Soon after Xia Xun returned to take the boat, Zheng He, Zhang Xitong and others came back from the banquet, and after Xia Xun heard the news, he immediately sent someone to invite them over.
Zheng He and Zhang Xitong just came back from the banquet, although the water wine here is soft and sweet, not as strong as the Chinese wine, but after drinking too much, Xia Xun has asked someone to cook tea, after the two sat down, the tea was served, and the three of them talked while drinking tea.
Zheng He said to Xia Xun: "Guogong, at the banquet today, we met several Han merchants who lived here, as early as more than 100 years ago, their ancestors moved here from Middle Earth, these people now have considerable power here, generally have their own cottages, most of them are still engaged in business, with their own fleets and escort arms.
However, due to the fleet's lack of long-distance sailing capabilities and the rampant piracy of pirates, their trading scope has always been limited to a few small surrounding countries, and once in a few years, when many caravans are gathered to form a large caravan, they will only go to the sea.
When they heard about our ocean-going plans, they were interested in joining our fleet, not only them, but also local wealthy businessmen.
Zhang Xitong added: "Also, there are some merchants in our fleet who are very interested in this place and want to focus on developing trade here, so they want to stay. ” Xia Xun said: "Okay, come and go freely, listen to it."
The last time the father-in-law came, it was on behalf of the Son of Heaven to proclaim the appeasement of Zhuyi, and he came to establish tributary trade, and naturally the team could not be mixed with some ordinary merchant groups, but now it is different, although the father-in-law still has a holy order, but many merchants who came with the fleet only came for trade, not a member of the imperial court.
Therefore, it is up to them to decide whether they will go or stay, but they will have to strengthen the scrutiny of those who join the fleet.
Also, if you have to charge a fee, we can't protect them for free. ” "There is also a fee" As soon as they heard this, Zheng He and Zhang Xitong were both a little surprised, this is a common problem of officials, a gentleman does not speak of profit, let alone a gentleman who is an official.
It is a great honor for those people to come together, and to collect money from them Xia Xun said: "Yes, if you want to collect money, whether it is a rich Han businessman whose ancestors moved here, or a rich local businessman, you have to collect money."
You think that they have organized their own ships to go to sea, hired a huge team of guards, and paid taxes for these merchants who came with the ships to leave and enter the port, so how can they be extremely generous to outsiders?
Our fleet belongs to the imperial court, but the money of the imperial court is also the tax paid by the people, and we can't be generous outside, only a verbal good, so what's the use of our fleet to come out once It costs a lot of money, and the trade is enough to make up for the consumption, but who is afraid of money smashing hands, there are still people in the DPRK and China who oppose going overseas, and make more money for the imperial court, so as to strive for more official sailing opportunities" This sentence moved Zheng He, and Zheng He nodded heavily: "What Guogong said is that this is what he said, and those who are willing to sail with our fleet are all allowed, but they will be charged corresponding fees."
I'll ask someone to estimate how much it will cost them to go to sea on their own and how much it will cost to defend them, and then reduce it as appropriate."
Xia Xun waved his hand and said with a smile: "No, no, no, there is no need to reduce it as appropriate, we will charge as much as they need to spend on escort expenses when they go to sea, and they can earn a mountain of gold back when they go back and forth, and my father-in-law doesn't have to save money for them."
They spend the same amount of money and organize their own escorts, which may not be safe, but if they follow us, they will definitely not have to worry about being robbed by pirates, and it is already quite generous if they do not overcharge them. ” Zheng He said with a smile: "Then it depends on Guogong, hehe, fortunately, Guogong didn't do business, otherwise it would be a Tao Zhu Gong in three years." ” Xia Xun said with a smile: "This is not to be done, this is because we have strong force and ocean-going capabilities, with this strong backing, I have the confidence to make a price, and I guarantee that they will be willing to pay for it, if I let me do business by myself, it can't compare to the scheming of these businessmen."
