When Shen Chen was working as a free child labor for Song Zhong, the general trend of the world was changing at this time.

Since the beginning of this year, the situation in Guanzhong has become more and more difficult.

Don't talk about drought, just talk about military disasters.

After Li Wei killed Fan Chou, the contradiction between him and Guo Yan became completely acute, and the two sides fought hard, causing serious internal friction.

Liu Xie was kidnapped by Li Dao, and Guo Yan hijacked the Manchu minister, and the two sides refused to let each other, and the dog bit the dog.

By June, Zhang Ji came forward to mediate, and the two finally decided to negotiate peace, each using one of their daughters as a hostage, and no longer continue to fight.

After the two sides made peace, Liu Xie got rid of Li Dao, and with the help of Zhang Ji, decided to flee Chang'an and return to Luoyang.

The Kansai region is a mess, and the Kanto region is no better.

Yuan Shao and Gongsun Chan had been fighting a few years ago, and after the Battle of Jieqiao, Yuan Shao finally drove Gongsun Chan out of Jizhou and got the opportunity to develop with peace of mind.

But soon Gongsun Zhan eliminated Youzhou Mu Liu Yu and occupied the entire Youzhou, and the strong strength still made Yuan Shao like a great enemy, and he did not dare to slack off.

Fortunately, at the beginning of this year, Liu Yu's old subordinates Xian Yufu, Qi Zhou, Xian Yuyin and others elected Yan Rou as the leader, and gathered a large number of Xianbei, Karasuma and other soldiers and horses, and won tens of thousands of Han soldiers and Hu soldiers to crusade against Gongsun Zhan.

Yuan Shao took advantage of this opportunity to immediately send the general Ju Yi to join them with his army, a total of 100,000 people, defeated Gongsun Zan in Baoqiu, and now besieged him in Yijing, and the situation is very good.

And Cao Cao's situation is gradually improving, last year he and Lu Bu battle, because of the lack of food and grass and had to quit the army, this year, he gradually began to attack Lu Bu, three field battles were won, and broke the pottery, forced Xiaqiu.

Liu Bei from Tao Qian died of illness last year, was Mi Zhu Chen Deng and others elected as Xuzhou pastor, but at the beginning of the year just took over not long after, Yuan Shu sent a large army to attack, the two sides fought in Xuyi, Huaiyin and other places, the two sides won and lost each other.

In June, Lü Bu was driven out of Yanzhou by Cao Cao and fled east to Xuzhou to join Liu Bei. Because Lu Bu had indirectly saved Xuzhou once before, Liu Bei accepted him, but he didn't know that this was to lure a wolf into the room and bring a jackal in.

On the Jiangdong side, Sun Ce had already crossed the river at this time to defeat Liu Xuan and occupied Danyang and Wu County.

At that time, Zhou Shang, the Taishou of Danyang, was Zhou Yu's uncle, and Zhou Yu had a good relationship with Sun Ce, so his arrival was quickly supported by the Zhou family.

However, Yuan Shu has always been treacherous, and promised Sun Ce that if he took Lujiang, he would praise him as the Taishou of Lujiang, but in a blink of an eye, he turned his face and denied people, and sent Liu Xun to be the Taishou of Lujiang.

This time it was the same, Sun Ce took Danyang, and Yuan Shu sent his cousin Yuan Yin to replace Zhou Shang, which made Sun Ce even more disappointed in Yuan Shu.

Jingzhou here.

Liu Biao still did nothing, except for the resettlement of displaced people, in Nanyang Tuntian, neither sent troops nor expanded the land, and An'an held his Jingzhou separately.

According to the arrangement before Shen Chen left, the homeless people were recruited, and the manor fortress was built, and at the same time began to recruit ceramic craftsmen to burn paper porcelain in the blast furnace cave.

By October, Liu Xie entered Anyi County, Hedong.

At this moment, Yuan Shao was pressing Gongsun Zhan to fight, and the pressure was reduced a lot, and because Jizhou Prefecture was strong and the people were rich, his strength had jumped to the top of all the princes, so he suggested Yuan Shao at this time and let him welcome Liu Xie, "coerce the Son of Heaven and order the princes, and the beasts and horses to ask for the court".

