Smuggling Daming

After nearly ten days of sailing, Zhou Zhong's fleet finally arrived at Weihaiwei.Along the way, Zhou Zhong quickly discovered the difference between the northern coast and the southern coast. Compared with the southern coast where smuggling is rampant and sea restrictions are relaxed, the northern coast is much more desolate. Most of the beaches he saw along the way were deserted. , Even fishermen who go fishing are rare, and occasionally they can see some fleets going to North Korea or Japan, but these fleets all come from smuggling bases such as Shuangyu Port in the south.

The reason why the northern coast is so desolate is actually caused by many reasons. The first is that it is relatively close to the capital, and the imperial court has relatively strong control over this place, and the enforcement of the sea ban here is also stronger.

The second reason is that in the past few hundred years, the north has experienced several wars, and various technologies have regressed. Among them, shipbuilding technology is one of them. In addition, the forests in the north have been severely damaged, and there is no wood for shipbuilding. , so Ming's shipbuilding industry is now concentrated in the south, laying the foundation for the smuggling industry.

As for the third reason, it is the weather. With the impact of the Little Ice Age, the winter in the north is getting colder, and the northern coast is often frozen. Therefore, in winter, the ships in the port cannot leave the port at all.It is also because of the above reasons that the smuggling industry in the south is extremely prosperous, but the northern coast is in depression. Many northern ports that were prosperous in history have been abandoned.

When the fleet arrived at Weihaiwei, Zhou Zhong finally saw a bustling port, but this bustle was only compared to the desolation before. The port here in Weihaiwei was only used for some passing smuggling ships to temporarily rest and replenish fresh water. of.Therefore, the scale of the port is not large, and the facilities on the port are also very simple, at best, they are similar to Qingcun Port in Songjiang Prefecture.

As soon as Zhou Zhong's huge fleet docked, it immediately caused a sensation in the whole Weihaiwei. After all, it had been a long time since such a huge ship arrived, and for a port like Weihaiwei, the arrival of the fleet was just a matter of time. It means that their business is coming, so before the fleet has stopped, many people have come up to sell various local specialties in small boats.

But these small vendors who came forward to sell special products just arrived halfway.Before they got close to Zhou Zhong's boat, they all stopped suddenly, because they saw a lot of Jinyiwei wearing flying fish suits appearing on the opposite boat. As a result, these people were stunned for a moment, and then they rowed the boat and fled in all directions. After all, they have defied the imperial court's order by going to sea without authorization.Now Jin Yiwei, the emperor's forbidden army, appeared on the opposite boat. Although they still can't figure out the reason, in order to avoid trouble, the best choice is to stay away from the other party.

The appearance of Wu Shan and the Jinyiwei not only frightened the vendors on Weihaiwei, but also frightened the officials here.The Weisuo was originally a military institution of the Ming Dynasty.There are 600 people in one guard, and the commander of the guard is in charge.Although after so many years of development, the population of Weihai Weizhong has grown greatly, almost reaching the size of a small county town, but the largest official here is still the Wei Commander.

The commander of Weihaiwei made a fortune with the surname Meng Ming. Although the name was very vulgar and he was a general, it is said that his hometown is from Zoucheng, Shandong.He can be regarded as an authentic descendant of Mencius, and he usually declares this to the outside world.He often uses his ancestors to put gold on his face, and usually likes to read books to be arty, but those who know him know that this commander Meng Decai can't even write his own name.

Meng Decai is in his 40s this year. His family is a world official. Since his great-grandfather’s generation, he has been the commander of the entire Weihaiwei. After so many years of hard work by the family, more than half of the land in Weihaiwei now belongs to their Meng family. Now, less than half of the military households are his tenants. It can be said that in the whole Weihai, Meng Decai is the one and only emperor.

Although the Meng family is greedy, Meng Decai himself is ignorant and doesn't have much hobbies except eating, drinking and having fun, but in order to be worthy of his ancestor, the sub-sage, this Commander Meng didn't have too many bad deeds. He has never done such a thing as bullying men and women, and the rent of the fields is lower than that of ordinary landowners. Many years ago, in order to give himself an extra source of income, he took the risk of providing drinking water for the smuggling boats passing by. The ordinary people in Weihaiwei also benefited a lot, so the official voice of Commander Meng is still very good in Weihaiwei, at least compared with most Ming Dynasty officials, he is considered above average.

When Zhou Zhong's boat arrived, Meng Decai was staying at home and listening to his concubines singing ditties. He has no other hobbies, but he likes listening to women singing. These concubines are all from a brothel. All of them bought here have good voices, and they also know how to play pipa and other musical instruments. Listening to them singing with their eyes closed every day, Meng Decai feels that he has not worked in vain in his life.

