Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2246 Shock

On May 1694, 5, there was light rain in Qingdao Port, the most prosperous port on the east coast.

Ruan Siyi just finished a banquet and returned to a house they rented.Because I need to stay on the east bank for a long time, it is not cost-effective to stay in a hotel, so I rented three sets of houses connected to the left and right, and let a group of more than ten people live in them.Originally, with Ruan Siyi's title as a guerrilla general, it was fine to live alone in a house, but who made them rich?Just save some money.

Ruan Siyi came to the East Bank at the beginning of this year.As the first group of Ming navy officials to visit the East Coast, they were valued. The East Coast Admiralty arranged a series of schedules for them to let them realize the prosperity of the East Coast society, the strength of the navy, and the advanced ideas.For this reason, they also allocated an additional 1000 yuan to the visiting group as activity expenses, which is considered very good.

But to be honest, 1000 yuan is a lot in the eyes of ordinary people, but Ruan Siyi, who has been well-clothed and well-fed since he was a child—his grandfather is Ruan Jin, a confidant of the King of Lu, and his father Ruan Xian is the Duke of the Ming Dynasty, who is in charge of all waters. Teacher—it seems, but it's just average.What's more, at a young age, he was already a guerrilla fighter, commanding more than a dozen boats under his command, and the money passed by him every day was like flowing water, what is 1000 yuan!

Of course, the above said in Ming Dynasty, in Zhejiang.But as the saying goes, "A thousand days at home is good, and everything is difficult when you go out." Now that they are no longer in Daming, they have come to the East Bank in the name of visiting the officer corps. This is different.According to Daming's usual stingy virtue, a dozen of them went to sea this time, and they only gave a total of 500 taels of silver. 1:1 exchange).In addition, there are piles of pens, inks, papers and inkstones, medicinal herbs, tea, silk brocades, etc., and they have to be counted on to sell them on the east bank to make ends meet.

Fortunately, these things are still very popular in the East Coast. They sold a total of more than 3000 yuan, plus the original 500 yuan and the 1000 yuan supported by the East Coast Navy Department, which is enough for them to live in the East Coast for a period of time. Ruan Siyi is very upset because he spends a lot of money on eating, entertaining and not being able to play often.

But what if you are unhappy?This is something that the emperor (the king of Lu Zhu Honghuan has proclaimed himself emperor in Taizhou under the persuasion of the Dong'an people) and his father have been enjoining thousands of times. You must take a good look at the Eastern Dynasty, make some friends, and learn some real skills. It is worthwhile and risky. They sailed across the ocean once to die——they came on a small-tonnage fast liaison ship of the Navy, and encountered bad weather on the way, which can indeed be called "death".

Ruan Siyi still believed in his father's words.The reason why their family is able to control the Daming Navy—well, this obviously only refers to the Zhejiang Navy. Very early, and led the navy to fight for the king of Lu, and even made several times to protect the sky, so he is very trusted.Later, relying on the new appointment of King Lu and his relatively strong strength, Ruan Jin annexed many water bandits, pirates, and other scattered water armed forces through the way of big fish eating small fish, and became the largest sea power in the Ming Dynasty. , and then he had to be named Duke of the State and became the supreme commander of the Daming Navy, which is understandable.

Of course, this alone may not be enough.King Lu and the current Emperor Guangxing (Zhu Honghuan's reign name Guangxing, 1694 is the first year of Guangxing) are good at playing political means. It may be fine if the time is short, but if it is long, it is difficult to guarantee the division and win Strategies won't work.After all, warriors have limited morals, and their family resources are not rich, so black eyes can't see white money.But at this time, we need to talk about their cleverness. The Ruan family took advantage of the opportunity of purchasing naval equipment and learning advanced tactics to connect with the people on the east coast, and then gained the attention of the people on the east coast. This status It became stable all of a sudden, and it was the only one in the small court of the Ming Dynasty—the Ming army was divided into power by the Zhang family (the descendant of Zhang Huangyan) and the Wang family (the successors of the dynasty), and the navy was the Ruan family. After all, isn't it the only one!

Therefore, with such a background, after Ruan Siyi led the team to the East Bank, his words and deeds were very low-key. Apart from gritting his teeth and taking out some funds to eat and make friends with officials on the East Bank, he spent most of his time as an observer. The identity is listening to lectures in the nautical school, or doing an internship on a certain warship of the East Coast Navy, or visiting the shipyard, in short, it is still very hard.

Today, Ruan Siyi hosted several young officers from the First Fleet of the East Coast Navy at the prestigious Penglai Restaurant in Qingdao Port. At the same time, there were also several low-level cadres from the South China Sea Fishery Company.Everyone drank and ate together, bragging and chatting, and the banquet ended very late at night, so that when Ruan Siyi went back, he didn't even have a streetcar, so he had to pay a high price for a carriage, and returned to the rented place with his two confidantes.

Ruan Siyi has a good capacity for alcohol, even though he drank a lot at the banquet before, he is still very sober, just can't fall asleep.The place where he lives is the old city of Qingdao County. There are brick houses everywhere that look old, but they don't look dilapidated on the outside. Obviously, the residents inside have enough funds to repair them.

