Liu Bowen proposed this method because he knew that Zhu Yuanzhang had been thinking about Shen Wansan's cornucopia, but he couldn't tell it explicitly and had no good way to keep it for himself.
Liu Bowen happened to take advantage of this incident to borrow flowers as a blessing, and helped Zhu Yuanzhang find a suitable reason to borrow the cornucopia.
Of course the wise Zhu Yuanzhang knew Liu Bowen's intentions, but he still listened to Liu Bowen's suggestion and issued an order to borrow the cornucopia from Shen Wansan.
The wealthy Shen Wansan was not a fool. He knew that this was a trick, so how could he obediently offer up the cornucopia?
Zhu Yuanzhang knew in his heart that Shen Wansan would not give away the cornucopia so easily. Borrowing the cornucopia was no less than borrowing Shen Wansan's life.
So Zhu Yuanzhang repeatedly promised that he would only borrow it for one night and would return it when the rooster crows at midnight.
Shen Wansan heard that he was only borrowing it for one night and was embarrassed to refuse. After all, the world belonged to the Zhu family.
Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang lent the cornucopia to build a city wall to protect his country, so he lent the cornucopia to Zhu Yuanzhang.
After Zhu Yuanzhang borrowed the cornucopia, he ordered people to fill in the soil under the city wall and fill the foundation tightly. He did not bury the cornucopia under the city wall at all.
Because the base was filled with soil tightly, the foundation of the city wall that was built again became very strong and did not collapse again.
The day will pass in the blink of an eye, and it will soon be time to return the cornucopia.
How could Zhu Yuanzhang be willing to return the cornucopia that he finally obtained so easily?
Zhu Yuanzhang promised Shen Wansan that he would have to return the cornucopia at the fifth watch of the day when the rooster crows. Jun Wu joked, but was there any way to avoid returning the cornucopia?
Zhu Yuanzhang thought about it and finally thought of a way.
If there was no fifth watch, wouldn’t there be no need to return the cornucopia?
So Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the people who called the watch to start from now on, and end after the third watch, and they were not allowed to continue the watch.
In ancient times, to judge time, look at the sun during the day and the moon at night.
According to the position of the moon in the sky, the person who calls the watch determines what time it is, and then starts to call the watch.
Zhu Yuanzhang asked the watchmen not to watch the fifth watch. His meaning was very clear, that is to tell people that there will be no fifth watch from now on.
Therefore, later in Nanjing City and Jiangnan area, the watch was only called to the third watch, and after the third watch, there was no one to call the watch.
The problem of the late watch has been solved, but there is still the problem of the rooster crowing as soon as the fifth watch arrives, and the cornucopia still has to be returned.
In order to prevent the roosters from crowing, Zhu Yuanzhang had all the roosters in the city killed overnight so that there would be no roosters crowing after the fifth watch.
Zhu Yuanzhang solved both the problem of late watch and the problem of cockcrow, so the cornucopia did not need to be returned.
"Guo Guo, have you ever heard of the saying: No duck can leave Nanjing alive?"
At this point in the story, Chu Jiu nodded. Sure enough, I had heard the story of the Zhonghuamen Cornucopia.
"What does this sentence mean? I have never heard of it."
I don’t know why when Chujiu mentioned the cornucopia and the follow-up story, I couldn’t help but swallow my saliva.
After all the chickens in the city were killed, the crowing problem was only temporarily solved, but as long as people in the city raised chickens again, the chickens would still crow at the fifth watch.
In order to occupy the cornucopia for a long time, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that Nanjing City would not allow chickens to be raised in the future, and anyone found raising chickens would be punished by death.
From then on, no one in Nanjing dared to raise chickens, and the cornucopia borrowed by Zhu Yuanzhang never had to be returned.
In order to make a living, since the people couldn't raise chickens, they should raise ducks, so people in the city started raising ducks one after another.
When there were more ducks, people tried to find ways to eat ducks. They made the duck meat into salted duck, salted duck, and made the duck's offal into duck blood and vermicelli soup.
Therefore, Nanjing's Jinling salted duck, Jinling salted duck, Jinling duck blood vermicelli soup and other duck products are still very famous to this day.
"It is said that Peking duck was also passed down when Zhu Di moved the capital."
Chujiu swallowed his saliva. One day he must go to Nanjing to eat all kinds of ducks, and then go to the capital to eat Peking duck.
When talking about going to the capital to eat Peking duck, Chujiu grinned and wondered if Wan Li would feel distressed.
"Chujiu, do you think Shen Wansan's cornucopia was really brought to Beijing by Zhu Yuanzhang?"
Chu Jiu rolled his eyes at me. This is just a folk story with no research at all. Besides, how could there be a cornucopia in the world? Shen Wansan's wealth is due to his good business acumen.
I nodded. It was true that there was no way there could be a cornucopia in the world. Maybe it was just a story made up by folk storytellers, probably just to find a gimmick for the origin of ducks in Jinling.
"But I also read a piece of news in Taoist books that Shen Wansan and Liu Bowen have a very good relationship."
On Chujiu, he planned to go to the next service area to refuel and take a rest in the middle. He casually said that if there really was a cornucopia, Shen Wansan had brought it to his own tomb, and there was no way it could be handed over to Zhu Yuanzhang.
"How to say?"
Chujiu analyzed that it was also painful for Liu Bowen to be caught between the two. If it were not for his unparalleled wisdom and proficiency in the Book of Changes, he might have been beheaded when he made Nanjing his capital.
Although Shen Wansan was extremely wealthy and well-rounded in the country's business circle, he could not figure out the emperor's thoughts no matter how powerful he was.
After Zhu Yuanzhang established his capital in Nanjing, he decided to expand Yingtian City and prepare to build it more grandly so that it would look like an imperial capital.
However, due to frequent wars and huge expenditures in the early Ming Dynasty, there was no money to build the city wall.
The wealthy Shen Wansan, in line with his attitude of serving the country and the people, agreed to be responsible for the construction of the section from Jubao Gate to Shuixi Gate, as well as related projects such as housing, streets, bridges, water gates and residences.
Shen Wansan not only hired first-class construction craftsmen, but also spent all day on the construction site supervising the progress and checking the quality of the project. It can be said that he devoted himself wholeheartedly.
Although some "inspectors" often went to the construction site to cause trouble and gain money, Shen Wansan still completed the city wall built by the royal family three days ahead of schedule.
He thought that such a laborer would definitely be rewarded, but he didn't know that this would just refute the emperor's face.
Shen Wansan knew that the treasury was short of silver, so he took the initiative to propose to Zhu Yuanzhang that he was willing to provide one million taels of gold to reward the three armies on behalf of the emperor.
The emperor verbally commended Shen Wansan in front of all the ministers. After returning to the palace, Ming Taizu Long Yan was furious and furious. He had already decided to confiscate Shen Wansan's family property and send him to the border of Yunnan.
The ministers in the court did not know the specific reason for Zhu Yuanzhang's anger. They were afraid of getting burned, so they only gave advice during the court meeting to take care of the dragon's body.
How could Liu Bowen, who had a demonic mind, not know the reason? His good friend had done bad things with bad intentions, and had ruined the royal family's face. Zhu Yuanzhang would definitely not let him off easily.
So Liu Bowen rushed to Shen Wansan's residence overnight and told him that no matter what, he would keep his name even if he lost everything, so that he would not have to worry about having no firewood to burn the green hills.