Ship after ship sailed out of Crescent Bay, raising their sails as they headed north.
They had not run into any ships on the way there, but on the way back, they encountered quite a few.
Most were merchant ships from Jiangnan, and their routes were almost identical to theirs.
Generally speaking, merchant ships that went to sea followed fixed routes. For example, if merchant ships from Jiangnan sailed north, they were roughly headed for one of three destinations: Liaodong, the Lisheng Dynasty, or the Desheng Dynasty.
There might be relatively few merchant ships going to Liaodong, because the profit from selling goods there was far lower than selling them to the Lisheng Dynasty or the Desheng Dynasty.
However, for all three destinations, a large stretch of the route overlapped.
So running into other merchant ships was nothing strange.
And now it was mid-March, when the southeast monsoon over Da Rong's East Sea could provide ships with greater momentum. Therefore, every year in mid-March marked the beginning of Jiangnan merchant ships sailing north.
Of course, it was also the beginning of the pirates' active season.
However, Yang Zhengshan was not worried about pirates.
They had nearly twenty warships escorting them. Pirates were not fools; why would they seek their own deaths?
Let alone pirates—even other fleets, when they saw Yang Zhengshan's fleet, kept far away, afraid of inviting trouble.
After two days of sailing, the fleet returned to the Tenglong Guard docks.
When cart after cart of goods was transported from the docks to Guard City, the entire Guard City abruptly began to boil over with excitement.
Goods from Jiangnan were very popular in Liaodong. Exquisite porcelain, splendid silk, scarce medicinal materials, tea leaves, and so on—each and every commodity represented enormous profit.
The merchants of Guard City had long