November is one of the best seasons of the year in Nanjing, not only because of the pleasant climate, but also when the surrounding mountains and forests are at their most colorful. It's a pity that in such a good season, Yang Ai can't go out of the city to play, so she can only stay in the house to practice piano skills, which makes her quite unwilling.

But fortunately, there is an old ginkgo tree in the yard, and the golden leaves of the tree are extremely beautiful in the breeze, which also discourages a lot of her from going out**. But even so, her mind was a little erratic, after all, she was only 14 years old, which was the most lively and active age.

"If you continue to play like this, if the young lady hears it, she should punish you again." Hearing the female voice behind her, Yang Ai not only didn't feel scared, but stopped playing in surprise and said, "Sister Guo is back, did you bring me the spiced beans?" ”

Guo Xiuying watched Yang Ai eat the spiced beans she brought back with a doting face, only at this time, Yang Ai was like a little girl and not a budding rookie in Wujiang's homecoming.

In order to find her sister, Guo Xiuying ran from Beijing to the south, but she spent all her money and failed to find her sister's whereabouts. After Xu Fo heard the news of her search for her sister, she accepted Guo Xiuying, who was about to live on the streets, as one of his maids.

Although Guo Xiuying looks ordinary, she has traveled thousands of miles, and she has heard of the scenery and characters from all over the world. Especially before she left the capital, it was when Chongzhen reformed the Beijing camp and rectified the atmosphere of the capital, Guo Xiuying was extremely familiar with the stories of the capital during this period of time, and she had also seen the emperor travel a few times and saw Chongzhen's appearance.

For the gentry and wealthy businessmen in the south, these secret anecdotes are their favorite topics to talk about in the Fengyue Field, and Guo Xiuying has slowly gained a foothold in the homecoming courtyard, and has been promoted from an ordinary maid to a steward. Yang Ai, the adopted daughter of Xu Fo since she was a child, is about the same age as Guo Xiuying's missing sister, which makes Guo Xiuying pour her thoughts about her sister into her, and the relationship between the two can be described as extremely close.

However, when watching Yang Ai innocently puff out her cheeks and chew the spiced beans, Guo Xiuying remembered something again, and couldn't help but ask Yang Ai worriedly: "At tonight's dinner, you must behave well, and you must not be as casual as usual." ”

Yang Ai swallowed the chewed beans and asked with some curiosity, "Why?" Did my mother say something again? What kind of guests did Lord Ruan entertain that made her mother so uneasy? ”

Guo Xiuying looked at her and said seriously: "It is said that it is the old Qian Ge who stayed in Nanjing to recuperate, if you can enter his eyes, the Wujiang Zhou family will also have room to turn around." ”

Hearing Guo Xiuying mention the Wujiang Zhou family, Yang Ai's face suddenly collapsed. She first appeared on stage at the age of twelve, and became famous in Wujiang at the age of thirteen, but then she was taken by Zhou Daodeng, who was idle at home. Zhou Daodeng is a Jinshi in the twenty-sixth year of Wanli, and he is almost sixty years old at this time, and Yang Ai is only thirteen years old, and Zhou Daodeng's family has a group of wives and concubines, Yang Ai is naturally not willing to marry this bad old man.

It's just that although Zhou Daodeng didn't enter Chongzhen's eyes, and he was forced to return to his hometown before he even got a minister, he had deep qualifications, and his family was a Wujiang family, so a small homecoming house naturally couldn't bear this pressure. It's just that when Xu Fo was still hesitating, he received an invitation from Ruan Dacheng, which allowed Yang Ai to escape for the time being.

But Yang Ai also knows very well that when she goes back to Wujiang, I'm afraid she won't be able to delay it anymore. After hearing Guo Xiuying's words, she also lowered her head and pondered.

As the sky got dark, Ruan Dacheng boarded his own painting boat and prepared to meet Qian Qianyi. But not long after the boat started, water began to fall silently from the sky, falling on the surface of the river bit by bit, splashing ripples one after another. This made Ruan Dacheng a little upset, and he stood in front of the window for a long time, seeing that the rain did not tend to become bigger, and then he was relieved.

Ruan Dacheng looked at the rain outside the window and sighed heavily, when he went to Beijing in the second year of Chongzhen, he still felt that his career seemed to have become smooth. But he didn't expect that Shoufu Huang Liji didn't want to see him, thinking that he was playing double-faced between the eunuch party and the Donglin party, and he couldn't be entrusted with a heavy task at all.

As for the emperor, he was more interested in his talent for composing music and writing dramas, and it seemed that he did not intend to make him a serious official. Ruan Dacheng naturally complained after staying in the capital for a long time, but he was caught by Sun Zhiqi and drove him out of the capital directly. The reason why Sun Zhiqi attacked him was mainly because Ruan Dacheng wanted to take his place.

After leaving the capital, Ruan Dacheng realized the benefits of being in the capital again, but it was not so easy to go back. Therefore, he hoped to be able to establish a relationship with Qian Qianyi and pave the way for his return to the capital.

Naturally, there are accompanying guests on this painting boat, one is Zhang Pu, who was frustrated by the Nanjing Kechang case, and the other is Ma Shiying, the former prefect of Datong. The former and Ruan Dacheng have known each other for many years, while the latter is a friend Ruan Dacheng made when he returned to Nanjing. Like Ruan Dacheng, these two are also very much looking forward to meeting Qian Qianyi today.