Hehe, in fact, there is another benefit to us calling these local businessmen to join. ” Zhang Xitong wondered: "In addition to charging escort fees, what are the benefits?"
Xia Xun said: "They are far more familiar with the nearby waters and surrounding countries than us.
Especially since we only drove as far as Kozhiguli last time, and we have never been further west.
If we spit out the old and accept the new along the way, and constantly accept new caravans in, there will always be people in our fleet who are familiar with the geography, water conditions, country and folk customs ahead, so that we can sail accurately.
Don't underestimate this role, in this way, first, we can avoid many detours, save a lot of time and travel consumption; Second, we may have to make three or five trips to find out the water conditions, but through their understanding, we can grasp them at one time; Thirdly, the sea voyage, although it is unpredictable, but the locals know very well which sections of the road are more prone to danger, so that we can reduce many casualties and ship losses."
Zheng He and Zhang Xitong clapped their hands and applauded: "Yes, yes, there are many benefits, why didn't we think of it, it's good, so it seems that along the way, we really have to absorb more local business groups."
After happily deciding to absorb the local business group to participate in the voyage, Zheng He asked again: "The two of us want to come, I don't know what important things to discuss."
Xia Xun looked solemn and said: "That's the case, today I took my family ashore for sightseeing, and I encountered an incident, which itself is nothing, but from this I thought of something that we neglected." ” Xia Xun said again about the jealousy of the Siamese merchants and the officers and soldiers of the naval division, and said: "Manraka originally called the king of Siam and was under his jurisdiction, but now we have received the edict of the Son of Heaven and set up the king of Manraka, with the strength of Siam, we absolutely do not dare to resist the holy order of our heavenly pilgrimage, but suddenly lose the rule of Manraka, although Manraka only provides a mere forty taels of gold every year, they will definitely be dissatisfied. ” Zhang Xitong said: "Dissatisfied with that is certain, although Manraka only supplies forty taels of gold every year, but they are doing business and trade in Manraka, and they don't have to pay taxes, this money is a lot, we are now tantamount to snatching a piece of fat from their hands, it is strange that they can be happy."
But what if they don't want to?"
Zheng He heard that Xia Xun had deeper considerations, and nodded lightly: "I don't know what Guogong thinks about this."
Xia Xun said: "My dynasty has always attached equal importance to the Nanyang countries, dividing and conquering.
Now that Chen Jikuo of Jiaozhi has just been defeated and captured, the place has been temporarily calm, and if there is a neighbor in Jiaozhi who is dissatisfied with my Daming, they dare not openly resist my Daming, but it is difficult to guarantee that they will not use a knife to vent their anger.
If they secretly fund the Annan anti-army" Zheng He said movingly: "Yes, the prince of the country is very worried, it is His Majesty's will to allow Manraka to establish a country and crown its king, and besides, since our dynasty has set the national policy of opening the sea and trade through the east and west, this Manchurian will have great benefits for my Ming Dynasty, and this place must be in our hands, so how to do it."
Xia Xun smiled slightly and said: "Of course, Manraka must be controlled by the imperial court, and the emperor's holy decree has absolutely no reason to go back on its word, but for Siam, you might as well use some means to make them settle down."
When I came back, I had already thought carefully about the current situation in Siam and came up with some plans. ” At this time, Zhang Xitong also became cautious and arched his hand: "I would like to hear it in detail" Xia Xun said: "Siam's trade depends on China.
If we don't buy their goods, their yellow incense, true incense, agarwood, rosewood, blood exhaustion, ivory and other things will be difficult to sell at a price, in the past they mostly trade with my Ming in the form of tributary trade and smuggling, this piece has been very dependent, and now I Ming open free trade, for them it has become an indispensable and important market.
Originally, we planned to visit Siam again on the return journey, but now we might as well send a fleet to Siam first, and convey to them the will of our Ming Dynasty to open the sea trade.
Where the interests lie, this is the policy of restraint.
Again, show kindness.
The Siamese have been under the predation of the Khmers, and the two sides are constantly fighting.
