New year in November, the port of Nasugbu.

Four large merchant ships sailed into the dock under the arch of seven or eight armed merchant ships, the highest part of the merchant ship's mast, the sun and moon flags of the red sun and yellow moon on a black background fluttered in the wind, and the merchant ships loaded with goods moved their huge bodies to anchor and moored, and then boxes of heavy goods were moved down, and piled up in the cargo hold not far away in the praise and envy of everyone.

Immediately afterwards, Ma Ren, who was dressed in a silk robe, went down to the dock triumphantly, and the tax officer Barkington walked over with a fat belly, this time he did not have the original arrogance, but replaced it with a smiling face and respectfully saluted Ma Ren, and said in half-baked Chinese: "Your Excellency, your fleet has three ships of cargo, and the tax payable is 1,100 silver coins. ”

The tax money reported by Bagkington is definitely not mixed with any water, he is not a fool, two months ago, the contract between the governor and the Ming Emperor has not yet dried up, and the accompanying ships of this fleet are the escort fleet under the Ming Emperor, he does not dare to pay more taxes, otherwise he will not be able to eat and walk away.

"Uncle Ma, you go and give him 1,500 silver coins, and the extra 400 silver coins are tea money for the tax officer." Ma Rencai commanded the butler beside him arrogantly.

"Yes." Uncle Ma nodded in agreement, and took the grateful Bagkington to the ship to pay the tax.

"Boss, should we contact the shipper? Now that Luzon is in short supply, our cargo can make several times the profit, and those merchants are in a hurry. The little guy on the side reminded Ma Ren.

"Contact the shipper?" Ma Ren chuckled, and looked at the little guy with triangular eyes: "I said Fugui, you have been following me for several years, why don't you have a good brain?" ”

The little guy named Fugui scratched his head, didn't understand what the owner meant, and hurriedly said: "The little one is too stupid, that's all there is to it, Master Ma, don't be surprised." ”

Ma Ren patted him on the back and smiled: "Otherwise, I'm the owner, you're running errands, you go to contact an inn, and put a notice at the door, so that the merchants can wait a few more days." The only ship in this Luzon port is my surname Ma, and if they want to contact us, they just have to wait at the inn. Ma Ren's eyebrows fluttered, and then he said: "In the past, the merchants were uncles, and we couldn't sell the goods without them, but now it's our turn to be the masters, without me, where do they have the goods to sell?" ”

Fugui nodded again and again, looking teachable.

As soon as Ma Ren entered the inn, the merchants who had already received the news visited one after another, and the door of the inn was crowded.

On the other side, the maritime merchants also flocked to the dock to board the armed merchant ships of the convoy to inquire about the news.

"My lord, if the convoy relates to southern Myanmar after the family is relocated, will the convoy really be able to escort our merchant ships for free?" A businessman in his forties asked, squinting with a goatee.

"This is nature, Ma Ren is an example, you can go and ask him." The thousand households accompanying the ship replied.

"It doesn't have to be." The goat said in a sneering voice, who doesn't know that the inn surnamed Ma has been surrounded by merchants three times inside and three circles outside, and where is it still crowded in.

"If we don't move the property to southern Myanmar, how much security will be needed to protect it by the convoy?" A local Luzon businessman muttered a word in Luzon to the interpreter, which was translated in Chinese.

"Half of the goods are paid." Qianhu replied very simply.

The merchants began to hum and discuss, half of the goods is a lot of wealth, equivalent to the price of your purchase is a full double, although a shipload to Luzon can still make some silver, but there is a crucial problem, that is, once those maritime merchants who move their industries to southern Burma to lower the price, it is not easy to deal with, after all, people get ten taels of silver into one piece of cloth, but you have to spend twenty taels of silver into two pieces of cloth, and you keep and sell one horse, but you have to hand over one. If people don't like you, they are afraid that you will rob the business, and they only need to sell the price of the cloth to fifteen taels of silver, and he can still earn five taels, but if your goods are sold for fifteen taels, then you will have to be prepared to lose money, and in less than a month, people can crush you.

