On May 23, 1694, the most prosperous Qingdao Port on the east coast, light rain.m.x.

Ruan Siyi had just finished a banquet and returned to the house they rented. Because they had to stay on the east bank for a long time, it was not cost-effective to stay in a hotel, so they rented three houses connected by left and right, allowing more than ten people to live in. Originally, with the title of Ruan Siyi as a guerrilla general, living alone would be fine, but who would make them lose money? They could only save some money.

Ruan Siyi came to the East Coast at the beginning of this year. As the first Ming Navy officials to visit the East Coast, they received attention. The East Coast Navy Department arranged a series of schedules for them to realize the prosperity of the East Coast society, the strength of the navy and the advanced concepts. For this reason, they also allocated an additional 1,000 yuan to the visiting delegation as activity funds, which is very good.

But to be honest, one thousand yuan is a lot in the eyes of ordinary people, but Ruan Siyi, who has been in a rich and frugal manner since childhood, was Ruan Jin, the confidant general of King Lu, and his father Ruan Xian was the Duke of the Ming Dynasty. He was in charge of various naval lords, but he was just average. What's more, he was not old and was already a guerrilla man. He commanded more than a dozen ships under his command, and the money he passed by every day was like flowing water. What's the point of a thousand yuan!

Of course, the above said that it was in the Ming Dynasty and in Zhejiang. But as the saying goes, "It's good to stay at home for a thousand days, but everything is difficult to go out." Now they are no longer in the Ming Dynasty, but come to the east coast in the name of the visiting military officers' group. This is different. According to the Ming Dynasty's usual stinginess, they only gave a total of 500 taels of silver in total, and exchanged them for 500 silver dollars in the East Coast in Dinghai (the people in the East Coast think the silver in the Ming Dynasty is not good and are only willing to exchange it 1:1). In addition, there are a bunch of pens, inkstones, medicinal materials, tea, silk and brocade, etc., and they have to be expected to sell them to the east coast to maintain their lives.

Fortunately, these things are still very popular in the East Coast. They sold them for a total of more than 3,000 yuan. Together with the original more than 500 yuan, the 1,000 yuan supported by the East Coast Navy Department is enough for them to live on the East Coast for a period of time, as long as they are high-consumption food and entertainment, which makes Ruan Siyi very unhappy.

But what if it is unhappy? This is what the emperor (Zheng Lu Zhu Honghuan has been promoted to Taizhou under the persuasion of the East Coast people) and his father have been instructed. We must take a good look at the Eastern Dynasty, make some friends, learn some real skills, and risk our lives to travel across the ocean. When they came, they were riding a small-tonnage naval rapid contact ship. On the way, they encountered bad weather again, which can be called "probable death".

Ruan Siyi is quite trustworthy about his father's words. The reason why their family can control the Ming Navy now is obviously only referring to the Zhejiang Navy. The Fujian Navy and Guangdong Navy must have been unable to command the command on the one hand because of tradition. His grandfather Ruan Jin followed the dragon very early and led the Navy to fight for King Lu's eastward and even had several achievements in protecting the sky several times, so he was very trustworthy. Later, Ruan Jin relied on King Lu's new appointment and relatively strong strength to swallow many water bandits, pirates and other scattered water armed forces by eating small fish, and became the largest maritime force within the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty. He was then granted the title of Duke and became the supreme commander of the Ming Navy. This is understandable.

Of course, this may not be enough. King Lu and the current Emperor Guangxing (Zhu Honghuan’s name is Guangxing, and 1694 was the first year of Guangxing) are good at playing political means. It may be fine if the time is short. If it is long, it will be difficult to ensure that the strategy of differentiation and winning over will not work. After all, the martial artists are limited in moral integrity and their family is not rich. Black eyes are shameful. But at this time, we have to talk about their intelligence. The Ruan family used the opportunity to buy naval equipment and learn advanced tactics to connect with the East Coast people, and then they were valued by the East Coast people. This position suddenly became stable. It was also the only one in the Ming Dynasty's small court. The Ming army was divided into Zhang (descendant of Zhang Huangyan), and the Wang family (descendant of the Dynasty) and the Navy was the Ruan family. Isn’t it the only one?

Therefore, with such a background, after Ruan Siyi led the team to the East Coast, his words and deeds were very low-key. In addition to gritting his teeth and taking out some funds to invite them and making friends with officials from the East Coast, he often worked very hard.

Today, Ruan Siyi invited several young officers from the First Fleet of the East Coast Navy at the famous Penglai Restaurant in Qingdao Port. At the same time, there were several small cadres from the South China Sea Fisheries Company. Everyone drank and had a meal together, bragged and chatted, and the banquet ended very late at night. So when Ruan Siyi returned, he didn't even have a street car, so he had to call a carriage for a high price and return to the rented place with his two confidants.

Ruan Siyi has a good alcohol tolerance. Even though he had drunk a lot at the banquet before, he is still very awake now and can't sleep. He lives in the old city of Qingdao County. There are brick houses that look a little old, but they don't look dilapidated on the outside. Obviously, the residents inside have enough funds to repair them.

