Three days later, Zheng Haizhu left Zheng Shoukuan in Zhenjiang, followed Wu Bangde to run the preparations for the insurance trading company, and chartered a boat, took the recruited young men and women, as well as a military commander and two veterans invited from General Qi Jin, and went south to Songjiang Yunjian Wharf.

On the boat, after Zheng Haizhu gave a brief lecture to the slender men, he divided the fifty men into five groups, and each group was elected by each of them to have a "squad leader".

When Zheng Haizhu recruited, he deliberately avoided recruiting more than five people from the same village, and also paid attention to the concept of "fellow villagers" in Mohu when grouping, but each group will leave a person who can know simple Chinese characters or basic arithmetic.

Sure enough, the five "squad leaders" who were finally elected were all "intellectuals" in this group of people.

The "leader" of the four female fibermen, Zheng Haizhu designated Dong Erya, who has a baby and a dog, to do it.

After arriving in Songjiang so smoothly and completing the process of visiting the master's family, signing the employment deed, and settling in the yamen, Zheng Haizhu arranged for everyone to receive the moon silver and live in the family dormitory in the north of Wenzhe Garden.

Han Ximeng told Zheng Haizhu that in just ten days, Han Xiying had already left Nanzhili.

"Ah Zhu, the second uncle came to ask me first, what do you think about dealing with the three girls. I know that the second uncle is a fair elder, but the third girl is the only bloodline of the third uncle after all, the Shen family committed suicide, and that Feng Abao was also convicted of capital crimes, and the government didn't want to get involved with the third girl, who was an accomplice to the identity of Miss Jin, and the second uncle meant that he should drive her away. I nodded, and the second uncle went to the military general's family who asked for a concubine, called Qiao Yiqi, and went north to Liaodong with the third girl. ”

Zheng Haizhu was stunned.

Yes? Qiao Yiqi?

Qiao Yiqi is a local, born in Wuju, and has been leading the army in the Northeast. Because there were not many Jiangnan people who were guerrillas or generals in the northeast to resist Jin, Qiao Yiqi, a native of Shanghai, and Mao Wenlong, a native of Hangzhou, were very famous in later generations, so Zheng Haizhu roughly remembered that at most two or three years later, Qiao Yiqi should have died in front of the enemy after breaking through the hopeless siege in the Battle of Salhu.

Qiao Yiqi has passed the age of not being confused, his wife and sons-in-law are all in Songjiang, looking for Han Xiying to be a concubine, just like Mao Wenlong, looking for a younger one to serve him in the north.

Rao is like this, Zheng Haizhu still feels that this is cheaper Han Xiying, and an accomplice is also a criminal, but she can still avoid prison and take care of the daily life of patriotic soldiers, but I don't know if she will die in the military disaster at that time.

The matter turned the page.

Zheng Haizhu, who calmed down, began to make a phased summary in his mind.

This midsummer of the forty-fifth year of Wanli is the day when she traveled to the third year of the Ming Dynasty.

She needs to sort out her current relationship with the natives of the Ming Dynasty, as well as the assets at hand.

First of all, the education and enlightenment cause that she values most in her heart, Shoukuan School. At present, the school directors are Zhang Dai and Zhang Yanke brothers in Shaoxing, Zheng Haizhu is ready to gradually develop the school according to the model of the education foundation, it is certain that she is not going to use this area as a garden for personal profit.

Secondly, the relationship between her and the Han family developed as she planned, gradually changing from employment to cooperation.

At present, there are two types of foreign trade lists sent by Liu Shimin of the Weaving Bureau to the Han family.

One is all kinds of derivatives of silk and cotton blended Zhangrong and Songjiang cloth, Han Zhongwen's own weaving workshop is the supplier, and the profits are also taken by Han Zhongwen.

Han Zhongwen is not stingy, and he can carry it clearly, knowing that Zheng Haizhu has the blue eyes of Father-in-law Liu and has lived through hardships together, so even if Zheng Haizhu left the Han Mansion with Han Ximeng, Han Zhongwen still asked the account office to pay Zheng Haizhu three or two monthly salaries every month.

Zheng Haizhu deserves this, just like a future generation of companies to raise a public relations executive who can do a good job in government relations. In the Ming Dynasty, which is still a feudal society after all, a woman who does not have to sell herself to the harem, her husband's family or the Qinglou does not have to pay taxes for three taels of silver a month, which is indeed a high salary.

Another type of order issued by Liu Gonggong belongs to the clothing that has no oriental characteristics and is made according to the habits of Westerners, mainly baroque men's shirts, waist bands, lace half pants, women's dresses, etc., which are undertaken by Han Ximeng's tailor shop as a dowry asset, and the profits go into Han Ximeng's private money account. But because this tailor shop is currently located in the banana garden of Shoukuan School, Zheng Haizhu also devotes part of his energy to management, and Han Ximeng's monthly salary to Zheng Haizhu is five taels of silver.

In this way, in terms of the income of senior executives, Zheng Haizhu gets nearly 100 taels of silver every year.

But this amount of money is enough to enjoy flowers and birds, and play with petty bourgeoisie, but it is far from enough to trace her blueprint.

Therefore, Zheng Haizhu knows that his business, connections, and R&D career must continue to expand.

Yan Siqi's dividends to Zheng Haizhu, plus the reinvested silver, totaled 20,000 taels, and this time it was agreed that Zheng Haizhu would arrange it independently in the mainland.

