Chapter 427: Overseas fortunes, leaps by water

In early February, the harbors in Dengzhou and other places were surprisingly busy. Every day, you can see fleets of ships leaving the port and fleets entering the port. Since the general has made up his plan, he naturally has to dispatch a fleet to cruise the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea to detect the military situation of the Tartars and the reactions of the surrounding vassal states.

At the same time, the current performance of the Zheng family made the general very dissatisfied. He felt that it was not reliable and he still had to support his maritime power. Therefore, the merchant fleet in Shandong also began to dispatch east to Japan to explore the route and make complete preparations. The ship was in the name of merchant ships, but it may not be possible for anyone on the ship.

These days, two fleets have already visited the Changshan Islands between the Liaodong Peninsula and the Shandong Peninsula to explore hydrology and patrol the islands; the two fleets disguised as fishing boats and headed north to Jinzhou and other places in Lushun, and brought some elite officers from Jiaozhou camp to explore military aircraft, survey the terrain and the direction of the Bohai Sea. It is still the ice age and it is difficult to navigate along the coast, but a small fleet has arrived near Shanhaiguan to investigate along the coast, and they have to sail to the estuary of the Liaohe River.

In addition, other personnel also went to North Korea, and they were naturally the identity of a Ming merchant. They opened a business at the port of North Korea, prepared a clutch ship at the mouth of the Han River, and established a messenger route from North Korea to Dengzhou. Because the Qing Dynasty now has a lot of dependence on North Korea's food, and once troops are deployed, they will recruit food from North Korea to conquer, so this is also a good place to spy on military information.

Last time, North Korea supported 3,000 Tartars musket soldiers. North Korea's sea route was very close to Shandong, which is also a direction that needs to be prepared and paid attention to.

The army and intelligence agencies were busy investigating. In Lingshan private ports, merchant ships from south to north were still in constant flow. There were merchants from Jiangnan and more were merchants from the Zheng family. Their business could not be seen at all, and they were still so prosperous. Although North Korea, controlled by the Ming Dynasty and the Jurchens, was actually an enemy country, the sea area here was already similar to a war zone.

A team of Zheng's fleet was about to set sail from the Lingshan private port. This time, they brought more than 20,000 stones of white sugar and more than 5,000 bundles of raw silk to Japan to exchange for special products such as Japanese swords and sulfur. Japanese swords are considered powerful weapons. In the Ming Dynasty, various stocks have endless strength to fight, and there is a huge demand for weapons. A slightly risky weapon business has a very generous profit. However, sulfur is becoming more and more popular because of the rapid increase in consumption of firearms.

The whereabouts of these Japanese swords were usually bought by some Henan fortresses. The local tyrants there were extremely demanding weapons. It is said that some of them had entered the hands of the thieves, and all of the sulfur was acquired by Jiaozhou Business. The profits of these businesses were quite large. After this trip, the income of tens of thousands of taels was quite small.

Zhou Jihai was lying in a clean room next to the flagship captain's room. It was very cramped, much smaller than his study in Ye County. But he still didn't mind at all. Because this was his opportunity to change his destiny. The Zhou family in Ye County has always been an important salt merchant and landlord in Shandong. However, over the years, due to the rise of Jiaozhou Camp, the situation in his hands has become increasingly cramped. Although he made a lot of money, it can be gradually seen that the land and resources are in control of Jiaozhou Camp.

The Zhou family is still a relatively young family and has not reached the point of stagnation, so everyone knows that they need to find new sources of profit, so the Zhou family is very active in joining the farmland work, but because of hesitation, they occupy too little share. Now there is more and more danger of being left behind by families close to Jiaozhou Camp...

Zhou Jihai is the third son of the Zhou family's third wife, and is in a very embarrassing position. Although his father is not in the family business, he is not the leader after all. As the third son, he has even less things to inherit. He originally wanted to let him take the exam for a good fortune, which would be considered as a way to make some face for the clan. He always has a background and placement. Unfortunately, although Zhou Jihai is still good at writing letters and doing accounting, he is always a good match when he recites the Four Books and Five Classics, and he can only follow the elders in the clan to do business and make money.

