matched Master Chen and introduced a confidant by Wu Lian's side, and Wang Fulin left it. In all fairness, he is not very optimistic about Master Chen, after all, it takes full wisdom to deal with this historical problem that has been fermenting in the southeast for decades, and Master Chen doesn't seem to be such a capable person, but Wu Lian confessed, he found a local snake, that's it, it's not necessary to show off his ability too much. To put it mildly, he whitewashed a group of people on a small scale and gave them a serious behavior, and people would praise him for his ability, ability and love, but if he recruited 1,800 people, Wu Lian would be vigilant.

Even if he wants to do it, he has to wait for Master Chen's side to have a result, and then slowly figure it out, and he can't be in a hurry.

He came back late last night, and he didn't have time to tell the rest of the family about going to Ningbo Mansion. Not far after leaving the Yanyu Building, he got out of the car and parted ways with Mrs. Xu, and took people back to the inn by himself. It just so happened that everyone in the family was here at this time, and when he talked about it, Jinbao and Qiu Feng had no opinion at all, and Wang Erniang and Wang Xiaomei also felt a little tired of staying in Hangzhou City, and they were very willing to go to Ningbo to play together. Mr. Fang and Mr. Ke are indispensable, anyway, they have been wandering around the world in previous years, and they have no fixed place to live. Only Ye Xiaopang jumped three feet tall and smiled from ear to ear.

"Great, I haven't been back in a long time, I'm going back to see my grandmother!"

"Where are you going back, so happy?"

With this clear voice, a servant woman outside the door said, "Miss Nine is here." ”

There is no need to add the prefix of the Xu family, Ye Mingyue had mentioned to everyone before that Mrs. Xu and Xu Wei's grandchildren had come to Hangzhou, and everyone knew that Xu Wei was here at this time. Wang Xiaomei was the first to go to the door and opened the curtain. smiled and dragged Xu Wei in: "Ninth sister." You've come just in time. Brother just said that we are going to Ningbo! Sister Mingyue and Sister Xiaobei's hometown is there, will you go? Let's just go play together! ”

Xu Wei was stunned for a moment, and her face suddenly became a little complicated. Just learned that her grandfather was going to Hangzhou on business, she begged hard, and then she successfully followed Hangzhou, and just arrived yesterday in Shou'an Night Market met Wang Fulin, which was undoubtedly an unexpected surprise. However, she was thinking about how to play with Wang Fulin and others in Hangzhou, which is known as paradise. They are going to Ningbo, and the most entangled thing is that the Ye family is in Ningbo, is this Wang Fulin going to the door......

As soon as Ye Mingyue saw Xu Wei's eyes and expression, she knew what the little girl was thinking, and hurriedly pulled someone over and sat down beside her, but said in a low voice: "It's the Ye family's separation that makes a big fuss, and we are worried that our mother will be alone there, so we plan to go back and take a look." Wang Xiaoguan is enthusiastic, and the others are joining in the fun. Purely to play. ”

When it came to separation, Xu Wei's heart jumped. There is now a huge estrangement and contradiction between the three rooms of the Xu family. In the final analysis, it was also because my grandfather handed over the leadership of the salt business to my eldest uncle, so my father and third uncle were all uncomfortable. She only thought that her family was like this, but she was sad, but she didn't expect that the Ye family would be the same! She was hesitating, but Xiaobei on the side also came over.

"Originally, my sister and I just wanted to borrow a few people, who knew that he was just nosy to join in the fun, and brought so many people together, really when my sister and I went back to Ningbo to play in the mountains and rivers, God knows what the chaos was like there, how can there be that leisure! Xiaowei, how long can you stay in Hangzhou? We may be able to settle things out soon, and then let's go to Su Causeway to have some fun! ”

Xu Wei knew that Wang Fulin was indeed nosy, or that he would take the initiative to come to the door when he was busy, so he immediately burst into laughter. Seeing that everyone else was looking at her, she smiled a little embarrassedly: "It's not good for me to go to Ningbo, my grandfather is here to see Lord Shi of the salt transport envoy of Liangzhejiang this time, and he should be in Hangzhou for a while, we will live in Shuimen Street in the east of the city, and when you come back, remember to send a letter to me!" ”

As she spoke, she glared at Wang Fulin unhappily: "If you want to leave, you won't say a word to your grandfather, so I still rush over, planning to invite you to Su Causeway tomorrow to see the peach blossoms!" ”

Wang Fulin was a little stunned for a moment, but thinking that it should be very fast to go to Ningbo, he readily agreed.

Of course, before leaving, Wang Fulin still helped Yang Wencai and others find out, Zhong Nanfeng was sent to Jizhen within ten days after the verdict was announced, and the other two were also together. Because there are more than ten Fubiao officers and soldiers who originally belonged to the Qi family army to escort them together, of course, there is no need to worry about what problems will be encountered on the road, and it will definitely meet Zhong Nanfeng's request to take a look at Qi Jiguang from afar.

Although the road from Hangzhou to Ningbo can be used by land and water, most people still choose to take a boat for comfort, and Wang Fulin and his party are no exception. Since some of the waterways on this journey are canal waterways that have been dug for many years, so it is good for them to go with the water and wind this time, if it is against the water and wind, and the boat has a heavy draft, and it is easy to run aground, then they must hire a slender man to tow it.

Because there were more people in this group than before, and there were a lot of horses, Wang Fulin simply divided the two groups of people by water and land. One group of people was in charge of a dozen horses to the front station, and the other group was in boats. Xiaobei was originally eager to take the land route, but under Ye Mingyue's solemn warning, she still had to continue to take the boat after all.

