Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

Kanpu Town.

Whether the port will be chaotic or not depends on the situation in Hangzhou.

A small boat came speeding from the west. The town supervisor Cai Yanchen had already been guarding the river. Before the boat stopped, he asked: "Can Hangzhou still be able to hold on?"

The servant responsible for inquiring about the news stood on the boat and said: "Hangzhou has fallen!"

"Hurry up and go south by boat!" Cai Yanchen said in shock.

The ship was ready, family members and belongings were on board, and the master and servant rushed towards the dock.

Another small boat arrived, and the people on the boat shouted at the entrance of the town: "The Heavenly Soldiers have captured Hangzhou, and the Dog Emperor may be captured by the Heavenly Soldiers!"

There were thunderous cheers in the direction of the town and the streets, and the people seemed to have been suffering for a long time.

"Kill the dog officer!"

Someone roared, and the people rushed towards the government office. Some people also rushed towards the salt farm and the shipping yard.

The sailors who had previously tried to stop Li Bao, but under the leadership of officers, many warships surrounded a sea ship, and the general Cao Gu and his family tried to leave by boat.

"Brothers, you have something to say!" Cao Yu shouted in panic.

But the naval officer sneered: "Since you came here, so much oil and water has been yours, and you have refused to share it with us, but today I want to take you to reward us!" The officer added, "We will go there in two boats. Don’t let that bitch Cai Yanchen escape!”

When the news came that Li Bao had captured Hangzhou, chaos finally began in Kanpu Town.

This place produces salt and engages in maritime trade. It can collect a large amount of taxes every month. It is also close to Hangzhou, so it is naturally the key target of Song Huizong's exploitation.

Song Huizong himself wanted to make money, and the officials he sent also wanted to make money. From the officers and soldiers to the people, there was deep resentment.

This powder keg was detonated by Li Bao at this moment.

The navy officers and soldiers stared at the two high officials, and the ordinary people stared at other officials. There were also local hooligans who took advantage of the fire and shouted and robbed goods at the port.

There were shouts of killing and begging for mercy everywhere!

The merchants who had unloaded their cargo but not yet sold it, no longer cared about their belongings, fled back to the ship together and drove the ship out of Hangzhou Bay. But they were unwilling to give up completely, hoping to get their losses back, so they swam back and forth in the sea near Hangzhou Bay.

In the chaos, a ship sailed from Hangzhou, and hundreds of Ming troops landed in Kanpu Town.

"No looting is allowed, everyone goes back to his own home, any offender will be killed!"

Li Bao has also made progress. He has experienced the chaos of Lianghuai and is now much more mature.

After entering Hangzhou, they not only immediately maintained public security inside and outside the city, but also divided their troops and quickly took over Kanpu Town.

The naval officers and soldiers captured Cao Gu and Cai Yanchen and had just moved the belongings on the ship to the shore. Before they had time to divide the loot, they saw the Ming army arriving quickly.

The leading officer hurriedly went to greet him: "The last general, Feng Mingxia, has returned with his soldiers. We are all from Hangzhou, and we have been suffering from the faint king for a long time. Now we have captured the whole family of two dog officers, and we are about to go to Hangzhou to sacrifice them to the heavenly soldiers!"

"Very good, you guys will follow me to the town and take over various government offices first." The person who spoke was a civil servant.

In order to quickly stabilize the southeast, Li Bao temporarily transferred more than 200 officials from various prefectures and counties on the north bank of the Yangtze River to accompany the army. In order to avoid suspicion and because he did not have enough energy, he wrote directly to the chief officials in various places and asked each prefecture and county to choose their own officials. The levels ranged from Cao Guan, Chief Secretary to Post Secretary.

The person responsible for taking over Kanpu Town at the moment is an escort from Huainan.

This person will temporarily serve as the town supervisor until the court sends a formal official, or he will simply be promoted to a regular position.

Shocked by the force of hundreds of Ming troops, Feng Mingxia, the newly surrendered general, led his troops to follow the new officer to quell the chaos. At the same time, ships were separated to inform those maritime merchants that they could come back.

