In the back garden of the Zhou family's mansion in Songjiang Mansion, Zhou Zhong was picking peppers in a reclaimed vegetable field, in order to cultivate sweet potatoes and peppers, Jinxuan and Lingyun and Bang'er reclaimed a few acres of land at home to cultivate, and now it has become a habit, no matter where they live, they will reclaim a small field in the garden and plant some vegetables such as peppers and cucumbers, mainly not to eat, but to find something to do for themselves, and exercise by the way, which has also been strongly supported by Zhou Chong, It is precisely because of Jinxuan's hard work that the vegetables in the vegetable field grow very well, and the peppers that bear are like small carrots, and the green looks are appetizing.

Zhou Zhong was very idle during this time, and the last Turen kingdom on the Nanyang side was finally destroyed by Qu Lie, and the layout of Nanyang was basically completed, and then it took time to slowly consolidate. In addition, the Wa country is still inseparable, but Edo Bay and Iwami Silver Mountain have completely fallen into the hands of the Ming Dynasty, Iwami Silver Mountain has begun to produce silver, and attracted the attention of the imperial court, stationed a large number of troops to guard, absolutely not to be lost, Edo Port has been built almost, Zhou Zhong has given Zhengde a twist, I hope that the imperial court can form an ocean-going fleet, at least go to the Americas, find out the route, and lay the foundation for the future development of the Americas, However, I have not yet received a reply from Zhengde.

In addition to the expansion of these territories, the maritime trade of the Ming Dynasty has also reached a peak, and the various ports that were abandoned because of the sea ban have slowly recovered their original vitality under the stimulation of the sea trade, especially the ports south of Songjiang Prefecture. It is also a daily boat exchange. Shuangyu Port, which used to dominate maritime trade, is among many competitors. It is no longer so conspicuous, even the Ningbo Port adjacent to the Shuangyu Port is slowly surpassing the Shuangyu Port in scale, and now the Ningbo Government is negotiating the merger with the Shuangyu Port, if it can really merge the two ports, then Ningbo will become a huge port area, and leap over Guangzhou, becoming the largest port in the Ming Dynasty.

However, now Daming's maritime trade has also reached a bottleneck, and the development of maritime trade is restricted by the development of Daming's domestic industry and the development of Shanghai trade. For example, taking porcelain and silk as an example, most people now try their best to get these two kinds of goods, and then ship them overseas to make huge profits, and even the domestic supply is a little insufficient, resulting in the price of domestic silk and porcelain rising again and again.

In other words, the domestic productivity of the Ming Dynasty has not kept up with the development of commerce, and the commodities that can be provided in China have reached the limit, so no matter how prosperous the sea trade is, the goods provided by the Ming Dynasty every year are certain, which leads to the contradiction between domestic demand and export sales. Therefore, the most important thing for the Ming Dynasty now is to develop domestic agriculture, industry and commerce, and to increase the output of commodities is the right way.

For the domestic affairs of the Ming Dynasty. Zhou Chong is not able to intervene for the time being, at most he uses the influence of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce to open some cotton textile workshops, and encourages craftsmen to invent new textile tools, and vigorously develop the cotton textile industry, after all, cotton cloth is an important commodity in maritime trade, although the price is lower than silk and porcelain, but the output is very large, even the Portuguese like the cotton cloth of the Ming Dynasty, I heard that the cotton cloth of the Ming Dynasty is very popular in Europe.

However, whether it is the cotton textile industry or any other industry, these only rely on the influence of Zhou Zhong in private, and the speed of progress is still too slow, and there is no development of more than ten or twenty years, and there is no great effect at all. But Zhou Chong is not in a hurry now, anyway, everything he, the governor of the four seas, can do, and the layout of Daming on the sea has also been completed, as long as Daming does not have major changes, one day he can make adjustments according to his own needs.

It is precisely because of this that Zhou Zhong is very idle during this time, and even he deliberately gave himself a vacation, planning to use this rare leisure to accompany his family, Jinxuan and Lingyun gave birth to a son respectively, and the eldest daughter Xia Xia is almost five years old, it is the time to entangle people, and Mengwan is also pregnant and is waiting to give birth.

For his family, Zhou Chong is still a little guilty, after all, he has been busy with the affairs of the Governor's Mansion in recent years, and he usually has little time to spend with his family, among them Jinxuan and they are okay, after all, they can understand him, and they are busy taking care of the children, it's nothing, but as Xia Xia grows up, she looks forward to being with her father every day, but unfortunately Zhou Chong doesn't have much time to accompany her, which makes Xia Xia already have a little complaint about him as a father.

It is precisely because of this that Zhou Chong is ready to make good use of this free time, not thinking about anything, not doing anything, all of it is used to accompany his family, especially Xia Xia is getting older and older now, it is the time when he needs his father's care, Zhou Chong doesn't want his daughter to lack father's love in the process of growing up.

