On the first day of November, Baoqin and An Concubine gave birth to a child almost at the same time. Pen ~ fun ~ Ge www.biquge.info Baoqin gave birth to a daughter, and An Concubine gave birth to a son.

Of course, Yunxi was happy, especially for the daughter who was born to Huqin. Even if you don't count the child that An Concubine just gave birth to, he already has three sons, but he only had one daughter before.

Baoqin herself was not very satisfied with giving birth to a daughter: although she already had a son, she still wanted another son. But when she saw that Yun Xi doted on this daughter very much, she also turned her anger into joy.

Min'er is even more happy that she has a little sister, and she has to take Siqi to the Chengqian Palace to see her little sister every day; Yun Lan, Yun Yun and Yun Zhi also like this newborn girl very much.

After being happy, it was time to name it, Yun Xi thought of the name of his son before the two of them were born, and named the fourth son of An Concubine Wen Kun; But the name of the second daughter made him a little nerve-wracking.

His eldest daughter's name was Zhu Min, and the name was obtained from the side of the text. There are a lot of words next to the anti-text, but there are many words that are not suitable for girls' names, such as Zheng and Zhu Yu, can he name his daughter Zhu Zheng and Zhu Yu?

So Yunxi finally decided to name her second daughter Zhu Wenyi. Yi's original intention was to be happy, and he hoped that his daughter would always be happy.

After that, Xi Yao asked tentatively: "Your Majesty, Concubine An gave birth to a prince for Your Majesty, can you promote her to a concubine?" ”

"Not necessarily. In the future, there may be other concubines or even nobles who will give birth to princes for me, and I will not have so many concubines for them. Yun Xi said.

The ministers above the court naturally want to congratulate His Majesty and the prince again, but this is just a false story. Their eyes are all fixed on Queen Xiyao's belly, to see if the queen will give birth to a prince or a princess in the end.

……

……

Half a month passed like this, and Yun Xi did not start to take care of the government seriously again until he was sure that the two children were in good health and there was no risk of early death. and re-remembered Fang Mingqian and asked him to enter the palace to face the saint.

At this time, Fang Mingqian had been in the capital for ten days, and he was too idle to grow hair, so he heard that His Majesty summoned him and hurried into the palace to meet him.

As soon as Yun Xi saw him, he smiled and asked, "How much gold did you bring back to me this time?" ”

Fang Mingqian also replied with a smile: "Your Majesty, the minister brought back 350,000 taels of gold from Jinning this time. ”

Then he explained: "Your Majesty, this open-pit gold mine on the surface has been fully mined, so there is only so much gold this time. The minister wanted to search for other gold mines nearby, but first, the minister kept in mind His Majesty's original instructions, and this time he had to explore in the north and northeast directions, so it was difficult to keep people searching in Jinning; Moreover, the Far North had cooled down early, so the minister was unable to search for gold near Jinning in the end. ”

In fact, there was one thing that Fang Mingqian did not say, and that was that he found that the open-pit gold mine was much less than the last time he left.

"That's fine, gold is good, but the crew of your fleet is more precious than gold, and it is not worth sacrificing for a little gold." Yun Xi said.

He meant the truth. This fleet has explored the north twice and has the richest experience in the cold zone of the East, which no amount of gold can buy. If he had to choose between tens of thousands of taels of gold and the thousands of crew members of this fleet, Yun Xi would definitely choose thousands of crew members.

But Yun Xi's words made the kneeling generals below extremely emotional. This time, Yun Xi not only summoned Fang Mingqian, but also summoned him to recommend three middle and lower-level generals, all of whom had performed extremely well in these two explorations, and Yun Xi wanted to reward and promote them in person.

When the three of them returned, they told the rest of the fleet what Yun Xi had just said, which touched the ordinary soldiers, and these soldiers later became the most loyal soldiers to Yun Xi.

Fang Mingqian continued: "Your Majesty, the minister went north this time to explore Beijing and carved a stone record again. And this time, the minister actually found someone active in the place of Northern Quiet. ”

The minister was amazed and wanted to talk to the locals. However, they did not know Chinese or Mongolian at all, and the minister could not talk to them at all, so he only exchanged the bread in his hand for a lot of local furs. Among them, there are many precious white bear (polar bear) skins that the minister has never seen, and there is a white bear skin that is very complete without a trace of miscellaneous hair, and the minister wants to dedicate it to His Majesty. Only His Majesty is worthy of this kind of skin. ”

Yun Xi smiled: "Then I will be disrespectful." "Then I thought: Beijing is about 66 degrees north latitude, and the west bank of the Bering Strait is the Chukotka region of later Russia, and these people should be Chukotka people."

