Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 803 0798 [The first one to deal with is Zhenla]

When Tu.

In a residential house in the suburbs, Li Yaoguang was writing furiously.

He learned traditional arithmetic when he was young, and also studied the mathematical manuscripts left by Hu Shuxiu. Later, I came into contact with "Tao Yong Ce" and specialized in studying the "mathematics chapter" in it. I studied by myself silently at home.

Li Yaoguang did not communicate with any colleagues, and he did not know the current development of mathematics, but he had already worked out dozens of formulas and theorems on his own.

"Have a rest, you have been doing math all day." Mother Yang Shu came in with refreshments.

Li Yaoguang said: "It's almost over."

Yang Shu sighed, put down her tea and left, closing the door gently.

Thanks to the rescue of relatives and friends, Li Zhiyi, who was almost 80 years old, was finally reunited with the official prostitute Yang Shu. An old man and a young wife were criticized by people in Runzhou, so he moved to Dangtu.

But it was too conspicuous, because not only did they have a son, but they also had a younger daughter.

The maid pointed outside: "The angel is here, the emperor has sent someone to conquer the prince!"

Nowadays, my daughter is married to a small businessman and is living well in her husband's family.

The official messenger who delivered the order had arrived in the courtyard, and Yang Shu pulled her son to greet him.

When Li Yaoguang heard that he had been conquered, he was excited and frightened at the same time. He is a senior social terrorist who is even afraid of dealing with county sergeants and has no idea how to deal with the emperor.

Yang Shu hugged Qin and stood up: "What did you say?"

For the sake of her son, she stuffed the remaining jewelry into her arms and called the servants to carry the money box out.

A bookworm who never leaves home, only knows how to read, never communicates with others, and does not take the imperial examination.

Yang Shu did not blame, but asked: "What happened?"

She stroked the strings lightly, but didn't dare to make any sound. Since her husband's death, she has never played or sang, fearing that others would say she was a prostitute.

But her son was still unmarried in his twenties, and Yang Shu was really worried. She kept lowering her standards for marrying a wife, but no one with any status was willing to do so, because everyone knew that Li Yaoguang was a nerd.

A family of four originally moved to Dangtu County, but they couldn't stand the rumors and went to the suburbs to buy a house and land.

Yang Shu ordered: "Go and call Sanlang out quickly, remember to change into clean clothes."

"The emperor sent someone to conquer Langjun!" the maid said happily.

The person responsible for delivering the decree was named Xu Du, who was the second Jinshi of the Ming Dynasty. He smiled and cupped his hands: "Madam, you're welcome. The officials heard that your son is talented and famous, so they sent me to conquer the capital. The Ming Dynasty does not have many false etiquettes like the previous dynasty. Take a bath and wash yourself tonight, and don't eat garlic or other fishy things. Put on your clothes tomorrow. Clean your clothes and you can receive the order.”

The servants were boiling water to make tea, and at the same time they were bringing preserved fruits to entertain them.

"Madam, madam..." The maid pushed open the door and entered, forgetting even basic courtesy.

You read that right, after Li Zhiyi gave birth to a son at the age of seventy, he soon had another daughter...

The mother and son depended on each other. Since there was not much land, they had little income. In order to survive, Yang Shu could only sell the calligraphy and paintings collected by her late husband. She didn't know how long she could last like this.

Back in the bedroom, Yang Shu took out the guqin.

The mother and son went to the courtyard to pay their respects and welcomed the imperial officials into the main hall.

She herself went to rummage through the cash box and found that there wasn't much left, so she rummaged through her own gold and silver jewelry. But a lot of gold and silver jewelry was also sold, leaving only a few fine items given to her by her late husband.

"Thank you for the angel's care." Yang Shu took out a golden hairpin. "The family has no money left, and the angel has been traveling all the way. There is nothing else to thank..."

Xu Du pushed the gold hairpin back and said with a wry smile: "Madam, please don't harm me. I was born as a Jinshi in the second class. I was lucky enough to stay in the cabinet to observe politics, and was elected as a member of the Tongzhengyuan. As long as you work hard, you can be directly awarded the title after three years. County magistrate, once you accept expensive gifts, your future will be ruined.”

