Chapter 2024: Mantis blocking the car
The red-haired captain did not end well.
First of all, the huge sum of two million taels triggered a sailor riot after sailing just over 500 nautical miles south.
The sailors demanded an equal share.
There are 50 people on board, and each person can share 40,000 taels equally.
This is also a huge sum of money.
Enough for everyone to buy enough real estate and live a happy and comfortable life.
The captain relied on the first mate and some henchmen to kill some sailors and recruit new sailors. The new people knew nothing.
Then the henchmen rebelled again.
In short, there were three rebellions.
The captain was injured and lost a leg.
The first mate is missing an eye.
In the end, there were only five people who still knew that there were two million silver on the ship...
The five pirates divided the silver, and everyone chose to share it equally.
The new sailor was completely unaware.
However, the core sailors were lost, and the new sailors were unfamiliar with the business.
While passing through the southern strait, they were discovered by people from Rongyao Group.
Then perform an interception check.
Because Jia Rong already knew that the red-haired people were colluding with the court.
“A bunch of pirates!”
the captain swore angrily, then ordered an escape.
The patrol is a sailing clipper.
And his ship was equipped with a steam engine, so it was supposed to be able to escape.
As a result, the new sailors did not know how to operate it. In fear and tension, they stuffed too much coal into the cylinder and exploded it...
This was the drawback of early steam engines: the failure rate was extremely high. .
It must be operated by skilled workers.
So two million taels were all given to the pirate: Rong Yao Company.
The captain was hanged.
The first mate was pardoned because he read a philosophical poem before he died.
Decided to give him to Master Jia Rong as a slave.
In other words, the two million taels spent by the emperor to buy warships finally returned to the hands of the rebels.
This is how liars deceive fools and robbers rob liars.
In the end, the robbers won.
Not long after, the second wave of red-haired people who contacted the court appeared again.
Of course they should be called blue-haired people. They are different from red-haired people in that they wear blue hats.
The blue-haired people sent an envoy to tell the emperor that they were also willing to use the fleet to help the court, but they just needed the court to come up with money for military expenses.
As soon as he finished speaking, the envoy was hacked to death by the furious emperor.
Because the emperor already knew that the silver was cheated by the red-haired captain.
As for how he knew it, of course it was the news spread by Jia Rong.
It was meant to attack the emperor's prestige and let everyone know that he was a fool.
The wise emperor and the foolish emperor bring completely different intimidation to people.
The emperor said angrily: "You are all in the same group, you only know how to defraud me of my money!"
The blue-haired man was also angry: "These barbarians, they actually killed us Messenger! "
"We are going to help them. After all, barbarians are barbarians, and they should all be cleaned up!"
However, in the face of interests, the blue-haired people Still, I quickly understood why the emperor was furious.
Because they sent a second wave of envoys to bribe important ministers first.
The minister told them that the first wave of red-haired people defrauded them of two million taels in the cost of buying a boat.
"Those damn red-haired ghosts, they ruined our credibility." The blue-haired man scolded.
How could early maritime merchants have any credibility?
They are a mixture of pirates and merchants.
As long as you are strong at sea, you will become a pirate.
Only when you have little strength can you do business honestly.
So it’s not the fault of the imperial court for hacking them to death.
In the early days, when maritime merchants were hacked to death, the injustice rate was very low.
In short, after several twists and turns, the court agreed to meet despite the increasingly dangerous situation.
After all, only red-haired people can defeat Rongyao Company
Because the rebels have steamships, which the imperial court does not have.
Without the fleet, the court will inevitably fail.
But there is no use improvising, you must rely on other people's ships and sailors.
Both parties reached an agreement.
The imperial court hired a fleet of blue-haired men.
But the results must be shown to the court. The amount of money will be given as much as the results are.
Blue-haired people don’t have to worry about not getting money.
Because if the court doesn't give it, you can only cheat once, and in the end you will be defeated by the people from Rongyao Company.
Then there is nothing.
The blue-haired man, who understood this, agreed.
After all, they already have a huge conflict of interest with Rongyao Company.
In recent years, Rongyao Company has developed too powerfully.
If they occupy the entire Eastern Dynasty, they will no longer have any special interests at all.
You can only do business based on your own skills, which will be very hard.