…

Pumabu returned to the port by boat. In just one hour, peace returned to the place.

Apart from the blood stains on the ground, there was no sign that a riot had just occurred.

He asked the translator he hired: "Did rebels attack the city just now? How is the Emperor of Qin (China)?"

The translator didn't understand it very well, so he went to inquire about it, and when he came back he said to Puma Wu: "Hangzhou has been captured, and the emperor may have been killed."

Pu Mawu looked shocked: "The emperor is dead? My gift was given in vain?"

The translator sighed and said, "It must have been for nothing."

Pumawu is a big food merchant. The "big food" here is a general term. In fact, he comes from the Seljuk Empire.

His real name is: Abu Muhammad.

People in the Song Dynasty liked to add "A" in front of their surnames, such as A Zhang, A Wang, and A Lin.

As for the names of big food merchants, the first syllables are mostly Abu and Ali.

Therefore, Abu became Pu and Ali became Li.

Dashi merchants mainly trade in Guangdong and Fujian. In order to obtain long-term trading status, they often give gifts to officials and even the emperor.

He was extremely generous and well-informed.

When Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty enshrined Mount Tai, food merchants responded quickly and offered a jade guide more than a foot long from Guangzhou. He also said that his fifth-generation ancestor received it from a Western prophet and has been keeping it carefully to this day. He hurriedly sent it to him when he heard that the Chinese emperor wanted to enshrine it.

Pumawu used to trade in Fujian, but the competition there was too fierce, so he thought of moving further north.

He learned from the translator that the Chinese emperor went south to Hangzhou for hunting and lived in his palace in Hangzhou city. Pu Mawu quickly sailed here and sent a large number of gifts to Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty. He immediately gained the attention of the Hangzhou Shipping Department, and the officials even arranged a special tooth bank to contact him for business.

Pu Mayu asked: "Didn't the Emperor of Qin go hunting in Hangzhou? How could he be killed by the rebels?"

The translator had no choice but to tell the truth: "The emperor was frightened by the rebels and ran away. For the sake of the emperor's face, he would declare that he was going hunting when he ran away. The capital of Qin State is in the north, which has been captured by the rebels. Now the rebels are chasing them to Hangzhou. . We can no longer call them rebels. Their leader is the new emperor of Qin. Maybe you need to give gifts again. It’s okay if you don’t give gifts, but you definitely won’t get preferential treatment.”

Pumawu's goods had been sold long ago, and he also paid a down payment to buy Chinese goods from Hangzhou.

Those Chinese goods are piled in warehouses, and some of them have even paid the final payment. They just need to be moved onto the ship to wait for the monsoon and ocean currents.

With his assistant and translator, he tried to get his goods back.

Some have been snatched away by the rioters, and the rest have been sealed up. After Kamabou produced the evidence, he obtained ownership of the remaining goods the next day.

Pu Mawu wrote in his diary: "The Qin State has a new name. It used to be called Song Dynasty and is now called Ming Dynasty. The officials of the Qin State called Song Dynasty are corrupt and will always try their best to exploit foreign businessmen. And the Qin State called Ming Dynasty In the Qin State, officials are extremely clean and efficient. They just went through a war and my goods were seized. They could have refused to hand them over, but I still got the goods back... Praise to the great new emperor of Qin!"

Officials in the Song Dynasty were truly corrupt and daring.

When Zhu Ming was first admitted to the imperial examination, there were large food merchants trading along the coast of Guangxi, and they brought some high-end goods (top-quality spices) with them, planning to go to Tokyo to meet the emperor and engage in tribute trade.

Cai Mengxiu, an official of Hengzhou Shicao, was responsible for accompanying the large food merchants to Beijing. He deliberately delayed the time on the way and forced the other party to sell the goods to him at a loss.

Those spices were tributes registered with the Shipping Department, and officials dared to buy tributes from successive states and keep them for themselves.

After getting the goods back, Pu Mawu asked to meet Li Bao.