We sent envoys to mediate and tell the Khmer people to war, which is also in line with the emperor's policy of favoring Huaiyuan and the whole world.
The Khmer king did not dare to disobey the emperor's will, at least he did not dare to brazenly fight Siam.
In this way, the hearts of the Siamese army and civilians can be invited to quell their grievances.
Champa and Jiaozhi have always been enemies, and they wholeheartedly hope that the imperial court will accept Jiaozhi under their rule, if Siam does not do anything to Annam.
There are dissidents in Annan, there is a large army to suppress it, and there is no soldier or grain of rice to help, what kind of wind and waves can be tossed to govern Annan by the two generals Zhang Fu and Mu Sheng, and there will be a lot less trouble. ” Zheng He said happily: "Guogong is far-sighted, Zheng He agrees with this opinion" When Zheng He went to the West, Emperor Yongle gave him a few blank holy decrees, which was a great trust in Zheng He, but it also took into account the actual situation of the westward journey.
For many years, the Ming Dynasty has always been relatively closed to the outside world, and even the close proximity of the book could mistake Prince Huairen for the king, let alone the extreme west.
This Ming fleet went all the way west, and he didn't know how far it would go, what countries it would encounter, and what situations it would encounter, and the emperor would not be able to write a holy decree in advance in order to communicate with the countries he encountered.
Therefore, he could only give Zheng He the right to cheapen, give him a few blank holy decrees, and tell him to go all the way and use them according to the situation, but now he is just using them.
Zheng He said: "This matter is indeed urgent, so let's do it, Lord Zhang happens to be there, let's discuss it carefully, discuss it properly, and then Master Zhang will write it and draft an edict." ” As soon as I said this, someone knocked on the door to report in, saying that there was a Westerner who came to the door with a waist card and wanted to find Xia Xun Xia's shopkeeper.
Others don't know Xia Xun's identity, but the people on this ship know that they are all from Shuangyuwei, and they have always been incompatible with other officers and soldiers of the sailor, so they don't have to worry about the news leaking, and with Su Sanjie here, no one knows who her man wants to hide but can't hide.
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Xia Xun instructed the soldier: "This person will be a passenger on the ship in the future, arrange a place for him to live, and don't reveal my identity."
After sending the soldier down, Xia Xun continued to discuss with Zheng He and Zhang Xitong, and after discussing for a long time, the three of them put forward some key points one after another, and then Zhang Xitong wrote down the wording and wrote down a holy decree with enthusiasm.
He was a member of the Ministry of Rites, and he was the best at writing this kind of official document, and after writing it, he read it out, and the two of them listened to it, carefully scrutinized it, corrected some omissions, and finally transcribed the official content on the blank decree that only covered the imperial seal.
After writing the holy decree, Zheng He said: "Look, Guogong, which lord will be sent to Siam?"
Zhang Xitong took the initiative to ask: "I'll go, if I go to Siam, it's not far from our next route, and I'll lead the fleet to chase you."
Xia Xun and Zheng He nodded and agreed.
This huge fleet is not all ships advance and retreat together, never leave for a moment, if that is the case, the westward road of this fleet will be too inefficient, in the original plan, they will also go their separate ways, like Zhou Man, Hong Bao, Zhou Wen, Yang Qing and others have to stand alone, leading a fleet to different places.
Their mission is not only to deal with different countries, but also to explore this overseas world, which is still very new to the Ming Dynasty, to conduct astronomical research and geographical mapping, and after each detachment completes its mission, it will catch up with the main fleet's route of action.
So, next they're going to break up here and drive to different places.
One fleet will discover Australia, while the other will head south until it enters the Antarctic Circle, and each fleet's journey is a fascinating story.
Zheng He's main fleet was going all the way to the west, and Zhang Xitong, as the deputy envoy, would also chase after the main fleet after conveying the will.
