"Kamikaze!"

In the lobby, Feng Sheng kept repeating this word.

Sitting opposite him, Liu Rixin, the director of the Imperial Observatory, nodded and said, "According to our calculations, the weather in the east is unpredictable, with changes in wind and clouds, which is a sign of divine wind."

"I have consulted the Jinyiwei and asked the local Japanese natives. The divine wind occurs almost every year in Japan, and it is around this time of year."

Feng Sheng, who had been fighting in the inland, had naturally never seen a typhoon, and had no idea what the scene would be like when a typhoon came.

However, with the previous experience of the Mongols and Yuan Dynasty as a lesson, Feng Sheng would not ignore the divine wind suggested by the Imperial Observatory.

"How long will it take for the kamikaze to arrive?"

After thinking for a while, Feng Sheng asked.

Liu Rixin said: "There is a saying among the people along the southeast coast that 'a thunder in June stops at the three towers, and a thunder in July comes to the nine towers'. However, we are in Japan, so the divine wind must have arrived in Japan first, and then come to our Great Ming."

"According to the time limit, the divine wind of Japan should arrive about one or two months earlier than that of the Ming Dynasty. It is now May, and there are thunders in the far east. The divine wind will arrive in about a month."

"I have already ordered people to observe the signs of the eastern sea from the high mountains. When the divine wind comes, there will definitely be fish-shaped clouds floating in the sky. If the clouds are white, it means that the typhoon will be easing. If the clouds are black, then the typhoon will be fierce."

"You will know it then."

Feng Sheng nodded: "It seems that we can only build fortifications immediately. I just don't know how fierce this hurricane will be. If it is compared with the one three years ago, I am afraid it will be difficult to act."

"Now the Japanese army is not taking any action, and those in Kyushu Island are even hiding from us, not confronting our army head-on. I guess they are also planning to use this divine wind."

"They are trying to destroy our army with divine wind, and then win like the Mongols did."

After Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming Dynasty, there were two major typhoons in the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

It is recorded:

In July of the fifth year of Hongwu, there was a severe storm and the sea overflowed, drowning more than ten thousand people.

On the first day of July in the 23rd year of Hongwu, a hurricane swept through three states, blowing up sand and uprooting trees. 1,700 families were buried in the belly of fish. All the houses along the Chongming coast were submerged, and 70 to 80 percent of the people drowned. More than 20,000 people drowned in Songjiang Prefecture.

After talking with Liu Rixin, Feng Sheng did not hesitate and immediately ordered the construction of typhoon defense fortifications.

The main means of defense against typhoons is reinforcement.

However, Feng Sheng also has to deal with the Ming fleet.

"Feng Cheng, pass on my military order. Immediately select 10,000 men from the army and sail the fleet back to Ming."

Feng Sheng called his nephew over and gave him instructions.

He didn't know how big the hurricane would be. If it was too big, it would be a severe blow to the fleet.

Every ship is a precious treasure. In a hurricane, it is difficult for people to survive, let alone ships.

"Uncle, if the fleet turns back, I am worried that the morale of the army will be affected."

Feng Cheng said after hesitating for a moment.

The fleet was like a retreat route for the Ming soldiers. If the entire fleet left, it would feel like the retreat was cut off, and morale would naturally drop.

"It's not like I won't come. After I return to Ming, I will report the situation here to His Majesty. The food supply on Kyushu Island is worrying, and with the hurricane, there will definitely be large-scale casualties."

"Including grain fields, it is estimated that they will also be severely damaged. The return of the fleet can not only preserve them, but also prepare food for use after the disaster."

"When the time comes, pass these things on to comfort the soldiers."

Feng Sheng said calmly.

As one of the top generals of our time, he is very familiar with controlling the morale of the army.

In addition to his personal prestige, even the soldiers led by the King of Yan and the King of Jin were mostly elite soldiers, but compared with Feng Sheng, they were far inferior.

…

"It seems that everyone is waiting for the hurricane in June."

Zhu Ying, who was in Suzhou Prefecture, got the information about Japan at the first opportunity.

The current situation in Japan is relatively in line with expectations.

For most soldiers, the biggest enemy of an expedition is often not the fighting on the battlefield, but the completely unfamiliar environment.

Acclimation is just a simple term in later generations, but nowadays it can really cause death.

It's not about a few people dying, but once a plague becomes a pandemic, large numbers of people will die.

Most of the soldiers who went on the expedition to Japan had lived in inland areas for a long time, and seasickness alone could consume a lot of their combat power.

