The last time He Xi came to Liu Qian to negotiate the arms trade, he was not able to negotiate the result, which was also expected, after all, Liu Qian could only play the role of an intermediary, not a decision-maker on related matters. He Xi tried to win over Liu Qian, and the purpose was only to let him match him and do some auxiliary work for the agreement between Haihan and the Ming government.

And today, Liu Qian's tone of speech is obviously much more active than the previous negotiation, He Xi speculated that this should be Liu Qian's last time he went back to talk to some big people, and have a preliminary intention.

He Xi is still very confident in whether the plan to promote the Ming Dynasty to purchase high-grade arms from Haihan can be successful. It was also during this period that the Ming Dynasty purchased weapons from the Portuguese and hired military advisers and artillerymen. Nowadays, the military situation of the Ming Dynasty is similar to that of history, the external face of the strong pressure of the northern wild boar skin, and the internal Central Plains region has a series of peasant uprisings, relying only on the existing military strength has been overstretched, the Ming Dynasty's demand for military assistance from the outside is objective. The Portuguese, after the Battle of Annam, consciously gave up their attempts to export weapons to the Ming Dynasty - they were now more willing to act as agents of the Haihan, selling all kinds of weapons and armor produced by the Haihan to Europe.

Liu Qian's next explanation was more explicit, and he directly pointed out to He Xi what yamen needed to be dealt with one by one in this process. While He Xi listened, he secretly compared this with his work experience before crossing over.

He Xi had been a police officer for several years before crossing over, and he had also seen many criminal acts of managers using their power to enrich themselves in the procurement process. As the saying goes, the world is as black as a crow, and this matter of officials using their power to seek personal interests is indeed unavoidable in any dynasty and generation. However, the officials of Daming are greedy or not, He Xi doesn't care, all he cares about is what kind of price the other party will offer, and whether he can complete the things that should be done quickly and well after receiving the money.

Liu Qian's explanation lasted for more than an hour, during which He Xi also asked the servants to come in and ordered a few hot dishes. The wine didn't move much, He Xi was worried that he would pour Master Liu, a weak and unscrupulous old showman, into the stomach in three or two clicks, but it would delay the business.

After Liu Qian had almost finished talking about these doorways, he took a sip of hot tea, and then asked He Xi: "The various yamen in this Guangzhou city may not be able to help you, but it is not difficult to spoil your affairs in the middle." Although you Haihan are famous, and generally no one dares to provoke you, but the word is the first, and you yourself have to be careful. ”

"Master Liu is right, I will definitely remember these words. He Xi also knew how much weight Liu Qian said today, and he had already put away some of the plans that he was originally going to deal with Liu Qian in his heart.

"Earlier you said that half of it was before, and half of it wasn't, so let's talk about the remaining half now!" Liu Qian hadn't forgotten what He Xi said before.

"There is indeed one more thing, I want to ask Master Liu's meaning. He Xi nodded and said, "Master Liu knows the place of Wanshan Port outside the Pearl River Estuary, right?"

"I've heard a little. Liu Qian responded.

But He Xi knew that this brother of Master Liu was also engaged in short-distance water freight, specializing in the section from Guangzhou to Wanshan Port, and every five days, a ship loaded with goods from near Guangzhou was sent to Wanshan Port. The reason why He Xi is so clear is also very simple, because this errand was originally commanded by him behind the scenes, and he handed over some business to Master Liu's younger brother to do, and he could earn a few hundred taels of silver a month. Regarding the situation of Wanshan Port, Liu Qian must be very clear.

He Xi continued: "Then I will say it bluntly, Wanshan Port is a little smaller, and there is not enough space for development as a commercial port, so we hope to build another port in the Pearl River Estuary to engage in commercial and trade operations." ”

Liu Qian smiled when he heard this: "Why do you have to go the way of the government in this kind of thing? You built a port on Wanshan Island before, and you didn't report to the government while you were building? As long as the place you choose is uninhabited and there is no dispute over land and property, no one will generally interfere in this kind of thing." ”

He Xi shook his head and said, "The place we chose this time is a little different from Wanshan Island, that place is inhabited. ”

"Oh, then you can hear it. Liu Qian became interested when he heard it: "If it is a place where you can refer to it on your behalf, you can also come up with an idea for the boss." ”

He Xi secretly thought in his heart that you guy would not let go of the opportunity to make a fortune, but he thanked him repeatedly, then got up and went to the door, and took the briefcase from the entourage.

