According to Da Zhou's calculation, it was nearly July at this time, and it had been ten months. Ling Qingyu stood at the bow of the boat, looking at the familiar sea ahead, which was already close to Da Zhou's territory.
"The head of the house." Shen Zhan rubbed his feet on the ground and called out.
"Ah? What's the matter?" Ling Qingyu turned her head and asked with a smile. She liked the sailors like Shen Zhan very much. , Has turned from a technical worker to a combat force.
"Head of the family, can people in our village also go to Lingjia Village?" Shen Zhan asked with his head lowered.
"Ah?" Ling Qingyu didn't react for a while.
"People in our village are very willing to work, and they are not afraid of suffering, and they will not have two minds," Shen Zhan said anxiously. Seeing Ling Qingyu's expression, he slowed down his speech again, and said, "Our, Young Master Tian, tax tax It’s heavy, some people starve to death every year, and it’s hard for us to find a good owner when we go out to run a boat. Nine out of ten people will die at sea. Now I can live a good life with you as the head of the family. If it’s troublesome , you who are in charge, just pretend I didn't say anything."
Seeing Shen Zhan turning around in a hurry with a blushing face, Ling Qingyu hurriedly grabbed him and said, "Wait, wait, I'm worrying about finding suitable people to reclaim the wasteland. It's best to have someone among you. Come, come, Come with me, tell me, how many people are there, and where do you live now? We have to figure out how to get them out."
Hearing Shen Zhan talk about the situation in their village, Ling Qingyu was unable to speak for a while. Although he knew that Qiongzhou had always been the most oppressed, he did not expect the situation to be even more serious. Not to mention this kind of oppression, you can't even have enough food and clothing, let alone dignity.
"Shen Zhan, when you go back to the village, don't talk about the situation in the Ling family village. Just ask if you would like to sell yourself to the Ling family. After working for a few years, you can release your life contract and have some surplus money. You must choose the right one. , not everyone here in charge can be saved." Yang Zhao, who had been standing by and listening, said calmly.
"I know, that kind of white-eyed wolf will never appear." Shen Zhan nodded. The matter of Song Li is more or less a thorn in the side. Now the head of the family is willing to give everyone a way to survive, and he must not find those who will harm the head of the house. Shen Zhan calmed down from the ecstasy of hearing Ling Qingyu's promise at the beginning, thinking that everyone can't shout Come, you need to choose carefully.
Quanzhou was full of heat in July, and Fan Ye was so hot that he collapsed on the bed, shouting for more ice.
"My lord, it's cool to be calm. No matter how much ice there is, it won't be good." Yang said, shaking her fan leisurely. With such a large amount of income last year, the business of the shops of the Ling family is also very good. During the Chinese New Year, they received a bonus, and the income is very considerable. With this money, life can be so good. There is ice in the room.
"Hey, how can I be calm! You said, from last year to now, I have already gone out to many fleets, right? Why didn't I see one come back?" Fan Ye frowned and sighed: " That little boy from the Wang family said that I took care of the spices last year, and that this year I will be able to do the same. He actually asked me to send 150,000 catties of spices this year. I, I, I, I will go there to find it! "
"Why don't you tell shopkeeper Ding that you want him to take out all the spices in the shop?" Mrs. Yang stopped her fan.
"As I said, there are only two thousand catties left in the shop of the Ling family, and the shopkeeper has already handed over all of it." Fan Ye sighed deeply. Although the Ling family left some spices privately, how much can they have? It has been almost a year, and it would be nice to have two thousand catties.
"Then the merchant ship of the Ling family has been away for ten months?" Yang said, "Maybe it will be back soon?"
"It's hard to say. Logically, the catastrophe has passed for so long, and navigation should resume, but none of the fleets that went out have returned, and I don't know what happened outside the story." Fan Ye only felt that he was getting older. If I had known this earlier, I would not have turned in all the spices last year, and it was just a reward, and I didn't get any official benefits.
"Master, master, Mr. Zhou is here."
Hearing the servant's shout outside, Fan Ye got off the bed and hurriedly called the girl to get dressed and put on her shoes.
"Why don't you let him wait? Master, why are you in such a hurry?" Mrs. Yang pushed the servant girl away and helped him dress himself.
"What do you know? This Zhou Hanming is the emperor's new favorite, the commander of Fujian Road who just arrived." Fan Ye glared at her and hurried towards the front yard.
Zhou Hanming was standing in front of the hall, looking at the calligraphy and paintings on the wall, nodding in his heart, as expected of being a child of the Fan family, he really has some character.
