Although the port of Incheon is the largest port in North Korea, in Li Yuntian's view, it is just a seaside town, in addition to having a natural harbor, it is impossible to believe that this is the most famous port in North Korea.

The Incheon port is so shabby, so the local county government will naturally not be much better, the county government of Daming is a huge building complex, which contains household houses, workshops and other departments, not only has a lobby for the trial of cases, but also has a house for the county to live in.

The county government of the Korean state is much more shabby, and it is a large courtyard, in which several houses are used to handle cases, and because the area of the rooms is too small, the trial of cases is usually carried out in the courtyard.

The Incheon county order was made by Li Yuntian and others on the way to the welcome hall, and while running, they sorted out the official robes on their bodies, and after coming to Zhao De, they first knelt down and saluted, and then respectfully invited Zhao De and Li Yuntian and their party to the welcome hall on the dock.

Prior to this, no Ming Dynasty delegation had ever come to Incheon Port by sea, so Li Yuntian's arrival caught the Incheon Prefecture Commander by surprise.

Since the Kingdom of Korea is a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, the king must be canonized by the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and the envoys of the Ming Dynasty represent the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, so the King of Korea must kneel down when he greets him, not to mention these officials of the Korean State.

It is worth mentioning that the people of the Joseon Kingdom called the envoys sent by the Ming Dynasty "angels", although these envoys did not interfere in the government affairs but had the absolute right to speak on the changes within the royal family, such as the change of the crown prince and the change of etiquette, etc., and the Joseon king would pay tribute to him on many occasions with brotherly or equal courtesy.

It is not uncommon for a young Joseon king or prince to worship the Central Plains culture because he admires the culture of the Central Plains, and if the envoy leaves for various reasons, the Joseon king will also ceremoniously see him off, and if you are likely to come again in the future, he will also be treated as a distinguished guest.

This kind of salutation is a great honor for an official who is not of high rank or even exiled here, which shows that the people of the Joseon Kingdom have great respect and awe for the Ming Dynasty.

The Welcome Hall is the best building in Incheon Port, with a wide courtyard and tall buildings, red bricks and green tiles, which looks very magnificent, and is specially prepared for Daming merchants who come by water.

Although Emperor Hongwu issued a ban on the sea, the civil trade between the Ming Dynasty and the Korean Kingdom was still active, and some Ming merchants would take a boat to the Korean Kingdom every year to do business.

According to the etiquette system, Li Yuntian and the others had to wait in the welcome hall for the Joseon king to send a senior member of the court to greet them, and entered Seoul under the guidance of the senior official.

The Mingyang did not leave, quietly stopped in the port to secretly protect Li Yuntian, Seoul is only more than 80 miles away from Incheon Port, once Li Yuntian encounters any trouble in Seoul, hundreds of sergeants on board will rush to the rescue as soon as possible.

In order to prevent the sergeants on the ship from causing trouble in the port, Li Yuntian asked the ship's personnel to go ashore in batches and forbade them to get involved in local affairs.

Three days later, the king of Joseon sent Licao Jushu Shen Shang to the welcome hall to welcome the arrival of Li Yuntian and his party, and after meeting Zhao De, he set up a banquet in the best tavern in Incheon Port in the evening to welcome the personnel of the Ming Mission, and a group of officials from the two classes came from Seoul to accompany them.

In the early Joseon Dynasty, the Joseon Dynasty imitated the method of direct management of the six ministries by Ming Taizu to implement the Liucao Zhiqi system, and the Liucao was directly responsible to the king.

The "two classes" refer to the aristocratic class of the Joseon Dynasty, when the Joseon Kingdom was in power, the king sat north to south, with the king as the center, the civil officials were arranged in the east, and the military attachés were arranged in the west, that is, the "civil and military two classes".

Later, the two classes specifically referred to the officials of the upper court and extended to the families and families of the two classes of officials, forming a special elite class, and the honorific title of nobles or officials in ancient Korea was also "Liangbanni", which means "adult".

The subjects of the Joseon Kingdom, except for the royal family, were divided into four classes:

The first class consisted of two classes of nobles, also known as scholars;

The second class is the Zhongren, that is, the sons of the good concubines of the two classes of nobles, and the good concubine is the name of the common people who marry officials as concubines;

The third class is the commoners;

The fourth class is the untouchables.

The children of the two classes of nobles can obtain official positions through the guò imperial examination and the shadow office, and at the same time, they can also maintain the status of the two classes through the guò marriage relationship, so the two classes have hereditary characteristics, which are somewhat similar to the nobles of the Ming Dynasty.

The official positions and official ranks of the Joseon Dynasty were all modeled after the Ming Dynasty, from the first rank to the ninth grade, a total of nine grades and eighteen grades, of which, the third rank is divided into the upper part of the third rank and the lower part of the third rank.

The first product to the third product hall is called the hall official, the third product hall down to the seventh grade is called the hall official or the staff official, and the seventh rank below the first grade is the lower official.

Therefore, the North Korean officials who came to greet the Ming mission with the Licao judgment were all officials above the third grade, which shows the importance attached to the Ming mission.

As the deputy envoy of this envoy, Li Yuntian naturally had to attend this reception banquet, and was arranged to sit on the lower left of Zhao De, opposite Shen Shang who was in the lower right seat.

After the banquet began, Shen Shang led the officials accompanying the banquet to toast Zhao De and Li Yuntian frequently, and complimented the two of them, Li Yuntian refused with too much wine, so he replaced the wine with water.

