"Okay, I'll give you 20,000 at a time today." Yang Congyi said and pushed the silver ticket on the table.

Before Master Fei got the money in his hand, Yang Congyi said again: "But I still have requirements." ”

"If you have any requirements, just mention them, as long as you can do them, you will never refuse."

"Recruit more craftsmen, expand shipyards, and speed up shipbuilding progress."

"The construction of 60 ships in October is already very fast, and it is not impossible to speed it up, but it is necessary to expand the site and increase the manpower, which will cost a lot of money."

"I'll pay for the expansion of the shipyard, but you need to recruit at least five hundred more craftsmen, and ten warships will be built by August 15, and the four thousand ships will be built by the end of September. Can it be done? ”

"No problem, as long as the money is in place. There is a lot of open space next to the shipyard, and it doesn't take much time to expand a little, but it costs money. ”

"How much does it cost?"

"What's the matter, it's seven or eight hundred."

"Don't say a thousand, I'll give you two thousand, and you can expand as much as you can. I want you to build a batch of about 2,000 ships, the price is the same as the previous one, 1,000 per ship, it can be a new ship, or an old ship that has been in the water for less than three years, but the old ship must be guaranteed to be as safe as the new ship, and the old ship must be re-oiled. ”

"No problem, how many?" When Mr. Fei heard this, he placed an order again, and agreed very simply.

"At least fifty ship-bottoms, about 2,000 materials, not too small, should be built before the tenth day of October. Can it be done? ”

Master Fei thought for a while, and replied: "Fifty is too much, in the area of Quanzhou, there are not many sea ships built in recent years, no more than forty, and those who are willing to sell will not exceed ten, expand the shipyard and build new ships, and at most about twenty more ships can be built in four months, so that my shipyard can take over the construction of more than thirty sea ships at most." ”

"Okay, since I can take it, then I will also hand over the order for the construction of these thirty two-thousand-material ships to you. The money was paid 15,000 yuan first, and when I came to receive the warship during the Mid-Autumn Festival, I paid another 10,000 yuan. What do you think? ”

"Thank you for your trust in my shipyard and for ensuring that the shipbuilding work is completed." Mr. Fei smiled happily.

Yang Congyi handed over another 7,500 taels of silver tickets to Lord Fei.

Subsequently, the two continued to discuss the shipbuilding matters in detail, and signed the shipbuilding contract, signed and sealed.

There are still 20 sea ships that have not landed, so we can only go to the port of Guangzhou to have a look, where there should be many sea ships.

The matter of Quanzhou Shipyard was negotiated, and Yang Congyi decided to go to Guangzhou, but before going to Guangzhou, he went to the city and visited Lord Yan again. At the beginning of the year, I asked Lord Yan to help recruit some helmsmen and sailors, and this time I came over, so I naturally wanted to see the results.

Coming out of the city, the expression on Yang Congyi's face was quite relaxed, there are more than 100 helmsmen and sailors who have been registered, and when the fleet is really formed, there will be more people who will come to apply, and it should not be a problem to recruit 100 helmsmen.

As for the merchants or helmsmen and sailors of the Great Song Dynasty who were familiar with the way to the Great Drinking Water, there was not a single one, and there were some who had been to the Srivijaya Kingdom and the Champa City, and no one had ever been to the west. Although some of the great food merchants crossed the ocean and are still in the Great Song Dynasty, they all traveled along the edge of the land in small boats, and the sea routes they took were almost impossible for the Great Song Dynasty sea boats to walk.

There is no one in Quanzhou, and I don't know if there is one in Guangzhou.

Two days later, Yang Congyi left Quanzhou and rushed to Guangzhou.

Before leaving Quanzhou, he wrote a letter to Tang Xun, in which he told him the progress of the construction of sea ships, and that there are now 30 sea ships available.

Half a month later, Yang Congyi successfully arrived in Guangzhou.

Starting from Quanzhou, the more desolate it is to the south, the towns passing through are very small, the population size of a county town is not as good as that of Jiangnan, and even the small town of Huaixi is not comparable, and when it arrives in Guangzhou, it is slightly better, there are more people in the city, and the market is also lively.

Riding through the streets, you can see foreigners in the market from time to time, according to the dress and skin color, you can basically see that there are from the Nanyang countries, Tianzhu area, Dashi area, Guangzhou city is obviously more foreign than Quanzhou.

Yang Congyi first went to the City Department and explained that the person in charge of the City Department was a very old official, and he couldn't even hear the words clearly, so Yang Congyi had to raise his voice again and again. After a lot of tossing, I learned about some of the return to Guangzhou Port.

Since the Tang Dynasty, Guangzhou Port is a large southern port with a lot of foreign merchants, and the Nanyang countries must go ashore in Guangzhou Port to pay tribute, and then enter Beijing by land, at that time, the foreign merchants who came to Guangzhou were managed by eunuchs sent by the imperial court, which is different from now. After hundreds of years of development, there are more foreign businessmen who come to Guangzhou now, and there are more than 1,000 people every year, but due to the long distance and unsafe sea routes, the basic boats that come to do trade are small boats that are convenient to operate, and the largest ships are not more than 1,000 materials, and the goods brought are limited, and the goods transported away are also very limited, and the annual foreign business turnover does not exceed 5 million yuan.

