"Put!"

"Bang bang bang-"

At the end of the winter month, accompanied by the sound of the Ming army's rifles in the Indochina Peninsula, the 60,000 rebels in the Cham province of Cochin were defeated in only a moment when facing the 6,000 Ming army.

They frantically fled into the dense forest behind them, but were repelled by waves of soldiers and horses of the Jiaozhi and Gongwei battalions gushing out of the dense forest.

As the sun set, half of the 60,000 rebels remained, and all of them squatted on the ground, raising their hands in fear to surrender.

"Harvest the head, cremate the body."

On horseback, Qi Yuangong, who was over sixty years old, spoke loudly, and Qi Wulong immediately commanded the soldiers and horses to be surrendered and captured.

When the night became dark, Qi Wulong led people back to the marching tent.

"Dad, more than 26,000 killed and more than 30,000 prisoners."

Qi Wulong returned to the big tent with the news, took off his armor and stomach, and Qi Yuangong, who had gray hair, also stroked his forehead with his hand when he heard this: "You can watch and deal with it yourself, you should also take charge of it alone." ”

"Yes!" Seeing Qi Yuangong say this, Qi Wulong did not show a happy expression, but was a little uncomfortable.

Qi Yuangong did not have only one child, Qi Wulong, but before Zhu Youzhen popularized the "Surgical Record" on a large scale, Daming's midwifery and parenting level was not high, so he died three children.

Qi Wulong is the fourth child, and when he was born, Qi Yuangong was already thirty and six, and he can be regarded as an old man.

After Qi Wulong, he had three sons and two daughters, but the talents of these children were obviously not good.

In addition, in the first year of Taichang, Qi Yuangong followed his father Qi Jin north to Liaodong, and the education of his children also fell behind.

For example, Qi Wulong was not sent to Yanshan Official School by Qi Yuangong until he was twelve years old.

Qi Wulong is considered a student of the third phase of Yanshan, but he strictly followed the teachings of his grandfather Qi Jin and did not join the Yanshan faction, which is why Zhu Youzhen chose him to escort Zhu Ciran.

"Dad, this time, I don't think it's that simple."

Qi Wulong looked at the old Qi Yuangong and said this sentence with trepidation.

He wanted to continue, but Qi Yuangong raised his hand and signaled him to stop talking:

"Our Qi family does not participate in the temple, but only knows how to march and fight to defend the family and country......"

......Seeing his father say this, Qi Wulong was silent for a few seconds, and then slowly said: "Yes......"

Looking at his silent appearance, Qi Yuangong also noticed the changes after he escorted Zhu Ciran back, so he frowned:

"I know you've had a good conversation with the prince along the way, but the muddy waters of the temple are not something you and I can wade in."

"You go down......" Qi Yuangong looked at Qi Wulong, who couldn't listen, sighed and motioned for him to go down and think about it.

"Kid retires......" Qi Wulong retreated, and after he left, Qi Yuangong also picked up a copy of the Yanshan Soldier Book and read it.

Perhaps for their father and son, this night was very difficult, and for Zhu Youzhen, that position was like sitting on pins and needles.

It's just that compared to them, with the passage of time, Zhu Ciran, who went all the way south, also arrived in Guangzhou City of this era on the last day of the winter moon.

Although it is not the first time to come to Guangzhou, compared with Taiyuan, Liangzhou, Chengdu, Kunming, Guilin and other provinces, Guangzhou seems to be much more prosperous.

This prosperity is not only reflected in the economy and trade, but also in the lives of small people.

After 16 years of continuous immigration, Guangdong's population is only 3.2 million, of which Guangzhou Prefecture alone has a population of more than 700,000, while Guangzhou City, as the provincial capital and capital of the prefecture, was built by the combination of Nanhai and Panyu counties, with more than 200,000 permanent residents, accounting for one-sixteenth of Guangdong's population.

Guangzhou in this era was closer to the sea than in later generations, and most of Shunde, Panyu, Zhongshan and other places had not yet been washed out by the Pearl River.

Since it is closer to the sea, it is natural that trade is more prosperous.

As the first of the four major ports in the south of the Ming Dynasty, Guangzhou Port receives hundreds of merchant ships every day.

In the distance, Zhu Ciran and the others had not yet seen the city walls of Guangzhou City, but they saw many market towns entrenched in the periphery.

There are many people living in the market town, who are engaged in agricultural production when they are busy with farming, and they work in the port of Guangzhou City when they are not working, which is not unpleasant.

In the eyes of historians, the Ming Dynasty of the late Ming Dynasty was in an era of political repression, and in terms of cultural scholarship, it had lost the unbridled grandeur of the Tang and Song dynasties.

The prevalence of Jiangnan Psychology reflects the scholars' retreat from reality.

However, compared with the densely populated and culturally old Jiangnan, the vigorous vitality of the Lingnan folk is like the east wind blowing the willows, smearing a dazzling bright color on the heavy history, making it colorful and vibrant.

This kind of vitality has been continuously spawned during the 12 years of Zhu Youzhen's rule.

After a large number of people were relocated, the people of Guangdong Province gradually became richer, especially after surviving the three-year drought in the early years of the Apocalypse, the lives of the people of Guangdong Province also improved to a higher level.

The prosperity of the people, coupled with the recovery of the South Seas and the liberalization of maritime trade, these environments and policies greatly stimulated the prosperity of folk arts and crafts.

Porcelain, lacquerware, furniture, embroidery, cloisonne, Xuande furnace, etc., are all prosperous......

Among them, Macao and Hong Kong have developed the most rapidly.

Backed by the trade of Guangzhou and the Daming provinces, these two places have transformed from a desolate fishing village into a prosperous commercial port that has attracted worldwide attention.

Boatloads of embroidery, silk, gold and silver, musk, pearls, ivory fine products, fine crafts, lacquerware, and porcelain set sail from the three ports of the Pearl River Delta, passed through the routes of the South Seas and the Little Western Ocean, and were transported back to Europe in a steady stream under the trade between the Ming Dynasty and European merchants.

In Europeans, works of art such as gold, embroidery, and ivory were considered luxuries and were particularly revered because of their precious materials, which were often used to decorate altars, relics of saints, or covers of valuable books.

Even in the eighteenth century, this mentality persisted, and compared to the two new cities of Hong Kong and Old Port, Guangzhou was the largest market for Europeans looking for these luxuries.

Guangzhou's prosperity is also inseparable from Zhu Youzhen's support, and from the sixth year of the Apocalypse, he ordered the six ministries to rectify the local area.

The first was to prohibit Europeans from trading in the city of Guangzhou, and to relocate a large number of peasants from outside the city to the old port.

After the relocation, the urban area of Guangzhou began to be transformed, and cement was applied to houses, roads and other buildings.

By the tenth year of the Apocalypse, the city of Guangzhou has taken on a new look, the whole city is tidy, and the spirit of the local people seems to be refreshed.

As soon as the hour passes every day, the shops along the street open their doors one after another, and the city that has been silent all night is as noisy as a canal opening its gates and releasing water.

As soon as the city gate opened, the first people to pour in were always the flower farmers who brought flowers into the city to sell.

For example, right now, mixed in the queue to enter the city, Zhu Ciran's four-wheeled vehicle looked out of place.

They were surrounded by cartloads of flowers, blooming like a sea and fragrant.

The flower farmers "squeaked" and carried a load of frangipani flowers, bringing the fragrant wind into the city, so that Zhu Ciran and them were also in the sea of flowers.

"Good ...... If these flowers are sent to the capital, how much silver will they have to be sold......"

Looking at the sea of flowers around him, a brocade guard couldn't help but speak, and Zhu Ciran was also chatting with the flower farmers who entered the city next to him.

After chatting, they learned that some of the land washed out in the south of Guangzhou was called Henan Land, and the tens of thousands of acres of land were planted with flowers.

Every day, before the rooster crows, the flower farmers get up and start cutting the flowers, and then wait for the city gate to open, and the flower farmers immediately push the flowers to the flower market in the city.

After the planning of the Yanshan officials of the Ministry of Industry, the large and small city gates of Guangzhou City, such as the Great South Gate, Guide Gate, Small South Gate, Zhengdong Gate, West Gate, Great North Gate, and Small North Gate, have basically made flower markets.

These flower markets are so large that frangipani alone are sold no less than hundreds of taels a day, and all kinds of other flowers add up to no less than a thousand quintals.

"The flowers are fine, if you wait at the gate now, in less than half an hour, when we are all in, you will see a flock of poultry and livestock being transported into the city."

The flower farmer who was talking to Zhu Ciran spoke loudly, which aroused Zhu Ciran's interest.

