Yang Fan was a little confused. Was this a robbery or robbery?
It doesn't look like much, with a dozen brothers armed with seven or eight spears facing off against more than 400 people on his side, including 300 regiments equipped with firearms.
Is this a bunch of jokers?
A small boat lay across the front, and the people on the boat shouted, "Stop the boat, stop the boat."
The fleet stopped.
Soon dozens more boats sailed out of the surrounding reed swamps, and the people on the boats were wearing red headscarves. He held various weapons in his hands.
Soon a relatively good awning boat came over.
Three lean men stood at the bow of the boat, looking like leaders.
Yang Fan looked at these funny comparisons with interest.
After a while, if he gave an order, they would all go down to the river to feed the fish under the bombardment of more than 300 firecrackers.
At this time, the door was pushed open, and Xiao Niangpi walked in and said to Yang Fan: "You can't hit him, you must not hit him."
"Why, are you still worried that I can't handle these few thieves?" Yang Fan said with a smile.
"You know what the heck, these people are organized, and the water transportation of the entire Ji Canal and Haihe River depends on them. If you offend them, you will never want to use this waterway in the future."
"Well, how could it be like this? Soldiers are afraid of thieves. How can there be such a reason in the world? I will make them lose their shit with one salvo. From now on, I will send a small team to each of my ships to watch. I will see who dares Make trouble for me." Yang Fan disagreed.
"Are you stupid? Your head is full of mushy water. Now you are sailing down the river. Of course you don't need them. When you go upstream from Beitangkou back to Zunhua, how will you go? No one will stretch your hair for you. How do I return the rented boat to the boat company? How much does it cost for a day’s rental?”
"Isn't there a sail?" Yang Fan said confused.
"Sail, you pig head, you think it's in the sea. You can go in a zigzag pattern and rotate the sail to take advantage of the east, west, northwest wind. This is a river. If you go against the current, don't ask for someone to pull the tow. You can row back by yourself."
Yang Fan was dumbfounded.
"What should I do?"
"Wait, the ship boss will come to you in a while, please pay. This place is called Jianjia Pass, and it is a tax-collecting area agreed upon before the bank pass."
Only then did Yang Fan understand that even though these fiber pullers were like ants at the lowest level, they could still treat you submissively.
It seems that this is the case not only here, but also in the last section of the Haihe River and the Grand Canal.
The terrain is the same. In Beijing, mountains come out to the northwest and water flows to the southeast. The terrain is higher than Tianjin. After the Grand Canal reaches Tianjin, it is impossible to go up the last two hundred miles without stretching.
When you go down the river, people come to collect some money. If you don't pay, then you have broken the rules. You will not be able to hire a tracker on the way back, and there will be no one to pull the fiber for you.
When the time comes when you give in and find someone to make peace with, it won’t be at this price.
After a while, the boss of the ship came out and went to negotiate with the three leaders over there.
After a while, the ship boss came back and came to see Yang Fan.
"Dr. Yang, according to the rules of the Ji Canal, when you arrive at Jianjia Pass, you will be taxed on a per-boat basis. The money will be used to subsidize the livelihood of the trackers during the winter. Master Ba over there said that since it is the first time to sail, just fifty taels. You see , don’t make this matter difficult for the little ones.”
Yang Fan turned his head to look at Xiao Niangpi. Seeing her nodding, he knew that this number was within a reasonable range, and no lion opened his mouth to think that he was a Kaizi.
"Mingyan, give Captain Chen fifty taels of silver." Yang Fan turned around and said to Mingyan.
"Mr. Yang, you are such an open-minded person. I will take care of this matter. There will be absolutely no trouble on the return trip." The boss of the ship was also very happy. It would be best if this matter could be resolved peacefully. These proprietors are also not short of dozens of taels.
After a while, the surrounding boats withdrew, and the fleet began to continue sailing down the river to the west.
After reaching Jixian County, the river turns a corner and runs straight southeast across the boundary of Tianjin and enters the sea at Beitangkou.
Chao Guan had a very easy time. Yang Fan just showed his Jin Yiwei waist badge and stuffed a hundred taels of silver notes to the official in charge. Even the tax was exempted. He passed right through, and no one came up to search the goods without opening his eyes.
There are iron cables blocking the river at Chaoguan, and squatting tiger cannons lined up on the shore. A large number of soldiers inspect the ships passing by. The atmosphere was tense.
Sakurai Momo and others were very nervous when they saw the trackers encircling the boat. The retainers all took out their weapons, but Sakurai Momo stopped them. She believed that Yang Jun would protect her.
Sure enough, it was a false alarm, and those people were let go smoothly.