They had just agreed that Zhang Xitong would go to Siam, and the hatch knocked again, but this time it was Xu Hu, the commander of the Shuangyu Guard, who came in, Xia Xun thought that he was looking for him, and raised his eyebrows to him, Xu Hu said in a low voice: "Guogong, Zheng Gonggong, Lord Zhang, Zheng Gonggong's Xiao Ji Gonggong on the ship brought an envoy to him, saying that he was ordered by the king of Bolin State to ask to see Zheng Gonggong." ” "Oh Bolin Bangguo" Xia Xun said with a smile: "Our next stop was originally set to be Bolin State, but I didn't expect that their king had already taken the initiative to send someone to urge him when he heard the news."
Hehe, then you two can meet the envoy, and I'll avoid it."
Zheng He nodded in agreement, and after Xia Xun left the cabin, Zheng He called someone to invite the envoy to come in.
Xia Xun got out of the cabin and asked people where Fei Yinglun was placed, but it was at the bottom.
At that time, foreigners had no status, and the soldiers didn't take them seriously, if it weren't for Xia Xun's order to set him up with a place to live, I'm afraid he would have been allowed to sleep on the deck.
Xia Xun went down the gangway and walked to the bottom deck, when he saw that Fei Yinglun was looking east and west on the deck, looking excited, standing from time to time, and was amazed.
The interpreter stood aside, pouting slightly, as if he were a hillbilly who had never seen the world before.
Seeing Xia Xun coming, Fei Yinglun was full of praise and said: "Great, I couldn't see it clearly when I was on the shore, but I found that it was so huge when I boarded this ship, in our west, there is no more powerful fleet than our country, but the largest ship in our country, placed in your fleet, the gap is as small as a quail standing in front of a turkey."
However, I heard from Mr.
Interpreter that your ships are flat-bottomed, which is not conducive to deep-sea navigation. ” Xia Xun smiled: "No, most of our sea ships are pointed-bottomed, whether they are warships or merchant ships.
Only a handful of the largest ships were flat-bottomed because our fleet was too big and needed to carry too much, and flat-bottomed ships had a large load and could sail on shallow waterways.
Otherwise, with a ship like ours, if we use a pointed bottom, there are not many ports in the world where we can sail in. ” Xia Xun briefly introduced a few words to Fei Yinglun, and then said no more.
In fact, the last time Zheng He came back from the West, he also brought back several Western-style ships, in the Longjiang Shipyard, the craftsmen once disassembled these wooden sailing ships, carefully studied the ships of the Westerners, and found that their pointed wooden sailing ships did not have keels, keels can greatly improve the ship's stable surname and solid surname, and China's pointed bottom sea ships have keels since the early Song Dynasty.
At the same time, our ship plates use flat joint technology, while Western ships still use a relatively backward lap joint method, which also affects the ship's sturdy surname.
In addition, the craftsmen also noticed that the widest part of the Western ship was in the front of the middle of the hull, like the shape of a fish, while the shape of the Chinese sea ship was like a webbed waterfowl, and the widest part of the ship was at the back of the middle, so it was more agile and faster than the Western ship.
As for the sails, the sails of Chinese sailing ships are "hard canopies" reinforced with bamboo poles horizontally, and this kind of balanced sail is flexible and can withstand the wind in all directions, which is also incomparable to Western ships.
The final evaluation result is that the surname of Chinese sailing ships can be far ahead of Western sailing ships, and there are very few technologies for reference by these Western ships.
It is true that the surname of Western sailing ships was greatly improved from the 16th century, and the invention of keel technology and the key to the technology of moving back at the widest part of the hull to make the ship more flexible were discovered hundreds of years later.
Xia Xun didn't want to show off these advanced technologies to Fei Yinglun, the key to these technologies was invention, not manufacturing, if he knew the key and revealed it to Westerners, he could make it with a bit of exploration.
Xia Xun is like an iron rooster who is not pulling out a dime, the stingy Grande, wherever there is a little advanced place in Western science and technology, he wants to learn it immediately, but he can hide his strengths for as long as he can, and Xia Xun has never had the stinky problem of being a teacher.
