Shimonoseki Pier.

A Confucian scholar in his thirties, standing at the bow of the ship, looked at the dock that was gradually approaching.

"This thing is powerful!"

He said, looking at the boom on the dock.

The boom, which is still mainly made of wood, is not human, but driven by oxen, winches and pulleys next to it, and the stout square wooden front end is hooked with iron chains and hooks cast in pig iron, hooking up the pig iron blanks bundled by palm olives on a cargo ship, and then turning to the Waiqinhuai River on the right, and slowly putting it onto a small boat, which is already full of the same pig iron blanks.

"This is cast in the Chizhou iron yard, but there is only a pig iron furnace in Chizhou, and the wrought iron furnace is still under construction, so it needs to be transported to the iron yard in Beijing."

The boatman beside him said.

"And what is it?"

Confucius said, pointing to the dock he was about to set foot on.

The ground in the drizzle was full of water, but there was no standing water, and this water light stretched forward for dozens of feet, looking like a pool of calm deep water, with a lot of mud and sand at the end, but when you reach the shore, you can't see the mud and sand.

"It's freshly laid cement!"

The owner of the ship said.

At the same time, the passenger ship from Wuchang docked at the dock, and a young woman slightly smaller than the man walked out of the cabin, and walked curiously to the bow of the boat with the help of the maid with an umbrella beside her, and the two servants finally walked out with a salute. The man waited for a while, and stepped on the concrete floor with the young woman, he subconsciously looked down, and probably did not feel anything abnormal, and then continued to walk forward.

"The guest officer wants to enter the city?"

Suddenly, a face full of smiles appeared in front of him.

The man's gaze followed the man's arm to the carriage on his left, the doors of the carriage were wide open, and the soft cotton cushions on the two two-seater benches opposite each other beckoned to him......

"One penny, the whole city will be delivered!"

The smiling face said with a finger outstretched.

So they got into a taxi, and not only did the couple have a seat, but even the two servants could stand in a special position behind the car, and their salute was placed on the roof of the car, covered with an oilcloth to avoid getting wet. The four-wheeled carriage with shock absorbing springs quickly drove out of the dock and went straight to Dinghuai Gate on the Sanhe earthen paved road. The wide four-lane road was separated by willows and flowers, and there were occasional intersections for crossing, and soldiers in red patrolled with rattans, and when they found that they were trying to cut a short path through the flowers, they immediately blew their whistles and ran over with great vigour.

"Interesting!"

The Confucian said with a smile.

"That's too impersonal, isn't it?"

The gentle young woman said.

"Rules, there are no rules, everyone must learn to understand the rules even if they walk."

The Confucian said.

At this moment their carriage came to a crossroads, in the middle of which was a gazebo, in which the same soldier whistled incessantly, and the driver of the carriage quickly turned the carriage which had been traveling on the outside to the inside and waited. The carriages drove directly on the cross-cutting road in front of them, and after a few moments, with the gesture of the soldier, their carriages began to turn, and the outer road went straight ahead.

Soon the carriage drove up the Dinghuai Bridge.

"This is cement?"

Confucius looked at the bridge and said.

On either side of the old stone bridge was a new bridge being built, and the piers were being built, one on each side, both slightly towards the river, and the workers smeared the mixed gray-black mud on the ashlar and built it directly.

"But how do you build a pier in the middle of the river?"

He said confusedly.

"No need for bridge piers, it is said that the Marquis of Zhongyong and Song Shilang together, developed a new method of repairing the bridge, using wood and iron to make a frame can cross the Qinhuai River, after the bridge on both sides of the car, the bridge in the middle of the road, the car people go their own way, and will not block the boat below. In the future, all the bridges around this Jingshi were built on both sides of this new bridge, which is said to be to protect the stone arch bridge in the middle, after all, this was built by Emperor Taizu back then. ”

The coachman said.

"I'd like to see how I can do without the piers."

The Confucian said.

Of course, he didn't know that there was another thing in the world called a wooden truss and arch composite bridge, which the Swiss could build in the eighteenth century to a span of more than 70 meters.

The carriage turned to the side and stopped in front of the city gate.

Immediately afterwards, a soldier led the dog forward, and the Confucian priest handed over his own way, and at the same time handed over a small red book, on which were written the three words of the representative card. The soldier immediately put on a warm smile, but still restrained the leash, let the thin dog sniff at the salute, and after making sure that there was nothing unusual, he returned the guide and the representative card to him, and signaled that he could enter the city.

The carriage then drove into the city gates.

The soldier walked up to the officer sitting in the sentry box and said a few words, who quickly opened a large notebook and wrote a line on it:

Wang Fuzhi, the representative of Hengyang County, Hengzhou Prefecture, arrived.

At this time, Wang Fuzhi, the representative of Hengyang County, Hengzhou Prefecture, was taking his wife to sit in a carriage and enjoy the scenery of Nanjing. The original ancient capital of the Six Dynasties was already the most prosperous city in the south of the Yangtze River, but compared with the present, the former Nanjing was obviously much grayer. Cleaner streets, more new buildings, and more new goods all made Wang Fuzhi a little dizzying, and even the faces of the pedestrians on the street were obviously not what he remembered. The poor people who used to be seen everywhere with food are rarely seen, and many more are clearly wearing new clothes, not to mention the colorful signboards lining the streets.