Originally, I wanted to ask the city department to help recruit a few Great Song merchants or helmsmen who had been to Dashi and other places, but the ears of the elderly officials were not good, and it was very inconvenient to communicate, so I had to give up, and when the shipbuilding was decided, I would recruit myself when I had time.

Bidding farewell to the officials of the city's shipping department, Yang Congyi urged Ma to find a shipyard. There are many shipyards in Guangzhou, five or six large and small, but there are really not many who can build sharp-bottomed sea ships, and they ran around looking for a whole day, but only found one.

After finding the official in charge of the shipyard's affairs, revealing his identity, and expressing his intentions, Yang Cong was not verbose, and directly told the other party the request for 30 2,000-material sharp-bottom sea ships in three months, and asked if their shipyard could be built in three months.

The official directly replied no, they built a lot of ships, but there are not many pointed bottom sea ships, only a few a year, used to make the South China Sea trade. Now they need thirty ships in three months, and they can't build them in three years.

Seeing that the other party had no desire to build a ship, Yang Congyi directly told him that a 2,000-material pointed bottom sea ship would be acquired for 1,000 yuan, even if it was an old ship, as long as it was launched for no more than three years, it would be purchased for 1,000 yuan.

Sure enough, under the temptation of generous money, the other party became interested in building sea ships, and began to loosen his mouth, and there was no problem in getting ten ships together in three months, and it would be difficult to do more, they rarely built pointed bottom sea ships, and there were not many craftsmen, and they could build up to five or six ships in three months, and then buy a few old ships, adding up to ten.

Yang Congyi was also quite helpless, such a large Guangzhou Port, there would be so few sea ships built. The two sides immediately negotiated the details of the shipbuilding, signed a contract, paid 6,000 yuan first, and waited for the 10 ships to be delivered to Quanzhou Port before the end of September, and then paid the remaining 4,000 yuan.

After talking about shipbuilding, Yang Congyi played a recruitment banner of 20 yuan per month and a high-paying helmsman in the downtown area, and there was only one requirement, to go to Tianzhu or Dashi.

Such a high remuneration immediately attracted many onlookers.

Not long after, someone came to sign up, saying that he had been to Tianzhu. When Yang Congyi asked him how to discern the direction at sea, the man replied that there was no need to discern the direction at all, and as long as he could see the land along the coast, he would not lose his way at all.

As soon as he heard this, Yang Congyi knew that this was not the person he was looking for, this kind of person who drove a small sampan to the South Seas alone was useless to the huge fleet.

Later, many people came to sign up, and after a little chat, he found that they were not the people he was looking for. What he is looking for is actually the leader of the fleet, there are many people who have been to Nanyang, but there are really not many people from the Great Song Dynasty who can go to Tianzhu and other places, let alone lead the fleet, it is even rarer.

After staying in Guangzhou for a total of three days, including recruiting in the downtown for two days, but never found the person he was looking for, Yang Congyi could only give up, preparing to leave Guangzhou early tomorrow morning, return to Quanzhou, first establish a Huiyi Supervision Office in Quanzhou, and recruit the recruited manpower together.

The weather in Guangzhou is different from Lin'an and Quanzhou, it rains for three days, the sky is sunny after the rain, and then it rains the next day, and the sun comes out again after the fall, and the climate is humid and hot. After only three days of coming, Yang Congyi's body was hot and itchy. That's why he can't choose to leave.

In the room of the inn, Yang Congyi stripped off his shirt, still sweating like rain, wiped his body with a wet towel, it still didn't work, and the water in the wooden basin became hot after being used a few times, and he needed to change another basin of well water.

He couldn't put on clothes in the heat now, and it was not easy to go out naked, so he had to call his men to help change the water.

The merchants from the north were not used to the normal weather in the south, so the man just glanced at the shirtless travelers in the room and took the basin away.

After a while, the man walked into the room with a wooden basin, put the wooden basin full of well water, and said with a smile: "Guest officer, your water has been changed." ”

Yang Congyi approached the basin and thanked, "Thank you, little brother." Without waiting for the guy to leave, he quickly soaked the towel and wiped it on his face.

"Guest officer, you have a rash on your body, it's best not to use cold water to cool down, otherwise it will get worse and worse." The guy walked a few steps and suddenly turned back.

"Oh, how should that be?" Yang Congyi was slightly startled, and turned around to look while wiping his body with a wet towel.

"The guest officer is not used to the weather here, and the moisture in his body is a little heavy, and he can't let it out. Eat more spicy food, sweat, and get the moisture out. The guy replied with a smile.

Yang Congyi put down the towel, looked at the guy and said, "How do you understand these things?" ”

The man replied: "The old master taught, in the past, we went to sea to the South Seas, the ship was much hotter than the ground, wet and hot, even we couldn't stand it in the past, the rash on the back was bigger than the guest officer's body, fortunately at that time the ship brought a lot of garlic, so raw to eat, sweat every day, after a few days." ”