According to this official's career trajectory, it was obvious that he was specially trained by the imperial court, and his promotion speed was faster than that of ordinary Jinshi.

Yang Shu was quite embarrassed because she couldn't deliver the gift.

Xu Du said: "If you are worried, Madam, you can prepare some food. It doesn't need to be too rich, just wine and meat. After receiving the order tomorrow, we will entertain the officials I brought. But don't give gold and silver money. This is not the case now." It’s a taboo now.”

"Thank you for your advice!" Yang Shu saluted quickly.

Li Yaoguang didn't speak the whole time. He actually knew how to deal with outsiders, but he couldn't say anything when it came to his mouth.

Gradually, he turned his thoughts back to math problems and completely forgot about the mundane things in front of him.

While Xu Du and Yang Shu were talking, Li Yaoguang suddenly ran out of the main hall and ran to the study room briskly.

This move immediately stunned Xu Du: "Your Majesty, this is..."

Yang Shu said in fear: "Angel, calm down. My son is an idiot. I'm afraid he thought of something again and went to the study to study mathematics."

"Hahahaha!"

Xu Du clapped his hands and laughed: "You are truly a wonderful man. Your Majesty will definitely be happy to see you."

At this moment, the daughter's husband's family suddenly came to visit, probably because they heard about the emperor's conquest.

The daughter and son-in-law, as well as the parents-in-law, as well as the son-in-law's brother, came to the door to express their congratulations.

After some pleasantries, Yang Shu invited her father-in-law to the side and asked him to help deal with the house and land. The proceeds from the sale will be used to pay an agency fee to the in-laws, and the rest will be sent to the capital. Both her mother and son will move to Kaifeng.

The in-laws were naturally willing, and they even took out money to give to the officials, but Yang Shu stopped them and explained in detail.

The next day, a table was set up to burn incense to receive the edict, and a banquet was held for these officials who delivered the edict.

Then he took his important collection of books, calligraphy and paintings, and headed straight to Runzhou on an official ship.

After boarding the ship, Xu Du asked: "I heard that the Li family has two portraits. Can I borrow them for a look?"

"Angel, wait a moment!" Yang Shu found the portrait.

One is by Su Shi and the other is by Shen Kuo, both painted by Li Zhiyi himself. And you can carry it with you anytime, anywhere, even when you are in charge of a different place, just like carrying photos of two friends with you.

Xu Du looked at it carefully for a while and whispered: "The officials want to borrow it from the Hanlin Academy of Painting so that the painters there can copy it. I can offer it to you, and I will definitely return it after copying it. The officials will not seize the genuine article."

"Thanks for the advice." Yang Shu said gratefully.

After arriving in Runzhou, they did not go north immediately, but waited for Zhu Yu's group.

After waiting for half a month, Zhu Yu finally came.

This little old man brought a large wooden box with him, which was full of geographical information about the southern provinces and a lot of trivial information about overseas countries.

An old man and a young man went to Beijing together.

There was no idleness on the way. Zhu Yu was sorting out the old materials in the cabin, while Li Yaoguang was sorting out his mathematical research results.

On the second day after entering Beijing, they entered the palace to meet the saint.

When meeting the emperor, Zhu Yu was calm and unhurried, while Li Yaoguang was uneasy.

"We all sat down and talked," Zhu Ming said with a smile, "In the past few days, I read "Pingzhou Can Tan" whenever I have free time. The old gentleman once settled in Huangzhou?"

"I don't dare to be called Mr.," Zhu Yu said, handing over his hand. "My father was falsely accused by Cai Jing and demoted because of his writing poetry. He was also accused of having friends with Mr. Dongpo, and was dismissed from office by the former Song Dynasty. In the following years, my father briefly recovered. However, I was demoted again and again, and eventually I could not bear to travel by boat. I followed my father wherever he was demoted, so I could see the local customs and customs. After my father died of illness, I settled in Huangzhou. "

Zhu Yu said it very tactfully. It was probably because the clan members were fighting over the family property. He was too lazy to bother with this kind of thing, so he simply moved far away after receiving a sum of money.

Ju Ming asked: "I sent troops to capture Huangzhou, why did you run away then?"

Zhu Yu replied awkwardly: "I'm afraid of suffering from military disasters."

"You don't want to stay in the rebel territory, right?" Ju Ming revealed ruthlessly.

