Chapter 567 The new clan and the second northern tour
On the first day of November, Baoqin and An Bi gave birth to children almost at the same time. Baoqin gave birth to a daughter, and An Bi gave birth to a son.
Of course Yunxi was happy, especially for the daughter Baoqin gave birth to. Even not counting the child An Bin had just given birth to, he already had three sons, but before that he only had one daughter, Min'er.
Baoqin herself was not satisfied with giving birth to a daughter: although she already had a son, she still wanted another son. But when she saw that Yunxi doted on this daughter, she turned from anger to joy.
Min'er was even more happy to have a little sister. Every day she brought Si Qi to Chengqian Palace to hold Qin to see her little sister; Yun Lan, Yun Yun and Yun Zhi were also very happy about the newborn baby.
The girl liked it very much.
After he was happy, he decided to name his son. Yunxi had already thought of the name of his son before the two of them were born, and named the fourth son born to An Bin Wenkun. But the name of his second daughter made him a little troubled.
His eldest daughter was named Zhu Min, and the name was derived from the word "anti-wen". There are many words in the word "fan-wen", but many of them are not suitable for girls, such as "zheng" and "she". Should he give his daughter a name?
Is it possible to name Zhu Zheng, Zhu She?
So Yunxi finally decided to name his second daughter Zhu Wenyi. Yi's original meaning was happiness, and he hoped that his daughter would always be happy.
Then Xiyao asked tentatively: "Your Majesty, Concubine An gave birth to a prince for Your Majesty, can you promote her to a concubine?"
"No need. In the future, there may be other concubines or even noble people who will give birth to princes for me, but I don't have that many concubines for them." Yunxi said.
The ministers in the court naturally wanted to congratulate His Majesty on having a prince, but it was just a false story. Their eyes were fixed on Queen Xiyao's belly to see whether the queen would give birth to a prince or a princess.
…
…
In this way, half a month passed. Yunxi did not start taking care of the government affairs seriously again until he was sure that the two children were in good health and there was no risk of premature death. He also thought of Fang Mingqian again and asked him to enter the palace to meet the saint.
At this time, Fang Mingqian had been in the capital for ten days and was so idle that he was almost growing hairy. Hearing His Majesty's summons, he hurried into the palace to see him.
As soon as Yunxi saw him, he smiled and asked, "How much gold did you bring back to me this time?"
Fang Mingqian also smiled and replied: "Your Majesty, I brought back 350,000 taels of gold from Jinning this time."
Then he explained: "Your Majesty, all the open-pit gold mines on the surface have been mined, so there is only so much gold this time. I wanted to search for other gold mines nearby, but first, I keep your Majesty in mind
According to the original instructions, this time we have to explore north and northeast, so it is difficult to leave people to search for gold in Jinning; and the extreme north has become cold early, so I was not able to search for gold near Jinning in the end."
In fact, there was one thing Fang Mingqian kept hidden, that is, he found that the open-pit gold mine was much less than when he left last time.
"That's all. Although gold is good, the crew of your fleet is more precious than gold. It's not worth losing money for a little gold." Yunxi said.
What he said was true. This fleet has explored the north twice and has the richest experience in cold zone navigation in the East. No amount of gold can buy this. If there are tens of thousands of taels of gold and the number of this fleet,
If he had to choose one of the thousands of crew members, Yunxi would definitely choose thousands of crew members.
But Yunxi's words made the kneeling generals below feel extremely emotional. This time Yunxi not only summoned Fang Mingqian, but also summoned three middle- and lower-level generals whom he recommended, all of whom had performed extremely well in these two explorations. Yunxi
You should commend them in person and promote them.
After these three people returned, they told the rest of the fleet what Yun Xi had just said, which moved the ordinary soldiers very much. These soldiers later became the most loyal soldiers to Yun Xi.
Fang Mingqian continued: "Your Majesty, this time I went north to explore Beijing and carved stone records again. And this time I actually found someone moving in Beijing."
"I was very surprised at the time and wanted to talk to the locals. However, they didn't understand Chinese or Mongolian at all. I couldn't talk to them at all. In the end, I just used the flour cakes in my hands to exchange for a lot of local furs. Many of them were precious. I
I have never seen a white bear (polar bear) skin before. There is a white bear skin that is very complete without a trace of stray hair. I would like to present it to your majesty. Only your majesty is worthy of this kind of skin."
Yunxi smiled and said: "Then I will be disrespectful." Then he thought: Beijing is around 66 degrees north latitude, and the west coast of the Bering Strait is the Chukotka region of later Russia. These people should be the Chukotka people.'
'A complete polar bear skin is more popular than tiger skin, it makes people excited just thinking about it.'
