Chapter 180: Departure from the capital

Early in the morning, Princess Lin’an woke up quietly, warm and melting, comfortable stretching waist, feet “clang” stirred to the table leg.

Bewildered, she opened her misty eyes to see a bleak white sky, and at this time of day, the sun had not yet risen.

Framed like a one-night hangover in a nightclub, his eyes go from dazed to confused, wondering if he’s looking at the wrong thing, why he’s seeing not a brocade bedspread but the breaking dawn sky.

There was a little “hmmm”, a little moan.

Last night’s scene, walking through her mind, she remembered, the night with Xu Ning Banquet canoeing the pool, drinking and chatting.

Perhaps because she had never had such an experience before, she agreed to Little Cauldron’s proposal in one breath. For an unmarried princess, such a bold behavior would be enough to ruin her reputation if word got out.

Then later, probably after some drinks, she let her guard down more and more and followed his words, ghosting toward the board.

After seeing the sky full of stars, framed the whole heart is drunk, only “drunkenly do not know the sky in the water, full of dreams of the boat pressed the river of stars,” the mood of the mind.

Like a maniac.

Then he did not want to get up again, and fell into a deep sleep through his drink.

It was so warm, even in the middle of winter, sleeping on the boat, she didn’t feel cold, but rather had the warmth of returning to her mother’s body.

But now there is no mood to pay attention to this, framed panicked sat up, found herself covered with brocade quilt, she subconsciously wanted to lift it, and then paused, nervously felt her body in the bedding, to make sure that the clothing is intact, and her body has no adverse reaction.

For example, the book often talks about the pain of breaking gua.

Framed breathed a sigh of relief, looked left and right, saw the courtesans guarding the shore, and changed from the hungover nightclub framed, back to the dignified Lin’an princess.

She called out to the guard waiting on the shore and asked him to leap onto the crow’s nest boat and help row to the shore, casually asking, “When did Lord Xu leave?”

“It left before dawn.” The courtesan replied in a thin voice.

Prosper nodded a little ruefully, remembering the warmth of yesterday’s sensation, and after careful comparison, realizing that it was not the bedding that had brought it on, he asked with a stern face:

“What mischief did he do last night?”

“Yes there is.”

The courtesan with dark circles under her eyes, who hadn’t slept all night, took the opportunity to complain, “She’s slighting the princess.”

“Huh?” Advent looked terrified.

“He kept holding the princess’s hand.” The palace maid said with a hateful voice, “Before he left this morning, he even slapped the slave girl’s…buttocks and threatened me not to tell the princess.”

How could it be so excessive? Lin An’s willow eyebrows rose up, with a kind of shameful anger of looking at the wrong person.

“Second Princess…” the guard wanted to speak.

“Swallow.” Prosper gave him a displeased look.

“It’s freezing cold, the princess sleeps on the ship, a single bedding can’t withstand the cold.” The guards explained:

“My humble servant saw clearly last night that Lord Xu stayed up all night, holding the Princess’s hand as he was transmitting your chi and dispelling the cold.”

Ferrying the gas machine …. A night without sleep …. Framed froze, remembering that he did sleep comfortably last night, and foxed:

“Why hasn’t this palace heard of such a thing, and no one has ever delivered chi for this palace.”

“This…” the guard laughed bitterly, “Transmitting qi without stopping for a night is energy consuming, who can hold out. Unless it’s a mid-grade martial artist, or a high-grade martial artist.

“Furthermore, the Princess is well-dressed and doesn’t need this.”

Framed bit his lip and tried, “How tired is it?”

The guard replied, “In my place, I would have died of exhaustion long ago.”

Her watery peach blossom eyes swung up all of a sudden, sheepish and soft.

“Xu, when Lord Xu left, he seemed… to have a tired face.” The palace maid recalled, “But why didn’t he let the slave girl say anything.”

Lin An did not answer this question, suddenly walked toward the outside: “He is leaving the capital this morning to go far away to Yunzhou, what time is it now, this palace is going to send him ….”

For some reason, inexplicable waves rippled through her heart, just wanting to see that dog slave.

