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

Chapter 71 Powerless
Things have developed so far that there are signs of civil unrest, and Huguang officials are also afraid.

Wang Lixian, the patrol censor, went to investigate and discovered that what the Xingguo tomb robbers dug was not the Yang family tomb of Li Linfu's wife at all, but the tomb of the wife of Lu Wende, a famous anti-Mongolian general in the Southern Song Dynasty.

Lu Wende was from Anhui. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, he led the "Black Charcoal Regiment" composed of woodcutters and charcoal farmers in his hometown to fight against Mongolia. He once commanded the defense of Xiangyang and participated in the reinforcement of Diaoyu City to defeat Meng Ge. Because he clung to Xiangyang in his later years, many of his relatives moved to Hubei.

They jointly dug up the tomb of the loyal minister's wife, so Wang Lixian requested that the excavation of the ancient tomb be stopped.

But at this time, Chen Feng's tax collectors could no longer stop him.

Their main source of income is not from digging graves, but from extorting people, threatening to dig up their ancestral graves if they don't bribe them.

This was so hateful that a civil uprising finally broke out in Hanyang, Wuchang.

More than ten thousand local citizens rushed into Chen Feng's official office and attacked Chen Feng with stones and tiles. Even Chen Feng himself was injured. If local officials had not come to rescue him, he would have been beaten to death.

Chen Feng was arrogant and took revenge on the people afterwards.

He first directed his soldiers to shoot rockets at people's houses, luring the people to flock to his residence again to attack. However, Chen Feng had already buried thousands of soldiers in the house, and used this as an excuse to massacre the people.

The confrontation between more than 1000 soldiers and tens of thousands of people may not be possible on such a scale when the bandits attack the city.

Governor Zhi Keda was dumbfounded. Only then did he realize that Chen Feng was a madman, but Chen Feng was protected by Wanli. He had no way to resist, so Zhi Keda surrendered directly to Chen Feng and no longer dared to interfere with his affairs.

After Chen Feng killed people, he threw the chopped corpses all over the streets to intimidate the citizens. The people's crazy resistance and Chen Feng's crazy suppression almost turned Hanyang into a battlefield.

Feng Yingjing, the sub-inspector, captured Chen Feng's minions. Chen Feng directly put nails in the food given to Feng Yingjing in order to kill him, but Feng Yingjing exposed it to his face.

At the same time, Chen Feng's subordinate eunuch Li Dao was collecting taxes at Hukou, and ordered Wu Baoxiu, the prefect of Nankang, Jiangxi across the water, to help him intercept the blocked ships. Wu Baoxiu refused, so he was also impeached by Li Dao for "obstructing tax collection." Wanli ordered Wu Baoxiu to be imprisoned. arrest.

Wu Baoxiu had a narrow escape from death and was unwilling to take his wife Chen with him. His wife Chen counted all the property in the family and her own jewelry and gave them to Wu Baoxiu as travel expenses.

On the day Wu Baoxiu was escorted, the people of Nankang County were indignant and almost led to another riot. His wife, Chen, hanged herself from a beam at home, shocking the world.

The matter has reached such an extent that all classes, from officials to common people, have been offended.

Ge Laoshen, an old cunning man, took action as always. Shangshu asked Wanli to at least hand over the arrested officials in the incident to the governor and patrol for trial, instead of sending them to Jinyiwei to be imprisoned in a dark cell.

Fang Congzhe and others from the Zhejiang Party also followed up, but Shangshu was all beaten back by Wanli.

After the Hanyang War, Chen Feng sued Feng Yingjing and other officials in Hubei who did not obey his orders. Wanli was dismissed and all these officials were directly demoted to the people.

Wang Wenlong was right. There were more than 100 petitions from officials across the country on this matter. Many people wrote long articles, but Wanli didn't even read them.

This guy has made it clear that he wants to stand up for the tax collectors. In this case, it is useless for Xu Xueju to go to Shangshu. It is better to concentrate on managing the food shortage in Fujian, and at least he can help some people.

Wang Wenlong was equally helpless, but fortunately he knew that things had turned for the better at this time.

The Empress Dowager has heard about Chen's suicide and will personally go to persuade the emperor. Wanli will order Wu Baoxiu to be released.

