The Fourth Financial Crisis

The Eastern Ocean to the east of Haiya City is a vast expanse of blue waves.

Although Yang Lu has lived in Haiya City for more than half a year, he has never had the opportunity to travel to the sea.

On the second day after meeting Su Yuanfeng, under Li Qingning's reluctant eyes, Yang Lu boarded the ocean-going merchant ship of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce and sailed towards the port of Yanbo Island, three thousand miles away.

Although Yang Lu always felt that Li Qingning's crescent hairpin was not suitable for him, he finally reluctantly accepted it.

After all, face is not as important as life!

Originally, Li Qingning wanted to hand over his natal magic weapon "Xunfeng" to him, but Yang Lu declined.

As the saying goes, a common man is not guilty of carrying a jade. The value of this sword is equivalent to half of the Qingning Chamber of Commerce. In the early stage of Qi refining, the monks carrying this domineering weapon are almost equivalent to the "I am a fat sheep" "Four words are written on his face, and he doesn't have a background like Li Qingning that makes people look down on him!"

As the fleet gradually moved away, Yang Lu stood on the top of the watchtower of the fleet's flagship. He could no longer see clearly the Haiya Port behind him. Feeling the momentum of the fleet riding the wind and waves, he couldn't help but secretly lament the advancement of civilian cultivation technology. magic.

The ultra-large-scale ocean-going fleet of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce has far exceeded the limit of ancient fleet size. It has nearly 20,000 crew members. I am afraid that it will be difficult for the legendary Zheng He treasure fleet to reach this level. Such scale.

The regulations of these ocean-going sailing ships are quite similar to the classic Karak-type ocean-going sailing ships of the 16th century on Earth, but their tonnage is comparable to the largest three-decker sailing battleship of the 19th century.

According to the information provided by Su Yuanfeng, this ocean-going fleet is considered the strongest reinforcement force of the Wuliang Sword Sect against the outlying islands. It not only carries a large number of elite mortal troops, but also carries a large amount of food supplies and military supplies.

In order to organize this reinforcement fleet, the special allocation of Duzhitang alone was as high as 30 million yuan in spirit stones, which was even more than the compensation for the Tianshu City rebellion.

This is because Zhongzhou is not far from the outlying islands. If such a large-scale mortal military force is sent from Fire Cloud State to the outlying islands, the cost will probably be more than three times higher than that of the Wuliang Sword Sect.

From the amount of money invested by Wuliang Sword Sect, we can see how sensitive Lin Jianxing is to the invasion of outlying islands by the forces of Fire Cloud State.

"Brother Yang, how powerful is our Haiya fleet?"

The person who spoke was Yang Lu's old friend Han Fulai, the head of Haiya City's Ocean Trading Department.

As the head of the Ocean Trade Department, Han Fulai had served as the flagship captain of the ocean-going fleet of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce for more than 10 years before taking up a civilian job. He was regarded as the most knowledgeable professional talent in navigation among the senior officials of Haiya City.

As the actual executor of reinforcements to the outlying islands, Haiya City must also send enough important representatives to lead the fleet.

Since cultivators are not allowed to enter at will on the outlying islands, even though the fleet is organized by the Xu family of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce, which is responsible for overseas affairs, Han Fulai, a mortal executive with both ability and connections, was selected as the top leader of the fleet.

Leaning on the railing and looking at the Haiya fleet spread out on the open ocean, Yang Lu admired sincerely: "With such an astonishing fleet, Haiya City is worthy of being the leader of ocean trade in the southeastern region of Zhongzhou."

"The total size of the Sea Cliff Fleet currently sailing in the four oceans of Kyushu is more than thirty times that of this fleet. However, the order issued by the Wuliang Sword Sect was very sudden. In our haste, we could only summon a fleet of this size. Come on!" Even though Han Fulai said modest words, there was a look of pride on his expression that could not be concealed.

In the Zhongzhou cultivation world, Haiya is like a little shrimp in front of the Wuliang Sword Sect. But on the boundless sea of ​​the four oceans of Kyushu, even if it is as powerful as the Wuliang Sword Sect, it still needs to rely on the sea power of the Haiya Sect. This is the confidence for the Haiya Sect to settle down and live!