When heaven and earth come together, the heroes are not free. This sentence just truthfully depicts Zhang Pu's current situation. The leader of the Restoration Society, who was originally in full swing, capsized because of a trumped-up case of fraud in the field. And Xia Yunyi, who was just a foil by his side before, has now become a model of young scholars who are famous all over the world, and this sense of loss is not enough for outsiders.

What worries Zhang Pu the most is that he is worried that this fraud case will follow him for the rest of his life, and eventually make him the second Tang Yin who lives in the rivers and lakes. If you want to untie this dead knot, it is impossible to just rely on reading and making arts, and you need the help of powerful people in the court, otherwise he will be the target of everyone's suppression.

At this time, Zhang Pu, who thought highly of himself, had to lower his figure and bow to Qian Qianyi, an old-timer. Although Qian Nai is the leader of the Jiangnan literary circle, in the eyes of Zhang Pu in the past, Qian is already an outdated figure, and it is they who master the Ming Dynasty and are the scholars who have restored the society.

As for Ma Shiying, he also hopes that today he can turn over with the help of Qian Qianyi's strength. Since Wanli has stepped into the official career without being promoted, it can be regarded as smooth sailing. With his own agility and talent, he even avoided the fierce party struggle during the Apocalypse.

But he ended up in a military rations case. Datong is an important town on the nine borders, and the city also has an extremely important granary for supplying the border army. In the past, these granaries were naturally managed by local governments, and corruption and fraud were full of shady scenes. Ma Shiying, who can be an official, naturally won't break through this shady scene, he just followed the old custom and took his due.

But after the establishment of the General Staff, these granaries will be handed over to the army, looking at the menacing representatives of the General Staff, Ma Shiying has not thought about how to deal with it, and the little officials who manage the granaries have already hurriedly set a fire, disguised as the illusion that the granaries have been burned down.

Such a clumsy plan naturally could not be concealed from the eyes of others, and the little officials who set the fire were quickly traced, if it were not for the officials who presided over the bidding for the case and only asked them to return the grain, it is estimated that this case alone would make it difficult for Datongdi to recover his vitality for several years.

Ma Shiying borrowed silver taels everywhere and handed over the amount of indemnity, so that he was punished by retaining his status as a scholar and being removed from his official position. After leaving Datong, he settled in Nanjing, hoping to find a chance to recover from here. After coming and going, he became familiar with Ruan Dacheng.

Ruan Dacheng, Ma Shiying, and Zhang Pu were casually talking on the boat, while waiting for the arrival of Qian Qianyi and Wang Ranming. I don't know how long it took, the three of them heard an echo from the boat downstairs, obviously a boat came up, the three of them looked at each other and smiled, and got up and went downstairs to greet them.

There are two main water sources of the Qinhuai River: one is the Jurong River, the other is the Lishui River, and the two rivers meet in the northwest of Nanjing before they are called the Qinhuai River. As a water system connecting Taihu Lake and the Yangtze River, the Qinhuai River was the era of wide river and abundant water. It is precisely because of this that the Qinhuai River can afford so many buildings and boats.

Most of these buildings are mainly two- to three-fold, but because the center of gravity of the ships is too high, they can only cruise in calm rivers such as the Qinhuai River. However, sitting on the high place of the building ship in summer, watching the scenery by the railing during the day, and enjoying the song and dance at night is the best choice for the magnates of Nanjing to cool off.

The Jinling prostitutes followed suit, and over time, there was the Jinling Fengyue of this river. Ruan Dacheng is wealthy, and although the painting boat he purchased is not as good as a few famous building boats, it is enough to entertain more than ten or twenty guests.

When Qian Qianyi was led up to the second floor, he saw seven or eight beauties and three or four musicians standing on one side, and he just nodded and smiled.

These tricks and music that Ruan Dacheng recruited from Wujiang Homecoming Hospital, although they are good-looking, they have not escaped the dust, and for 40-year-old Qian Qianyi, they are just ordinary colors.

What's more, at this time, his mind is on the official career, and his thoughts about women are lighter, and there is no trace in his heart after a glance. However, for Yang Ai, who is not deeply involved in the world, it is rare to meet such a high-ranking official who is not fake for women, and he can't help but feel a little good in his heart.

The conversation throughout the evening was quite pleasant, just as Ruan Dacheng and the others asked for Qian Qianyi, and Qian Qianyi also had some thoughts about them. Today's Qian Qianyi is not the dashing literary leader of the past, but a political leader who wants to support a party.

He is not Xu Guangqi, with the emperor's financial assistance behind him, and relying on money to benefit himself or collect party dues from some party members cannot support the full operation of a political party. Therefore, Qian Qianyi, who was trying to find a few stable inputs for the New Donglin Party, couldn't help but be moved after hearing the return of the Southern Railway.

This is the reason why he followed Wang Ranming to the banquet, although the first time they met, everyone was just to get acquainted, and did not talk about careers such as railways. But Qian Qianyi believes that Wang Ranming will definitely convey his attitude to the other party correctly. It wasn't until he was about to get off the boat that Qian Qianyi finally spoke and commented on tonight's female music: "... There was only one song in the whole night, which was wonderful. ”

Ruan Dacheng, who sent Qian Qianyi away, couldn't help but look back at Yang Ai, the girl beside Xu Fo, and made up his mind.