Dragon Sea Empire

Yin Feng has been entrusting Wan'er to collect the manuscripts brought by Yuan Shikong, telling her to keep them in secret, even his wife is not allowed to know.Wan'er regards these manuscripts as a symbol of Yin Feng's trust in her, and also a symbol of Yin Feng's affection for her.This is a secret shared by her and Yin Feng, and no one can share it with her.

Mai Wan'er kept it on the beams of her house as if protecting her life, and wrapped it with three layers of oilcloth.She stepped on the stool, climbed up the beam with the vigorous skill of a fisherman's girl, and took off the tarpaulin wrap.

Yin Feng flipped through the manuscripts that belonged to the history category, and soon found the part he was looking for. He couldn't help but gasped, sat down on the bed, and nervously thought about what to do.He regretted his negligence: the business has grown bigger and bigger in the past few years, relying on the relationship with the Portuguese to do it smoothly, but ignoring the trend of history, the turning point in the fate of all Chinese who make a living overseas is approaching.

In 1603, the 31st year of Wanli, Manila, these words made Yin Feng's eyes darken, and Yin Feng felt a heavy sense of guilt in his heart.

He took advantage of the trend of history to follow the trend and earned himself a considerable fortune.His destiny has indeed changed, and now he has basically gained a firm foothold in Ming Dynasty China.However, without his appearance, the Zeng family may have been engaged in long-distance trafficking in the domestic market until now, and the brothers Zeng Yue and Zeng Jingshan are now in Manila. This is undoubtedly his insignificant little butterfly in the historical trend As a result, many people may have been added to the death list of the Manila massacre.

Last year, when the Haozihao ship became the prime minister of Haicheng County and went to Manila by boat, Yin Feng was in Hirado, Japan.He regretted the absence of Zeng Yue and Zeng Jingshan at his wedding.These two brothers were the first friends he met in this era, and now they are relatives.

He stood up, ordered Wan'er to collect the manuscript, and immediately went to Zeng's house to see the uncle Zeng Ke.

The Zeng brothers left a month ago. From Yuegang to Manila, it usually takes 15 to 20 days if the wind is smooth.From this point of view, they should have been doing business in Balian Market by now.It is now the beginning of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, and the massacre of Chinese in Manila began in August of the Western calendar. It is still too late to go to Manila to bring the brothers back.After the sixth month of the lunar calendar, the monsoon wind direction will change, which is the time to return from Manila.

No one believed him.

Everyone knows that the Ganla people are the rulers of Luzon, but why do they want to kill the Chinese?Didn't the Chinese bring them large quantities of goods?Aren't all the plantations and processing factories in Luzon all Chinese workers?The natives there are slackers!

Aren't all the commercial service industries in Manila, such as hairdressing, catering, and clothing, run by Chinese?

The members of the Zeng family also did not believe that the Ganla people (Spain) would massacre the Chinese for no reason: "Isn't it that the emperor sent an envoy to investigate the gold mine? What does it have to do with me and other businessmen? As for killing all the Tang people like me light?"

Yin Feng couldn't explain it. The difference and misunderstanding between Western civilization and Chinese civilization at this time is probably similar to the difference between aliens and earthlings.He can only say that people from Macau informed him out of kindness.

He took out his own "East and West Travel Records" and told Zeng Ke that the Macao Fans and the Ganla people in Luzon were under the rule of one king.Like most businessmen in China, Zeng Ke has no interest in learning about this.He is not a businessman like Li Dan who has traveled abroad and seen the world. Now Zeng Qi and Zeng Yue are in charge of the overseas trade of the Zeng family.

When it was over, Zeng Ke said, "You'll take care of your health. I'll send someone to Yuegang to find out if there is any boat coming back from Luzon."

In private, he was somewhat worried, and quickly sent several groups of servants to Quanzhou, Haicheng and other ports to inquire about news.

Yin Feng rushed to the shipyard hidden in a bay on the south coast of Meizhou Bay, where his second ship was under construction.The supervisor is the youngest boy in the Zeng family, Zeng Yue's younger brother Zeng Rui.He took Yin Feng's design drawings to work as a supervisor every day, and took back the drawings at night.Because this ship is built according to the European full-equipped sailing style, it is still a combination of Chinese and Western soft and hard sails, plus a bow stay jib, and a moon sail and a stay sail are also hung on the top mast sail. There are also extended sail yards on both sides, the so-called wing sail bars, which can be used to hang wing sails-this kind of sail design was unprecedented in the Chinese shipbuilding industry at that time, and the manufacturing difficulty was also unprecedented.Stimulated by high salaries and technological innovation, many old shipwrights from all over Fujian Province came here to visit and study. As a result, a year and a half later, the entire project was only about 90% complete, and it cannot be expected to use it to go to Manila.

Yin Feng has no ships now, and the Xinxing ship has gone to Japan. Now the season for going to sea has passed, and all merchant ships that want to go abroad have gone out.In two months, it will be the day when the merchant ships will return to their voyages.All the ports seemed deserted, and the moorings were fishing boats and some small merchant ships that went to offshore islands for smuggling business. No matter how daring sailors dared to use these boats to go to Luzon.

