On the docks of Nagasaki, there were simply a sea of people seeing them off, including Chinese who had been doing business in Japan all year round, businessmen who had stayed here temporarily, and a large number of Japanese officials.

Among them, a group of women who are gorgeously dressed and have unusual beauty are the most conspicuous.

The group of women looked sad one by one, and when they saw the Chinese boarding the ship, they couldn't help but shed tears.

They are a group of Japanese geisha, Dong Xiaowan followed Fuwang from Nagasaki to Kyoto, and was covered by Fuwang's edge along the way, but she was by no means inactive, on the contrary, she invited the top local geisha to communicate everywhere.

These geisha are extremely humble, learning from Dong Xiaowan with their hearts, learning the most popular dances of the Ming Dynasty, learning the lyrics of Nanqu, and musical instrument playing techniques, they are already very proficient in these, but they are different from the Ming Dynasty, but they all think that the Ming is the best.

So one by one, the geisha whose status in Japan may not be lower than Dong Xiaowan's, all stayed by Dong Xiaowan's side as disciples, from Nagasaki to Kyoto, they followed all the way, not only studying, but also serving Dong Xiaowan's diet and daily life, getting up earlier than Dong Xiaowan every day, serving him to freshen up, and at night until Dong Xiaowan fell asleep, they were willing to rest.

In the face of such a group of women who respect themselves, Dong Xiaowan was actually deeply moved, and when she was on the merchant ship, she also shed tears.

There is no doubt that through Dong Xiaowan, Yang Chao blew the beautiful sound of the Ming Dynasty and the warm wind of Jiangnan that can smoke human bones to Japan.

But this is not the biggest gain of this trip, and the biggest gain is not Dong Xiaowan's cultural dissemination, not the harvest of King Fu, but the interests of the Zheng family.

The relationship between the Zheng family and Japan is very special, and Zheng Zhilong's first wife is Japanese.

Zheng Zhilong is definitely a hero, he moved to Japan from Macao with his elders at the age of seventeen to make a living, relying on his shoemaker and tailor household registration, he got the appreciation of a Chinese swordsmith in Japan, and fascinated the Japanese adopted daughter of the knifesmith, after marrying this adopted daughter, Zheng Zhilong got the sponsorship of the knifesmith.

He began to buy boats. recruited sailors and put them into the name of Li Dan, a sea merchant at that time, and was appreciated by Li Dan and accepted him as a righteous son. Zheng Zhilong thus became a powerful maritime force at that time.

But Zheng Zhilong, who was ambitious as a young man, also skyrocketed, and became brothers with Yan Siqi and other twenty-eight people, trying to do a big thing, which was extremely incredible, because they wanted to overthrow the shogunate and occupy Japan.

The matter was revealed ahead of schedule. Twenty-eight people could only sail out to sea and leave Japan, where Zheng Zhilong's first son, Zheng Sen, had just been born.

After arriving in Taiwan, he robbed business travelers in the Taiwan Strait, and soon developed into the first big pirate force in South China, and Zheng Zhilong was appreciated by the boss Yan Siqi and became Yan Siqi's son-in-law.

At this time, Zheng Zhilong was only twenty years old. It took him only three years to go from a poor and poor boy who fell to Japan to make a living to become the number one pirate.

Zheng Zhilong's relationship with Japan made the Japanese hate and fear, and they did not dare to refuse to trade with Zheng Zhilong, and they were not very happy to watch him take away Japan's silver by boat.

However, through Fuwang's trip to Japan, Zheng improved his relationship with the Japanese authorities, and the Japanese shogunate changed his opinion of him quite a lot, and even allowed Zheng Zhilong to trade directly in Hirado in the future.

In the past 10 years, Japan has issued five sea bans, each time stricter than the other. At this time, only the Chinese and Dutch were left to trade legally in Japan, the Spanish, Portuguese, and British were all driven out, and the Dutch and Chinese could only trade in Nagasaki.

Now Zheng Zhilong is allowed to go directly to Hirado, the most prosperous political center in Japan, and it can be said that he has received the greatest benefit.

Even the Zheng family took the opportunity to recruit hundreds of Japanese wandering samurai, and the shogunate turned a blind eye. You must know that they are extremely disgusted with the population going to sea, the five sea bans have restricted the Japanese from going to sea, at the beginning they also allowed the Japanese to return to China within five years of going to sea, and the last time they directly refused all overseas Japanese to return to China, obviously these ronins recruited by Zheng Zhilong are not among them.

At the end of February, the flotilla returned to Daming. Yang Chao personally went to Songjiang Mansion to greet him.

With apologies and gratitude, Dong Xiaowan was comforted, and then the two stayed together and took the boat back to Nanjing.

Zheng's fleet also brought back a list of trade goods for the following year.

Seeing this list, Yang Chao was very satisfied, because he saw a large increase in the number of goods such as Yunjin, and the most important thing was that many popular gadgets in Qinhuaihe were also ordered by the Japanese, from the Chinese spice stove to the most fashionable tea sets, to rouge boxes and copper mirrors, to Yang Chao's surprise, there were also orders for toothpaste.

The history of Chinese toothbrushing is much earlier than later generations imagined, and it was not introduced from the West, of course, the brushing habits of the general public were cultivated after modern times, but brushing teeth did have since the Spring and Autumn Warring States.

