Age of Heroes, ten consecutive guarantees

Yingzhou.

An ocean island country adjacent to Daxia.

The entire country covers an area equivalent to a province of Daxia, but its total population is close to one-tenth of Daxia, nearly 100 million people.

The development of different regions is very uneven and insufficient. It is stuck between industrialization and modernization. At the same time, it also faces contradictory pressures from some social structures.

The entire country is essentially in a semi-divided state, with half the shogunate and half the emperor's ministers... each operating in two places: Kyoto and Edo.

The emperor is the leader of Shintoism, a political and religious leader, and his nominal status is higher than that of the shogun.

The shogun controls the samurai family, which is the actual force, and can establish the shogunate to take over the power.

Therefore, Yingzhou is the standard, with small temples and strong winds, and many bastards in Chiqian.

…

In a gray sea fog.

The old captain who was driving the boat was talking loudly, holding a wine bottle in his hand, drinking while holding the oar.

He is a mixed blood of Yingzhou and Daxia. He was born in a small fishing village on the seaside of Yingzhou when he was young. He was named Tonjiro.

His father was a Daxia businessman who was exiled in Yingzhou due to a shipwreck. He was picked up by his mother on the shore and rescued. In the process of taking care of him, he gradually fell in love and got married on the spot.

Here he started a business of selling fish. He was smart and quickly built a good family business in Yingzhou by relying on various conveniences obtained by his identity as a Daxia native.

In his middle age, he brought his wife and son back to his hometown in Daxia, so when he was fifteen years old, Torajiro changed his environment and life, went to Daxia, and changed his name to Daxia, Hu Hu.

After the age of thirty-five, Torajiro completely succeeded his father and ran a merchant ship between Yingzhou and Daxia, making considerable profits.

The old captain boasted that the five ships he had on hand supported more than 500 families, that is, more than a thousand mouths. He and his father personally helped develop the small fishing villages in the past.

Of course, he himself was not lacking in enjoyment. He married a wife in Yingzhou and Daxia to support his family. Now he has five children to support, and he works harder to start running a boat.

According to normal circumstances, Daxia and Yingzhou did not start trade.

But there is no sea ban either.

Because of the death tide floating on the sea, long-distance shipping was cut off. Except for the areas connected by land, the entire world was cut into isolated islands.

In particular, island countries like Yingzhou, which lacks innate materials, are even more unable to receive external resources, and their development has become extremely slow, inadequate and uneven.

Therefore, it is impossible for Yingzhou to ban external port trade.

The ghost fleets that can travel freely between countries even have independent docks here.

Some of the materials and technologies that have been lost are the development hardware that Yingzhou urgently needs.

As the nearest Daxia, Yingzhou would naturally not give up the opportunity to hug his thighs and gather his wool.

That’s how running the Merchant Navy came about.

Some people may be confused.

Businessmen are chasing profits, and Yingzhou is poor and backward. Is there anything that can bring high profits?

This naturally exists.

The first is gold and silver. Yingzhou’s gold and silver reserves are very rich. There are many mines and veins. Literally, there is a mine at home... Just the circulation of gold and silver itself is enough for merchants to earn a lot of money;

The second is the various outputs from the Shadow World. Yingzhou has many interesting local products, and there are some varieties of output from the Shadow World that are not available in Daxia.

If Daxia wants to mine the Shadow World, it will take more than half a year just to go through the various procedures, and then to the settlement of the project and the inspection and acceptance by the Tenth Division. Two or three years are not enough at all, and a huge capital investment is needed in the early stage; but Yingzhou Otherwise, human life here is worthless.

Whether they are fishermen or laborers who harvest output in the shadow world, "if you don't do it, others will do it." People at the bottom of society can only sell their labor and even their lives in exchange for relatively high incomes.

Although the shadow world in Yingzhou is stable, the level of danger is not low. It is similar to the black mines in Africa. There are not so many safety measures, and people are exchanging human lives for money.

Usually, it only takes one year of work to earn twenty or even thirty years of income, but the vast majority of low-level workers do not survive more than half a year.

"When doing business in Yingzhou, there are usually three difficulties."

"The first step is to go to sea from Daxia. You have to pay taxes every time you enter or leave... Daxia Shisi keeps a close eye on them. Those who try to sneak ashore usually have just sold the goods and think they are After making a lot of money, he was sent to the bureau to take care of him. Not only was his trip in vain, but he also lost all his money."

"I have all formal channels here, all are formal channels, and the goods are also normal goods."

A young man sat across the table and asked curiously: "Is it a color TV, a refrigerator, or a washing machine?"

"Hahaha." The old captain laughed loudly: "Your idea is typical of the first time I come to Yingzhou. Although these goods are also popular, they occupy too much area and the profit margin is not high. Usually they are not It takes less time to sell it, and fewer people can afford it.”

