Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1132 1127 [The Emperor's Literary Dream Shattered]

Chapter 1132 1127 [The Emperor's Literary Dream Shattered]

After leaving Yuxiu Academy, Zhu Guoxiang took a boat straight to Kaifeng.

He was quite familiar with the place, so there was no need for him to stay for too long, but there were some people he needed to meet, such as members of the royal family of the destroyed country.

Including the sons of Song Huizong, all were received and rewarded.

The madman Zhao Kai eventually died of illness.

Last winter, he got drunk and fell ill on the street. Someone sent him to a famous prostitute and successfully got the reward from her. The doctor said that he was terminally ill and there was no hope for recovery. The prostitute sent someone to send Zhao Kai home, and his wife accepted him despite cursing.

On his deathbed, Zhao Kai had a moment of clarity and was no longer crazy. He told his wife and children who had not paid him for his paintings.

The lawsuit started this year, and his wife and children sued more than a dozen people at once.

Public opinion was favorable to his wife and children, but he was at a disadvantage legally.

First, they could not produce any evidence, and Zhao Kai had already gone crazy, so what he said before his death might not be reliable; second, Zhao Kai and his wife had divorced long ago, and he had also severed the father-son relationship with his sons.

This lawsuit caused a sensation and there is still no final judgment, but it is only a matter of time before the plaintiff loses the case.

Now that she had been received by the emperor, Zhao Kai's ex-wife burst into tears after just a few words. Zhu Guoxiang was so overwhelmed that he simply paid 200 strings of cash out of his own pocket, but refused to interfere in the normal trial of the government.

After sending this family away, Zhu Guoxiang talked to the others, and gradually it was Zhao Jiu's family's turn: "What do you do for a living now?"

Zhao Gou said, "Reporting to the Emperor, I was hired by a wealthy businessman as a teacher, teaching calligraphy, painting, and music. I occasionally meet with scholars and sell some of my paintings and calligraphy. I also work as an editor for a printing house and write epitaphs for others, earning a small fee."

"It's good that you are willing to be self-reliant," Zhu Guoxiang praised. "Your descendants have long since lifted the restrictions on the imperial examinations, but has anyone ever passed the exam and won a title?"

Zhao Gou replied: "My second and third sons have both passed the examination for the title of scholar. However, their talent and learning are still insufficient, and they have never been able to pass the examination for the title of juren. My fourth son is very smart. He is still young, and is good at mathematics and physics. I plan to let him take the examination for the title of a military officer."

Zhu Guoxiang smiled and nodded: "Being a martial arts officer is also very good."

Song Huizong's eleventh son Zhao Mo suddenly said: "Your Majesty, my eldest son has passed the imperial examination and is expected to become an official and serve the court!"

Zhu Guoxiang praised: "It is precious. I will give him a set of pens, inkstones, paperweights, and some good ink."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for the reward!" Zhao Mo was overjoyed.

After some consolation, everyone left.

When he got to the street, Zhao Mo held his head high and looked proudly at his brothers with his nose in the air.

Zhao Gou curled his lips and was too lazy to talk to his younger brother.

Zhao Gou was not a pragmatic person. He had long sold the small amount of land given by the court and the dilapidated house in the suburbs. Now his family rented a house in the city and relied on him to work several jobs to make a living. Their life was not tight, but it was a long way to go before they could buy a house.

Moreover, ever since he lost a lot of money in futures trading for the first time, Zhao Gou has been fascinated by it. Whenever he has some spare money, he goes to the exchange to try to make back his lost capital.

There were gains and losses, but generally speaking it was a loss, and Zhao Gou always enjoyed it.

Zhao Mo, whose son passed the imperial examination, was much more honest. His elder sister Zhao Fujin and his younger sister Zhao Fujin were both Zhu Ming's concubines, and they would send people to give him some pocket money every year.

At first, Zhao Mo had to farm the land himself, but gradually he began to recruit tenants to farm the land, and he switched from growing grain to growing vegetables, supplying vegetables to the citizens of Kaifeng. Zhao Mo also saved the pocket money his sisters gave him, and bought land whenever he had the chance.

Today, Zhao Mo has more than 300 mu of vegetable fields in the suburbs of Kaifeng. He also raises two oxen and four mules for his own use and for rent. He also raises some chickens and geese, and the old vegetable leaves that cannot be sold can be used to feed the poultry.

As a small landlord in the suburbs of Beijing, Zhao Mo was quite satisfied with his current situation.

In addition to the Zhao Song royal family, there are several Li, Duan and Wang families in Kaifeng. The Li family is divided into the Xixia Li family and the Annan Li family. They have good and bad lives in Kaifeng, depending on their abilities and personalities.

After leaving Kaifeng, I went to Shangqiu.