5,000 taels to Mao Wenlong's son Mao Chengbei, as a start-up capital, in Hangzhou to bid for Yan Siqi, Zheng Zhilong, Zheng Haizhu as the original shareholders of the "Haoming" trading company, one after another recruitment, the establishment of tea porcelain Hangjin and other supplier pools, and try to sell goods to Liaodong for the second time. From his son's letter, Mao Wenlong learned that the Yan brothers occupied Tainan and were about to be sealed by the imperial court, and immediately replied, asking his son to invest the 500 taels of dividends he had saved last time into the "Haoming" trading company as a shareholder.

The second part of the 20,000 taels of silver, 8,000 taels, is used for the purchase of raw materials such as silk thread, silk silk, cotton cloth and the payment of the salaries of embroiderers and sewers, and the money becomes goods, mainly the tobacco bags, handkerchiefs, high-grade fans, and two-toed cotton socks that the Dongying people need, which were sent to Yuegang and handed over to Yan Siqi, who owns the ship, and sold to Japan. and took back the eight hundred taels that were previously moved to Daishan Island to save the emergency people.

The third part of 20,000 taels, 7,000 taels and 1,000 taels were given to Qi Jin, 5,000 taels were used as start-up funds for the establishment of the shipping insurance trading company, 500 taels were given to Wu Bangde alone as the cost of training intelligence personnel, and 300 taels were entrusted to Wu Bangde to donate a so-called "handsome son" crown belt for Zheng Shoukuan to go to Nanjing Guozijian.

So, in the last amount, Zheng Haizhu had only two hundred taels left, and it was estimated that he would spend it soon.

Because of the future god of war who loves firearms, Lu Xiangsheng Lu Gongzi, this scholar is a bully, and he is also going to bring a scientific research team before next year's township test.

……

Before coming to Zhenjiang, Lu Xiangsheng seriously mentioned to Zheng Haizhu that since as early as the time of Jiajingye, Wang Hong, an official of Guangdong Patrol Road, had successfully produced the Franky son-and-mother guns, then the Ming craftsmen must also continue to imitate and even improve the new firearms that continue to appear in the foreigners.

Lu Xiangsheng's words touched Zheng Haizhu.

At the beginning of the year, after being in distress in the waters of Penghu and seeing the shipborne guns of the Spanish fleet, Zheng Haizhu asked Yan Siqi about the information about the foreigners' artillery. Yan Siqi had directly seen the Dutch fleet in Hirado Port, Japan, so he told Zheng Haizhu with certainty that the Dutch cannon was no longer a breech-loading type of the Francis, but a spindle-shaped smoothbore.

Zheng Haizhu understood that it should be the "Hongyi Cannon" purchased by Xu Guangqi a few years later on the initiative of the imperial court.

In the real historical line, the Hongyi cannon later contributed to the repulsion of the Houjin army in the Battle of Ningyuan, and it was the magic weapon of the Ming army to defend the city and retreat from the enemy. But in the Chongzhen period, Huang Taiji used the craftsmen captured by the Han people to successfully imitate the "Red Yi Cannon" belonging to the Later Jin Army, and because of the taboo of the word "Yi", it was renamed "Red Cannon". Subsequently, the Later Jin Army was no longer inseparable from artillery in the attack on the Ming army and Li Zicheng's army, and the Yangzhou city gate guarded by Shi Kefa was collapsed by the red-clothed cannon.

Therefore, Lu Xiangsheng's brain hole is right, the wheel of history is rolling forward, when the world's military history enters the era of hot weapons, whoever can imitate faster, improve more and better obtain intergenerational superiority in guns and artillery will be able to grasp the initiative.

You have to make fire guns and spindle cannons.

In the case of firecrackers, the library building has Zhao Shizhen's "Artifact Spectrum".

The spindle-shaped Hongyi cannon can make Zheng Zhilong, who grew up in Macau, try to get drawings from the Portuguese cannon factory.

At the same time, Zheng Haizhu pondered that Zhenjiang, like Suzhou, was the central area of Wu rule, and that Wu and Yue in the Spring and Autumn Period were good at casting bronzes, and Zhenjiang still retains the intangible cultural heritage base of bronze casting in modern times.

The foundry industry is all-encompassing, and it is nothing more than the process problems such as furnace temperature, casting material composition, and redox process. Then, Zhenjiang was able to cast copper in the Spring and Autumn Period, and it would definitely be able to cast iron and steel in the Han and Tang dynasties.

Zheng Haizhu speculated that there might be a cast iron craftsman in Zhenjiang and told Lu Xiangsheng that Lu Gongzi, who was extremely smart and had a clear goal, really found the right place in the few days when Zheng Haizhu was interviewing a slender man.

Sunjia Village, Danyang, Zhenjiang.

It turned out that in the Spring and Autumn Period, King Lu of Wu pocketed the famous swords of the Yue Kingdom such as Mo Ye, Zhan Lu, Yu Gu, and Juque, and also established many bronze sword casting workshops in Danyang, Wu State. It's just that after Goujian, the king of Yue, defeated Wu Wangfucha, he moved a large number of foundry craftsmen from Wu to Yue, and Danyang Sunjia Village, the base for casting and smelting bronze swords and bronzes, also came out of the vision of the rulers of the past dynasties.

Fortunately, unlike the short life span of many dynasties, the craftsmanship mastered by wise laborers can be passed down from generation to generation in the long river of history.

Lu Xiangsheng was in Sunjia Village, and he really found a master who could use the ancient method to cast iron and forge a sword.