He took his translator and two attendants with him and cautiously arrived in Hangzhou, only to find that the business here was somewhat sluggish, and many inland river merchant ships outside Hangzhou had fled.

At the city gate, many people were gathering to read the notice.

The translator also went to see it, and came back and said: "The Qin general who captured Hangzhou was called Li Bao. He comforted the people who were afraid of the war, told those who escaped to come back quickly, and promised not to kill any innocent people. The emperor who gave you the gift , was not killed, but took advantage of the chaos to escape. Anyone who catches him will be rewarded with official position and money."

Pumawu came to the city gate and lined up. The inspection was very strict when entering the city. The gifts he brought were rummaged through before he was finally allowed to enter the city.

Soldiers patrolled the streets from time to time, but they did not harass the people.

But it was by no means so peaceful. Pu Mawu soon saw a group of soldiers rushing into a large house like tigers and wolves, arresting the owner of the house and seizing the property.

The translator went to inquire about it and came back and said to him: "This is the residence of the ministers of Emperor Song. Yesterday, some people took advantage of the chaos and escaped, but there were still people who didn't have time to escape, and the money in the residence was not taken away. The palace of Emperor Song was also taken away. It was sealed, but General Li was not in Hangzhou, and someone saw him leading his troops out of the city."

"Is he leading the army to capture the Song Emperor?" Pu Mayu asked.

The translator guessed: "Maybe yes, catching Emperor Song was a great achievement."

Of course Li Bao was not hunting down Song Huizong. How could it be so easy to search mountains and seas?

He left part of his army to garrison Hangzhou, and then divided his troops into two groups to go north to disintegrate the Yangtze River defense line of the small imperial court in the southeast.

Go all the way north along the Jiangnan Canal and go straight to Runzhou (Zhenjiang).

Head all the way to the northwest and go straight to Taiping Prefecture (Dangtu).

Capture these two strategic locations and then attack Jiangning (Nanjing) from east to west.

Song Huizong's Jiang defense was all in the north, but Li Bao led his troops to fight out from behind. There was basically no resistance along the way, but the number of troops increased.

When Li Bao personally led an army close to Danyang, not only did the Danyang County magistrate Kaicheng surrender, but the farther-away Runzhou (Zhenjiang) garrison also fled upon hearing the news.

Cai You, who was suppressing bandits in Yixing, had just taken advantage of the opportunity of killing Zhu Meng to recruit the rebels, when he suddenly heard that Hangzhou was gone and that the Ming army was approaching Danyang.

"It's over, everything is over..." Cai You looked to the south in a daze.

His wife and children were all in Hangzhou and were probably captured by the Ming army, and the belongings he brought from Tokyo were definitely gone.

It would be dangerous to escape directly, and the news might leak out and be caught by the rebels who had just recruited troops.

Cai You decided to play the emotional card, called the leaders of the rebel army, and said to these people: "I believe you all know that the Ming army captured Hangzhou, and the Song Dynasty was in doom. I can't betray the emperor's salary and loyalty to the emperor. The old master comes to the Ming Dynasty. You were not intentional in causing rebellion, and you were all forced by Zhu Meng and his son. Now that Zhu Meng and his son have been killed by me, you can disband on the spot and go home to serve the people, or you can lead the army to join the Ming Dynasty. Caught I can go to the New Dynasty to receive the reward, so please do it."

The leaders of the rebel army looked at each other, and they had a very good impression of Cai You.

Because Cai You killed Zhu Meng and his son, and did not embarrass them after recruiting them, and now he showed them the way out.

After everyone discussed it, they decided to let Cai You go, and then led the troops to join Li Bao.

When Cai You walked out of the door, his legs were shaking. He finally fooled those guys.

This guy had already prepared the boat and ran away with a few followers.

But after Cai You left, the rebels did not leave immediately. They took up weapons and rushed to Cai You's military camp!

The military camp was full of Zhu Meng's private soldiers. They were notorious and everyone was eager to eat their flesh.