Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 13 0012 [Looking at the moonlight in front of the bed]

It was still dark, and I was hungry again.

More than a dozen crabs are really not very hungry. The river crabs are small and have no meat. It is almost as if they have not eaten.

Clutching his belly until dawn, Zhu Ming took out the iron coin and looked at it.

It should not be pure iron money, and other raw materials may have been added.But it is inevitably rusty, and the four characters "Yuanfeng Tongbao" can be vaguely recognized. This thing belonged to Wang Anshi's reform period (it was also added later, but the money model has not been changed, and it has always been Yuanfeng Tongbao).

Why was China's earliest banknote born in Sichuan?

Because Sichuan uses iron money, it is very easy to rust and is too poor to be used.The exchange ratio between iron money and copper money has been around 10:1 for a long time (even more outrageous), and occasionally it can reach 5:1 with good money.

At that time, iron money was used to buy silk cloth in Sichuan, and with a hundred catties of money, only one bolt of silk could be bought.

How does this allow businessmen to do business?
Then engage in credit currency, paper money is much lighter.

Until Wang Anshi reformed the law and ordered the recasting of Sichuan iron coins, the workmanship was fine, the materials were full, and it was not so easy to rust.The exchange ratio between iron coins and copper coins remained constant at 1.5:1, and did not depreciate slightly until the Southern Song Dynasty.

"Dean Zhu, we are rich now." Zhu Ming joked while tossing iron money.

Zhu Guoxiang was speechless: "What's the use of a penny?"

Zhu Ming said: "A penny is money, let's go to the town to buy something to eat."

The penny obtained from Poppi is already the entire net worth of the father and son. If it is exchanged for copper coins, it is only 0.666666 penny.

The father and son were considered rich, so they hurried to the rice shop in the town.

Zhu Ming looked like he had a lot of money, full of momentum, and asked loudly: "How do you sell this rice?"

The two were dressed too shabby, and only a clerk came to greet them: "It is written on the sign, and the price is clearly marked, and the price of large white rice is 50 renminbi. The brown rice here is 40 renminbi, 30 renminbi, and 15 renminbi. Which do you two want to buy?"

A bucket in the Song Dynasty, converted into a modern unit, is about 12 catties.

50 Wen for a bucket of white rice, that is 4.17 Wen for a catty.

The price of rice in the Northern Song Dynasty is hard to say. It fluctuated greatly according to space and time, and it was maintained at about tens to hundreds of coins per bucket.

Zhu Ming glanced at the brown rice that was asking for 15 Wen. It was not only black and yellow, but also covered with chaff.He pointed to the most expensive big white rice and said, "Just buy the best one. I haven't eaten polished rice for a long time!"

The buddy regained some energy and asked, "How many buckets do you want to buy?"

"Ah!"

Zhu Ming took out the iron coin: "That's all, don't be short of money!"

Dude is a bit down and his brain is racing.

Seeing Zhu Guoxiang holding the clay pot, the clerk stretched out his hand to hold the rice and put it in dumbfounded.

"Less, definitely not enough." Ju Ming expressed his dissatisfaction.

The buddy thought about it, and grabbed half a handful of rice to make up for it, thinking it was a beggar.

This is the first transaction after time travel.

The father and son went out of the street and town happily, and came to the river beach to set up a pot to cook.

Even reluctant to wash the rice, it will lose starch.

Zhu Ming also scooped up a handful of river water soaked in rice, and said to the skinny horse, "Come on, you also need to replenish your calories."

The skinny horse stuck out its tongue and licked it, quite satisfied with its filial piety to human beings.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "There is too little rice, not enough to eat."

Zhu Ming got up and said, "I'll go get some wild vegetables."

There is a lot of cultivated land near the town, and there are very few uncultivated hillsides.Zhu Ming climbed the mountain with a sword in hand. While digging wild vegetables, he also picked up some dead branches and leaves.

Throw the wild vegetables into the earthenware pot and cook them with the white rice. After a while, you can smell the aroma of the rice.

When the temperature was slightly cooler, the father and son feasted on the delicious wild vegetable pilaf, and finally licked their fingers clean.

"It's a pity that no salt was added, and it would be better to add some fried rice." Zhu Guoxiang commented on the breakfast objectively, and pointed out its shortcomings.

Zhu Ming said, "If you sell the pen, you will have money to buy oil and salt."

So, the two took the skinny horse to sell pens.

Once again outside the Bai family mansion, Zhu Guoxiang was in charge of guarding the gate, and Zhu Ming was in charge of guarding the side door, waiting for the people who knew the Bai family to come in and out.

After waiting for several hours, only the servants came in and out, and none of the dressed ones were seen.

The father and son had no choice but to get together.

