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

Zhangde Mansion, outside Anyang City, in a dilapidated thatched house, Shen Defu was leaning on a dilapidated recliner to read, when he saw Dong Sizhang, who was as thin as a pole, running in hurriedly: "Hu Sir, please clean up quickly, someone is coming."

"Is there someone here?" Shen Defu stood up from the recliner and nervously touched the sword on the bedside, "Which village is he from? Are there many? Do you have a stick with you?"

Dong Sizhang was running too fast. He held his ribs with his hand and gasped. He waved with his other hand and said: "It's not the villagers who came, but the Henan patrol from Kaifeng. They came to see our oracle bone pit." Condition."

Shen Defu then threw away the sword and hung it back up. He quickly put on his shoes and asked, "How many pits do they want to look at?"

"I don't know about this. In short, someone from the company informed me that the inspector was coming, and told us to pack up quickly and go to the front to wait." Dong Sizhang said that he also went to the suitcase and took out a piece of clothing. Put on a clean Confucian shirt carefully.

Following Dong Qichang's discovery of the oracle bone pit outside Anyang City, a large number of epigraphers have gathered outside Anyang City in the past few years. Scholars from all over the world communicated with each other and formed an oracle bone society, and then jointly raised funds to carry out excavation and protection of oracle bones.

The big shots had to handle the matter of raising money, so small scholars like Shen Defu and Dong Sizhang could only do front-line work.

As the excavation of oracle bones continues to cost more and more money and investment in protection, the Oracle Bone Society is already strapped for money and is raising money everywhere, and the excavation work is intermittent. The main task of Shen Defu and Dong Sizhang these two days was to guard the unexcavated oracle bone pit to prevent local people from stealing it.

This work is purely voluntary, and it is very difficult. These weak literati cannot last more than a few days, but they always take turns to do it.

Shen Defu's grandfather and father were both Jinshi. In fact, he was also a minor celebrity. However, in order to complete his imperial examination career, he devoted himself to studying in the Imperial College, so he did not spend too much time socializing with literati, so his reputation was not obvious.

But now Shen Defu is slowly changing, because it is too difficult to take the imperial examination in Jiangnan. Whether he can study or not is a matter of luck. According to the original history, it would take him more than ten years to pass the examination, and all his talents have been wiped out. , so recently he is planning to write a notebook "Wanli Yehuobian", which is a mixture of official and private history, market rumors, and allusions to the state and dynasty, to see if he can earn some fame by selling the book. If he fails to pass the imperial examination in the future, he will become a famous scholar as a supervisor. Just mess around and forget it.

Hearing that Anyang's oracle bone excavations were quite famous, Shen Defu also came to join in the fun.

He and Dong Qichang were family friends, and he was just twenty-five years old. His body was still able to survive, so he took the initiative to guard this oracle bone pit.

Dong Sizhang is also a prison student. He is from Huzhou, Zhejiang. He is just fifteen years old this year. He has been frail and sick since he was a child. He is nicknamed "Slim Jushi". The reason why he came to Anyang is because Dong Sizhang is very enthusiastic about oracle bone inscriptions.

This man loved books. Although his body was weak, he was addicted to books. He copied every book he came across and copied hundreds of books by hand. Therefore, he had to read a lot of books. In the original history, he would become a famous naturalist during the Wanli period. , poet, author of "Guang Bo Wu Zhi" and other books, but he was jealous of his talents and died young in his thirties.

One of the reasons why this dear man died young was that he was too cruel to himself. It doesn’t matter that he was weak and sick. The key is not to take his body seriously. When he is seriously ill, he still has to copy books and write. In history, Dong Si and Zhang Liu His representative poem is "Four Jue Ming Ci", which he wrote overtime when he was seriously ill.

The two of them hurriedly arranged their clothes, and then went outside to call the guards hired to protect the oracle bone pit, and asked them to stand with their heads held high, showing off the splendor of the oracle bone society.

