Chapter 1031 1026 [The Curiosity of Second Generation Officials]

After only three years of study, Lu You graduated from Taixue ahead of schedule.

This speed is very fast, but it is incomparable to those scroll kings in Taixue. He did not obtain the qualification of a Jinshi directly awarded by a Tai student, he just graduated successfully.

Even so, most scholars of the same age were left behind.

Because the Taixue graduation exam is difficult, the passing rate is only slightly higher than the provincial exam. Even if you cannot be directly awarded a Jinshi, as long as you successfully graduate, you will automatically have the status of a scholar.

This Juren status can be retained for nine years. There is no need to take the hard work of taking the government examination or the provincial examination. You can directly participate in the examination held by the Ministry of Rites.

The graduation celebration was over, and the Taixue graduates went their separate ways.

Some stayed in the capital to continue their studies, some went to local academies to study, some chose to go home and study hard behind closed doors, and some chose to travel around together to study... to prepare for the next capital exam.

In fact, they can become senior officials. As long as they don't make mistakes, they will definitely become low-ranking officials within three years.

After all, he is a graduate of Taixue University!

However, the development prospects of official transfer are limited. Taixue graduates disdain this and would rather continue to study hard and pass the Jinshi examination.

Lu You's biological father is already the Minister of Rites. In order to avoid suspicion, he does not plan to take part in the examination next year.

Well, actually these are all excuses.

Although the examination was organized and organized by the Ministry of Rites, officials from the Ministry of Rites had to avoid it starting from the Northern Song Dynasty. That is to say, officials from the Ministry of Rites are only responsible for organizing examinations and are not allowed to participate in setting questions, invigilating examinations and marking papers. It is impossible for Lu You to cheat from his father.

Lu You just wanted to walk around and travel around the country with his sword.

This trend arose after the fall of the Jin Kingdom. Rich families who were not sure about passing the imperial examination and were not short of money invited each other to travel around with their entourage.

Lu You had a total of four companions on this study tour.

They all have quite a lot of background.

One is Wang Lianqing, the son of the great painter Wang Zhi. His grandfather was a student of Ouyang Xiu, and his mother was the granddaughter of Zeng Bu.

One is named Qi Qi'an, the son of Qi Chongli, Qing of Taichang Temple. His cousin is Li Qingzhao, and his teacher is retired Prime Minister Zhai Ruwen.

One named Bai Shihou, the second son of Bai Sheng, the leader of the palace guards.

One is named Fan Chengda. This person is from the same hometown as Fan Zhongyan's family, and the two families are collectively known as the "Suzhou Second Fan". His father, Fan Yu, was a Jinshi scholar during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty. He was nominally a student of Ju Ming - Ju Ming had served as a scholar. Therefore, Fan Yu did well in the Ming Dynasty and was an official of the "Tai School".

The civil servant factions of the Ming Dynasty included the Qianchen faction, the Sichuan faction, the Jiangxi faction, the Shandong faction, the Taixue faction, and the Tongnian faction.

The core of the Qianchen faction is Ju Ming's old acquaintances or officials before he started his army.

The Sichuan faction refers to the officials who took refuge with Zhu during his occupation of Sichuan.

The Jiangxi faction was originally a faction formed around Prime Minister Zhang Gen.

The Shandong faction was initially formed around Prime Minister Zhai Ruwen, but later split into two forces. One group is Zhai Ruwen's former disciple, and the other group is led by Qin Hui - Qin Hui has been living in Shandong for many years.

The Taixue School was headed by Chen Dong and Wei Liangchen.

The same-year faction, with Zhu Ming's Jinshi in the same year as its core, Qin Hui was also one of them.

Some factions are declining rapidly, while new factions are emerging.

Generally speaking, the Qianchen sect, Sichuan sect, and Taixue sect are now the strongest, and they are intertwined with each other!

…

But it is said that the five of them traveled far together, and their entourage totaled more than ten.

Bai Shihou alone brought five followers out. His mother could not stop her son, so she could only give him bodyguards, three of whom were retired sergeants.

Other scholars chose to visit famous mountains and rivers when traveling with swords. Those who liked frontier fortresses went to Ningxia, Liaodong, and the northern grasslands.

But Lu You and the others all have a copy of "Arabian Nights", so it's obvious where they want to run!

Of course, these guys are all from well-known families and would not dare to tell their parents the truth. They claimed that they were going to the southern provinces, and their travel route was along the canal south to the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers, then up the Yangtze River to the Lianghu and Sichuan, and finally along the Shu Road north through Shaanxi and back to Luoyang.

In reality?

Outside Shangqiu City, on the Bian River, among the passenger ships.

Qi Qi'an said: "There is a flood in the southeast, and I don't know if the flood has receded. We can go to sea from Dengrai, first go to Korea, and then go to Japan. When the wind and water are favorable, we will go from Japan to Fujian and Zhejiang, and then take a boat to Nanyang. My family is in Shandong, and before going to sea, I can also visit Mount Tai with you."

Wang Lianqing didn't care about this: "It's all good, you make up your mind."

"I'll go to Shandong next time," Fan Chengda said. "In "Arabian Nights", there is not a single story from Goryeo, and only one story was recorded from Japan. It is best to go directly to Nanyang. When passing by Jiangnan, I will take you Go to Suzhou for fun.”

Lu You asked Bai Shihou: "Where do you want to go from Brother Pu?"

"Anyone can do it," Bai Shihou said with a smile, "Except for Hanzhong, Hubei and the East and West Beijing, I have never been to other places. This trip is just to broaden my horizons. I can take any route."

"Then let's draw lots." Lu You said.

There are ten paper balls with the words north and south written on them respectively.

The five people grabbed the paper balls and spread them out, but they were three to the south and two to the north.

The next day, they took a boat along the Bianhe River to the southeast, traveling around the mountains and rivers to visit celebrities.

After passing Linhuai, he encountered a large lake and invited local scholars to play. The five of them also left some beautiful poems.

The Hongze Lake at this time is to the east of the Hongze Lake in later generations.

Huaiyin City is on the north bank of Hongze, where there are several sections of canals built in the Northern Song Dynasty: the canal going north from Yangzhou relies on the Shahe River, Guishan Canal, and Hongzexin River to connect to the Bianhe River, avoiding the dangerous areas of the Huaihe River, passing through Huaiyin City, Hongze Ze Town, Guishan Town and other towns.

The northernmost end of the Yangzhou Canal is Shanyang (Huaian), the capital of Huainan Province in the Ming Dynasty.

Li Zuqia, a local scholar and nephew of Prime Minister Li Hanzhang, said to them when they were visiting the lake: "If you are not in a hurry to go south, you can follow me to Lianshui to climb Haidai Tower. Along the way, the rice is fragrant and the frogs are chirping. It is a land of fish and rice. This year There are floods in the south of the Yangtze River, and the transport of grain to the north depends entirely on me in Huainan!"

Bai Shihou asked: "Where Lianshui enters the sea, is there a port?"

Li Zuqia said: "There is a small seaport, but it is not used for maritime trade. It is used for collecting salt ships. The two Huainan chief secretaries have requested to open a port in Lianshui outer port, but the court has never approved it."

At this time, Huainan was also a land of plenty.

The Huai River and Si River meet to form Lianshui, flowing eastward into the sea.

The entrance to the sea is in Wugang Town, Lianshui in later generations. As for the cities and counties further east such as Binhai, Sheyang, Xiangshui, etc., it is still a vast ocean.

From the Huaisi area to the estuary, the water network on both sides of the strait is densely covered. There are natural rivers, canals and irrigation channels, as well as lakes dotted here and there. Most of the river sections are flood-free because there are so many lakes to discharge floods.

Nowadays, it is prohibited to create farmland around all lakes, and irrigation canals have been dug based on the Northern Song Dynasty.

The irrigation canals were also divided into three levels according to the standards of the Northern Song Dynasty. One more first-level canal was dug, four more second-level canals were dug, and hundreds of third-level canals were dug.

As long as the Yellow River does not come to seize Huai, Huainan and Jiangnan can protect each other. If grain production in one region decreases, another region will support it.

Hebei's water network is still under management, and the population in Hebei and Hunan is also increasing.

It is estimated that in another ten years, Hebei and Hunan will also become big granaries. Especially the Dongting Lake area.

Coupled with the two major grain-producing areas of Henan and Sichuan, as long as there are no natural disasters across several provinces, the entire Ming Dynasty's food will be guaranteed.

At that time, control over cotton fields can also be relaxed, and farmers in Shandong and Jiangnan can grow cotton - Shandong cotton is the best, followed by Zhejiang cotton.

Bai Shihou was curious about everything he saw. He pointed to the rows of boathouses by the lake and asked, "Do those fishermen usually live in the lake?"

Fan Cheng laughed and said: "They are all fishermen, and there are more in Jiangnan."

Although Bai Shihou came from a family of military commanders and had practiced martial arts since childhood, he was a proper scholar: "How do those fishermen pay taxes?"