"Master Zhou, forgive me." Fan Ye cupped his hands to Zhou Hanming with a smile on his face.
"Hehe, I came here suddenly and disturbed Brother Fan to rest?" Zhou Hanming turned around and sat back in his chair, picked up his teacup, and said, "Brother Fan, I have important business to come here this time."
Fan Ye was startled, thinking that the deadline for the spices was still a few days away, didn't they just want it today
"Hehe, Brother Fan is not about spices." Zhou Hanming smiled, then said with a downcast face, "Do you still remember General Yang Zhaoyang?"
"Of course I remember, it wasn't because of me." Fan Ye made a beheading gesture.
"No, General Yang was sentenced to exile at that time, and the place where he emigrated was Quanzhou," Zhou Hanming said after seeing Fan Ye's surprised expression, "It's no wonder Brother Fan didn't know that you hadn't been appointed to Quanzhou at that time. Since then, the party members in the Northwest are also ready to move."
Fan Ye secretly slandered, what was ready to move, was that the Zhao family had no power to fight back. But the face was very surprised: "How could it be? Isn't Marshal Zhao personally sitting in the town?"
Zhou Hanming glanced at him, seeing that his expression remained unchanged, he thought to himself, old fox, do you still want to get rid of the Fan family? Said: "Brother Fan, let's not talk about that anymore. Now the emperor wants to call back Yang Zhao and the Heishuiguan generals who were exiled together at the beginning. I checked. They were sold to a shipping company by Zhizhou the year before last. This The owner of the shipping company is surnamed Ling, I don’t know if Brother Fan has any impression of it.”
This is so impressive! Fan Ye said: "I know this. Their ship came back last year and broke the siege of Bianjing spices, but I didn't know that General Yang was on their ship. When their ship came back last year, it was said that many sailors died. I have also been on that ship, and I have never seen anyone similar to General Yang."
Zhou Hanming was stunned for a moment, and said, "Dead?"
Fan Ye shook his head and said, "I don't know the details, but their ship has not returned since it went out to sea last year. To tell the truth, Mr. Zhou, I am also waiting for their ship to come back to save lives."
Zhou Hanming's face darkened a little. He thought he had found a clue, but just now he was so happy that a basin of cold water was poured down, cooling his heart.
"Hey, if Mr. Fan has any news about General Yang, please let me know as soon as possible. Now His Majesty is leaving for Bianliang from Hangzhou Palace. I will leave tomorrow, so I will leave first." Zhou Hanming cupped his hands and said.
Sending Zhou Hanming away, Fan Ye unconsciously sighed. The war in the north is not good. Last year’s severe drought has not recovered. I’m afraid that the two lakes will suffer from floods this year. At such a time, the emperor only knows how to enjoy himself. Still reluctant to leave Hangzhou Palace.
"Master, sir."
Fan Ye said angrily, "Master, I'm not dead, what's your name?"
"Well, news came from the pier, saying yes, it seems that a ship has returned." The servant took a step back and lowered his head.
Fan Ye was overjoyed when a boat came back, and hurriedly said: "Prepare the horse for my master, hurry up and go to the pier."
Ling Qingyu didn't expect to receive such a warm greeting from Fan Ye when he came back this time. Before the boat stopped, Fan Ye's boat had already approached.
"Oh, oh, oh! I knew it, it really is you, Master Ling!" Fan Ye laughed all over his face, but it's a pity that men and women are very defensive, otherwise he has the heart to hug him.
"Ah?" Ling Qingyu took a step back, the transformation of the gentle and refined Master Fan into a wretched uncle is really unbearable.
"Come here, let's go and see how much spice the master brought back this time." Fan Ye led the way to the captain's room.
It can't be because I can't pay the emperor's errand again!
Ling Qingyu followed to the captain's room and sat down to accompany her. Fortunately, all the gold was put in the dark cabin. The money earned plus the money robbed and the raw gold refining made a total of 900,000 taels of gold. She didn't want to Was sold off. And those jewels, she stuffed the big ones under the bed, put half of the small ones in the dark cabin, and put the most valuable spices in it. Even so, the goods in the cargo hold were worth several million taels of silver.
"How much spice did the master bring back this time?" Fan Ye asked impatiently as soon as he sat down.
Well, sure enough, it's spice again. Ling Qingyu said with a smile: "The goods this time are a bit miscellaneous. If Mr. Fan only refers to the spices of agarwood and woody fragrance, there must be more than 300,000 catties."
Seeing that Fan Ye immediately burst into laughter, Ling Qingyu hurriedly said: "My lord, the purchase price of spices this time is very expensive, can we not buy so much this time?"
