A two-masted sand ship sailed in the vast night, and the sailors on duty on the deck at night were bored to sit or stand, and the lower cabin was quiet, and the passengers were resting, except for the creaking of the mast.

"It's here, it's here." An excited voice suddenly came from the bow of the boat, and the people on duty were startled, jumped up with weapons, and when they saw that it was Chen Tingdong, they scolded a few more words and sat down.

Chen Xin and his entourage took a sea boat from Weihai to the south, accompanied by Liu Minyou, Song Wenxian, Zhou Laifu and others, and the other is the indigenous Chen Tingdong near the south of the Yangtze River, he is a native of Nantong Prefecture, there is a Tongzhou in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty, this Nantong Prefecture is later Nantong City, and later said that the north and south Tongzhou are connected to the north and south, in fact, Nantong Prefecture is not on the side of the Grand Canal.

The Nantong Prefecture who scattered all his wealth had a hot temper, and after following the Wendeng camp to Yongping, he volunteered to bury the martyred people outside Yongping City, and after finding that the corpse was stolen, he scolded the Guanning Army in front of him many times.

When the Battle of the Four Cities ended, Chen Tingdong's silver was all used up, and the more than 1,000 people he had collected at the beginning finally escaped, and in the end there were only more than 20 left, all of whom were people who had nowhere to live and nowhere to go.

This person is loyal and patriotic, but he loves to scold the government everywhere, Chen Xin did not dare to arrange him to go to the army and school, and temporarily arranged him to Liu Minyou's civil affairs system, where Chen Tingdong did some things to clean up the wasteland, and did it with relish. This time, Chen Xin went on a business trip to Jiangnan and brought this indigenous person from Nanzhili out as a guide.

Chen Tingdong's shouting and shouting alarmed the people who went down to the warehouse, and after a while, there was a sound of footsteps, and several people came to the deck.

"General Chen, that's Jiangnan over there." Chen Tingdong saw Chen Xin coming up. Pointing over there, he said with a big grin at the bow of the ship, this unkempt and stout man was dressed in a short coat. Throwing ashore is like a porter.

Chen Xin followed the direction of his finger and looked at a bright firelight in the distance, which was particularly conspicuous in the night.

Chen Tingdong said a little pretentiously: "The place where the lights are lit is Liujiagang." Yongle time by Chen Xuan built here, is a big mound, a hundred zhang square, more than 30 zhang high, lift smoke during the day, light fire at night, so as not to get lost in the sea, named Baoshan by Chengzu. ”

Liu Minyou also came to the bow of the ship at this time, listened and asked: "That is to say, this is the mouth of the Yangtze River?" ”

Chen Tingdong laughed and said, "Yes." This Liujia port was very prosperous in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and the port area where the ship was stopped reached more than 60 miles, and the whole line of the canal was dredged since the whole line of the dynasty was opened, and it was already decayed here. But this treasure mountain does not know how many lives of people who have gone to the sea, and it is indeed immeasurable. "Chen Tingdong said Liujiagang. On the north bank of the Yangtze River, it used to be the largest sea port in East Asia, after the Ming Dynasty sea ban, Liujiagang also slowly declined, to the Manchu Qing Dynasty Kangxi 23 years to open the north and south shipping, the gathering place of sea ships transferred to Wusongkou, laid the future status of Shanghai.

Zhou Laifu was speechless: "Such a big port area." How many boats are to be parked? ”

Chen Tingdong opened his mouth, how did he know how many boats to stop during the Song and Yuan dynasties, but he had a good face, and he still replied stubbornly: "Tens of thousands." ”

Zhou Laifu asked again: "Why are the sea ships not as good as the Yuan Dynasty now?" ”

Chen Tingdong refuted loudly: "Nonsense, the canal in the Yuan Dynasty was not all built, so naturally it was necessary to go by sea, what if there were more, my Han people are all slaves and maids of Hulu, how can the barbarians be compared with our dynasty." ”

Zhou Laifu has been a shopkeeper for three years, and his knowledge and bearing are not what he used to be, so he smiled when he heard it, and no longer stimulated this impulsive man.