"I don't dare." Zhu Yu quickly denied.

Ju Ming laughed and said, ""Pingzhou Can Talk" is very interesting."

The book is mixed with various interesting stories. For example, an envoy from Goryeo passed by Changzhou and heard that the brushes there were of excellent workmanship, so he wanted to buy a batch of calligraphy brushes to take back to Goryeo.

The accompanying officials of the Song Dynasty colluded with Changzhou pen dealers to deceive the Korean envoys.

It was not until the Korean envoy was about to board the ship that the merchant brought the writing brush. The Korean envoy was in a hurry to leave and did not have time to inspect the goods in detail, so he left in a hurry and made a deal.

As a result, half of the batch of brushes had no bristle tips and only had empty brush tubes.

Zhu Yu said: "Just some interesting stories."

Ju Ming asked again: "Can Guangdong's sea-going ships also be leased in partnership? This is what I read in the book."

Zhu Yu explained: "There are some businessmen who own sea-going ships, but they are willing to rent sea-going ships due to insufficient inventory, lack of turnover, or other matters."

I only have two to three hundred dollars in hand, so can I go overseas to sell goods?

you can!

Maritime trade in Guangdong is extremely developed, and you can even join a boat to go to sea, and you can also rent cabin space.

Some small businessmen have insufficient financial resources and can only buy one or two boxes of goods. If you pay the ship owner according to the volume or weight, you can take the goods on board, sleep on the cargo box the whole time (for fear of being packaged during the voyage), and then pay for the food to be delivered by the crew.

When a merchant ship goes to sea, probably more than half of the cargo does not belong to the ship owner himself, but comes from scattered small businessmen.

There are even some that do not transport their own cargo but only charge cabin rental fees for running ships.

And they also agreed to go to sea. Only when there were many people and ships did they set off, and everyone united to guard against pirates.

Ju Ming asked: "Are there many pirates in Southeast Asia?"

Zhu Yu replied: "There are too many to count. If there are only one or two ships, they will not dare to go to sea at all."

Ju Ming said: "When I take care of the Jin Kingdom, I will send the navy to Nanyang to wipe out the pirates."

Zhu Yu said: "There are not many pirates who specialize in robberies. It is often the merchants who turn into pirates. It is useless to send the navy. Because as long as the navy is there, these merchants will do business honestly. The Ming Navy cannot destroy merchant ships randomly, right?"

"That's true." Zhu Ming nodded.

Zhu Yu said: "The countries that really deserve to be fought are the Nanyang countries."

"How do you say it?" Zhu Ming became interested.

Zhu Yu explained in detail: "Most of the countries in Nanyang do not levy commercial taxes, but seize goods as tribute. Although the former Song Dynasty also collected taxes, and the tax rates changed, at least there was a general regulation. Overseas countries did not Without regulations, you can draw more or less depending on your will. If you have a local consignee you know, you can bribe the officials to draw less. If you don’t have any acquaintances, even the goods on the ship may be swallowed up.”

Ju Ming's face darkened: "Even Champa and Zhenla dare to devour the goods of Chinese merchants?"

"Why don't they dare?" Zhu Yu said, "It's a blessing to only have the goods swallowed up. If the ship is confiscated, you can still take other merchant ships back home. If you encounter cruel foreign officials, they will even kill people at the port to steal the goods! For example, one person When the goods are shipped to Champa, they will be docked in Chenla due to wind and waves. Officials in Chenla will ask the person to whom he sold the goods. If he cannot name a local merchant or official who is familiar with him, then the goods will most likely be sold to Zhenla. The officials swallowed it up."

Ju Ming sneered: "These vassal envoys were extremely respectful when they saw the Ming Emperor in Tokyo. But they didn't expect that they didn't even follow the rules when doing business, and they dared to seize the goods of Ming merchants. They even robbed people and ships, and even killed people to steal the goods!" "

Zhu Yu said: "This has always been the case. The previous Song Dynasty court had no control over it, and Ming officials could not control it either."

"Which country does this happen most?" Zhu Ming asked.

Zhu Yu said: "Zhenla."

Chenla is the Angkor Dynasty.

Ju Ming slammed the table: "The first one to clean up is Zhenla!"

(End of this chapter)