Chapter 854 Shuangyu Waterway
The Haihan military did not hesitate to spend huge military expenditures to promote this expedition to Zhoushan, Zhejiang. In addition to its own expansion needs, the military was also very optimistic about the economic benefits of this operation. Many generals believed that this expedition was extremely valuable. It is possible to exceed the capture of the rebel city in southern Annam in the early years. However, so far, the coalition fleet has fought against some sporadic small groups of pirates along the coast of Zhejiang. There is some gold and silver property seized, but the amount is not large in the eyes of the military, and they have to follow the Ming army allies. share. Therefore, the military has always placed relatively high expectations on how many seizures can be achieved in the final target of the Zhoushan Islands.
The secret casino Xu Ke and Zhao Cheng discovered on the Haisha Gang's territory at the southern end of Liuheng Island was a huge treasure cave. Maybe the seizure of this place would be worth the entire expedition of the coalition fleet. Military spending is up. Xu Ke may not yet know how significant this place is to the coalition forces, but Zhao Cheng knows that this unexpected discovery will definitely be a great achievement after being reported back, even more important than the original task of reconnaissance of the port.
In order to avoid unnecessary complications, the two of them went back to their room and took no further action, staying peacefully until the next day. Apart from the secret casino that I accidentally learned about last night, there really isn't much left to explore in this small port, which can basically be seen at a glance. The Haisha Gang has set up checkpoints in various passages, making it almost impossible for them to visit places outside the port. They can only choose to leave the port after replenishing supplies.
In order to get a glimpse of the true nature of the nearby Haisha Gang ship port, Xu Ke's ship waited until the sun was high and the morning fog on the sea cleared before setting off. This small harbor on the west side is much smaller than the two ports used for foreign trade on the east side. Its depth is only about half, and it is easier to observe the situation inside the harbor.
In order to allow Zhao Cheng more observation time, Xu Ke asked the sailors to lower the sails by half and slowly glide across the sea outside the harbor. Zhao Cheng lay on the side of the ship, covered with thick canvas and fishing nets, and used binoculars to observe the situation in the harbor. There are two small piers in the harbor in the east and north, with almost no cover. Zhao Cheng can have a clear view of the harbor with a telescope.
Most of the sailboats in the Haisha Gang are small ships that are common in the offshore. Zhao Cheng estimates that most of them have a displacement of less than fifty tons. Several sailboats with a displacement of more than a hundred tons are already quite conspicuous in the harbor. The real displacement is close to that of the exploration-class warship, which can be regarded as a "big ship" by Ming standards. There are only two or three lucky ships in the port.
This level of equipment made Zhao Cheng slightly disappointed. Except for a few more ships, the equipment level of the Haisha Gang did not seem to be much better than that of their counterparts in the southern Zhejiang waters. If the strength of the Haisha Gang is like this, then the combined fleet only needs to send a small team to fight, which is enough to crush these pirate ships.
After the ship sailed some distance away from the port, Zhao Chengcai emerged from the bunker, carefully handed the telescope to his men and put it into a special moisture-proof sealed box, and then stopped to wipe his sweat. Although it is only April now, I have just been covered in a pile of airtight canvas for more than an hour. It is really uncomfortable to be stuffy and hot.
"How come there are only so many ships in the Haisha Gang?" Zhao Cheng took out the results of counting the ships in the port with the help of a telescope and showed them to Xu Ke. He was not completely convinced of what he observed.
Xu Ke also felt that this was not very consistent with what he knew beforehand. He scratched his head and replied: "I don't know, maybe some of their ships have gone to sea! If the Haisha Gang can occupy a place here, it must not be too weak. .”
Zhao Cheng frowned slightly, not satisfied with such reconnaissance results. According to the confession of Qianhu Ma Ling from Shipu Guard Station, there are nearly two thousand armed personnel of the Haisha Gang and more than fifty armed sailing ships. However, judging from what has been detected in the past two days, Zhao Cheng only saw about There are more than a dozen armed sailing ships, and the others are at most fishing boats or cargo ships. It seems that they are not the entire maritime armed force of this group of pirates. He was not worried about what kind of ambush the pirates could pull off with this small number of men, but he was concerned that it would be difficult to wipe out the Haisha Gang when the coalition fleet launched an attack.
