Chapter 120

The official ship sailed for three days and was about to reach Huai'an, then passed Baoying, Gaoyou, Yangzhou, Guazhou Port, then went southeast to Zhenjiang, and then sailed down the river to Longtan Port in Jin Ling.

Wu'er and Qingwen had not been on a long journey, let alone such a long voyage by ship, and they were all fresh and excited.

The official ship they took belonged to the navigation ship, which was different from ordinary government cargo ships and warships. Except for the family members of the officials on the ship, there were no other idle people walking on the ship's deck.

For the first two days, the two girls were fresh and followed Jia Cong to browse the scenery on both sides of the river. Wu'er was a bit delicate and felt seasick after watching the scenery for half a day, so she huddled in the cabin and didn't come out.

Qingwen, however, had no taboos. She was originally a refreshing person who didn't like to be restrained. On the ship, she was like a bird out of a cage, strolling on the deck with Jia Cong every day.

"Cong Sanye, how wide do you think this river is? You can't see the opposite bank from this side. Only birds in the sky can fly over."

"When the ship enters the Yangtze River, it will be several times wider than here. Qingwen, many, many years later, even the Yangtze River can build very large bridges."

"Such a bridge can span both banks directly, and it can be two floors. The bottom floor can run iron carriages, and the top floor can walk."

"Cong Sanye, will there be such magical things in this world? Are they the strange stories you told Wu'er?"

"A son of a noble family, some pomp is normal. I followed my mother to Jin Ling to visit my maternal family, didn't I bring you too? No, your words are sour. Are you hating that you are not that maid?"

Qingwen didn't believe it: "Cong Sanye, you are coaxing people again."

Although the days on the ship had these relaxing little episodes, most of the time was dull. After watching the river scenery for several days, even Qingwen began to feel somewhat bored.

"Young Lady, look, that is the top candidate of the Rongguo Prefecture who has been spreading outside recently. Look how handsome he is."

Jia Cong said meaningfully: "Many things in this world are stories at the beginning, and they will all become true stories after a long time."

Jia Cong held back his laughter: "Qingwen, you say you don't learn anything good, why do you listen to the vulgar words of those old women? Follow me to read and write more in the future, isn't that better than those?"

The young lady covered her mouth and laughed: "You girl, what are you saying? What handsome or not, aren't you ashamed?"

Qingwen's pretty face blushed, and seeing that there was no one around, she said: "Cong Sanye, you said that leaning on me when combing hair can relieve fatigue. I have heard the vulgar words of the old women in the garden. When the masters say this, it means they have bad intentions."

The little maid Ruizhu didn't care and said again: "Look at him, he's out on an imperial mission, yet he still brings two such pretty maids by his side, chatting and laughing on the deck every day, how improper."

The window on the second floor of the ship was pushed open, revealing that beautiful face as beautiful as a rose petal, and beside her was a little maid with lively eyes.

No matter how you look at it, it's so absurd. In fact, the reason is nothing more than wanting to cling to power.

Jia Cong wondered: "When have I ever coaxed you?"

The second-floor window closed, and one could still vaguely hear the young lady's coquettish laughter and the maid's shy and angry voice.

With Qin Ye's status, as long as he inquired slightly, he could know these things clearly.

This day, Qin Ye asked a maid to invite Jia Cong to talk. This time, both of them were going to Jin Ling because of the Daci'en Temple, so they could be considered colleagues.

The Jia family's righteous school is not a place to study. Jia Dairu, that down-and-out old scholar, can't teach anything, just muddling through the days of food and clothing."

"Young Lady, you are teasing me again."

That righteous school hasn't produced any successful candidates for decades. Back then, Jia Zhu and Jia Jing didn't study in the righteous school, but were successful in the Imperial Academy.

But after a conversation, Jia Cong felt that compared to his eighth-rank official status, Qin Ye cared more about his identity as a son of the Rongguo Prefecture.

He actually stuffed his son into the Jia family's righteous school to study. An official who passed the imperial examination actually scraped together twenty-four taels of silver to ask an old scholar to accept his son as a student.

In the original timeline, Qin Ye not only married his daughter into the Ningguo Prefecture but also tried every means to let his son go to the Jia family's righteous school to study.

Qin Zhong entered the Jia family's righteous school, but didn't learn anything good. Instead, he learned a set of dissolute and prodigal bad habits from Baoyu and Jia Rong, and finally died of illness due to his affair with the nun Zhinen.

Besides, the filthy inner bottom of the Ningguo Prefecture, with Qin Ye's status, he should have known a little bit, yet he still sent his flower-like daughter into it.

It tired a pair of children to lose their lives in this big mansion, and he himself was also angered to death. Thinking about it, it was also self-inflicted.

Now these things haven't happened yet. There are all kinds of people in the world. In the end, it has nothing to do with Jia Cong.