'The whole polar bear skin is more stylish than the tiger skin, and it makes people excited to think about it. ’

Yun Xi looked down at the expressions of several young generals behind Fang Mingqian again, most of them also remembered the skin they had exchanged for bread from the Chukchi people, and their faces showed a look of taking advantage of it.

It is a great advantage for you, because if you take these skins and bring them back, you can exchange them for thousands of flatbreads; But for the Chukchi people, how can they not take advantage of it? They used these loaves to get more skins from neighboring tribes. ’

'The greatest use of trade is to create value by making what is not wealth somewhere rich at all. Yun Xi thought.

Fang Mingqian continued: "After that, the minister continued to lead the fleet to sail eastward. It didn't take long to come to an island. This island is long from east to west and short from north to south, and the area is not small. ”

"It was not long before he went east again and came to a piece of land. It was difficult for the minister to determine whether this land was an island or a continent, because the minister led the fleet along the coastline of the land to the southeast, and never saw the border. ”

"The minister led the fleet along the coastline for a month. The weather there was very cold, and the minister wanted to lead the fleet back to Daming. It just so happened that he saw an island, and he saw that there were islands to the west of this island, so he stopped walking along the coastline of a large land mass, approached the island and headed southwest. ”

"It was only later that the minister discovered that it was an archipelago of many islands, stretching from the easternmost island, close to a large area of land, to the west, and the islands were continuous."

"And to the westernmost part of this archipelago, using clairvoyance you can see that there is a large island further west. Chen led a fleet to this island, and it turned out that this island was Jinning Island. ”

Fang Mingqian's description of this paragraph is a bit chaotic, and the direction of the geographical location is: there is a string of islands to the east of Jinning (Kamchatka Peninsula), sail northeast along this string of islands, and finally reach a large land area with no border in sight.

This string of islands must be the Aleutian Islands; As for the land to the east, it is already certain that it is the Americas. The Ming Dynasty has discovered America. Yun Xi was suddenly a little excited.

After the excitement, he realized that he had made a mistake before. The Aleutian Islands are far south of the Bering Strait, and the distance in a straight line should be thousands of miles, and along the Aleutian Islands you can reach the American mainland; Therefore, it was of little significance for him to explore the Bering Strait to the north before, but after discovering Jinning, he could have allowed him to explore the Aleutian Islands eastward and reach the American continent.

Fortunately, despite the detours, the Aleutian Islands and the road to the American continent were discovered. Yoon-hee comforted himself.

"After that, the minister led the fleet from Jinning and returned along the Kuril Islands."

"While crossing the Tsugaru Strait, the minister received a cry from the Ainu who did not carry out the mediation of the Ming Dynasty in the summer and autumn and went north to harass them. This time, however, the Fuso did not occupy a certain place in Minami Inu and returned to Honshu before the arrival of winter. Fang Mingqian said.

Yun Xi had already known about it before, and Yongfan had reported this matter to him three times before. However, Yun Xi was tolerant of Fuso for the time being because Yokohama had not yet arrived, and planned to wait for Yokohama to wait until Yokohama arrived, and then send the imperial court's sailors to wear the vests of the Yongfan to interfere with the Fuso people's aggression.

At present, the Fuso people have not set up a settlement in the northern Ainu land, and most of them still have some scruples about the mediation of the Ming Dynasty. So this year and a half is not in a hurry. And the Ainu are not like the fat sheep they describe. I am afraid that they also sent men to harass the Fuso people. Yun Xi thought.

He nodded to indicate that he knew about it, and asked Fang Mingqian to continue to recount what he had seen and heard during this expedition to the north.

Fang Mingqian was a little strange, but he didn't ask but continued: "Later, the minister's fleet did not go along the west coastline of Honshu Island for safety, but sailed directly to the Yongming Sea (Fusang Sea), and wanted to stop and repair in Busan and return to Daming. ”

But halfway through, he came across a sea full of planks floating everywhere, and people were calling for help in Chinese and Korean. The minister rescued a few people, and inquired and learned that they were the sailors of the Korean state, and they were sent north by the lord of the country to explore, but unfortunately they encountered a storm on the way, and nine out of ten ships sank. ”

The minister was scared into a cold sweat when he heard it! If the fleet led by the minister had passed here a few days earlier, it is estimated that a large number of ships would have sunk. The minister immediately ordered the fleet to sail westward, and then sailed close to the east coast of Korea, and when he reached Busan, he dropped the rescued Koreans. ”

Zhu Fangyuan sent them out to find gold, and he might have even found gold, but on the way back, the ship sank, and his luck was really bad. However, North Korea's shipbuilding technology is not very good, and it is normal for it to sink in a storm. ’

I just don't know if Fuso sent a fleet to look for gold, or if it found gold. Yun Xi thought.

"After that, Chen led the fleet to rest in Busan for a few days, set off again to return to Daming, and returned to Liujiagang on October 27 this year." Fang Mingqian finally said.