Zhang Yanjin's prediction was right, and sure enough, when Zhang Zhongqian came back at night, Zhang Yanjin was so angry that Zhang Yanjin was going to resign and go to sea.He grabbed Zhang Yanjin and was about to enter the palace, so that the emperor would withdraw his order.

However, under Zhang Yanjin's insistence, Zhang Zhongqian reluctantly agreed, but Zhang Zhongqian ordered the Zhang family to keep the old lady Zhang a secret, and not to tell the old lady Zhang that Zhang Yanjin was going to Nanyang. If the old lady Zhang asked, she would say Zhang Yanjin In Datong, Xizhou, so as not to worry the elderly.

Zhang Yanjin's unprecedented incident spread throughout the entire Chang'an City in less than a day, causing an uproar in the elite circle, and discussions among the common people.

Zhou Qihui and Wang Jianting were even more overjoyed, thinking that Zhang Yanjin was simply out of his mind.Nanyang is an unknown existence to the people of the Great Wei Dynasty.

The unknown is the most feared place, and the most feared things come from fear itself.People will use their imaginations about things they don't understand and have never been in contact with, so they feel more and more terrifying.

Therefore, when everyone heard that Zhang Yanjin was going to take someone to Nanyang and give up his easy official position as a member of the Ministry of Industry, they all thought that he was out of his mind, making a fuss, or even a desperate move.

Looking around, almost no one thinks that Zhang Yanjin's behavior is right.Some people even asserted that Zhang Yanjin's visit this time must never return.

Zhang Yanjin's cronies and friends also reacted the same as Zhang Bowen and Zhang Xiuwu, disapproving Zhang Yanjin's going to Nanyang.

"I really don't understand what you're thinking? If you don't enjoy the good life, why do you have to go to Nanyang?" Chen Su asked in confusion after drinking a glass of amber wine.

He glanced at Zhang Yanjin and said: "Even if you don't like the position of Wailang, a member of the Ministry of Industry, look at the Wei Dynasty, except for Meng Yin's powerful son, you are the youngest county magistrate. Are you still not satisfied? You still have to go What are you doing that has never been done before or since? I really can't understand what you think."

Zhang Yanjin leaned on the sofa and said with emotion: "It takes more than a month to go back and forth, I'm afraid I won't be able to enjoy such a good time now."

"That's it!" Chen Su squatted the wine glass on the table and said, "Since you know everything, why do you still go?"

"Exploring the unknown mysteries is a human instinct." Zhang Yanjin said boldly.

Chen Su imitated his appearance and leaned on the sofa and said, "Cut, don't give me such fake things. Brother, don't I understand what you are like? Tell me, what did you want to do in the past?"

"Open up the Maritime Silk Road." Seeing that Chen Su asked about this matter, Zhang Yanjin no longer faltered. He tapped his fingers on the table and said, "The silk and ceramics of our Great Wei Dynasty are so exquisite, why can't we cross the border?" Oceans and seas, sold in large quantities overseas?"

Chen Su, who was already a little bit drunk, was taken aback and suddenly understood: "I said, why did you suddenly design the Zhongzhou giant ship? It turns out that you have planned it for a long time!"

Zhang Yanjin smiled and did not explain too much.

"I, Chen Su, am so lucky to have a brother like you!"

Chen Su was silent for a while, and suddenly said loudly: "You know, the day you became the magistrate, I heard that Zhou Qin's eldest son, Zhou Qiye, turned green. I didn't expect you to surpass him in less than a year! Let's see how he will act like a sanctimonious hypocrite in the future!"

Zhang Yanjin had also heard about the rumors that Zhou Qiye and Zhou Qin had bad complexions that day. Hearing Chen Su's mention at this time, he laughed, picked up the wine glass and clinked with Chen Su, "Come on!"

***

After Zhang Yanjin settled the affairs of his home and the major workshops in Chang'an, Zhang Yanjin took Zhang Wuer to Xizhou Datong. Take Zhang Wuyi and Zhang Wuer to Yulin, Anzhou.

Yulin is located in the northernmost part of Anzhou, where the Loess Plateau and the sandy land meet. It is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and the dragons and tigers are standing there.

However, although the terrain here is good, it was only a farming land during the Great Wei Dynasty.

After Zhang Yanjin took Zhang Wuyi around the place where he bought the land, after giving Zhang Wuyi a rough plan for the area, he handed over the construction of the factory and coal mining to Zhang Wuyi, who is quite experienced. Wu Yi.

Although Xizhou Datong can accommodate some of the disaster victims in Zhongzhou, if all the victims in Zhongzhou Datong are resettled in Datong, it will inevitably oversaturate the labor force in Datong. housing, so that the coal mining field in Yulin developed.

After arranging all this, Zhang Yanjin took Zhang Wuer and others to Ningzhou.Facing Qiongzhou across the sea, facing the Beibu Gulf in the south and facing Southeast Asia, it is the most convenient sea point to go to Champa.

