July.

Chen Mu was a little apprehensive in his heart after inspecting the warships entering the port along the coast of the bay.

It is much easier for the small shark boat to enter the port, although the boat is as large, but it is not beyond the reach of manpower, as long as you exert some strength, put the mast down and push it onto the beach, and then do some careful protective measures to fix it.

The big ships will not work, Manila has mud docks left by the Spaniards, but the number is too small, and only the Red Sea and ironclad ships and some large shark ships can be put in it. More than half of the shark boats could not be docked, so they had to drop all four or five heavy iron anchors on their ships and stop on the shore near the cliffs.

Chen Mu was ready to lose the warship.

When the monsoon winds change, even the most seasoned helmsman can't tell where the waves will go. This has caused great difficulties for the fortune ships transporting their baggage from Nanyang Port to Manila, and two fortune ships have been involved in accidents at sea in just one month.

A ship barely landed on Luzon Island after three days of deviation, bypassing Chenlai Island, which was replenished with fresh water and resting, because it was stipulated that they could only get food from the expeditionary force's baggage if they were without food for more than three days, so the shipwright starved for two days.

Another lucky ship was not so lucky, after going out to sea, it was blown to the reef by the sea breeze at night, and the whole ship was beaten to pieces with a weight of 1,200 stones, and a dozen sailors rowed to Macao by small boats, and only six were left alive, enriching their charts.

At the same time, the sulfur trade led by Li Yuxi completed the first transaction on the island of Taiwan, and 17 ships of sulfur and silver were exchanged for 70,000 taels of silver, of which 40,000 taels were sent directly to Cao and sent to Beijing with the letter of the minister of Nanyang.

At the same time, Cao Yun also sold 160,000 taels of some of the war profits from Haojing, totaling 200,000. In fact, this was only one-tenth of the goods sold on the San Pablo, and the amount of goods was too large, although the Portuguese could eat it, they did not have enough silver taels to buy it.

However, Chen Mu is not a person who has to ask for silver, he sent someone to send a bill of goods to Haojing Huang Cheng, on which gold, silver, copper and iron, all kinds of wood, Western horses and precious utensils, and even Indian cotton and Vietnamese rice can be exchanged, nothing more than a very fair and just price.

Because he knew that the Portuguese did not have as much silver as the Spaniards, and if he insisted on buying it with silver, he was afraid that he would drive the Portuguese merchants to death.

It was also in this commercial activity that Chen Mu suddenly found himself inadvertently impacting the old customs on the southern coast of the Ming Dynasty, because the imperial court did not collect taxes because of the transactions he led.

The functions of the Nanyang Minister were not clear, and the southern officials believed that all matters related to the sea belonged to the Nanyang Minister, and some local officials even sent a letter to the local governor to ask him about his intentions, and Chen Mu always told Zhao Shizhen that these things made him feel bored.

But what Zhao Shizhen saw was that Chen Dashuai was always very happy to reply to local officials, especially in Guangdong.

In Chen Mu's letter to the cabinet, he recommended Li Tao, who was the prefect of Hengyang at the time, to be the governor of Luzon.

At the same time, in a letter to Yin Zhengmao, the governor of Liangguang, Chen Mu mentioned his plan for Guangdong, headed by the official Guangdong Metropolitan Division, recruited local businessmen to recruit people to open spinning factories, and introduced Suzhou weaving technology to purchase raw silk internally and cotton externally, so as to develop Xiangshan County into a large textile county.

In addition to textiles, Nanhai County, which has Foshan Town, the distribution center of Guangzhou Railway, is iron and steel, and Xinhui, including Nanyang Port, is a ship.

He Xingsheng was a great force, and seventeen merchant leaders were invited to Manila in July, and they used to do business in Manila, but they were not even guests at that time, but they are guests now.

"There are more than 170 local Han Chinese households in Manila, and 17,400 Luzon households, not this city, but from the castle to the surrounding spread to a far place, and many villages under its jurisdiction are counted together, and there are not many people in the whole Luzon, so it may be worthy of a Guangzhou mansion."

"But it's missing nothing." Chen Mu said to the merchants: "Doing business is to make money, I allow you to sell everything in Luzon, except for raw materials, for example, you can buy cotton cloth and cloth shoes from Guangzhou, and sell them here, but you can't come here to sell cotton." You can bring in silk, but you can't come here and sell raw silk. ”

"The tribes of Luzon would come to Manila in the spring and autumn to sell their wares, exchanging porcelain, ironware, cooking utensils, textiles, musical instruments, for wood, grain, gold, copper, and medicinal materials. That's the rule, after I go back, I discuss, whoever wants this cargo route, I need fifty Daifuku ships to run twice a year. ”

At present, the Luzon country is too small for the prosperity of the joint Fujian and Guangzhou merchants, and the acres and population of the entire Luzon Island have not yet been liquidated, but Chen Mu estimates that the population is only hundreds of thousands, no matter what the demand is, it is not big.

The profits that freight can bring to maritime merchants are naturally not as much as in the past. In the past, the Spaniards had a huge market, but Luzon itself did not, and the product side also needed to be continuously developed after the establishment of the Luzon capital, and the commercial potential was very low for the time being.

It can be said that in the past, Luzon was geographically important and served as a bridge between the Ming Dynasty and Spain, but now that this bridge has been destroyed, it has become of little value in itself.

"Chen Shuai, can we buy in Fujian, or use our own things to sell in Luzon?"

Chen Mu knew that the businessmen would bring this up, they knew better where the profits were, and it was obvious that simple freight could not make much money, he waved his hand and smiled: "I know, the war with Xiyi has ruined your business, but it doesn't matter, as compensation Chen can let you do business with Portuguese Yi in Haojing, but there is a premise." ”

His hand pressed on the tea case and said: "If you want to do business in Haojing, you need to have your own factory, textile or iron factory near Guangzhou Mansion, in the future, Guangzhou Mansion will become the cheapest raw material distribution place, Portugal will transport cotton there, and you will never lose money by opening a textile factory there, don't worry, the market will become bigger in a few years, and Chen will make each of you make money." ”

At this moment, a guard walked briskly from outside the hall, bowed his head and whispered a few words to Chen Mu, he got up and brought tea to the businessman in the hall and said: "You can have a good walk in Manila in the next few days, maybe this place will change its name in the future, but it will not hurt to know more, Chen Mu still has something to do, so he will not accompany him for the time being." ”

With that, he walked out of the castle hall quickly and asked Long Junxiong, who was standing outside, "Here is a white flag?" ”

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