“Your Highness, it’s past the dawning hour…” the courtesan went to chase after her, “Besides, what kind of princess goes to deliver a gong, if word gets out, it’s not good for you, or for him.”

The words made the capricious Protoan pause.

As far as I’m concerned, I’ll only be scolded by my father …. But if it is about my honor and integrity, he is a small gong, will certainly be subjected to the dumping of …. Lin An swept a glance at the palace maid and the guards, and his round goose egg face rarely showed the majesty of the heavenly family:

“It is a matter of honor for this palace, last night’s events shall not be spread abroad, or else they will all be caned.”

“Yes.”

……

It was a long way from the capital to Yunzhou, and in order to save time, this team of Chinamen traveling to Yunzhou chose to take the waterway, eschewing the dry road.

The official ship cuts through the waves and the sails are fiercely inspiring.

Xu Qi’an stood on the deck, facing the wind blowing from the river as ships of all sizes sailed the river. There were both official and merchant ships.

“You don’t look well, overworked.” Jiang Ruizhong came onto the deck and stood shoulder to shoulder with him, glancing sideways at Xu Qi’an and smiling softly.

“Went to the Churchyard yesterday?”

“…. Hmm.” Xu Qi’an was speechless.

He did go to the Churchyard, and had a pre-parting exchange with Fuuka. But the real reason for the fatigue was being drained of energy by the framing, it was just something that couldn’t be said.

“Look at you, you’re still too young and have shallow eyes.” Jiang Ruizhong propped his hands on the guardrail with an old driver’s smile:

“Yunzhou also has a teaching department, and the body of a Jiangnan woman is soft and her voice is soft and moistened, and the taste is different from that of a woman in the capital. I’ll bring you back to experience it.”

“It’s not the same.” Xu Qi’an shook his head.

“You’re rather an infatuated person?” Jiang Ruizhong was surprised.

This has nothing to do with infatuation, this has to do with white whoring ….. Xu Qi’an said in a deep voice, “Unless Jiang Jinluo treats us.”

“What?” Jiang Lunzhong froze.

“It’ll be the same if you treat me.” Xu Qi’an’s face was serious.

Jiang Ruizhong thought for a moment and pointed at the river, “What do you think of the water here?”

Xu Qi’an smoothly overlooked the river and honestly replied, “Not good, dirty.”

Jiang Lunzhong nodded, “It’s good that you know.”

Xu Qi’an: “…..”

After a moment, Jiang Lizhong said, “Follow the canal southward, and when we reach Qingzhou, we will have to change to the land route. After traveling by land for a decade, we can almost reach Yunzhou.”

“Lord Jiang, it’s not right to tell me about such a secret route.” Xu Qi’an said.

“No harm done, with your natural talent, sooner or later you will be a golden gong.” Jiang Lizhong smiled without much care.

Friends are friends, I’ll be just as angry if you plant a flag on me… Xu Qi’an returned the favor with a smile, “I’m grateful for your kind words, hmmm, why did you change the dry path?”

“It’s the land route.” Jiang Ruizhong corrected, then explained, “Although Qingzhou is neighboring Yunzhou, there is no connecting canal between the two states, so if you want to go by water, you’ll have to go around the sandbar next door, so it’s not as fast as going by land.”

The previous dynasty had once greatly developed waterways, dug canals, respectively, built two through the north, south, east and west of the Grand Canal, of which there are countless tributaries, so that nowadays there is a well-developed canal transportation in Dafeng. Instead, there is no canal connecting Qingzhou and Yunzhou?

“There’s no waterway?” Xu Qi’an expressed doubt.

“Originally, there was a tributary connecting Yunzhou to Qingzhou, but more than ten years ago, the river suddenly diverted its course.” Jiang Luzhong explained.

Rerouted ah …. Xu Qi’an nodded slowly.

Water conservancy projects have been a headache for the court since ancient times, with occasional flooding and diversions. Even in previous generations, flooding was still a headache. This man rerouted okay, at most through the gut. Once the river is diverted, the harm is thousands of miles, the people suffer.

At that moment, a black smoke rose up ahead, and Xu Qi’an looked extremely far away, realizing that it was a small boat docked at the shore, and a few people were burning the goods.

