, and the amount of work is far from what Lijiazhuang can afford.

Li Jin suddenly spoke: "This road is obviously more than a zhang wide, why doesn't anyone walk in the middle, they all walk to the side?"

"Lord Li, this is to leave enough space for carriages and horses that need to travel quickly to pass through the middle. In addition, the two adults have noticed that they walk on the right side of the direction of travel, which is also to keep the traffic flowing, and even when they go to work early in the morning, there will be no congestion on the road. The steward explained enthusiastically.

Yan Mingjun said: "Presumably this is also learned from Haihan?"

"That's true. This steward has also followed Li Nai to the Sanya area many times, and has long become a fan of Haihan like his master, and spares no effort to publicize the advanced features of Haihan to people whenever he has the opportunity.

Walking out of the village entrance tower in Lijiazhuang, Yan Mingjun noticed at a glance the large residential area that was only a mile away from here. This residential area is full of neat wooden houses, stretching west row by row, and there is no end in sight from the side of Lijiazhuang.

Yan Mingjun asked suspiciously, "What is that place?"

The steward explained: "There is the Lijiazhuang migrant camp, and the people who live there are people who will take a boat to settle on Qiongzhou Island later. These people came from all over Guangdong, and some moved from Huguang, Jiangxi, and Fujian. Anyone who wants to eat and survive only needs to sign up here. After they go to Qiongzhou Island, the Haihan people will arrange things for them to do, including food, shelter and salary, which is much better than being a homeless outside. ”

"This place is so big, it should be able to accommodate three or four thousand people, right?" Li Jin and Yan Mingjun's perception was different, the first time he saw this camp was from a military point of view, although this camp did not build any defensive measures, but Li Jin could still see that the barracks here were arranged in a very military camp.

The steward replied, "If it is busy, five thousand people can barely stay." However, it is generally kept within 3,000 people, and Haihan will regularly send ships to transport people away. Today, following the fleet of adults south, there are at least two emigrant ships. ”

"If two or three thousand people are transported away every month, then the speed of population accumulation is really terrifying!" Yan Mingjun was indeed shocked when he heard the number of stewards' reports.

It is very common for large families to buy a large number of servants, hire people to work for a long time, and so on, but I have never heard of any family that can pull thousands of people from their homes. He had heard about Haihan's recruitment of immigrants when he was a fellow governor in Luoding Prefecture before, but he never imagined that the scale would be so large.

Yan Mingjun said in his heart that after these thousands of people were transported to Qiongzhou Island, they had to arrange food, shelter and work, how big the business of the Haihan people had to be in order to feed so many people. In addition, after these people went to Qiongzhou Island, most of them should be helping the Haihan people farm and work, but I am afraid that many people chose to join the Haihan militia and be the swords and guns in the hands of the Haihan people.

In addition, Yan Mingjun also thought about another problem that might be brought about by the large influx of people into Qiongzhou Island, and the number of immigrants who obeyed the orders of Haihan was probably constantly approaching and surpassing the local residents. If the number of Haihan immigrants has exceeded the original people, then who is the real power holder in the local area? According to the statistics of the Apocalypse, the population of Danzhou is about 40,000 people, and it is said that many people have been moved away in recent years, and the main direction is to go to Sanya, Qiongnan to do things for the Haihan people. It is conceivable that the local situation in Qiongnan is that most of the people have already obeyed Haihan's orders.

Thinking of this, Yan Mingjun couldn't help but feel more and more pessimistic about the prospect of going to the post, compared to the means of the Haihan people to gradually strengthen themselves and encroach on the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty did not seem to have any effective countermeasures. If one day the Haihan people put up a flag to rebel, how many people on Qiongzhou Island will be able to respond to the call of the imperial court and rise up against the Haihan?

With this mentality, Yan Mingjun returned to the ship with some depression. His family rested at the guest house on the pier last night, but they had already returned to the ship, and when they saw that he was not in a good mood after he came back, they thought that something unpleasant had happened to Lijiazhuang last night. Yan Mingjun didn't bother to explain, and when someone came to inform the boat, he just nodded and signaled that he knew.

The fleet left the Lijiazhuang wharf and slowly turned around and continued south along the Pearl River waterway. After walking on the river for more than an hour, Yan Mingjun finally temporarily let go of the depression in his heart and walked out of the cabin to the deck.

Li Jin was lying on the side of the boat and looking around, and when he saw Yan Mingjun coming out, he hurriedly greeted: "Brother Yan, you come to see this Haihan's sailboat, it's really a bit of a novelty!"

Yan Mingjun walked to the side of the ship as he said, and observed with him the two Haihan warships that accompanied the escort of the fleet. The most intuitive difference between this kind of boat and Chinese sailing boats in terms of shape is the sail line, which uses soft sails, but there is a layer of trellis fixed in addition to the soft sails, which is different from Western sailing boats.

Li Jin seemed to want to test Yan Mingjun, and asked, "Brother Yan, can you see anything different about this Haihan sailboat?"

