Chapter 238: The Whimsical Pirate

The weather in May is already a little hot, and the annual Dragon Boat Festival is in such weather, quietly coming.

In the Dragon Boat Festival, make a few zongzi to meet the festival, and then use the picked mugwort leaves to wash the bad luck of the whole body, looking forward to the next year, the 'spirit' is excited, and all evils are not invaded. A good year, or you can also see the excitement of dragon boats and thousands of boats on the river, for thousands of years, the Chinese have done this, even if you have left your homeland and crossed the ocean to another place that does not belong to you.

However, in the new city in May, there is no trace of festive atmosphere, in the fields, in the streets and alleys, people are no longer talking about how this year's harvest will be, no longer what will happen to the new son of the Prime Minister Yu Yu, everyone is talking, and there is almost only one theme, that is, the big war in Pyongyang!

For the people who came from Nanzhili, they rarely saw the brutality of the Tartars with their own eyes, but the image of the Tartars, in the propaganda of the Ming Dynasty, in the word of mouth of the people, has become very demonized, and even in the eyes of some people, these Tartars are monsters with a height of eight feet and a waist circumference. Although the generals of this new city have gone out to fight these demons with soldiers with many sharp firearms, the fear of these demons makes them not have much confidence in these own soldiers.

Although the people of the old new city are not as afraid as they are, they are more worried than them, and they don't know where the news came from nowhere, saying that the Tartars who came from the north this time have tens of thousands of people, and these Tartars have transferred the Tartar soldiers who have invaded the Ming Dynasty to fight here. What they are worried about is that although their soldiers are very capable of fighting, but the heroes can't stand the number of people, they don't know how many soldiers there are in the new city, but they still have a simple concept, that is, it is absolutely impossible to have tens of thousands of people.

More than a mile away from the civil ya' gate, it turned out that there was a small mountain col, and later, because of the arrival of the Yu Feng family, there was a small Zhuangzi here, although the Zhuangzi is not big, but it is almost in the central area of the entire new city, when Yu Feng is in the new city, it has faintly become the center of the new city, and countless government and military orders are issued from this Zhuangzi, and then fly to every corner of the new city.

At this moment, in Zhuangzi, there is not much festive atmosphere, everyone is tense face, busy with their own things, occasionally a few heartless little girls, low noise and frolicking a few times, immediately scolded softly, the whole building, everywhere is filled with a depressing atmosphere.

A man in a green coat and a small hat hurriedly walked from the other end of the street, and a 'woman' who had been patrolling the 'gate' for a long time hurriedly got up and walked to the 'gate' building, waiting anxiously for someone to come.

"Liu Yuan, how is it?" The woman's eyebrows were full of worry, and when she saw the family walk to the 'door', she asked.

The 'woman' is Wu Shengnan, the housekeeper of Yufu, and the family of the Tsing Yi and the little hat is the son of Liu Yuan--- Liu Shengmin, who was promoted to the housekeeper after coming to Xincheng.

Liu Yuan raised his head to look at him, and shook his head slightly: "There is still no news, I asked Yu Shou and Yu Fu to wait there, I will come back to have some food, and then go to the Ya'men'!" ”

Wu Shengnan's face suddenly showed a disappointed expression: "Madame asks a few times a day, why didn't you bring a letter back when you said the master, it's been a few days, doesn't this make the lady and the young master worried?" ”

The lady in Wu Shengnan's mouth is naturally Zhao Xueniang, she is a person who has a very clear distinction between respect and inferiority, in her eyes, there is only one owner of this inner house, even if Wu Yanran, who used to be very good at 'private' and 'friendly' with him, can only be regarded as half of the owner of this inner house.

"The lord must be in a military emergency, so it's too late to send a letter to the family, Sister Wu, you have to explain Madame, this march and war, there is no news for ten days and half a month, that is normal, Madame is still in confinement, if because of these things, the root of the disease, then the death of those of us who are subordinates will not be redeemed!"

Wu Shengnan glanced at Liu Yuan, she knew that Liu Yuan's worries were no less than him, you must know that Liu Shengmin was also among the people who went on this expedition, Lao Tzu went out to fight, how could this son not worry, at this time, he could still remember to care about his master, and it could be regarded as loyal.

"Okay, I won't tell you, I'll ask the lotus girl to send you something, that girl has stayed up all morning, I have to go back to serve Mrs., by the way, Liu Yuan, as soon as there is news from the master, come and tell me immediately, if Mrs. hears something that shouldn't be heard, frightened, you have to be careful for me!"

Seeing Wu Shengnan shaking his waist and disappearing into the 'door' and 'hole', Liu Yuan sighed slightly, pulled a chair with his hand, and sat down in this 'door' room.

"Steward Xiao Liu, I'm going to get you some hot soup?" The 'door' room, which had not made a sound, came over.

"That's a lot of work!" Liu Yuan 'rubbed' his somewhat sore neck, "After I go out today, are there any guests from the house?" ”

"There are no guests, it's just someone from the 'door' of the civil affairs office, please ask the second lady to come over, and the second lady has not come back yet!"