Xia Xun casually introduced two sentences, then changed the topic and asked with a smile: "Are you satisfied with the arrangement of your accommodation?"
Fei Yinglun nodded busily: "Satisfied, satisfied, very satisfied, the accommodation is spacious, clean, bright, well ventilated, and the beds are comfortable, which is much stronger than the kennel where I used to live on a boat."
Ah, Mr.
Xia Xun" Fei Yinglun approached Xia Xun and whispered: "You have a very high status on the ship, I found that the captain of this ship, the general in charge of hundreds of soldiers, does not live as spacious and gorgeous as your place." ” Xia Xun raised his eyebrows slightly, and said with a smile: "Oh, it seems that you have already visited the whole ship, because of some reason, the general respects me more." ” "Aha, understood, understood" Seeing Xia Xun's ominous appearance, Fei Yinglun squeezed his eyes at him and laughed slyly, not knowing what he understood.
Xia Xun looked at his curly hair, unkempt beard, and the deep knife marks on his cheeks, and always felt that if he was given a whistling turban on his head, a crumpled shirt, a black one-eye patch on his eyes, and a stabbing sword on his belt, he would be a pirate completely.
Xia Xun can feel that this is a Westerner with a very good story, and it is by no means as simple as the experience he himself said.
Xia Xun was about to inquire about his situation, Zheng He had personally sent the envoy of the Bolin Gang out, and the envoy stood by the gangway, bowed to Zheng He very politely, and asked him to stay.
Zheng He smiled and stopped, and said a few more words to the man, and the man left the ship.
Fei Yinglun looked at the messenger with a canopy in his hand, and asked Xia Xun curiously: "Mr.
Xia Xun, who is that?"
Xia Xun replied casually: "That's an envoy sent by the king of the Bolin State, I think it should be to invite our fleet to visit the country."
"Bolin State" Fei Yinglun's face changed.
Xia Xun didn't pay attention to his expression, and said, "I'll go up and ask about the situation."
With that, he walked to the gangway.
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Fei Yinglun stretched out his hand as if to stop it, but when he saw that Xia Xun had already stepped onto the gangway, he hesitated slightly, and closed his mouth again.
Xia Xun boarded the top cabin and returned to the ship's room, as soon as Zheng He saw him coming, he immediately smiled and said: "Guogong, guess who the king of the Bolin State is?"
Xia Xun was surprised in his heart, Zheng He didn't say what the envoy of the country meant, but asked him about the identity of the king of the country, could it be that this person was known by himself, who he knew could go to Nanyang to be the king Do you be a bearded guest If you are a bearded guest, then I will not become Li Jing Thinking of this, Xia Xun couldn't help but laugh dumbly, and said to Zheng He: "Father-in-law, don't play dumb riddles, I really can't guess who this king is."
Zheng He laughed and said: "Back then, the Duke of the Kingdom was ordered to suppress the Kou, subdued the Shuangyu group of bandits, and also had a small fight with the Nanyang thief Chen Zuyi.
After that, the Shuangyu group of thieves became my Ming officers and soldiers, and now they are the soldiers and horses of the protector of the country under the West, and the Nanyang thief Chen Zuyi thought that he had disappeared, who knows, he actually became the lord of the Bolin State."
Xia Xun was taken aback: "How did Chen Zuyi become the lord of a country?"
Zheng He picked up a letter from the case and said: "Chen Zuyi is a wanted criminal in the imperial court, and he is very frightened when he knows the news of the arrival of my Ming fleet, lest his identity be revealed and he will be attacked by the heavenly soldiers.
When he was a pirate, he could escape by boat, go deep into the sea to avoid war, and now he is the lord of a country, where can he hide is to send an envoy to surrender, take the initiative to ask for guilt, willing to surrender to the Ming Dynasty, forever for the Ming Dynasty Haha, Guogong, we are here, before we set foot on the Western border, we will set up a king, descend a king, the emperor knows, will be happy."
To be continued: