Chapter 88 Whoever is beautiful can be Qinhuai Bayan, but whoever is sleeping with me can be Qinhuai
On the twentieth day of the first lunar month, Nanjing Household Department.
All morning, Zhang Guowei, the minister, was in charge of official duties in the Yamen, supervising and supervising the settlement of the accounts of the three people in various places in southern Zhili. He was very diligent in his work.
In the Ming Dynasty, the Six Ministries of Nanjing was a place where those who failed in political struggle could retire, and most of the officials did not pay much attention to their work.
It's not that they don't want to make progress, it's just that most of the people who can get through here have seen through the officialdom.
They all know that whether you can be promoted one step higher and return to the Northern Center does not depend on whether you work hard or whether you have achieved results. The key is whether the hole above can be vacated and whether any of the important officials in the Six Departments of the Capital have offended Chongzhen. Your Majesty, be removed to make room for your position. At the same time, it would be best to wait until your original political opponents are implicated and completely eliminated.
Whether you get promoted or not has nothing to do with your political performance and hard work, and most people will naturally have an equal fate.
Zhang Guowei is one of the few officials in Nanjing who thinks about how to apportion and collect taxes every day and collect three wages in full.
He was busy until noon and planned to take a break and have lunch. Suddenly, he heard an aide come in and announce that a distinguished guest was visiting:
"Your Excellency, Shen Shuren, the magistrate of Huangzhou, passed by Nanjing on his way to his appointment. He came here to pay a visit and would like to invite you to a banquet at noon."
Zhang Guowei was stunned: "Is he Shen Tingyang's son? I haven't had any contact with the Shen family in Suzhou for five or six years. Why did he suddenly come to visit? He didn't bring any gifts, right?"
"It seems that he brought a heavy gift." the staff replied truthfully.
Zhang Guowei frowned, fearing that something bad would happen, but he could only see him once.
It is not that he has no friendship with the Shen family. Six years ago, when he was the censor of the governor's capital in Su Song, he overhauled water conservancy, built embankments and seawalls along the rivers, and dredged the Wujiang River and Liuhe River to ensure that the overflowing Taihu Lake water could be discharged into the river. Yangtze.
(Note: Because Southern Zhili is governed by the six ministries of Nanjing, it is impossible to have an ordinary governor in Southern Zhili. The name is changed to "Governor Capital Yushi". The jurisdiction is generally much smaller than the province.
For example, Shi Kefa, the governor of Anlu, initially only patrolled two prefectures under the Southern Zhili, and Zhang Guowei's governor Su Song also only patrolled two prefectures. In areas other than the northern and southern Zhili, the governor mostly directly patrolled the entire province)
When Zhang Guowei was overhauling water conservancy, he relied heavily on the Shen family in Suzhou to finance the project, so Shen Tingyang was one of his financial backers at the time.
The son of the old financial owner comes to your door, so you can't refuse him.
…
The Yamen of Nanjing Liubu is not far from Gongyuan in the south of the city.
So a quarter of an hour later, Zhang Guowei was invited to a boat on the Qinhuai River, where Chen Shuren was already waiting politely.
This kind of high-end private banquet, dancing and singing girls are definitely indispensable, but Shen Shuren doesn't want to go to a brothel to treat guests and discuss state affairs.
So he spent a lot of money to invite oiran girls from several famous buildings to perform on the boat, which would not damage the reputation of the invitees but also fulfill the etiquette.
Chen Shuren didn't know many courtesans, so he didn't pretend to be pretentious and didn't care about the quality. He only picked out the points that he had heard of the names.
Some of them started their career early. They went to the Imperial Academy a year and a half ago and met them when they donated their official posts. They were considered familiar faces.
For example, the Liu Rushi and Gu Mei invited today are seniors in their twenties. Last year, they were present at the cultural conference where Shen Shuren slapped Gong Dingzi and Qian Qianyi.
There were also some young girls who had just entered the industry, who either had only met in literary circles before, or had never met them before, but after hearing their names, he did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to invite them to accompany him for drinks, including Li Xiangjun and Bian Sai.