Yan Mingjun said: "Although I don't know the art of shipbuilding, the mast of this Haihan sailing ship seems to be much higher than ours, and the sails used are larger than ours, but the material used is lighter, and it seems that it is easier to adjust according to the wind direction than ours." ”

"What Brother Yan said is very true, in addition, if you look at the draft position of the bow of their ship, the blade-like angle is not vegetarian, I guess it is mostly made of stainless steel. If a slightly smaller ship were hit at full speed by this ramming angle during close combat, it would have been torn to shreds in no time. Li Jin added.

Although Li Jin's profession is not a naval army, he still has the basic vision of a soldier. In addition to the terrifying firepower possessed by this warship, from the details that can be observed so far, Li Jin believes that the strength of the Haihan warship is probably no less than that of the main warship of the Ming army.

"It is said that the speed of this Haihan sailing ship is extremely fast, but following our fleet, I am afraid that I will not have the opportunity to see them moving at full speed. Li Jin said with regret.

The flotilla of alternate officers sailed extremely slowly, only about four or five knots even though it was going down the river. Therefore, although the fleet departed from Lijiazhuang Wharf early in the morning, by the time it was getting dark, it was only enough to arrive at Wanshan Port, the second stop of the journey.

If the normal voyage is followed, of course, it is possible to continue the voyage south overnight. However, the voyage arranged by Haihan is as slow as it can be, and if it is delayed for one more day, there will be one more day of layout time on Qiongzhou Island. Therefore, several stops were set up during this voyage, and the port rest was arranged as much as possible in the evening.

Wanshan Port has also become a little famous in recent years, in addition to the fact that it has become an important maritime transshipment and supply port at the mouth of the Pearl River, there is also an important reason that at the end of the first year of Chongzhen, the fierce naval battle in the waters near Wanshan Port made the navy of the Haihan militia famous through this war. Since then, no armed force at the mouth of the Pearl River has dared to show off its might and regard itself as its master -- including the Ming naval division troops stationed near the mouth of the Pearl River.

At the beginning of the Battle of Wanshan Port, many maritime sailors witnessed the whole process in the port at that time, so the people's understanding of this battle is also relatively complete. In addition, there are merchant and civilian ships coming and going here for a long time, so there are not many secrets to speak of. Although the alternate officials were almost all first-time visitors, they had almost all heard of the name of the place, and knew that the shore fort was said to have the most powerful firepower in the Pearl River Estuary area.

But when they actually saw the fortifications built on the north and south ends of the port along the hills, they had a more real feeling for these statements. Seeing the cannon ports pointing to the entrance of the harbor in the setting sun, each one of which was close at hand, it seemed that it was not difficult to imagine what kind of blow the pirate Liu Xiang's fleet had suffered after it had boldly broken into this place. It is rumored that the pirate ships that sank this small harbor at that time were in the double digits, and the casualties were uncountable. It is no wonder that Liu Xiang fled back to the coast of Fujian in one go, and was caught between such fixed batteries and mobile batteries on warships, even if you think about it, you will feel that it is a nightmare.

However, their attention was soon drawn to the ships docked in the harbor. This is not to say how many ships are stuffed in this small harbor, after all, Wanshan Port has a limited number of places, and the number of ships docked is at most twenty or thirty, and any more may congest the waterway. What really caught their attention were the two galleons docked at a separate pier on the left side of the channel.

"Haihan people...... Unexpectedly...... And this big warship!" Li Jin felt that something was stuck in his throat, and he said this sentence intermittently.

Yan Mingjun was already a little out of surprise at this time, and just stared blankly at the two boats on the shore.

Docked at the military dock of Wanshan Port are two "expedition-class" warships, of course, they did not appear here for no reason, they also came for this group of alternate officials. For the rest of the voyage, the two ships will escort the official convoy until they reach Qiongzhou Island.

If the size difference between the two "Exploration-class" warships of the previous escort fleet and these sailing ships in the fleet is not too big, then the two "Exploration-class" warships docked on the shore are obviously much larger. Like the sailboat that Yan Mingjun and Li Jin were riding, it was only a lap smaller than the "Exploration Class", but although the two large warships they saw were similar to the "Exploration Class" in appearance, they were nearly half larger than their ship, and even the gun windows on the side of the ship were a lot more, which showed that their combat power should still be above them.

The two glanced at each other, both seeing the shock in each other's eyes. Li Jin finally squeezed out a sentence: "This is probably ...... It's the biggest ship in the Haihan Naval Division, right?"

Yan Mingjun also nodded with difficulty: "It should be so!"

As far as the size of this ship is concerned, it is basically on par with the tonnage of the existing main flagship of the Daming Naval Division, the Daifuku ship, but the firepower configuration is definitely not at the same level. The location of Wanshan Port is a few days' voyage from Sanya, the base camp of the Haihan people, and the fact that the Haihan people dare to send such a large warship to stay so far away shows that they should not only have these two warships of the same level. As far as Yan Mingjun and Li Jin know, there are probably only three or four naval divisions in Guangdong now.