In the naval battle against Japan, it was the Ming navy, which had long been a veteran of naval battles, that came on the scene and was able to achieve success in one fell swoop.

"Boss, Japan is currently short of population, so it is impossible to transport a large number of Japanese to Ming."

"Although we now occupy one-third of Kyushu Island, it is difficult to mine minerals in war-torn areas. Currently, our Chamber of Commerce's business in Japan is decreasing significantly."

"Even the daimyo and samurai are reducing their demands. They hope that we can provide more elite weapons."

"Currently, Japan is offering a price of 20 taels of silver for a matchlock rifle, and 50 taels for a cannon."

Uncle Zhang said with a smile.

At present, the Ming army is in a one-sided situation of crushing Japan with ease.

For example, those cities could be captured on the day of the attack.

The biggest reason why it is so simple is the use of firearms.

The current Japan is in the age of swords, spears, bows and arrows.

Especially the short city gate. The large and small cannons bombarded it for half an hour. Not to mention the city gate, even the city wall was almost destroyed.

What defense are we talking about?

Then the fire soldiers went up and fired a lot of shots, and then the army pressed in, leaving them with no power to resist.

After witnessing the power of the Ming army's firearms, Japan naturally spent a lot of money to purchase firearms and armaments.

However, firearms were all under the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty court. Especially with the blockade of the sea areas, even smugglers did not dare to take the risk to supply them at this time.

Not to mention smuggling, even purchasing a large number of firearms or gunpowder in the Ming Dynasty area would be subject to government scrutiny.

Once any news leaks out, it goes without saying that all nine generations of the clan will be exterminated.

Currently, because they are government-run, firearms that seem slow to manufacture are actually not very expensive.

Even for a cannon, the total price is only about eight strings of coins. The cost of a matchlock gun is a little higher, but it will not exceed two strings of coins.

Although theoretically the silver-to-silver ratio is one-to-one, in reality the purchasing power of one tael of silver is still much greater than that of treasure notes.

Twenty taels for a matchlock rifle is almost a sky-high price.

This is just the matchlock gun. If gunpowder is included, the profit is simply huge.

However, Zhu Ying has no plans to earn this money for the time being, especially from Japan.

Today, firearms are still firmly controlled by the government, and there are no arms dealers. Zhu Ying has to take advantage of the dimensionality reduction attack brought by the current firearms and launch a new round of expansion for the Ming Dynasty before he will start to consider selling some obsolete firearms.

No matter how high a price Japan offered, we would never sell them a musket.

Zhu Ying pondered for a while and said, "The price offered by Japan will definitely attract a group of desperate merchants, especially Shanxi merchants."

"If they want firearms, they can only find a way inside the garrison."

"In that case, Uncle Zhang, you can let those small chambers of commerce that we secretly control send out the news of purchasing matchlock guns."

"As for the price, let's set it at five taels of silver for a musket, and ten taels for a matchlock rifle. I'll take whatever you have."

Zhang Bo heard this and said, "Great! The boss's idea is really good. This way, we can immediately know who is selling our Fire System and can directly cut it off."

Zhu Ying smiled but said nothing.

Isn't fishing enforcement a common tactic used by later generations?

So far, no chamber of commerce has come to sell arms. As long as he is the first to release the news, no one will say that it is someone from the court.

Moreover, this business is a long-term one. As long as there is any sign, the source can be quickly found and eliminated.

Relatively speaking, it is easy when there are clues.

The current situation in Suzhou Prefecture is pretty good. Now that the money is in place, we can basically open a shipyard.

Of course, these things are not something Zhu Ying should worry about.

Next up is our new itinerary: Shanghai.

In the 28th year of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court approved the petition of Songjiang prefect Pushan Hanwen to establish Shanghai County, and the county seat was set in Shanghai Town established in the Song Dynasty.

Since the Han Dynasty, Shanghai has had coin minting, iron smelting and salt boiling industries.

During the Sui and Tang dynasties, with the continuous development of the Jiangnan economy, the economy in the Shanghai area also developed rapidly.

In the early years of the Kaiyuan Period of the Tang Dynasty, a seawall was built from Yanguan in the south to Wusong River in the north.

The land was also reclaimed and gradually developed into an important grain-producing area.

Since then, the population and county towns have gradually increased and their scale has expanded.

After the mid-Tang Dynasty, Shanghai's economic and cultural ties with the world further expanded. In the tenth year of the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, Huating County was established by demarcating areas from Kunshan, Jiaxing and Haiyan counties, and Huating Sea was located in the northeast of Huating County.

