Idle courtiers

Chapter 164
Zhou Nan spent almost all of the days when he returned home to visit relatives behind closed doors.

In just a few days, he gradually regained his status in the third year of high school, and he memorized "University" and "The Doctrine of the Mean" with the least number of words in the "Four Books".It is quite interesting to compare Zhu Zi's annotations with Shi Jieren's reading experience.

Soon it was the day of departure. Early in the morning, Zhou Nan, Zhan Tong and Master Zhan came to the pier.

I probably know that it will take at least a year for her husband to leave, that is to say, Zhou Nan must at least take the provincial examination in Beizhili next autumn before returning home.If he gets lucky and has to take the next year's exam, he won't be able to come back.

Yunniang and Sister Su not only look forward to their husband returning home next year, but also hope that he will be promoted in high school, or even Jinshi.There are really mixed feelings in my heart, and tears flowed down my cheeks after I said "Sister-in-law, you have to take care of yourself".

Zhou Nan smiled and asked them: "Do you want me to win or not? Haha, it is a good thing to win. If I fail, at worst, I will not be that pedestrian. I will go back to my hometown to reunite with you, and the family will compete together." It's all good. So, it's all good anyway, don't cry."

Yiyi bid farewell, and soon the boat passed Huai'an.

The weather has turned cold, and Huai'an City is shrouded in a hazy fog, making it difficult to see clearly.

At this time, Zhou Nan suddenly remembered that he had not said goodbye to Xun Fangyu, and felt a little sad in his heart.

Will she miss me, maybe not!

In name, Sixth Miss Xun is his concubine, and the two are actually husband and wife.But since everyone realized that they have now become a family, the sum of what they have said and passed is probably only the number of words in a book of "University".Even if he said goodbye, he was relatively speechless.

This girl Xunliu was really rich, and this time Zhou Nan left Huai'an, she even asked Wang Er to send her money.For the convenience of carrying, they were all replaced with small gold ingots. There were 200 taels, equivalent to 2000 taels of silver.This was already an astronomical sum for ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty, enough for Zhou Nan to spend a year in Beijing.

Because of this, Xun Fangyu lives in Huai'an city.One is to facilitate the management of the industry in Shanyang County, and the other is to have strong branches and weak stems.If she went to Anton Zhou's house, she might not get along well with Miss Su, Yunniang.

It seems that in the future, the old Zhou family's wives and concubines will be separated, and it is impossible to force them together, so that's fine.

Zhan Tong's boat traveled very fast and arrived in Tongzhou in only half a month.In the past half a month, Zhou Nan locked herself in the cabin and studied hard all day, but she didn't feel that life was difficult.

Arriving at Tong County, the largest wharf in the world, Er Zhan is a local, so he naturally wants to go home to visit his relatives.

Zhan Tong arranged carriages and horses for Zhou Nan, and asked with a smile: "Zimu, master is okay. I will be a tax officer in Chongwenmen from now on, and you can still meet. I am going to Changlu, but I don't know it is the year of the monkey. , up to this moment, you and I are both eunuchs!"

Zhou Nan: "Brother Zhan, I have a hunch that you and I will meet again in the future. By the way, I am going to Changlu Salt Road. You are a deputy, so you should be more cautious. Your vacancy is too fat. How many pairs of eyes are staring."

Zhan Tong is Concubine Li's cousin, and when King Yu ascends the throne in the future, this fat man may become famous. ,
Zhan Tong: "Yeah, I know what you want to say, but don't be greedy. But, if you don't take the extra money you deserve, what do others think of you, what do your colleagues think of you, do you still want to be an official? But I understand that in this officialdom, being an honest official is much more dangerous than being a corrupt official. If you reach out for money, people think you are giving him face. Hello, me, hello, everyone. If you are as clear as water, others will think, you don’t want to Money is bound to be huge and cannot be reused."

Zhou Nan was speechless for a while. What kind of logic is this? There is a problem with Fatty Zhan's three views.

The fat man asked again: "Zimu, when we settle down in the capital, bring a letter. The master and I will stay at home for half a month before going to perform our duties." As he spoke, he told Zhou Nan the address of his hometown.

"Of course." Zhou Nan nodded, he already had a plan in mind.Because this time I will stay in the capital for at least a year, so it's not a problem to stay in hotels all the time.Prices in the capital are bound to be high, and the ghost knows how much it will cost to stay in a hotel for a year. The last Jiangyin incident left a heavy psychological shadow on him.

Renting a house is not good either.Anyway, I have money now, so I can buy it directly, and treat it as leaving an inheritance for my children and grandchildren.

Houses in the capital, within the second ring road, cost 10,000+ a square meter, which should not be expensive in the Ming Dynasty.This time it came unexpectedly, and the labor and management also got a taste of the homeowners in the capital.

After bidding farewell to Er Zhan, Zhou Nan got into the carriage and headed west.

It is said that there are 70 people living in the capital today, and with the floating population, it is possible to exceed one million.

The products of the prefectures around the capital are not rich, and the daily needs of millions of people have to be transported from the southeast through the Grand Canal.The bustling place is beyond the imagination of ordinary people in this era.

Take the wide road under your feet as an example, straight ahead, the road is full of vehicles, horses and pedestrians, there is an endless stream from morning till night.

The climate in the north of this era has become dry. Looking up, the vast land, the blue sky, and the distant skyline are clearly visible, which makes people feel refreshed.