"Well, I see, go ahead!"

Before the second lady married the adult, she lived in the Yu Mansion, Liu Yuan naturally knew the ability of the second lady, and he was not surprised at all that the second lady was invited to come over by the Civil Affairs Ya 'Gate', of course, what was the specific matter, the officials of the Civil Affairs Ya 'Gate' couldn't handle it themselves, and they had to ask Wu Yanran to come out, so it was not something he could understand.

A mile away from the Ya 'Gate' of the Civil Affairs Council, in the conference hall.

Dong Qianqiu, the director of the civil affairs council, handed the accounts in his hand one by one to the 'female' person in front of him, if he said that before, he still looked down on the 'female' person in front of him, but now, this meaning is that he no longer knows where he threw it, putting aside the identity of this 'female' person, putting aside this' Not to mention all kinds of whimsical ideas about the people's livelihood economy in women's minds, it is a simple look at a few running accounts, and you can find a few small flaws in them.

"Master Dong, you show me these accounts, it's not in accordance with the rules!" Wu Yanran still has that glutinous voice, maybe because of the hot weather, there is a bit of laziness in that voice.

"Madam, let's talk about it!"

"It's the second lady!" Wu Yanran corrected her slip of the tongue, a smart 'woman' is easy to position herself very soberly, Wu Yanran is a smart 'woman', so she abides by her own duties, does not give others or even gives herself a chance to 'induce' herself to make mistakes.

"These are the accounts of the Mining Division, these are the accounts of the Commercial Division, and they are all from the past few months!" Dong Qianqiu naturally changed his title: "Give the second lady a look, because Dong has some things and can't make up his mind, so he wants to ask the second lady to take a closer look!" ”

Wu Yanran quietly flipped through a few pages of accounts, looked at the balance of income and expenditure, did not speak, knowing that the basic accounts in his hand, he had almost gone through them in front of him, and then raised his head.

"These accounts, I won't be able to see the clues for a while, if you want to check carefully, I'm afraid it will delay some time, didn't Master Dong invite me to come over to you as a bookkeeper!"

Wu Yanran smiled slightly: "Or, someone made some 'flower' tricks in the accounts and swallowed up the silver in this ya' gate, and Lord Dong had any scruples?" ”

She put down the account book in her hand: "If it is really such a thing, Lord Dong doesn't have to scruple at all, the rules and regulations of these various ya's 'doors' have already been established, such things, as long as the evidence is conclusive, inform the internal affairs ya' 'door', and just take people directly!" ”

"No, no, the second lady misunderstood, isn't there a problem with the accounts?" Dong Qianqiu hurriedly explained, "Has the second lady ever noticed that in the past few months, the balance of the Mining Division has been increasing day by day, and the balance of the Commercial Department has been less than January?" ”

"Is there a problem with the port?" Wu Yanran's intelligence immediately understood the meaning of his words: "Our copper ships can't get out, and the merchant ships outside can't get in?" ”

"Exactly!"

"Since the beginning of the 'spring', there have been several cases of pirates attacking these merchant ships outside us, and according to those who escaped by chance, these pirates used Western gunboats, coming and going like the wind, and they were ruthless! Once a merchant ship is targeted by them, it is basically the end of cargo loss and death! After a few times, merchant ships on this route began to become scarce day by day! ”

"Do you know about this?"

"I also reported it to the adults, and at that time the adults gave instructions, our copper ships should not go to sea for the time being, and the things produced should be stored at home first, and as for other materials that need to be obtained from the sea, they will be temporarily replenished by the Nampo side in Pyongyang, and for a while, there is no major problem!"

"Since it's okay, just do what the adults order!" Wu Yanran stared at Dong Qianqiu, but the meaning in her eyes was very obvious, that is, since you have the charter, what do you want me to do?

"Originally, it wasn't too late for the adults to come back to deal with this matter, but we could wait, but some people couldn't wait!" Dong Qianqiu got up, took another volume of documents from the bookcase, and handed it to Wu Yanran.

"This is a letter sent by the pirate fleet that has been robbing our merchant ships, I have consulted the interpreter of the camp to read it, this is a request for opening the port to trade, and we want our new port to be opened into a free port, let them come and go freely, and besides, we can't charge them a penny of taxes!"

Wu Yanran didn't pick up the paper full of tadpole texts, but just asked, "And then?" ”

What can make Dong Qianqiu so cautious will definitely not be such a small request from the other party, if it is this request, even if Dong Qianqiu does not ask anyone and agrees immediately, he will not be considered a big dereliction of duty.

"Then, they also said that in view of the poor defense of our port, for the safety of their goods, they proposed that all the defense of our port should be 'handed over' to them......

Seeing Wu Yanran's beautiful face, she gradually became a little blue, and Dong Qianqiu was also a little helpless.

He has seen shameless people, but he has never seen such a shameless person, obviously a group of robbers who have shown their banners to rob, but they have found so many high-sounding reasons for themselves, if the robber leader is in front of him, he has a heart to slap over, and then fiercely shouted: "Be a man, don't be so shameless, okay, you have already been a **, what else do you want!"

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