Since the Tang and Song dynasties, Ningbo has always been one of the famous large ports in the southeast, the early Ming Dynasty Hongwu forbidden the sea, but during the Yongle period, Zheng He was able to go to the Western Ocean again and again, and the city ship division was also re-established here, and then the huge ocean fleet gradually stopped, and the so-called city ship division only maintained the tributary trade that could not make ends meet, but it was the only channel between the official and Japan. Until the battle for tribute in the early years of Jiajing. Countless soldiers and civilians were killed and injured in that battle, so the imperial court was furious and completely closed the trade channels and strictly banned the sea. But because of this, it laid the groundwork for the later wreaking havoc of the Japanese invaders.

After many years of anti-Japanese warfare, with the complete collapse of several major maritime groups with large traffic and Japanese invaders, Ningbo, which was once the main battlefield in the southeast, has gradually recovered, but it is not the same as the prosperity of Hangzhou. The reason is simple, despite the Longqing switch, the maritime trade that has been closed for many years seems to have been lifted. But the official trade channel is in Zhangzhou, Fujian. Extremely remote. There are even claims that only merchants from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou are allowed to go to sea, and the ship guidance is extremely limited, so Ningbo Shuangyu, which was once more prosperous and developed than Yuegang and has been navigating to Japan all the year round, has been much more depressed than before, although there is still smuggling under the nose of the government in these years.

These are all Wang Fulin on the way to Ningbo, and the well-informed Mr. Fang and Mr. Ke explained a little about the situation in Ningbo. In the words of the two. I think that the big households in Ningbo back then except for a very few, almost no one was not without a widow, and this tongwen, of course, is not to say that the real widows, but refers to the maritime merchants Xu Dong and Li Guangtou who were entrenched in Shuangyu, and occupied shares in their business. That's the last flip.

"It's just that the life of these big families in Ningbo is much more difficult now than before. After all, there is a lack of big income in maritime transactions, so the Ye family was such a big family in the past, and now it can be like this in order to separate the family. ”

Regarding Mr. Fang's feelings, after Wang Fulin hesitated, he still took it to Ye Mingyue for verification, of course, he just asked vaguely whether the Ye family had also been involved in maritime trade in the past.

For this, Ye Mingyue shook her head with a wry smile and said: "I don't know the specifics, I only know that when the family was at its peak, the porcelain used was all the treasures in Jingdezhen, and the seal stones that my father kept privately, that is, the ones left to him by my great-grandmother, were also accumulated at that time." Later, the family was not so rich, uncles and aunts quarreled every day, and they squeezed each other when they had nothing to do, and because the mother was good at management, whether it was a grange or a shop, she could take care of it, and no matter how powerful the thorns were, she could be flattened, so although she was the youngest daughter-in-law, her grandmother still valued her very much. ”

Xiaobei, the fake daughter of the Ye family, knows more than Ye Mingyue: "I heard the nurse mention that the Ye family seemed to have funded a maritime merchant in Shuangyu back then, and then fell out, plus Wang Zhi died, and the battle was fought from Zhejiang to Fujian, and the victory was won one after another, and the remnants of those maritime merchants fled without a trace, and the money was lost." Back then, someone sued the Ye family in front of his father because of this, and the only time his mother interceded in her life, the matter was over. My father also said that the big families in Ningbo, except for those scholarly families who have been poor for generations, almost all of those rich families did not smuggle, in other words, no one knew how to smuggle. In the final analysis, it is all the fault of the forbidden sea. ”

The so-called father and mother, which are different from Ye Junyao and Mrs. Su today, of course refer to Hu Zongxian and Xiaobei's biological mother.

So, Wang Fulin couldn't help but imagine the background of Hu Zongxian's words. Although Hu Zongxian's personal ethics are not bad, and he is also a good hand at making money, and Qi Jiguang was similar to his old boss when he was in charge of Jizhen, but this did not hinder the judgment and achievements of the two on the front line of the anti-Japanese war. He thought about it for a while, and finally spread his hands and said: "In this way, it is Longqing to open the sea, and a swarm of maritime merchants have gone to Yuegang, and the smuggling rumors on Shuangyu have been severely cracked down, which can be regarded as cutting off the way of many people's livelihoods, and the Ye family is also a little depressed, so this time the family is divided into too few people?" ”

As soon as Xiaobei finished speaking, he realized that his mouth was too fast. Of course, my father knew why those maritime merchants in Zhejiang and Fujian took risks, although it was said that the merchants were profit-seeking, but in the final analysis, they were dissatisfied with the imperial court's ban on the sea. It must be known that since the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties, which dynasty and which generation have been so conservative as this dynasty? But Wang Fulin may not think like his father, God knows if he minds if the Ye family was also involved in the sea at the beginning. At this moment, she immediately glanced at Ye Mingyue, and hurriedly remedied: "Anyway, the Ye family has long washed their hands, and they have nothing to do with maritime merchants. The matter of separating the family is just someone using the topic to play. ”

"It's not just about playing on the topic." At this moment, Mrs. Su's mothers are guarding outside, Ye Mingyue is not afraid of someone eavesdropping, after saying this, she hesitated for a long time, and then said calmly, "It has been seven or eight years since my great-grandfather and great-grandmother passed away, and my father was able to be admitted to the Jinshi, including the fact that they have been using their own funds for many years, and they have provided convenience for my father to publish books and make friends with literati and artists, and my mother is good at business, and she is also very popular with them." When my great-grandfather passed away, I finally asked my father and mother to speak alone, and my mother mentioned to me that what my great-grandfather never forgot was to restore the trade with Japan in Ningbo City. I guess maybe my great-grandfather left a private house for his parents, hoping that they would be able to do it. ”

Wang Fulin was taken aback. The old man who had passed away at the top of the Ye family had such ambitions? (To be continued......)