This is Nanjing in the Northern Song Dynasty. Although Nanjing has now become Jinling, Shangqiu is still very prosperous with many merchants and travelers because it is located at an important node of the Bian River.

The same situation also exists in Daming, which was Beijing in the Northern Song Dynasty. Although it has lost its political status, it is no longer prone to frequent disasters caused by the Yellow River, and is connected to Youyan. Daming has become more prosperous with the canal.

The population of Youyan has gradually recovered.

Compared with the Central Plains and Jiangnan, Youyan is naturally sparsely populated. However, with the continuous organization of immigration by the imperial court and the natural reproduction, the total population of the counties in Yanshan Prefecture has recovered to 38, which is already very valuable.

When the Ming Dynasty just recovered it, Yanshan Prefecture was sparsely populated, so its jurisdiction was very large - from Miyun and Huairou in the north to Juyongguan in the west, from Zhuozhou and Gu'an in the south to Jizhou and Baodi in the east.

Such a large territory, but only 38 people in total?

It's really a lot. When we first recovered it, there were less than 20,000...

Once the population of Yanshan Prefecture recovers to 60, Zhu Ming plans to set it up as Beijing.

At that time, the administrative divisions will also be changed: Zhuozhou, Gu'an, Anci and other counties will be assigned to Hebei Province, and Chifeng, Chengde, Zhangjiakou and other military strongholds will be assigned to Beijing Yanshan Prefecture.

The field army and garrison troops of Yanshan Prefecture were expanded in proportion to the population, and the field army was classified as an imperial army, taking on the very difficult task of national defense in the north.

To put it bluntly, Beijing Yanshan Prefecture and Nanjing Jinling Prefecture were the central municipalities of the Ming Dynasty.

The main force there was the Imperial Guards.

The main officials there are officials from Beijing.

In order to control Yanshan Prefecture, Zunhua Iron Mine must remain in Hebei Province. The court positioned Zunhua Iron Mine as the main weapon and equipment supply base for Hebei, Northeast China, South of the Desert, and Beijing in the future.

It’s not possible now. Zunhua has too small a population and we can’t even recruit enough miners.

……

It was Zhu Guoxiang’s first time to visit Chuzhou, the capital of Huainan Province, and it did not disappoint him.

But it is not a Jiangnan water town after all, and it cannot satisfy the emperor's beautiful imagination of the ancient misty alleys. He had been here before he traveled through time, and it was called Huai'an at that time, and there were not many ancient buildings left.

Continuing south, the situation is much better in Yangzhou, although Yangzhou has a smaller population than Chuzhou.

Moreover, numerous literati and poets have left many poems in Yangzhou. Zhu Guoxiang, who has been engaged in agricultural science for two lifetimes, is ultimately a literary youth. He likes Yangzhou.

The people of Yangzhou also like the emperor.

Because the officials and scholars of the day praised the emperor highly. They controlled the national public opinion, and amidst the constant praise, the common people also felt that the emperor was the Yao and Shun of the modern age.

On the day the fleet arrived, the people of Yangzhou heard the news and rushed out of the city to the dock.

The Yangzhou prefect and commander were afraid of problems, so they urgently dispatched more officials and soldiers, and finally blocked the main road near the Han Canal.

"The Emperor is coming, the Emperor is coming!"

People were pushing and shoving on the side of the road, and some even climbed up trees.

The Yangzhou prefect Ye Yiwen was sweating profusely as he watched, fearing that there would be a stampede, and he quickly asked the commander to lead the troops to continue separating the crowd.

"Long live the Emperor!"

I don’t know who shouted first, but more and more people followed suit, and then they began to kneel down in groups.

The people of Luoyang and Kaifeng would not kneel even when they saw Zhu Ming, let alone the emperor. The people of Yangzhou, however, were very curious about the emperor. While kneeling, they would look up to see what Zhu Guoxiang looked like and whether there was really a purple aura covering his head.

This kind of scene often occurred after Kaifeng, and Zhu Guoxiang's followers were able to handle it with ease.

Soon, more than a dozen people came over and asked the people to stand up. They also asked the local civil and military officials to disperse the onlookers, and Zhu Guoxiang and his concubines and children finally appeared.

The common people instantly became excited, waving and shouting wildly, and Zhu Guoxiang also bowed in return.

After a long struggle, the emperor's team finally approached the Yangzhou city wall. However, they did not choose to enter the city, but instead turned to Shanguang Temple in the northeastern suburbs outside the city, because entering the city would inevitably cause a larger commotion.

Shanguang Temple was built in the Tang Dynasty, where Su Dongpo once got drunk and lay on a boat.

Zhu Guoxiang, his concubines, children, eunuchs, palace maids, and some guards would stay in the temple for the next few days. Most of the guards would camp at the foot of the mountain and guard the various mountain paths.

