"Big Boss, what do you want to say?"

"Your future."

"My future?"

"Yes, your future." Liu Yifeng turned his head to look at him: "In the ghost city, do you remember the fact that the captain smuggled the firearm was discovered?" ”

Li Hongji nodded.

"The five trading houses we belong to are all related to the smuggling of firearms, and they have all been seized by the imperial court."

Li Hongji, who was watching the three dogs gluttonously eat, turned his head to look at Liu Yifeng, his eyes were full of shock, and he instantly understood what Liu Yifeng wanted to say.

Li Hongji would not suspect that Liu Yifeng was telling a lie, because although he didn't know how Liu Yifeng did it, he had a good personal relationship with the senior officials of the Maritime Safety Bureau who had taken the Nanyang-level before. I heard that when he was on the ship, Liu Yifeng often chatted with the adult in the cabin.

Of course, this is a rumor, in fact, Liu Yifeng only had a conversation with Song Yingxing once on the boat, that is, the time when he recorded the shrimp-flavored rotten cabbage. It's just that rumors always evolve in the direction of exaggeration in the process of spreading.

Liu Yifeng also patched the authority of his words in time: "You should know that I was basically not on the ship when I was in Qishan City, and I was in the Maritime Safety Bureau at that time, and the officials of the Maritime Safety Bureau asked me to cooperate with the investigation of the smuggling of firearms. It was then that I learned that we were all ownerless. ”

"So what is the Maritime Bureau going to do with us?"

"Auction." Liu Yifeng said: "Gather the firms in need and auction us. ”

Li Hongji didn't have any other feelings when he heard that he would be auctioned off like goods, Minfu was originally another name for goods, and he had already accepted this.

It doesn't hurt to become a citizen of any trading house, anyway, it is to serve for 3 years to restore freedom.

But Liu Yifeng wanted to persuade Li Hongji to join him, so naturally it was impossible to just talk about it here.

"I talked to Lord Song, the new General Staff Officer of Dongshan Prefecture of the Maritime Safety Administration, and Lord Song said that nine times out of ten we will be sent to build roads, or dig mountains and open mines, in short, it is very tiring work."

Li Hongji frowned, he accepted the fate of his people, but if he could, he wanted to become a man working in the city, or a man working in a farm and ranch, the life in those places was not necessarily easy, but it was not too tiring, and the conditions were not bad.

However, building roads and mining was the heaviest work in the conscription before this dynasty.

The emperor of this dynasty particularly likes to build roads, which are the habits of the former cabinet old Zhang Juzheng when he reformed, and the renovation and even rebuilding of the galloping road between the prefectures and prefectures was one of the most important things in the Ming Dynasty in those years.

Although the government and the opposition were in mourning, all the grievances were carried by Zhang Gelao, and he resigned so that the people of the world forgave the young Majesty. But the renovation of the Chidao project did not stop there, because many of them had been completed, and the imperial court suffered greater losses when they stopped, so they could only finish the renovation head-on.

Soon, the convenience brought by the renovation of Chidao made the people profitable, and the first to profit was the commercial house.

With the lifting of the maritime ban, the establishment of the Maritime Safety Bureau, the establishment of the Protectorate of Annam, and the conquest of the Indochina Peninsula, various resources and wealth flowed into the Daming coast from overseas. The imperial court and the trading houses then flowed these resources and wealth into the Central Plains through the well-developed Chi Road, and the goods of the Central Plains also reached the coast along the Chi Road and sold to merchants from various countries after the opening of the sea.

The entire Ming Dynasty changed the situation of insufficient financial budgets of the previous emperors, and the commercial taxes were so large that the treasury could not fit them.

This led to the later conquest of Goryeo and Fuso, the successive victories of the Beiting Metropolitan Protectorate, and even the victory of the Northern Expedition, and the establishment of the Western Army.