However, according to the plan, Zhao Cheng did not have time to linger in this small port. There was a second stop in this operation waiting for them to reconnoiter, which was the Shuangyu Waterway at the northwest end of Liuheng Island.
Shuangyu Waterway is the waterway between Liuheng Island and the adjacent Fodu Island. Fodu Island is located to the west of Liuheng Island. It has a zigzag coastline, long and narrow headlands, and numerous mouths. It is said that there are nine creeks and eighteen creeks. It is said that Guanyin once stopped on this island to transition before finding Mount Putuo, hence the name Fodu.
Fodu Island is less than two kilometers away from Liuheng Island. The two islands face each other across the sea and protect each other. There are many small harbors on the coastline on one side of Liuheng Island that can be used to dock ships. Although the natural harbor with the best conditions was surrounded and suppressed during the Jiajing period, the Ming army here filled in the waterway. Over the past century, smuggling merchants and pirates have Other ports were developed and constructed here one after another. According to Ma Ling's confession and Xu Ke's knowledge, at least four ports in this place are still in operation, and the force that controls these ports is another group of pirates on Liuheng Island, the "Sanlin Gang" .
Sanlin Gang occupies a longer coastline than Haisha Gang, but the port conditions are not as good as those of the three side-by-side harbors in Haisha Gang. The depth of these small bays on the west coast of Liuheng Island is very shallow, and the effect of sheltering from wind and waves is not as good as the bays on the southeast side. However, because it is closer to Ningbo Fucheng, it has a slight advantage in terrain, and Shuangyu Port has a century-old reputation. Due to the bonus effect of the number, many smugglers are still willing to choose the Sanlin Gang's territory as a trading place.
According to Ma Ling, the Sanlin Gang is backed by local officials in Ningbo. Therefore, although its armed strength is not as strong as that of its rival Haisha Gang on the same island, no one dares to provoke them easily. There was still some distance from the Shuangyu Waterway, so Xu Ke took out the flag issued by the Sanlin Gang and asked the sailors to hang it on the mast. He also replaced the flag of the Haisha Gang. Of course, he had bought these two flags with money before. With these things, he could travel safely in the sea areas controlled by these armed forces.
After Zhao Cheng completed his mission, he had to get into the bunker made of canvas and fishing nets again, and secretly observed various port facilities and ships on the shore. What surprised Zhao Cheng slightly was that although the port conditions here were not as good as those of competitors, more merchant ships came to dock here for trade than at the ports in Haisha Gang.
Following Xu Ke's suggestion, the ship went straight to a port at the northern end of Shuangyu Waterway. It is said that this is also the location of the new Shuangyu Port. Zhao Cheng noticed that there were more than fifty merchant ships parked densely in this harbor, and the density of houses on the docks on the shore was obviously better than that of their counterparts in the south. It seemed that the business was doing well. The Sanlin Gang has also deployed many small boats in Shuangyu Waterway for surveillance and early warning purposes. However, because the harbors here are relatively small, there are no special arrangements for small boats to pilot. As long as the ships carry the Sanlin flag on the mast, You can enter the harbor and berth on your own. Xu Ke had been here before to stop the ship for supplies, and introduced it to Zhao Cheng: "Master Zhao, please look at the two-color flag carried on the pier, the trestle and the pier hung with red cloth. It is a place that already has an owner. You cannot Stop at will. If you see the one with the blue cloth, it means you can park there. ”
After observing for a while, Zhao Cheng said: "The people who manage this port are quite smart. It is not easy for such a small and crowded port to be so orderly."
In fact, a similar port traffic command system has long been popularized in ports under Haihan's rule, and it is more comprehensive and scientific. The two heads of the Maritime Department are professionals with professional backgrounds, and their knowledge of port planning and operation is far ahead of this era. Although it is impossible to completely copy the port management system centuries later to this era, some modifications can be made according to local conditions. This is enough to make the operational efficiency of Haihan Port greatly exceed the average level at this time.
Zhao Cheng was indeed a little surprised to see such measures in a port operated by smugglers. In terms of port terminal utilization efficiency, it must have surpassed the Haisha Gang.