Since the Sui and Tang dynasties, the style of brushing teeth has become popular in the upper class, and brushing teeth is called tooth rubbing, and the "Secret of the Place" records that "every willow branch bites the head softly, and the medicine is taken to rub the teeth, fragrant and clean." ”

During the Tang Dynasty, the branches of poplar or willow trees were used to bite one end loose to brush their teeth, and at this time there were already toothpaste medicines, and salt was also used to brush teeth.

In the Song Dynasty, the "Taiping Shenghui Fang" recorded in detail the recipe of toothpaste: willow branches, acacia branches, mulberry branches decoction water boiling ointment, ginger juice, fine spice, etc. At the same time, there is also a special toothbrush, and Zhou Shouzhong's "Health Class" in the Song Dynasty recorded: "Covering and brushing teeth is a horsetail".

The toothpaste formula used in the Ming Dynasty came from the Song Dynasty, and with certain improvements, the brushing habit is still limited to a small number of people.

But a character like Dong Xiaowan must be able to brush his teeth, the word bright eyes and bright teeth did not come out of nowhere, ancient beauties brushed their teeth every day and their teeth were naturally white, otherwise a mouthful of big yellow teeth would not be unappetizing.

The shops selling toothpaste in Nanjing are concentrated in the Qinhuai River area, although the scale is not large, but quite a few have their own unique formulas.

This time Dong Xiaowan went to Japan, eating and drinking with geisha to serve, these geisha also saw Chinese toothpaste and toothbrush from Dong Xiaowan, although Japan also has the practice of brushing teeth, but most of them are passed from the Tang Dynasty, the method used is still willow branches, there is no special toothbrush, toothpaste is the Tang Dynasty medicine powder is very inconvenient, so there is this toothpaste order situation.

Yang Chao believes that this is just the beginning, and soon the Japanese will become popular with the custom of brushing their teeth with Daming toothpaste.

"You've helped me a lot!"

Yang Chao hugged Dong Xiaowan and couldn't help but say.

Dong Xiaowan smiled slightly, she could help Yang Chao, she didn't run this trip in vain, not to mention that she was quite touched when she went.

Japan's exoticism, after seeing it, Dong Xiaowan is still very gained, in the end, Japan's upper-class culture was also learned from the Tang Dynasty, and a large number of Tang style has been preserved, and it still looks quite ancient.

After Zheng opened up the Hirado line, he had decided to put all last year's profits into it, telling Yang Chao that they might purchase 7 million taels of goods this year, and according to the proportion, Yang Chao would get more than 4 million taels of them, and after deducting the payment, the profit would be 3 million.

It is believed that next year, at most the year after next, Zheng's trade will reach 10 million taels, and Yang Chao's profit will reach more than 5 million taels.

It can be said that it has been very rewarding.

It's just that the Dutch are a little depressed, and they were originally behind the Zheng family in the competition, but this time they were pulled away by the Zheng family.

It is said that the representatives of the Dutch East India Company actively sought to meet the shogunate, hoping to be treated the same as the Zheng family, but the shogunate refused and threatened to cut off their trade if the Dutch were not honest.

The Dutch could only swallow this bitter water.

Who told people to go to Japan in person with a vassal king of the Ming Dynasty, unless the Dutch also sent a vassal king, but the Netherlands is a republic, where is there a vassal king, this is a merchant country, and even if the Dutch send a vassal king, the Japanese will probably not recognize it, can you be a barbarian vassal king compared to the vassal king of the Ming Dynasty?

The Dutch did not dare to anger Japan, the East India Company had 35 bases in Asia, and the Japanese base ranked first in terms of profits, close to 40% of the total revenue, which was converted into about six tons of gold, and the second place was Taiwan, which accounted for more than 2 and a half percent of the revenue, equivalent to four tons of gold.

These two strongholds accounted for more than half of the Dutch East India Company's revenue, especially Japan, which was almost half smaller, and the Dutch would not dare to offend them if they were killed.

In order to stay in Japan to trade, the Dutch swore that they were completely different from the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries, and that they were absolutely guaranteed to continue trading only after they would no longer preach in Japan, and that they would not dare to risk losing Japan, so that the East India Company's antiques could eat the governor of Batavia alive.

So they really have no other good way than to envy Zheng Zhilong.

It's been three months since I returned to Nanjing.

In March of the first year of Hongguang, there was a practice in ancient Chinese dynasties, and the first year of the new monarch's accession to the throne followed the old man's name, last year was the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and this year is the first year of Hongguang.

It's still Hongguang, in history, King Fu's accession to the throne was Hongguang, and Zhu Cihong, the crown prince with strong roots, ascended the throne, probably because although the emperor has changed, Wenchen has not changed, and he is still that group of people, so the courtiers still set a Hongguang.

During this time, Nanjing was very lively, because the Spring Festival had just ended, and the scholars of the Jiangnan Imperial Examination gathered in Nanjing, which made the Qinhuai River prosperous.

But when Yang Chao returned to Nanjing, it was a lot of mourning, because the list was released, and every time the list was released, except for a few winners, everyone else was in the worst mood, and it was estimated that there would be more lamenting scholars in the arms of Qin Huai singers who lamented that the imperial court could not choose the virtuous and capable.

At this time, there were four very low-key scholars, wearing hats and looking at the gold list coldly, and their hearts were full of resentment!

One of them hated and said: "The traitor is in charge, and the virtuous are jealous." ”

Others lamented.

This person continued: "My brother has decided to go, and he will go to Wuchang Zuoping under the command of the thief, and he will definitely be Kuang Zheng Chaogang!" (To be continued.) )