Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

"Oh oh oh~~~"

"Oh oh oh~~~"

A spring rain didn't stop until midnight.

As the rooster crows, every household in the village lights up one after another.

"Dong dong dong!"

Then there was the sound of gongs being beaten again. Someone was holding a gong and walking along the countryside, beating the gongs.

As a result, villagers began to raise torches and go out, gathering in the direction of the gong sound.

There were several people in charge of beating the gongs, and the villagers followed them and divided into several teams to go up the mountain. The mountain road was too slippery after the rain, and people fell down from time to time. Then there were bursts of laughter, and the curses of the wrestlers were drowned out by the laughter.

"Damn it, what time is it!" Zhu Ming was so noisy that he couldn't sleep.

Zhu Guoxiang had also woken up, yawned and said: "The rooster crows. It starts before four o'clock in the morning, and it is probably not four o'clock yet. Get up, we agreed to help look after the children."

"I'll sleep a little longer." Ju Ming couldn't get rid of the gravitational pull of the bed.

Zhu Guoxiang joked: "You also said that you want to be the emperor of the world, but you can't even get up early."

"Who said that?" Zhu Ming sat up in confusion.

The two got dressed and came to the main room. The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were already ready to go out, and they were even dressed up!

Grandma Yan, who has just turned fifty but has gray hair, actually has a red flower on her temples.

Shen Yourong picked it yesterday and inserted one into his head. She also pounded it into mud to make rouge, smearing some on her cheeks and some on her lips.

It's not like going to the mountains to pick tea, but more like mother-in-law and daughter-in-law spending time together.

For the mountain people around the tea farm, tea picking is an annual event. During the tea-picking periods in the spring, farmers from nearby market towns would also come. Hundreds of people would gather on various hills. Everyone, familiar or unfamiliar, would meet, and women would naturally have to dress up.

"Brother Qi is still sleeping. Let's go up the mountain now." Shen Yourong said.

Zhu Guoxiang smiled and said: "Don't worry, I'll be watching at home."

In previous years, there were no men in the family, so Bai Qi was entrusted to the care of his village neighbors. There were always some elderly people who were inconvenient to go up the mountain.

Zhu Guoxiang sent his mother-in-law and daughter-in-law out, and then stood in the center of the yard, looking at the "fire dragons" in the distance. The farthest light gradually disappeared in the mountains.

The horse had been standing under the eaves for half the night, and now it came close to Zhu Guoxiang, its head rubbing like a dog, as if it wanted to beg for two pounds of night grass.

Zhu Guoxiang went to grab the beans and sprinkled a few grains of salt into them.

Then, go to Mrs. Shen's house to take a nap.

The main purpose of sleeping on the bench while dressed was to look after the child, for fear that Bai Qi would wake up and run out.

Ju Ming yawned on the couch in the study until the sound of gongs and drums stopped completely, and finally fell asleep again.

…

The morning light is faint.

The two young masters, Bai Chongyan and Li Hanzhang, and a few followers traveled leisurely on wooden clogs.

"Is that young man really familiar with classics?" Li Hanzhang expressed doubts.

Bai Chongyan said excitedly: "Brother Ke Zhen, when you were studying in the south of the Yangtze River when you were young, did you ever hear any great scholar interpret that Analects of Confucius as the word 'public and private'?"

Li Hanzhang shook his head: "Never."

"That's it!" Bai Chongyan said.

Li Hanzhang said: "Perhaps he had a wonderful idea while reading The Analects of Confucius."

Bai Chongyan said: "Then please ask Brother Kezhen to come forward and test that little scholar."

Li Hanzhang smiled and said nothing. He was arrogant and did not believe that a master could emerge from the mountains.

Not long after, the two came outside the hospital.

After slapping the courtyard door a few times, Zhu Guoxiang woke up rubbing his sleepy eyes and hurried out to open the door.

Bai Chongyan cupped his hands and said, "Brother Zhu, we are here to visit again."

"Sanlang, please come in!" Zhu Guoxiang greeted warmly.

The thin horse was walking in the courtyard. Li Hanzhang's eyes fell on the horse's butt, and he immediately showed a playful expression.

Not only did he guess that it was an official horse, but he also knew which group of horses it came from.

But what does it have to do with him?

It is true that Li Hanzhang was the son of Yangzhou Tongpan, but the officials and horses were fully managed by the Tea Horse Division, so the two sides were not in the same system.

The civil service decentralization in the Song Dynasty was so outrageous that a province (road) did not even have a real chief official: the Transportation Department was responsible for finance, the Punishing Department was responsible for prisons, and the Changping Department was responsible for implementing the new law, managing the revenue of the new law, and also managing mountains, forests, mines, and some commodities. Monopoly power (the power to promote Chang Pingsi has been expanding and reached its peak in the Huizong Dynasty).

