Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 277 Sweet Hong Kong Situation-Vietnamese Rice

Zhang Dascara didn't know where they were going.The area around Quang Ninh is not the target of pirates, unless those small groups of pirates who are neither Vietnamese nor Chinese, who are fishermen and rob fishermen, are interested in operating here.Zhang Dascara looked down on this group of people very much, and Chang Shide proved a truth from him: any social group has a hierarchy.

But Zhang Dasara is still familiar with the sea conditions in this area. When he first started this career, whenever he couldn't get along, he would sneak to Jiangping to avoid the wind. This place is on the border between China and Vietnam. Under the jurisdiction of Vietnam, the residents are all half fishermen and half bandits.

At this time, the first dispute arose. Bei Kai wanted to go to Hongji—his task was to find coal. Only then did Chang Shide know that he was a member of the exploration team.Chang Shide wants to get rid of the sugar as soon as possible. Although he knows nothing about the ancient geography of Vietnam, Hung Ji obviously has no sugar buyers.

"It doesn't matter if you want to dig coal. You can slowly investigate and explore. What about the sugar on the ship?"

In the end, Chang Shide was victorious - a bag of candy obviously couldn't last long under the scorching sun of the South China Sea.

The boat headed north under Zhang Dascara's command.There were more boats on the sea, and they were all two-masted fishing boats.Zhang Dasara told everyone to get their weapons ready.Occupy a good position around the ship's side and on the commanding heights.

"Pirates?" Chang Shide was a little nervous.

"When you can't beat you, you are a fisherman," Zhang Dabao spat. "Monkeys are thieves. If they don't dare to rob, they come to steal. They want everything."

"What's Li Chao's attitude towards Ming businessmen?" Chang Shide was a little nervous as it was the first time he was engaged in foreign affairs and trade.

"Issuing a document is 1000 taels of silver a year. Naturally, I welcome it." Zhang Dabao didn't take it seriously. He knew a little about the origin of Australian maritime merchants, and they had guns, cannons, and iron ships, but they lived in Lingao. The master was very disapproving, "We probably don't need this much if we go to a more desolate place."

"Where to go?"

"Why do you ask so much? You'll know when you go." Zhang Dascar waved his hand, showing no politeness to the boss at all.

Sure enough, the gangster's anger has not diminished.Chang Shide cursed secretly, and suddenly became worried again, this big scar must have many accomplices in the pirate gang, a thousand stones of candy on board is worth a thousand taels of silver, in case he has any thieves' thoughts... I can't help but Breaking out in a cold sweat, he touched the pistol on his waist, and hurried to look for Bei Kai, muttering, what should I do if this black fat pirate is unreliable?

Bei Kai said: "I don't know if it's reliable or not. Wasn't this man recruited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? There are brothers from our new army on board. Thirty or forty guns can't deal with him? It's okay."

Before long, a town appeared on the coastline, which looked similar to a small Chinese county like Lingao, but without the city walls.This seems to be the mouth of a big river. Along the river bank, there are stone piers and wooden trestles.It was full of ships of all sizes, some of which were obviously large ships from China.

Zhang Dabara told everyone to take the rifles and cannons below the deck, where the officials of the Le Dynasty were stationed.Before landing on the shore, a small boat rowed over. A small and thin man with sly eyebrows and mouse eyes, wearing a green official robe and black gauze hat similar to the officials of the Ming Dynasty, climbed up with unusually agile hands and feet, with a big scar on his face. Hurry up to greet them, and after the two chattered something that no one could understand, Zhang Dascar turned around and said to Chang Shide:

"He said that we can put our ship under the name of another Chinese ship that has paid for it, but he only needs to give him 200 Spanish silver oceans."

"Mom, it's as black as a crow in the world." Chang Shide cursed, probably seeing this big man's complexion, the official of the Li Dynasty couldn't help pushing his small chest up, and helped down the black gauze hat to show his strength "mighty".

"Okay, just give it to him. Is there any other money to spend?" Chang Shide knew that unless he commanded the fleet to bombard this place, it would be impossible for him to go ashore without paying the money.

"There is also the tax on the import and export of goods," Zhang Dabara said, "you can pay less by spending a little money."

"Grandma's," Chang Shide's cursing escalated, but this is good, at least it can save money, "deal."

Zhang Dasara turned around and whispered to him for a while, and finally made a deal at the price of 310 Spanish silver dollars-the big head's personal benefits and the small head's tax.As for the goods on the ship and what they were going to take away, this monkey-wearing official didn't care. Not only that, but even the import and export bills were issued, with the Chinese characters Yishui on them.It seems that everyone is happy, except for the Le Dynasty government.

According to Zhang Dabara, this place is called Haiyang, and it is a naturally formed trading port. Chinese sea merchants often come here for trade, and they bring in large quantities of salt, porcelain, sugar, cloth, ironware and other various goods. A variety of goods, mainly raw silk and betel nuts.

Chang Shide asked curiously: "How do you know these thresholds?"

Zhang Daba scratched his scalp: "Our boss was also a maritime merchant—"

"Oh, that's right." Chang Shide remembered that the maritime merchants and pirates in this time and space are basically the same group.

Bei Kai whispered to Chang Shide: "This should be Haiphong Port."

"how do you know?"

"Map." Bei Kai opened the notebook in his hand and pointed: "This river should be the Jingtai River. It is located on the northeast side of the Red River Delta and is close to the northwest coast of the Beibu Gulf. Compared with the landform features, it can only be here. .”

Le Lin also came up and said, "That's right, I calculated the latitude and longitude just now..."

"Just push it down, yesterday you said we were near Saigon."

"Did yesterday's calculation be wrong! Today's is right—" Le Lin still wanted to argue.

"Okay, okay, let's go ashore."

Chang Shide and Bei Kai went ashore under the leadership of Zhang Dasara, and they brought ten soldiers in casual clothes to go ashore for protection.Although the houses here are small and simple, the market seems to be very prosperous, people come and go, most of them are dressed in ocher coarse cloth clothes, except for their appearance and stature, their attire is quite similar to that of Daming.Some people saw that they were the people of Ming Dynasty.Like all the places where Chinese maritime merchants set foot in Southeast Asia, this is a city where Chinese and Vietnamese are mixed.Chinese merchant ships brought goods in a steady stream.A large number of goods tied with straw ropes are stacked on the pier, and the quantity is quite surprising.

"There are a lot of Ming people here," Zhang Dasara introduced enthusiastically, "some of them have asked local women to be their wives here, and they have lived here for several generations. The sea merchants who come here like to marry here. Concubines—women are worthless, and they have a comfort zone when they come to do business."

Chang Shide couldn't help but comprehend the Vietnam tour plan again, but unfortunately, his wife strangled it in the planning stage.

Chang Shide didn't care to look at it, he was not familiar with the place here, so he could only trust Zhang Dascar.I asked several commercial firms about the sugar price, and the price was between seven taels and eight taels.Then he asked a grain store here, and the price of rice was five yuan per shi.He was absolutely satisfied with the price, but he immediately discovered a fatal problem: the business houses here are used to paying on credit, and after the sugar is handed over to them, it will not be settled until the next year.But you need cash to buy rice.

Moreover, the merchants of these commercial firms had obvious distrust towards his strange face, and they had to wait for a long time before answering any questions.

"What kind of rule is this!" Chang Shide felt very annoyed, and just wanted to say "these monkeys", but remembered that the bosses of these firms should be businessmen from Daming from their clothes and appearance.

"Let's go, let's see the market situation of the grain bank."

Zhang Daba said: "The shopkeeper doesn't necessarily need silver, can rice also be used?"

"Yes, I came here mainly to buy rice." Chang Shide said.

"That's easy." Zhang Daba said, "Haiyang is a small place. Except for the merchants of Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that no one can come up with 8000 taels of silver, but there are still quite a few local rich people who can come up with rice in exchange. Yes. Just give them the sugar instead."

"Are they willing?"

"Of course I would, what's the market for sugar. Cochin people are not fools. It's just that they don't have so much money, so they can't get involved."

At the moment, I took a break in a teahouse on the street and replenished some water.Zhang Dasara said that next they would go seven or eight miles deep into the interior, where there was a manor owned by the local landlord Wu Yujia.

"Wu Yujia's ancestors were also Chinese," Zhang Dasara introduced, "I heard that they came here to escape the troubled times at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. They have been here for more than 300 years. His family has a lot of land, and they have raised thousands of family members. All the emperors were polite to him."

"It's really the crown of the monkey! Only the Ming Dynasty is qualified to be called the emperor!" Chang Shide was not going well at first, but now he had a fit.

