Rounding up whales is no easy task, let alone equipped with today's ships. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

And the whale head is obviously fresh, indicating that it is a whale that has just been killed.

Merchant ships tend to be very large, but they are not flexible, and if you hunt and kill whales, it is still two words. The one who is most likely to do this is either a new type of sea ship in the Tang Dynasty Naval Division, or a sea ship with a very full arsenal of water thieves.

When the cook unloaded the meat, Xia Hongsheng specially observed that there were many round holes on the whale's head. Xia Hongsheng is also a person who has been on the battlefield, and when he looks at the round hole, he knows that it is the wound left by the bed crossbow.

Bed crossbows are not allowed to be owned by the people. There is no such thing on a merchant ship.

So all in all, the two sailors who hunted the whale, cut off the whale's head and put it in front of the Yiren firm to intimidate it, can basically be determined to be the two sailor ships that were snatched by the pirates.

It's just that for the time being, it is not known which of the three firms, Tongshun, Shuntai and Xianghe, is related to the pirates. Or I don't know which one is the identity of the pirates in Quanzhou.

And the three firms didn't say much about the strange fish head of the Yiren firm. It seems that it was really acquired by accident by the name of Yiren Firm.

Xia Hongsheng expected that the three firms would definitely be able to guess something from it, and even understand that this whale head was deliberately thrown here to intimidate the Yiren firm and make a dismount. But no one said anything, as if this had never happened, it must be selfish, deliberately unwilling to remind the Yiren firm. And if one of these three firms was a pirate outside, then naturally they wouldn't be reminded.

But Xia Hongsheng can be sure that no matter who threw down the whale's head, he will not give up. He was prepared to give Yiren Firm a dismissal, intimidate the shipwrights of Yiren Firm and Yiren Firm, and create panic, but he was eaten by Xia Hongsheng and others, which made the boatmen not only have no fear, but are more grateful to Yiren Firm. In this way, they will inevitably hold a grudge and will definitely continue to cause sabotage.

"Childe, there's someone from the Ryukyus." Xia Hongsheng was thinking about the matter of the pirates, and suddenly heard Qi Yong walk in and said.

Xia Hongsheng raised his head, put aside the matter of the pirates for the time being, and said, "Okay, let him in." ”

Qi Yong got the order and went out to bring in a person. When the man arrived in the house, he saw Xia Hongsheng, and immediately saluted and said, "General Qiyu!" General Li has a letter to send to General Yu! ”

Xia Hongsheng nodded, took the letter, unfolded the letter, and looked at it carefully.

Most of the letter was written by Li Xiaogong lamenting how easy and powerful the new ironclad ship was, and only in the last few sentences did he say the key points. The emperor sent a decree to set up Ryukyu as a county, which was under the jurisdiction of Quanzhou, Jiangnan Province, so that Li Xiaogong temporarily led the affairs of Ryukyu and relocated tens of thousands of people from Zhangzhou, Minzhou, and Quanzhou to Ryukyu County. In addition, he ordered Li Xiaogong to build a dock in the Ryukyus as quickly as possible, and to build ironclad ships on the spot.

"Good! That's great! Xia Hongsheng suddenly slapped the table and shouted.

Xia Hongsheng was very excited in his heart, he couldn't hold it back, he couldn't help but stand up, walked back and forth, and read the last few words of the letter again, convinced that he was not wrong.

Li Lao Er, what's wrong? Suddenly enlightened?!

Xia Hongsheng thought for a long time, and suddenly clapped his hands, by the way, at this point in time, the Arab Empire and the Persian Sassanid Dynasty have pinched!

These two are the biggest forces in that area, and there is also the fanning of the Eastern Romans in the middle, and now is the time to pinch the most energetic.

No wonder Li Lao Er suddenly opened up, it turned out that there were many trade routes on land!

The overland trade routes were not easy to travel, which affected many caravans heading west. As far as Xia Hongsheng knew, many of those scholars and ministers of the court and the central government had caravans in private. As soon as the caravan is not smooth, the natural interests will be affected, and it will be necessary to think of Fa'er to blow the wind in front of the emperor. Moreover, Xia Hongsheng's caravan and the royal shares, Li Shimin can get very considerable dividends from the caravan every year, and the caravan is blocked, and naturally his own interests are also lost. There are also industries such as the Datang Royal Wine Workshop and the Glass Workshop, which can bring huge profits, and a large part of the profits come from exports, which are also affected by the blockage of trade routes. In this way, because of the problem of unsmooth trade routes, including caravans, wineries, glass mills, and other industries with shares of Li Chengqian or Li Shimin, the annual losses add up to an astronomical amount. It is no wonder that Li Shimin's thinking will change and he will begin to exert his strength in the Ryukyus.

It is easy to go from thrift to luxury, and it is difficult to go from luxury to thrift. Li Shimin has always boasted that he is diligent and thrifty, so the inner treasury money for the life of the royal family is not much. Being able to maintain such a luxurious life depends on the profit dividends of these invested properties. The emperor tasted the sweetness of so many profit dividends, and suddenly there was so much less at once, so he naturally became unwilling.

However, if we count according to the time in the original history, the war between the Arab Empire, which is known as the Great Food in the Tang Dynasty, and the Sassanid Empire of Persia, has not yet reached the most intense time.

At this time, the conceited and arrogant Sassanid Persian Empire has not yet reached the end of its rope and is in danger. They did not realize that Persia was no longer the Persia of Darius, and that they were no longer capable of victory in the face of the madness of the religious fanaticism of the Great Eclipse.

According to the original trajectory of history, the Sassanid Dynasty of Persia could hold out for six or seven years before it realized that it was not an opponent of the Arab Empire, and sent an envoy to the Tang Dynasty for help for the first time.

However, since even Li Shimin's intention to conquer Goguryeo could be put into action so much in advance, it shouldn't be a problem to try to get Persia to come to the Tang Dynasty for help earlier, right?

It would be good if Datang could still have people like Su Qin and Zhang Yi now.

Tang Jian is almost sixty years old, even if under Xia Hongsheng's early intervention and early recuperation by Sun Simiao, his body is much better, and he can't withstand the thousands of miles from Chang'an to Dashi, and life in a foreign land.

I don't know if Wang Xuance has been studying with Tang Jian for so long, and whether he has this ability.

Da Shi and Persia pinched, although the war blocked the trade routes, but for the Tang Dynasty, it was also an opportunity to intervene in the Middle East. The Tang Dynasty could not only take advantage of the pinch between Dashi and Persia to make a lot of war money, but also take the opportunity to annex the Western Regions while laying out in Persia, and then directly compete with Dashi and Eastern Rome.

"Qi Yong, hurry up and get a pen and paper!" Xia Hongsheng said to Qi Yong, and then said to the soldier who delivered the letter: "Wait a minute, wait for me to write a letter, you bring it back to Ryukyu and hand it over to the king of Hejian County, and ask him to report it to Your Majesty immediately when he sees this letter!" (To be continued.) )