These three yamen are not subordinate to each other. They are connected with the imperial court at the top and with the state army at the bottom.

Provincial (road) level governments seem to exist, but also seem not to exist.

Therefore, state officials have great power. Zhizhou not only manages civil affairs, but also controls military power. In particular, military generals were often appointed as magistrates in border areas, and some military generals served as magistrates for more than ten years.

As a result, the responsibilities of the general magistrate also increased, and they used their financial power to check and balance the military power of the magistrate.

If a normal Tsuna was robbed, the state officials would definitely be responsible for failing to manage the people, but what was lost last year was not a serious Tsuna.

A serious horseman will not take the Han River!

To put it bluntly, the Tea Horse Division secretly engaged in horse smuggling and pledged the goods in the name of Ma Gang, but was robbed by bandits in the mountains along the way.

Not to mention that the state officials would not help with the investigation, even the Tea Horse Secretary himself did not dare to speak out.

"Haha, Mr. Sanlang, you're here so early!" Zhu Ming smiled loudly and came out to greet him.

Bai Chongyan immediately introduced: "This is the son of Li Xianggong, the general magistrate of Yangzhou, the second son of the Li family, and brother Hanzhang Kezhen."

Upon hearing that he was the son of the state magistrate, the father and son hurriedly greeted him.

Li Hanzhang smiled and bowed, showing neither enthusiasm nor disdain.

Bai Chongyan asked a few more followers to come forward and said, "I have brought all the sixty guan of money. As for the few acres of firewood forest in the mountains, they are not worth much, so I will give them to you two."

"No," Zhu Guoxiang immediately refused, "It's as much as it should be. How can I give away the land?"

Bai Chongyan said: "Sir, don't refuse. It's really not worth a few."

Zhu Guoxiang insisted: "Love belongs to love, reason belongs to reason. If Mr. Sanlang insists on giving it as a gift, we will not sell that brush!"

After hearing what his father said, Ju Ming also echoed: "That's true. Land cannot be given away."

The father and son had just arrived, and they inexplicably accepted other people's property, which meant they owed the Bai family a huge favor.

The mouth that eats people is short and the hands that take others are soft, which makes it difficult for us to get along with each other as equals in the future.

If you take over this field, you will be bound to the Bai family due to the entanglement of cause and effect.

Of course, all those who have such thoughts are gentlemen, and profit-seeking villains are eager to get it for nothing.

"That's...ok."

Bai Chongyan could only give up, but at the same time he felt strange that he couldn't even give away the land.

At this moment, Li Hanzhang's eyes changed slightly. He didn't take the father and son seriously at first, but now he found them particularly interesting.

A father and son who did not have enough to eat were forced to live in the widow's house and beg for food despite rumors and rumors. They were not tempted by the land and refused the gift.

Looking at the whole country, how many people can do it?

The boys came over carrying four baskets filled with iron money.

When Jiaozi was unavailable, "bulk" transactions in Sichuan were directly weighed. For good quality iron money, thirteen kilograms is a consistent value; for poor quality iron money, twenty-five kilograms is a consistent value; and even fifty kilograms is a consistent piece of bad money. After Wang Anshi reformed the iron money, it finally became six pounds.

It can only be weighed, not counted at all. You can think of it this way, how scary it is for you to count tens of thousands of coins.

The 60 iron coins in front of me are all new money after Wang Anshi, with a total weight of more than 300 Song Jin (1 Song Jin is about 640 grams).

The father and son, who were penniless yesterday, were instantly rich, and it was worth several hundred kilograms.

Ju Ming looked at the basket and felt a little bit dumbfounded.

Doing business these days is really hard work.

Don't make any excuses, no one cares about that stuff anymore.

At the beginning of the official issuance of Jiaozi, various systems were actually very complete.

First of all, there must be a principal reserve. A reserve of 360,000 yuan is issued to ensure that it can be cashed out at any time. Secondly, the validity period of each Jiaozi is two years. Once the period is up, the old Jiaozi will be recycled and a new Jiaozi will be issued. Finally, Jiaozi can be used to pay taxes, and the government cannot refuse to accept it, which improves Jiaozi's creditworthiness.

Wang Anshi led the reform, and Jiaozi collapsed.

Due to the radical new fiscal and taxation policies adopted by the reform, all parts of the country needed to allocate funds. In addition, the war in the north started again, and the national treasury was empty, so it could only make up for the shortfall by issuing banknotes indiscriminately. Moreover, old friends will no longer be recycled. The banknotes are almost worn out. You should consider yourself unlucky. Anyway, the government will not exchange them for new ones.

At that time, the people of Sichuan, especially Sichuan businessmen, probably wanted to strangle Wang Anshi to death!

As a Sichuan native, it was normal for Su Shi to oppose the reform.