“What’s going on here? Why are you burning the goods?” Xu Qi’an said in a deep voice.

His first reaction was that someone was doing something wrong and destroying the merchants’ goods.

Jiang Ruizhong looked at it for a few moments and said indistinctly, “Usually in this case, it’s the merchants who don’t intend to pass the debatable customs and burn the goods in preparation for the return voyage.”

“We’ll be arriving at the capital soon, so why this?” Xu Qi’an didn’t understand.

“Hehe, the imperial court set up heavy debatable gates in the canals, and every time you cross a gate, you pay a tax. After paying the tax, many merchants would realize that even if they reached their destination and sold their goods, the silver they earned was not enough to pay the tax. So they simply burn the goods and return to the ship, because if you are carrying goods, you will have to pay the tax again when you return. Empty ships don’t need to.” Jiang Lizhong lamented:

“It was common to burn goods along the river.”

“It’s amazing how ugly the food is.” Xu Qi’an raised her eyebrows.

“There are even more ugly, because small merchants can’t afford the tariffs on transportation, so they can only rely on the Chamber of Commerce, which will swallow the goods at a low price and then sell them at a high price. Take the saltpeter mine you once took over in Taikang County as an example, the local gray households quarried stone and burned ash, the capital couldn’t eat such a large amount, so they could only transport it to the states for sale, but the tariffs were so heavy that they couldn’t afford it.

“The Chamber of Commerce then took advantage of the opportunity to buy lime at a low price, and shipped it out through their own channels, with the gray households getting only 10%, or even less, of the profits. Barely enough to eat.

“The interests involved behind this are unimaginable, and even Duke Wei has a lot of concerns.”

Xu Qi’an was silent.

He thought of something else, Emperor Yuan Jing’s monasticism and alchemy had huge expenses, and the silver didn’t go from the Ministry of Revenue, it was all expenses provided by his own small treasury.

So, where did Emperor Yuan Jing have so much silver for his coin-spreading frenzy?

He didn’t ask the question and returned to the cabin to exhale and regain his energy. It was close to midday and already hungry.

Out of the room, I heard the deck lively climbing, it turned out to be the boatmen online many fat river fish, scattered on the deck, alive and kicking.

Led by Jiang Luzhong, Song Tingfeng and twenty other tonglongs chimed in, delighted to have fresh fish soup at noon.

The governor, who was leading the group this time, came out at the sound and frowned.

He was the Commander of the Imperial Imperial Household of the Metropolitan Police, a fourth-ranking official, and in the officialdom of the Dabong, the governor was usually a royal historian with great power.

The Metropolitan Censorship Academy is controlled by Wei Yuan, and the big green coat has another official title, called the left imperial historian, the second grade.

This imperial historian, who could be considered one of his own, had been seasick and dizzy all morning, and was resting, when he was awakened by this group of martial artists, and his heart was very unhappy.

“Pick a few of the fattest river fish for the governor to stew.” Jiang Luzhong laughed.

The governor with the goatee beard and elegant temperament waved his hand and frowned: “The fishy smell of river fish is too heavy, this official has no appetite.”

After rejecting Jiang Ruzhong’s good intentions, he scanned the gongs with displeasure, “Be quiet, all of you, yelling and screaming, what a shame.”

After that, he went back to the cabin with a manic face.

“Tsk, a scholar’s body is just weak, it can’t withstand this.” A tongluo flirted and was glared at by Jiang Luchong.

There’s fresh fish soup to drink…just in time to put some chicken essence for flavor …. A hungry Xu Qi’an yearned for lunch.

……

PS: Thank you for your alliance with “Brimming Dancing Leaves”, I’ll be adding more for you. Well, 26 allies, and I’m up to my 20th.

Six more chapters will be ok. As for the silver alliance raises, I did some math, and I started paying back the alliance raises on the 11th. between the 1st and the 11th, I wrote a total of 33 chapters, which is 11 more after taking out the two daily chapters.

So the first silver alliance is done. There’s one silver ally left, and I’ll pay back all the allies after they’re done with their upvotes.