A sun like a fireball hung in the clear blue sky. The clouds seemed to be burned by the sun, and not a single cloud could be seen from the top of the head to the horizon.

The soil on the ground was boiling hot, and a few gray-black locusts were jumping around like springs. The midsummer sun was like pepper spray, mercilessly hitting everything exposed to the sun.

Li Xiao looked at the city of Guangzhou in the distance, this damn place was no place for humans.

"This is no fucking place for human beings." Li Xiao turned around in surprise. He thought his thoughts had echoed.

The speaker was the second younger brother Li Xiu, who followed a rough man in the army. In addition to learning how to sail a boat and fight, this boy also learned some other things.

"Sir! The governor of Guangzhou is deliberately keeping us in the dark. According to official rules, someone has to come to the pier to pick us up."

"Someone is here to pick him up!" Li Xiao handed the telescope to Li Xiu.

A magnificent official ship appeared on the water of the Pearl River. When other ships saw the ship, they gave way. The bow of the ship pushed aside the water waves, and the crystal waves were smashed by the bow of the ship, shining brilliantly in the sun.

A Zou-shaped flag with black characters on a red background was blown half-open by the river wind.

"Zou Weilian, Admiral of the Guangzhou Navy! Chen Sifu is his subordinate. We met with him a few days ago after being introduced by Mr. Zheng. Eighty percent of the money collected by Chen Sifu was collected on his behalf.

This guy loves money and has a dark heart. But he has a good reputation and will do things for you as long as you take money." Li Xiu took a look at the official ship and immediately recognized the flag on it.

The admiral of the Guangzhou Navy can be considered a third-grade military attache in theory, and he is on the same level as himself, the commander-in-chief of Shanhaiguan. However, the Ming Dynasty has never attached great importance to the navy. Zou Weilian, the admiral of the navy, is ranked as the commander-in-chief of Shanhaiguan by Li Xiao.

Still a little worse.

"It seems that money is still greater than my face, Li Xiao." Since the two parties are in a cooperative relationship, Zou Weilian will definitely give himself this face. Since the general's flag has been raised, that person must be on the ship. It also shows that this Zou

The admiral and Cai Shanji, the governor of Guangzhou, are not the same people.

"Is that the ship of Mr. Li from Shanhaiguan on the other side?" Li Xiao and Li Xiu were talking, and the official ship was approaching. A guy who looked like a captain on the official ship yelled at Li Xiao's ship.

"Brother, this person is Chen Sifu. This time, thanks to him he launched more than a hundred fire ships to attack the Dutch warships. Otherwise, my ship might have been beaten into a sieve."

Whenever Li Xiu thought of the sound of cannonballs whizzing into the hull of the ship, he felt a little scared. That night, if the war had been delayed for a while and the Dutch warships had exerted their numerical advantage, so many cannons would have bombarded him together. Even if he hadn't been hit,

If it sinks, it will definitely cause very heavy casualties.

It was only when Li Xiu became a naval officer that he realized how valuable a qualified crew member is. A guy who has not been at sea for a few years cannot be called a qualified crew member at all.

I dare say that the number of qualified crew members under my command is definitely not more than 200. Those new recruits have to be led by these veterans. In the past, my eldest brother said that the Navy is a military branch that requires long-term training. I still don’t believe it, thinking that relying on

Big ships can sail across the sea.

Now it seems that training a navy is much more difficult than training a land army.

"Yes! The mast has been discounted." Li Xiao looked back at the mast that was shortened after being connected. Time was very tight and there was no time to completely repair it in Macau. This time, it had to be repaired in Guangzhou.

.Otherwise, Li Xiao was afraid that something would happen to him at sea on his way back to Pi Island.

The sea is no better than land. Once something goes wrong, it is likely to be fatal. Don't be careless!

"Brother Chen, my eldest brother is on the ship. We haven't seen you for a few days. Thank you very much for your generous help, Brother Chen." Li Xiu stood at the bow of the ship and shouted to the other side.

"It turns out it's Brother Li. I'm here to greet Commander-in-Chief Li, Master Li, on orders from my family. Can I please board the ship and have a brief talk?"

"Haha! Thank you Brother Chen for your kindness, please!"

Accepting Li Xiu's invitation, Chen Sifu stepped on the gangplank and boarded Li Xiao's ship.

"Brother Chen, this is my eldest brother." Chen Sifu got on the boat, and Li Xiu immediately introduced him.

"I have seen General Li!" Chen Sifu was stunned for a moment and immediately saluted. He had heard that General Li was very young, but he never expected that he would be so young. Thinking about himself, he is thirty-six years old this year.

They just became a guerrilla. It's really infuriating that people are more powerful than others.

"Brother Chen, please come up. Although our official positions are different, here we only discuss personal friendships. I have a private fight with the red-haired ghost. Brother Chen, you are willing to take the risk to help me. I am very grateful to you." Li Xiaogong.

Hand in hand, it is rare that this Chen Sifu can speak fluent Mandarin.

Although it still sounded awkward to Li Xiao, it was better than Cantonese that he couldn't understand. For Li Xiao, who had lived in the north his whole life, Cantonese was another language.

"Haha! Since the Lord said so, I will not be polite to you. Brother Li is young and promising, and I really envy him. As for thanking you, I feel guilty. After receiving so much money from you, if you don't do anything anymore, I will

Chen's reputation is ruined.

Hey...! Brothers, don’t blame your brother. They are all leaders. We all know in our hearts that if you have no money these days, who will work for you? Brother, I also have men to support. With the salary from the court, everyone has to go and drink.

Northwest wind.

There is nothing we can do about it!" Chen Sifu held his fists and bowed to Li Xiao, and his words were quite sincere. Li Xiao, who wanted to tease him a few words, also shut up.