The family's economy is a bit cramped now, so the clan let these young children go out to explore wealth. The boss in the house happened to be a nerd who was studying hard and did not understand the worldly affairs. He often made remarks that Li Meng, a crazy and ignorant general, would be punished by God, would be worried, which made his family worried.

The Zhou family planned to destroy his head and inherit his family. If one is destroyed, he naturally has to choose a new one. So Zhou Jihai's generation is trying to make some contributions to add some weight to himself.

Zhou Jihai was not able to study before, and compared with the brothers in each room, he could not raise his head. Now, Jiaozhou Camp has always been talented and does not value the reputation of the imperial examination. This trend has gradually spread among the Shandong clans. To some extent, this is equivalent to widening the gap between everyone and allowing him to compete with those brothers in the clan who are better at studying. This time he is particularly eager to make contributions. The position of the clan leader is too tempting.

Zhou Jihai, holding his head, lay on the bed, thinking about his trip to Japan.

The children of Laizhou Prefecture have been dealing with maritime merchants in recent years. They know a lot about allusions and scenery from abroad, and their horizons are broader than many inland people. Zhou Jihai remembers the story of a sailor flying in the boat. Japan is a country of gold, and gold is everywhere. The Ming Dynasty used silver, and gold in Japan was the same price as silver.

But if gold is so easy to make, the sailor I told me about would have made a fortune long ago, so I can't have any extravagant hopes for that gold this time. I must find a reliable way to make money, make a lot of money, become famous in Shandong, and establish my own position in one fell swoop. You must know that I am the first batch of merchants from Shandong to travel to Japan... This is a boat ticket bought for 1,000 taels of silver.

Zhou Jihai was indeed the first group of merchants from Shandong to Japan. He could even be said to be the first because the wealthy and wealthy children on the same boat with him were also wealthy merchants, or Lingshan Trading Company who were interested in the route, or the spies from the Shandong Salt Gang. When Li Meng gave instructions to the people below, he specifically mentioned the Japanese pirates. The Zheng family had close contacts with Japan, and no one knew if there would be any action to attract wolves into the house.

In normal history, Shandong did not suffer any harassment from Japanese pirates and pirates during this period. However, even if Li Meng knew about this history, he would still send people to investigate, because history has deviated from a large direction and many things need to be decided on the spot.

The wind was very strong. Even when it was anchored in the port, it was still shaking violently. Zhou Jihai tossed and turned on the boat, but suddenly heard someone knocking on the door, accompanied by Fujian-style Shandong dialect: "Young Master Zhou, you are about to set sail."

Zhou Jihai turned over and lay on his side, muttering to himself: "Yes, it's time to set sail..."

Twenty days later, at Nagasaki Port, the Zheng family's fleet finally docked. In this place, the Zheng family's fleet often comes and goes, almost the same as its own backyard. Almost all the old sailors have a home in Nagasaki. You know, the eldest son of the Zheng family grew up in Hirado in Nagasaki.

These old sailors are all from Fujian villages, and they may be relatives who are very good at fighting with the Master Zheng family. Although Mr. Zheng is the general, he has always been nostalgic. The villagers are all treated well. In this Japanese territory, women are cheap, and although the old sailors are not young, they are old and black, but when they take out the white silver, they naturally come over to those thirteen or fourteen-year-old Japanese girls. They are all men at sea, and they don’t even have a mother mosquito at the sea. When they arrive in Japan, they have to rest and enjoy family life. So most of them rent houses and raise small land.

These days, Zhou Jihai and the captain have been getting along well with each other, so the captain has pulled him to drink wine and play with women. Zhou Jihai refused to refuse. With his family's status, he was in Shandong and Ming Dynasty. Are you still worried about not being able to find a woman? Now he is coming across the sea for the sake of great fortune, not those short Japanese women.

