One evening a few days after Messenger Yu Xing left, Ouyang Xuan had just come out of the simple laboratory and saw Xia Dagen and two people standing in his dormitory from a distance. The residences of Ouyang Xuan and other high-ranking members of the Perak Army have earthen walls and thatched roofs just like ordinary soldiers and civilians, with the same appearance. It's just that Ouyang Xuan likes to read and sometimes has to deal with official business, so his windows are opened wider, and the thatch on the roof should be thicker to prevent rain from getting the books and documents wet.
People often come to report official business at night or even in the middle of the night, so Ouyang Xuan is used to Xia Dagen bringing people to visit in the evening. He walked closer and looked at the visitor in the setting sun. Although these two people were wearing brocade clothes, their faces were dusty. Ouyang Xuan only felt vaguely familiar, but couldn't remember who these two people were for a moment. Just when he was confused, one of the two people spoke: "Brother Xuan, I'm from Liuqiu Company..." Ouyang Xuan slapped his head and suddenly remembered who it was.
Both of them were veterans of the caravan. They had followed Li Kaipeng to Lin'an in the first half of the year, and they were ordered to come back to report the situation at the moment. One of these people also accompanied Ouyang Xuan to break through the blockade of the Xiong Ben gang when the Perak Army was founded, and returned to Liuliba from the well, but Ouyang Xuan could not name him. Feeling ashamed, Ouyang Xuan hurriedly invited the two of them into the room to talk, and asked Xia Dagen to get some water. The Perak Army is still in its infancy, and housing is still very tight. Ordinary soldiers and civilians mostly live in a house with several people. But because he had to receive guests and handle official duties at any time, Ouyang Xuan had two houses, one for receiving visitors and the other as a study and bedroom. The Perak Army advocates equality but does not engage in egalitarianism.
It was learned from the two people that Liuqiu Company is currently developing well. It already has 600 people and more than 40 large and small ships, including eight large ships. In the early stage, Li Kaipeng asked someone to bring back a secret letter. Because he was afraid of leaking the secret, he was not very detailed in the letter. He only said that he had made extensive friends with courtiers, established a stronghold on small islands in the outer sea, and started doing business. Ouyang Xuan only said that they had established a firm foothold in Lin'an and their overseas development career had begun. After listening to the two people talking in detail, I realized that Liuqiu Company was developing extremely vigorously. By the way, Li Kaipeng is really a talent. Although the Perak Army provided him with a lot of starting capital, and those who went with him were also the elites of the Perak Army caravan and the elite of the army, he was able to develop a new business thousands of miles away. Career is not easy either.
At present, the headquarters of Liangqiu Company is still in Lin'an, but most of its personnel and assets are placed on Zhoushan Island, which Ouyang Xuan mentioned. Among the 600 people in the company, more than 40 people assist Li Kaipeng in liaising with senior officials and dignitaries - in other words, it is also called public relations. In addition to hanging out in the halls to get information, these people would wander around the homes of important ministers when they had nothing to do. They took the opportunity to get close to the staff, retainers, cooks, wet nurses and even bearers, and they also learned a lot of useful information. It was with the help of this information that Li Kaipeng successfully approached these dignitaries. It was with the support of the dignitaries that Ouyang Xuan successively obtained the official positions of Yongkang Zhijun and Chengdu pacification deputy envoy.
During this period, Li Kaipeng had a heated relationship with Jia Sidao's two retainers, Liao Yingzhong and Weng Yinglong. The two people's demands for food, drink and fun were met, and they became sworn brothers while drinking and drinking. Making friends with these two people was specially arranged by Ouyang Xuan. In the historical line he is familiar with, after Jia Sidao becomes a powerful minister, he will indulge in sensual dogs and horses, have sex day and night, taste fine wine every day, have sex with beautiful prostitutes, appreciate treasures, listen to singing and dancing, fight with crickets, big and small All political affairs were left to these two retainers. Even though urgent documents from Xiangyang later flew to Lin'an like snow, it could not change Jia Sidao's leisurely life as "Cricket Prime Minister" at all. He lived deep in the palace, and the officials of the imperial court would go to Jia's mansion every day with documents in hand to ask him to sign them. But he was obsessed with sexual pleasures, so where could he handle official affairs? Therefore, all matters in the court, no matter how big or small, were decided by Liao Yingzhong and Weng Yinglong, and all other important ministers were just decorations.