Therefore, after squeezing into the city, they did not leave, but pushed the cart to the back of the Terracotta Horse Booth, and sat in the cart to watch the flower farmers who kept pouring in at the city gate.

Even in winter, even if it is just a city gate, there is still an endless stream of flowers brought into the city, which is dazzling.

The fragrant flowers were brought into the city by loads and carts, and the lively flower market was in the distance.

The flower market as a whole is built with cement concrete and some wooden dry frames, and the whole is the word "mouth", which encloses the flower market inside.

The walled houses outside are only allowed to be two stories and three zhang high, and in this era, Zhu Youzhen did not give rise to a large number of high-rise buildings because of the increase in cement production.

In his opinion, high-rise buildings are not necessary for Daming.

The strength of a country and a place is not evaluated by the level of buildings, and the land of Daming is vast and sparsely populated, and it is not to the point where it is necessary to build a "pigeon cage" to trap the people.

】

Of course, the most important issue is the aging of high-rise buildings.

When you build a high-rise building, when the building starts to age, the demolition cost is high.

Therefore, across the country, the high-rise buildings approved by Zhu Youzhen are basically temples and commercial streets in Fang markets.

The height of the temple attic shall not exceed 20 zhang, and the height of the commercial street of Fangshi shall not exceed 5 zhang.

Under such demands, the people did not feel depressed, and it did not affect the trade and trade of goods.

"Hum ......"

Just as Zhu Ciran was looking at the flower market, with the sound of "humming", a native pig that was locked in a wooden fence was pulled into the city by a carriage.

"It's coming!" Looking at the earth pig that was pulled into the city, Zhu Ciran looked curiously.

For a city with a large population, the population of Guangzhou can be inferred from the sales volume of pork.

The missionaries who lived in Guangzhou in the 35th year of Jiajing wrote in "Records of the Portuguese Coming to China":

"The ruling officials in the city of Canton ordered a survey of the daily consumption of food, and concluded that there were five or six thousand heads of pork alone."

"If it weren't for the fact that a lot of people eat yellow beef, buffalo meat, chicken and a lot of fish, the consumption of pigs would be 10,000 or more heads."

"I can't imagine how many people live in the city with such consumption, I'm afraid it's several times more than the population of Ribens."

Jiajing is still like this for thirty-five years, let alone the sixteenth year of the Apocalypse.

Zhu Ciran counted the number of poultry and livestock that had been transported into the city, and as a result, thousands of carts loaded with poultry, live pigs, and live cattle poured into just one city gate.

This is just one city gate, if you look at all the city gates in Guangzhou, I am afraid that there are no less than 10,000 livestock pouring in every day.

Such a scene is also the result of Zhu Youzhen's migration of the population of Guangzhou many times.

Therefore, it is difficult for Zhu Ciran to imagine how many people there were in Guangzhou City during the Wanli period.

"Let's go, let's go inside!"

Seeing the scene at the gate of Guangzhou, Zhu Ciran became even more curious about the situation in the city.

They rode four-wheeled bicycles slowly on the seven-zhang wide main road in Guangzhou, and then under the guidance of the locals, they went to Gaodi Street in the south of the city.

To the west of Gaudy Street is Ho Pan Street, which is connected by a jade ribbon Ho.

Riding a four-wheeled vehicle here, what you see is the crowd of people, the mountains of bribes, along the two sides of the river, thousands of rooms, people gathered.

A variety of shops are set up along the river, so you can't see the edge as far as you can see.

In the river, awning boats rowed along the river with fresh fish and shrimp, and some people stopped selling when they shouted, and everyone had a smile on their faces as if they were visiting the morning market.

"Childe, I'm hungry......"

Zhu Ciran was still immersed in the cultural scenery of Guangzhou, but Liu Shun touched his stomach and said something that was a little slight.

Zhu Ciran wanted to tease him, but after feeling his stomach, he and Liu Shun parked the car next to a beef noodle stall.

"Shopkeeper, four bowls of beef noodles!"

"Huh!"

It used to be said that people would look at it, but now it seems extremely normal to say it.

Zhu Ciran took a look at this noodle restaurant, which was full of tables, chairs and stools, and a certificate stamped by the government was posted on the wall.

The words on the certificate were too small, and Zhu Ciran sat too far away to see it clearly, but he thought that it should be a certificate approving the sale of beef.

Since the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, although beef is a prohibited product, it is not impossible to sell.

Except for the Song Dynasty, where dead cattle were more expensive than live cattle, the Yuan and Ming dynasties did not seriously control whether the people could eat beef.

Even in the Hongwu and Yongle years of the early Ming Dynasty, as long as the government determined that the cattle died normally, they could basically flow into the market normally.

In the Chenghua and Hongzhi years, the government basically didn't care, and in the Wanli period, let alone eating beef, you just wore an "iron stomach" of contraband and no one cared about you.

This is still the case in the late Ming Dynasty, let alone the current apocalypse.

With the development of large grasslands in the north and southern states, the Ming Dynasty was exceptionally open to whether cattle were slaughtered or not.

As long as the farmer reports that he wants to slaughter the cattle, he can basically slaughter them, and the government does not stop them.

Some people may think that cattle cannot be killed because of productivity, but the Ming Dynasty did not prohibit it, because the more forbidden this kind of thing is, the more people will rebel against the slaughter, for example, the Song Dynasty banned too much, resulting in dead cattle being more expensive than live cattle, and the people rushed to let the live cattle "die naturally".

The reason why the Ming Dynasty was able to open up was also very simple, that is, it was clear about the rebellious psychology of the people.

Especially Zhu Youzhen, he only asked the government to count the number of cultivated cattle, and then control the number.

When beef enters the market and gains a firm foothold, a supporting breeding system will be established, and cattle traders will not kill chickens and eggs.

"The beef noodles are here, and I will charge you sixteen yuan."

When the shopkeeper dressed in silk brought the beef noodles to the table one by one, Zhu Ciran looked at the bowl and cut six or seven thick slices of beef, and couldn't help but say to Liu Shun after the store left: "This shopkeeper in Guangzhou is quite sincere. ”

Although Guangzhou is a thousand-year-old commercial capital, its folk customs are still simple.

"That's it!" The shopkeeper hadn't gone far yet, and when he heard Zhu Ciran's words, he also said to them:

"If you out-of-town customers buy goods in a store in Guangzhou, and they find that they are defective after a few days, and take them to replace them, the shopkeeper will basically approve it, and it will not be difficult."

"Wouldn't that be a hassle?" Liu Shun asked curiously, but the shopkeeper rubbed his dough and said:

"In business, the most important thing is to be honest, make small profits but turn over, as long as you make money, don't care about how much you make and how little you earn."

"You have such a bowl of beef noodles, I will earn you a penny, if it is delicious, continue to come next time and be my repeat customer."

The shopkeeper's Cantonese official dialect was very interesting, and Zhu Ciran listened to it very interestingly, and also asked: "How should I go to Guangzhou City?" ”

"Of course, I went to Gaodi Street first......" the shopkeeper replied without thinking, and looked at the clothes of the four and teased:

"Your garments look like you're from the west."

"How do you say that?" Zhu Ciran asked while eating noodles, and the shopkeeper was not afraid of offending people at all, but smiled happily, like a Maitreya Buddha explained:

"The people of Jiangnan, Huguang, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Guangdong, even if they are vegetable farmers and flower farmers outside the city, have to wear the silk clothes at the bottom of the box at home when they enter the city, and those who want to save face will also wear silk and Suzhou embroidery."

"Na...... Look at you, coarse linen clothes, short clothes and blue pants, at first glance, you are from the west to pay so little attention to the image, and it is not that you have no money. ”

The shopkeeper's words are a bit mean just by listening to the words, but with his smile and voice, they are not offensive.

"What if we really don't have any money?" Zhu Ciran's curiosity came up, but the shopkeeper said disdainfully: "Now everyone has six or seven acres of land, even if they don't have land, they can work." ”

"No money? Go to the dock as a day for more than ten days, and Lifu can buy a silk to wear. ”

......Hearing this, Zhu Ciran didn't expect that after his low-key arrival in Guangzhou, he would become an outlier.

"When we go to Gaudy Street, we all like to go there to buy fabrics and sew clothes, which are cheap and have good materials."

"In the countryside you are a peasant, and when you enter the city, you are a city person."

"I went back to raise pigs when I was busy with the farm, and when I came to the city, you see, I still don't wear silk and knead my dough?"

"First go to Gaudi Street to buy clothes, and then go to Ho Pan Street."

"What are you doing on Ho Pan Street? Anything to do? Zhu Ciran asked rhetorically, but the shopkeeper's expression was intriguing: "You'll know when you go." ”

"Okay!" The shopkeeper said this very interestingly, and Zhu Ciran also said that they knew after hearing it, so after eating the noodles, they rode their bicycles along the road signs on the side of the road and headed towards Gaodi Street.

After less than a quarter of an hour, the four of them put on their satin robes with round necks, washed up a little, and were no different from the people of the city, except for some black and thin.

According to the noodle shop owner, they came to Hao Pan Street after changing their outfits, but they were dumbfounded as soon as they arrived.

On the streets of Haopan, girls and women wearing various colors of silk and silk yarn clothes shuttle back and forth, fragrant mist is in array, and spring is full of spring.

The court did not allow women to wear red dresses, some people wore the same, and some people wore colorful clothes such as agarwood, yuan, sauce, and jade.

The imperial court did not allow the wearing of bracelets, but some people wore them, and some women also used gold chains to string ear diggers, toothpicks, cameras, and knives and hang them on their chests as decorations.

There are some people who love beauty, and they will also wear gold ruyi-shaped peonies, phoenix bird hair crowns, and gourd-shaped earrings on their ears, and the workmanship is exquisite.

"Aren't these people afraid of being robbed?"

Looking at this group of people wearing gold and silver, Zhu Ciran and Liu Shun looked around like Grandma Liu who had entered the Grand View Garden.

"This is a street that sells jewelry, no wonder there are so many women ......"

Zhu Ciran saw that the shops along the street were all selling women's ready-to-wear and jewelry, and then he realized what the store's expression meant.

The four of them, who didn't want to mess with rouge, parked their cars at the post house of the government and walked back to Yudaihao on foot.

Compared with Haopan Street, which is full of women, this bustling and narrow jade belt is more suitable for the four of them to hang out.

However, there are often more women in this kind of thing than shopping, but compared with Haopan Street, the women's outfits of Yudaihao are slightly normal.

Although he was also wearing satin, he did not have many exaggerated headdresses.

Most of them carried a diagonal cloth bag with some rouge gouache in it.

Because Yudaihao follows a river all the way to the south, on the way to the south, all kinds of sky-high signboards catch people's eyes and present a lively scene.

In Yudaihao, Zhu Ciran saw the most flower shops, which can be seen from the image of men and women on the street who like to wear flowers on their heads, so you can know why there are so many flower shops.

In addition to flower shops, the second most common is bookstores, then rouge gouache shops and various food stalls, as well as eyeglasses and ready-to-wear shops.

In addition to these, there are shops, restaurants, tea houses, pawnshops, money houses, photo studios, painting apartments, theaters, bathhouses, temples, private houses and other buildings scattered in between.

However, Zhu Ciran was not interested in these buildings, and as time went by, the streets of Yudaihao gradually became more crowded, and then bustling with traffic.

The flow of people has increased, and the most eye-catching thing is the juggling troupe on the street such as stilts, fireworks, water frolics, dragon and lion dances, and sticks and weapons, as well as stage performances of tricks such as "walking the sea and entering the treasure" on the stage.

Zhu Ciran didn't care about this, he was more experiencing the cultural scenery of Guangzhou City, so his eyes were mostly on the pedestrians around him and the people in the shops on the street.

In his eyes, tourists on both sides of Guangzhou either enjoy the scenery by the water, or leisurely taste tea, or customize furniture in handicraft workshops such as wood shops, and there are also scholars and tourists who knock teapots and engrave inscriptions in the old copper and tin shop.

It's just that because there are too many people shopping, Liu Shun and the others are afraid that someone in the crowd will do something wrong, so after a brief walk, they took Zhu Ciran back to the post house.

"It's better to have fun in the countryside, and there's nothing to do in the city."

On the way back to the post house, Zhu Ciran also complained about his choice.

This is also normal, after all, he has lived in the capital since he was a child, and he has a deep understanding of the prosperity of the city.

Although the city of Guangzhou is prosperous, compared with the capital, it is not as good as the horse.

"Forget it, let's continue to set off tomorrow."

Zhu Ciran, who felt that it was not interesting, chose to continue to set off, which made Liu Shun, who thought that he could rest for a few days, as uncomfortable as his own mother.

With the discomfort in his heart, Liu Shun reluctantly squeezed out a smile: "Humble position...... Commanded ......"