Chapter 106 Traveling to Kaifeng in Henan

People in China always do business at the table. This is the case in modern times, and it was the same in the late Ming Dynasty hundreds of years ago. The Henan guide was decided between the banquets between the two sides. Of course, there are still some things that cannot be explained to outsiders, so they cannot be said.

Li Meng returned to the inn and went to bed. After waking up, Chen Liu came over to report that Wenru Business had sent several guides. If these guides talked about their relationship, they were actually acquaintances. They were all the family members of Mr. Meng, who had contributed a lot to the Qingyan incident last year.

The shopkeeper Meng got nearly 10,000 taels of silver when selling green salt. He had already gone home to become a rich man, but he was not going to let his nephews enjoy themselves. He was scattered outside to work and make money. This time he was sent to serve as a guide for Li Meng. Several of the children of the Meng family were very happy. They had heard what their elders said, Li Erlang is a nobleman of our Meng family.

Since everything was ready, Li Meng briefly gave a brief explanation to the fragrant salt shop and greeted the related customers. The group rushed to the road again.

Jining Prefecture goes south to Henan, and there is a very dense water system in the southern Zhili area. Li Meng and his team can only travel by carriage, horse and boat, which saves some effort.

It was quite boring on the road. It was meaningless to look at the scenery on both sides every day. However, I thought the salt chefs who went out to travel and enjoy the water miscalculated. Although they were sailing on the water, there was no delay in training. Every day, Li Meng asked the boat to dock for two hours and do all the exercises. Naturally, there was no place for the boat owner to be unwilling to do it. Anyway, the money for all the money was given, and he made more money every day.

Li Meng really has some understanding of life on the ship these days. For example, the old officers of Lingshan Guard all vaguely mentioned that when marching and fighting, you must follow the rivers during your journey. First, water transportation can save a lot of manpower and animal power, and second, there is a water source nearby.

Such knowledge was unexpected by Li Meng, who joined the army in modern times. With the complete logistics system of modern warfare and various efficient means of transportation, this aspect could not be considered.

The conversation between Jining Prefecture and Kong Sande touched Li Meng a little. Whether it was Kong Sande or Zhou Yang in Jiaozhou City, they all saw this situation. Based on the world, Kong Sande and Zhou Yang were definitely not considered as amazing people. Based on this inference, there should be many people in the world who learned about this.

But why is it still so in the end? Is it really impossible to contradict the wheel of history and the general trend...

This problem was too depressing, and Li Meng was unwilling to think too much, but the walking on the water was a little fresh in the first two days, and the next few days were not pleasant. There were usually villages by the water, and poverty and suffering were the entire description of them.

The households close to Jiningzhou are fine, but the closer they are to Henan, the more they feel that the world is suffering from disasters and tortures. When they practice ashore several times, they saw corpses lying there on the shore, with their abdomen enlarged and hungry, and looked miserable. Many of the corpses were torn to pieces by wild animals. The weather was a little hot, and many of them emitted a stench. Every time they went ashore, they had to let the salt dip sprinkle lime to bury them.

But there are too many corpses and I can't be busy at all. In the future, I just want to check if there are any corpses before shore. As for refugees who flee along the coast, it's not a rare thing at all.

In fact, no one in this fleet except Li Meng was surprised by the scenes that took place on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. For people of this era, this is a common sight.

In Li Meng's opinion, the Ming Dynasty's mansion newspaper had an advantage. The disasters and major events in the world were generally reported in a timely manner. For his role who traveled through time, he could get useful information. However, most of the refugees on the shore came from Henan. But when you look at the mansion newspaper, the year scene there was still good, and there was no drought or flood.

When I was free, I asked about the boatman and the Meng family's children who led the way. Although they were either obscure or understood, the meaning was almost the same. Among the children of the Meng family, one of them was the most direct. When Li Meng asked about it that day, Meng En spat in the river and cursed hatefully:

"What other famine can there be? Those vassal kings are the biggest famine..."

Then Meng En was covered by his brothers and dragged him down. Li Meng was also an official in the court after all, and scolded the vassal king in front of him. Isn’t this asking for death?

However, when I arrived at the intersection of Dingjiadao, entered the Yellow River, and entered Henan, I also figured out this matter. In fact, many such notes and articles of the Qing people have been passed down to the modern times. Of course, Li Meng basically could not contact it. The so-called "The disaster in Henan is not in the natural disaster, but in the vassal kings."

