Nature's routine is rarely changed by human killings, attacks, and conspiracies.
In the spring of the second year of Taichang, the Liaohai Sea began to freeze as usual.
Xu San, the chief shopkeeper of the Liaodong and North China areas of Haoming Trading Company, personally escorted a whole shipload of fur goods, deer antlers, and mountain treasures from his father-in-law Mao Wenlong's leather island, and headed south along the coastline to the private port near Shanhaiguan.
Relying on the network of relationships that Zheng Haizhu had laid out for him, Xu San successfully connected with the brother-in-law of Jizhen's commander-in-chief, Jun Song, and completed a mutually win-win smuggling transaction.
This means that Zheng Haizhu and Mao Wenlong each received several thousand taels of silver, and the Juniper family earned even more after reselling it to the caravan from the south.
After the payment was settled, Xu San did not socialize with the Du family anymore, but returned to the southwest corner of Shanhai Town.
There is a small inn there funded by a trading company.
Such inns, which serve as information exchange and personnel contact points, are located in Yanzhou and Tianjin Chaoguan along the canal, in Xuanfu in Xuanda Town and Fushun in Liaodong Town, in Songjiang Port, Dengzhou Port and Dongjiang Pi Island near North Korea.
, also.
At the beginning of last year, after Mrs. Zheng took Xu San through Shanhaiguan Pass, she returned to the capital and asked the accountant Shi Yuelan to approve a budget for him and build an intelligence network in Shanhai Town.
Today, Xu San was resting at his inn until midnight when the person who was supposed to come came through the door.
"Brother Xu, this is the list of Shanxi merchants who have come and gone from Shanhai Town Customs since August last year according to my wife's instructions."
Cheng Xin presented a letter bag in the dark and secret inner room.
Xu San took it and opened it to read the instructions, feeling quite satisfied.
In fact, my wife had only dealt with this adopted son-in-law who looked like Pan An twice, in Dengzhou and Shanhaiguan, and she determined that he was suitable based on the details of the transaction.
At present, it seems that this guy is really nimble with his hands and feet, and his intelligence is also detailed.
Just like an account book, each Shanxi merchant clearly remembers how much grain and cloth he brought when leaving customs, where he declared the place where he went to trade in Liaodong, whether he went through Shanhaiguan when he came back, and if so, how long it took him to leave customs.
When Zheng Haizhu originally asked for these data, Xu San thought about it for a while and understood.
In the drama about Emperor Jianwen's descendants colluding with the Jurchen Tatars, the Fan family, a Shanxi merchant who had already had an affair with Huang Taiji, was brought out. As long as there are Shanxi merchants in Shanxi who are collaborators with the enemy, they must be more careful and stop being careless.
Walking eastward through the Zhangbei Grassland, we passed through the Mongolian Horqin tribe, which Nurhachi had already married, and transferred blood and food products to the Tatars.
These Shanxi merchants may choose another "dark under the lamp" path. They may simply abandon Zhangjiakou and enter Liaoning through Shanhaiguan on the grounds of fear of plunder by the Tatars and small Mongolian tribes. They will go to Shenyang, Liaoyang, Fushun and other places.
Buy and sell.
Zheng Haizhu was very satisfied with Xu San's understanding.
"Xu San, of course not all Shanxi merchants are traitors. For example, Mr. Chang is not, and there is no need to be. Therefore, you cannot kill a large number of people by mistake just for those three or four pieces of rat shit. Zaohua said, these two Tatars
In 2000, the harvests from the fields were getting worse and worse, and there was famine in winter and spring. The banner owners certainly couldn't just kill the Han people to vent their anger. In addition to robbing them when they could, most of them had to get food from our country's traitorous merchants.
After collecting clues from several intelligence points along the main transportation routes, we will definitely be able to identify other traitors in Zhangjiakou."
At this point, Xu San finally understood the reason why Mrs. Zheng quickly recruited Cheng Xin to her staff.
In Cheng Xin's eyes, Xu San is his future.
The young man who had bowed to me at Dengzhou Port and called him "General Master" every time, because he followed Mrs. Zheng, four or five years later, he has become the head of the northern area who overtly and covertly supervises various important affairs.
