Two days later, Erli came to Yingkou alone and met with Wang Zuobai alone. After seeing Wang Zuobai, Erli said to him with a little apology: "Da Belle and I, Amma, have sent me news, and the remaining soybeans may not be able to be delivered.

As for the 120,000 taels of goods we ordered, after deducting the payment of 30,000 taels, we still owe 90,000 taels. I brought 60,000 taels of cash this time, and as for the remaining 30,000 taels of payment, it is better to offset the account with next year's leather goods and ginseng, what do you think? ”

Wang Zuobai looked at the young man in front of him, thought for a while, and then said with a smile: "Then Beizi should always tell me first the reason why the remaining soybeans cannot be delivered." After all, the villain is just a shopkeeper of a commercial house, and such a big deal has been ruined, and he will always have to give an explanation to the shareholders of the commercial bank after he goes back. ”

Elley just rolled his eyes, and said unguardedly, "Well, there's nothing that can't be said about this. The remaining 150,000 stone of soybeans were withheld, so they could no longer be delivered. ”

Wang Zuobai suddenly said with some surprise: "On the ground in Liaodong, there are still people who dare to detain the goods of the two Baylors, Beizi is not joking with villains, right?" ”

Erli was obviously very unhappy about this matter, so he complained unabashedly: "It's nothing more than someone who watched our two families make some money, and they were dissatisfied and made a fuss in front of the Great Khan.

The Great Khan was bewitched by these villains, saying that this year, the Jin Kingdom of Houjin defeated the Mongol tribes one after another, and gathered too many Mongol dependent tribes, so there was a shortage of food. They agreed to detain these soybeans and not sell them to you again. But then again, when those Mongols were willing to eat bean rice was purely an excuse. ”

Wang Zuobai suddenly asked with some eagerness: "So that's the case, but if that's the case, then can we continue this soybean business next year?" ”

Allia was also a little hesitant about this question, and he vaguely said a few perfunctory words, and then he did not want to continue the topic. Wang Zuobai couldn't continue to ask, so he could only make an agreement with Erli on the delivery time of the remaining goods, and then sent away the satisfied Erli.

After Erli got on the horse, he looked down and saw Wang Zuobai standing in front of him with a sad face, and he was quite embarrassed when he thought of so many new things that the Han shopkeeper had brought to him before. In addition, this transaction was completely due to his own side, but he still received a lot of benefits from Wang Zuobai, so he couldn't help but think about appeasing him.

"Don't worry too much, Shopkeeper Wang, I'm Ama and Big Baylor this time, and I won't let out next year's deal. To tell you the truth, I set the blue flag and two red flags to open up another 500,000 acres of land in Hexi next year, if we don't do this soybean business, will we eat those soybeans ourselves next year? ”

Wang Zuobai's face looked a little better when he heard this, but he immediately asked with some curiosity: "Beizi, in the middle of this year, didn't you shout that there was a shortage of manpower?" This next year, another 500,000 acres of land will be opened, where will there be so many people? Those Mongols also farm? ”

Erli looked around and saw that there were no outsiders on the side, so he leaned down and whispered to Wang Zuobai: "Seeing that we are so familiar, I will let you take a reassuring pill." There are people in the old forests in the west of North Korea..."

After watching Erli leave with a cart of gifts from him, Wang Zuobai gave a few words to the people around him, and then walked back to his room quickly.

After closing the door, he spread out a blank sheet of paper and recorded his conversation with Elley in its entirety.

In the afternoon of the same day, a wooden boat left the Yingkou wharf and headed for the vast sea in the south.

In Xu Xinsu's private residence, Zhu Youzhen, who was dressed in civilian clothes, took Wang Chengen and several attendants, accompanied by Xu Xinsu, and walked towards the study.

Zhu Youzhen looked at the surrounding environment while walking, and said to Xu Xinsu beside him: "Your mansion is very well renovated, it is quiet in the bustling, and it has a feeling of being hidden in the wilderness." It seems that you really want to settle down in the capital and don't want to go back to the south? ”

Xu Xinsu leaned sideways, smiled and said: "The Son of Heaven is blessed and blessed at his feet, since he can get a touch of His Majesty's dragon energy, what will the minister do when he returns to his hometown."

However, when it comes to renovating the mansion, it is not a means of the minister. Although the minister knows a few words, he is not a serious reader after all, and he plays such elegant means there.

This is the house of the former squire of the Criminal Department, which has been vacant since returning to his hometown, and it was not until he sold it this year that the minister picked up this bargain. ”

Zhu Youzhen glanced at him, and then continued to walk forward and said: "Actually, the north is not bad, as long as you stay for a long time, you will always like it here."

As the saying goes: Trees die, people live. If you continue to operate in the north, there will naturally be a harvest day..."