At the end of the Wanli period, the Eight Kings of Zhou, Zhao, Yi, Hui, Zheng, Tang, Chong, Lu were already granted the title of King Fu, and then the land in Luoyang was not enough for the land in Henan, and he had to go to other provinces to draw out the land. Henan is also a thoroughfare, with many great governments and nobles living here. They also occupy a large amount of land. When the government urges taxes, they naturally would not find these vassal kings and nobles, officials and clans. The taxes fell on the common people. Emperor Chongzhen raised taxes layer by layer, so how could the people survive?

After learning about this reason, Li Meng felt that there were not many refugees in Shandong, and there was no large wave of refugees. The patience of Henan civilians is really strong.

The Ding Family Daokou is already in Henan, and the situation is different. This is a pass from Shandong to Henan, and it looks quite prosperous.

Although you can also see many vagrants with food and haggard appearances, many people are busy with food and clothing, and they look healthy. This is beyond Li Meng's expectations. The expected scene of hell on earth did not appear, and the entire ferry area has a deformed prosperity.

Li Meng thought for a long time before he understood that the reason why there was a bright spot in the disaster was that not only agriculture, but also industry and commerce accounted for a larger and larger proportion, which somewhat saved many people.

According to the mentors of the Meng family, who was the guide, Guide Mansion is close to Nanzhili and is a place where salt is sold in Huaili. It is not so much under Henan, but rather a mansion in Nanzhili. These mentors also think that Li Meng came to inspect the market for private salt sales this time. The children of the old shopkeeper Meng are trying hard to curry favor with Li Meng, so they naturally have something to say and are not worried about leaking secrets at all.

Qingyan should be in the areas of Tongguan, Huayin and Baoying, Lushi, and from Shaanxi to Henan. Li Meng’s target was this place, so he was unwilling to stay in Guide Prefecture for too long. He washed away directly along the Yellow River, went to Kaifeng Prefecture along the river, and went to Zhengzhou to Luoyang. Naturally, he agreed with the guide's opinion and went straight to the road.

After replenishing supplies, the group walked more than ten miles along the official road and then changed boats at the ferry. At that time, the canal transport was along the waterway from Guide to Kaifeng, Kaifeng to Luoyang, and then supplying to Guanzhong. The shipping was very developed, and the business of Wenru Commercial Bank seemed to be open to the road. After contacting the guides, they got the ship. Li Meng gave him 50% more ships, which didn't cost much more money for him, but everyone in the boatmen were happy.

The situation in Henan is already a bit corrupt. When Jiningzhou went to Henan, the boatmen had no idea about docking on the shore, but these boatmen in Henan did not dare to dock until they were not on the garrison and the docks of Dayi along the way. The rioters in Henan had been in Henan for a while, and local bandits and illegal tyrants were also taking advantage of the chaos to pick some cheap things outside. Chen Liu and Wang Hai were chatting when they had nothing to do.

I heard from them that ordinary people did not dare to leave the city where they lived. Those wild villages were often robbed by bandits and thieves. If the people left the city and went to other places, more than a dozen people would dare not move. They usually formed a brigade of 100 people and 200 people to dare to act.

The only place where there is still some peace is the city along the river. On the river, the officers and soldiers of the brigade have enough power to support each other, and there is no need to worry about supply through water transportation in the city, so the situation is quite good compared to other places in Henan.

In mid-August, Li Meng and his group arrived in Kaifeng City. The ship needed some supplies. The guides also had Wenru Commercial Bank's business to handle. They discussed with Li Meng, hoping to stay in Kaifeng City for about ten days and then continue on the road.

Li Meng's irritability and anxious temper were already cleaned by the road that he couldn't get fast. He knew that even if he wanted to get fast, he couldn't get fast. He immediately agreed to the other party's request.

Moreover, Kaifeng was also a famous city in the world in the Ming Dynasty. Since Li Meng arrived at the late Ming Dynasty hundreds of years ago, he has been in Jiaozhou and has never been to any big place. Although Jiningzhou is known as the richest in Shandong, it is just a prefecture city, and the situation is still a little smaller.

If you have the opportunity to come to a prosperous town like Kaifeng Prefecture, Kaifeng City, naturally, you have to find an opportunity to visit it. Li Meng is not familiar with history, but he also knows that the end of the dynasty will turn into ruins in the prosperous places. If you want to see prosperity again, you will have to wait decades or hundreds of years later.

Looking at those petty bourgeois articles in modern times, even employees like Li Meng with a low level of culture yearn for the Northern Song Dynasty that were as dreamy as prosperous as the Northern Song Dynasty. They were the only ones in the Han Dynasty, the famous scholars of the Jin Dynasty, the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and even the peaceful scenes of the Zhongming Dynasty can be seen and lived in it.
Chapter completed!