You can't make a lot of money by smuggling easily as you can now.
After all, the Eastern Dynasty does not understand what tariffs are and what smuggling is.
A lot of money was given to the people below.
But the blue-haired people's fleet in the east is seriously insufficient.
Their fleet only has ten battleships, including only three steam battleships.
They need to concentrate their forces.
But the people at Rongyao Company expanded very quickly.
One more year will be enough to capture the core of the Eastern Dynasty.
Don’t even think about making a comeback then.
So the blue-haired people began to gather fleets from other forces.
Then he pulled the nearest fleet to the west to make up the numbers.
In the end, a total of 30 battleships were gathered, including 15 steamships and the other 15 sailing battleships.
Everyone made an agreement on the final division of interests based on the proportion of ships shipped.
The main thing is who will control the major ports of the Eastern Dynasty.
This fleet is definitely very powerful in the Eastern Ocean.
They are going to have a decisive battle with the fleet of Rongyao Company.
As long as they defeat the opponent's fleet, they can take the initiative.
The other party's land fortress will be divided and surrounded by them.
The imperial court could reopen water transportation, possess grain and grass, and send a large army to surround their fortress.
Relying on the huge manpower to swamp them.
Very beautiful idea.
…………
However, neither Zhao Han, nor Jia Rong, nor Jia Lian are afraid of these Western fleets at all.
Because all three of them know their opponent's fatal weakness.
In this era, Westerners' power in the East was just rising, and there was no time to build good ports.
Apart from their hands, there were no ports in the East where steamships could be repaired.
30 battleships seems huge.
But if the opponent fights one ship, there will be one less ship.
There is no port, repair ships and build ships for them.
They must return to the West for repairs.
But Rongyao is different.
They had ports capable of repairing ships.
And enough coastal defense cannons were built to ensure that the port would not fall.
There are three such ports.
Each one is a big hedgehog.
Even 30 or 60 ships cannot be defeated.
Not to mention there are enough manpower to defend it.
If the blue-haired people want to build a port with such functions, it will take at least two to three years.
You also need enough manpower and a lot of money.
All ports that meet the conditions are within their own attack range.
As soon as the opponent starts construction, they will send ships to bombard them.
So strategically they have enough advantages.
But the blue-haired people's idea is to use 30 warships to defeat the Rong Yao Company's fleet, and then transport the soldiers of the imperial court to land on the island to seize the Rong Yao Company's repair port.
The fleet of blue-haired men seeks a decisive battle. They chose to attack Longjiangkou.
Just at the mouth of Longjiang River, the two sides started a battle.
It must be said that the confidence of the pirates is not fake.
Because they fought all the way.
Rongyao and the others are just playing against rookies.
Even with better design, better artillery, more manpower, home field advantage...
The two sides were still tied.
After the war, both sides lost half of their warships.
One lost a dozen ships, and the other also lost a dozen ships.
The problem is that a month later, Rong Yao Company’s warships were replaced again.
They took the initiative to look for the blue-haired men's warships to attack.
The blue-haired people could only retreat to the west.
A tie means failure.
Now this distance determines the outcome on the battlefield.
The fatal distance made their victory slip away from their hands.
It will take at least half a year for their new ship to arrive from the west.
The other party can repair the damaged ship and add new ships in just one month.
With such a long time difference, the other party will not let it go.
The blue-haired man had to admit that his intervention was powerless and a failure.
But before retreating, they still thought of an idea.
They decided to use a steam battleship to transport important figures from the court away.
They began to persuade the emperor to send the prince to an island in the west.
But the emperor refused.
Later they proposed to send several members of the royal family there.
The emperor agreed, and after learning the outcome of the naval battle, he took the prince and ran west.
After all, the enemy comes from the sea.
There is no sea to the west, so the west should be very safe.
Of course, they are not unaware that their opponents are not ordinary pirates, they want to conquer the entire dynasty.
The west is not safe either.
…………
At the same time.
The land of Jinling.
There is a very strange rumor in the city this year.
That means the four major families of Jia Shi Wang Xue rebelled.
They organized pirates to go ashore to build castles and block water transportation.
The people from Rong Yao Company, using the name of pirates, are actually members of the Jia family.
