Lu Ming

Chapter 147
The Lin brothers were first tricked into going to Tangzhuang that day, and then they were negotiated a shipping business. After the contract was signed, the two brothers had to rush back to dispatch.The Xing'an Ping, which was already full of groceries and was just waiting to go on the road, quickly unloaded some bulky goods, and then stuffed 100 tans of raw silk into it.

Fortunately, in the Ming Dynasty, no one cared whether the ships were overloaded or not, so the Xing'an Ping took the north wind and swayed all the way back to his hometown in Funing Prefecture.

After celebrating the Lunar New Year in their hometown, the Lin brothers did not dare to delay, ignored the court's ban, swaggered and collected 7 catties of high-quality pig iron, a small part of wrought iron and 100 dans of raw silk, and gave Xing'an Pinghao Full.Seeing that it was already March in Yangchun, the Lin brothers found an auspicious day to pay homage to Mazu, set sail, and sailed to the other side of the strait.

Taking the north wind from northern Fujian to cross the sea, the Xing'an Ping is equivalent to drawing an uncontrollable diagonal line.

If luck is normal, as long as the wind direction remains the same, the lucky boat will be able to see the coastline of Taiwan after two or three days of floating on the sea surface; of course, at this time, the boat may be in Taipei or Taichung, and this lucky boat cannot be controlled.

If you are unlucky and encounter all kinds of strong winds and evil winds, you can only resign yourself to fate. After five or six days, everyone will find out that they have come to Mount Putuo, which is also very normal.

The luck of the Lin family brothers was barely normal. The wind weakened the first night after crossing the strait, and the speed of the boat dropped sharply. Fortunately, the two brothers and the helmsman had been sailing for many years, and they had rich experience, so they kept the course without any danger.As the wind weakened, the Xing'an Ping was delayed in the strait for a long time. It was not until the evening of the third day that the men in Wangdouli saw land.

Lin Baoquan, who had been watching the sea from the stern tower anxiously for the past two days, finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the land, and hurriedly ordered to slow down. Towards the Big Island, it is easy to hit the rocks.

In the early morning of the next day, the Xing'an Ping, which was blown to the mouth of the Hsinchu River by the north wind and anchored overnight, finally set sail again, heading south along the coastline, heading straight for Dayuan.

When the Xing'an Ping came to Dayuanwaihai, it was already the end of March in 1628. At this time, the traveler had settled down the Madou natives, and was in the process of opening salt fields, making steel and planting soybeans.

A small boat greeted Fu Chuan from a distance when it first arrived at the open sea.

Lin Baoquan knew that it was the red-haired man's patrol boat, so he ordered the sail to be lowered, and soon the boat came close to Fu Chuan, and a patrolman flipped onto the boat with the help of a ladder.Looking closely at this patrolman, the people on the blessing boat couldn't help being slightly taken aback, this is a shaggy man!Take a closer look at the boat, and the people on it also have short hair.

The visitor was about [-] years old, black and thin, with a layer of short black hair covering his scalp, and no ring scars were visible. His upper body was a tight indigo double-breasted jacket, with four black wooden jackets in a row in the middle. Buttons, calf trousers with exposed calves on the lower body, and a pair of weird-looking straw sandals on the feet.

This person's appearance is a bit out of the way, but when he opened his mouth, he revealed a Hokkien accent. Although Lin Baoquan was kind, he was not surprised: he knew that the Dutch had Fujian and Guangdong boat people under their command, but he didn't expect that these people even had hair. Being shaved, it seems that it is really not easy for the brothers to work under the red-haired man.

The watchman spoke a few words with Lin Baoquan in a Hokkien dialect. After learning about Lin's intention, he measured the draft of the Fuchuan on the spot, and then the watchman clearly told Lin that the draft of the Fuchuan was too deep to enter the port. Boat barge.

This is not surprising to Lin Baoquan: the Xing'anping itself is a sharp-bottomed blessing ship, and this trip is full of iron materials, so a deep draft is a must.After informing the Xing'an Ping to move the ship to the entrance of the channel, the patrolmen disembarked and returned to the port. Waiting for the Xing'an Ping to start slowly, after moving the ship to the side of the Dayuan channel, a series of five or six small ships The boat has jumped out of the Taijiang Inner Sea.

This time, after the patrol turned over to the boat, what he took out was actually a copy of the contract signed by Lin Baoquan and Xiong Dao in Hangzhou.After seeing the copy, Lin Baoquan ordered to open the hatch without any doubts, and the sailors began to transfer iron materials to the boat in a slow hoisting way.

Five or six small boats used their oars at the same time, taking turns to turn off the cargo and return it to the officers. They were busy from morning to afternoon, and barely unloaded one-third of Xing'anping's inventory.But this was enough. After measuring the draft in the afternoon, the patrolman told Lin Baoquan that the waterway could be entered now, so the Xing'an Ping immediately raised half of its sails, and led by two small boats, it slowly sailed into the Taijiang waterway.

Standing at the bow of the boat, Lin Baoquan searched for the memories of his youth while looking at the Dayuan Island on his right, which he once visited when he was young.

Back then, Dayuan Island was a land of luxuriant weeds. Like Beixianwei Island on the left, there were some wild people's grass dwellings scattered here and there.Lin Baoquan clearly remembered that when their small lucky boat was advancing in the channel under their feet, on the sandy shores on both sides, there were savages running and roaring along with the boat.

But today the same thing happened again and again, but Lin Baoquan could no longer see the savages. Instead, Dayuan Island was full of people's voices and a noisy construction site.

Looking from the bow, the weeds on the sandy land on both sides of the channel have long disappeared, but some people are planting some kind of saplings; the plants are neatly divided into three rows, someone digs a hole in front, and someone pushes a cart behind to water.Looking farther away, you can see a large number of people busy on the construction site, raising shovels and carts, as if they are leveling the sand dunes.

When the Xing'an Ping sailed through the middle of the channel, the trading house in the upper right corner of Dayuan Island became more and more clear. Compared with the dilapidated trading house, what attracted Lin Baoquan's attention more was a striking red building near the trading house. abutment-style building.

This is a strange red brick building, square and square, with a big bottom and a small end. It has been built to be about two feet high. At this moment, from Lin Baoquan's perspective, he can see the craftsmen around the pier busy on the bamboo and wooden scaffolding.

"These red-haired people are really rich and powerful!" Lin Baoquan thought: Red bricks are the material used by rich people to build houses in Fujian, but they don't want Dutch people to use them to build piers.

While Lin Baoquan was trying to observe the Dutch business houses, forts, and docks, the Xing'an Ping was standing on the bow of the sailors, but he let out a cry of surprise. Before Lin Baoquan understood the situation, his sleeve suddenly Being pulled violently, the clan brother shouted in surprise: "Fifth brother, look, Haidilao!"

After Lin Baoquan heard the sound, he subconsciously turned his gaze to the front left. At this moment, the Xing'an Ping was gradually approaching the waterway entrance and was about to enter the Taijiang River. At this moment, Lin Baoquan saw a scene that he will never forget.

(End of this chapter)