Zhu Ming expressed his feelings: "Dean Zhu, I'm hungry again. I'm so hungry that I feel flustered. The wild vegetables in the morning are not enough to grab a meal."

"Stop yelling, you eat more than me, I should be the one who yells hungry." Zhu Guoxiang said angrily.

Zhu Ming said: "It's not a solution to keep guard. I see that there are many people living in tile-roofed houses near the Bai family mansion. They are already cooking at this point. Why don't you try begging?"

Zhu Guoxiang swallowed his saliva: "Are you really a beggar?"

"What is a beggar? It's too ugly. We just beg for food to fill our stomachs," Zhu Ming corrected. "A man can bend and stretch, and begging for a few meals is nothing. Zhu Yuanzhang also begged for food back then."

Zhu Guoxiang still couldn't help but say, "Why don't you get some wild vegetables, there are a lot of wild vegetables in spring, so you won't starve to death."

"Wild vegetables don't make you hungry." Zhu Ming complained.

His stomach was growling with hunger, and Zhu Guoxiang stopped carrying it. He pointed to the horse and said, "You can't take this beast with you, otherwise you won't be able to get a meal."

Zhu Ming walked up to the horse and said with a serious expression, "I'm going to do something important, so don't follow me!"

"Pfft!"

The skinny horse snorted twice, but I don't know if it understood, but the beast was full from gnawing grass all over the ground.

People in the countryside only eat two meals, usually cooking in the middle of the afternoon.

Seeing that the smoke from the kitchens has faded away, they guessed that the meal had already been prepared, and the father and son officially started the journey of begging.

Not far away, the skinny horse followed.

"Go, go, eat grass by yourself." Zhu Ming pushed and kicked the horse back.

The skinny horse felt aggrieved, stood far away shaking his head, and followed the two tens of meters away.

Zhu Guoxiang pointed to a family and said, "Smoke came out of here just now."

Zhu Ming commented: "The courtyard walls of the poor are made of bamboo fences, but this family has wooden fences and the courtyard door is also made of wood. It should be considered a well-off family. Dean Zhu, if you come to negotiate, you will be more reliable when you are older."

Zhu Guoxiang reached out and knocked on the courtyard door, and soon a man opened the door.

Zhu Guoxiang really couldn't save his face and said pitiful words, he bowed his hands like the ancients: "Brother is well, my father and son are living here, and the money has been robbed by bandits. Can you give me a bite..."

"Oh!"

The courtyard door was slammed shut, and the man cursed and said, "If you have a horse, you still ask for food. My family has no money to raise a horse."

How could two strangely dressed and strangely behaving strangers wander around the neighborhood with a horse from yesterday to now?Residents nearby have observed them for a long time.

After being shut down, Zhu Guoxiang was a little embarrassed, and said to his son: "Change to another house, this time you come."

Zhu Ming bit the bullet and went to the next house. Although he had no idea, he was still teasing: "Dean Zhu, your begging skills are not good. Next, let's see me show my power!"

"As long as you show your power, it's not convenient to start a live broadcast and ask for a reward." Zhu Guoxiang ruthlessly exposed it.

Zhu Ming was surprised: "You actually peeked at my live broadcast?"

"Cough cough!"

Zhu Guoxiang coughed twice: "My son is doing a live broadcast, can't a father go and watch it?"

Zhu Ming immediately seized the opportunity: "You objected to me engaging in self-media at the beginning, saying that dogs would not watch the videos I made. Well, Dean Zhu, you not only watch my videos, but also secretly watch my live broadcast!"

"Go and beg!" Zhu Guoxiang didn't want to mention this.

"Go and go, it's just a few bowls of food, it's something you can grab at your fingertips." Zhu Ming said boldly.

A few minutes later, facing the closed courtyard door again, the father and son stared wide-eyed.

Zhu Guoxiang asked, "Are you still asking for it?"

"Perseverance, this time it's you." Zhu Ming said.

Zhu Guoxiang's scalp was numb about this, and his dignified deputy dean of the agricultural college was stumped by such a thing as begging.

Zhu Guoxiang walked outside the gate of another courtyard, turned to his son and said, "Would you like to bake two more sweet potatoes?"

"That's a seed, you can't eat it anymore, knock on the door and beg for food." Zhu Ming refused.

Without any suspense, the begging operation failed again, mainly because it was killed by the horse.

Villagers may have good intentions and are willing to give alms to beggars, but they are absolutely unwilling to give alms to people with horses.Even if it was a skinny and hungry horse!

He ran into a wall seven or eight times in a row, begged all over the Wafang people, and didn't get a single grain of rice.

The rest were all thatched huts, and the father and son couldn't bear the interest of begging.

The skinny horse came up to him without much interest, and Zhu Ming didn't bother to chase him away, allowing the beast to follow him step by step.