As for the supplies, he arranged for others to transport them later, or buy them locally.

In order to build another huge Zhongzhou ship nearby, Zhang Yanjin directly took the emperor's order, transferred a group of skilled craftsmen from the original shipbuilding factory, and recruited many local shipbuilders to build a temporary factory and arrange They built the Zhongzhou giant ship.

At the same time, Zhang Yanjin also began to spend a lot of money to find good sailing boats and good water surfers in the local and other coastal areas.

Although things like crossing the ocean and sea are very frightening things for people in the mainland, but for those who grew up by the seaside, the fear is much less. There are young people who want to make contributions with Zhang Yanjin. In a few days, Zhang Yanjin gathered more than 200 sailors.

Zhang Yanjin roughly divided the number of people into three teams, with more than 70 people on each Zhongzhou giant ship.In this way, the people on each Zhongzhou giant ship can switch shifts during the voyage, and the people on the three ships can also help each other in case of danger.

For the materials needed for sailing, Zhang Yanjin referred to the local people's advice on going to sea, and purchased all the supplies.

Except for the necessary items they used, Zhang Yanjin bought silk, ceramics and other items in a big way, and when he was going to go to other places, he sold them or exchanged them for supplies.

It took two months to prepare all these materials.

It seems that he only needs to arrange for his subordinates to prepare, but in fact he is not idle.

With some simple historical knowledge, he absolutely does not believe that the coastal residents are cowards, or ordinary people who abide by the law. Someone must have taken a fancy to the wealth at sea.

More importantly, he once knew some records about pirates in the relevant foreign nautical records.

Take Qi Jiguang, who was the most famous in the Ming Dynasty against the Japanese, as an example. Qi Jiguang is an out-and-out national hero in the official history of China.

But if we put aside the official history of China and look at the historical records hidden in foreign historical materials or various local annals, we can find that the Japanese pirates who fought against him are actually Chinese private pirates, and these pirates are just fighting against Japanese pirates. Most of the crew members are Chinese, but there are some Japanese ronin mixed in very rarely.

But as long as it is under the banner of Japanese pirates, most ordinary people or the government will feel fear.Just like the situation Zhang Yanjin was facing now, there were only a few blond foreigners on board the pirates.

Different from the common sense that everyone knows, Chinese pirates are different from foreign pirates. They never use skull flags, and only pray for peace and food and clothing humbly.

But in essence, their combat effectiveness is not weak at all.They not only accumulated a lot of wealth relying on the means of making a living at sea, but also possessed extremely powerful armed forces, as can be seen from the gleaming bayonets in the hands of these pirates and the vigorous skills when they flew out of the iron claws.

They even secretly controlled the sea trade routes, which was once impossible to ignore.

If everything is forewarned, it will be abandoned. Now that he is ready to sail across the ocean, he must be prepared to face all dangers.

These days he's been secretly making something called a fire rod.

Although Zhang Yanjin doesn't know how to make pistols used in modern times, he knows the principle of ordinary firearms.

The fire rod is a kind of tubular firearm, thick in the front and narrow in the back, with black-fire-powder in the middle. There is a guide-fire-cable in the middle of the gun-powder extending out from the narrow end along the long rod. When it is in use, light the guide. -Fire-cable, when the air is heated and expands rapidly, it will quickly push out the black-fire-powder in the tube to achieve the purpose of killing.

But he didn't dare to let others know about this kind of thing. After all, no one used firearms in this era.

After all, the principle of the fire rod is too simple, once spread, it will definitely cause an uproar.

So he just arranged for craftsmen to help him make the iron pipe for the fire rod.He asked the craftsmen to smelt iron first, use the tempered iron to form a tube, and then wrap it in hot molten iron and hammer it into it, so that the iron tube must be extremely strong.Then put the steel cone in and polish the barrel continuously to make the inside extremely smooth, so that when the gunpowder is pushed out again, there will be no hindrance.

In this way, the shell of the simple fire rod is made.

As for black-fire-powder, it is even simpler. Ancient China has had the habit of setting off fireworks and firecrackers since ancient times. It only needs to slightly improve the fire-powder to form black-fire-powder, which can be used in sudden fire on the pole.

Therefore, he secretly filled the fire rod with black gunpowder all by himself.

In so many days, he only made [-] fire-strike rods, and he packed them in a wooden box and stuffed them under his hand without telling anyone.

When he was about to leave, he asked Zhang Wuer to follow him all the way from Chang'an City to Xizhou Datong, and he worked tirelessly to practice with the twenty guards who traveled across mountains and rivers to Ningzhou. Immediately put away the fire rod and ordered them to keep it secret.

And these people were originally servants of Duke Ning's mansion, and they had long been used to keeping things secret, so Zhang Yanjin didn't leak any news about Zhang Yanjin's sudden fire.

After writing the memorial to the emperor, Zhang Yanjin led the three Zhongzhou giant ships, picked a sunny day, and set off across the sea, forming a beautiful landscape on the blue mirror-like sea.

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