Yang Fan was a little confused, was this a fight or robbery?
It doesn't look like 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 of small boats sailed out of the surrounding reed swamps. The people on the boats were wearing red headscarves and holding various weapons in their 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 great interest.
After a while, if I gave the order, more than 300 firecrackers were bombarded, and they all had to go down to the river to feed the fish.
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 again."
"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 all muddy. Now you are traveling downstream. 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 to 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 are a pig. You think you are in the sea. You can move in a zigzag pattern and rotate the sail to take advantage of the east, west, northwest wind. This is a river. Don't ask for someone to pull the thread against the current. You can row back by yourself."
Yang Fan was dumbfounded.
"What should I do?"
"Wait, the captain of the ship 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 just ants at the lowest level, they could still treat you and make you docile.
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 the capital city, 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 Grand Canal without pulling the fiber for the last two hundred miles.
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 captain of the ship came out and went to negotiate with the three leaders over there.
After a while, the boss of the ship 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 per boat. 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. When he saw her nodding, he knew that this number was within a reasonable range, and there was no such thing as a lion talking about it, thinking 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 and 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. The proprietors are also not short of dozens of taels.
After a while, the surrounding small boats withdrew, and the fleet began to continue sailing down the river to the west.
After reaching Jixian County, the river turns around and runs straight to the southeast, crossing the boundary of Tianjin and entering the sea at Beitangkou.
Passing through the checkpoint was very easy. Yang Fan just showed his Jin Yiwei badge and handed a hundred taels of silver notes to the official in charge. Even the tax was waived. He passed directly without anyone coming up to search the goods.
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 is tense.
Sakurai Momo and her party 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 prohibits the export of firearms. If this shipload of guns is discovered, it will be a shocking case.
Sakurai Tao's palms were covered in cold sweat, and she bowed deeply in the direction of Yang Fan. She said in her heart, "Yang Jun, please do everything."
As a result, there was another near miss. When they saw 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 checkpoint that several people looked at each other in ecstasy and realized that this batch of weapons could finally be transported back to Nagasaki.
Thanks to brother Xu Guangqi, who worked hard and directly found the largest and most powerful arms dealer in the north of the Ming Dynasty.
Sakurai Momo thought to herself, Yang Jun was also a great person in the Ming Dynasty.
In Yang Fan's opinion, the Ming Dynasty is almost in a state of ruin.
I just saw at Chaoguan that as long as you are an official and have a good reputation, you can get tax exemption.
When many businessmen come across a ship owned by an official, they are willing to pay to go with it. In this way, if the ship headed by an official is followed by a group of ships that fly the flag of this official, they will be exempted from tax.
Yang Fan didn't care about the hundred and ten taels of silver. The key thing was that he realized a problem. It would take a day to go down the river for more than 200 miles. If he had to use people to draw fibers, 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.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Apart from Lushun, only Qinhuangdao in the Bohai Sea has a year-round ice-free port. But now is the Little Ice Age, and I don’t know whether Qinhuangdao will freeze or not.
In the absence of steam engines, is it possible to build a horse-drawn railway so that transportation can be carried out all year round?
After all, the resistance of steel wheels running on the rails is very low, only a few ten thousandths. Horses can pull a small train.
The scrap rails and sleepers can be directly used, and the wheels and chassis can be modified with mine carts. For horses, some British Shire horses can be imported.
Calculated in this way, it seems that there is no technical difficulty. It does not seem impossible to build a railway in Daming.
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 300 kilometers.
There is a big head start. The round-the-clock transportation method all year round will definitely 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. Qinhuangdao seems to be an ice-free port.
While Yang Fan was thinking about this railway, Beitangkou had already arrived.
Unlike Dagukou not far away, a large camp for Japanese soldiers was set up since the Jiajing Dynasty to control the sea passage to Beijing.
Beitangkou is a civilian wharf. At this time, the sails on the wharf outside Beitangkou are like a forest, and countless large and small fortune ships are moored on the pier.
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 with a weight of more than 500 tons (gross weight 49 tons). Therefore, the sea-going ships built in Japan were too small and lacked the load capacity.
Boxes of supplies were carried to the ship, and finally three thousand pieces of soap and one thousand pieces of beautifully packaged soap were loaded. This was for Sakurai Momo. Yang Fan hoped that these trial products could open up the Japanese market.
Sakurai Momo reluctantly talked to Yang Fan, "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 myself 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, a ten-day round trip is really exciting. Tao will be waiting for that day in Nagasaki."
"Take care, madam, and have a safe trip," Yang Fan bowed and said.
Looking at the huge blessing ship sailing away from a distance, Yang Fan felt a little lost.
"Humph, everyone has gone far away," a girly voice came from behind.
