Chapter 1992
Just as Ji Yuanqing thought, Gong Shiqi was not completely ignorant of the situation of Jianghuai Salt Industry, especially after arriving in Zhoushan this time. In addition to several recent attacks, the files provided to him by Wanfa included The content below is basically all kinds of information related to the industry, which naturally also includes the interest struggle between Shanxi and Shaanxi salt merchants and latecomers from Huizhou. Before Gong Shiqi set off, he already had some special plans for this. However, he did not want to announce his plan in the form of an order. Instead, he planned to test Ji Yuanqing's attitude first to see if this partner could work with him. Keep your own pace.
Ji Yuanqing's idea was basically in line with Gong Shiqi's expectations. Taking advantage of the internal conflicts of the Yangzhou salt merchants was a direction that might be easier for them to achieve a breakthrough. Since the positions of these salt merchants are different, traditional methods such as fighting one faction may work.
But there is also a premise, that is, they must first investigate clearly which group of salt merchants are taking a radical confrontational attitude towards foreign salt, so that they can target what should be attacked and pull what should be pulled.
Of course, this is just a theoretical plan, and the actual operation will definitely not go as smoothly as expected. When Haihan built a salt farm in Ningbo, salt merchants from the north came to test their attitude, hoping to monopolize the output of the Ningbo salt farm, and the conditions they offered were pretty good. However, Haihan considered that the great situation he had managed to achieve in Ningbo Prefecture needed to be continued and expanded through salt industry operations, so he finally rejected the Jianghuai Salt Merchant's proposal. At most, he could only give them local sales agency rights, and in this way The answer was obviously impossible to satisfy the other party, so the negotiations between the two parties quickly fell through without reaching any actual agreement.
At that time, both salt merchant camps sent people to come to contact them, so in fact, in order to protect Ningbo's good situation, Haihan had already offended both salt merchants. Now if you plan to win over one faction and fight against the other, then Haihan may need to make certain concessions in the management of the salt industry. Otherwise, it will be difficult to find other ways to win over one faction.
At that time, Gong Shiqi and Ji Yuanqing did not dare to discuss whether the higher-ups' decision to reject the cooperation intention of Jianghuai Salt Merchants and choose to support local forces in Ningbo was correct, and whether there were other better ways. Now that something has happened, their duty is to solve the problem, not to hold the root cause of the conflict accountable.
Besides, based on the speed of Haihan's external expansion, they believe that the current approach is quite restrained. You must know that just two or three years ago, Haihan would directly send troops to Hangzhou City to blockade the Qiantang River and force Zhejiang to issue the ownership of Zhoushan Island. The government held its nose and signed the alliance under the city. If these nonsense things had happened at that time, I am afraid that General Shi Diwen would have led the East China Sea Fleet to attack Yangzhou.
However, since the current situation is no longer convenient to use military means to solve the problem, they can only settle for the next best thing and use other methods to achieve their goals. They may not be as quick and effective as simple and crude military methods, but they will try their best to achieve the predetermined goals.
Sure enough, Gong Shiqi quickly shared the information he had, had someone take out part of the files provided by Wanfa, and explained to Ji Yuanqing: "At that time, the Jianghuai salt merchants who came to Ningbo to contact the salt field, in fact, we all We have followed up and investigated, but we need to ask Brother Ji to help identify which camp they belong to. "
Gong Shiqi spoke politely, but Ji Yuanqing understood that this was the other party showing him the trump card in his hand step by step. At first, he pretended not to know anything and asked himself for advice, but in fact, the information the other party possessed may not be much worse than his own. Even the so-called help in identification now was probably just a formality, arranged to give him a step up. Down.
However, Ji Yuanqing's perspective on the problem will not be so limited. From another perspective, this may not be a bad thing. The more Gong Shiqi understands the industry situation, the less likely he is to make mistakes in his subsequent actions. Ji Yuanqing was originally a little worried that Gong Qi Qi was commanding this operation as an outsider, and might resort to stupid moves because he did not know enough about the local situation. But now it seems that he is a little worried. Gong Qi Qi seems to have He seems to be a straightforward person with no scheming, but in fact his work style is extremely meticulous and meticulous, and he is indeed a gold-medal thug under the Ministry of Security.
Ji Yuanqing didn't say much at the moment, and immediately began to look through the files provided by Gong Qiqi. Sure enough, the records in the file were actually quite detailed, and were complementary to the information I had. Gong Shiqi's rather bold action plan should also refer to various information previously collected by the Security Department. Although the content is not comprehensive, it is enough for Gong Shiqi to formulate an action plan.
"The Military Intelligence Agency should arrange for you to meet with me earlier, so that we can have more time to perfect the action plan and be more prepared." Gong Shiqi suddenly sighed: "We spend time with each other. Too much time for testing!”
Ji Yuanqing was slightly shocked, not expecting that the other party would talk about this issue so directly. In fact, he didn't have much knowledge, but he could understand why Gong Qi Qi was so careful to test himself repeatedly. If he were in Gong Qi Qi's position, he would probably take similar measures. This is to confirm the partner's thoughts and abilities. Otherwise, when it comes time to take action, how dare you easily hand over your back to your partner for cover.
"It doesn't matter, this is an inevitable process of building trust. At least we have been going smoothly so far without any conflicts of opinion." Ji Yuanqing smiled and said: "This is a good start, better than I expected."
Gong Shiqi also smiled. He did not ask Ji Yuanqing what the situation was originally expected to be. Since the other party could understand his approach, that was enough. It was extremely difficult and difficult to cultivate a tacit understanding so quickly between two people who had never interacted with each other before. Extremely lucky.
One day after setting off, the salt transport fleet entered the Yangtze River estuary and traveled upstream along the river bank. The location of Yangzhou City is still more than 500 miles away from the estuary. During this period, they can continue to further improve the action plan.
At this time, someone in Yangzhou City had already received a letter from Ningbo and learned the itinerary of Gong Shiqi's fleet.
"The people from Ningbo Prefecture are really haunted! They actually dare to come directly to their doorstep. Do you really think that I, the Yangzhou salt merchant, can be bullied?"
"Calculating the time, they have at least two or three days before they arrive in Yangzhou. It's just time to prepare and create a little surprise for them!" "That's right! If you don't give them a hard time, these people will never know how to restrain themselves!"
After reading the content of Fei Ge's letter, several salt merchants who were discussing together quickly made a decision to give this foreign salt merchant who didn't know the heights of the world some color.
However, if they want to take action in Yangzhou, even the salt merchants who are very knowledgeable will still have many scruples. After all, this is their own territory. If trouble occurs, not only will they feel bad, but the government will not sit idly by and ignore it. Therefore, in the previous operations, the salt merchants chose to take action in other places on the other side of the river to avoid directly implicating themselves as much as possible.
The first thing they have to do now is not to organize manpower to study when and where to take action, but to inform the people in the government and get official permission - at least acquiesce. Otherwise, there is a high probability that someone will be killed. If the government is not prepared in advance, it will be very passive, and even if it wants to help the local salt merchants, it will be troublesome.
Of course, this kind of greeting does not mean sending someone a message. It just says that I am going to do a big deal in a certain place on a certain day of a certain month. I hope that the people in the government can avoid it in advance. For such a big thing, the relevant people must be informed first. Everything needs to be done in place, from the magistrate to the head catcher in charge of public security and criminal investigation, and even the head of the local garrison must prepare a benefit. When calculated, these costs are actually much greater than the cost of the operation itself. However, compared with the impact of imported salt on the Yangzhou salt industry, this cost is insignificant. As long as the purpose can be achieved, even if it costs ten times or a hundred times, it will be a good deal for the salt merchants.
After Gong Shiqi's fleet sailed into the Yangtze River, it had actually completely separated from several escort warships operating in the open sea. These warships would definitely not sail directly into the Yangtze River section unless they had to, and their planned location for the retreat of Gong Shiqi and others was mainly the coastline of Yangzhou. However, Yangzhou Prefecture governs three states and seven counties over a large area. The distance from Yangzhou City to the seaside is three hundred miles. If Gong Shiqi and others retreat by land after the operation, the distance will be huge. test.
Therefore, although Gong Shiqi will make some advance arrangements for the land retreat route, such as arranging carriages and horses, etc., in fact, their first choice will still be the water route, and the land route is only the last escape route when there is no other choice. Theoretically, they could even sail across Yangzhou from west to east and reach the coastline directly by taking inland waterways instead of the main Yangtze River.
However, the waterways in Yangzhou are quite dense. Even though the Ministry of Security and the Military Intelligence Bureau have extremely accurate maps, there are still many areas where the distribution of waterways is blank. This is also because Haihan really does not have enough manpower to send to the Ming Dynasty to complete these precise surveying and mapping tasks. Most of the details on this map come from the large database of Sanya. The topography and the current environment hundreds of years later are actually The discrepancy was quite large, so while they were marching towards Yangzhou, they had to constantly modify and improve the map at hand.
"Even if we didn't complete our original mission this time, if we can further improve the waterway map in this area, it will still be a great achievement after we go back." Ji Yuanqing stood up and stretched his body with emotion. said. Of course this is just a joke, but revising the map is really a troublesome job. The two of them specially brought a table to the deck. They took turns observing the terrain, and then leaned on the table to revise the details of the original map. It took a long time It’s really exhausting both mentally and physically.
Gong Shiqi also stretched his somewhat stiff wrist, and then poured Ji Yuanqing a cup of tea: "Fortunately, we are just doing it casually. If we were to do this job full-time, I'm afraid I would have to file a report and request to be transferred back to the field in less than half a month. The action team went to do rough work.”
"No profession is easy!" Ji Yuanqing took the tea and sighed again. In fact, both he and Gong Shiqi had received special training in surveying and mapping. They were not completely unfamiliar with this time-consuming and laborious mapping work, but they just rarely had the opportunity to do it themselves. And the surveying and mapping they are doing now cannot be said to be very precise. They basically rely on naked eye observation and then correct the obvious errors on the map.
It took them two and a half days to complete the journey from Wusongkou to Yangzhou City. As for Yangzhou City, which is said to be one of the most prosperous cities in the Jianghuai region, almost all the information they have comes from written records. In other words, it was actually the first time for both of them to set foot in this city.
Yangzhou City is located in an important water transportation area. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is not far east of Yangzhou City. As early as the Tang and Song Dynasties, it has become the hub of the water and land transportation network in the Jianghuai region. Grain, salt, iron, etc. between the north and the south. The transportation of important materials must pass through Yangzhou, which has also made Yangzhou's industry and commerce extremely developed, and its economy has been prosperous for a long time.
Yangzhou City is divided into old and new cities. The old city was built in the late Yuan Dynasty. There are Haining Gate, Tongsi Gate, Anjiang Gate, Zhenhuai Gate in the east, west and south respectively. In addition, there is a small east gate in the east, a total of five gates. However, Yangzhou City in the Yuan Dynasty was small in area, and by the Ming Dynasty it could no longer keep up with the speed of local industrial and commercial development. The area between the east side of the old city and the Grand Canal gradually formed a prosperous commercial district. During the Jiajing period, Yangzhou finally built a new city in the area east of the old city, forming a parallel layout of the old and new cities.
The streets and lanes of the old city are straight and square, and they are mostly residential areas for gentry and the seat of government offices. However, the planning of the new city is not so particular. In the early days, almost all salt merchants enclosed land and built houses here, so those with more money enclosed the land. There are many, and those with less money have less land in the circle. The plots here and there are not particularly regular. But at the same time, the new city has more concentrated commercial institutions, so its prosperity is far better than that of the old city.
The destination of Gong Shiqi and his party was the new city where salt merchants lived. In his words, this is like not getting into the tiger's den to catch the tiger's cubs, directly entering the salt merchant's lair and seeing how the other party will react.
Two salt-carrying ships sailed north along the canal to Yangzhou New City. Both of them were amazed by the engineering miracle created by manpower. It is said that this section of the canal was dug by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty. There are many things worth seeing on both sides of the river along the way. Scenic spots.
(End of chapter)