But Guo Tu and Chun Yuqiong thought that now that the Han family was weakened, the banner of the Son of Heaven was useless. What's more, inviting the Son of Heaven to Hebei will only increase the trouble if you ask the Son of Heaven for everything, so I suggest that Yuan Shao should not adopt the strategy of frustration.

After careful consideration, Yuan Shao felt that Guo Tu and Chun Yuqiong made sense. In the end, he ignored the suggestion of Fu Zhu, but Cao Cao paid tribute to Liu Xie, and was appointed by Liu Xie as the pastor of Yanzhou in October of the second year of Xingping.

At the same time, Lü Bu took advantage of Liu Bei's main force to fight with Yuan Shu in Huainan, and attacked Xiapi, and Liu Bei had no choice but to flee to Guangling, where Guangling was impoverished because of the scourge of Zhenrong, and Liu Bei's soldiers could only eat the corpses of the war dead to survive, and fell into an extremely difficult situation.

Fortunately, before Shen Chen left, he had persuaded Mi Zhu that he should sell the industry in his hometown and accumulate food as soon as possible to prepare. Therefore, when Liu Bei was in a predicament, Mi Zhu immediately sent someone to deliver a large amount of grain and grass to him to solve this urgent need.

And in Jingzhou, on October 11, on the banks of the Hanshui River in Xiangyang, Shen Chen and Deng Hong were meeting an old friend.

Zhou Lin was still on the boat, so he saw Shen Chen and Deng Hong standing on the dock waiting for him from a distance, and after going ashore, he immediately went up enthusiastically and said, "Mr. Youshuo, Shen Xiaolang, long time no see." ”

"Demao, long time no see."

Deng Hong also greeted with a smile, Demao is Zhou Lin's word.

Zhou Lin took out a small wooden box from his arms and said, "Shen Xiaolang, this thing is for you." ”

"Thank you, sir."

Shen Chen did not refuse, this was the custom at that time.

If you are visiting each other with unfamiliar people or particularly familiar friends, you often don't prepare gifts.

But if it's the kind of friends who know each other but don't know each other very well, and come from a particularly distant place, they have to prepare gifts for each other.

This situation is recorded in the Han Dynasty stone carving "Travel Map" and many ancient books, and later generations called this behavior a souvenir.

Deng Hong also took a wooden box as a return gift.

Zhou Lin's gift was a book, and there were all kinds of strange things that gave gifts to each other at that time, and the more common ones were bamboo slips, jade pendants, wild geese and the like.

Deng Hong's return gift is a porcelain, a three-color porcelain produced by the Huangmen Pavilion cave.

The reason why Zhou Lin came over this time was also because of this.

Last year, he made an agreement with Shen Chen, and when he came to Jingzhou again to do business, he passed by Jiangling and sent someone to Xinye to talk to him.

In July of this year, Zhou Lin went to Jiangdong, and when he arrived in Jiangling, he sent his servants to Xinye as agreed.

Large-scale merchants like them often had regular partners, in places like Jingzhou and Jiangdong.

Therefore, every year, after Zhou Lin sells the goods of Jingzhou and Jiangdong in Yizhou, he will purchase a large number of local goods from Yizhou and deliver them to Jingzhou and Jiangdong.

So after spending a few days in Gangneung and handing over the goods to the local partner, he set off for Gangdong.

When he arrived at Jiangdong, he delivered the goods, and then received them, so that by the time he returned he was already in September, and by the end of September he had arrived in Gangneung again, and the slaves he had sent out before were already waiting for him, with a cart of fine porcelain with them.

When he saw these porcelain, Zhou Lin realized the business opportunity, because the glaze color of porcelain in the Han Dynasty was very simple, mainly celadon and white porcelain, and there was also a small amount of yellow-green glazed porcelain.

And the porcelain that Shen Chen gave him was not only exquisitely made, with a smooth appearance and novel style, but also colorful and colorful.

I don't know how it will sell, but at least it looks good.

The merchant's astuteness directly told him that there might be a market for these things, so he stopped his fleet at Jiangling, and personally took a boat from Yunmengze to Jingling, and then from Jingling into the Han River and went north to Xiangyang.