These oirans from each building came out to have a drink and sing a song, even if they started with a few dozen taels of silver, they were not allowed to touch it.
Liu Rushi, Gu Mei and other old people, even if they really get involved, they can just pay extra.
If young court servants like Li Xiangjun and Bian Sai really cannot control themselves, they will be extorted at least several thousand taels of silver. These oiran combs usually cost more than a thousand taels of silver. It is still a fair deal negotiated in advance. If If you kill first and report later, you may get sued and the compensation may be doubled several times.
Fortunately, the major events Shen Shuren and Zhang Guowei planned, the gifts would cost at least several thousand taels, so the two hundred taels spent on inviting people to sing songs didn't matter.
As soon as Zhang Guowei got on the boat and saw this scene, his color suddenly changed and he couldn't go back.
He had seen at least three of these women on the boat. The other two were strangers, but their beauty was no worse than those three women he had seen before.
Especially the woman sitting next to Shen Shuren was even more beautiful. Not only the visitors were surprised, but even the other four invited ladies were a little ashamed.
Little did they know that everyone had guessed wrong. The most beautiful woman and the one closest to Shen Shuren was actually Chen Yuanyuan, the maid of the Shen family.
Zhang Guowei looked around, just pretending to educate the younger generation, sat down and smiled bitterly:
"My good nephew is very elegant, but he must be restrained. How can you be so shocking in this city of Nanjing? I have never seen anyone from the Imperial Academy who dares to invite even this little girl Bian."
"Really? My nephew has been out of town for a long time and doesn't know much about the current situation in Nanjing. Thanks to Uncle Shi for his advice." Shen Shu said calmly.
Zhang Guowei is forty-six years old this year, one year older than Shen Tingyang, so people in Shen Shu call him Shibo.
While the two were chatting and laughing, the young beauty they mentioned next to them, Bian Sai, who was only fifteen or sixteen years old, quickly explained with a sweet smile:
"Shilang Zhang was joking. The young lady has no close relationship with the Imperial Academy Master Wu Shanchang. It is all misinformation among the public. Wu Shanchang is a leader in the literary world, how can we be so high up there.
On the other hand, Shenfutai can be called the conscience of the world. The talents who have come out of Nanjing Imperial College in recent years are probably unparalleled. The little girl is young and has not had the chance to visit him in the past two years. I heard her sisters mention it and admire her very much. "
Hearing this, Chen Shuren also smiled confidently: "I see, if I really have a friendship with Wu Shanchang, I wouldn't be so rude as to ask you to sing a song. Don't trap me into not respecting my teacher enough."
Bian Sai's original name is Bian Sai. This name is not well known to the world, but her later ordination as a Taoist monk is widely known as "Taoist Yujing", and she is known as Bian Yujing in the world.
But when she first fell into the gentle hometown of Qinhuai, she also thought about admiring and clinging to Wu Weiye, the then director of the Imperial Academy of Nanjing. However, Wu Weiye had no money and probably didn't want to be entangled for the rest of his life, so he didn't let go of his promise.
In the end, Bian Sai was so disheartened that he saved enough money to redeem himself and become a monk without waiting for her husband to rescue her from the sea of misery.
Of course, none of this has happened yet. Historically, this happened after the fall of Nanming. It was only the beginning of the 14th year of Chongzhen, and Bian Sai had just met Wu Weiye not long ago.
Shen Shuren, who is familiar with history books, has seen through this every time he sees this: Most of the so-called Eight Beauties of Qinhuai are not really able to absolutely crush other courtesans in terms of beauty. The key is that they have many contacts with famous literati, so they stay here. Famous.
Let’s just say that among the four women invited today, three of them were historically married to the “Three Jiangzuo Families” as concubines, or at least attempted to be married as concubines.
Historically, Li Xiangjun, like Dong Xiaowan and Chen Yuanyuan, should have some relationship with the "Four Young Masters of Jiangdong", which covers six of the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai.
Only the eldest, Ma Xianglan, is deceased and has little connection with the literary giants of Jiangdong in the late Ming Dynasty. In addition, the youngest, Kou Baimen, has little sense of literary presence in the circle.