The group walked and talked, and soon walked into a small courtyard in the backyard, which was the place where Xu Xinsu used to discuss confidential matters, and it was also the only place in this mansion where there was a big fight.

All kinds of precious seedlings and a few strange stones that were originally planted across the courtyard have been removed. The whole courtyard was re-padded with loess, and it was solid, and a weapon rack was stacked in a corner of the courtyard, of course, the weapons on it have been taken away. Obviously, the current owner has used this place as a place to practice martial arts.

This cross-courtyard study is a single-storey building with three connections and two entrances facing east and west. According to the original owner's layout of the mansion, the room on the left was used for writing and reading, and the inner room was used for entertaining intimate friends.

As for the middle and right rooms, one is used for antiques, calligraphy and paintings, and the other is used for books, and the interiors of the three rooms are different.

However, after Xu Xinsu bought this mansion, he not only changed the courtyard outside the study, but also changed the structure of the study.

He simply opened the back room of the three rooms and made it a large room. The middle and right entrances were closed, leaving only one entrance on the left. The whole building has become a pattern of internal connectivity and external closure.

The large room formed by the three back rooms that was opened up was filled with a variety of charts in addition to a few cartography. The furniture in this large room is very small, except for a few bookcases against the wall on the north side, except for a large solid wood table in the middle.

The table took up almost half the size of the room, and a large sand table was placed on the north half of the table. What this sand table shows is the coastline of Daming and the oceans and islands outside.

After Zhu Youzhen entered the room, he saw this big sand table at a glance. He was overjoyed, so he quickly stepped forward and stood on the edge of the sand table to study.

After looking at it for a while, he was a little disappointed. Although the person who made the sand table probably understood what the scale was, except for Fujian, Guangdong, Taiwan, and Manila, the performance was relatively fine, and other places were a little unsatisfactory.

The area on this sand table is barely in line with reality, which is about the south of North Korea and Japan, the north of Vietnam and Luzon Island, and the west of Taiwan Island.

After looking at the sand table, Zhu Youzhen couldn't help but look up and asked a little depressed: "I remember that at the beginning of the year, I had asked the topographic survey team to make a fine survey of the coastline of Bohai Bay, why did they measure the accuracy like this?" ”

Xu Xinsu shook his head and said with a wry smile: "Your Majesty is talking about people from the Surveying and Mapping Department of the Army Military Academy?" The charts they measured were much more detailed than those on this sand table.

But they refused to tell us about the measurements, saying they were state secrets. This sand table was made from a little bit of fur that I stole from them when I sent someone to help them survey Bohai Bay.

Your Majesty, making a fine nautical chart is naturally a military secret for the imperial court. But isn't it a big waste to store it away from people to use and verify it after it's made? ”

Hearing that the sand table in front of him was not the result of the measurement technology he ordered to develop, Zhu Youzhen's irritability in his heart went to most of it.

As long as the measured charts meet the requirements of navigation, then he no longer has to worry that his navy will never be able to correctly understand the face of the world in the future.

Regarding Xu Xinsu's request after complaining, Zhu Youzhen pretended to be puzzled, and he said gently: "Before our Ming navy has the ability to completely protect its coastline, it is also a helpless thing to control the spread of fine maps.

However, what you said is not unreasonable, and the purpose of making maps and nautical charts is ultimately to facilitate our understanding of the world and use them as a reference for sea navigation. Collecting them after they are made is indeed not conducive to the improvement of chart-making technology.

In this case, Xu Xunyue will make you pick out some reliable people first, and then I will arrange for the Army Military Academy to give them a mapping class to train them in how to do topographic mapping and reading maps, and the school can also ask them how to observe and determine their position when sailing at sea. ”

Although he could not directly get the results of the surveying and mapping team from the emperor, Xu Xinsu was already satisfied, and he agreed to the emperor's orders in a comfortable mood.

When Chongzhen sat down on the main seat, two men wearing brand-new low-ranking military attache uniforms were brought into the room and stood far below Chongzhen.

Under Xu Xinsu's introduction, one of the two men was Xu Linhu who drove the Dongshan, and the other was Huang Yongshu, who commanded the Haicheng. Listening to the reports of these two people is the reason why Chongzhen secretly came to Xu's house.

Xu Linhu and Uncle Huang Yong stood there stiffly, looking down at their toes, not even daring to raise their heads. When they were at sea in the past, they didn't think that the Ming Emperor was great, and they didn't think that they would have anything to do with the emperor, so there was no need to be afraid.

But when they really stood in front of Chongzhen, they immediately felt that their hearts were beating like a drum, and their palms were constantly sweating, and they felt completely overwhelmed.

Zhu Youzhen looked at them for a while, then said with a smile: "You guys also come forward, standing so far away, what you say is difficult, and it is also difficult for me to listen." I'm wearing casual clothes today, you can just be casual, just like you usually chat with friends, don't be too nervous..."