Both sides brought a few retinues, and under the leadership of Deng Hong, the group headed in the direction of him in Xiangyang City.

On the way, Zhou Lin said to Deng Hong: "I heard that the young master is in Liu Jingzhou? ”

Deng Hong couldn't hide his smile and said: "Now he is the chief secretary of the office under Liu Yuanjun's account, responsible for the work of the clerk and the treasury, and he is not a big official. ”

He was promoted last month, from librarian to librarian, because the previous librarian's father died of illness, and according to the practice at the time, Ding Wei was asked to go home to keep filial piety, so the man abandoned the official position.

And there are only two people in the entire library, as soon as he leaves, Deng Hong is naturally promoted, and now he is considered to be a rank of three hundred stones, only one level lower than Zhuge Xuan.

Shen Chen on the side pouted: "Although it has been appreciated by Liu Yuanjun and moved to the main memory, but the uncle is already twenty-seven years old and still has not married a wife, and the great uncle knows the darkness, I am afraid it is difficult to look away." ”

Deng Hong's face froze, and he lowered his head and said in Shen Chen's ear: "You guy, can you save some face for your sixth uncle?" What's more, I've seen the Cai girl you said...... Strong as a fat pig, extremely ugly, how can I marry? ”

"Uncle, you don't want your clan to be unable to grow in Jingzhou. At this time, the uncle had to dedicate himself and sacrifice the small self for the sake of the clan to complete the big self. ”

Shen Chen replied in a low voice: "What's more, people are ugly, but I heard that they are extremely gentle, and they are a good wife and mother." ”

After he arrived in Xiangyang, he asked around, wanting to help Deng Hong solve the problem of lifelong events.

Some time ago, Zhuge Xuan married Zhuge Liang's eldest sister and married Kuai Qi of the Kuai family, and on the day of the wedding, Shen Chen and Deng Hong also went to send congratulatory gifts and drank wedding wine, and then the Zhuge family suddenly entered the upper circle of Jingzhou.

This made Shen Chen very anxious, and asked around, and finally heard that the Cai family happened to have a daughter to be married, who was the daughter of Cai Mao's cousin, who was two years old and ten, and had not been married because of her appearance.

So I tried my best to match Deng Hong.

The two of them are considered to be older unmarried men and women at this age, although the woman is not very good-looking, but the family conditions are good, and she has a lot of money and hundreds of millions, and she is barely a good match with Deng Hong, a descendant of the Deng family.

But after Deng Hong heard about it, he secretly tried to find a way to meet the woman, and since then he has tried his best to refuse, and no longer speaks.

It was useless for Shen Chen to do work every day, which gave him a headache.

Hearing Shen Chen's words, Deng Hong still shirked and said, "Don't be in a hurry, the work is important, I'll talk about it later." ”

It is very similar to the words used by Shen Chen himself when he shirked his parents in later generations.

Shen Chen sneered: "It's up to you to call the shots, in a few days, I will write a letter to the eldest uncle and second uncle and grandfather, and let them force them, and the parents will be the matchmaker, and now that the great uncle and grandmother are gone, the eldest uncle and grandfather will be able to make a decision." ”

"Ah Chen, you!"

Deng Hong's tears were about to fall, he never expected that he was actually stabbed in the back from his grandson!

People say that the elders make the marriage for the younger generations.

Why are there still juniors who call the shots for their elders?

It's turned upside down.

The two whispered, and soon arrived in the city, Deng Hong hired two carriages, one for him and Shen Chen, one for Zhou Lin, and the servants walked to the west of the city.

Deng Hong's house is in the west of the city, the house is not big, and it is also a suburb in the west of the city, close to the west city gate, four or five kilometers away from Liu Biaozhou's pastoral mansion where he goes to work, and more than 20 kilometers away from the Da Xian Academy where Shen Chen stays.

But now that Xiangyang is expensive, it's good to have a suite, and what kind of bicycle do you need?

Three or four kilometers from Beicheng to Xicheng, it took about half an hour to arrive, Deng Hong led a group of people into the house, and the servants stayed outside the door and entered the hall to prepare for the discussion.