After the ship docks, staff at the dock will board the ship to register the owner and the purpose of docking. The defense here is obviously looser than the Haishabang Pier that I have been to before. After registration, you can get off the ship and move around on your own without asking for permission. Xu Ke said that he came here to supply supplies and see if there were any goods that could be bought back to Xiangshan. The person in charge of registration took the initiative to recommend them to go to the exchange on the island.
"Is there an exchange on this island?" Zhao Cheng was a little surprised when he heard it, but he didn't ask immediately. The fact that a trading port can have a fixed and open institution like an exchange shows that the trade volume here has reached a considerable level. Only when both buying and selling are prosperous can such a specialized trading institution emerge. The major trading ports on Hainan Island all have commodity exchanges established by the Haihan Ministry of Commerce. Zhao Cheng has also seen their operations. He really wants to see what the exchanges run by pirates and smugglers are like. status.
Xu Ke had only come here in passing before, and he had never seen the exchange on the island. So after the two landed, they asked for directions. It was not far from the pier, so they walked along the stone road. After walking out of Li Xu Land in the southeast direction, we saw the so-called exchange.
This exchange is actually a house. You can't tell how big it is from the outside, but the walls on both sides of the gate extend to a width of twenty or thirty feet. The main entrance actually has no door, but a gatehouse like an archway, with the words "Shuangyu Commercial Port" written on the plaque above. The two of them didn't stop at the door for too long before entering the courtyard.
The first courtyard is actually a small square courtyard without any houses. On the other hand, there are many wooden signs three inches wide and two feet long hanging on the walls surrounding the courtyard, with white paper of the same width stuck on them, and there seems to be some writing on them. Many people stood in front of the wall and browsed these wooden signs. Some people even held charcoal paper in their hands and copied something from time to time.
The two took a closer look and found that the wooden sign contained information on various commodities to be traded. It contained a brief introduction to the goods, a quotation, and the number of the dock where the cargo owner's ship was docked. There are also some cargo owners who store their goods in warehouses on the island, and later indicate that the Sanlin Gang can collect payment and deliver the goods on their behalf.
The two of them looked at the goods for a while and found that the goods information on these walls were actually classified by place of origin. For example, the goods on the east wall were from the north of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty, while the goods on the west side were from the area of origin. From the area south of the Yangtze River, goods from Japan, Ryukyu, and Korea are on the south wall, while goods from Southeast Asia are on the north. Merchants who have been looking for a long time can rest on the stone benches and wooden benches in the middle for a while before continuing to look for their favorite goods. If you find it, you can enter the courtyard at the back through the doors on these walls and go through the procedures for trading goods with the Sanlin Gang.
Xu Ke asked several merchants and found out that all transactions here would be charged by the Sanlin Gang as intermediary fees. A simple calculation shows that the income earned by the Sanlin Gang is also considerable, and after the market is formed, the source of customers and goods will increase. In terms of stability, this business idea is undoubtedly far ahead of its competitor Haisha Bang.
Zhao Cheng believes that this model also has many similarities with the exchange at the port under Haihan's rule. In particular, this method of listing goods to be traded to seek buyers is one of the characteristics of Haihan Exchange. Zhao Cheng was a little suspicious that maybe someone had brought Haihan's operating methods to Zhejiang and followed the example to create this trading system. However, compared with the exchanges established by relatively mature commercial ports such as Sanya Port and Shengli Port, the operation methods here are still in their infancy, especially the settlement and delivery of goods. Without the support of Haihan’s unique financial system, most of the Some transactions must also be delivered in cash, and the quality and weight need to be checked. The efficiency is definitely not as efficient as Haihan's paper currency transaction method.
But for the Sanlin Gang to be able to come up with this set of things, there is no doubt that there are knowledgeable experts behind the scenes, which makes Zhao Cheng a little impressed. Compared with the Haisha Gang's underground casino, the Sanlin Gang's trading system is obviously better at maintaining long-term relationships with trading partners. Even those merchants who will not trade directly with Sanlin Gang will choose this market as their first choice because of the complete range of goods and timely release of information. This kind of operating concept is actually very close to Haihan's original concept of positioning Victory Port and Sanya Port as the first port. If given time, they might be able to build a decent large-scale trading port off the coast of Ningbo, or even recreate the glory of Shuangyu Port a hundred years ago.
(End of chapter)