Liu Bowen was obviously waiting for Zhu Yan's next words, but unfortunately Zhu Yan didn't do what he wanted.

Zhu Yan knew very well in his heart that this old gentleman might be able to be regarded as a confidant, and he had some ideas, and he should indeed be able to discuss them with the other party and sum them up.

But now, he and Liu Bowen's identities are quite sensitive, and there are many people in the camp, so it is not suitable to talk about some taboo things.

Therefore, Zhu Yan just smiled, and while eating, he frequently persuaded Liu Bowen to drink, and did not mention anything else.

The wine is naturally a common rice wine in the south of the Yangtze River.

After three rounds of drinking, the food was almost finished, and Lu Zuo and other soldiers around him were cleaning up the iron plate.

Zhu Yan also clapped his hands, stood up and said to Liu Bowen: "Mr. Liu! Are you interested in playing along the river with this king? ”

Now there are no such things as peanuts and melon seeds, this is purely his habitual action of drinking and chatting in his previous life.

"Minister, you should be accompanied!"

Liu Bowen responded with a dry laugh, and suddenly had a hint of foreboding in his heart, and hesitated: "It's just, where are you going to swim?" ”

Zhu Yan saw Liu Bowen's concern, smiled, and said frankly: "To the south, let's go to Guazhou to have a look......"

Hearing this, Liu Bowen's eyes instantly widened, and he secretly exclaimed, "Sure enough."

Guazhou is the most taboo place for His Majesty to mention recently, let alone "swim" there.

Because, in the month of last year, Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to ascend the throne and become the emperor, pretended to welcome King Xiaoming to Yingtianfu, but when he passed through Guazhou, he caused a shipwreck accident for others.

Let him, the eight-year-old monarch who was nominally loyal, be buried at the bottom of the river, forever and forever.

For this accident, Lao Zhu also folded a confidant Liao Yongzhong.

is so secretive, of course, Zhu Yan knows a lot.

He understands better that although his father did not explicitly prohibit anything, everyone inside and outside the government and the opposition consciously did not mention the name of Guazhou, waiting for the matter to change, waiting for everyone to slowly forget about this matter and bury it in the years.

However.

Guazhou, Zhu Yan has a reason to go.

"It's okay! My old man isn't that stingy, let's just go around there and come back, nothing will happen. ”

After speaking, he didn't wait for Liu Bowen to respond, and strode towards the river.

Liu Bowen was stunned, so he had to smile bitterly and hurriedly followed, and then followed behind Zhu Yan unhurriedly.

After a short time, the two quickly jumped onto one of the small boats that had already been moored, and without calling a third person to accompany them, they left the shore.

"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa......"

The sound of the water murmuring, with Zhu Yan swaying the oars, the boat was pushed by the flowing water and slowly sailed away from Balipu.

Between the rippling blue waves, the two of them raised their eyes to look around, the sun was shining and refreshing, the river breeze was hunting, and the scenery on both sides of the strait was recovering its vitality also had a kind of incomplete beauty.

In fact, in the northwest of the Balipu camp, where it is connected with the Sanli Bridge, there is a Yangtze Bridge and the ensuing settlement, which was originally an important ferry connecting the Grand Canal and the Yangtze River in the early Tang Dynasty.

But in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the wind and sand continued to invade, and Guazhou gradually emerged and began to connect with the north shore, and Yangzijin completely lost its meaning.

On the contrary, it is the tributary river in the middle, that is, the Yilou River where Zhu Yan and Liu Bowen sailed, which has become the new darling of the Grand Canal.

The reason why Zhu Yan had to take Liu Bowen to Guazhou was because he wanted to build the whole Yangzhou into a commercial harbor he envisioned......

Kuah Chau is definitely an indispensable and important piece of this blueprint.

Originally, on the historical and geographical map, Guazhou was a unique cultural landmark - the Yangtze River flows eastward, and the canal runs through it.

The only ancient town at the intersection of the two golden waterways of the Chinese land is Yangzhou Guazhoudu.

True to her name, Guazhou is a magical melon fruit that grows on the evergreen vine of the Yangtze River.

Before the Tang Dynasty, the estuary of the Yangtze River was between Yangzhou and Zhenjiang, and the sediment brought by the Yangtze River formed a series of barricades at the mouth of the river under the support of the sea tide.

From the Han Dynasty to the Jin Dynasty, this long melon-shaped sandbar began to emerge from the water, and was given the name of "Guazhou", and the island gradually formed a fishing village and market town.

In the Tang Dynasty, this "sleeping beauty" of the Yangtze River began to connect with the north bank.

Zhang Ruoxu's lone poem "Spring River Flower Moonlight Night" has "Spring River Tide and Sea Level" and "The River Flows Like Circling Fangdian......

It depicts the magnificent scenery connected by the river and the sea and the continuous sandbanks that haunt the tide, which is the landscape along the Yangtze River centered on Guazhou.

Among the sandbars that have been continuously generated and merged with land for thousands of years in the eastward flow of the Yangtze River, there is no sandbar that enjoys the uniqueness of Guazhou.

Because it is backed by the famous canal city of Yangzhou. Because of the merger between Guazhou and the north bank of the Yangtze River in the Tang Dynasty, the earliest section of the Grand Canal dug from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Sui Dynasty was blocked.

During the first year of Tang Kaiyuan, from the Yangtze River Estuary of the original Hangou to the south through the continent of Guazhou, a new 25-mile-long southern extension of the Grand Canal - Yiluo River was opened, and its new inlet gate formed one of the most important Jindu in history - Guazhou Crossing.

Guazhou is synonymous with Guazhou. Without Guazhoudu, there would be no glorious history of Guazhou; Without Guazhoudu, the world heritage of the Millennium Canal would be overshadowed by three points.

Guazhou Gudu is the lifeline of Huaxia Caoyun.

Guazhou faces the Yangtze River, left and right, guarding the key to the Yangtze River and the canal. Grain from the south was transported to the capital from the north to the capital, and sea salt was transported to the inland from the west.

After the Sui and Tang dynasties, the safety of Guazhou no matter which dynasty is closely related to it.

Most of the historical capitals were in the north, Chang'an, Luoyang, and Bianliang, and to some extent, the blood vessels of the heart of these dynasties were this canal.

And Gua Chau is the center of this blood vessel.

Huguang rice, Jiangnan silk, and Suzhou and Hangzhou beauties...... It was all from here that the canal traveled north into the capital.

In a war in later generations, Britain launched the "Yangtze River Campaign" in order to blackmail the Qing government, and its strategy was to enter the Yangtze River, capture Zhenjiang, and blockade the Guazhou Ferry......

Choke the throat of the Qing government's Cao Yun, cut off the main artery of the Cao Yun, and force the Qing government to accept its interest in invading China. Britons, with a global vision, accurately grasped the destiny of China.

Therefore, although Guazhou is a small place, it can "overlook the Jingkou, connect Jiankang, the sea, and the big river".

Therefore, in addition to building Yangzhou, Zhu Yan is more eager to create a new Guazhou as soon as possible.

To wait for his Lao Tzu to erase the shadow in his heart and reopen Guazhoudu, he is afraid that it will be too late, and he must make plans as soon as possible.

When he talked and laughed with Liu Bowen and sailed the boat to the edge of Guazhou Town downstream, not only did he see another team of soldiers dredging the silt, but several fishing boats were slowly putting away their nets.

At this time, it was almost dusk, and there was a strange light purple brilliance between the sea and the sky.