This morning, Zhou Zhong accompanied Xia Xia around the streets of Songjiang Mansion for a long time, buying many gadgets for her, and making this little girl very happy. Speaking of which, although Shanghai New Town has attracted many merchants to buy land and do business, after all, the popularity has not yet risen, and the streets are not very prosperous, plus building houses all day long, there is a smell of dust everywhere, so Zhou Zhong did not move his family over, after finishing his business every day, he will ride back to the old house of the Zhou family in Songjiang to accompany his family, anyway, it is not very far, but it takes at most half an hour before and after.

After playing all morning, Xia Xiafei was eating the food made by his father. Speaking of Zhou Chong, after becoming the governor, he rarely went to the kitchen, and Jinxuan and the others would not let him cook, thinking that he had lost his identity, so these days, except for the lively New Year, Zhou Chong can go down to the kitchen to show his hands, and he can't get close to the kitchen within ten meters at other times. But it was the two hands that were exposed during the New Year that made Xia Xia miss his father's cooking skills, it used to be Zhou Chong too busy, Xia Xia couldn't see anyone all day, so naturally he didn't have a chance to bring it up, but now he finally has a chance, and he is naturally clamoring to eat braised pork made by Zhou Chong.

Speaking of Xia Xia, this girl is like Zhou Zhong in other aspects except for her gender and appearance with her mother Jinxuan, especially in terms of diet, as long as it is what Zhou Chong likes to eat, she must also love to eat, such as braised pork, ancient meat, etc., in addition to spicy dishes, she and Zhou Chong like to eat very much, and today she specially named Zhou Chong to make himself a chili scrambled egg, although it is a very ordinary home-cooked dish, but it is a dish that the father and daughter never get tired of eating.

In order to cook a meal for his daughter, Zhou Zhong personally went to the vegetable field to pick vegetables, especially chili peppers, which are all big and green chili peppers, which are not so spicy, just enough to be cooked.

Speaking of chili peppers, it used to be an exclusive commodity of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce, and only the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce in the entire Ming Dynasty cultivated chili peppers on small islands overseas, and it was not allowed to spread the seeds out of the country at all. At the beginning, the Ming people were not very accustomed to chili peppers, but after a year or two, there were more and more people who liked chili peppers, and chili peppers as a high-end condiment were naturally a hundred times the identity, and a jar of chili oil with a big fist could be sold for three taels of silver when it was the most expensive, and its cost was only a dozen cents, which was like robbing money.

It's a pity that the good years of chili peppers were only maintained for two years, and then Zhou Chong gave Zhengde an idea to relocate the victims overseas, in order to give these victims more money, so Zhou Chong gave the chili seeds to those overseas settlers free of charge, at the beginning it did make a lot of people earn a lot of money by planting chili peppers, but then more and more chili peppers were planted, and even spread from overseas to the mainland of Daming, as a result, less than two years, all of the Ming Dynasty were planted with chili peppers, especially in Sichuan and Huguang Those chili pepper producing areas in later generations, The peppers grown are far better than those in other places, but now the chili peppers are as rotten as in later generations, and when you enter a noodle restaurant to eat a bowl of noodles, people will take out a bowl of chili oil and let you eat it at will, without any money at all.

However, although the price of chili peppers has fallen, the taste has not changed, and with the spread of chili peppers, there are more and more people who like to eat spicy peppers, which also makes more and more dishes with chili peppers as seasonings, such as boiled fish, spicy tofu and other dishes, which have appeared now, but the taste is not as authentic as in later generations, but it is barely edible.

In order to make her favorite chili scrambled eggs for Xia Xia, Zhou Zhong personally selected the chili peppers, washed them after removing the seeds inside, cut them into thin strips and soaked them in cold water for a while, and then rinsed them again to prepare for cooking, the reason why they are brewed with cold water is mainly to remove the spicy taste in the chili peppers, and the fried dishes are not particularly spicy, which is suitable for children to eat, after all, Xia Xia is still young, and eating too spicy is not good for the body.

After the chili scrambled eggs are done, Zhou Zhong made braised pork and ancient inside, in addition to sweet and sour cabbage and fried mung bean sprouts, two vegetarian dishes, plus a bowl of corn sweet soup after the most, and a few steamed steamed buns, these are the favorite things of Zhou Chong's father and daughter, as for rice and the like, neither of them like it, they prefer to eat pasta, but in a place like Songjiang, flour is much more expensive than rice, and the average wealthy family will only eat a little pasta during the New Year's Festival.

Although Zhou Chong's cooking is not very much, but the amount is very sufficient, enough for their family to eat, Xia Xia saw that the table was his favorite home-cooked food, a pair of big eyes smiled into a crescent moon, chubby little hands grabbed chopsticks and ate non-stop, although the two little ones were only two years old, but not to be outdone, climbed on the table and reached out to grab a large piece of braised pork to gnaw, it seems that they are carnivores like their father.

The family finally had a comfortable meal, and they saw that they were about to finish eating, but at such a moment, Zhou Zhong saw Wu Shan probing his brain outside the restaurant, it seemed that he wanted to find someone else, but he didn't dare to disturb at this time, which made Zhou Chong also sigh secretly, it is definitely not a good thing to let Wu Shan run alone at this time, maybe his leisurely life is about to end. (To be continued......)