Red Mansion: Fuyao River and Mountain

Chapter 123: Parting Handkerchief

When the official ship reached the time of Shen, the magnificent outline of the city of Jinling came into view.

Amid the mighty waves of the river, there appears a huge cliff with three sides suspended in the air, shaped like a spring swallow spreading its wings ready to fly. This is the famous Swallow Rock in the east of Jinling City.

At this time, a grasshopper speedboat appeared on the river, cutting through the waves and speeding towards the official ship.

The people on the boat were all in high spirits, wearing military uniforms and black felt hats. On the mast was a flag with white letters on a blue silk cloth, which read "Jinling Wei Water Inspectorate".

The sailors on the official ship came forward to communicate and reported that it was the Jinling Water Inspectorate that received the news and specially sent a ship to guide the waterway.

When the fiery red sunset glowed all over the sky, the official ship carrying Jia Cong and others, guided by the speedboat of the Water Inspectorate, finally entered the Longtan Port in Jinling.

Longtan Port is the largest offshore port in Jinling. Ships sailing up and down the Grand Canal from north to south will dock here for transshipment.

Ever since the Great Zhou Dynasty opened Maritime Customs Offices in Jinling, Ningbo, and Fuzhou, merchant ships from foreign countries would often sail up the river to Longtan Port to buy and sell trade goods.

Compared with Ningbo and Fuzhou, Jinling is slightly inferior in terms of its spacious and convenient waterways.

However, Jinling is located at the strategic point between the north and the south of the Great Zhou Dynasty. It is known as a place where tigers crouch and dragons coil. It is the second largest city in the Great Zhou Dynasty after Shenjing, and its wealth is even greater than Shenjing.

Therefore, many foreign merchant ships gave up the easy way and took the difficult route, and after entering the sea, they sailed along the river directly to Nanjing to trade.

The nearby ones include Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Siam and other countries; the distant ones include Rumi, France, Netherlands, France, England and other countries.

All kinds of foreign novelties quickly flowed into Jinling Province.

Things like clocks, silverware, tapestries, cocoa, tomatoes, and all kinds of exotic foreign craftsmanship can be found almost everywhere in a big city like Nanjing.

Even a lot of powerful firearms such as the Rumitong and the Portuguese cannon flowed in. Fortunately, a few knowledgeable people realized the power of firearms and wrote to the court to control their influx in a timely manner.

The dock was packed with merchant ships of all sizes, but one of the larger ships was the most eye-catching because the entire ship had been severely burned and could only barely float on the water.

The cherry blossom emblem can be clearly seen on the bow. As far as Jia Cong knows, cherry blossom has become a symbol of samurai in Japan during the Edo period.

Could this be the burned Japanese merchant ship that Qu Hongxiu mentioned?
After the official ship docked, a capable young man in his thirties quickly boarded the grasshopper speedboat led by the Water Inspector General.

The garrison number plate was shown to Qin Ye, on which was written Liu Hai, the general flag-teller of the Qianhu Suo of the Jinling Wei Water Conservancy Administration.

This General Liu was not very old, but he was efficient, calm and meticulous. He first checked the imperial certificates of Qin Ye and Jia Cong, and then carefully read the official decrees of the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Rites.

After everything was confirmed to be correct, the port's water inspector soldiers were arranged to move the luggage and cargo on board.

At this time, many carriages were parked at the dock, and some of them had the Jia emblem embroidered on them. When the official ship passed Zhenjiang this morning, Jia Cong asked Guo Zhigui to get off the ship in advance and go to the old house in Jinling to report the news.

These carriages should be here to pick them up.

When Jia Cong got off the boat, he saw Qin Keqing standing not far behind him, wearing a veil hat and standing there gracefully. The river breeze blew open the milky white gauze on the veil hat, and her peerless beauty was faintly visible.

When they arrived at the dock, a man dressed as a servant in his twenties came running over. It was Xing'er, Jia Lian's trusted servant.

"Hello, Third Master Cong. This afternoon, we received a message from Guo Zhigui saying that Third Master will arrive today, and the carriages and horses in the mansion have been waiting for a long time."

Jia Cong nodded, let Wu'er and Qingwen get on the carriage first, and then asked Xing'er to take the servants to carry the luggage.

Suddenly he heard someone calling him from behind. He turned around and saw Ruizhu waving at him and walking towards him quickly.

"Master Cong, the young lady said that the herbs you sent cured her cold, so she gave you a small gift to express her gratitude."

Jia Cong saw Ruizhu handing him an exquisite ingot-shaped purse, made of pink and white satin, embroidered with birds and clear water, and it seemed to contain something.

