The Fourth Financial Crisis

The educational level of the volunteers recruited by the Haiya Fleet was generally not high.

Because he could read and write, Shen Xiaotao was not assigned to the Marine Corps, but became the crossbow gunner of the Yuxiang.

As the largest arms supplier in the outlying island area, the Haiya Chamber of Commerce is one of the few cultivation chambers that has mastered the technology of making mortal weapons.

Before this expedition left the island, the decks of all the merchant ships in the Haiya Fleet were urgently equipped with the latest model of ballistae. It is said that these ballistae were designed with the help of Master Jindaomen and used the most cutting-edge mathematical knowledge.

Mathematics is the exclusive knowledge of immortal masters, and ordinary mortal soldiers cannot understand it. However, for the ballistae who controls the ballista, as long as they learn to use the prefabricated ruler of the ballista after a few days of training, they can temporarily take up the post. This is not a problem at all for Shen Xiaotao, who is extremely capable of self-learning.

In the age of geographical discovery of the earth, the life of sailors was extremely miserable. For ancient ocean-going shipowners, seafarers were purely consumables. The crew mortality rate of ships engaged in triangular trade was basically the same as that of black slaves. It was normal for 40% of the crew members to die after a voyage.

Although the conditions of the ocean-going merchant ships of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce are far better than those of the Earth in the Age of Discovery, except for the flagship Ruicheng, which has various living immortal arrays and is like a palace on the sea, the living conditions of the other merchant ships are still very poor. No comfort at all.

The crew can only live in Datongbu. Dozens or hundreds of people are packed into one cabin like sardine cans. There is very little private space, usually less than one square meter, and the ventilation conditions are not good. The "breath of life" is everywhere.

And because it lacks the luxurious immortal array that improves the quality of life like the Ruicheng, and the shipbuilding technology of Kyushu Cultivation World itself is not superb, seawater will penetrate from the bottom of the ship into the cabin, soaking wood, garbage, food, cargo and other things and making them stink. , when moisture, body odor, musty and other unpleasant odors are mixed together, it becomes unbearable for ordinary people.

After finally waiting for the weather to be nice and sunny, Shen Xiaotao used the excuse of oiling the ballista to go to the deck to get some fresh air.

Since Shen Xiaotao was not an official seaman of the Yuxiang, and had no combat missions, he usually had nothing to do with the ship, so he just basked in the sun and worked as a foreigner, and no one came to discipline him.

At this moment, he suddenly found two majestic cultivators walking out on the deck of the Ruicheng next door. Next to them was a steward of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce in a gorgeous cloak. He was smiling and explaining something next to the two cultivators. What.

This made Shen Xiaotao curious: "Team Leader Qin, who are these two immortal masters?"

The Haiya Chamber of Commerce's ballistae requires three people to operate, two of whom are drawn from the temporarily recruited volunteers, and the team leader is a formal employee of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce. Shen Xiaotao's team leader Qin Tai is a Haiya An old sailor from the Chamber of Commerce.

This team leader Qin is a middle-aged man with gray hair, about fifty years old, casually wearing a dirty Haiya Chamber of Commerce employee uniform, and his exposed bronze skin is covered with cracks caused by the wind and sun.

On the sea, fresh water is more important than food and money. Seafarers can only get a certain amount of fresh water every day. Not to mention bathing, even simple washing is a rare luxury. Most seafarers usually look like this.

Looking in the direction of Shen Xiaotao's finger, Team Leader Qin said with a smile: "Those are Manager Han from the Haiya Chamber of Commerce and Consultant Yang from the Qingning Chamber of Commerce. As for the other immortal master, I don't know him, and I don't know where he came from. Where was he seconded from?"

Is he Consultant Yang?

In Shen Xiaotao's stereotype, this famous Qingning Chamber of Commerce legend in Haiya City should be a majestic middle-aged man, but he didn't expect that he himself was so young...

Team Leader Qin couldn't help but give him a shudder when he saw Shen Xiaotao's dazed look.

Seeing Shen Xiaotao covering his head after feeling pain, he couldn't help laughing and scolding: "What are you thinking about? The affairs of these big shots have nothing to do with us, but are our own affairs. Don't let it slip by accident." Mouth!"

With that said, Team Leader Qin looked around and saw that no one was around, secretly took out a wrinkled and dirty spirit stone coin from his pocket and handed it over.

Seeing this Lingshi coin note, Shen Xiaotao was surprised and said: "Team leader, what do you mean?"

Team leader Qin made a silent gesture, and then said softly: "You're welcome, this is the share you deserve!"

Shen Xiaotao quickly declined: "But I didn't do anything!"

However, Team Leader Qin chuckled and said, "Xiao Tao, you have already done a great favor by not reporting us to the captain!"

After saying that, he put the spirit stone coin into his pocket regardless of Shen Xiaotao's opinion.

Shen Xiaotao originally wanted to refuse, but after thinking about what He Mingyuan taught him these days, he knew that he could not accept the money, so he had to smile shyly and said: "Team leader, thank you!"

The white-haired team leader Qin also showed a satisfied smile.

He patted Shen Xiaotao's shoulder with his dirty big hands and praised: "You are a very good boy. Young people as sensible as you are rare nowadays. This is obviously a good thing for you and me, but everyone is good. There are always some stupid people who want to cause trouble, but in the end they are the ones who are unlucky!"

As for why Team Leader Qin wanted to give him money, Shen Xiaotao could be said to know very well.

Although the Haiya Fleet looks so majestic in appearance, Shen Xiaotao has long realized that this fleet is rotten from the inside out, and the old team leader in front of him is one of the countless bugs on the Yuxiang.

Team Leader Qin has been working as a seaman in the Haiya Chamber of Commerce for most of his life. He has long found his own way to make a fortune. Every time before boarding a ship for a long voyage, he will put a lot of damaged ship parts in his pocket. Whenever the ship is about to When docking, he would use these damaged parts to secretly replace the intact parts on the ship.

Team leader Qin will then report to the captain for repairs, saying that the ship's accessories are broken and need to be replaced with new parts.

Of course, these boat accessories aren’t broken at all.

All he had to do was find a craftsman he knew well and secretly replace the parts with intact marine parts. As for the warranty expenses incurred by replacing the parts, he and the craftsman would split the cost 50-50.

The money the old team leader earned through this method was probably several times more than his own salary.

But as the saying goes, you can only be a thief in a thousand days, but you can't prevent a thief in a thousand days. Yesterday, when Team Leader Qin secretly disassembled the intact parts, Shen Xiaotao accidentally broke them.

Without the knowledge taught to him by the Qingning Chamber of Commerce, Shen Xiaotao would definitely report the matter to the captain of the Yuxiang. However, after following He Mingyuan to investigate several internal corruption cases of the Qingning Chamber of Commerce, the former newsboy has realized that this kind of The fact that habitual corrupt criminals have been able to go undetected for so many years is certainly not as simple as it seems.

So he pretended not to see it and did not take the initiative to report it. Instead, he adopted a default attitude.

As a result, as soon as he came to the deck alone today, Team Leader Qin took the initiative to find him. Not only that, he also secretly stuffed a spirit stone coin into his pocket!

Shen Xiaotao knew that this was the hush money paid to him by the other party. Not only that, he also knew that he was definitely not the first person to find out what Team Leader Qin was doing. But listening to Team Leader Qin's sinister tone just now, those guys who refused to accept the hush money and insisted on reporting Team Leader Qin to the captain would definitely not end well.