"Master Liu, please see, this is this place. He Xi took out the map and pointed out to Liu Qian the location of Hong Kong Island.

"This place belongs to Xin'an County, if I am not mistaken, this place should be stationed by my Daming Water Division. Liu Qian is worthy of being a person from the government, and he is also relatively clear about the areas under the Guangzhou government: "If you want to set up a port here, you must say hello to the sailor's people first." ”

"That's right, the northern end of this island is indeed the residence of the Ming sailors, but the place we chose is not over there, but on the south shore of the island. He Xi's finger moved a short distance on the map: "The southern side of the island is all barren woodland, there are no residents, and there will be no disputes over land and property. ”

"That being the case, then you should not have any trouble building a port wharf there. Liu Qian waved his hand and said: "The sailors over there in Xin'an County are rarely nosy, as long as you don't let the warships carrying cannons run back and forth at the gate of the water village, you should be safe." ”

He Xi couldn't believe that this matter could be so easy: "That means that if we break ground in the local area, no one will restrain or interfere with us?"

"Who will bother with this idle matter!" Liu Qian sneered and said: "You fought a battle in Lijiazhuang last year, and then turned around and drove Liu Xiang away at sea, this record is on the table, as long as you don't take the initiative to cause trouble, who will provoke you lightly?"

"Sounds reasonable!" He Xi couldn't help but sigh.

When the Executive Committee decided to send troops to Guangdong a year ago to participate in the defense of Lijiazhuang, probably no one did not think that the impact of this military operation would be so far-reaching. It can be seen from this that a timely display of force to the outside world can still play an excellent deterrent role.

Of course, this does not mean that if Haihan had taken this direct approach to occupy the land on Hong Kong Island a year ago, it would have had the same effect as it does now. At that time, the strength and reputation of the Haihan militia were far inferior to now, not to mention the Ming army stationed nearby, just Liu Xiang's pirate fleet was enough to give Haihan a headache. Moreover, if there is no stronghold of Wanshan Port, it is still difficult for the Haihan with warships to have a head-to-head duel with the Liu Xiang pirate group that occupies a certain advantage at the mouth of the Pearl River, so Wanshan Island, a springboard for the Haihan to set foot on the mainland, is still not to be omitted.

He Xi also played a little trick at this time, he did not mention to Liu Qian the real purpose of Haihan's occupation of Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong and its future development plans, and the map he showed was limited in scale, and the natural geographical advantages of the Aberdeen typhoon shelter area in the southern part of Hong Kong Island could not be seen from above.

After Yu Yao showed a map of Hong Kong Island and its nearby waters a few days ago, He Xi later called up a satellite map on his computer to carefully study the local geography and found that this place was indeed very suitable for Haihan to set up a new base. Yu Yao claimed that he could build forts on it to protect the harbor, and it was true that there were forts in the original history, but that was after the Qing Dynasty ceded Hong Kong to the British.

In 1940, the British built a large fort on the laurel hill of Ap Lei Chau to guard the south coast of Hong Kong. Later, in World War II, in order to avoid being used by the Japanese army after occupation, the defenders destroyed the fort themselves. It is clear that the military use of this place is not only discovered by Yu Yao, but also by Western soldiers in another time and space, who also consider it an excellent defense platform.

He Xi knew that Liu Qian was an outsider, and he had not settled in Guangzhou for too long, and he had probably never been to Hong Kong Island, let alone knew much about the local geographical environment. And what he needs is to guide Liu Qian's relatively vague understanding to do something beneficial to Haihan.