Yin Feng left the shipyard in disappointment. Zeng Rui thought he was not satisfied with the progress, so he rushed to say, "Brother Feng, next month at the latest, I will definitely let the ship go into the water..."

Yin Feng smiled and patted him on the shoulder - his habitual action made many people not used to it, but he didn't realize it. "It's okay, take your time, quality is the most important thing." He had just finished speaking, when he saw a large number of shipwrights looking at him from the direction of the shipyard, he turned around and left.Right now, the local shipbuilder has regarded him as a god-like master, and he couldn't stand their endless questioning, so he had to leave quickly.

Quanzhou City at night is still very noisy. The city has recovered from the depression of the Jiajing Great Japanese Pirates period, and its prosperity is comparable to that of Suzhou and Hangzhou in the south of the Yangtze River.Yin Feng, who had been busy for several days and got nothing, didn't care about everything outside him, and opened the gate of his yard exhausted physically and mentally.There seemed to be someone visiting at home, and the upper room was brightly lit.

He pushed the door open and went in, and was surprised to see veteran Chen Di in the room, with Zeng Jing respectfully standing beside him, and Zeng Ke accompanying Chen Di.He never expected that the old gentleman would take the initiative to visit him.

"Why do you come to the door in person? The student has been looking for a boat that can go to sea these days. I really neglect you. I should have informed you earlier, and the student will definitely treat you..." Before Yin Feng finished his polite words, Chen Di Interrupting his words: "The old man is here for your map."

Chen Di just wanted to see the world map Yin Feng mentioned just out of the hobby of travellers.

However, Yin Feng unexpectedly solved the problem he was facing with him.Veteran Chen Di has a nephew who is a merchant from Anhai. At the end of last year, his merchant ship was damaged by wind and he was forced to repair it in Jinjiang, so he missed the sailing season.Without hesitation, Yin Feng lent Chen Di the world map obtained from Master Magaro, along with the translation of the place names.

After sending Chen Di away, Zeng Ke was still sitting in the room, beckoning Yin Feng to sit down: "Feng'er, the boat to Luzon has not yet returned. I want to know, is your news true?"

"It's not far away. In fact, the Spaniards in Luzon, that is, the Ganla people, had already attacked the Chinese in Manila as early as the 21st year of Wanli, but not many Chinese were killed that time." What Yin Feng was talking about was Pan He Wu Uprising, when the Spaniards conscripted Chinese slave labor as cannon fodder and attacked Muslims in Molucca Island in the southern Philippines; Spanish soldiers, took the ship and fled to Vietnam.In retaliation, the Spaniards burned down the Chinese district in Balian, drove out the Chinese, and killed many Chinese.

"If I knew it earlier, I shouldn't have let him go!" Zeng Ke said.

The "he" Zeng Ke said was of course his biological son Zeng Yue. Zeng Jingshan, the adopted son, Zeng Ke thought, would not be too worried.Yin Feng shook his head, put this thought out of his mind, and comforted Zeng Ke: "It should be too late to pick up fourth brother now. I will go to Jinjiangkou early tomorrow morning..."

Zeng Ke nodded: "You can only take one step at a time, Feng'er, I will send you 10 servants in the family, and bring extra gold and silver, in case something happens, you can use the money to open the way. I want to come to this world. , is there anyone who doesn’t love money?”

The ship at Jinjiangkou is not big, only eight feet long, with two masts and a typical square bow. , known as bird boats.The central cabin is covered with thatch, and the interior space is quite large.The ship had just been repaired, and the owner, Chen Jie, was well-known to Yin Feng and treated him very warmly.

"Brother Chen, where is your crew?" Yin Feng, who was eager to go to sea as soon as possible, asked.

"Crew? Oh, the boatmen and helmsmen are all hired locally. It's just that in this season, good boatmen are all out to sea, so it's hard to find!"

Yin Feng almost cursed, no crew, just an empty boat, what can you do?

He suppressed the anger in his heart and asked Chen Jie: "How much is your boat worth?"

"Didn't you borrow the boat?" Chen Jie was a little dazed for a while, and hurriedly calculated in his mind: "The original price plus the cost of this repair is about 800 taels of silver."

Yin Feng cursed inwardly: just this broken boat, at most 400 taels of silver!But he didn't hesitate, and directly said to the servant of Zeng's family behind him: "Xiao Liu, take Mr. Chen to the firm and take 800 taels of silver from my account to him."

Chen Jie was in a daze again, but Yin Feng ignored him and hurried to his own shipyard.There, through the relationship of the shipbuilders, he recruited 30 sailors at once, some of whom were the children of the shipbuilders.There are 10 old sailors from the Xinxing ship beside Yin Feng, who are Danmin recruited from Yazhou. The first group of people who followed him have become veterans who can kill and fight. Originally, the new ship was built and used as a The team leader of the new sailors can only be transferred from the shipyard first.

The men and ships are in place, but the sky is not good.For several days in a row, there were strong winds and waves, and torrential rain. The most important thing was that the wind direction was wrong, and all the wind was blowing from the southeast.Yin Feng got angry again, and his body has not fully recovered, and he has been running around for days, which caused him to have nosebleeds and blisters at the corners of his mouth.

Wan'er advised him to take a break, but he ignored her at all.Zeng Jing wanted to say a few words of persuasion, but swallowed the words back on her lips.