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Chapter 720 Lin Family Boy
Huang Nanping was quite concerned about this fellow villager. He took time out to go to the Naval Reserve Base in Zhangzhou to talk to Lin Liang in person. After learning that his academic performance was too poor and he was indeed unable to serve in the navy, he gave him a reserve rank, which meant he was retired from the reserve. However, he could not enjoy the benefits of formal naval retirement.

What can Lin Liang do when he returns home? Nothing. He can do nothing except sailing. It just so happens that the navy has a batch of armed cargo ships that are about to be decommissioned, so Huang Nanping uses his connections to get two of them. But there is a condition: business is business, but if the navy needs it, Lin Liang and the ship must be requisitioned immediately, and he cannot shirk his responsibilities.

Since he had been in the reserve for more than three years, Lin Liang must be no stranger to ships. The first batch of warships and armed cargo ships built by the navy were mostly made of pine and fir wood, and were expected to serve for only five years, so they were indeed ships that should be retired.

But being retired from the navy does not mean that they have lost their value in the civilian sector. They just cannot meet the navy's combat needs. If used for commercial transport, they are still better than most civilian ships.

So Lin Liang went home and borrowed some money from his elder and second brothers, and then borrowed some money from the Sun Moon Bank. He bought two armed cargo ships with a load capacity of 1500 tons and a carrying capacity of more than 200 tons from the navy at the price of retired ships.

Now that we have a boat, where can we find crew members who can operate a soft sail? The answer is simple: recruit failed personnel from the Navy Reserve. These people have undergone more than a year of training and can basically operate a soft sail. They were only rejected for some reason, which does not affect sailing.

Moreover, as long as the sails were modified, the two armed cargo ships could sail all year round, and could sail south or north regardless of the south wind in summer or the north wind in winter. In other words, relying on the good quality and speed of the ships, Lin Liang made the Lin family fleet famous in less than three years.

Not only did they have business to take over in Yuegang, Zhangzhou, but also sea merchants from Fuzhou, Quanzhou and even Chaozhou came to hire the Lin family fleet. For no other reason, they just wanted to take their own goods there when others could not go and sell them at a rare price.

The fleet was doing well and making a lot of money, but the reserve force was always a thorn in Lin Liang's heart and he was not willing to mention it easily.

As Annan and Luzon were successively controlled by the Ming Navy, more and more young people wanted to join the navy. The brother of the boy just now was a peer from the same village and clan, and had been training in the reserve for more than eight months.

Today was the day for the test. If he passed, he would be the first in the village to become a navy officer. While Lin Liang was happy for others, he also felt a little embarrassed.

"Captain Lin, I guessed that you are at the dock. You must have made three or four trips this year, right?" After avoiding the young man's chattering, Lin Liang had not yet finished eating the rice with meat soup in the pot when someone behind him greeted him by name.

"...Boss Tian, ​​this is not the first time I've seen you at the dock. What cargo are you shipping today?"

Looking back, yes, it's an acquaintance, a famous hemp rope merchant in Yuegang, with shops in several towns, specializing in buying hemp silk from Luzon and other places, bringing it back to make various hemp ropes for sale. Although the goods are not expensive, they are very useful, sell well, and make a lot of money.

But as long as he is a businessman, he will never be dissatisfied with making too much money. In addition to going to Luzon once or twice a year to select raw materials, he will also do some boat-sharing business when he has the opportunity.

It means that only a small part of the cabin space is used, and the goods are placed together with other merchants' goods. Or the goods can be simply entrusted to the ship owner, who will specify that the goods will be delivered to a certain port and given to someone in exchange for a certain amount of silver. This can not only save the trouble of traveling, but also reduce travel expenses and transportation costs.

Of course, the ship owner would not accept large quantities of cargo. Usually, they would only accept a few small packages or boxes, which were not worth much money. Since he was a half-familiar person or a local, he could not open his mouth to refuse, so he just took care of it. "No cargo today... Captain Lin, are you going to pay off the loan from Sun Moon Bank soon?" Boss Tian looked around, waved his hand, walked to a pile of cargo boxes and stood still, and whispered to Lin Liang who followed him.

"...It can't be that fast. If I make three or five more trips, it will be almost done by next summer." Lin Liang didn't understand what the other party meant. With the Tian family's business situation, as long as they didn't buy too many goods, they shouldn't need to borrow money from others.

Although buying and selling hemp ropes requires purchasing raw materials from Luzon and other places, and it does take a lot of time, the principal is not much, and the money earned is all hard-earned money from the craft, and there is no need to pay interest and borrow money from the bank.

"That's good, that's good...Have you heard? Sun Moon Bank is in big trouble!" After making sure that there was no one around, Boss Tian carefully dropped the big news. In addition to astonishment, his expression seemed to contain something more complicated.

"What kind of trouble could Sun Moon Bank get into... Could it be that the imperial court has issued an order prohibiting the sale of bonds? That would be bad. I just bought 200 taels a few days ago. Is it too late to redeem them now?"

Lin Liang knew Boss Tian quite well. He liked to take advantage of others, but he was kind and fair in his business. Most of the ropes used on his boat were purchased from him, and the quality was impeccable.

"Look, I know you're busy all day and rarely go to the city, so you definitely don't know. Don't worry, listen to me first. Even if you go to redeem the bonds now, I'm afraid they won't have time to entertain you.

The entrance to the Sun Moon Bank is now jammed with people, boxes of silver are being carried out here, boxes of silver are being loaded onto trucks there, they have been busy since morning, it is so busy! Oh, I have lived my life in vain, I have never seen so much silver, it is so dazzling. "

Seeing that Lin Liang's answer was irrelevant, Boss Tian spoke even more excitedly, gesticulating and talking eloquently, his expression and posture comparable to those of a gossipy woman on the streets.

"Wait, Boss Tian, ​​you are not making fun of me, are you? The bank is running well, why are you moving the money around for no reason? Are you moving it out to dry in the hot and humid weather?"

Lin Liang couldn't bear to listen any more, so he turned around to look at the movement at the dock. It turned out that the goods had not been delivered yet, so it was not easy to just walk away, but he also didn't want to listen to this endless nonsense anymore.

"Tsk, is this really a lie? If you don't believe me, come with me into the city and take a look! By the way, don't forget to take the bonds. I've always told you not to buy them, but you didn't listen. Now you're in trouble.

"Walk, walk, walk, talk as we walk... Oh, forget about loading the ship. It doesn't matter if we leave a day earlier or later. The bonds in your hand are worth two hundred taels. If they are gone, half a year's work will be in vain. It's hard to calculate which is lighter and which is heavier!"

Apart from his love of taking advantage of others and being a bit of a nag, Mr. Tian is a good person, at least he knows how to repay kindness. He had often troubled Lin Liang to bring him goods in the past, and now he came all the way from the city to give him a heads-up, fearing that Lin Liang would be too busy sailing to understand the changes and end up in trouble.

(End of this chapter)