Walking on the streets of Nagasaki, Zhou Jihai was also very eye-opening about this exotic scenery. Japanese houses are very strange. They usually have no foundations. Instead, they use piles to lay a space under the house, and the floor is laid on it. The walls of the house are not made of bricks and stones, but are made of wooden frames. Zhou Jihai was maliciously thinking, will the Japanese couple be heard by the people next to them when they are in a state of loyalty at night? This saves the hard work of listening to the corner of the wall.

There are many shops of all sizes in the commercial streets of Nagasaki. Hearing the translator next to him, these shops here that look less than the pawn shops in China are actually the most powerful shops in Japan. The big bosses with hundreds of thousands of wealth are all there to receive even the smallest guests personally. Zhou Jihai couldn't help but be amazed, but he heard the translator say that Japanese merchants cannot own the land, and the land is all enfeoffed by the generals to the samurai and cannot be resold. Therefore, the merchants' money is all in business and have to do their best to do it themselves.

After hearing this allusion, Zhou Jihai remembered the things in Shandong. The Tuntianzhuang almost occupied most of the land in Shandong. Behind these lands is Jiaozhouying and the Duke of Qi. This kind of manor with extremely high production efficiency is equivalent to official fields and is not allowed to be sold privately.

Before Li Meng, these big salt merchants and other wealthy merchants in Shandong invested 80% of the money they earned in buying land and land. Everyone thought that doing business was too unreliable. This land was a real thing. Who would have thought that natural disasters and man-made disasters and chaos, and all these fertile land became wasteland.

After having Li Meng, the land in his hand became a farm farm, and the money earned from doing business could only be invested in the business. As a result, the business became more and more prosperous. Thinking about the behavior of buying land in the past, it was so stupid.

These things are really a bit conciliatory...

After walking along the commercial street, I found that most of the shops that could obtain wealth were business dealing with Zheng's family or Jiangnan's wealthy merchants, but there was no room for intervention. Zhou Jihai couldn't help but feel a little depressed, but he was not anxious, so he planned to go to the store street with Tongyi and come to a foreign country. If he didn't eat anything from a foreign country, what could he do?

He took a ingot of two taels of silver and exchanged it for copper coins. He went to the shop street to eat snacks, but the silver would definitely not be found. The translation took the silver and went to a shop casually. After a while, he carried a large bag of money back. Zhou Jihai saw that he was carrying it hard and secretly joked that the Japanese were really not physically strong, it was only 1,400 pounds, but why was he so tired after just ten pounds?

But when he took the purse, he found that his hand suddenly sank. This bag of money was probably thirty pounds!

At this moment, he forgot what the purpose of changing money was. He suddenly opened the purse and grabbed a handful of copper coins. The yellow copper coins seemed to have blurred his eyes.

Zhou Jihai let out a long breath and slowly sucked back, keeping himself calm and not shouting out on the streets of Japan, because he knew that he had made a fortune, a fortune he had never thought of...

For Shandong, the busiest place is not the governor's yamen, the generals' shogunate, or the military camp market, but the weapons manufacturing bureau in Laiwu, Jiaozhou camp is scattered all over the world, relying on a complete and normal-operating training system, and then it is the excellent weapons and advanced equipment.

This advanced one is not ahead of the times. However, the ground fire guns made by the Jiaozhou Camp Weapon Manufacturing Bureau can be fired at the theoretical range, and there are few failures such as explosions and dull fires. In this regard, compared with the products of the Ministry of Works of the Ming Dynasty, it is a difference between heaven and earth. It is also made in the style of large-caliber heavy smoothbore guns in Europe. It is powerful and can knock down a strong horse with one shot. Cotton armor and other things are similar to paper paste. Naturally, the lethality and stability are not comparable to the garbage goods of the Ming Dynasty. As for the firearms outside the pass, although the quality is stable than the Ming Dynasty, the technology is rough after all, and only by adding iron to exchange for safety. The lethality of the bird guns in Jianzhou is really not worth mentioning in front of the Jiaozhou Camp fire guns.