It is clear that more has changed in the past few years than in the past few hundred years.

"Husband, what is this?"

Mrs. Wang looked curiously at the pineapples laid out in front of a fruit shop.

And it's cut and sold.

"Stop!"

Wang Fuzhi said.

The carriage stopped, and he pushed open the window behind him and said a word, and the servant standing behind him immediately went over and bought six, one for each coachman.

"Thank you for the official reward, thank the guest for the blessing of the official, if you want a lot, you can't bear to eat this."

The coachman said with a smile.

"What is this?"

Wang Fuzhi asked.

"This is pineapple, it is said that it was not originally our Ming thing, and sweet potatoes are brought from what America by those red-haired people, just brought for twenty or thirty years, and at present there are only people in the south of Fujian who plant, this thing is afraid of cold, and it cannot be planted in the north. This is the merchant ship of the Nanyang Company from Fujian, before it was still a tribute, and then it was made into canned food and began to sell, we eat this is not fresh, it is taken out of the canned food and sold alone, fresh will not be sold at all, are directly sent to the house where the order is made. ”

The coachman said.

"Isn't this the smile of the concubine who rides on the red dust?"

Mrs. Wang said with a smile.

"That's just a legend, no matter how fast the lychees from Lingnan are, they can't be delivered to Chang'an intact, and it is impossible for a stagecoach to send military information from Shaoguan to Chang'an in two or three days. As for this, it was the work of the merchants, who were profitable and talented, and at most they were only extravagant to eat, but they paid for it so that the people who ran the business could profit from the top down, otherwise their silver would be buried in the cellar. ”

Wang Fuzhi said.

"Canned lychee is also common here, the guest officer can go to the canning shop to buy it, there are fruits from all over the world, as well as all kinds of birds, beasts, sea fish, even if the guest officer wants to eat the same giant whale meat as the mountain in the sea!"

The coachman said.

"Whale meat?"

Wang Fuzhi said in amazement.

"It's the giant whale meat, there is only canned food here in Nanjing, you can eat fresh meat in Zhoushan, but the taste is not very good, it's all very greasy fatty meat, but the whale oil lamp is excellent, the small one now uses the whale oil lamp, and the rich people use whale candles......"

The coachman said.

"Look at the newspaper, read the newspaper, the latest Yingtian Daily, the state newspaper that just died as the main writer......"

At this time, a half-sized man came up and waved a newspaper roll and shouted.

Wang Fuzhi hurriedly stopped him.

The servant immediately gave money, and all kinds of newspapers came, Wang Fuzhi opened the newspaper, and said with doubts: "What is the matter with the state newspaper that just died, this main writer, Fang Yunsheng?" Why did he die when he was in his early fifties? ”

Obviously, he knew Fang Dayou.

It is said that although Lao Fang's character is not good, he is a well-known calligrapher and painter in the late Ming Dynasty, and his paintings are very marketable in modern times.

"Guest, look down!"

The coachman said with a smile.

Wang Fuzhi immediately saw today's state affairs report, and then came to his face with familiar names, as well as their eulogies and elegiac poems, of course, it was indispensable to condemn Huaiyuanhou for committing murder on the street, accusing the government of being incompetent, and shielding the murderer so that he could get away with it.

Most of the other newspapers did so.

In response, the daily newspaper remained neutral and only published a eulogy in memory of this newspaper colleague who sacrificed his life for freedom of speech.

But that's enough.

After all, Ying Tiandai's identity is different.

"Ridiculous, where is the law of this country, the Ming Dynasty has no words to be convicted, even if Li Zhen He is a hidden person, he is not convicted by words. What's more, this Datong country is just conceived according to the words of the sages, and the author is Huang Nanlei and not Fang Yunsheng. Go to the National Newspaper House now! ”

Wang Fuzhi said.

Li Zhen and He Xinyin's deaths really can't be said because of their apostasy, the former is the persecution of the Donglin Party to maintain their ideological legitimacy. After all, when Li Zhen wrote those remarks, even a champion like Jiao Hong stood up for him, and Li Zhen had a lot of non-Donglin Party civilian support behind him, and wanted to use this academic star to deal with the Donglin Party, to put it bluntly, he was a victim of the party struggle in the late Wanli period.

The latter is purely for engaging in illegal associations.

"Guest officer, you can't see anyone at this moment."

The coachman said.

"Why?"

Wang Fuzhi asked.

"They handed over their application in the Wucheng Soldiers and Horses Division today, and together with the people of the Fang family, they want to carry the coffin to the Huaiyuan Marquis Mansion to ask for an explanation, if the Huaiyuan Marquis does not give them a satisfactory answer, they will go to the Dengwen drum to petition the prison country, and ask the prison country to make the decision for them, at this time, it is estimated that they have already gone to block the Huaiyuan Marquis Mansion."

The coachman said.

"Huh?!"

Wang Fuzhi was stunned......