Ruan Siyi once carefully observed his neighbors, and found that these people's clothes are very bright, and they usually wear them like this, unlike the people of Ming Dynasty who only wear them out during the New Year's holidays - they can't even wear them during the New Year's holidays. What decent clothes they produced—and what they ate and used was beyond Ruan Siyi's imagination, some of which even he couldn't enjoy often, which had a great impact on his thoughts.

In fact, thinking about it, these people earn seven or eight yuan a month, and the average soldier of the Daming Navy is less than two taels of silver a month, and food and clothing are even more expensive. No wonder they live so chicly.What is even more surprising is that the place they rented is even an old city where the so-called low-income groups gather—of course, the income on the east coast is relatively average, and the gap between the so-called low-income and high-income is not very big, especially in terms of physical strength. The income of laborers is not necessarily low-there are a large number of new industry workers from the countryside living there, but the standard of living has already exceeded the current Taizhou City, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, which is embarrassing.

"The autumn rain is like silk, the breeze is blowing, it looks like my hometown, but it's not at all." Ruan Siyi closed the window, shut off the dim light of the gas lamp outside the house, then sat down at the desk, poured himself a cup of cold tea, Slightly sighed.

Although the life outside is simple, it is worth it.Without coming to the east coast, Ruan Siyi's strong impression of this country can only be superficial.Sometimes, he would even wonder if this so-called Eastern Country is a land of poor mountains and bad waters, otherwise why would all the swarms come to Daming?It's just that he doesn't think so now. After visiting many shipyards, fleets, and attending school for a week, Ruan Siyi has found out in despair that the Eastern Kingdom is so powerful that even if it takes 100 years for Ming to catch up .The air here is so sweet and sweet, even the moon is rounder than Daming's, and the gap is all-round. Ruan Siyi can't even imagine what will happen if Daming becomes hostile to Dongguo—it will probably be crushed Bar.

Ruan Siyi found that the dozen or so people who came with him had the same perception.They are basically the children of the Zhejiang Navy, and their titles are not high, but they are all cutting-edge forces in the Navy.His father has already hinted to him that the imperial court is about to form the Qiongzhou Navy with the help of Dongguo, and they will all be the backbone of the navy in the future, so everyone is relatively close on the whole, and the relationship is very good—of course Ruan Siyi took the lead.

The Qiongzhou Navy, as the name suggests, is a naval force with Qiongzhou Prefecture and the neighboring Leizhou and Gaozhou Prefectures as its defense areas.Considering that the prince arrived in Qiongzhou last year with some civil and military entourages to fully take over the local military and civilian affairs, the main task of the Qiongzhou navy should be to block the Qiongzhou Strait, so as not to allow the enemy to take advantage of it.After all, Leizhou and Gaozhou are connected to the mainland of Guangdong. If the situation changes, it may be difficult to guarantee that Leizhou and Gaoerfu will not lose the combat power of the Ming Army.At that time, I am afraid that we can only rely on the navy to protect Qiongzhou Mansion.

Thinking of this, Ruan Siyi was also very grateful to the Dongguo people for handing over the three mansions of Qiong, Gao and Lei to Daming.No matter what their motives were, whether it was inconvenient to rule directly or they were too lazy to rule, in short, they greatly increased the actual control area of ​​Daming, giving them another foothold outside the mountainous area in southern Zhejiang.

The imperial court and the emperor were also very happy about this.Although they sent the crown prince and a group of entourages to Qiongzhou under the urging of the people from the east coast, but as far as their hearts are concerned, they are actually very willing.You know, southern Zhejiang borders Jiangxi, God knows when Shunni's gang of mud legs will move eastward, and they don't have the confidence to stop those tiger and wolf divisions.

Thinking about it this way, Ruan Siyi's thoughts became clearer.Dongguo is the benefactor of Ming Dynasty, and it is the guarantee for the continuation of their regime - this is no exaggeration, just look at how Kunming fell - the national power is so strong, so it is the most important thing to develop with peace of mind under their protection. basic state policy.While such protection certainly doesn't come for free, so what?Zuo is just some money and population!In order to continue Daming's kingdom, any price is acceptable!Shunni and Taqing are enemies of life and death. Ruan Siyi feels that even if the future is really irretrievable, it is better to hand over the last bit of Daming's property to the people of Dongguo than to fall into the hands of Shunni and Taqing.

Daming, that's all. Every day is a day.If I can't stop it anymore, I might as well go to Ningbo to be a foolish old man.No matter how strong Shunni and Taqing are, they can't be strong enough to take down Ningbo together, right?There are Cao'e River and Siming Mountain blocking it, and the Eastern Army has always been good at fighting. Ruan Siyi really doesn't believe that they can fight.

Or so what?At worst, go to Taiwan or Luzon!In the past few years, the Dongguo people have taken the ships of the Zhejiang Navy to go to the ocean several times, and the most frequent trips are to Luzon, where they trade and survey the terrain.I heard that there are quite a lot of Yanhuang Miao people there. If things go wrong, Luzon is also a very good place for the whole army to flee to sea.Those mud legs or Tartars basically don't have any usable sailors, let's see how they will chase after that time!

Of course, if you want to transport tens of thousands of people to Luzon at one time, you need a lot of ships.I heard that the imperial court has been ordering large ships from the Eastern Kingdom, and I don't know how far it has gone.

(End of this chapter)