The Chinese people are doing things at the wine table, this is the case in modern times, and it is also the same in the late Ming Dynasty hundreds of years ago.

Li Meng returned to the inn to sleep, and after waking up, Chen Liu came over to report that Wenru Commercial Bank had sent several guides over, and if these guides talked about the relationship, they were actually acquaintances, and they were all the family members of the old shopkeeper Meng who contributed a lot to the Qingyan incident last year.

The old shopkeeper Meng got the benefit of nearly 10,000 taels of silver in the matter of speculating and selling green salt, and he had already gone home to be a rich man, but he was not ready to let his nephews and nephews enjoy themselves comfortably, and they were all scattered outside to work to make money, this time he was sent to Li Meng as a guide, and several of Meng's children were very happy, they had all heard what the elders said, this Li Erlang was a noble person of our Meng family.

Now that everything was prepared, Li Meng explained to the simple fragrant salt shop, said hello to relevant customers and the like, and the group hurriedly went on the road again.

Jining Prefecture to the south to Henan, Nanzhili area is a very dense water system, Li Meng and their chariots and horses can travel by boat, but also save a little effort.

It's quite boring on the road, it's not interesting to look at the scenery on both sides every day, but I thought that the salters who came out to play in the mountains and rivers were miscalculated, although it was a boat on the water, but the training was not delayed at all, every day Li Meng asked the boat to dock for two hours, and the drills were all over again. Naturally, there is no place for the boatman to be unwilling, anyway, all the silver is given to him, and he earns more money every day.

In these days of life on the ship, Li Meng really has some understanding. For example, the old officers of the Lingshan Guard Station vaguely mentioned that when marching to fight, they must follow the rivers during the march, first, because water transportation can save a lot of manpower and animal power, and secondly, there is a water source nearby.

This kind of knowledge is something that Li Meng, who has joined the army in modern times, could not have imagined at all, and with the complete logistics system of modern warfare and all kinds of high-efficiency means of transportation, he could not consider this aspect at all.

The conversation between Jining Prefecture and Kong Sande touched Li Meng a little, whether it was Kong Sande or Zhou Yang of Jiaozhou City, they all saw this situation. In terms of the world, Kong Sande and Zhou Yang are definitely not amazing talents, and it can be inferred that there should be many people in the world who know about this.

But why is it still like that in the end, it is really the wheel of history and the general trend that cannot be violated...

This question is too depressing, and Li Meng doesn't want to think about it, but walking on the water. Except for the first two days, which were somewhat fresh, the next few days were not pleasant, and the water's edge was generally inhabited by villages, and poverty and misery were all they described.

It's okay to be close to the households in Jining Prefecture, but the closer it is to Henan. The more I felt that this world was indeed suffering from disasters and tortures, and when I went ashore to practice several times, I saw corpses lying there on the shore, with a swollen abdomen and starvation, and a miserable appearance, many corpses were torn apart by wild beasts, the weather was a little hot, and many corpses were emitting a foul smell. Every time you go ashore, you have to sprinkle lime with salt and bury it.

But there are too many corpses, and they can't be busy at all, so in the future, they simply see if there are any corpses before docking, as for the displaced people fleeing the desert and begging along the coast. That's not an uncommon thing at all.

In fact, in this fleet, except for Li Meng, no one was surprised by the scene of life on both sides of the strait, which was a commonplace scene for people in this era.

In Li Meng's opinion. The Ming Dynasty's Di Bao had an advantage. The major disasters and famines in various parts of the world are generally reported in a timely manner, for a character like him. After all, you can get useful information, but most of these displaced people on the shore came from Henan, but according to the newspaper, the annual scenery over there is okay, and there are no major droughts and floods.

In his spare time, he asked about the boatman and the children of the Meng family who led the way, although they were either vague or clear, but the meaning was all the same, among the children of the Meng family, there was a man named Meng En who said the most directly, Li Meng asked that day, Meng En spit into the river, and scolded hatefully:

"What other famine can there be, those vassal kings are the greatest famine......"

Then this Meng En was dragged down by several of his brothers who covered his mouth, Li Meng was also an official of the imperial court, and scolded the vassal king in front of him, isn't this looking for his own death?

However, when he arrived at the Dingjia crossing, entered the Yellow River, and entered Henan, he also made this matter clear, in fact, there are many such Ming people's notes and Qing people's articles that have been transmitted to modern times, of course, Li Meng basically can't get in touch. The so-called "disaster of Henan" is not a natural disaster, but a vassal king. ”

At the end of Wanli, he had been crowned "Zhou, Zhao, Yi, Hui, Zheng, Tang, Chong, Lu" eight kings, and then in Luoyang to seal the Fu Wang, and said that the fields in Henan were not enough to seal the Fu Wang, but also to other provinces to carve out the fields, Henan is a thoroughfare, many big mansions, dignitaries and nobles live here There are also a lot of people, they also occupy a large number of fields, when the government urges taxes, naturally will not look for these feudal princes and nobles, official eunuchs, those taxes are on the common people, Emperor Chongzhen is raising taxes layer by layer, how can the people live.