In his heart, Li Kaipeng really hated dealing with corrupt officials and traitors, but this was Brother Xuan's personal confession, so he could only force himself to smile. Before he went to Lin'an, Ouyang Xuan had a long conversation with him all night, not only talking about Daliuqiu, Xiaoliuqiu, and the Spice Islands, but also the massive gold and silver and endurance of the Bison Continent, Alpaca Continent, and Kangaroo Continent in the far west. Food plants with high drought yields also talked about overseas strategies related to the survival of the Perak Army, and even the success or failure of the anti-Mongolian cause. Ouyang Xuan told him that to achieve great things, there must be sacrifices. In this era of "bad money drives out good money", even if bribery and dealings with treacherous people are harmful to the integrity and reputation, as long as it is beneficial to the anti-Mongolian cause, we must grit our teeth and carry on.
In addition to lobbying in Lin'an Mansion, Li Kaipeng focused most of his energy on business. After all, although he brought a lot of money from Chongqing Mansion, if there was no income, it would be nothing, not to mention the money spent on smoothing relationships. The sales are huge, even if it costs hundreds of people to feed and clothe the company, it is really a lot of money. At that time, Liangqiu Company had obtained a business license from the Shishi Shipping Department, which was in charge of overseas trade, and went to Quanzhou to trade at Ouyang Xuan's request.
Quanzhou is currently the city with the most prosperous overseas trade, and the most profitable is the trade leading to Tianzhu, Persia, and Dashi. This route is monopolized by a Dashi merchant named Pu Shougeng, who has thousands of ships of various sizes. The trade route from Lin'an to Quanzhou is also extremely profitable, but it is also controlled by the Pu family. The Pu family was extremely wealthy and had great influence not only in Quanzhou, but also in the court. Liuqiu Company currently has no strength to compete with the Pu Shougeng family, so it has no choice but to let Jia Sidao and other dignitaries mediate to get a share of this trade line at the cost of one-third of the profits. Even so, the net profit of Liuqiu Company is also extremely considerable, which provides the basis for rapid expansion.
In addition to these two things, another thing Li Kaipeng did was to explore overseas. Since most of the people coming from Shu were businessmen and soldiers, there were not many people who were proficient in navigation, let alone those who were proficient in navigation. Therefore, the people currently engaged in navigation in Liuqiu Company are all new recruits. It's just that exploring overseas is different from sailing offshore. The requirements for ships and sailors are extremely high and difficult to recruit. Liuqiu Company could only recruit a few people locally, so it had to send people to the coasts of Huaidong and Shandong to recruit people with large sums of money and collect nautical charts. At present, dozens of sailors who are good at long-distance sailing have been recruited. These people come from various places, including not only Liao people, Jin people, Korean people, but also a few wandering Japanese sailors.
Ouyang Xuan named Li Kaipeng's team Liuqiu Company because he hoped to use Liuqiu as a base to develop overseas businesses. Ouyang Xuan told Li Kaipeng that Liuqiu is divided into big and small. The big island on the other side of Quanzhou is called Daliuqiu, and the islands to the north of Daliuqiu are called Xiaoliuqiu. The reason why these two islands were chosen is that they are isolated overseas and are beyond the reach of both the Mongols and the government. Big businessmen such as Pu Gengshou also think that they are wild places and have little interest in them. Only pirates who kill people and steal goods hide here. Ouyang Xuan knew that these two islands were actually treasure islands. In particular, Daliuqiu not only had a large amount of wood that could be used for shipbuilding, but also had a large area of fertile land that could be cultivated, as well as an excellent natural port. More importantly, this will become the outpost for the Perak Army to expand overseas, and will also be the most important base for the Perak Army Navy.