"Brother Yang, don't underestimate these ocean-going merchant ships. There is a lot of knowledge here!" Seeing Yang Lu's interested expression, Han Fulai also started chatting, "The main keels of these merchant ships need to be imported from Tianshu. Thousand-year-old spiritual trees from the mountains were selected, otherwise it would not be able to support a hull of this size. The hull must also be equipped with a 'flat wave array' to resist bumps, a 'wave-breaking array' to eliminate resistance, a 'wind gathering array' to increase power, And the 'star-holding array' used for positioning, otherwise it would be impossible to cross the vast Eastern Ocean, which is more than 40,000 miles wide from east to west."

"I didn't expect these merchant ships to be equipped with so many immortal formations!"

"In order to reduce costs, these are the lowest-end fairy formations." Han Fulai said casually, and continued to introduce, "Before each of our merchant ships leaves the factory, it needs to complete tens of thousands of processes at the Haiya Shipyard before it can be launched. This process involves tens of thousands of shipbuilding workers. The food, clothing, housing and transportation of these people require the cooperation and organization and coordination of all major departments of our Haiya City. To put it bluntly, even if we, the four major families of Haiya City, All the assets of the Haiya Sect have been handed over to the Wuliang Sword Sect, and it is impossible for the Wuliang Sword Sect to manage this huge organizational system!"

Han Fulai's self-promotion made Yang Lu deeply convinced.

This huge sea cliff fleet can reflect the unique political pattern of the entire Kyushu cultivation world.

Although the seven major sects in Kyushu are powerful, violence is not the only factor in maintaining governance. Just tens of thousands of high-level cultivators alone cannot effectively extend their rule to the grassroots. The major overlord-level sects in Kyushu still need something like the Haiya Sect. The local emperor performed the affairs beyond his power on his behalf and transferred part of his ruling power to him.

If the Haiya Sect had not come forward to coordinate the resources of all parties, it would have been impossible for the Wuliang Sword Sect to quickly organize such a large fleet. This is why the senior officials of the Wuliang Sword Sect knew that local sects such as the Haiya Sect were making small moves, but still chose to turn a blind eye. Close one eye.

In fact, Yang Lu could feel the magic of this merchant ship without Han Fu's introduction.

Ocean sailing is rough and windy, and even the earth's 100,000-ton giant ship will experience violent bumps. The swaying walking posture of Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean" is actually imitating the daily walking posture of ordinary sailors at sea.

However, the merchant ships of the Haiya Chamber of Commerce had a tonnage of several thousand tons, but they did not feel the slightest bumps. Yang Lu had not even seen any passengers suffering from seasickness. This must be the miraculous effect of the 'smooth wave array'.

Not only that, the speed of the entire fleet has reached an astonishing level. Yang Lu visually measured it to be about 15 knots, which is basically the level of a modern freighter and comparable to the fastest sailing ship in modern times on earth, the Clipper.

This is a heavily loaded sail freighter that is nearly fully loaded!

Although the productivity improvements brought about by the civilian use of cultivation technology are huge, there are still obvious disadvantages.

Take the Haiya Fleet as an example. Although the vast Eastern Ocean has a rich aura environment, unlike Haiya City where the gas is often restricted, the various immortal formations deployed by ocean-going merchant ships still require the consumption of expensive cultivation materials, such as Yang The blood of monsters that is often seen in Tianshu City is the most common paint for depicting formation patterns.

Not only that, the actual effect of the immortal array also depends on the quality of the array materials. Since most of the goods transported by conventional means have a low unit price, in order to reduce the transportation cost as much as possible, the array materials of the Haiya series merchant ships are made of the highest quality. The inferior formation materials are just make-do, so the effect of the fairy formation can be said to be quite restrained.

If logistics could be organized at all costs, cultivators would have switched to flying spirit boats to transport goods!

"After listening to Brother Han's explanation, I realized that this ocean-going fleet actually has so much knowledge!" Although Yang Lu is now a cultivator and does not need to give face to Han Fulai, a mortal clerk, his words are still very polite.

His attitude naturally won the other party's favor.

Just as Han Fulai was about to say something with a smile, he was interrupted by an inappropriate speech: "Guy named Han, how long will it take for our fleet to arrive at the port of Yanbo Island!"