There are also the armor of the cavalry of Jiaozhou Camp, the spears and swords of ordinary infantrymen. Even these ordinary ground weapons and weapons manufacturing bureaus are strictly controlled and are carefully crafted. The armor pieces of the armor do not heat them with fire, but are hard anvils and cold hammers, and are made from small iron blocks. Compared with those of other forces who use fire to burn them with fire, they can smash the ground armor out with just a few hammers. A discerning person can tell at a glance how big the gap is.

Holding a weapon that can be trusted, wearing a armor that can be trusted, plus the sufficient physical fitness brought by good food and long-term physical training. The skilled combat skills obtained by constantly practicing mechanically day after day, as well as a solid formation and trust in the comrades around you, Jiaozhou Camp certainly has the capital to defeat.

Those young and tough guys who have no skills and simply work hard in the Weapon Manufacturing Bureau are all picking up everywhere, honest, loyal to Shandong, strong physically and clearly-successful, and even have higher standards than recruitment. The wages they receive are equivalent to 50% of the military pay of veteran soldiers.

After entering the manufacturing bureau, there are various night schools every night, and there is an atmosphere in it, which is to study. Everyone is trying their best, like a sponge, absorbing nutrients. As long as you learn a little, you can help with the apprentice in the manufacturing process, you can already get 20% more rewards than the military pay of the old camp soldiers.

And those masters who can be called craftsmen have given their various treatments, which are almost five times the full military pay of the old camp soldiers.

In the weapons manufacturing bureau, the number of apprentices at the level is the largest, and the number of craftsmen is the smallest. After all, such a large craftsman workshop has higher technical requirements for excellent weapons. Many blacksmiths who can open independent stores in the local area can only be apprentices after being recruited.

As for this craftsman, he can independently command a manufacturing team and a process of production, apprentices and rough laborers.

That's right, in the weapons manufacturing bureau of Jiaozhou Camp, young, tough, apprentice, and craftsman are not commonly known as, but rather the position names between the positions of the generals, generals and teams in the army. This level difference and the difference in treatment at each level are to inspire these people to continuously improve their production skills and continue to go further.

The most basic production unit of the Weapon Manufacturing Bureau is the manufacturing group. The leader of the manufacturing group is a craftsman, and the following are apprentice assistants, but sometimes rough laborers are laborers.

The craftsman's collaboration can decide that rough worker will become an apprentice, while Guo Dong, Sun Hedou and Ding Xu have recently added a Sikaoren, who decided whether the apprentice will be promoted to a craftsman.

In fact, these craftsmen, apprentices, and young rough workers can get more rewards than the rated ones, because they are almost in three shifts of operation and production, and they are too tired. Guo Dong and Sun Hedou use the method to increase the rewards.

Originally, the production of the weapons manufacturing bureau was done in a white and black manner until the production plan was completed, but then it was discovered that in this fatigue production, the defective rate was greatly increased, and the rework and rework caused a lot of unnecessary trouble. It was only by working three shifts to allow workers to work in the fullest state and make production not interrupted.

The above mentioned are just economic income. The treatment of members in the Weapon Manufacturing Bureau is equivalent to that of soldiers from Jiaozhou camp. They are all favorable and cared for by local local governments. If one person works, his family can have a good life.

But such good treatment and such a high status. In the weapons manufacturing bureau in Laiwu, it has always faced a lack of manpower. In the eyes of young and middle-aged people in Shandong and other places, no matter how high the workplace income is, it is not as promising as a soldier. Being able to wear Shandong's coarse cloth uniforms and hold a spear in his hand is extremely glorious, and this is a hero. And in reality, because the craftsmen are in a similar situation to serfs, many people cannot change their ideas for a while, and they all think this is a lowly job and are unwilling to do it.

The requirements for the weapons manufacturing bureau are too high, and those skilled apprentices come in, but those young and strong are recruited to train themselves as their future. Therefore, the standards are particularly strict, and they are better than to be too little. They often fight with military generals from all over the country for recruiting people.

Sun Hedou and his friends have been having trouble with this lack of labor. They thought that Li Meng brought back thousands of firearm craftsmen in Northern Zhili to solve this problem.

