Chapter 152.1

This was ancient times.

Despite the appearance of peace and prosperity in the Wexing Province, there were many wars in other places.

In a place like this, if you don’t have enough power in your hands it will only make you uneasy.

Jiang Zhen and Wen Ming become merchants together. While Wen Ming spent his money at home or brought land he was different, he was always gathering and training manpower.

Nowadays, Jiang Zhen has thousands of adults who knew some material art under his hands, some of them were working as escort in Jinzhen Escort Agency while others followed him to the sea.

After returning home, he had those who followed him to the sea a few days off but now it was time to start training again.

In the mountains near Yabian Village, there was a special training ground, where Jiang Zhen trained his men. Today he went there early.

In the training ground, hundreds of men, led by Zhu Erlin, were already waiting.

It was still early so they sat lazily on the ground or on the logs wiping the knives in their hands.

Jiang Ming, who was only 17 or 18 years old when he first started following Jiang Zhen was now a very strong man with muscular arms, but instead of a knife he was holding a spear.

Initially, Jiang Zhen had little money on hand, so he asked his men to use bamboo poles as weapons. Jiang Ming liked the feeling of stabbing people with bamboo poles so later when he received a large knife made of steel he was not willing to change the weapon and so did several other people.

Jiang Zhen then decided to ask someone to get them some spears.

“Jiang Ming, I heard that you are going to marry?”Zhu Erlin looked at Jiang Ming and asked: “Have you already seen your wife?”

“You’re stupid!” Jiang Ming looked at Zhu Erlin, the wife his father and mother found for him was from Hecheng County. He got the news at the same time as Zhu Erlin so how could he seen her?

Zhu Erlin looked at Jiang Ming with an air of seriousness: “Little Ming you must be nice to your wife, otherwise when we go out for months she might run away.”

“Do you think my wife is willing to run away when I look like this?” Jiang Ming looked at Zhu Erlin and said: “However, you should be careful.”

“I’ll beat you up!” Zhu Erlin kicked Jiang Ming

Seeing that the two of them were about to fight, someone suddenly ran from outside: “Stop it, put your clothes back! Hurry up!”

“What’s wrong?” Zhu Erlin and Jiang Ming let go of each other and looked over in bewilderment.

“The boss is here!” The man said.

“If the boss is here, he’s here.” Zhu Erlin said, their boss was even more unpretentious than them. After going to sea lat time he even cut his hair short…. If they hadn’t been on the sea for a long time and he didn’t have five months to grow it back, their boss would have been scolded for coming back with such a hairstyle!

“He is with young lady!” The man said again.

“Miss?!” Starled, Zhu Erlin hurriedly stood up and straightened up his clothes.

When Jiang Zhen was at sea, he spent his days telling people how cute his daughter Zhao Mingzhu was, so that although they had hardly seen Zhao Mingzhu, they could not help feel affection for this child.

Under such circumstances, they naturally did not want to show their unkempt side in front of Zhao Mingzhu.

As soon as Zhu Erlin and others had cleaned up, Jiang Zhen came over with Zhao Mingzhu.

Zhao Mingzhu who was now more than four years old was no longer as fat as she was before, but her face was still a little round and her eyes were big, so she looked very adorable.

“Boss, why did you bring the young lady here?” Jiang Ming looked at Jiang Zhen in bewilderment.

“She will come every day from now on.” Jiang Zhen said.

Jiang Ming and others ware a little dumbfounded, he will bring Zhao Mingzhu over here everyday?

Jiang Zhen and Zhao Jinge were now considered people of status so their daughter, should be raised deep chamber, with a group of maid serving her as she learned zither, chess, calligraphy, painting, housekeeping and dabble in embroidery but now… she was brought to them?

Wasn’t their boss afraid of tanning the miss?

These people felt helpless, but Zhao Mingzhu was very interested in everything.

Wooden tower you could climb up and down, high and low wooden stakes, rope bridge across the river…

“Mingzhu, father took you here to play today!” Jiang Zhen said to Zhao Mingzhu.

In fact, he also wanted to bring Zhao Chengyu, but Zhao Chengyu was less than three years old and was too young after all.

Zhao Mingzhu nodded vigorously.

Some things Zhao Mingzhu could “play by herself while for others Jiang Zhen would take her with him. When they come across something she could not play, he tied her to his chest and went to “play“ by himself.

Leaning against Jiang Zhen’s chest, Zhao Mingzhu giggled very happy.

But when Wen Ming who come over saw this scene he was so scared that he broke out in cold sweat.

Jiang Zhen he actually took his daughter to climb such a high wooden stake!

Although he often went out to sea with ships he rarely did the same things that crew do. He has never climbed the mast and was even a little afraid of heights.

“Wen Ming, what’s the matter?” When Jiang Zhen saw that Wen Ming had brought people over, he climbed down from the height and urged his men to continue to practice.

“Yes something is wrong.” Wen Ming said.

Jiang Zhen carrying Zhao Mingzhu in his hands went together with Wen Ming to a nearby place where he took a short break before looking at Wen Ming: “What is it?”

“There are two things, one is Wen family ships if we want to buy them in future I am afraid that I won’t be so easy.” Wen Ming said. For many things it was impossible to not involve interests, the Wen family originally loved Wen Ying Niang, but now . . .

Wen father and mother, as well as her several brothers, still had feelings for Wen Ying Niang at this time but no else did… if they wanted to maintain goodwill, it would be best not to involve the interests.

Jiang Zhen had already anticipated it and even made some preparations for the fact that he might no longer be able to buy a ships from the Wen family in the future, so now he just nodded in agreement: “I see. What else?”

“There is also that Cheng Yongzhen of Pingzhou Province who is doing a good job.” Wen Ming said: “I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.”

Wen Ming talked about the situation in details.

The matter had not yet spread outside, and was told to him by sea merchant he used to know.

Country of Daqi had a sea ban, which stipulates that the cargo could not go into the sea.

But the sea merchant business was too profitable, even Daqi ordinary kitchen knife after being send to east could be sold for hundred times the price!

As a result, the local officials on this side of Yangtze River has been secretly connived, giving birth to a lot of big sea merchants.

This also had a lot to do with the increasing population in the south of the Yangtze River and the serious land annexation – many people no longer could rely on land to make a living so they could only seek a living by relying on the sea.

This side of Wexing Province was still good but further south, the sea merchants became very powerful.