The Grand Canal, which runs between the north and the south, was fully operational in the fall. This is undoubtedly a waterway flowing with gold and silver, through which rice and noodles from the Central Plains and Lianghuai are transported to Jiangnan, and silk, porcelain, tea, and cotton cloth, which has become popular, are sold to the Central Plains through the canal.

Grain from the north is transported to the south, and goods from the south are sold to the north -- this is the normal state of domestic trade in the Ming Dynasty at present. It is just the opposite of the south-north grain transportation of the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties in history. The reason for this is, of course, inseparable from the small population of the north, the rapid rise of large-scale farm agriculture and the development of the northeast. Because of the small population, the Ming court and the government of the northern land could only encourage large farms. Two laws have been promulgated to encourage the development of large farms, the Law on Crop Rotation Tax and the Regulations on Land Mortgage and Lease of Land for Sergeant and Military Households.

It is stipulated that large farms covering an area of more than 1,000 acres can enjoy certain tax incentives. You can pay a "rotation tax" that is one-third lower than that of ordinary farms - because large farms had to be operated in rotation in the era when there was no fertilizer.

In addition, it also stipulates that the long-term right to use the land of the military households can be used as collateral for loans, and stipulates that the military households can lease the land to the lessee for a long time or "forever". This created the possibility of a large number of rental farms.

At the same time, because the steel production of Daming is growing at a rapid rate, it has led to the popularization of high-quality agricultural tools. The price of large livestock also fell sharply because several major horse-producing areas became the territory of the Ming Dynasty and the trade with Mobei Mongolia, and the price of ploughing horses plummeted, and horse farming was able to become popular again on the Beidi Plain.

Large farms plus high-quality farming tools plus horse farming and crop rotation naturally greatly reduce the cost of agriculture in the north. There is also the possibility of dumping a large number of low-priced agricultural products in the north of the Yangtze River -- of course, this north land is a very broad concept. Including Lianghuai, Jinghu, Sichuan, and other areas that have become less populated and more land due to the war.

The entry of a large amount of low-priced grain into Jiangnan has naturally had a serious impact on Jiangnan's agriculture.

Jiangdu Canal Wharf. The New Year is approaching, although it is not as lively as it was a while ago. But the sails are still longing, and the voices are noisy.

A schooner leans against one of the berths, looking at the shape of the hull, it is a sea vessel. The hull is old, it should be an old-fashioned passenger boat, which can only run coastal routes, but cannot go to the New World. The size is no more than a thousand stones (load), and it is inconspicuous.

Scattered guests were getting on and off the boat, and a middle-aged man was guarding the bow next to the gangplank. One by one, they counted the heads of the people who got off the boat, and their faces were anxious.

"Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three...... Is there anyone else who wants to get off the boat? It's already in Jiangdu, and if you don't get off the boat, you'll have to turn around and go back to Taizhou! ”

"Get off the boat quickly, if you don't get off the boat again, the boat will go back."

"It seems that there are two less, and who hasn't gotten off the boat?"

Counting the passengers who got off the ship, the bow of the ship was so anxious that it jumped to its feet, and the berth was charged by the hour, and it was half an hour. After the hour or half o'clock, that's four dollars.

Just as there was smoke on the top of their heads, two rich men who were black and dirty, seasick and dizzy, came out of the cabin.

"It turned out to be these two countrymen." The bow muttered. He is also a native of Taizhou, where business has always been valued over agriculture -- the righteous family of cultivating and reading heirlooms is certainly not light -- and the rich landlords in the countryside are not at all in the eyes of him, a gentry. And he also knew that these rich people had not mixed well during this time, and many people had lost money in farming.

The price of rice in Jiangnan has fallen sharply in the past two years. In the Great Song Dynasty, the best white rice was not less than two and a half times in Taizhou, and it would be higher than five times in disaster years. But this year, Jiangnan was also hit by a disaster. There is little rain in spring and summer, and it rains again and again in autumn. Many crops died or rotted in the ground. The harvest was only 60% of the previous year. But the price of rice has also fallen! Because a large amount of cheap rice noodles poured into Jiangnan from the north. The poor harvest and the falling price of rice are tantamount to adding insult to injury for the local rich people in Jiangnan. In the past autumn, a large number of rich landowners went bankrupt, and I don't know if these two are one of them?

The two people who got off the boat were Lai Toad's father Lai Bao and brother Lai Fu. Once upon a time, the two of them were still ambitious and wanted to make a big move, so they borrowed money from the Tiandaozhuang Taizhou Branch, rented a large piece of land, purchased a few buffaloes and a large number of farm tools, and spent money to build a water conservancy mill. Unfortunately, the farm run by the Lai family suffered a disaster, and the harvest was cut in half! And the price of rice has fallen into the meat again. Lai Bao was reluctant to cut meat, and wanted to hoard millet and wait for the price to rise. As a result, it rained for a month in the autumn, and his rice could not be dried, and many of it became moldy, so he could only feed the livestock.

This loss hurt the Lai family's vitality. Lai Bao Lao'er had to sublease most of the land at a low price, signed a contract for 20 years, got a lump sum of money at one time, and sold the cattle and the mill, so as to pay off the debt owed to Tiandaozhuang. Then he left his youngest son Lai Cai to take care of the house, and he took his second son Lai Fu and a little capital to Jiangdu, wanting to see what business could be done. If it really doesn't work, I can only go to Tianzhu to seek refuge with my eldest son Lai Gui. The master of the Pi Li family received a letter from Po Pi Li a while ago, that Po Pi has prosperous official luck, and he has become a captain, and Lai Toad has also entered a military academy with the battalion, and is ready to be promoted to an officer......

