The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Until Wang Wenlong finished the last two sentences of this poem: "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" Wang Wenlong shamelessly signed his name, put down his pen, and there was silence behind him.

As a representative of British Romantic poets, Shelley's technique and choice of words and sentences are already at the pinnacle of English writing. In Shakespeare's era, he was absolutely crushing.

"Great!" The next moment Thomas clapped directly and said excitedly: "Mr. Jianyang, I want to toast you a glass of wine! This poem... is very important to Britain now!"

Wang Wenlong originally just wanted to copy the poem to show off, but he couldn't help being stunned when he heard this, and then he realized what Thomas meant.

Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" was originally written two hundred years later, when Britain had become the bridgehead of capitalism. At that time, the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution had appeared and revolutionary movements were surging.

Enlightenment thinkers and utopian socialists called for people to revolt, and Shelley was a staunch supporter of the revolution.

His "Ode to the West Wind" ostensibly sings about the violent west wind, describing the power and role of the west wind from all aspects. The strong wind destroys all decayed things and sweeps away all the twilight. But in fact, he uses the west wind to refer to the coming revolution. .

The passionate agitative effect of this poem was equally useful at this time. Thomas directly thought that Wang Wenlong was supporting the British Protestant movement to break the decadent rule of Catholicism.

Basically all British merchants who could go out for ocean-going trade were supporters of Protestantism, and many of them were fanatical Puritans. Wang Wenlong's poem really touched their hearts.

Thomas was very excited and begged: "I want to take your husband's poem back to England to spread it. Is it possible?"

Wang Wenlong was also stunned after hearing Thomas' explanation. Only then did he realize that Shelley's poem could still have such an effect at this time.

Fan Lian and other Jesuits standing behind him had bad expressions. They were all devout Catholics, but at this time they all felt that Wang Wenlong seemed to have a tendency to support Protestantism.

Wang Wenlong nodded and said: "Yes, but after the poem is written, the right to interpret it is not in the poet's hands. I may not mean what you think."

Thomas glanced at Fan Lian and nodded solemnly to Wang Wenlong: "Mr. Jianyang, I know, I won't say nonsense!"

Well... Wang Wenlong felt that he had completely taken the blame.

As a passionate adventurer, Thomas likes the explosive emotions in Wang Wenlong's works.

Thomas returned to the hotel with the manuscript paper of "Ode to the West Wind". Many British people came to copy it. Thomas lit a lamp and boiled oil at night, reading this long and passionate poem over and over again. He was extremely excited. He made up his mind to kill Wang Wenlong. Introduced to more British people.

The next day, he first asked someone to go to Guangdong to look for more Wang Wenlong's works, and then took a boat to Japan.

A few months later, he finally met his brother in Nagato. William Thomas had already begun building a Western-style sailing ship for Tokugawa Ieyasu and was not allowed to leave Japan. Fortunately, knowing that his brother was safe and sound, Thomas felt relieved. Back in Macau, the Chinese he entrusted in Macau had collected a lot of Wang Wenlong's writings for him.

Thomas mainly focused on Wang Wenlong's literary and artistic works, but looked down upon professional books such as "The Wealth of Nations". However, the slightly translated "The Scholars" was very novel to Thomas, and he did not have enough money. In order to pay the high cost of translation, he still took a set of Wang Wenlong's works and the "Ode to the West Wind" that he had memorized on his return trip, hoping to translate Wang Wenlong's works one after another in his future career, and Introduced to the British.

……

In October of the 30th year of Wanli, the chief minister of the cabinet, Shen Yiguan, and others gave Wanli a warning: "There are three out of ten patrols in the world, but nine are missing today."

Only four of the thirteen provinces have enough patrol censors, which has reached the point where they are exhausted.

The shortage of officials in the Ming Dynasty finally reached a point where even the cabinet could no longer sit idly by.

Shen Guangyuan asked all ministries to count the number of vacancies:

This year, Beijing and Nanjing were short of three ministers, ten ministers, and ninety-four censors. The country was short of sixty-four envoys, envoys, and censors, twenty-five prefects, and even Even the governor of the feudal frontier is short of three people - in later generations, it is equivalent to three provinces in the country that don't even have high-ranking officials, let alone lower-level officials. Many provinces have been working to the point of being in chaos.

If the cabinet could appoint and remove officials, they would have been appointed long ago, but this power was in the hands of the emperor. Emperor Wanli once again did not reply.

Wang Wenlong also had profound experience in Fujian - Zhu Yunchang, the governor of Fujian who just took office last year, was almost exhausted.

His predecessor, Jin Xuezeng, was a favorite official of Emperor Wanli. Emperor Wanli helped solve problems several times. For Jin Xuezeng, if there were any major issues, he would report them to his superiors.

But Zhu Yunchang did not have such treatment. Emperor Wanli ignored him. He wanted to report something to the police, but now the patrol censor in Fujian is still vacant. There is not even a reporting channel. Whatever happens, he just If he handles it well, he should take it for granted; if he handles it badly, all the blame will fall on his head.

Zhu Futai could only tremble and dare not relax at all. He did not have the ability to run the business for a long time like Jin Xuezeng in the local area, and his life was really sad.