But when Meng Decai was enjoying the beauty of life, the news that a large number of Jinyiwei arrived by sea boat scared him half to death. His first reaction was that someone surrounded him with the fact that he opened the port privately. These Jinyiwei were Come catch your own.But then he thought, even if his affairs were known by the higher-ups, there is no need for Jin Yiwei. Although he is a commander in Weihai, he is just a small ant in the eyes of the court. The guards were able to arrest him, but now there are a large number of Jinyiwei, is this too big?

Considering the above, Meng Decai felt that the guards in Jinyi were not coming for him, which made him feel at ease, and at the same time gave up his plan to run away immediately.In addition, although he didn't want to deal with Jin Yiwei, but now that he came to his territory, he had to come forward to greet him no matter what, otherwise, if the other party blamed him, he, a little guard commander, would definitely not be able to bear the blame.

Thinking of this, Meng Decai immediately asked someone to change his clothes, and at the same time asked someone to notify other officials of Weihaiwei, such as Commander Tongzhi, Commander Qianshi, Zhenfu and other officials, as well as thousands of households from various thousand households, all rushed to the port to meet him. Well, Weihaiwei's port income does not belong to him alone, all the officials of Weihaiwei have a share. Now that Jinyiwei is here, he naturally wants to call everyone. In case the other party really came after him, none of the other officials of Weihaiwei would even try to run away, they would all have to accompany him to jail.

Zhou Zhong didn't expect that Wu Shan's appearance would have such a big impact. Not only did no merchants dare to approach their boats to sell goods, even the management personnel of the port were terrified and afraid to go forward to collect taxes. , It wasn't until Liu Tao asked people to notify the people in those ports to replenish the fleet with fresh water and unload the cargo that the people in those ports began to move slowly.

On the boat, Zhou Zhong and Ashikaga Kakki were going to bring the gifts to the capital to Emperor Zhengde before unloading. Meng Decai was already dressed in neat official uniforms, and brought a large number of officials to greet him. Regarding these official matters, Because Zhou Zhong was just a businessman, he didn't come forward, but let Wu Shan and Ma Liang deal with it.

Although Wu Shan is only from a thousand households and has a lower official position than Meng Decai, but he is a Jinyiwei of the emperor's imperial army, and his rank is higher than that of local officials, and he is deeply trusted by Emperor Zhengde, so naturally he does not treat him as a small The little commander of the guard paid attention to him, and immediately revealed his identity with an arrogant expression, and at the same time asked them to prepare a residence for himself, Zhou Zhong and others.

When Meng Decai heard that the other party turned out to be Jinyiwei Qianhu, he was shocked and immediately relieved, because he was already sure that the other party was definitely not after him. After all, there was no need to catch such a small person as him The master of Jinyiwei Qianhu.As for Wu Shan asking him to arrange accommodation, Meng Decai was very pleasantly surprised, because he thought it was a good opportunity, and if his arrangement satisfied the adult, he might be able to use it to curry favor with him.

Thinking of this, Meng Decai immediately agreed, and asked the people at the port to take care of the Jinyiwei adults, and at the same time ordered people to arrange accommodation for Zhou Zhong and the others, and he also listened to Wu Shan's special instructions to prepare a quiet house. Because there are female relatives among the people they escorted, they must not be sloppy.

Although Meng Decai didn't know who Wu Shan and the others were escorting, the person who could be escorted by a Jinyiwei Qianhu was definitely not a small person, so he naturally didn't dare to neglect. The house was vacated for Zhou Zhong and others to live in.

With Meng Decai's order, the managers on the pier also worked very hard, and the gifts on the ship were quickly unloaded, and they found several carts according to Zhou Zhong's instructions, and loaded these gifts in the car. superior.At this time, Meng Decai had already cleaned up his house, so Zhou Zhong, under the leadership of Wu Shan, sent these gifts to Meng Decai's yard, and at the same time he and Jinxuan lived there temporarily.

Meng Decai wanted to have a conversation with Zhou Zhong from the beginning to the end. After all, he really wanted to get to know this "big man" who was escorted by Jin Yiwei. Familiarity is also good, but it is a pity that Zhou Zhong is already very tired from the boat, and Wu Shan doesn't seem to want too many Ming officials to get in touch with Zhou Zhong, so Meng Decai has not been able to see Zhou Zhong.

After several days of sailing at sea, Zhou Zhong and the others were already very tired, so after moving into Meng Decai's mansion, Zhou Zhong decided to rest here for two days before going on the road. After all, walking by land is more tiring than taking the sea, he is worried The bodies of girls like Jinxuan and Biao'er couldn't take it anymore, but what Zhou Zhong didn't expect was that during his stay in Weihai for the past few days, he unexpectedly made a big discovery. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation.)