Now that they have arrived at Chaoguan, the nervousness of the group is in their throats. The Ming Dynasty strictly prohibited the export of firearms. If this ship's gun was discovered, it would be a shocking case.
Sakurai Tao's palms were covered in cold sweat, and she bowed deeply in the direction of Yang Fan. I said in my heart, Yang Jun, please do everything.
As a result, there was another near miss. Seeing Yang Jun showing a waist card, the people at the checkpoint immediately became respectful and let him go without even checking.
It wasn't until the ship had sailed far beyond the bank that several people looked at each other in ecstasy. This batch of weapons can finally be shipped back to Nagasaki.
Thanks to brother Xu Guangqi, he worked hard and directly found the largest and most powerful arms dealer in the north of the Ming Dynasty.
Sakurai Tao thought to herself, Yang Jun was also a great person in the Ming Dynasty.
In Yang Fan's view, the Ming Dynasty is almost in a state of ruin.
What I just saw in Chaoguan is that as long as you are an official and have a good reputation, you can get tax exemption.
Many businessmen are willing to pay money to go with the official's ship when they encounter it. In this way, if the official's ship leads the group, and the following ships carry the official's flag, they can be tax-free.
Yang Fan didn't care about the hundred and ten taels of silver. The key was that he realized a problem. It would take a day to go down the waterway of more than 200 miles. If he had to use people to pull fiber, when would he be able to return to Zunhua.
Trackers must walk slower than walking.
The canal will definitely be frozen in winter and will not be usable for at least three months. Now that the climate has been cold these years, it might not be possible to freeze for half a year.
But if you think about it more deeply, Tianjin is not a good port. The injection of many freshwater rivers has reduced the salinity of the seawater. It freezes in winter and the port cannot be used.
Apart from Lushun, only Qinhuangdao in the Bohai Sea has a year-round ice-free port. However, it is now the Little Ice Age, and we don’t know whether Qinhuangdao will freeze or not.
In the absence of steam engines, could it be possible to build a horse-drawn railway so that transportation could be done all year round?
After all, the resistance of steel wheels running on rails is very low, only a few ten thousandths. Horses can pull the train.
The old rails and sleepers can be used directly, and the wheels and chassis can be modified with mine carts. Horses can be imported from some British Shire horses.
Calculated this way, it seems that there is no technical difficulty. It seems that building a railway in Daming is not impossible.
If this railway connects Beijing - Tongzhou - Sanhe County - Jizhou County - Zunhua - Qianxi County - Qian'an County - Lulong County - Funing County - Luanzhou County - -Qinhuangdao--Shanhaiguan. The whole journey is about three hundred kilometers.
There is a big head start. A round-the-clock transportation method throughout the year is sure to be profitable.
There are a lot of coal and iron resources along this railway, and the capital sends a lot of grain, grass and materials to Shanhaiguan every year. It seems that Qinhuangdao is still not frozen.
While Yang Fan was thinking about this railway, Beitangkou had already arrived.
Unlike Dagukou not far away, this place had a camp for Japanese soldiers since the Jiajing Dynasty. Used to control sea access to Beijing.
Beitangkou is a civilian wharf. At this time, the sails on the pier outside Beitangkou were like a forest, and countless large and small fortune ships were moored on the trestle.
Sakurai Momo and his party hired a lucky ship from the Ming Dynasty to transport this batch of arms back to Japan.
Because the Tokugawa Shogunate issued an order strictly prohibiting the construction of sea-going ships exceeding 500 tons (gross weight 49 tons). Therefore, the Japanese-built sea-going ships were too small and lacked carrying capacity.
Boxes of supplies were carried onto the ship, and finally three thousand bars of soap and one thousand bars of beautifully packaged soap were loaded onto the ship. This is for Sakurai Tao. Yang Fan hopes that these trial products can open up the Japanese market.
Sakurai Momo spoke to Yang Fan reluctantly, "Tao is very grateful to Yang Jun for his help to the cult. I have to say goodbye today. I don't know when I will see Yang Jun again. I made this Temari with my own hands and gave it to Yang Jun." As a souvenir, please accept it.”
"Okay, it's really beautiful. I'll accept it. Maybe in a few years, when I build a clipper boat that can travel between Tianjin and Nagasaki in ten days, I will go to Nagasaki to visit my wife."
"Wow, it's a ten-day round trip. It's really exciting. Tao will be waiting for that day in Nagasaki."
"Take care, madam, and have a safe trip," Yang Fan bowed and said.
Watching the huge blessing ship sail away from a distance. Yang Fan felt a little disappointed.
"Humph, everyone has gone far away," a girly voice came from behind.
