open sea

Chapter 16 Glasses
Taking advantage of Fu Yuan's time to get the medicine, Chen Mu chatted with the doctor Cheng Hongyuan for a while, and only then did he know that the Huimin Pharmacy had existed as early as the Song Dynasty, but it has now declined even though it has spread all over the world.In the past, Huimin Pharmacy was all government-run, but later the imperial court reduced redundant officials. The number of officials was not reduced, but Huimin Pharmacy was changed from government to private, so the life of the medical craftsmen in the pharmacy was no longer easy.

In addition to the Huimin Pharmacy Bureau, policies related to social welfare established in the early Ming Dynasty, such as the orphanage in the city for the adoption of widows and orphans, and the Louze Garden in the common people's cemetery, most of them had problems of one kind or another during the Jiajing period.

These things were just complaints to the doctor Cheng Hongyuan, but they were extremely harsh to Chen Mu's ears.No one knows the end of the Ming Dynasty better than him, just as no one knows better than him the humiliation of China over the past 300 years after the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

In the past, he was a rational person, and from time to time, he scolded the carpenter on the Internet for stepping on crooked trees. When he was reborn in this era, he was even more disdainful. Look at the peasant army in the guard, and look at those military households. The broken firearms used, what soldiers hate most are not foreign enemies but officials of the Ministry of Industry. How can there be any reason for this matter?
Bai Yuanjie, a hundred households of Bai Yuanjie, took his small banner military household as a confidant, but faced with twenty or so bandits who did not have any firearms, they all threw down their weapons and ran away.Zhang Yongshou's military family in that banner was even more miserable, and there was an accident that he accidentally killed his colleague with a blunderbuss.It would be understandable if it was only a problem on the battlefield. The soldiers in the first battle were terrified, and he himself relied on firearms to build his courage. It was all luck to survive and get the head. ?

Chen Mu no longer wants to go to Hei Mingchao. In his eyes, Mingchao is still very bad, but he can no longer arouse ridicule and contempt.The experience of hundreds of years beyond the times is not as good as seeing is believing. In the past, he always thought that during a dynasty change, the blame could be pushed to one person or several people. It was the emperor's incompetence, the civil servants' stupidity, or the military officer's fear of death?No, none of this is more straightforward than the short four words of "the end of life".

At this time, there are still about 100 years before the end of the Ming Dynasty. Chen Mu is outside the bustling Guangzhou Mansion, the largest metropolis south of Wuling. After packing up the farm tools from the field, I returned to the guard house listlessly to spend the day in emptiness.

On the eve of the revival of the empire, Chen Muli watched everything coldly from the corner of the world, but only felt the despairing darkness and coldness. Is the so-called rejuvenation a resurgence or the resurgence of Chen's long-term incurable disease, which cannot be restrained by tiger-wolf medicine?
Although history has already given a cold answer, Chen Mu wanted to do something before all this happened. He wanted to do something more than let himself live well.

Cheng Hongyuan gave the old man Zheng medicine and injections. Originally, he had to pay 130 kuai for the consultation, but Chen Mu and the others did not exchange copper coins, so they simply cut off [-] kuai and gave him broken silver coins. This made the old doctor leave gratefully, and said before leaving If you need anything in the future, you can send someone to Huimin Pharmacy to look for him, and he will come whenever you are called.

Isn't this just as unlucky as the nurse saying welcome next time when the future generations go to the hospital!

But unfortunately, Chen Mu felt that Cheng Hongyuan's crow's mouth was right. As military households, they were inseparable from Jinchuang's affairs.

In the afternoon, Chen Mu planned to go out for a walk when he had nothing to do, so he asked Shi Qi and Fu Yuan to take turns to take care of Old Man Zheng. In addition, he also took care of their spears and firecrackers. Broaden your horizons.On this point, Shao Tingda, Wei Balang, and Chen Mu are all country bumpkins who have never been to the city, and they feel fresh wherever they go.

What amazed Chen Mu the most was that he actually saw a wealthy businessman wearing a silk servant with a pair of glasses on his nose!
If he hadn't been concerned about his arrogance and his entourage, he really wanted to ask where the eyes came from. Could it be that there was already glass in the Ming Dynasty?But these days, he has never seen glass products like spectacle lenses, not even in Bai Yuanjie's [-]-household yamen.

This novelty made him scratch like a cat, eager to find out.

But after a while, Chen Mu stopped worrying about it. There was a store in the market with white banners on the left and right, and the inscription "East and West Two Oceans". On the bridge of the nose, what are these sunglasses!
When Chen Mu entered the store, the store owner saw that they were three down-and-out military households. Although they were not indifferent, they were not very enthusiastic. The price they asked made Chen Mu smack inwardly.These are not glass glasses. The lenses are made of crystal. They are said to be something from Xifan. A simple pair of copper-framed glasses costs 43 taels of silver, which directly persuades Chen Mu to leave.

"Hey, a pair of glasses requires fourteen people..." Chen Mu thought so, walked out of the shop and raised his hand, then patted himself on the back of the head to stop this horrible thought.Since Heiling killed bandits and sold them to Zhang Yongshou, he felt that the weights and measures of money in his mind became more and more like a barbarian, and any price should be measured by the head. This kind of thinking is not a bit of a people's soldier or an intellectual. appearance?But this little sense of shame was thrown away by him in a blink of an eye, and he suddenly had an idea: "Glass...was it made of sand?" '

Two lenses are 40 taels of silver, one lens is worth five, no, a single lens is worth 20 taels of silver.If he could burn the glass out, wouldn't the money blow faster than the wind?
Perhaps soon, he will no longer need to use the head as a weight and measure.

Chen Mu's mind was spinning fast, he couldn't think of what it was to hire a cook to cook two servings of vegetables after getting rich, and he couldn't even think about it. What Mr. Chen is thinking about now is to build a kiln to burn sand, dig soil and boil nitrate, and get rich On the pinnacle of life!Then, before he took a few steps, he began to worry about gains and losses, what if his secret brought him a fatal disaster?What if the news of these secret methods leaked out?
This made Chen Mu feel very worried, until he looked down and saw the mandarin duck battle jacket on his body and the wild goose feather knife on his waist.Only at this time, he finally no longer feels that his status as a military household is a burden. Qingyuanwei, although he really despises those peasants and soldiers, it is undeniable that military households are his best protection. The power to blatantly cross swords and hold guns.

Qingyuanwei, if used well, can get good protection before he is not strong, protect him, protect his 'gizmos'.Even if the peers are watching, who else would dare to go to the guard to steal the secret formula?
Chen Xiaoqi didn't believe it at all, and with this kind of joy that Shao Tingda and Wei Balang couldn't know, he walked to the horse market outside Guangzhou Fucheng.

Note: Glasses——Zhao Xihu, the royal family of the Southern Song Dynasty, mentioned in "Dongtian Qinglu" that "叆叇 (sound: Ai Dai), the old man does not distinguish between fine books, so he can hide his eyes to see."

In Jiajing period painter Qiu Ying's "Southern Metropolis Fanhui Scenery Picture Scroll", the jugglers in the juggling troupe walk on stilts and shake folding fans with glasses.

(End of this chapter)