But after these people were relieved, Jiaozhou Camp placed a larger order, and his production capacity was short of reaching.

In the past, the manufacturing of firearms was relatively complicated. The creation of swords and spears was relatively simple. However, in the production list of this time, there were a large number of Western plate armors. Although the proportion of half-body armor was more, this armor was too consuming manpower. Each armor almost required one or two groups to be specially responsible for the construction. Only after one piece was completed could another one be completed. This kind of processing was not something that rural blacksmiths could do. They were just slaughtering iron plows and so on.

This kind of steel thing does not have this technique at all, and even swords must be trained repeatedly to do it. There are only 40 or 50 masters in the weapons bureau. One person can do iron armor for a long time and may not be able to produce a qualified armor, and only a thousand sets will be enough in a year. Most of the new craftsmen can master one or two processes. They can forge but will not be carburized, and they can do well in carburized, and they will not drill holes. Human resources are tight, which makes Sun and Dou Daonren feel pain.

With such a large amount of production, the Jiaozhou Weapon Manufacturing Bureau is only a shortage of manpower, and there is no need to worry about raw materials. The iron ore in Laiwu and coal mines in Yanzhou are transported continuously. As for workers' land remuneration, various miscellaneous expenses, etc., Ning Gangui has listed special fees for manufacturing in the private salt and sea trade land revenue, and given priority care.

Over the years, the military generals of the Jiaozhou camp have fought outside, spreading thousands of miles of land and gaining countless achievements. The civil servant system uses military farms to stabilize the place and ensure the supply of manpower and logistics. The shopkeepers in the business field have private salt, gold mining, and trade have also made Shandong a fortune, let alone the Lijin Bureau under the charge of Kong Sande.

The leaders in charge of the manufacturing were anxious. The generals became Duke of Qi. The future is unlimited. Everyone is familiar with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Cao Mengde was also named Duke of Wei, but he went step by step. Now if we don’t make any achievements, we will not be able to keep up with the pace of progress.

But lack of manpower is a real shortcoming, and it is not something that can be supplemented. Since the first month of the year, Sun Hedou has been very happy, but his hair has become much whiter.

The solution to the matter is unexpected, just as a later philosopher said, even a leaf has its uses.

On that day, the foreigners recruited by the priest Federer from Macau and Nanyang, except for Zhang Lipu who ran back and forth between Jining and Jiaozhou and worked in Lingshan Trading Company, and Oman Garris became Li Meng's military adviser, most of the others claimed that they had some skills and were placed in the weapons manufacturing bureau.

Sun Hedou knew a little about Spanish and talked with the foreigners one by one with the general translator. He found that these people had been apprentices in the workshop at best in Europe, but there were no craftsmen who were independent.

But then again, in Europe, skilled craftsmen can make a lot of money by themselves in Europe or in colonies. Why travel across the ocean and travel thousands of miles to the strange Eastern continent to survive?

Foreign monks may not be able to recite scriptures. Sun Hedou, who had great hope, had to break up these people into the weapon manufacturing bureau, let them integrate into this system and learn to adapt to it. After all, lack of manpower, and more than ten is a small supplement.

At first, these foreigners were used as apprentices. They were compared to those who were born into farmers. They had been in the factory and understood some clues.

At first, these foreigners with high noses and deep eyes, blonde hair and blue eyes caused some sensation in the weapons manufacturing process. Everyone came to see it for a while, but after a long time, they found that it was just that. Some were diligent and some were too lazy. They were not more or less than the Han people.

Gradually, these foreigners gradually merged into the weapons manufacturing bureau. They became more and more proficient in Chinese and their skills in doing things are getting better and better.

What made the leaders of the Manufacturing Bureau a little happy was that nine of the eleven foreigners who came to Manufacturing Bureau were promoted to craftsmen, while the other two were considered to be looking around every day, but they were not familiar with the work and were not very familiar with it. However, now the Weapon Manufacturing Bureau has a great career. It would be fine if there were two idle people, but it was just a matter of adding a pair of chopsticks to eat.