The abbot led the monks to greet him at Shanguang Bridge and took the emperor to tour the mountains and temples.

The local civil and military officials wanted to follow, but were sent back to work by Zhu Guoxiang, leaving only the chief civil and military officials to accompany him throughout the trip.

The next day, a local curfew was imposed in advance, and the civil and military officials of Yangzhou took the emperor for a stroll.

The Yangzhou prefect Ye Yiwen had good political achievements, otherwise he would not have been transferred here to serve as an official.

But it certainly won’t work in the military aspect.

Historically, he successfully predicted that the Jin army would march southward and advised the Southern Song court to prepare early. As a result, Wanyan Liang really came, and the Southern Song emperor and his ministers believed that he was knowledgeable about military affairs, so they let him lead the army to fight against the Jin army.

He spoke very logically, but when he was in charge of the troops, he did a lot of weird things and was soon dismissed from office and sent to manage a Taoist temple.

Climbing up the north tower of Yangzhou, Ye Yiwen pointed outside the city and said, "Yangzhou has become more prosperous in recent years, but the large population makes it difficult to manage. I plan to build a new northern wall and tidy up the streets of the new city. As long as you are successfully retained, we can start the construction."

"Why do we need to stay in office to start construction?" Zhu Guoxiang asked.

Ye Yiwen said: "It took two years to negotiate with the people about relocation and resettlement. My three-year term is about to expire, and I must stay in office to implement it. Otherwise, when the next prefect comes, we will have to negotiate again."

Zhu Guoxiang understood clearly: "Are there many disobedient wealthy families outside the city?"

Ye Yiwen nodded: "In addition to the rich, there are also officials. Li Yi, the first Jinshi of the Ming Dynasty, has his house and land there. The Li family has already negotiated and exchanged a piece of land in the southern suburbs for them. Some of the people in the southern suburbs who were relocated were relocated to more distant villages, and some who were willing to move to the city were given houses."

The situation in Yangzhou is rather special.

The area of ​​Yangzhou City in the Northern Song Dynasty was smaller than that of Yangzhou City in the Tang Dynasty.

During the Five Dynasties, the city was massacred and looted several times, and even large sections of the city walls were torn down. It was destroyed again during the Later Zhou Dynasty, and the area was not large when it was rebuilt or expanded.

As the population grew, the houses outside the city became messy and unplanned, and in the early years there were even large tracts of farmland.

Moreover, there are a large number of officials and wealthy business families, making the demolition work extremely difficult.

In addition, there was a military garrison outside Yangzhou City. If they wanted to demolish it, they had to obtain approval from the Ministry of War.

Ye Yiwen said: "When I expand the city of Yangzhou, I plan to restore the Luocheng area of ​​the Tang Dynasty and double the area of ​​Yangzhou. Yangzhou has money and people, so it is entirely possible to expand it in that way."

Zhu Guoxiang smiled and nodded without saying anything more.

According to Ye Yiwen's method of expansion, the urban area of ​​Yangzhou will surpass that of the provincial capital Chuzhou.

The Yangzhou at that time was the complete Yangzhou, not the crowded city like it is now, with all kinds of dirt and mess inside and outside the city.

After strolling around for a while, Zhu Guoxiang wanted to visit the Slender West Lake.

As a result, there is no Slender West Lake in Yangzhou, but only a few puddles in the northwest of the main city, and the puddles are not completely connected. As the number of residents in the suburbs increases, a large amount of domestic sewage is discharged, and the water quality deteriorates, and the stench can be smelled from a long distance.

Zhu Guoxiang stood beside the Suzhou West Lake that he had longed for, covered his nose and looked at the turbid puddles. His beautiful fantasy shattered like glass in an instant.

My West Lake!
Zhu Guoxiang said to Ye Yiwen with great sorrow: "We should build more cities and make a good renovation. How can Yangzhou be in such a state? These puddles can be connected into one, and lotus can be planted to entertain the people. Hangzhou has West Lake, and Yangzhou can also have Slender West Lake."

Ye Yiwen was overjoyed and immediately asked someone to bring paper and pen, and asked the emperor to write the three big characters "Slender West Lake".

With the calligraphy of the retired emperor, his position as the prefect of Yangzhou would be secure, and all demolition work would go more smoothly, including persuading the Ministry of War to demolish the Yangzhou military camp!
Zhu Guoxiang asked again: "Where is the Twenty-Four Bridges?"

"Over there." Ye Yi asked, pointing to the west.

The Twenty-Four Bridges from the Tang Dynasty are located just outside the western city wall of Yangzhou, and are now almost becoming a suburb.

Near the Twenty-Four Bridges, there are randomly built houses everywhere.

Where is the poetic sentiment?
The emperor suddenly didn't want to visit Yangzhou anymore.

(End of this chapter)

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