Fan Ye was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, "Of course the Ling family won't suffer, this time I just need to buy 150,000 catties of spices, and the other ones are only taxed at 10%, so I won't get rid of it. "
"Thank you so much sir!" Ling Qingyu hurriedly stood up and saluted.
"Hey, don't be polite, don't be polite." Fan Ye said with a smile
"My lord," the little official who followed Fan Ye was full of surprise, ran into the room, and whispered in Fan Ye's ear: "My lord, it's amazing, the ship is full of spices and treasures!"
Full boat? Fan Ye had a cold war. The Fengshen might not have a load of tens of thousands of stones. What is the concept of a ship of spices and treasures
"Well, if Master Ling doesn't mind, can you take me to see it?" Fan Ye calmed down and smiled at Ling Qingyu.
"Naturally, Mr. Fan please." Ling Qingyu cupped his hands in a salute, and made way for the door.
There are three floors in the cargo hold below, and the floor height is about four to five meters. Each floor is divided into ten independent cabins. Different types of goods are placed in different categories and neatly stacked.
"Three hundred ivory plants, two hundred rhinoceros horn plants, eight hundred coral plants, eight hundred pieces of colored glaze, one thousand pieces of gold silk cotton, one thousand pieces of woven gold soft brocade, and five hundred pieces of fine-grained colored glaze..." the little official reported each time. Fan Ye's heart was about to beat for the same thing, how much money would be collected for all these taxes!
"Pepper, 200,000 catties." The clerk who reported the count took a long breath, well, he is a fool, and now the pepper in the market is already three taels of silver per catty, two hundred thousand catties! Six hundred thousand taels of silver!
After reporting the number, Fan Ye was already numb. Before he took office, he had done a very detailed investigation on the Guangzhou Shipping Department and made a plan for Quanzhou. There are always tens of thousands of people engaged in shipping in Guangzhou, and there are also 20,000 to 30,000 people engaged in foreign transactions in Quanzhou. This is because Quanzhou does not have a shipping company and cannot issue licenses, so ships go to Guangzhou to go to sea. There are also hundreds of shipping companies in Guangzhou, the biggest one is Xie's, a sea-going ship of 5,000 shi can get up to 400,000 taels of goods back and forth, just because the frankincense, agarwood, sandalwood, and dulcet spices are indeed rare and valuable But it’s all collected by people in the mountains. There can be such a large amount for your family. If you share it with hundreds of sea ships, it’s hard for a family to get tens of thousands of catties of spices, not to mention the bulk of the supply. The Xie family took control. And when the Fengshen came back last year, it brought back so many spices, which can be said to have benefited from the fact that there were no other ships after the catastrophe, but why did it come back with more spices this time
"By the way, I have something to inform my lord." Looking at Fan Ye's expression, Ling Qingyu said, "On our return journey, we met Sanfoji who were exterminating pirates. I heard that there are pirates in the strait over there. It has been several months, and all the sea ships passing by have been poisoned. Fortunately, we went there early, or else we will also be poisoned." Then he pointed to Ram who was standing at the door of the cargo hold: "There is also this , Mr. Ram from Zhuluo, half of the goods on board this time belonged to him, Ram is a big businessman from Zhuluo, the ship broke down in Daguang, so he came here on my ship."
Hearing what she said, La Mu rolled his eyes inwardly, but gave a very polite salute, and said, "I've met Mr. Fan."
It's no wonder, I said how could she have such a large capital as a little girl who just started shipping, but the imperial court has discounts for foreign merchants, so they can't follow the lottery of the Ling family. how good
Seeing him dozing off, Ling Qingyu immediately handed him the pillow, and said, "Don't worry, my lord. This is the first time this person has come to our Dazhou, and I don't know the situation. I just told him that everything should be calculated according to my calculations. It's just that my lord is explaining the situation." Only my name can be written on the bill.”
"Haha, it's easy to say, this cargo is naturally owned by you, Master Ling." Fan Ye smiled, and he had a good impression of Ling Qingyu in his heart. As for whether Ling Qingyu would be greedy for other people's money by doing so, you can see the foreign land. No one spoke, so I was worried.
After looking at the cargo hold, Fan Ye sighed and stepped onto the deck. He was really angry. Even if most of the people here belonged to those people, after the lottery, the whole cargo would be worth millions of dollars. If it sold well Well, tens of millions of silver is possible, even if they want to get rid of those people's money, the Ling family themselves have to have three million taels. Hey, how good it was to listen to Madam's advice and buy shares in her shipping company.