"In the past, Daxia talked about electrical appliances going to the countryside. That was all the result of the power grid being laid. Here in Yingzhou, it would be good to have stable power supply to the city. Most electrical appliances cannot be afforded."

"The best-selling products here are actually related to food, clothing, housing and transportation, such as bicycles, clothes, sewing machines, soap, and oh, radios."

The young man had a strange expression: "Three turns and one sound?"

"Yes, three turns and one beep is quite appropriate." The old captain took a sip of wine: "Usually these goods are directly transferred to dealers, and then sold by peddlers to remote places in the countryside, but in recent times, In 2017, Yingzhou received a lot of funds and set up some factories, which gave it some hematopoietic capabilities. Some commodities are no longer dependent on imports, and prices have gone down."

"But there's no need to worry. On the contrary, there are plenty of higher-end products in Daxia."

"There is no need to buy new goods. Even if they are just second-hand goods that are 90% new, there is no need to worry about sales here."

"It's a pity that the most critical medicines or elixirs require special permits to be allowed to go abroad. That is the biggest huge profit. There is almost no market in Yingzhou. It's a pity that I don't dare to take risks."

The young man poured a glass of wine for the old captain and continued to ask: "What is this second difficulty?"

"Of course it's the death tide." The old captain pointed to the gray fog outside the window.

"This doesn't seem like anything," the young man said.

"It just looks like it. I didn't see that the ships here are all wrapped like rice dumplings. They are all to isolate the fog of the death tide. The outer shells are reinforced with the highest strength materials." The old captain patted the hull of the ship. Said: "My wealth and life are all on these five ships. Two generations of my family have worked hard for so many years to get these five ships. The average cost of each one is more than one million!"

"Without it, I really wouldn't dare to cross this death wave... Ordinary people would be stunned if they took one breath of this gray mist."

"Even if you are an extraordinary person, if your level is not good enough, you will die if you get lost in it."

"This dead tide can isolate souls from detection. Once you enter it, you will not be able to tell where you are. All detection will fail. You can't see the sky. You can only see the vast sea and endless gray fog." The old captain shouted. He took a sip of wine and said, "Those who are not brave enough will be scared to death! Therefore, I have to be very careful every time I go on a boat!"

The young man glanced at the wine bottle in the other person's hand and said nothing.

"Well, be brave. I have a good drinker and can drink a thousand glasses." The old captain laughed.

"All detections have failed, so ocean trade cannot go away, but offshore trade should not be completely cut off."

"Hey, Daxia doesn't like Yingzhou. It's not worth fighting for. It's enough to just mobilize some civil forces." The old captain patted his chest: "Just like me. The fleets of more than a dozen shipping companies could not even stop at the small pier in Edo a few years ago."

"How do you determine the direction?" the young man asked, looking out the window.

"Experience." The old captain said mysteriously: "So, you must not believe it, hahaha, this is the secret of every caravan. If there is no knowledge, anyone can do this business, and we should have been Eliminated, little brother, don’t you think so?”

The young man stopped at that point and didn't ask any more questions.

He could also guess that it was probably related to something underwater.

The dead tide covers the ocean, but has no effect underwater.

It's a pity that the submarine technology in this world has not broken through the singularity, otherwise there would still be a chance to usher in the Age of Navigation.

"What's the third difficulty?"

"The third difficulty..." The old captain thought for a while, and then continued after arranging his words: "Of course it's the trouble from Yingzhou. Alas... this is the most troublesome. After all, we are in a foreign land. Stranger, we have made a lot of money, and many people in Yingzhou are jealous."

"Especially those big Chinese surnames, they are all like jackals and tigers. Seeing us making money makes them feel more sad than them losing money."

“So if you want to sell goods, you have to try your best to take routes related to these local forces.”

"They are looking for money, and we are looking for money...This is ultimately a business issue."

"It's a pity that the local nobles in Yingzhou are not particular about it. We went all the way and risked our lives, but they got seven points of the profit. Why?"

The old captain took a sip of wine and said angrily: "There are many sects here. In the past few years, it was okay, there were always some rules, and the development of the chamber of commerce was pretty good. In recent years, life has been more difficult, just because of the local people in Yingzhou. There is unrest, various places are fighting for territory, and the power has changed greatly, which makes us very anxious."

Listening to the old captain's thoughts.

The young man said: "It seems that we are almost arriving in Yingzhou."

At this time, the old captain vaguely saw the shadow of an island and smiled: "You can't run so fast at Wangshan Mountain. We have to walk for more than three hours. You can go down and rest for a while." When we get there, if we run into trouble, we may need your help."

"nature."

The young man left the bow position and returned to the room.

Looking through the window at the islands in the distance.

There is a tachi lying across his knees.

"This time, it's really been ten years since we last saw each other."