Yun He lowered his head and looked at the expressions of the young generals behind Fang Mingqian. Most of them were thinking of the skins they had obtained from the Chukchi people in exchange for flour cakes, and they looked like they had taken advantage of them.
'For you, it's a big advantage, because just one of these skins can be exchanged for thousands of flat cakes; but for the Chukchi people, aren't they taking a big advantage? They can use these cakes
Buy more skins from neighboring tribes.'
'The biggest use of trade is to make things that are not considered wealth at all in a certain place become wealth, thereby creating value.' Yunxi thought.
Fang Mingqian continued: "Then I continued to lead the fleet to sail eastward. Not long after, I came to an island. This island is long from east to west and short from north to south, and the area is not small. After I carved a stone record on this island, I
Just keep sailing east."
"Not long after we headed east again, we came to a piece of land. It was difficult for me to determine whether this piece of land was an island or a continent, because I led the fleet to the southeast along the coastline of the land and never saw the border."
"I led the fleet along the coastline for a month. The weather there was very cold, and I wanted to lead the fleet back to the Ming Dynasty. It happened that I saw an island, and saw that there were islands to the west of the island, so I stopped
Follow the coastline of the large landmass, approach the island and head southwest."
"Later, I discovered that this is an archipelago composed of many islands, extending from the easternmost island near a large landmass to the west, and the islands are continuous."
"And when we arrived at the westernmost point of the archipelago, we could see with clairvoyance that there was a large island farther west. I led the fleet to this island, and it turned out that this island was Jinning Island."
Fang Mingqian’s narration is a bit confusing. Let’s sort it out again. The geographical direction is: there is a string of islands to the east of Kinning (Kamchatka Peninsula). Sail northeast along this string of islands, and finally you can reach a large area with no visible borders.
land.
"This string of islands should be the Aleutian Islands; as for the land to the east, it is certain that it is America. The Ming Dynasty has discovered America." Yunxi suddenly became excited.
After getting excited, he realized that he had made a mistake before. The Aleutian Islands are far south of the Bering Strait, and the straight-line distance should be thousands of miles, and you can reach the American continent along the Aleutian Islands; so he asked him before
It is of little significance to explore northward to the Bering Strait. After discovering Jinning, he can completely explore eastward to discover the Aleutian Islands and then reach the American continent.
"Fortunately, I made a mistake. Although I took a detour, I still discovered the Aleutian Islands and the road to the American continent." Yunxi comforted himself.
"The minister led the fleet from Jinning and returned along the Thousand Islands."
"While passing through the Tsugaru Strait, I received complaints from the Ainu people that the Fuso people did not implement the Ming Dynasty's mediation in summer and autumn and went north to invade them. However, this time the Fuso people did not occupy a certain area in the southern Ainu land.
They lived everywhere, but they all returned to Honshu Island before winter came." Fang Mingqian said.
Yunxi had known about it before, and Yongfan had reported the matter to him three times before. However, because Yokohama had not yet been obtained, Yunxi tolerated Fuso for the time being, and planned to wait until Yokohama was obtained before sending the imperial navy wearing Yongfan's vest to interfere.
Fuso people's aggressive behavior.
'Now the Fuso people have not set up settlements in the northern Ainu land, and they are probably still wary of the Ming Dynasty's mediation. So they are not in a hurry for a year and a half. Moreover, the Ainu people are not as fat as they described.
Like sheep. I'm afraid they also sent people to harass the Fusang people.' Yunxi thought.
He nodded to indicate that he understood the matter, and asked Fang Mingqian to continue describing what he saw and heard during his expedition north.
Fang Mingqian was a little strange, but he did not ask and continued: "For safety reasons, the fleet of the emperor did not go along the west coast of Honshu Island, but sailed directly to the Yongming Sea (Fuso Sea), and stopped in Busan for repairs.
Return to Ming Dynasty."
"But on the way, I encountered a sea area with wooden boards floating everywhere, and there were people calling for help in Chinese and Korean. I rescued a few people, and after questioning, I learned that they were the navy of Korea, sent north by the king.
We were exploring, but unfortunately we encountered a storm and the ship sank."
"I was so frightened that I broke out in a cold sweat! If the fleet led by me had passed here a few days earlier, a large number of ships would have sunk. I immediately ordered the fleet to sail west, and then sail close to the east coast of North Korea.
After Busan, the rescued North Koreans will be put down."
'Zhu Fangyuan sent them out to look for gold. They may have even found gold, but the ship sank on the way back. It's really bad luck. However, North Korea's shipbuilding technology is not very good, so it is normal for it to sink in a storm.'
'I just don't know if Fusang sent a fleet to look for gold or if it found gold.' Yunxi thought.
"Afterwards, I led the fleet to rest in Busan for a few days, then set off again to return to Daming, and returned to Liujiagang on October 27 this year." Fang Mingqian finally said.