And after the Ming Dynasty became rich, this originated from the road building habit of the old Zhang Juzheng in the former cabinet, and it continued. Now not only is the imperial court building roads, but many local magistrates are also building roads in a hurry, trying to welcome more business houses to come in with wealth.

The Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Households gradually became more experienced and summed up a set of standards for road repair.

It has to be said that in terms of the productive forces of this era, the standard is very high, and the main content of labor in various places is to build roads and open mountains.

At this time, there were also several sensational cases that caused a sensation in the world, and there were even cases of people going to the capital to sue the emperor and kowtow outside the Forbidden City.

His Majesty and the cabinet were very concerned, and ordered Qin Cha and Jinyi Wei to investigate, only to find that it was the magistrate who used the laboring people as cattle in order to build roads, and paid a lot of lives.

The case is naturally to give an explanation to the whole world, and the question that should be asked and the resignation of the official who should resign. But the road construction did not alleviate this, but the road was no longer built by the people of the Ming Dynasty, and their labor content no longer included road construction and mountain construction.

This dangerous heavy physical work was all handed over to the Mongols captured by the Beiting Metropolitan Protectorate, the Dongyi slaves of Goryeo, the Japanese slaves of the Japanese people, and the Kunlun slaves of the Annam Metropolitan Protectorate.

But the horror of building roads and opening mountains is deeply imprinted in the hearts of the people of the Ming Dynasty, and Li Hongji is still a little afraid when he hears that they are going to be bought by a commercial house to build roads and open mountains.

But what can he do?

"yes, it looks like the ship is our last happy time."

"You don't have to build roads."

"Huh?"

"That's right, I met a trading firm from Lord Song, and they wanted to go to Jinshan City to dig for gold."

Then Liu Yifeng briefly explained the matter of Jinshan City to Li Hongji.

When Li Hongji heard that the explorers were missing, like many smart people, he began to suspect that the gold mine was fake, but he did not say it.

"The shopkeeper wanted to buy a group of people, and I recommended myself at that time."

"Big Boss, you convinced him to buy us? But mining won't be easy. ”

"Don't worry, his mining is different from what you think is mining, and it is difficult to find gold in Jinshan City with traditional mining methods."

Li Hongji doesn't understand what other ways to dig for gold? Isn't it all about finding out the approximate location of the gold veins and digging desperately, and then crushing the rough stone to find gold in the slag.

"Anyway, you believe me, we're not going to find the gold mine as you think, it's not that tiring."

When Li Hongji heard this, he found the blind spot in Liu Yifeng's words, and asked: "Big boss, there are not many people in the shopkeeper?" ”

If the "shopkeeper" directly wants to buy all the people, Liu Yifeng doesn't need to come to tell him this, since he came to himself to say this, then it is obvious that the shopkeeper does not want many people.

"Well, it's more than 30 people for the time being."

After coming out of the city, Liu Yifeng did not hide it, and directly announced that the Jurchens and Koreans living in the bilge were his team. The food and other good things that they secretly bought also began to supply them, and with the help of Feng Shuo and Kim Seung-woo, they promised to give them freedom after they went ashore, and they would also take them to find a woman to vent well.

The hearts of the people who had already accepted them are now stronger, Liu Yifeng's no longer conceals and the spring breeze on their faces, and anyone with eyes can see it.

Li Hongji counted the number of people and found that more than 30 people were basically full. And Liu Yifeng is obviously wooing himself, that is to say, he is specially here to woo him.

So he asked curiously: "Big boss, why did you choose me?" ”

"The shopkeeper wants to form a convoy, you are from the Southern Army, and you are the best candidate."

"Convoys? Who to guard? Is there an enemy in Dongshan State? ”

The expression on Liu Yifeng's face began to become subtle, and there was a bit of bad taste, which appeared after discovering that Xiao Zheng was Zheng Zhilong.

He looked at Li Hongji with a smile on his face and said, "Yes, it's your fellow countryman, your comrade-in-arms, his name is Zhang Xianzhong." ”