Zhang Dasara felt a little strange, this group of Australians logically had no affection for Daming, so he said casually: "His family closed the door to become the emperor, just to have a mouthful."

After a short rest, the team continued to head inland.It is spring now, and the subtropical Beiqi land is already beautiful in spring. On both sides of the dirt road are vast green and golden fields. The green rice seedlings are shaking in the majesty, and the golden fields are unharvested rice. .In the hot sun, there is a burst of fragrance of rice and seedlings.Farmers in purple-brown homespun cloth are doing transplanting and harvesting in the fields.

A place where rice can be harvested three times a year is really a natural granary.Chang Shide couldn't help showing a greedy look.There are some villages scattered on both sides of the road, low and simple, but they still look peaceful.Scattered around the village were green bamboo groves, banana and papaya trees, and a very slender, straight betel nut tree, which towered above all the trees and waved its leaves like flags.

From time to time, some peasant women can also be seen working in the fields.They wore triangular bamboo hats and purple-brown tight-fitting cloth clothes with many patches, and brown cloth scarves tightly wrapped their heads, foreheads, ears, temples, cheeks and chins.Chang Shide couldn't see their faces clearly, but they all had the typical body shape of Champa women: long waistline, slender and elastic waist and low and wide hips.Although it is not the breast and hip shape that he likes, it has a unique flavor.This made Chang Shide's heart eager to try again.

"It's also a neglected resource." He thought, how much it costs to buy a woman.

There are probably many people who feel similar to him:

"What a great place." Army soldiers whispered to each other.

"It's really worth dying to be able to farm and live in such a place."

"You have to have your own land. If you are a tenant, you will suffer for a lifetime."

Chang Shide turned around and said to the soldiers: "If we were given land here, would you all be willing to come?"

The soldiers all laughed: "Of course!" "My whole family is willing to come."...

"What if the people here want to drive you away?"

"Then drive them all away!" the group replied.

"No, I have to keep the woman! I don't have a wife yet." A stunned young man interjected.

There was a roar of laughter in the team, and the laughter attracted the attention of the farmers in the nearby fields.

Zhang Dascar could understand some Mandarin at all odds, and also laughed: "Master Chang, are you going to buy land here?"

"What will happen in the future." Chang Shide actually just said it casually, to mobilize morale, and to give soldiers and employees some big cakes that are not too far away.

Talking and laughing, an elephant came slowly on the road. Most of the soldiers had never seen this huge beast, and they were a little scared.

"Don't be afraid, this is an elephant, very timid, please don't disturb it!" Chang Shide instructed.

Zhang Dascar said in a low voice: "Don't panic, shopkeeper, this is Wu Yujia's manor in charge of the manor who is on inspection."

"Riding an elephant to go shopping? What a big scene."

"Shopkeeper Chang, just now your second pissed on the floor of Wu Yujia's house."

"..." Chang Shide was immediately discouraged.The ostentation of this big landlord is really not covered.

The elephant rider was wearing black clothes, a bamboo hat, and a long whip in his hand. Although he was thin, he looked majestic.There are more than a dozen servants in black clothes following behind.

Zhang Dascar ran over and seemed to be talking.After a while, he turned back and said: "The manager invites the shopkeeper to sit on the Zhuangzi. There is a way to do this!"

Although he still has some doubts about Zhang Dasara's reliability, but when things come to an end, he can't just say that there may be safety problems and he won't go.Now bite the bullet and go with it.

Chang Shide and his party were taken to a Zhuangzi by the steward. The Zhuangzi is a somewhat weird Chinese-style courtyard, but it is also decorated with carved railings and painted buildings. It is very gorgeous, but it doesn't look right.Chang Shide and Bei Kai did not receive the expected hospitality and hospitality, and after waiting for a long time for the tea to fade away, a middle-aged man came out, who seemed square-headed and straight-faced.After communicating with Zhang Dasara, Chang Shide knew that this person was just a housekeeper in the manor, and he couldn't help but feel heartbroken that he was neglected—now he was considered the only member of the time-traveling group, seeing you Can't you see even a Vietnamese rich man? !

PS: The following content is outside the 4000-word subscription

Because there is not enough ancient Vietnamese history information found, most of the content of this article and all the details of Vietnamese history in the following are speculative.

Is Haiphong called Haiyang or not? This is yet to be tested. The approximate location is similar.

(End of this chapter)