Ruan Siyi had carefully observed his neighbors and found that these people were dressed very brightly and they usually wore this way. They were not like the people of the Ming Dynasty who only took it out during festivals and even couldn't even take out any decent clothes during festivals. The food they ate and used were beyond Ruan Siyi's imagination, and some things he could not even enjoy often, which brought him a great ideological impact.

Actually, it is true that these people earn seven or eight yuan a month, and ordinary soldiers of the Ming Navy are less than two taels of silver a month, and they are even more expensive to eat and dress. No wonder they live so casually. What is even more surprising is that the place they rented is even the so-called old city where low-income groups gather. Of course, the income of the east coast is relatively average, and the so-called low-income and high-income gap is not very big, especially for manual laborers. The income is not necessarily low. There are a large number of new industrial workers from the countryside living in it, but the living standards have already surpassed that of the current Ming capital Taizhou City, which is so pitiful.

"The autumn rain is like silk, the breeze is swaying, and it looks like my hometown, but it is not at all." Ruan Siyi closed the window, locked the dim light of the gas lamp outside the house, then sat at the desk, poured himself a cup of cool tea, and sighed slightly.

Although life outside is simple, it is worth it. Without coming to the east coast, Ruan Siyi's impression of the power of this country can only be superficial. Sometimes, he would even guess whether the so-called Eastern Kingdom was a poor place with mountains and rivers, otherwise why would he have rushed to the Ming Dynasty? But he would not think so now. He visited many shipyards and fleets. After listening to the school for a week, Ruan Siyi had already found in despair that the Eastern Kingdom was so powerful that even the Ming Dynasty could not catch up even if it took a hundred years. The air was so sweet that even the moon was rounder than the Ming Dynasty. The gap was all-round. Ruan Siyi could not even imagine what the outcome would be if the Ming Dynasty was hostile to the Eastern Kingdom.

Ruan Siyi found that the dozen people who came with him had the same impression. They were basically from the children of Zhejiang Navy and had low ranks, but they were all new forces in the Navy. His father had already hinted that the court was about to form the Qiongzhou Navy with the help of the Eastern Kingdom. In the future, they will be the backbone of the Navy. Therefore, everyone is still relatively close overall, and the relationship is very good, of course, Ruan Siyi is the leader.

As the name suggests, the Qiongzhou Navy is a naval force with Qiongzhou Prefecture and the adjacent Leizhou and Gaozhou Prefectures as defense areas. Considering that the prince arrived in Qiongzhou with some civil and military entourages last year to take over the local military and civil affairs, the main task of the Qiongzhou Navy should be to block the Qiongzhou Strait and not allow the enemy to take advantage of the opportunity. After all, Leizhou and Gaozhou are connected to Guangdong land. Once the situation changes, it is difficult for the Ming army to ensure that the combat effectiveness of Lei and Gao'er's second mansion will not be lost. At that time, I am afraid that the navy can only rely on the navy to protect Qiongzhou Prefecture.

Thinking of this, Ruan Siyi was also very grateful to the people of Dongguo who handed over the three palaces of Qiong, Gao and Lei to the Ming Dynasty. No matter what motives they were for, whether they were inconvenient to rule directly or were too lazy to rule, in short, they greatly increased the actual control of the Ming Dynasty, which allowed them to have another place outside the mountains in southern Zhejiang.

The court and the emperor were also very happy about this. Although they sent the prince and a group of ministers to Qiongzhou under the supervision of the East Coast people, in their original intentions, they were actually very willing. You must know that southern Zhejiang and Jiangxi bordered, and God knew when the mud legs of Shunni raised their troops eastward, and they had no confidence to stop those tiger and wolf troops.

Thinking of this, Ruan Siyi's thoughts became clearer. It is no exaggeration to think that the Eastern Kingdom is the benefactor of the Ming Dynasty and the guarantee for their regime to survive. It is not an exaggeration to see how Kunming fell and that the national strength is so strong, so it is the most basic national policy to develop with peace of mind under their protection. Although this kind of asylum is definitely not without a price, so what? The left is just some money and population! In order to continue the Ming Dynasty's destiny, it is acceptable to pay any price! Shun Ni, the Tartars, are all life-and-death enemies. Ruan Siyi felt that even if the future is really irreversible, then handing over the last bit of Ming Dynasty to the people of the Tartars is better than falling into Shun Ni and the Tartars.

The Ming Dynasty, that's it. It's better to live one day. I can't stop it anymore. It's better to go to Ningbo to be a Yugong. No matter how strong Shunni and the Qing Dynasties are, they can't be strong enough to capture Ningbo, right? There are Cao Ejiang and Siming Mountain blocking them there, and the Eastern ** team has always been good at fighting. Ruan Siyi really doesn't believe they can fight.

Or what if I get there? At worst, I can go to Taiwan or Luzon! The Eastern people have taken the Zhejiang Navy ships several times in the past few years, and the one who runs the most is to go to Luzon, trading and surveying the terrain. I heard that there are many Yan and Huang Miao people there. If things are inconsistent, the entire army will go to sea to escape. Luzon is also a very good place to settle down. Those mud legs or Tartars have basically no useful naval forces. Let's see how they will chase them at that time!
Chapter completed!