It even took Xu Xueju to get him a Futai personal soldier to give Zhu Yunchang some confidence to speak in the world. The Futai personal soldiers left by Jin Xuezeng's old team were all from Zhejiang. If Xu Xueju hadn't spoken, Zhu Yunchang would have commanded Do not move.

On October 15th, Xiayuan Festival, Wang Wenlong went to Xu Xueju to settle the matter of the Bojialao Cannon Foundry, and arranged for Shen Yourong to drive two ships to Macau for refitting. Wang Wenlong finally rushed back to Fuzhou before the festival.

Wang Wenlong's house was very lively on this day, and Wang Pingbao and Wang Jingui's family also came to celebrate the festival together. During the Ming Dynasty, Fuzhou made vegetarian rice dumplings during the Lantern Festival. Li Guoxian grew up in Japan and Shen Yixiu grew up in Suzhou. They had never made this kind of thing since they were young, so they followed Zhang's side.

Wang Wenlong also rolled up his sleeves and stuffed the mushrooms. Wang Pingbao's son Xiaohu stood at the door of the kitchen and sniffed.

Mushrooms are a precious commodity these days. Most people just add one or two pods of titi to make rice dumplings with vegetarian filling. However, in Wang Wenlong’s place, mushrooms directly become the main ingredient, and the ratio to shredded white radish is one to one. Add a lot of sesame oil to mix, and the fragrance is already wafting out before it is steamed in the pot.

After the rice dumplings and rice were steamed, Wang Wenlong went out again, and soon led a few Taoist boys to carry the shrine into the house.

Wang Wenlong went to the kitchen door and shouted: "Come to worship the gods!"

Wang Wenlong's family was considered a wealthy family in Fuzhou, and Li Ding sent someone to bring the shrine to him. After Shen Yixiu and Li Guoxian followed Wang Wenlong to worship at the shrine, Wang Jingui's family came to worship next, and then Mrs. Ma's family.

In a few days, Wang Wenlong and his family will go to Suzhou, and Mrs. Ma, her husband, and son will also go with them to help Wang Wenlong with some household chores.

The family worshiped the gods, and the rice dumplings and rice were steamed. Mrs. Zhang grabbed a handful of uncooked rice and sprinkled it on the cooked rice, and then gave everyone in the family a small mouthful.

Shen Yixiu didn't know why and asked Li Guoxian, "What does this mean?"

Li Guoxian smiled and said: "This is Fujian's way of asking for good luck."

At this moment, Xiaohu climbed onto the dining table, clumsily took a mouthful of rice with chopsticks, and then shouted: "There's so much rice!"

Wang Jingui, Zhang, Mrs. Ma and others were all smiles and applauded: "It's just Duomili."

"There will definitely be a bumper harvest this year!"

Wang Wenlong and others also finished the rice with uncooked rice added. Fortunately, Mrs. Zhang sprinkled a small handful, each of them only had a few mouthfuls. Then everyone sat around the table and started to eat in earnest.

Li Guoxian took the initiative to serve food for everyone. Seeing her busy here and there, Wang Wenlong pulled her to the seat and said, "Eat well, don't be busy."

Li Guoxian smiled, Li Guoxian was already very content with his current life.

She is now famous for writing books and living comfortably at home. Although Shen Yixiu is his wife and she is his concubine, Wang Wenlong doesn't see much difference between the two of them on weekdays, and Li Guoxian is already very relieved.

After having a meal, everyone went to the main avenue in the city to watch a ritual ceremony, and walked around for a whole day.

When I returned home after playing, the carriages and horses in the yard had been arranged, and the large and small bags and various boxes and luggage were full.

Early the next morning, Wang Pingbao got up early, carried a bamboo pole to the door and placed a door whip. Wang Wenlong and his family all got on the carriage. The horseshoe wheels rolled over the red paper cannon debris on the ground, and the family embarked on the journey to Suzhou.

……

After Wang Wenlong came to Suzhou, he was invited by Deng Zhimo to work at the "Suzhou Xunbao" newspaper office.

When Wang Wenlong entered the door, he first gave red envelopes to the old guys at Xundao, whom he had not seen for a long time, and then entered the editorial room.

Seeing the joy on everyone's faces, Wang Wenlong had already had a premonition. Sure enough, he closed the door and heard Deng Zhimo say with a smile: "Jianyang, I have fulfilled my mission. Now the sales volume of each issue of "Suzhou Xunbao" has exceeded 800 copies. Having firmly occupied the top spot in Suzhou’s newspaper industry, our group of old guys have taken over Jiangnan’s plate in a few months.”

Wang Wenlong asked: "How do you think the newspaper industry in Suzhou has been doing in the past few months?"

Deng Zhimo said: "The newspaper industry in Suzhou is at least a year slower than that of Fuzhou. Even compared to Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, it is not as good as Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Now the sales volume of several famous newspapers in Suzhou is only about 500 copies. Our "Suzhou Xunbao" With sales of 800 copies, it’s already number one.”

"However, there are many literati here, and newspaper sales are rising rapidly. Just like the situation in Fuzhou, if there is any opportunity, we should be able to quickly open up the market."

Wang Wenlong asked again: "Would it be helpful if we serialized the novel in Suzhou Xunbao?"

Deng Zhimo shook his head when he heard this and said: "Of course there are some benefits, but many scholars here have read the stories serialized in our "Xunbao" from the printed editions, which has weakened the effect of publishing novels."

(End of this chapter)