But everyone, including bureaucrats and clerks, felt strange.
The rebellious pirate, instead of plundering everywhere, he was maintaining order.
Even doing business well.
This is completely different from the rebels in the past.
In the past, when someone rebelled, they must have burned, killed and looted everywhere.
As for this group of pirates, their request to the county is that as long as you open your doors and do business normally, we will not attack your city.
If you dare to close the city gate, we will bombard you with cannon.
Some people think these pirates are pretty good.
Because they brought a lot of food, which calmed down the skyrocketing food prices caused by the war.
Many big grain merchants who hoarded money suffered a lot.
They also established market places where these people could come and buy and sell things.
They also take the initiative to maintain law and order.
Wipe out all the bandits who took advantage of the situation.
The leader was killed, and the remaining people were taken to work overseas as coolies.
Under this situation, people's hearts began to waver.
Mainly those who failed to pass the exam as a scholar, or were a scholar but failed to pass the exam, they had an idea in mind.
You must know that life is not easy these days.
If you fail to pass the examination as a scholar, you will hang around until you are forty or fifty years old, unable to do anything but becoming a private school teacher.
But there are also few teachers.
Old Tongsheng lived a very miserable life.
The representative among them is Fan Jin in The Scholars.
Before she was admitted to the Juren Examination, the old mother was almost blind from hunger.
This can truly reflect the living conditions of scholars.
Now, Rong Pharmaceutical Company is rebelling. It’s good to rebel. If you rebel, you will be the founding hero of the country.
There are many scholars who are ambitious.
It can be said that many people just don’t have the conditions.
And in their opinion, Rongyao Company looks like Jackie Chan.
Why do you say that?
Because these people know how to rule, how to operate and build.
This is completely different from pirates and bandits.
If a bandit doesn't know how to manage and build, he will definitely fail.
However, Rongyao Company knew how to build and operate from the beginning. Once such a force takes advantage of the situation, the probability of success is extremely high.
Why nomads can defeat farming is because they also have a complete construction system.
They are also able to operate and build.
This is why they can win.
So soon, scholars and children who had failed many times joined the group and looked for official positions.
In the beginning, I mainly worked as an accountant and as a teacher.
Help with literacy.
Teacher simplifies text.
In fact, there have been simplified characters since ancient times.
With the addition of scholars, more and more people found that the imperial court was in danger.
In the folk city, taverns, hotels, and county government mansions, scholars and officials were discussing everywhere.
“This is a imperial pill!”
“Yes, there is no water transportation, and the northern soldiers are blocked by ships. They want to take a detour, but they are blocked by those strong fortresses.”< br>
“The imperial court cannot last more than a few years before it collapses.”
"Yes, and this Rong Pharmaceutical Company, they have money and food, they are getting more and more prosperous, and they transport a large number of refugees overseas. It is obvious that they have territory overseas."
" Yes, this is equivalent to the Northern Barbarians who occupied the Central Plains before. "What should we do?"
"Yes, should we help the court?"
“We definitely won’t help anyone.”
"That's right. Rongyao Company doesn't steal our land or our food. It only takes away some refugees."
Why should we resist?
Many big landowners and big businessmen in Jiangnan think so.
After all, Rongyao Company is in business.
They also do a lot of business with each other.
Buy grain, sell raw silk, and buy medicines and Western gadgets.
In short, everyone is in harmony.
It’s all down to some villains in the imperial court. They just transported away the refugees and made the place quiet.
It’s a win-win situation.
The villain can’t stand it.
Of course, some officials still want to resist.
It’s just that they have to rely on big businessmen and big landowners for money and food.
But these big landowners and big businessmen, they found that they could continue to do business with Rongyao Company.
The other party will not rob their land, nor their money.
People who will not hurt them.
In this case, it would cost a lot of money to fight against the opponent.
Also risk failure.
Aren’t they trying to hit a rock with an egg?
In the face of strong force, as long as the other party does not touch too many of their own interests, only 5% of people are willing to resist for the sake of the court.
Some people did rise up to resist.
They are some famous Confucian scholars and ministers.
"It's a pity that they are destined to be a mantis trying to block the car." A scholar said.
This is exactly what the emperor said when he commented on the four major families.
(End of this chapter)