Chapter 460: The Wonderful Journey to Kaifeng City (1)(1/2)
Chapter 460 A wonderful journey to Kaifeng City (1)
Author: Uncle Long Legs
Chapter 460 A wonderful journey to Kaifeng City (1)
As the saying goes, time flies like an arrow, and the sun and moon fly like a shuttle.
In the blink of an eye, the time has arrived on April 17, the first year of Maode; more than a month has passed since the initial division of labor between Hu Biao and the others.
After passing this time, it is more scientific and there is a reasonable division of labor.
Or to put it another way, after Hu Biao went all out and exploited netizens even more crazily, everyone's work efficiency became higher after I don't know how many greasy men's heads were bald.
As time goes by, the situation here in Kaifeng City is still a bit difficult, but it is getting better day by day...
Location: On the Cai River, one of the Grand Canals leading to Kaifeng City.
Du Baojun, who was in the cabin at the time, suddenly heard the boss of the boat shouting at the top of his voice:
"Shopkeeper Du, in two more hours, we can reach Kaifeng City; it will still be early and it will not be completely dark by then."
After hearing such news, he immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
Du Baojun, a man in his thirties, looks gentle and elegant, more like a scholar than a businessman.
In fact, it is not wrong to say that he is a scholar.
He himself comes from the Huzhou area in the south of the Yangtze River, and is a direct descendant of the Du family. He has been studying in the family's private school since he was a child, and his mentors were all famous local gentlemen.
Unfortunately, his personal reading talent is limited, and compared to other brothers in the family, it is far less than that.
After seeing that there was no way out through studying, he took over many of the Du family's businesses and became the money bag of the entire Du family.
Regarding this point, it is not new at all in the Song Dynasty where commerce was extremely developed.
All in all, Du Baojun has not come to Kaifeng City for more than two years.
The reason is very simple. In more than a year, the Jin people attacked the city of Kaifeng twice. At first, the chaos was too dangerous.
After the second Jin left, hundreds of years of wealth in Kaifeng City were plundered.
These businessmen, to put it bluntly, are people who can't afford to lose money. Some people do beheading business, but absolutely no one does business at a loss.
Du Baojun drank wine and listened to music at home every day, leaning against the red and green trees. It was no better than coming to the dilapidated Kaifeng City and facing those poor ghosts.
The problem is that this situation took an astonishing change almost a month ago.
On that day, the Wu family, which privately controlled the largest salt sales in Huzhou, entertained a group of powerful wealthy families in Huzhou to have a banquet at the largest local "Qingping Building".
After the banquet was over, the head of the Wu family brought out a rare item, which amazed everyone on the spot.
There are all kinds of crystal clear cups, which are simply ingenious treasures; there is also a mirror that is the size of a palm, but can make people see every detail.
There is also a kind of soap called soap. After washing the hair and skin, it is not only clean and refreshing, but also leaves a lingering floral fragrance.
Immediately, the sensitivity of a businessman.
Du Baojun almost immediately realized the huge commercial value of the above items.
Mirrors and soaps are just dispensable things for men. They will only buy them at any price for treasures such as cups and cups.
But for all the female relatives, it is simply a natural temptation.
It is normal for men to spend a lot of money on women, so all of the above are definitely an excellent business.
The situation is indeed the same. I spent 600 yuan that day to buy a palm-sized mirror from the Wu family.
After I went back to see my wife off, my mother's family had an uncle who was appointed as the general magistrate of Huzhou. She was a very aggressive woman at home.
That night, she was very kind and gentle, not to mention deliberately flattering, and she also agreed to take him as a concubine in a certain outer room.
In this way, Du Baojun became more determined to get this business into his own hands.
Then he used some money and tricks, and finally found out the secret:
It turned out that after the Wu family heard about the new salt introduction method promulgated by the new court of Empress Maode in Kaifeng City, they immediately organized 200,000 kilograms of old grain and transported it to Kaifeng City through water transportation.
Initially, I just planned to exchange some salt and then come back from Kaifeng City immediately.
Unexpectedly, after seeing all the above-mentioned ingenious utensils in the newly established Commerce Department of the imperial court, the third son of the Wu family who led the team immediately used all the money and food he had with him to replace them with these new utensils.
Sure enough, after I came back, I sold all of them in just two or three days. The profit I made from one trip was even an astonishing 100 times.
At least fifty or sixty times more, that's definitely possible.
Driven by such a huge profit, it was natural that Du Baojun made this trip to Kaifeng City.
Even though this time he came here and did not prepare a large amount of Chen rice like the Wu family, he was still full of confidence in this group.
