Nanjing, referred to as "Ning", was known as Jinling and Jiankang in ancient times, and Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, made his fortune here, so he also made his capital here. However, since the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing, Nanjing has lost its political status as the capital.

However, Nanjing is also the political, economic and cultural center of the whole of South China, and Nanjing is surrounded by the rich Taihu Lake Basin, and more than half of the country's economic output value is concentrated in this small area. Although the north was destroyed in the turmoil of more than ten years at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was a natural danger defense of the Yangtze River around Nanjing, and the Yangtze River sailors of the Ming Dynasty were not vegetarians, so the stability and prosperity of Nanjing and its surrounding areas were ensured.

Because Ma Cheng made a mistake, Ma Shiying was left at home to assist his wife Gu to move, so he arrived at Jiangpu Ferry on the fourth day of the fifth month.

At this time, the Yangtze River is not only a few kilometers wide like the later generations, the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty is very abundant, it is more than 20 miles wide in the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River, standing at Pukou and looking at the opposite side, only seeing the water and sky line, it is very spectacular.

Ma Cheng saw the rolling Yangtze River rushing east in front of him, and his heart was surging, so he stood on the bank of the Yangtze River and sang the famous theme song in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms TV series in the future.

"The rolling Yangtze River is passing away, and the waves are sweeping away the heroes.

Success or failure turns empty.

The green mountains are still there, and the sunset is red several times.

On the white-haired fisherman river, accustomed to watching the autumn moon and spring breeze.

A pot of turbid wine is happy to meet.

How many things in ancient and modern times are laughing and talking. ”

As soon as Ma Cheng finished singing, he heard a voice next to him praise: "My lord, this Linjiang Immortal is very suitable for this scene, Yang Sheng'an probably didn't expect it to be sung so magnificently by adults when he wrote this song!" ”

Ma Cheng turned around and looked at the person who spoke, it turned out that he had saved the talented Wang Xian in Huai'an.

Wang Xian wore a gray robe today, a turban without a hat on his head, his left sleeve was empty and fluttering in the wind, and he was fanning with a white paper fan in his right hand. Accompanied by the gusts of river wind, Wang Xian's movements are really like the Zhuge villagers in the novel, very elegant.

Ma Cheng heard Wang Xian say this and asked: "It turned out to be Wang Xiucai, I don't know who Yang Sheng'an is?" Isn't this poem the opening word in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms? ”

Wang Xian heard Ma Cheng say this, and then remembered that this chief soldier didn't study, so he naturally didn't know who Yang Sheng'an was.

"My lord, Yang Sheng'an is Yang Shen, the author of this Linjiang Immortal, and the great writer of the Jiajing period! This Linjiang Immortal was composed when he was in exile in Yunnan! ”

Ma Cheng knew who Yang Shen was, and he only knew Zhang Juzheng as a literati during the Jiajing period.

Ma Cheng scratched his head and said, "It turned out that it was written by Yang Shen, I thought it was written by Luo Guanzhong!" ”

"There is no such word in the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but the adult said it very well, this word is placed before the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is completely appropriate!"

In the Ming Dynasty, this Linjiang Immortal did not have much to do with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, to twenty years later in the third year of Kangxi, the literary critics Mao Lun, Mao Zonggang and his son, added and deleted, modified and commented on the original work of the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms, adapted the book to one hundred and twenty times, changed more than 50 poems, wrote tens of thousands of words, changed the plot in dozens of places, changed the title of the book to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and added the opening words Linjiang Immortal at the beginning of the volume, so far Linjiang Immortal is known to women and children with the spread of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Ma Cheng didn't expect that he would change history with one sentence, but Ma Cheng didn't take it to heart, Lao Tzu came to this era to change history.

"Wang Xiucai, what do you want to do after crossing the river in a while? Your arms are almost all right, aren't you ready to go to your relatives and friends? "Wang Xian has been following Ma Cheng's side for the past few days, responsible for the daily copywriting of Ma Cheng's small army, so Ma Cheng still doesn't want to let Wang Xian go.

Wang Xian sighed when he heard Ma Cheng say this: "Hey, Lord Commander, the whole family of my subordinates has died, and now I am still a cripple, where can I still be taken in?" So my subordinates want to follow the chief soldier all the time, please take it in! ”

In fact, Wang Xian is not without relatives and friends, but his family members died in the hands of Zhang Guozhu, and he still wants to stay by Ma Cheng's side and find a chance to take revenge.

Ma Cheng didn't know what Wang Xian was thinking, he was very happy to hear that Wang Xian didn't leave, this Wang Xian worked very effectively, and the general's affairs were sorted out in an orderly manner in the past ten days, and it was no longer like Gu Changwei's chaotic management at that time.

"Good! Since Wang Xiucai is willing to stay, the official welcomes it very much, so be it! This official lacks an experience, how about asking Wang Xiucai to take the role? "The experience is somewhat similar to that of a secretary or a chief of staff in later generations. The size of its grade depends on the department in which it is located. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, the experience of the Metropolitan Procuratorate was the six products, the experience of the general political envoy was the seventh product, the experience of the political envoy was from the sixth product, the experience of the inspection and envoy was the seventh product, and the experience of each government was the eighth product.

Ma Cheng is now just a general soldier, and the biggest civilian official under him is this experience, and his official position is only Zhengjiupin. However, Wang Xian is a showman, or a disabled person who is missing a hand, in the Ming Dynasty, which paid attention to appearance, it was basically cut off the road to the imperial examination, so Ma Cheng gave him this official position is very suitable for Wang Xian.