Qinglongji Town in the northeast of Huating County was crowded with ships and bustling with people, and people at that time compared it to Hangzhou.

At that time, Shanghai, as a new trading port, was already a place with sailing ships and crowded merchants.

In the 14th year of the Yuan Dynasty, the Maritime Customs Office was established in Shanghai Town, followed by the Ducaoyun Wanhu Mansion.

At that time, Shanghai Town had become "a large town in the northeast of Huating".

In the 28th year of the Zhiyuan period, five townships in the northeast of Huating County were separated and named Shanghai County.

After Shanghai was established as a county, its economy developed greatly.

As the cotton planting industry prospered, the cotton textile industry also gradually emerged.

Huang Dao Po, a native of Wunijing, Songjiang, brought back advanced textile technology from Hainan and reformed textile tools, producing large quantities of high-quality textiles, which promoted the development of the handmade cotton textile industry.

Even until the Ming Dynasty, the name Shanghai County has been used.

“It’s really prosperous.”

Zhu Ying sighed a little.

Compared with other places, Shanghai County has developed more business because of the rise of the textile industry and has already established the initial capital employment relationship.

Most of the land, including the rice fields here, is planted with cotton.

The grain and cotton industries have almost become a 50-50 situation.

In addition, it is an important water transport port, and all ships transporting food and supplies by sea depart from Shanghai.

This also leads to the fact that there is rarely any food shortage in Shanghai County.

When labor was liberated, the rise of industrialization was inevitable.

The influence of the Qunying Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai County is still very strong, the main reason is the previous snowflake salt.

There are a lot of salt dealers in Shanghai, especially private salt dealers.

When snowflake salt appeared, it had a huge impact on Shanghai.

It is precisely because of this that, at a very early stage, although Zhu Ying did not come to Shanghai in person, the Qunying Chamber of Commerce could be said to have two levels of profits that almost all came from here.

Most of the snowflake salt from other parts of the Ming Dynasty is also shipped from Shanghai.

Seventy percent of the list of salt officials that Zhu Ying reported to the old man were in Shanghai County.

In a restaurant, Zhu Ying took the intelligence list of the branch leaders in Shanghai from Zhang Bo and began to read it carefully.

The main record in this list is about the basic situation of each chamber of commerce.

There are also government officials, salt officials, etc.

After reading it, Zhu Ying said with some emotion: "When I came here, I already felt that the status of merchants here seemed to be not low, but I didn't expect that these people from the Canal Merchants Gang could really cover the sky with one hand."

"It's quite interesting to say that the emergence of the Canal Merchants Gang was actually due to the snowflake salt I sell here. They increased the price by various amounts and sold it for several times the profit."

"Uncle Zhang, they are even more ruthless than us."

The canal merchant gang, abbreviated as Caobang.

The current composition of the Shanghai Cao Gang is very different from that of Suzhou Prefecture.

Perhaps because there are more and more diverse merchants in Shanghai, it is not easy to form a merchant gang, and the main body of the Cao Gang here is actually the soldiers of the garrison.

After tracing all the way, all the clues finally pointed to Zhenhaiwei.

Although they said they were investigating, in fact the members of the Cao Gang were extremely arrogant and had no intention of keeping secrets. Any chamber of commerce with a little power that did not obey their orders would directly use the name of Zhenhaiwei.

Speaking of which, Zhenhaiwei has some connection with Zhu Ying.

Because the founder of Zhenhaiwei was Zhou Dexing, Marquis of Jiangxia.

Jiang Xiahou, a famous general of the founding of the Ming Dynasty who was implicated and killed for causing chaos in the palace and one of the Twenty-Four Generals of Huaixi.

Later, Jiang Xiahou was transferred to Fujian, but many of his former subordinates were still there.

"This Zhenhai Guard is quite powerful. When other guards have problems, it's mostly because the commanders exploit the soldiers."

"And now the commander of Zhenhai Guard is leading his soldiers to exploit merchants. He has established a gang force like the Cao Gang to control all merchants and extract huge profits from them."

"I guess many salt officials are also following the Zhenhai Guards."

"This guy probably made a lot of money in a year, which is why the soldiers in the garrison are so loyal to him."

"I guess it won't work even if the old man goes there, let alone me."

Zhu Ying said with a smile, but there was no smile in his tone.

The Zhenhai Guard dares to be so arrogant and domineering, they are definitely not just the old subordinates of Jiang Xiahou.

It is very likely that the Huaixi military generals group is also involved.

In other words, the Zhenhai Guards, who are behind the Cao Gang, are, in a sense, still Zhu Ying's current direct line.