After learning about this reason, Li Meng felt that there were not many displaced people in Shandong, and there was no large wave of refugees, and the patience of the civilians in Henan was really strong.

Dingjia Road Crossing is already in Henan, and the situation is different, this is a pass from Shandong to Henan, which looks quite prosperous.

Although you can also see a lot of faces with vegetables, describing the withered homeless, there are also many people who are busy with food and clothing, and they seem to be healthy. This is also beyond Li Meng's expectations, the kind of hell on earth that he expected did not appear, and there was a deformed prosperity in the entire ferry area.

Li Meng thought about it for a long time before he figured out that the reason why there was still a bright spot in the disaster was because in this era, not only agriculture, but also industry and commerce accounted for an increasing proportion, which still saved many people to some extent.

According to the children of the Meng family who were guides, Guide Mansion is close to Nanzhili, and it is a place where Huai salt is sold, and the place is not so much under the jurisdiction of Henan, but rather a mansion in Nanzhili, these guides also feel that Li Meng came to inspect the market for illegal salt sales this time, and these children of the old Meng shopkeeper are all trying to tie Li Meng's mouth, so naturally they have something to say, and they are not worried about leaking secrets or anything like that.

Qingyan should be in the area of Huayin Tongguan and Lu's Baoying, from Shaanxi to Henan, Li Meng's goal is this place, so he is not willing to stay in Guide Mansion for long, directly along the Yellow River to wash away, along the river to Kaifeng Mansion, and take Zhengzhou to Luoyang. Naturally, I agreed with the guide and went straight on the road.

After replenishing the provisions, a group of people walked along the official road for more than ten miles, and then changed boats at the ferry, at that time, the Cao Yun was along the waterway from Guide to Kaifeng, Kaifeng to Luoyang, and then supplied to the Guanzhong area, the shipping was very good, and the business of Wenru Commercial House seemed to be accessible, those few guides went out to contact, and they got the boat, Li Meng's boat fare was given more than fifty percent, and it didn't cost much more money for him, but everyone was happy with the boats.

The situation in Henan is already a little erosive, when Jining Prefecture went to Henan, the boatmen did not have anything to say about docking on the shore, but these boatmen in Henan did not rely on the docks of the guard and Dayi along the way, and they did not dare to dock at all, and the activities of the army in Henan have been for a while, and the local bandits and lawless heroes are also taking advantage of the chaos to pick some cheap outside, and Chen Liu and Wang Hai chatted when they had nothing to do.

According to them, the common people easily did not dare to leave the city where they lived, and those villages in the wild were often plundered by bandits, horses, and thieves, and if the people left the city to go elsewhere, a dozen people did not dare to move, and generally formed a brigade of 100 or 200 people before they dared to act.

The only place where there is still some peace is the city along the river, on the river, the officers and soldiers of the brigade have enough mobility to support back and forth, and the city does not worry about supplies by water, so the situation is not bad compared to other places in Henan.

In the middle of August, Li Meng and his entourage came to Kaifeng City, the ships needed to replenish some supplies, and those guides also had official affairs to handle such as Wenru Commercial Bank, and discussed with Li Meng, hoping to stay in Kaifeng City for about ten days, and then continue to hurry.

Li Meng's irritability and quick temper had already been wiped clean by the way he couldn't get up, and he knew that even if he wanted to be fast, he couldn't get up, so he agreed to the other party's request at the moment.

And Kaifeng is also a famous big city in the world in the Ming Dynasty, Li Meng has been staying in Jiaozhou since he came to the end of the Ming Dynasty hundreds of years ago, and has not been to any big place, although Jining Prefecture is known as the richest in Shandong, but it is just a state city, and the situation is still smaller.

Li Meng is not familiar with history, but he also knows that the last days of the dynasty will become ruins in the prosperous place in the general trend, and if you want to see the prosperity again, you will have to wait for decades or hundreds of years.

In modern times, looking at those petty bourgeois sour articles, even a staff member with a low level of education like Li Meng yearns for the dreamlike prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty, the solipsism of the two Han Dynasty, the two Jin Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the prosperous Tang Dynasty's Chang'an, even if the Taiping scene of the Zhongming Dynasty can be seen and lived in.

But there are strange encounters that have traveled through hundreds of years of time and space, but the dynasty that came was the end of the Ming Dynasty and the end of the dynasty when darkness was coming.