He felt a little warm in his heart. Although they had never spoken to each other during all those days on the boat, Qin Keqing was a caring person.

"Go back and tell your young lady that Jia Cong thanks her for her kindness." "Yes." Ruizhu looked smart, nodded with a smile and went back.

Jia Cong looked over there and saw Qin Keqing getting on a carriage. There was an indescribable beauty in her posture as she bent over.

He opened the purse and found a neatly folded soft silk handkerchief for rainy days.

There was a bright moon embroidered on the handkerchief, and under the moon there was a laurel tree with swaying branches and leaves, and the tree was dotted with white flowers. Four words were embroidered below: "Winning the laurel palace in the moon palace."

The handkerchief is embroidered in an exquisite and beautiful way, with pictures and texts fitting in perfectly, and is lovely to look at.

I think Qin Keqing knew that he had just won the first place in the college entrance examination, so she embroidered the handkerchief with this auspicious meaning. Moreover, the pattern on this handkerchief could not be embroidered in a day or two.

I just gave her some herbs to relieve her cold, but she spent so much effort to embroider a handkerchief for her. She is a very lovely woman.

Jia Cong exchanged a few words with Qin Ye and was about to get in the car to go back home when a middle-aged man in a scholar's cap and robe came towards them.

"This is Master Jia Cong of Rongguo Mansion.

"It's down."

"I am Yan Yuanliang, a guest of the Yingtian prefect. I am here on the prefect's orders to invite Master Jia and Master Qin to your house. The prefect has already prepared a banquet to welcome you two."

The man saw that Jia Cong had a puzzled look on his face, and then he smiled and said, "The prefect and Mr. Jia are brothers from the same clan, and their name is Shi Fei."

Jia Cong came to his senses and realized that the prefect of Yingtian was none other than Jia Yucun. He and Daiyu went to the capital together that year. It was because of Lin Ruhai's letter of recommendation that Jia Zheng helped Jia Yucun get the lucrative job of prefect of Yingtian.

A fifth-rank official in the second branch of the Rongguo Mansion was able to help him get a fourth-rank official position without any effort, which made Jia Yucun realize the enormous power of the Jia family.

He was a greedy person, and after tasting such a sweet thing, how could he not try his best to curry favor with the emperor? At that time, he proposed to establish a clan relationship with the Rong Kingdom and acknowledged his status as Jia Zheng's nephew.

Instead, he became a peer of his student Lin Daiyu, which was a bit shameless.

However, now that Jia Cong has arrived in Jinling, there is really no need for him to offend this local tyrant in vain. Besides, he knows what kind of person this person is better than anyone else.

So he let Wu'er and Qingwen go back home first, and he and Qin Ye went to attend Jia Yucun's welcoming banquet.

When they arrived at the prefectural government's back office, Jia Yucun had already prepared a banquet in a pavilion in the garden.

When Jia Cong met this long-famous figure, he found that he had a round waist, thick back, a broad face, a square mouth, and handsome eyebrows and eyes. He was actually a very decent-looking person, and there was no sign of evil at all.

Jia Yucun came up to them with a big smile on his face and said, "Brother Cong, Lord Qin, it is a rare honor to have the honor of meeting you two in Jinling today. It is an honor for my humble home, haha."

Qin Ye was only a fifth-rank official in charge of construction, but he was actually invited by the prefect of Yingtian, who was one rank higher than him, to entertain him. He felt quite flattered.

However, he didn't notice that when Jia Yucun greeted him, he put Jia Cong's name before his.

Jia Yucun invited him just by chance, the person he really wanted to invite was Jia Cong.

Although he had already obtained the position of prefect of Yingtian, he was ambitious and felt that the position was too low. He always wanted to make further progress, so he always paid close attention to the movements in the central capital.

It was learned that in this year, the Jia family had produced an extremely outstanding son, Jia Cong, who not only won the first place in the Yongzhou Academy Examination, but was also personally conferred an eighth-rank official position by the emperor and even entered the palace to meet the emperor.

Moreover, Jia Cunzhou, the person in charge of Rongguo Mansion, had placed Jia Cong in the second house for personal education a few years ago. He valued and loved him more than his own son. This kid might become the third generation leader of Rongguo.

After seeing all these things clearly, and meeting Jia Cong on a royal mission to his own territory in Jinling, how could he not prepare for the future and get close to him so that he could use him as a help in climbing to a higher position in the future?

But he could never have imagined that the teenage boy he was facing was a monster to him, and knew Jia Yucun's nature better than he knew himself.

(End of this chapter)