"If it's convenient, can we apply for it, and Master Liu will handle the registration procedures in the Guangzhou government on our behalf?" He Xi took out a few checks issued by Haihan Bank from his briefcase in a timely manner and put them on the table in front of Liu Qian: "There are 1,000 taels of hard work here, Master Liu must not dislike it, after the matter is completed, I will have another thank you here!"

"How dare you receive so much remuneration from Boss He for these little things!" Liu Qian said politely, his eyes glancing at the Haihan check on the table.

This Haihan cheque is in a denomination of 500 taels, with the letterhead stamp of the Haihan Bank, the personal signature of Schneider, the president of the bank, and the unique Haihan numeral number in the middle. He had seen this thing in the study of a certain official before, and it was said that as long as he took it to the Guangzhou Office outside Guangdong, it could be exchanged for cash in full color at any time.

In the past, when dealing with official people, you had to prepare heavy silver boxes or use jewelry, but recently, with the deepening of the economic influence of Haihan Bank in Guangzhou Prefecture, many large households and even officials have begun to use the fixed amount checks printed by Haihan Bank in their transactions. And once they realized the convenience, this method quickly spread at the top of society, and gradually caused the middle and even bottom people to follow suit. Some time ago, Haihan Bank had already issued a proposal to the Executive Committee to print a batch of vouchers with smaller denominations, which were specially designed for trial operation in the private market in Guangzhou -- if this could be popularized, it would absorb at least one million taels of gold and silver for Haihan Bank every year.

Under He Xi's unrelenting persuasion, Liu Qian finally "reluctantly" put the check of one thousand taels into his arms. Of course, he also understood that this money was not only an answer to the question He Xi had just asked, but should also include the arms business that Haihan was trying to promote, and as for applying for a right of abode for Haihan people in the uninhabited area on the island in Xin'an County, Liu Qian really didn't regard this as a big deal.

To be honest, this kind of thing doesn't even need Liu Qian to apply for it from the prefect at all, and it is directly entered into the general local official documents. If you trouble the prefect with such a trivial matter, not only will you not be meritorious, but you may be reprimanded for it.

As for whether the Haihan people really built the port or did something else after settling in the local area, and whether the port they built was for commercial use or other purposes, Liu Qian didn't care. In fact, he also heard that the harbor built by Haihan on the small island at the mouth of the Pearl River had a large fort, and a certain number of armed men were stationed all year round. But so what? The Haihan people were not pirates, nor had they ever clashed with the Ming army, and the military operations they took in the Ming Dynasty were to exterminate the Cantonese bandits who were unable to hold the government, and the other was to drive away the pirate gangs that were the cause of the trouble.

People pay their own money and efforts to help the government fight, no matter from which point of view, this is actually enough to meet the standard of loyalty and patriotism. Now he has to take the initiative to sell advanced weapons to the Ming Dynasty, this kind of action is actually a kind of expression of the foreign race's heart to the Heavenly Empire in Liu Qian's view. In addition, there is a lot of extra remuneration to be paid, and Liu Qian is naturally willing to push this matter forward.

The two discussed behind closed doors for several hours, and after the matter was roughly settled, they parted. He Xi asked Li Sanniang to arrange a girl for Liu Qian to accompany him, and he was not idle, and then the excitement after the success of the incident tossed in Qiu Ju's bed for most of the night.

Early the next morning, as soon as the gate of Guangzhou City opened, the black carriage He Xi was riding in was the first to go out of the city. He hurried back, informed Marico of the progress he had made the night before, and did his best to sort out the corresponding information, and sent it back to Victory Port to apply for instructions for the next move. If the situation is really as Liu Qian said, then the plan to set up a base on Hong Kong Island will have to be carried out as much as possible, and this kind of thing will inevitably be variable if it drags on for a long time, and if it can, He Xi would even like to immediately let Panyu move a group of immigrants to the southern tip of Hong Kong Island to settle down.

After listening to He Xi's narration, Mariko was no less excited than He Xi, and both of them temporarily put aside their respective affairs and began to draft a report to the base camp.