However, among foreign craftsmen, these two idle people are the fastest to learn Chinese, and they look very smart. Unfortunately, they are of no use for weapons manufacturing.

One of them often says that his name has the pronunciation of the word "fan" in his name. It was a nobleman who had titles in Europe, and he was also a nobleman's son, while the other was a silence. After finishing his work every day, he just walked around and looked around, wrote and painted.

After the first month of the year, Jinan City issued a large number of orders for Western plate armor. Sun Hedou, Guo Dong and others were in trouble. On the one hand, they organized production, and on the other hand, they sent the plans and quantity to everyone, so that everyone in the Weapon Manufacturing Bureau could work together to see if they could come up with any solutions.

However, although this Western plate armor has a simpler structure than scale armor and chain mail, the breast armor and several parts require skilled craftsmen to be constantly forged. Often, a production team can only be competent for the job by the craftsmen and the most skilled apprentice in the work, which has an extremely impact on efficiency.

Sun Hedou racked his brains in the Weapon Manufacturing Bureau's yamen every day, but he couldn't think of any way. On the third day of April, Lingshan Trading Company and Yanzhou Prefecture Coal Mine had a large number of materials. After the officers below checked, Sun Hedou also needed to sign and confirm it.

After the check, Sun Hedou stamped his signature on several delivery slips. At this moment, a servant outside reported that it was Master Duncan who asked for a meeting.

After hearing this name, Sun and Dou Dao reacted for a long time. Master Duncan was the foreigner who claimed to be a noble ancestor. Since he was proficient in Chinese, he had faked himself to give himself a Chinese name, called "Duncan". There was no rule in this ranking.

The pronunciation of this name is quite similar to that of the foreigner's foreign name, but this behavior makes people feel that this person is frivolous and has less favorable feelings.

"What's the best thing to see for such a person? Stop it!"

Sun Hedou said to the servant angrily that if he followed the rules of daily life, the servant should go out to drive out the people directly, but this time he spoke with a little hesitation:

"Master, Master Deng said, he has a way to solve the current difficulties of the Lord..."

Sun Hedou immediately raised his head and stared at the servant with his eyes wide open. The servant jumped. Sun Hedou pondered for a moment, but he might not believe it, but at this time he was extremely embarrassed. He didn't want to let go of any hope that he could complete the production plan. Seeing that his servant was still hesitating, he couldn't help but shouted angrily:

"What are you doing while you're still there? Call in!"

"Mr. Sun, there is a way for the villain to produce armor in the weapons manufacturing bureau now. Now the production speed of armor in the weapons manufacturing bureau is too slow. Each group of craftsmen and first-class apprentices have built plate armor and back armor. However, the people in other processes have completed the work quickly. They can only wait for the most difficult and longest process to complete before they can create the next set of plate armor. The villain is thinking about whether they can disassemble the groups, beat the breastplate, make shoulder straps, and make rivets separately. The various processes are manufactured in a centralized manner, and finally the unified assembly will surely improve efficiency."

These things are not difficult, but for Sun Hedou, the scholar's origin, the way to improve efficiency by division of labor and cooperation is equivalent to opening him a new idea.

It was not an exaggeration to say that it was enlightened. Sun Hedou slapped the table excitedly, and then he looked at the Duncan and Deng Yangren opposite him. Speaking of which, there was another person named Deng Yangren in the Jiaozhou Camp system, Deng Grass, the deputy commander of the Water Camp. The person in front of him was huge, with a sturdy beard on his face, looking quite rough and generous. However, he pretended to be wearing this long gown and pretending to be gentle.

In the manufacturing of the weapons, there are smoke and fire everywhere. Wearing a long gown, the image of a gentleman can be better. Sometimes the image of such a warrior is really laughable.

Looking at his appearance, it is indeed not something that can convince people. But what he proposed is indeed a real and good way. Sun Hedou is still digesting Duncan's remarks, but Duncan saw that his suggestion was highly favored by the other party, and his interest was a little higher, so he continued:
To be continued...