The remaining six are not the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai because they are beautiful, but they are the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai because they have stories with top writers. If the story of the top writers changed to another group of women, the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai would be the other eight people.
Therefore, since Chen Shuren has traveled through time, there will be no Qinhuai Eight Beauties in this world in the future.
When future history books evaluate women of this era, they will only use one standard to measure their beauty: whether this woman is a Shenshu woman.
He already knows that he is a history maker, so why does he still use his stamp collecting habit to collect famous women? No!
Whoever I sleep with will be remembered in history. The relationship between cause and effect cannot be reversed.
…
After chatting and laughing with some singing girls and drinking for three rounds, Shen Shuren and Zhang Guowei got to the point just right.
Chen Shuren took out his own gifts first, and there was no doubt that he would start with North Korean specialties such as ginseng and dongzhu.
It's not that these things are valuable, but that they can be used as "local specialties" to make people relax their guard.
Zhang Guowei was very cautious, worried that Shen Shuren would find him and bend the law for personal gain, so he couldn't help but ask:
"No reward will be given for no merit. Brother Ji Ming (Shen Tingyang) and I have not interacted with each other for five or six years. How can we accept such a heavy gift today? It is not appropriate."
"Hey, pearls, ginseng, and vegetables are just local products from the countryside. If Shibo had the opportunity to go to North Korea, he would know that these things are worthless in the local area, so they are of no concern."
Chen Shuren laid the groundwork, then changed his tone and gave him a good step to get off.
"Shibo, to be honest, I came to see you this time. First of all, I wanted to ask Shibo for help with a little matter - you must have heard that my nephew and my father presided over the change of water transportation to sea transportation a year and a half ago. Later, His Majesty once again gave him the task of resettling the people of Cao.
During this year, we built wharves in Wuzhong, dredged waterways, and dug mulberry fish ponds to relieve the surplus labor. However, there were many people and many things to do, which inevitably led to inefficiency in the future.
Fortunately, my nephew heard that Shibo wrote a "Wuzhong Water Conservancy Complete Book" at the end of the year before last year, covering the key water conservancy projects of the three Wu and seven prefectures. Why did my uncle just let people copy and borrow privately for such a good book instead of engraving it for publication? ?
My nephew occasionally got a manuscript. It was like a treasure. It really saved our father and son's urgent need. Today's gift is just to ask Shibo to authorize my nephew to engrave this book. Some pearls can be used as writing materials. A gentleman talks about what is right but not what is beneficial. I guess my future uncle will not be too dissatisfied."
Zhang Guowei was mentally prepared to be corrupted by the other party, and was just thinking about how to make himself more face-saving.
He never expected that Shen Shuren would find such an entry point, which made him feel extremely happy both mentally and materially.
As a literati, the most reasonable way to receive money is for your work to be appreciated by others, and others beg you to let them print your book and give you money.
"Wuzhong Water Conservancy Complete Book" is just Zhang Guowei's experience in water control during his six years as an official in Su Song. It was originally written to check for omissions and fill in the gaps. Now that others want to use it as a guide, he certainly feels honored.
For a moment, Zhang Guowei felt that the nephew in front of him was closer than his own son.
——
PS: There will be two updates tomorrow as usual. After 12 o'clock tomorrow night, even if it is Monday, chapters will be available at 12:30 am. There should be four updates by then, and there will be two updates during the day on Monday.
On the first day of release, we will strive for six updates without any surprises, and also provide additional updates from the leader of the alliance, "Brother Yun's FANS".
I strive to improve myself. I know that creating supporting characters is my shortcoming. This book is also an experience.
In the past, the Three Kingdoms had good results, which was equivalent to taking advantage of the fan fiction. The supporting characters were already deeply rooted in people's hearts and there was no need to create them. I only created one protagonist.
There are only a few supporting characters in the late Ming Dynasty, such as the image of Chongzhen Dorgon, which is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The other supporting characters used have to be shaped by myself. The problem with my character level was immediately revealed.
However, if you live and learn, you will never make progress if you don't write well in this book. This is also an experience in life transformation. So no matter what the results are, I will calm down and write well. Only by persevering to the end can progress be possible.
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