It's just that he felt a lot of sympathy for Qin Keqing. In the past, it was just a description in ink and paper, but seeing the real person at the dock, it was too stunning. Such an outstanding woman had to step into the filth.

However, the conversation with Qin Ye still let Jia Cong learn a lot of useful information.

These days, what he cared about most in his heart was the incident of the Japanese ronin causing trouble in Jin Ling. Qu Hongxiu specifically came to tell him before he set off, which showed that this matter had a significant impact.

It just so happened that Qin Ye knew a lot about this matter, because he was going to Jin Ling to coordinate the construction of the Daci'en Temple. Such a big event in Jin Ling city would probably affect the construction period of the Daci Temple.

So before he set off, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works, Li Dekang, had explained to him in detail the detailed reports of this case and the measures in the court, so that he could have a bottom in his heart when encountering things in Jin Ling.

And Jia Zheng, who was also in the Ministry of Works, because he could not attend court and had no official business, knew very little about this matter, so Jia Cong also had no way of knowing about this matter before receiving Qu Hongxiu's reminder.

According to Qin Ye, Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao was furious after receiving the urgent report from the Jin Ling garrison.

He had already sent an eight-hundred-li fast rider to order the Jin Ling Thousand-Household Office of the Embroidered Uniform Guard to arrest the eunuch Wang En, who had accepted bribes and provoked the trade dispute, and wait for investigation and conviction.

He also issued an imperial decree ordering the Second Prince, Prince Ning Li Zhongrui, to go to Jin Ling to take full charge of this matter.

Prince Ning's party had already set off for Jin Ling two days earlier than them.

This matter caused a sensation in the court. Conservative ministers wrote to the Emperor one after another, saying that Japanese barbarians were unclothed, no higher than bamboo stools, and poor and destitute, making it difficult to survive.

The national dynasty allowing them to trade was already a great imperial grace. They didn't know how to be grateful, killing court officials and slaughtering innocent people. If they were not brought to justice, where would the national dynasty's face be?

They also demanded that the Emperor return to the ancestral system, abolish the Shipping Department, and re-seal the border and sea to ensure the safety of the three-thousand-li sea territory and the safety of millions of people in several states.

The dispute in the court about opening the territory and sealing the territory became rampant again. The new and old factions chattered endlessly, making the Emperor annoyed.

In order to collect details and prevent the imperial ears from being blocked, it was rumored that the Emperor had secretly sent secret agents of the Zhongche Office to the south of the Yangtze River.

Two years ago, Jia Cong heard his teacher Liu Jingan mention that natural disasters had occurred frequently in the Great Zhou in recent years, the climate had become increasingly abnormal, and grain production in Hubei, Hunan, and Zhejiang had been decreasing year after year, making people's lives increasingly difficult.

In order to alleviate the pressure of governing the country, the Emperor forced his way through the opinions of others to reopen the sea territory, prospering trade with foreign barbarians in the far sea, in order to enrich the people and improve their livelihood.

And opened Shipping Departments in Jin Ling, Ningbo, and Fuzhou. In the past two years, the five coastal states had made huge profits due to the opening of the territory, and the people's livelihood had been greatly improved.

Although the scourge of pirates and Japanese pirates had arisen due to the flourishing sea trade, in Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao's view, it was just a minor skin disease and could not be choked by choking, hindering the great plan of opening the sea.

But in the court, ministers who had the same thoughts as Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao were only a minority, and most of them were supporters of the ancestral system of banning the sea.

And this chaos of Japanese people in the Jin Ling Shipping Department this time cast a shadow over the newly improved sea policy, making it precarious again.

The Emperor sent the Prince to handle this matter openly, and sent secret agents of the Zhongche Office to collect intelligence secretly.

The contest between the two new and old concepts was about to start a fight again.

In Jia Cong's cognition from his previous life, Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao had considerable foresight regarding sea policy.

In the previous life of Zhu Ming, sea policy had always been in a state of fluctuation between opening and banning.

In the early Qing Dynasty, out of defense against Zheng's family in Taiwan, the sea ban policy became increasingly strict, and there was even a saying that no sail could go to sea. For nearly a hundred years later, sea policy was in a rigid and conservative state.

This made the sprouts of handicraft industry that had already sprouted in China unable to be fully developed, losing the opportunity to integrate and connect with Western scientific knowledge and technology, leading to the backwardness and humiliation of China for more than a hundred years later.

Giving those foreign barbarians the opportunity to clamor that truth is only within the range of cannons.

Now in this branch of the timeline, history seemed to be entering a similar track. Does it mean that for hundreds of years to come, millions of people in China will still walk into the same vortex of suffering?

Jia Cong found that this trip to Jin Ling had brought him into contact with a huge change in this world that was still unknown.

(End of chapter)