"Understood! These days, you can't do anything without money. This time, brother, you brought the balance of the army with you, and the younger brother also brought it with you on the ship. When you get to the shore in a while, you and the second brother will hand over it.

Brother, you are very interesting, and I, Li Xiao, will never do anything dishonest."

"It's easy to say! You always need to have credibility when you go out to work. Brother Li, you don't have to say anything. If anything happens in the future, I will definitely help you if you tell me." Chen Sifu clapped his chest like a king, like many pirates in the sea.

More like a guerrilla general.

I guess this guy used to be a pirate!

"This time, I am here to greet you, brother, on behalf of Mr. Zou. Governor Cai is not happy about the fact that you beat up the red-haired ghost.

Speaking of which, brother, you may not know that those red-haired ghosts give the Guangzhou government a bonus every year. I don’t know how much money it is, but it should be a lot of money anyway.

Brother, you cut off Governor Cai's financial path in one battle, this...! You know."

"Thank you, Brother Chen!"

"Then let's go see Admiral Zou."

"good!"

From Chen Sifu, Li Xiao once again proved that John was not lying. The officials of the Guangzhou Prefecture had indeed taken money from the East India Company.

By joining forces with Zheng Zhilong in this battle, he had cut off his family's financial resources. Otherwise, they would not have ignored official etiquette and wouldn't even have a seventh-grade sesame official on the dock.

"By the way, Brother Chen, I don't know about Admiral Zou and the red-haired ghost...!"

"Brother, don't worry. No soldier can watch other countries' troops running wild in our territory. Not only does that red-haired ghost do business, but his subordinates are also dishonest.

He also does some pirate business secretly. There is no official government anywhere in the vast sea. Whoever has a big fist is the boss. They have guns and cannons in their hands. No one will believe him if he says he won't rob.

Over the years, the Admiral's brothers have fought against the Red-Haired Ghost many times. Although there were casualties on each other, the Red-Haired Ghost's ship was bigger and its artillery was more powerful, so my brothers suffered a disadvantage most of the time.

My admiral has wanted to build a big ship many times and buy French cannons to kill those red-haired ghosts. But every time, he has been suppressed by the governor. They don't give money, and my admiral has nothing to do. Building a big ship costs a lot of money.

, you can’t ask the admiral to pay for it yourself...!

Brother, you really gave us a bad breath this time."

"Oh! So that's it." Li Xiao smiled and nodded, knowing that this guy was not a good guy.

It is said that people pretend to be pigs and eat tigers. These guys must have done it in private. Otherwise, they would never have conflicts with the Dutch.

But the more useful information is that because of frequent conflicts with the Dutch, when the Dutch sent money, they did not send money to Zou Weilian.

They even bribed Governor Cai to prevent him from allocating funds to the Guangzhou Navy for shipbuilding. No one wanted to have another rival at sea!

Talking with Chen Sifu all the way, the two arrived at the Guangzhou Pier.

The Guangzhou Pier is much more prosperous than the Macau Pier. There are many shops and sails in the port. However, compared with the Macau Pier, the international atmosphere is much weaker.

The porters on the dock, as well as the shop owners, all wore Ming Dynasty clothing. There were no black brothers, and there were no guys wearing top hats and tailcoats.

However, one thing is similar to Macau. People here speak Cantonese when they open and close their mouths. Li Xiao can’t understand a word of the words they speak.

After getting off the boat and onto the pier, there was already a carriage waiting at the pier.

In Guangzhou in July, the weather is simply torturous. The sun is so white that people dare not look directly at it, and the blazing temperature is scorching everything on the earth.

Just now on the boat, the sea breeze blowing against the water was a bit cool. Now I am dying. When I get off the boat, there is a layer of sweat on my forehead.

Fortunately, I had shaved my hair short. Look at the people around me who had hairy heads. God, how could they endure it? Li Xiu had shaved his hair short like him. He was standing in the overtime office and was leading Chen Sifu's people to count the money.

The guard company followed Li Xiao ashore. Shunzi held a short-barreled firegun with one hand and held the handle of the carriage with the other. He stood on the pedal and looked around like a police dog with his eyes.

As soon as he entered the carriage, Li Xiao felt cool all over. It was like a completely different world from the outside.

This is strange. Could it be that there is air conditioning these days?

Seeing Li Xiao's strange look, Chen Sifu smiled and pointed to the copper-covered feet under his feet. "It's all filled with ice. I don't know how those red-haired people made it. On a hot day, there is still ice.

Ice sale.

Throughout the year, I have made a lot of money in Guangzhou city just by selling ice. It is hot today, so my admiral specially bought ice for you. Just this bucket costs a damn 10 taels of silver. It’s like

Stealing money."

Li Xiao slapped his forehead. He was like a pig. It was so hot that he didn't know how to make ice. It was so hot that his forehead was covered with sweat. Li Xiao had the urge to slap himself twice.

In fact, the technology of making ice from saltpeter is not complicated. Even people with some knowledge of chemistry can imagine it. Why didn’t I think of it myself?

"That much ice costs ten taels of silver?" Li Xiao's eyes widened. This was really just like robbing money.

"There's nothing we can do about it. If the red-haired people can do it, we won't do it. You think you're evil, you can make ice on a hot day."

"Hahaha! Yes! Yes!" Li Xiao laughed, it was another source of wealth. He was laughing with Chen Sifu, and he was already thinking about how to make this fortune.

"Brother Li, it's rumored that the Tatars in the north are making a lot of noise?"

"Oh, it's okay! Since last year, the imperial court has won several battles, and the Tatars' arrogance has been suppressed for the time being."

"I also heard that my cousin Jinghaihou has something to do with you?" Chen Sifu suddenly blinked and looked at Li Xiao.
To be continued...