Chen Tingdong was angry and continued to say loudly: "Since the Five Hu Chaohua, the Jin Dynasty traveled to the south, and then the Anshi Rebellion, the Song Dynasty moved south, and the Jiangnan humanities gathered, it has been for me to be in the middle of China, and I don't want to die in the northern Hulu, everywhere is fishy, I am not ashamed of the Han people, it will be thousands of boats, what good will it be to me." ”

His tone suddenly raised a lot, "Every time I think of Ya Mountain, Lao Tzu hates Hu Lu to the bone, fortunately I started from Jianghuai in the Taizu, expelled the Tartars, and actually made the Northern Expedition. Although it is a disease of ringworm and scabies, a certain person must also scatter his family wealth and die to resist it. ”

Chen Xin turned his head to look at Chen Tingdong, and he could vaguely see him gritting his teeth, this is a person who is proud of his culture but is unkempt, with his temper, he will never be a slave to the country, it can be imagined that after 17 years of Chongzhen in the original history, he must have died in a certain anti-Qing uprising in the south of the Yangtze River.

Chen Tingdong's tone lowered, looking in the direction of the coast, "I have been in the Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years, and Jiangnan is prosperous today."

Liu Minyou quietly looked at the fire and did not speak.

Chen Xin was afraid that Chen Tingdong would continue to be excited, so he changed the topic and asked him: "Jianyong, we are about to enter the Yangtze River, where is it appropriate for us to get off the boat?" ”

"Go west to Jinling, there are ports everywhere along the way, if you want to get closer, Jinling is nearly 120 miles to the left from Zhenjiang to Longjiang wharves, you can dock everywhere."

Song Wenxian interjected and asked, "So, are there many rivers near Nanjing?" ”

"Brother Song has always been in the north, I'm afraid I haven't seen these many rivers, Nanjing is the first in the southeast, not without a cause, in addition to the shape of the tiger standing on the dragon plate, the nearby water network is also one of the reasons, the early repair of the river port, more convenient, Jiangdong Gate, Fengyi Gate, Sanshan Gate, Shicheng Gate, Qingliang Gate each gate is not far from the port, a little farther away there is Dasheng Port, there are Banqiao Town, Moling Town and other ports, the left near the collection of more than ten rivers, Huguang, Jiangxi, Nanzhi, Zhejiang Wanzhou Yunten, It is to get water conservancy in the city since ancient times, and it is not as good as Jinling. ”

Zhou Laifu sighed this time: "You must go and take a good look then." ”

Chen Xin said with a smile on the side: "If you have to see, let's go ashore at the closest place to Nanjing." ”

Chen Tingdong replied: "That is the Shangxin River outside the Jiangdong Gate, and there are two places in Longjiang Pass. ”

At this time, it was close to dawn, and several people no longer returned to the warehouse, chatting casually on the deck, and after dawn, the sea dogs and other guards also came to the deck. The stupid monk looked at the sails coming and going on the water, and said in surprise: "Hey, why are there more miles of boats?" ”

Song Wenxian turned his head and said with a smile: "Fat monk, this is the Yangtze River, naturally there are more than the sea." ”

"What is Jiang?"

"The Great River."

The stupid monk touched his bare head, looked left and right, and said for a long time: "Mother." I can't see the riverbank, there is such a big river. ”——

A few days later, Chen Xin took the lead and stepped off the boat. Nie Hong and the others behind him followed, looking around curiously, and the dock was full of soft Wu Di accents.

It's called Longtan. Not far across the river is the Guabu of Yangzhou Prefecture, which is one of the two important ferries on the Yangtze River near Nanjing, where there is also one of the channels into the Grand Canal, and some of the boats flowing down from Huguang and Jiangxi enter the canal from here.

After they docked at Longtan, the river has been a headwind, and it is already very close to Nanjing, Chen Xin did not want to delay, so he left the sand boat, and let them buy a batch of southern goods in Longtan and go back to Weihai directly, and rest in Longtan for the night. On the second day, they hired a carriage and rushed to Nanjing.

