Great Song Pirate

Chapter 97

After three rounds of wine and five tastes of food, Xu Yi saw that he had already drank a lot of wine and that the two parties were getting along well, so he said, "I have a few things to do here this time. One is to represent Jin The head of the family personally came to thank shopkeeper Li, and secondly, we have something to ask shopkeeper Li to teach, so please give advice to shopkeeper Li!"

Hearing what Xu Yi said, Li Mingshan immediately said: "I have already said that the delivery of the letter last time was our responsibility, Mr. Xu should not mention any more words of thanks, otherwise we will not treat our Li family as a single dragon." The island’s friends take it seriously, as for Mr. Xu’s business, just talk about it, as long as it’s about your Dulong Island, it’s my Li’s business, if you can help, Li will never refuse!”

So Xu Yi stopped making detours, and said directly: "Perhaps shopkeeper Li also knows that although our Dulong Island has grown a lot now, we are not the most powerful in the vast sea. Let alone the sea to the south of us. The sphere of influence of Dulong Island is that of Jiang Desheng. To be honest, this Jiang Desheng used to bully us, Mr. Jin. Now that we are powerful, we also intend to trouble him. I don't know much about Jiang Desheng, so I want to ask shopkeeper Li to give me some advice, but is shopkeeper Li familiar with Jiang Desheng?"

Hearing that Xu Yi said that he wanted to find trouble with Jiang Desheng, Li Mingshan immediately showed a look of joy, he thought for a while and said: "I know this Jiang Desheng, this person is nicknamed Jiang Batian, Mingli is a businessman You are actually doing the same thing behind the scenes as you, doing business without capital at sea, relying on this, he is already the richest man in Taizhou, but this person is good at making money, although he is doing business without capital, he has always been with the government Very recently, he has never been held accountable by the government for his affairs. Over the past few years, his influence has grown tremendously. It is said that he owns no less than a hundred ships, and has gathered 5000 people under his command. In addition to goods, there are many islands on the sea. Recently, taking advantage of Fang La's defeat, he gathered a lot of scattered bandits and ordered many large ships from Fujian. Ba, controls a large area of ​​water south of Hangzhou Bay. Those of us who sail and do business have to deal with him, but we have never seen him. When we ship or buy goods, it is okay to go north, but as long as we go south, You have to pass through his territory. This person said that as long as we big merchants pay him ten thousand taels of silver every year, they can guarantee that our ships will not be disturbed when they pass through his territory. If we don’t pay, Then our ships might be robbed. I was also having a headache for this matter during this time, but there was nothing I could do about him. After all, it was his subordinates who spoke out. When he went to the government, because of his relationship with the government, it was nothing in the end, and he was offended instead. Therefore, several big merchants here in Hangzhou are considering the matter and considering whether to hand over the wronged money. My son, if you can get rid of this Jiang Batian, it will be good news for us merchants in Hangzhou! But then again, although Dulong Island has now taken over Huangyu Island and has grown in power, it has nothing to do with this Jiang Batian. Compared with Batian's power, it's still a lot worse, if you attack them rashly, I'm afraid you won't take much advantage, I think you should be cautious about this matter!"

Hearing what Li Mingshan said, it is not far from what Xu Yi learned before, but Xue Tu did not know as much as this Li Mingshan. It seems that this Jiang Desheng is really ambitious, and he is still playing at sea. Playing tricks of the underworld, what kind of protection fee do you want to charge!Maybe his appetite is too big!Xu Yi nodded in agreement, and then said: "Although there are many people in this Jiang Batian ship, these are nothing to worry about, but I am thinking about how close this Jiang Desheng is to the government. If we get together If there is a conflict, will it attract the attention of the government, and once we hurt this Jiang Batian, will it attract the court navy, it will be very bad!"

Li Mutian, who had been silent at this time, interjected and explained: "Brother Xu is really far-sighted, I really admire him! About this Jiang Desheng, my younger brother may know a little better than my father, because our Li family also has business in Taizhou. The younger brother has been in charge of taking care of it all this year, so I paid more attention to this Jiang Desheng, and even had a relationship with this Jiang Desheng once. This person is indeed an official gangster as my father said. My eldest brother-in-law is Zhang Zhongyao, the former magistrate of Taizhou, so he is very powerful in Taizhou. He used to be someone that Taizhou could not afford to offend. Our business in Taizhou was suppressed by him. Although the younger brother worked hard, there was no improvement. I felt ashamed to lose my father's trust, if brother Xu wanted to touch Jiang Desheng a year ago, it would have been really difficult to deal with him, but now there is no need to worry about this matter!"

Xu Yi heard what he said, so he hurriedly asked: "I don't know what Brother Li said? Why didn't it work before, but now it's okay?"

"It must be that the news on the island is somewhat closed after all. Brother Xu may not know about it. The reason why Jiang Desheng was able to flourish in Taizhou is because of his brother-in-law Zhang Zhizhou. But this time Fang La made an incident. At first, the rebel army came aggressively at first, and almost took down the entire territory of Zhejiang and Zhejiang provinces. Zhang Zhizhou was in charge of the defense of Taizhou at the beginning, but when the rebel army approached the city, he took his family and fled the city, and retreated to the sea with the victory of the river. After the defeat, although he returned to Taizhou, he was dismissed from the post of Taizhou magistrate due to poor defense, and demoted to Longnan as a small official. On the sea, although he still controls many islands off the coast of Taizhou, his power in the government is not as good as before, so the younger brother said, if Brother Xu wants to move him, Jiang Desheng, there should be no problem, and the government will definitely not The navy was mobilized to encircle and suppress because of him!" Li Mutian explained the reason for the incident.

"Mu Tian is right. I know this prefect Zhang. He has indeed been dismissed and demoted to Longnan. The new prefect is called Tan Tong. He is an official who has just been released from Tokyo. He is not very familiar with this Jiang Desheng. If Mr. Xu has If you grasp it, this time is also an opportunity, not to mention that no one can mobilize the navy with just a word, without the talisman of the Privy Council, the navy cannot act rashly! You can rest assured about this!" Li Mingshan added.

Only then did Xu Yi think about the military system of the Song Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, in order to control the power of the generals, the army had always been controlled by the three divisions. However, the military amulet of the Privy Council was required to mobilize the army, so that the soldiers did not know the generals, and the generals did not know the soldiers. Although there is no need to worry about the generals rebelling, the combat effectiveness of the army has also been greatly weakened, so that they will be defeated again and again in previous foreign battles until they lose the country. , It is very difficult to mobilize the navy to destroy their Dulong Island, so I feel greatly at ease.

(End of this chapter)