Sitting in the carriage at this moment, I heard the sound of the wooden trunk under the horse's neck, and the cool wind was blowing.Looking at the sky high and the land wide, looking at the looming long pavilions, short pavilions, city walls, and temples standing on a piece of yellow land, it seems to have entered a classical landscape painting, and this painting is so real.

Zhou Nan couldn't help screaming: "The jade ladder stands empty, and the old bird flies back. Where is the return journey, the long pavilion is even shorter."

The ox cart driver smiled and said, "Is the guest officer a scholar who came to Beijing to take the exam?"

Zhou Nan shook his head and said, "No."

Handlebar Shi: "Listening to guest officials reciting poems, he is also an elegant person. If he is not here to take the Jinshi examination, he is going to Beijing to work. However, your sentence of Li Taibai's "Bodhisattva Man" is a bit unfavorable, but it is not very beautiful. .”

"Unexpectedly, you, a driver, have also read Li Bai." Zhou Nan smiled, and that's right, Tongzhou is the gateway to the capital, and people from the local area have to go this way when entering the capital.The more people I meet, the more knowledge I have on the handlebars.

This guy talked badly, and he planned to give him some tips when he got to the ground, but he didn't give it.

After driving for a day, in the afternoon, I saw a dark and magnificent capital in front of me.

Paris in this era is just a small city with a population of 10,000+, while Europe is a large countryside.

The capital with a population of one million is the largest city in the world and the center of the whole world.

If you hate him, you send him to the capital, because there is hell; if you hate him, you send him to the capital, because there is heaven.

Zhou Nan stood in front of the car and let out a long cry: "Jingcheng, here I come! If I don't get along well, I won't go back to Huai'an!"

This time he came to Beijing alone, and he hadn't formally joined the post, so naturally he couldn't work as a post station.

In fact, as a grassroots public servant, Zhou Nan really understands the situation of a state-owned unit such as a post station.Anyway, he is holding an iron job, and he receives the same salary for doing good and bad.The post station is very dirty, and it is not bad to wash the cups twice a year.There are swarms of fleas, mosquitoes, and cockroaches inside, which is a test of people's psychological quality. Can people live in that place?

Therefore, mansions were specially set up at the local level to receive superiors.

Zhou Nan stood on the street for a long time before he remembered that he was really unaccompanied back in the capital.Er Zhan went back to his hometown in Tong County, and his only acquaintance was Xia Yi.He had heard from Jin Yiwei in Huai'an before that Lao Xia had resigned and returned to the countryside to retire.

Since the death of the former commander Lu Bing in Jinyiwei Beiya, there have been drastic personnel changes. Xia Yi has gone to the cabinet's second assistant Xu Jie to investigate the local officials privately.His Jinyi Qianhu is not hereditary, so it would not be a pity to resign.

"So, where do you want to live today?" Zhou Nan had a headache.

The capitals of the Ming and Qing dynasties were divided into inner and outer cities like other metropolises.The inner city is in the north, and the center is the imperial city, where the forbidden center, the cabinet, and the six ministries are located.In addition to the imperial city, the inner city is dotted with other lower-level central agencies, such as Jinyiwei Yamen, Five Temples, Taicang, Lumicang, Guozijian, as well as large and small royal gardens and residences of officials.

This is the essence of the entire capital.

To the south of the inner city is the outer city.This is the commercial area of ​​the capital and the residence of ordinary people. The area is smaller than the inner city, but it is packed with a population of several 10. As far as the market is concerned, it is a bit busier than Yangzhou.

From the heart, Zhou Nan is willing to live in the inner city.As a traveler, the inner city is the representative of the desolation of this era, with a different sense of history.

However, today's time is too late, so we can only approach in the inn first.

There was no other way, so Zhou Nan had to find a random room and live in it.This place is located in the southernmost part of the capital, next to Zuoanmen.In the era when there were no high-rise buildings, you could see the quaint Temple of Heaven in the distance when you looked up, and the scenery was good.

When I asked about the price of the room, it was unsurprisingly expensive. It cost six renminbi a night, which was really expensive.In fact, Zhou Nan has a lot of money now, so this little money is nothing to him.

It's just that when he first traveled to the Ming Dynasty, the poverty at home left him with painful memories, and he already had a psychological shadow.I decided to buy a house as soon as possible to reduce unnecessary expenses.

After dinner, Zhou Nan asked the waiter where he could buy a house in the city.

As soon as he heard what he said, the waiter's eyes lit up, and immediately attracted an idle man in his early thirties, saying that this was his cousin, whose surname was Feng and whose name was Chuan.His ancestral home is Sichuan.Although he is a foreigner, he has actually been in Beijing for 20 years and is familiar with the land. The matter of buying a house will definitely be handled properly for adults, as long as you give him some tea when the time comes.

There are many officials in the capital, and the whole city is full of crimson clothes and red robes. A ninth-rank official like Zhou Nan, who is dressed in toad green, is worthless.

Zhou Nan laughed, unexpectedly there were real estate agencies in the Ming Dynasty!
He also asked how much the intermediary fee should be paid. The two sides bargained for a long time, and Zhou Nan agreed to give him one cent of the commission.

Feng Chuan was very happy, thinking that if this matter was done properly, it would be worth a few bucks, so he made an appointment with Zhou Nan to come over early tomorrow morning.

After dinner, Zhou Nan took a shower.The setting sun made the Temple of Heaven red all over, the sky to the west was bright red, but the sky to the east had turned deep blue, and a few stars shone on the sky of history.

(End of this chapter)