Halfway through the drinking party, dozens of graceful female musicians suddenly poured into the room, some holding musical instruments on either side of the lobby, while others danced to the music.

"The adults are tired from the journey, and these prostitutes were brought from the capital from the lower officials to relieve the fatigue of the adults." After Shen Shang glanced at those female musicians, he explained to Zhao De with a smile that he could speak Liaodong dialect fluently, and there was a meaningful look in his eyes.

Hearing the word "prostitute", Li Yuntian couldn't help but look at those female musicians with interest, if he remembered correctly, the Joseon Dynasty once produced several very famous prostitutes, such as Huang Zhenyi, who were made into popular film and television works many times, so he was deeply impressed.

Prostitutes were geisha who provided singing and dancing performances for the Joseon royal family and two classes of nobles on the Korean Peninsula in ancient times, and first appeared as a social class during the Goryeo Dynasty, and their social status was untouchable during both the Goryeo Dynasty and the Joseon Dynasty.

Different from ordinary ** women, prostitutes have received relevant training, many prostitutes have a high degree of artistic accomplishment, and some are famous writers and poets, but due to their low social status, most of the names of prostitutes have been forgotten, and only a small number of prostitute names have been handed down, such as Huang Zhenyi, Li Meichuang, etc.

Prostitutes are usually sold by their families because the daughters of poor people are forced by the economy, and some are young girls from untouched backgrounds who become prostitutes to improve their lives.

In addition to being born into poor families, some of the nobles of the two classes who were guilty of the great crime of connecting their families could also be demoted to prostitutes.

Since the Joseon Dynasty had the "slave and maid law of the mother", that is, the mother is of any class and her children are also of the same class, so the daughters of prostitutes are also untouchables and usually inherit the mother's profession.

Prostitutes belong to the untouchable class, so they generally cannot marry the main wives of scholars, and prostitutes who marry scholars can only be concubines, and the children born to them also inherit their mother's untouchable status, and if they want to marry as a regular wife, they can only marry untouched men.

Prostitutes who marry into the royal family are lowly concubines, and although the children born to them have royal status, their rank is one level lower than that of the children of good concubines.

However, there are also a small number of prostitutes who marry and advance to the aristocratic class, for example, Zhang Lushui, the Shurong of Yanshan Jun, was born as a prostitute, and Zheng Lanzhen during the time of Zhongzong of Joseon was also made an exception by Queen Wending to let her go from a concubine to the step-family of her brother Yin Yuanheng, and was named Mrs. Zhengyipin Zhenjing.

Zhao De saw that Shen Shang had prepared a prostitute, and his face suddenly showed a trace of embarrassment, in front of Li Yuntian, he naturally didn't like to drink flower wine, and there was also Lei Ting, the head of the guard dressed as a man, present, so he couldn't help but look at Li Yuntian and wanted to see how Li Yuntian looked at this matter.

Unlike Zhao De, the civil officials who attended the banquet smiled one by one, their eyes swirling around the glamorous prostitutes, talking to each other.

Obviously, the reason why Shen Shang brought these young and beautiful prostitutes was to accompany them, and unlike Zhao De and Li Yuntian, the civilian officials in the mission had all traveled to Korea many times with different envoys, so they had long been familiar with the process of receiving Korea.

Li Yuntian saw that Zhao De looked at him, knowing that he was asking for instructions, so he bowed slightly, he didn't want to ruin everyone's interest, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the Korean side.

Zhao De couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he saw this, and he was chatting and laughing with Shen Shang there, he was the nominal envoy of the Korean envoy this time, so he naturally took Li Yuntianma as the head in private.

After the reception banquet, the staff of the mission and the officials of the two classes who accompanied the wine were already very drunk, and under the greeting of the Shen Shang, the prostitutes helped the members of the mission to go back to the welcome hall to rest, and prepared to sleep in the hall at night.

Li Yuntian led Lei Ting and the others back to Mingyang after saying goodbye to Zhao De, and he spent the past few days on the ship for safety.

Shen Shang had already noticed Lei Ting who was following Li Yuntian, and knew that this handsome military attache was a woman, and couldn't help but look at Li Yuntian's back with a trace of disdain, he originally thought that Li Yuntian was not a woman, but it turned out that he had brought a woman with him, and it seemed that he was also a womanizer.

Just when Shen Shang despised Li Yuntian in his heart, Li Yuntian was also secretly thinking about Shen Shang, and he found that although Shen Shang was very enthusiastic about the mission on the surface, there was always an indescribable indifference in his eyes, and it seemed that he did not welcome the arrival of the mission.

Because the night was dark at this time, it was quiet on the somewhat shabby street, many residents had already slept, and there was only the footsteps of Li Yuntian and others walking on the street.

Those who followed Li Yuntian to Mingyang were not only Lei Ting and other guards, but also Incheon County soldiers with knives and guns in their hands, who were responsible for safety on the road.

"Catch him!" Just when Li Yuntian was thinking about how to win over the two classes of nobles who were in power after arriving in Seoul, a loud shout suddenly came from a courtyard with two red lanterns hanging in front of the door not far ahead.

Li Yuntian looked up and saw a disheveled young man hurrying out of the courtyard gate with his clothes in his arms, and several strong men with sticks in their hands and dressed as subordinates were chasing after him.