What should we do if Sichuan's financial market is disrupted? Wang Anshi could only carry out iron coin reform and stabilize the value of Sichuan's iron coins, otherwise Sichuan would have been ruined by him at that time.

Similar things happened elsewhere.

The content of Wang Anshi's reforms was beneficial to Jiangnan, Lianghuai, and Henan. But across the country, especially in the southwest, northwest and north China, it can be said that many of the new laws are bad governance because these places are not developed enough.

At that time, most of the old parties who opposed the reform came from the north. Based on the situation in their hometowns, they naturally thought that Wang Anshi was messing around.

Sima Guang looked at the problem from the perspective of a northerner, and Wang Anshi looked at the problem from a southerner's perspective. They would really be damned if they could pee into a pot.

"Please carry it into the house." Zhu Ming said to the boys.

Bai Chongyan asked: "Don't we call each other the same?"

Ju Ming smiled and said: "It's just a few kilograms of iron money, what else do you call it?"

"Haha, that's right." Bai Chongyan said happily.

Seeing several baskets of money being carried in, Li Hanzhang raised the corners of his mouth and felt that this young man was a bit interesting.

Ju Ming said: "Let's go up the mountain and see the land."

Bai Chongyan said: "Look at the ground and don't be in a hurry. Today, you can first observe the grand scene of tea picking, and then use the water from the Lingquan to brew new tea to taste."

Zhu Guoxiang said: "I'll wake up Brother Qi and take him with me."

Bai Chongyan and Li Hanzhang both wore clogs, which were similar to Xie Gong's clogs and were suitable for mountain climbing.

Zhu Guoxiang didn't have hiking shoes, so he took off his cloth shoes, barefooted, rolled up his trouser legs, and went out casually.

Seeing his father acting like this, Ju Ming followed suit, otherwise he wouldn't be able to climb the mountain after the rain.

Bai Qi even took off his shoes.

Several baskets of iron money were placed in the house, and the door was locked. No one was watching, and there was no fear of anyone stealing it.

Bai Chongyan said: "You two, wait a minute, I still have Mr. Xie's clogs at home, so I'll ask my servant to get them."

"No, it's convenient to walk barefoot." Zhu Guoxiang declined.

So, two people wearing clogs, two people barefoot, and taking their children, climbed the mountain to the tea farm together, followed by a few slaves.

Walking barefoot is fast and effortless.

On the contrary, hiking clogs are often stuck in mud and need to be taken off for cleaning.

Being stuck again, several people stopped to rest and threw their clogs to the servants.

The Zhu family father and son walked further ahead. Zhu Guoxiang pointed to a mountain forest in the distance and said to his son: "There is a low-lying place over there. The stream turns into a waterfall and falls. Under the waterfall is a pool. There are some teahouses living near the pool. Customers who are dependent on the Bai family. We can also build houses there, just a little further away from the waterhole."

"Is there any farmland nearby?" Zhu Ming asked.

"Yes, I'm optimistic about it," Zhu Guoxiang said. "Those mountainous areas are very barren. They usually grow millet, broomcorn millet, sorghum, etc., and they are all leased to tea farmers for cultivation. We bought the land and cannot return the land at will. We must take care of the previous of tenants.”

Zhu Ming smiled and said: "It's just right, let the tenants help farm the land, otherwise we will be too busy."

Down the hillside, more than ten meters away.

The pair of wooden clogs worn by Li Hanzhang had been handed over to his attendants to clean up the mud. He looked at his socks that were stained with muddy water and said, dumbfounded: "Brother Juncai, you and I should also be barefoot, otherwise we may have to wait until the afternoon."

Bai Chongyan felt a little unhappy. Wouldn't walking barefoot make his legs muddy?

But since Li Hanzhang said this, he could only put down his arrogance. He immediately took off his socks and gave them to the attendant, rolled up a section of his trouser leg, and after walking two steps, he found that they were really light.

Li Hanzhang not only took off his shoes and socks, but also pulled his clothes apart to reveal a large tattoo on his chest because of the fever from hiking.

When Zhu Guoxiang saw him, he whispered to his son: "This man looks more like a promiscuous person."

"Fashionable, do you understand?" Ju Ming said, "The then Prime Minister Li Bangyan... well, he is probably still a minor official now. This guy has a whole body of tattoos and is known as the 'Prodigal Prime Minister'. He often takes off his clothes during banquets. The tattoo is exposed on the top, please guests and slaves to appreciate it carefully."

"Are the national leaders so clueless?" Zhu Guoxiang sighed, "He is indeed a minister promoted by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty!"

After another journey, Bai Chongyan pointed ahead: "Just turn around the mountain col."

Tea-picking songs have already been heard, and hundreds of men and women have gone up to the mountains to pick tea. Those who are skilled in the art still have free time to sing and have fun.

The singing is full of joy, because there is money to be earned.