"The world is rare for people to be interesting, as interesting as the color of the mountain, the taste of the water, the light of the flowers, the state of the woman, although the good speaker can not say a word, only the heart knows."

"Those who are interested in nature are deep, and those who are knowledgeable are shallow. When he is a child, he doesn't know how interesting it is, but he can't do it interestingly. The face is unprovoked, the eyes are unfocused, the mouth is muttering and wanting to speak, the feet are jumping and uncertain, and the joy of life is really beyond this time. ”

As soon as I got off the dock in Baling County, what poured into my ears was the sound of a subdued moan. Jiang Yunfan was surprised, in this complicated place on the dock, there are actually people reciting poetry and books? He looked around, but he couldn't help laughing, it turned out to be a pavilion by the dock, and there were more than a dozen young people who looked like scholars gathered in the pavilion, and they were fighting for a red-faced appearance.

Jiang Yunfan also knew about these sentences just now, which were part of the articles written by the famous Hubei scholar and public security three Yuan (Yuan Zongdao, Yuan Hongdao, and Yuan Zhongdao), mainly advocating breaking free from the shackles of Cheng Zhu Lixue's asceticism, which can be seen from the fact that they created a large number of landscape prose works that are different from the traditional style, fully demonstrating their ideal of pursuing individuality, and Li Zhen's thoughts that advocate "childlike theory" have the same effect.

The ideas of Sanyuan and Li Zhen have been popular in China for a long time in the eyes of traditional scholars, and they have been valued and protected by the upper ruling class, which is a treatment they have not enjoyed in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, thinkers such as Li Zhen fought with traditional etiquette and religion all their lives, but in the end, their voices were still steadily suppressed and failed to become the mainstream, which unfortunately deprived China of the opportunity for ideological baptism and renaissance, although this opportunity was very slim.

Fortunately, they are unified. As the saying goes, the East is not bright and the West is bright, but I didn't expect that the mud-legged regime of Dashun actually had no sense of discrimination against them, on the contrary, because they were funded by some enlightened businessmen and treated them differently, and they were protected when the traditional Confucian etiquette and religion whipped them, which is also an anomaly.

The reason for this is probably because of the frequent exchanges between Dashun and the East Coast, which has changed the social atmosphere over the past few decades. With the beacon of the East Coast in front of them, the upper-class rulers of Dashun who were not bound by rules and regulations did not mind the entry of Dongxue ideology into their own country, so that the traditional gentry felt more ashamed: they worshipped a group of former Song and Miao descendants who had been exiled overseas and had not been baptized by famous religions for hundreds of years, and completely lost their pride in being Chinese, which was pitiful and pathetic!

Regarding the various views and conclusions of these traditional gentry, Jiang Yunfan naturally scoffed. The deepening of the social degree of commercial capital and the baptism of the ideological field are two invitations to modern society, one of which is indispensable. The failure of enlightenment in the ideological field in the second half of the Ming Dynasty still did not improve by the end of the Ming Dynasty, and how similar it was to some European continental countries struggling on the verge of modernization at this time! The difference is that the conservative Church, which has stifled the development of social thought on the European continent, has been much less powerful after the Thirty Years' War, and except for a few countries with a strong religious atmosphere, the control of the rest of the territory, whether Catholic or Protestant, has been greatly weakened, laying the foundation for the further development of social thought. However, in the current China, although the years of war have relatively weakened the power of the conservative forces (because in the troubled times, there is a greater need for martial artists, craftsmen, merchants, and talents who can be used in the world, on the contrary, those who understand the study of the saints are less urgent), but the degree is still insufficient, and more in-depth reforms are still needed.

China's current situation reminds Jiang Yunfan of Russia, which is located in a bitter cold land. In fact, that country is somewhat similar to today's Shunguo, but there are also differences. Russia is a completely top-down reform, in the last sixty or seventy years every tsar has been committed to the introduction of Western technology, weapons, military ideas, sent people to the West to copy books, and in order to introduce Western talents did not hesitate to grant high titles and huge bounties, but also reformed their own political system and economic system, moved the cheese of many great nobles, this kind of courage, courage and foresight, is indeed extraordinary.