Soon, the maritime merchants already had an idea in their hearts, but this family relocation was not a trivial matter, even if a bold person like Ma Ren had considered it for a few days, most of the maritime merchants still planned to wait and see for a while, but there were more than a dozen bold maritime merchants grinding their teeth in the crowd, and seemed to have made up some kind of determination.

Seven days later, the fleet returned, and Ma Ren made a net profit of 170,000 taels of silver on this trip, although the news of the escort fleet was not as profitable as Zhu Jun's ten times, and this trip also made a lot of wealth that the maritime merchants could not earn in a lifetime.

Ma Ren's success also made many wavering maritime merchants make up their minds, and when the convoy returned to the sea, more than 40 ships followed it, and the maritime merchants who had already dragged their families and sold their land and goods were already determined to go to southern Myanmar with the convoy. More maritime merchants are putting their properties in order, selling as much as they can sell their houses and properties, and waiting for the next time the convoy comes.

In southern Myanmar, the wharf and cargo hold at the bay have been built, the craftsmen did not stop, but continued to build a shortcut from the wharf to the village according to the will of the Ministry of Works, since the destruction of the Dawei City, countless Burmese people fled their homes to join the village, the laborers who built the road were several times more, they were organized into dozens of groups by the craftsmen, doing all kinds of unskilled but extremely physically demanding work, and the wages they received were not much, at most only five cents of silver, just to maintain the food and clothing of the family, Even many eleven or twelve-year-old Burmese have joined the ranks of laborers in order to make a living, their wages are lower, only two cents of silver can be obtained, but for them who have lost their homes, it is already a rare and precious thing to be able to mix three full meals, although there are overseers on the side to supervise, but on the whole they are still full of enthusiasm.

The rest of the Burmese laborers were all allocated to the woods not far away to cut wood, and the consumption of timber required to build the docks and shipyards was very staggering, and the Burmese laborers were not necessarily able to meet the demand from morning to night.

"We are not sages, if we want to develop, if we want to go on the Northern Expedition, we must accumulate ourselves through the means of oppression and plunder, Mu Aiqing, the words of the sage, the truth of generosity and benevolence do not need to be said, this is the case in this world, the weak eat the strong, the strong are respected, if we Han people want to stand up again, we must be ruthless, or be trampled under the feet of others, or use our own happiness to build on their pain." Zhu Jun coldly said to the loyal Mu Tianbo.

Mu Tianbo wanted to speak and stopped, he was the prince of Qianguo who guarded Yunnan, and Zu Xun told him that if he wanted to subdue Yunnan, he must be generous and treat all ethnic groups in Yunnan equally. However, Zhu Jun's treatment of Burmese laborers subverted this truth, so he specially came to dissuade him, and the content of the dissuasion was naturally the set of saints and benevolence, who knew that Zhu Jun would not listen to it at all, he couldn't help but be a little worried.

Zhu Jun said again: "I think that when the Manchurians entered the customs, they only brought a saber, didn't it make the Ming Dynasty fall?" What was the use of our doctrine of saints at that time? Can we defeat them by virtue? What we want now is swords and guns, what we want is elite dead soldiers, these must be built on bloody blood and fire, Mu Aiqing, I don't want to squeeze and plunder others, but if I don't do this, the last person who will harm is ourselves, sailing against the current, not advancing or retreating, now we have no way out, this is your life-and-death struggle, it is by no means benevolent and virtuous can solve. ”

"The minister is old, and he still doesn't understand many things, please forgive the emperor." Mu Tianbo sighed, although he didn't agree with Zhu Jun's statement, he still knew in his heart that what Zhu Jun said might be right.

"The recent shipyard was built like this? Those Western craftsmen didn't make trouble, did they? Zhu Jun didn't mean to blame, and asked about the shipyard instead.