Because as the leader of the Du family's Huzhou cloth industry, he brought 200,000 pieces of linen and 3,000 pieces of fine silk and satin on this trip.
A person's life is nothing more than food, clothing, housing and transportation.
It is true that the city of Kaifeng is in dire straits and is short of food, but as long as the people of Kaifeng want to wear clothes, his batch of fabrics is also very useful...
I heard the boat boss outside saying that he still had two hours to reach Kaifeng City.
Du Baojun immediately couldn't sit still in the cabin, and immediately he breathed a sigh of relief and walked out of the cabin.
The main reason was that Du Baojun, who had been to Kaifeng City five or six times before, encountered such a busy situation in the canal for the first time.
I saw that in such a large canal, watercraft of all sizes were woven together.
It carries grain, wine, lacquer, leather, minerals, cloth, livestock and other goods, all of which are destined for Kaifeng City.
I guess there are smart people everywhere, who have also seen the huge wealth that Kaifeng City now contains, and are now taking action one after another.
Originally, this was nothing. The Song Dynasty was so big, and the Du family could only live in Huzhou.
But after there were more boats, the sailing speed was much slower than before. It took at least three to five days longer than before to get here.
Fortunately, it was finally almost here, and Du Baojun's anxious mood gradually relaxed.
Even standing on the bow of the boat, letting the river breeze blow against me, I was also in the mood to look at the scenery on both sides of the Cai River.
It was also under such a situation that he suddenly saw a large number of men and women working in the fields not far from the left bank.
Not to mention a large mound, there is also a huge stone tablet made of white marble on the mound.
The golden light reflected under the sunlight made the huge stone monument look extremely dazzling.
Immediately, Du Baojun couldn't help but ask: "Boss Shen, where is that place? If I remember correctly, it shouldn't have existed a few years ago, right?"
Under such a question, the captain of the ship, a man in his forties who always had a playful smile on his face when talking, suddenly became serious.
After standing up straight, he first looked at that place from a distance and respectfully bowed his hands.
Later, it was explained:
"Dare you let Shopkeeper Du know that the last time the Jin man was among the invaders, Her Majesty Queen Maode, Privy Envoy Hu and other ministers were surrounded on Cubing Mountain.
Although the Jin soldiers suffered tens of thousands of casualties, they were still unable to attack by force.
However, after a long battle, soldiers, food, medicine, etc. were all about to be used up. Fortunately, the volunteers in Kaifeng City braved the rain of golden arrows, stone cannons, etc., and forcibly swam to support Chubing Mountain. Guarded.
However, under the blockade of the Jin people, the number of volunteers who successfully supported the climb to Chubing Mountain was often not even one out of ten.
After the Jin people retreated, the soldiers and civilians in Kaifeng City had extra time to collect the corpses downstream.
According to the statistics of the leader, Ma Xianggong, a total of 11,027 volunteers came out of the city to support, but in the end only 213 people made it down the mountain alive.
In addition to the other corpses that sank to the bottom of the river and were eaten by river fish, a total of 8,356 corpses were collected.
Together with some of the clothes and hair of those volunteers who had not even their bodies in the capital, these volunteers were all buried in that mound.
On it stood a piece of white marble removed from the imperial garden, which was made into a stele.
In addition to the 10,814 names engraved on the stone tablet, there is also a line of large characters personally carried by Privy Councilor Hu Yitong: The righteous people of Kaifeng will live forever.
That is to say, today is not the first or fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, nor is it a New Year's Day.
Otherwise, Shopkeeper Du, you can see that countless people in the city spontaneously come here to offer incense, which is probably a little more prosperous than the incense in Daxiangguo Temple."
After listening to the above statement, Du Baojun was speechless for a while.
Having been there so many times, he was certainly not unfamiliar with what the people in Kaifeng City were like.
What can I say? Even the traffickers and lackeys have the arrogance of being at the feet of the emperor and the common people in the capital of the Song Dynasty with eyes on the top of their heads.
Because the commerce here is extremely developed, it also has a strong market spirit.
However, there is no such heroic spirit.
"After the Jin invaded twice, the people in Kaifeng City have probably undergone astonishing changes."
Finally, with the same thought in mind, Du Baojun bowed respectfully to the place where tens of thousands of volunteers lived, his heart filled with unspeakable respect.
It is true that he is a profit-seeking businessman, but he has never forgotten that he is also a Song Dynasty person.
It's just that even if he has made some preparations at this moment, Kaifeng City today is already very different from what he remembered.
But compared with the actual huge changes in Kaifeng City, there are still some shortcomings...
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To be continued...