Moreover, Pi Li also mobilized his father to go to Chittagong to develop in the letter, saying that Tianzhu has a lot of opportunities to make a fortune, and it can be said that gold is everywhere!

Of course, the two fathers and sons, Lai Bao and Lai Fu, are tempted, and the stories of Taizhou going to sea to make a fortune in recent years are really spreading everywhere. went to Mingzhou to dig gold and silver, went to Nanfan to pour spices, went to Liaodi to sell furs on the shore of the Beihai, and some people went to Japan and Luzon to make a fortune. It seems that as long as people go out, they will either get rich or ...... It's a life! The real wealth is in danger.

However, the two fathers and sons of the Lai family were seasick and fainted on the way at sea, but they dispelled the idea of going to sea. Where is this? It's just that from Taizhou to Jiangdu, I am already dizzy, and if I sail thousands of miles to Tianzhu, I am afraid that I will faint to death at sea.

This foreign wealth doesn't seem to be easy to make, so let's honestly find a small deal in Jiangdu City.

"Daddy, let's find a place to eat a full meal first......"

The father and son got out of the boat, stood on the ground for a moment, and then passed away in a dizzy state, and then their bellies cried - and on the way, the father and son were so seasick that they could barely eat. Now that he got off the boat, the belly immediately protested.

"Okay, okay." Old man Lai was also hungry, and looked at his son, "Take the cakes out, I'll go to a shop to ask for a bowl of water, and pay attention to dealing with it." ”

"Oh." Lai Fu answered, squatted down to look at the luggage on the ground, looked for a while, but raised his head and said with a bitter face, "Daddy, those cakes seem to have forgotten on the boat......"

"Forgot!" Old man Lai was in a hurry, it was more than a hundred cakes! He turned around to look for the wrecked ship, but had already left the docks. There's no way around this, it's just a hundred or dozens of rice cakes, not gold cakes and silver cakes, and you can still let the boat drive back?

"Daddy, why don't you find a cheap restaurant to eat?" Lai Fu smacked his lips and looked at his father with a blank slurp. Although the Lai family is dilapidated, they still go out with hundreds of yuan, and they don't pay a lot for a meal.

"You ......" Old man Lai glared at his son, and then looked around, the area around the dock was a little deserted, there was no stall selling cooking cakes, only a small restaurant wafting the smell of food.

"One dish, just one dish!" Old man Lai stomped his feet, and as soon as his heart was crossed, he took his son to the restaurant with his luggage.

The business in the restaurant is very good, there are a few tables of men in yellow military jackets, and there is a pair of men and women on the seats by the window, the man is very tall, but the woman is a woman, very beautiful, and her figure is also graceful. Lai Toad's younger brother Lai Fu is not young but does not have a daughter-in-law (originally said that there was a good family, who knew that the Lai family would regret the marriage as soon as it was broken), and it was the time when he dreamed of holding a woman's hand. Naturally, she stared at the woman directly, and immediately attracted dozens of very unkind looks.

However, the father and son of the Lai family were unconscious, this was Lai Gui who suddenly pulled his son, and then quietly pointed to the three people on a table against the wall on the other side, and said in a low voice: "Ah Fu, don't you see that is Du Qiao's Du Nineteen Master (Du Thirteen Sister's father) and Du Thirteen Sister?" ”

Only then did Lai Fu withdraw his gaze from the woman he shouldn't have looked at - that woman was Baoyin - and looked in the direction of his father's finger, and sure enough, it was Du Thirteen's father and daughter, a fifteen or sixteen-year-old half-grown son, and a woman in her fifties, about Du Thirteen's younger brother and mother Jia, right?

Sister Du Thirteen is wearing a Taoist robe, which is still blue, and it seems that she is a blue-clothed Taoist with a bit of status. She has graduated from the Mingdu Tiandao Academy, and under Xiao Ai's care, she was assigned to the Jiangdu Tiandao Temple as a lecturer. and was introduced by Xiao Ai to a very old earl but did not marry a wife, and the lieutenant general named Zhang Jiu was his wife. She and Zhang Jiu have already seen each other, and they are quite satisfied, and they will get married on an auspicious day.

Thanks to her, Du Wen, who had been a teacher in Liaodong for two years, also returned to the south with his wife and son, but did not go to his hometown in Taizhou, but moved to Jiangdu. Zhang Jiu has two properties in Jiangdu, one of which is ready for his father-in-law and brother-in-law to live in. When the Lai family father and son came in, the four members of the Du family had already ordered a table of good dishes, and they were talking and laughing and eating.

The content of the family's conversation seems to be related to the battle of Tianzhu - many children of the Du family became Chen Huaiqing's disciples and went to Tianzhu with them. They also had a lot of correspondence with Du Thirteen, so Du Thirteen knew a lot about Tianzhu.

The father and son of the Lai family could understand Taizhou dialect, so they quietly chose a table close to them, ordered a dish and ordered two large bowls of rice, and stretched out their ears to listen while eating. (To be continued......)