What is the situation like in Shunguo? Their rulers were of course willing to learn from the good things on the East Coast, because the cruel situation forced them to do so. In addition, because of their "inaction", the influence of the traditional gentry was less, because it did not prevent the Dongxue thought from entering the country, especially the trade complex of the people on the east coast, which made the commerce in Dashun develop rapidly, and produced many powerful large wholesalers and producers.

These people cherished their hard-won social status and power, so they were tightly bound to the Dashun warlords, and they financed Neo-Confucianism to combat the power of the traditional gentry and make the country better adapt to their own patterns of behavior. Their idea is actually very simple, within the Dashun regime, there is probably no future in learning Baguwen, and the beginning of the opening of the department is also very diverse (no wonder there are few candidates...... Therefore, for the sake of future generations, it is better not to let those scholars completely take power, otherwise they will never have such a high status as they do now. You must know that even the generals of Dashun were also negotiable when they discussed with themselves to provide food, ordnance, and clothing, which was not at all like the feeling of being on top of those scholars. Therefore, they have an instinct to fund any ideas that conflict with traditional Confucianism, and they also have vague ideas about the transformation of social order, and some smart people have begun to silently implement them after reading through many East Coast books, which is also an outlier.

Therefore, in a country like Shunguo, which emerged after the collision of various coincidences, a social order that was very different from that of the Southern Ming and Qing dynasties slowly emerged in some large commercial cities, and then began to penetrate into small cities and villages. This process of infiltration is destined to be slow and painful, but it seems to be irreversible at present, and Jiang Yunfan is very interested in wondering how far this kind of social change will go before it will lead to a great counterattack by traditional forces. He did not think that the traditional gentry would be taken to their knees, in fact they were still strong and controlled a larger population, but they were relatively weak in the commercial cities. I believe that once the upper echelons of the Shunguo state change their course and favor the traditional mainstream Chinese culture more, I believe that these gentry will soon be able to defeat the big businessmen in the city who "make waves", there is no doubt about it.

Jiang Yunfan and his entourage did not stay on the dock for long, in fact, outsiders like them wearing shirts, long trousers, top hats, and short shaved hair have always been very eye-catching, and they are also vulnerable to scolding, accusations and even attacks by some traditional Chinese who think they have been harmed. However, fortunately, Baling County and Yuezhou Prefecture knew that it was very powerful, and sent officials to wait on the dock in advance, and quickly took them to the government to arrange accommodation.

Jiang Yunfan and the others were as they pleased, and did not raise any objections. However, they did not stay long in Yuezhou, only rested for one day, and on the third day (October 3, 1681), they were escorted by a group of Shunguo cavalry, and headed for Changsha by land. As if to show his attention, Emperor Li Laiheng of Shunguo also sent an envoy from Changsha Starry Night, met them halfway, and talked with Jiang Yunfan and others on the way.

Jiang Yunfan chatted casually, only saying that he was the special envoy of the East Coast Republic of China, and went to Changsha to discuss some cooperation matters with the Emperor of Shunguo, such as the sale of ordnance and war horses, such as the import of industrial products, such as the purchase of medicinal materials and grain, such as the opening of Shunguo's financial market, and so on. Jiang Yunfan observed the expression of the envoy of Shunguo as he spoke, and when he said the last one, he found that the envoy's face still did not change, and he had a guess in his heart, I don't know if the envoy does not understand the stakes, or thinks that this is okay. But all this doesn't matter, when he arrives in Changsha to meet Li Laiheng, he will make this request in person, and see if he agrees.

A few days later, the group finally arrived in Changsha, the capital of Dashun. The pattern of Changsha, to be honest, has not changed much compared with many years ago. However, the "hardware" has not changed much, and the "software" has changed a lot! Jiang Yunfan and others walked along the way, and found that the commerce here was extremely developed, not only derived from various professional markets, but also naturally produced many guild organizations, such as salt shops, tea shops, grain shops, oil shops, medicinal herb shops, cloth shops, cotton shops and so on.

Jiang Yunfan had vaguely heard of these organizations, knew that their power was huge, their management was strict, they were good at management, and there was homogeneous competition with some of Ningbo's goods, and in recent years they had been criticized by many Ningbo businessmen - the current Ningbo merchant group (they called themselves merchants) was increasingly dissatisfied with the trade with overseas merchants organized by the local government, and what they were thinking about now was how to sell more of the goods they produced to the Chinese mainland. In particular, it is no secret to negotiate peace with the Qing State, and the Yangtze River may also be reopened, so when will it not be at this time?