Zhangde Prefecture is the northernmost part of Henan Prefecture. Among the administrative divisions of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to bordering Henan Province on the south side, the northeast is the capital, and the west side is Shanxi. They are both places with a large number of military households, and deserters There are also a lot of them.

The Oracle Bone Society excavated locally, and excavators could be recruited locally. However, the guards who guarded the Oracle Bone Pit were afraid that the local people would insist on stealing, so they directly recruited deserters to serve as guards. For this reason, the two founders of the Oracle Bone Society, Dong Qichang and Fan Yunlin, even used their former soldiers. The connections in the officialdom brought weapons to frighten Xiaoxiao.

Everyone stood in a line outside the excavation shed that was slightly covered with thatch. From a distance, they saw a group of people headed by Fang Damei, the censor of Henan Province, rushing over.

The biggest official in Henan now is Fang Damei, the censor of Henan Province.

Originally, the biggest leader in Henan, like other provinces, was the governor of Henan. However, in the 30th year of Wanli, the former governor of Henan once worked in flood control in Henan. He became ill from overwork and was promoted to the right minister of the Ministry of Industry. He died in Henan before he could take up his post. Emperor Wanli felt deeply regretful, but he did not send any more governors to Henan.

What Wanli was thought of is not written in the history books, but it can be roughly guessed.

As mentioned before, this emperor often believed that only water conservancy and military affairs were "practical" in governing the place, and everything else was a waste of money. Furthermore, considering that although Zeng Ruchun was exhausted, Henan's water conservancy projects were almost repaired, and Emperor Wanli probably felt that Henan There is nothing much to be done, so there is no need to send a governor.

Therefore, there was no governor in Henan Province after Zeng Ruchun, and the work of the governor had to be done by someone else. Therefore, the Henan Governor's Censor could only act as the governor of Henan.

The governor is in charge of actual power, and the governor and censor are responsible for supervision. Now these two tasks are done by one person, but Emperor Wanli seems to think there is no problem.

With the transfer of the previous Henan Censor Yang Guangxun, Fang Damei, the Censor of Henan, continued to act as the governor of Henan. According to the original history, he had to hand over the reins for one more term. It was only in the hands of the next Henan Censor that he finally received the new Henan governor sent by the imperial court. Governor.

Fang Damei is now doing the work of two people by herself, and as the first and second leader in Henan Province, she almost died from exhaustion. He had not originally planned to come to Anyang, but Ye Xianggao's promotion caused a certain amount of publicity in the capital, and the capital also Wanting to know what the current situation of the oracle bone excavation in Anyang was, Fang Damei had to make this trip.

Shen Defu and Dong Sizhang came up and saluted Fang Damei. Fang Damei asked about their fame and place of origin, nodded and asked, "Is the Oracle Bone Pit in front?"

"Yes, the walled area 200 steps ahead is the C-shaped pit."

Fang Damei walked forward with Shen Defu and Dong Sizhang, and asked as she walked: "Are you the only ones here?"

Shen Defu nodded and replied: "The seniors in the society are doing research in the village."

"Why don't they come to this pit? Is it because they are afraid of the difficulty here? They don't come when the oracle bones are being excavated?"

Dong Sizhang replied: "They are old and cannot stop someone when they come to dig for loot, and they cannot stay up late, so only the younger ones like us are on duty here."

"Will there be people coming to rob?" Fang Damei was a little surprised.

"Often," Shen Defu nodded and said suddenly, "Sir, be careful ahead."

"What?" Fang Damei was stunned and looked at the ground before realizing. There was a tight hemp rope buried in the grass just one or two steps ahead of him. If Shen Defu didn't remind him, he might have tripped on it if he took two more steps.

Trip wire? Fang Damei squinted her eyes and glanced at the ground, and then she realized that there were sparsely scattered bamboo sticks and wooden thorns further ahead. Looking further, a military household on the watchtower in the distance even held a musket.

Fang Damei suddenly couldn't laugh or cry. It was really not easy for these literati to protect the oracle bones. It was like fighting.

(End of this chapter)