Supervisor Cheng, who has regained his fighting spirit for his own life, has taken great initiative in running errands. Naturally, in addition to the tasks assigned by the leader, he also has to put his efforts into full play and provide more information that will be of interest to his wife.
He then reported to Xu San in a low voice: "General Du did not treat those Sichuan soldiers harshly. He gave them all their winter clothes last year. In March, they also dealt with a fight. A batch of Sichuan soldiers' horses were ordered."
Zaizi, a thousand local soldiers from Jizhou are going to capture it, saying that the mares of the Sichuan Army eat grass from Ji Town, and the foals raised in Ji Town should belong to the Jizhou soldiers."
Xu San stared: "What nonsense!"
Cheng Xindao: "It's really bullshit. These Jizhou soldiers always thought they were bullying Qi's army and Zhejiang soldiers in the past. Unexpectedly, after the soldiers on both sides fought, the tooth general sent by Du Song to deal with it directly beat Jizhou who was leading the trouble.
Ten men were given military sticks, and they were fined for half a year. They informed the two armies that the Sichuan army was going to go out of the fortress to garrison the rebuilt town of Daning. There were often field battles outside the fortress. The more horses there were, the greater the chance of victory. If the Jizhou army bullied the Sichuan army, it would be a threat to them.
Dig your own hole."
Xu San nodded.
The old land of Daning will soon welcome Ma Xianglin. Du Song means that he is actually ready to return the Sichuan army to the old owner.
Juniper may not really have a broad vision and treat friendly forces well, but he still understands the rules of the world.
Madam had shown sufficient etiquette before and sent Zhenglan Banner's head as a gift. Now she shared the benefits with him through the sea traders, so he put the arrogance of the Beiguan warlord back in check.
Xu San heard Cheng Xin talk about the close relationships between the various civilian officials and generals in the area. He wrote them down one by one, and then gave Cheng Xin a salary equal to that of an intelligence officer and asked him to go back.
An intelligence officer under Xu Sanling took the letter written in code and sent it to the capital Zheng Haizhu.
He himself loaded the goods from Nanjing sent to Shanhaiguan by the capital branch, and left a commission based on the valuation of the goods. After giving them to Jun Song's brother-in-law and the officials of the Xunhai Road respectively, he took the maritime order flag, which was like a pass.
, set sail and leave the port, go south around Lushun Port, then turn back and head north to Pidao Port.
In this time and space, because Mao Wenlong relied on Fushun's military exploits, and with the advice of Zheng Haizhu and the support of Zhang Chengyin, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, he passed through Dongjiang Town in advance. Therefore, Xuanchuan, Yizhou, Tieshan and other places in North Korea were also advanced earlier than in history.
Within ten years, it became Mao Wenlong's logistics base.
The Han people are good at business and farming, and the Ming Dynasty was the suzerainty of North Korea. Soon, the land north of Pi Island that originally belonged to North Korea was crowded with Han people from Liaodong Town, either to open up wasteland for farming, or to use it as goods for Liaodong, North Korea and Japan.
The middlemen who produced food for the garrison in Dongjiang Town also contributed part of the commercial tax.
Gradually, Dongjiang became more and more famous. Yizhou, which was controlled by Mao Wenlong, had the best geographical location, right on the Yalu River, and began to become a large trading wharf that was not inferior to Fushun, with merchants from all over the world gathering.
Situations that often occurred in later international ports were also not uncommon in Uiju.
The Koreans and the Japanese who came across the sea sat across from each other on the floor and made contracts for Korean ginseng, medicinal materials, silverware and other goods.
Han people and Jurchens stood side by side, inspecting furs, cottons, silks, tea and other goods.
The merchants will not forget the war when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea more than ten years ago, and the merchants are even more aware of the current open hostility between Jianzhou Jurchen and the Ming Dynasty.
But the exchange of goods and the prosperity of mutual markets are a set of human logic that goes hand in hand with war.
These ordinary individuals by the Yalu River, at this moment, are more concerned about whether the other party has the goods needed by their own tribe or family.
Xu San waited for Zheng Zhilong's ship at Pido Port, got the most important things, and then disguised himself as a North Korean caravan with his cronies and headed north to Yiju.
They will stay by the Yalu River until Mu Zaohua appears.