Wang Xian heard Ma Cheng say this, and hurriedly bowed down and thanked: "My subordinates are very grateful to the general soldier for their love, please rest assured, my subordinates will definitely do their job well!" ”

Wang Xian is also a Wenchen under Ma Cheng, although he is just a showman.

At this time, a family member came to report that all the things had been loaded onto the boat, and the old lady asked the second master to get on the boat and prepare to cross the river.

Ma Cheng nodded and took Wang Xian to the official ship. This move is the whole Ma family moved, and a total of three official ships were loaded, but fortunately, Ma Shiying is now in the limelight, otherwise it would be impossible for a boat to cross the river today.

The ships of the Ming Dynasty all relied on wind energy, so naturally they could not cross the river directly like those steamers in later generations, so they had to go up the river with the wind first, and then turn down the river when they reached the upper reaches.

Ma Cheng stood at the bow of the ship and looked at the scenery, when a Ming warship passed by. Although the inland warships of the Ming Dynasty were not as large as the ocean-going cargo ships, they were also larger than the official ships.

Ma Cheng saw that the warship was full of heavily armed soldiers, these soldiers were much stronger than those guards in Fengyang, at least there was no gray-haired old man or a yellow-mouthed boy without a gun.

Ma Cheng saw the soldiers on the warship nodding and praised: "I didn't expect the officers and soldiers of the sailor division to be much stronger than those guards!" ”

Wang Xian's house is on the edge of the canal, not far from the Yangtze River, so he is very familiar with these sailors.

"My lord, these are not the sailors of Nanjing, but the subordinates of the Fujian General Army!"

Fujian General Army? Ma Cheng asked curiously, "Is it Zheng Zhilong?" ”

"Yes, it's Nan Anbo Zheng Zhilong!"

It turned out that they were all pirates, no wonder they were so elite, these guys were the first navy in East Asia, and they were more powerful than the Dutch at the same time.

Seeing the elite sailors, coupled with the incomparably wide Yangtze River, Ma Cheng was very curious about how the Manchu Qing Dynasty crossed the Yangtze River without blood a year later. You must know that the Manchus are all cavalry, and there are no sailors at all, is there a traitor in the official army again?

Thinking of this Ma Cheng is very incomprehensible, it stands to reason that Zheng Zhilong's pirate combat effectiveness is not simple, how can he still beat those Manchu outsiders at home? The more Ma Cheng thought about it, the more confused he became, but Ma Cheng is this kind of character, if he doesn't understand, he doesn't think about it, anyway, he can't figure out what to do with brain cells?

After two hours, the ship finally docked at the wharf on the south bank of the Yangtze River, Nanjing has a total of three wharves on the south bank of the Yangtze River.

Waijinchuan Gate belongs to the official wharf, so the flow of people is relatively small. As soon as Ma Cheng came ashore, he saw Ma Gui, the official of the Ma Mansion, coming.

Ma Gui stepped forward and saluted, "Second Young Master, you are finally here!" The cart is ready, and the master has been waiting at home for a long time! ”

Naturally, Ma Cheng didn't need to follow him when loading the car, he got on the boat and welcomed the female dependents of the family, and then got on the sedan chair, and the group left the dock and entered the city.

Nanjing has two city walls, inside and outside, and the circumference of the outer city wall is 180 miles. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang planned to use the outer city wall as the first line of defense, but if it was built according to the standard of the inner city wall, the investment was too high, so he had no choice but to build bricks in some weak defensive areas such as the city gate.

After more than 200 years of peace in the Ming Dynasty, most of the outer city walls have collapsed, and now only some of the city gates are still there, but they have also lost their use value.

Outside Jinchuan Gate, the main way to enter Nanjing City is through Jinchuan Gate and Zhongfu Gate, but the caravan population here into the city is too large, so Ma Gui and his group have to bypass half of Nanjing and go to the Sanshan Gate of the West City.

After half an hour of turbulence, we finally arrived at the Sanshan Gate of Xicheng, which is the most prosperous southern city in Nanjing, and at the same time outside the Sanshan Gate is the beautiful Biwa Lake, so the people who enter the city from here are rich families and officials.

Ma Shiying is now a pavilion elder, and his family naturally has to take a special channel to enter the city. Ma Cheng rode a tall horse into Nanjing from the wide Sanshan Gate, and the noise of the city came to his ears for the first time.

Sanshanmen is the oil market street, and further forward is the more prosperous Confucius Temple, which is the center of Nanjing, with shops, restaurants, and tea shops. There are a variety of things in the shops, such as fish gelatin and sea cucumber from Nanyang, sword and lacquerware from the Wa Kingdom, wood and fruit from Annam, sugar from Fujian and Guangdong, Shu brocade from Sichuan, and medicinal herbs from Yunnan and Guizhou.

In addition to these, there are also weaving tourists, including Franc machine people in strange costumes, Japanese people with half of their hair shaved, and short and swarthy Nanyang natives. Of course, the most people are the literati wearing red and green silk robes, and these guys go in and out of various green buildings in the Confucius Temple in groups, one by one pretending to point out the country and talk about current affairs, cheering loudly when they are excited, and cursing again and again when they are angry, making them look like cabinet elders.

The dead ghost Ma Cheng's childhood and youth were spent in Nanjing, so he is no stranger to Nanjing in his memory, but the scene in his memory is different from reality, Ma Cheng is still the first time to see the world's largest metropolis in this era, so he is curious about everything.