Li Zuqia said: "The fishing classes in the former Song Dynasty were very chaotic. The Ming Dynasty was now organized into Baojia and unified the fishing and salt classes. The number of fishermen in Hongze is actually smaller than before. In the late Song Dynasty, some fishermen took refuge in Songjiang to cause chaos. , some defected to Fang Ge Lao (Fang Mengqing) and became officers and soldiers, and some defected to Yan Xiao to fight against Fang Ge Lao. "

In the Northern Song Dynasty, the tax on fishermen was relatively light, but the operation made it difficult for fishermen to survive.

Especially during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, the government contracted large areas of water to powerful people through buying and selling. Then the powerful took over the waters and exploited the fishermen there crazily. At the same time, the government also illegally collected miscellaneous taxes from fishermen. For example, a large number of fishermen in Liangshanbo fled to Songjiang, and they had reached the point where they would die if they did not rebel.

Li Zuqia smiled and said: "Now that the Holy Emperor is in court, even the children of fishermen can take part in the imperial examination. Because taxes have been reduced, some fishermen's children actually go to village schools, and a fisherman's scholar came out of Huaiyin County. After the results were released, Hong Ze The fishermen from the lake all sailed to his house to propose marriage. At that time, thousands of boats gathered together, which was a spectacle. "

"A child as poor as a fisherman can still become a scholar. I guess he is born with the seed of reading." Lu You couldn't help but admire.

Li Zuqia smiled and said: "This scholar from a fisherman's family got married last year and became the son-in-law of a fish farmer."

"I'm not short of money to study." Fan Chengda said.

Many industries in the Song Dynasty developed explosively, one of which was aquaculture.

There is a special fish bucket for selling fish fry, which is made of bamboo and lined with lacquered paper. The water should be changed several times a day to prevent the fry from dying of lack of oxygen, and the fry should be stopped and stirred from time to time so that the fry can be transported to distant places for sale.

If you can start a fish fry breeding business, you must be a big landowner and have your own fish fry pond.

The offshore fishing industry in the Song Dynasty also developed explosively.

During the fish season along the coasts of Fujian and Zhejiang, fishermen went out to fish one after another, with as many as a million fishing boats. Historically, this prosperity of offshore fishing gradually declined in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty. Because a large number of boat owners were forcibly recruited into the navy, batch after batch died during the resistance against gold. Then pirates appeared everywhere, and fishermen turned into bandits to attack each other, and even went to plunder coastal villages, and were eventually surrounded and suppressed by the officers and soldiers of the Southern Song Dynasty.

In this time and space, the offshore fishing industry along the coasts of Huainan, Zhejiang, and Fujian has not been severely damaged, but has continued to prosper and develop.

Moreover, the fishing area is getting larger and farther from the coast, and the tonnage of fishing boats is also increasing.

The industrial chain has become richer.

For example, the by-product rubber swim bladder is a necessary material for making crossbows. Now the price has become even lower. There are many workshops in coastal areas that make rubber swim bladders.

And because salt is a monopoly, each salt production area has designated an exclusive sales area. The areas where the offshore fishing industry is developed happen to be the production areas of sea salt, so they are crazy about salting salted fish, giving you the wonder of one pound of salted fish and half a pound of salt and selling it to other places.

This disguised practice of selling illegal salt has been strongly resisted by officials in other salt-producing areas.

As a result, salted fish sold across provinces will be heavily taxed by customs along the way.

Li Zuqia introduced the fishery and salt industry in Huainan, and said in a joking tone: "For the people of the Ming Dynasty in the counties east of Huaidong, fish and salt are cheap, and every household can afford to eat salted fish. Even the well-off families can eat salted fish three times a day. It is estimated that this is the place where people eat the most meat in the whole Ming Dynasty. It's a pity that it can't be shipped out. The tax for shipping out of Huainan alone is higher than the price of local salted fish."

"This tax is a bit heavy." Qi Qi'an sighed.

Li Zuqia smiled and said, "Not heavy at all. Those who sell salted fish across provinces, what they sell is not fish? You can't see the fish at all. One catty of fish can shake out more than half a catty of salt. You Shandong also have such merchants, who are trying to exploit the loopholes in the Ming Dynasty Law."

Several people talked nonsense on Hongze Lake, and Li Zuqia took them to Lianshui to climb the Haidai Tower.

A month later, they continued to go south, and the team grew again.

Li Zuqia, the nephew of the then Prime Minister Li Hanzhang, unexpectedly decided not to take the imperial examination for the time being, and went south with his followers to study (sea).

Six second-generation officials, all hid it from their families, and went to seek death regardless of the dangers of the sea.

It was all because of that Arabian Nights!