However, Wu Baoxiu had been seriously injured in prison and died of illness less than a year after returning to his hometown. The eunuch's purpose of shocking the local area was achieved.

The matter is over, and all that remains is a debate in the court, which will satisfy no one except the tax collectors and eunuchs.

Xu Xinggong sighed for a while and said, "Read a book, books are still good."

Wang Wenlong was silent.

Both of them felt helpless and wanted to change the topic.After reading for a while, Xu Xinggong put down Wang Wenlong's newly written "European Regular Script 92 Methods" and commented:

"It's really well written. It should serve as an introduction to calligraphy students all over the world."

However, he also expressed his opinion, "It would be better if Ouyang Xun's original works were attached to the back of the book."

"Brother, do you have a sample book? I'll buy one." He still didn't trust the quality of mimeographed books and wanted to buy a good-quality original version from Wang Wenlong.

Wang Wenlong curled his lips inwardly.

Xu Xinggong has the mentality of a bibliophile, and he wants to make the best books regardless of cost. In his opinion, this copybook is perfect if it is appended with Ouyang Xun's original work, but he does not consider cost and sales at all.

The model characters he wrote only required the engraver to roughly trace the fonts on the wax board. It didn't matter if the details were not in place. But if you want to attach a printed copy of Ouyang Xun's original work, you must find someone who can imitate Ouyang Xun. The cost of carving the charm of the brushwork is many times higher.

Wang Wenlong suggested euphemistically: "I think books are nothing more than commodities. Just the right ones are the best. There is no need to pursue perfection."

Later generations recorded that Xu Xinggong became the largest bibliophile in Fujian, but because of his addiction to books, he bought a large number of books, which brought the family to the point where "the family had a hard time making food and had to live in all directions."

Although Xu Xinggong is rich now, in the original history, when he was old, he still had to make a living by accepting donations from his friends and writing epitaphs for people.

Under this situation, Xu Xinggong was still buying books, and even used the money for medicine to buy poetry collections.

When Xu Xinggong heard Wang Wenlong's persuasion, he turned over the book and shook his head.

"Books are perfect things. The greatest pleasure in my life is reading. If there are no good books, what is the fun of having good food and good clothes?"

Wang Wenlong was silent. He found that Xu Xinggong knew what he was doing. At the same time, this guy's brain circuit was completely different from his own, and he couldn't persuade him at all.

Xu Xinggong was not a bookkeeper. He believed in the concept of "spreading to collect" and welcomed anyone to come to his home to borrow books. Whenever someone came to borrow a book, he would always serve him tea and treat him politely. For a few days, the two brothers had to provide food and clothing to each other without any complaints, and they enthusiastically shared their reading experience with each other. Many poor scholars who had no way to read books benefited from this.

Xu Xinggong had a collection of [-] volumes of books in his home before his death. As long as he was willing to sell books, how could he be poor?
This person’s ambition is to build a private public welfare library. This is a noble spiritual pursuit that cannot be stopped by outsiders.

While the two were talking, a craftsman walked in from outside and said to Wang Wenlong: "We have guests from Jinling visiting."

Wang Wenlong nodded and let people in.

After a while, I saw a young businessman walking in with a smile.

"I am Wei Shaojie from Wanjuan Tower in Jinling. I am here to pay a visit to Mr. Wang."

Wang Wenlong paid attention to it as soon as he heard the name.

Wanjuanlou is a famous bookstore in Nanjing. It is a representative of the Jinling School of calligraphy and engraving. It has published many large novels. The representative work is "The Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which was engraved in the 19th year of Wanli.

This book has been passed down to later generations and is very famous. Not only is the collation clear, but more importantly, there is an embroidered portrait in each section of the book.

The stereotyped technique of Wanjuanlou books is the standard Jian'an printmaking, with the combination of yin and yang lines and the strong and thick carvings. Every embroidered image can be called a work of art.

Being able to print books of this caliber is the best proof of the strength of the engraving workshop.

Wei Shaojie sat down and smiled: "I just arrived in Fuzhou and heard that Mr. Wang has a new work, so I came here to buy it."

After Wang Wenlong finished writing "European Regular Script 92 Methods", he released news to look for cooperation, but he didn't expect that someone would come to visit him in just a few days.

(End of this chapter)