After several carriages left Longtan, the scenery slowly changed along the way, the farmland on both sides was planted with mulberry trees and cotton, and in August it was the flowering season of cotton in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the cotton fields were covered with starry white flowers. Countless farmers in the mulberry forest are picking mulberry leaves, and a small amount of rice paddy is interspersed among these cash crops. In addition to these major crops, many fruits are planted on the ridges and other places, the most common of which are oranges, and the golden fruits hang all over the branches, and it is also in the ripening season.

Most of the people you saw along the way were well-dressed. And there are more women walking on the road than in the north, and many people are also bold to look at them, perhaps because they are financially rich, and the people look more confident than in the north.

Liu Minyou, Chen Xin, Song Wenxian and Chen Tingdong took a car, Liu Minyou watched a paragraph, turned his head to Chen Tingdong and asked, "Brother Jianyong, why do you grow so many cotton mulberries in Jiangnan?" ”

Chen Tingdong shook his head and said: "There are still few near Yingtian, Songjiang, Huzhou, Jiaxing and other places are even more excessive, Jiangnan has the benefit of the cardinal, and the small people of Shengdou have benefited from silkworm silk, far beyond farming. ”

Song Wenxian also said: "Other areas of Shandong, the actual is not much the same, Mr. Liu has not been to Gunzhou and Dongchang, where cotton is also planted, the profit is indeed far more than wheat millet, in a family of a village, a village can be so, in my Wendeng camp tens of thousands of people, but not so, the north of the land this year more and more drought and less rain, famine comes, this cotton can not be eaten, then rely on the merchant to eat, not the wise man." ”

Liu Min nodded and said: "What Mr. Song said is reasonable, because when the land is divided, the tun households are required to plant wheat, and there are also requirements for the area of interplanting, so as not to take advantage of the loopholes of those farmers." ”

Chen Xin quietly listened to a few people talking, his eyes looked at a shepherd boy riding a bull in the distance, he was swaying on the back of the cow singing, there are more cattle in Jiangnan than he imagined, and even pedestrians have a lot of bulls and donkeys, but the grain fields in Jiangnan are small, but he is also very surprised, the original said land of fish and rice, now most of them have become cash crops, the sales of silk and cotton in Jiangnan are very large, the profits are relatively high, planting and manufacturing have great added value, the adjustment of the market has made the regional economic structure differentiated, There is the Jiangnan people in Chen Tingdong's mouth.

At this time, the carriage drove across a wooden bridge, and the fur seals on the carriage behind shouted excitedly, Liu Minyou turned his head to see that there were several small bamboo rafts in the river next to him, and the fisherman was slowly gliding with a penny, and there were a few sharp-beaked ospreys parked on the bamboo rafts. The water is crystal clear, and you can see fish swimming at the end of the river.

With a wave of the fisherman's penny, several ospreys burrowed into the water, and a wave rolled in the water, and the ospreys could be seen sneaking quickly in the clear water, and when they came out of the water, their mouths and necks were bulging, and one of them had a swinging fishtail in its mouth.

The fisherman stretched out the penny, put the osprey on the bamboo raft, put a bamboo basket to the mouth of the osprey, squeezed his hand around the neck, and a fish fell into the bamboo basket, the fisherman covered the basket, hung it on the side of the fishing boat, half of it was not in the water, and the osprey then began to catch it again.

The sea dog and the stupid monk laughed when they saw it, Liu Minyou had never seen an osprey, looked at it with interest, and asked a little strangely: "Why is this osprey so obedient that he doesn't swallow it until he eats it?" ”

Chen Tingdong explained: "I have a rope tied around my neck, and I can't swallow it. ”

Zhou Laifu also laughed, "Interesting, interesting." ”

Chen Xin had seen the osprey show, and was not particularly surprised, seeing that they liked it, he asked the carriage to stop, and the fur seals got out of the car, shouting and helping the fisherman to point out the fish.

Liu Minyou turned his head to Chen Xin and smiled: "Jiangnan is really interesting. ”