"Guilds or guilds, this kind of organization is indeed the most powerful weapon against the invasion of foreign goods. They borrowed funds from each other, made centralized purchases, and sold them in an orderly manner, although they were suspected of monopoly, but they were quite good for protecting weak local industries and businesses. While looking at the shops on both sides of the street, Jiang Yunfan thought about the problem: "The task given to me by Captain Ma this time is to increase the development of trade with Shunguo, and take the opportunity to do more infiltration, grasp its economic lifeline, and have some countermeasures in the future." In particular, the key mention of opening a bank at an important port in Shunguo, I don't know if the whole country can agree. Cracking down on and merging the strength of local ticket numbers and money banks, and then grabbing the huge profits brought by the monopoly financial business step by step, this is what we should do, as long as Li Laiheng agrees to this, so much investment over the years can be slowly recovered. ”

In fact, compared with other businesses, controlling the financial industry of Shunguo is the main goal of the East Coast people, and it is also a new goal that has been added with the changes in the current situation in the past year. In this matter, the local businessmen in Ningbo and the Bank of Taiwan have contributed a lot, and Ma Wenqiang is just pushing the boat along the river.

The reason why they took finance as the main breakthrough point was that Shunguo commerce had just developed to a certain scale at that time, and the financing demand for money and ticket numbers was very large. For example, in Baling County, an important port, there are seven local money houses, and the capital controlled ranges from 6,000 taels to 20,000 taels, and often provides financing for some tea shops, paper shops, cloth shops, etc., which greatly promotes the development of local commerce and handicraft industry.

Of course, this is at an important port. In some small counties, the capital of the money village and the ticket number may be only a few hundred taels to a few thousand taels, and the smaller tea farms, weavers, and craftsmen provide loans to help them produce all kinds of goods, and these have slowly developed in the last twenty years—on the ruins of war.

At times, Jiang Yunfan also had to marvel at the creativity and shrewdness of these Chinese businessmen. The owner of some money banks may have been just a merchant or an individual weaver for twenty or thirty years, and after accumulating capital, he gave loans to other weavers and grew bigger step by step. If they can increase the capital from 100 taels to 1,000 taels, then they will be able to continue to expand the capital of the bank to 10,000 taels or even tens of thousands of taels in the future.

At this time, it should be the right time for the more modern bank capital on the east coast to enter the Shunguo market. If it is early, the money village and ticket number of Shunguo have not yet been fully developed, and the people on the east coast still have to shoulder the heavy responsibility of clearing the wasteland, which is not worthwhile. And if it is too late, when a large money bank with a capital of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver appears in Shunguo, the resistance of the financial capital on the east coast will be quite large, so it is almost the most suitable now.

Jiang Yunfan believes that once the East Coast financial capital controls the money and ticket numbers of Shunguo, then it actually controls the industrial and commercial production and operation of this country. At that time, it is entirely possible for the Bank of Taiwan and the like to train some well-established people to act as compradors through relatively abundant capital, and use loans to sell goods on the east coast as bait to encourage them to constantly open up their own markets for the people on the east coast, and at the same time, through the flow of capital, they can reshape the industrial production pattern of Shunguo, so that it can form a complementary and supporting relationship with Ningbo and other places, and completely control the lifeblood of the peasant power in this central province, which has several provinces in the central region, is not this more effective than mere military aid or other means?

Of course, the whole country of Shun is certainly not all fools, and perhaps some people of insight will see the drawbacks. But so what? Your Shunguo has just experienced a war that has lasted for several years, and the savings accumulated for many years have been empty, and the Hubei front line is still facing the onslaught of 200,000 Qing troops in turn, how great is this pressure! Don't you need horses, muskets, cannons, armor, arrows, and other baggage from the east coast? How can it be!

Therefore, Jiang Yunfan felt that Li Laiheng was still very likely to agree to the entry of East Coast financial capital into Shunguo, and at least agree to open banks in some ports. In fact, this is also a test for the East Coast government to see if they are still tame, which has a strong guiding significance for future work.