Zhu Guoxiang said as he walked, "Forget it, we are not made to be beggars."

Zhu Ming gritted his teeth and said, "If it doesn't work, go back downstream and become a bandit in that Black Wind Village!"

"If you are always hungry, you can only be a bandit." Zhu Guoxiang's moral bottom line dropped again and again.

Modern people who grew up under the red flag certainly don't want to be bandits.

After saying that, both father and son fell silent, paced forward and said nothing.

When passing by a few thatched huts, the sound of reading came from the courtyard: "Looking at the moonlight in front of the bed, I suspect it is frost on the ground. Look up at the mountains and moon, and look down at your hometown."

Zhu Ming suddenly turned to look at his father, and Zhu Guoxiang also looked at his son in surprise.

Zhu Guoxiang was the first to speak: "Scholars speak better."

"That's not necessarily true, but you can try it." Zhu Ming said happily.

The father and son ran to the front of the yard, which was also surrounded by a fence.

In the middle of the yard is compacted soil, and there is a long and narrow vegetable bed next to the fence.Four mulberry trees were planted in the vegetable bed, and vegetables were planted around the mulberry trees.There are five thatched huts in total, and a child sits at the door of the main room reciting poems.

Suddenly, a young woman moved out a small table and stool, and placed them in the yard for dinner.

This is because it was almost evening and the light inside the thatched hut was not good. In order to save lamp oil, I ate outside.

Just as the young woman had set the tables and stools, another old woman came out with a clay pot.

The young woman asked, "Do you know this poem by heart?"

The child nodded proudly: "Mother, I can already recite it."

The young woman said, "Then you can recite it again and then eat."

With a smile on her face, the old woman continued to go back to the house to get the bowl, and the sound of children reciting poems could be heard again in the yard.

The child was about five or six years old. Standing there with his head held high, he recited in a childish voice: "Looking at the moonlight in front of the bed, I suspect it's frost on the ground. Look up at the mountains and moon, and look down at your hometown."

"Very good, you can recite it fluently, sit down and eat quickly." The young woman said happily.

Standing outside the courtyard, Zhu Guoxiang was a little confused: "Why is it different from what I learned when I was a child?"

Zhu Ming shouted loudly: "It's wrong, it's wrong, it's a wrong poem!"

A fence certainly cannot block the line of sight.

The young woman heard the sound and looked out of the courtyard, only to find two short-haired men standing by the side of the road.She couldn't help standing up, walked to the vegetable bed, and asked through the fence: "Why did your lord say that you recited the poem wrong?"

Zhu Ming said: "Li Taibai's poem should be like this. The moonlight in front of the bed is suspected to be frost on the ground. Look up at the moon and look down at your hometown."

"The moonlight in front of the bed..." The young woman chewed the poem repeatedly, nodded subconsciously and said, "After the revision, there is no charm, but the sentence you modified?"

Zhu Ming said: "Li Taibai's original sentence is like this, I didn't change it privately."

The young woman was even more puzzled: "But "Li Taibai's Collected Works" and "Primary School Poems" are all about 'watching the moonlight in front of the bed'."

"They are all wrong." Zhu Ming did not change his words.

In fact, Ju Ming was able to confirm that the "Quiet Night Thoughts" he had learned belonged to the modified version, while the one recited by the child in front of him was the original version.

Literati in the Song Dynasty liked to adapt books, not only literary works, but also Confucian classics. Many things in later generations were changed by them.

Take Neo-Confucianists as an example. First, Ercheng changed the original text of "Great Learning", and on this basis, Zhu Xi changed the text and separated the order.

There are a lot of revised versions of "University" in the Song Dynasty, but Er Cheng's version is the most influential.

Regarding the attitude towards Confucian scriptures, the people of the Song Dynasty insisted on "Six Classics Annotate Me", and they would not follow the classics foolishly.

The old woman came out with the bowls and chopsticks, and saw her daughter-in-law talking to a strange man. Although she was a little unhappy about it, it was related to her grandson's studies, so she just stood there and listened quietly.

The young woman asked: "Does your honor have the original Taibai?"

Zhu Ming took the opportunity to hit the snake with a stick: "I was so hungry that I panicked, and I couldn't explain it for a while."

The young woman looked at her mother-in-law, and the old woman nodded in agreement.

So the young woman invited: "There are distinguished guests passing by, please take a step and have some meals."

"If that's the case, it's disrespectful." Zhu Ming grinned.

Zhu Guoxiang shook his head again and again, he immediately had a deeper understanding of his son's shamelessness.

But, it smells so good!

Zhu Guoxiang quickened his pace and couldn't wait to go in for dinner.

(I hand-painted the cover and uploaded it yesterday. If the old cover is still displayed, you can open the phone manager to clear the cache.)
(End of this chapter)