The commercial trade between the Song Dynasty and the Jin Kingdom began after the Maritime Alliance. Beginning in the twelfth year of Shaoxing, the Song Dynasty first set up forays and supervisors in the Xuyi Army to trade with Northern merchants, and later there were forays in Huaixi, Jingxi, Shaanxi and other places.
With the war and uncertainty between the two countries, these negotiations have been eliminated several times. But generally speaking, since the two countries cannot prohibit private business exchanges, the imperial court must step in to control such exchanges. While controlling, it can also benefit from currency and strengthen neighboring countries. It can be said to be two conveniences.
In the past two years, the most frequent exchanges between the Song and Jin countries and the largest amount of traded materials were naturally the Mizhou Jiaoxi Forging Market in the Jin Kingdom. There is a special point here. Because this market is located in the Kingdom of Jin, it is especially convenient for maritime merchants in the Song Dynasty to sell various illegal and prohibited bulk materials, such as food and weapons, and earn high profits by doing so. .
After the materials are delivered at this market, they will soon be sent to various parts of the Jin Kingdom through the maritime fleet of Shandong Dinghai Navy.
It is said that the feud between the Kingdom of Jin and the People's Republic of China has broken out in recent years, and people from the desert often go south to herd horses and kill as many people as they want. The Kingdom of Jin has been fighting with them for many years, spending countless amounts of money and food. Therefore, on the way from Shandong to Zhongdu, they were extremely hungry for materials from the Song Dynasty. Those maritime merchants were often able to sell materials at high prices and obtain fine horses, furs, ginseng, northern pearls and other items from the northern part of the Jin Kingdom from Ding Haijun. of gold and silver treasures.
Some of these treasures were looted by the captors during the Jingkang period, but now they have returned to Zhao intact.
However, the benefits of the sea belong to the sea, and the business on land can still operate as usual, so it is not without profit. In particular, Xuyi Army's Qiangchang was across the Huaihe River from Sizhouchang of the Kingdom of Jin. It was very convenient to exchange supplies between the two places, so the same business was booming.
Similar to the forecourt in Jiaoxi, Mizhou, the merchants operating in the forecourt of Xuyi Army, like those maritime merchants, most likely have some kind of power behind them. So that on the one hand, local officials received documents from the court every now and then, saying that they must focus on preventing leaks, and on the other hand, they often went out in person to protect certain groups of merchants.
Of course, this kind of thing is not easy to do well. If you are not careful, you will offend this person or that person. In the end, you will be embarrassed and lose your official position in disgrace. Only people with excellent means and some connections in Beijing can do it properly.
Jia She, the official of Zhibaoying County, was such a person.
Jia She was from Tiantai, and his father Jia Wei was a secretary-general and knew Hanzhou. Later, he was involved in political struggles in Sichuan, Jingxiang and other places. He was ostracized and died unjustly. Jia She spent ten years running around to appeal, and even wrote to Fu Que to clear his father's reputation, and finally succeeded. Immediately afterwards, he obtained Yinbu himself and became the captain of Gaoyou County. Later, he was transferred to the post of Cheng of Wan'an County, and then learned about the affairs of Baoying County.
Gaoyou and Baoying counties are both close to the border between Song and Jin Dynasties. Jia She would move around here, not because of his outstanding military talents, but because he could take care of official and business affairs. On the entire Huainan East Road, anyone who needs to deal with Huaibei will come and ask him.
At the beginning of this year, even the envoys from the Song Dynasty court tried to go to Zhongdu but failed because it was Jia She's idea and the arrangement of the merchant fleet.
Xuyi Quechang and the Sizhou Quechang opposite take turns opening every five days, and today it is Xuyi Quechang’s turn. Jia She left Baoying County where he worked one day in advance and brought a few servants over to have a look.
This market is located outside Xuyi City, near the Huaitan Highlands where the Xusi Floating Bridge used to be. The remaining bridge foundation of the pontoon bridge was repurposed as a dock for ferry navigation and transportation of goods and vendors. Dozens of acres of land surrounded by tree fences at Huaitan is where the Qianqian is located. After decades of construction, the Qianqian has thousands of halls and is very large in scale.
According to the imperial system, those who owned more than 100 pieces of goods in the market were called big customers. Most of the halls are occupied by big customers for a long time. Such merchants are very wealthy, so they are not allowed to trade across the Huaihe River. If the Jin people want to buy their goods, they must hold a certificate recognized by the Song and Jin families. Come to the field.
So when Jia She strolled slowly all the way to the entrance of the fork market, he just happened to avoid hundreds of Jin merchants and rush into the fork market.
He was used to coming and going in this area, and even though he only wore ordinary robes, the escort at the gate of the market recognized him from a distance and waved.
Jia She walked over with a smile and looked into the market. The officer in charge was leading a group of soldiers responsible for patrols and inspections, and they were slapping the smugglers caught yesterday. The beating was quite hard, and crackling and wailing sounds came one after another.
This happened all the time. Jia She didn't bother to pay attention. He raised a jar of wine in his hand and asked, "Are Zhijun and Tongpan here?"
"Of course not!"
"The boss is not here, how can Lao Ma show his diligence? Didn't we agree last time that Lao Lu will bring half a fan of good beef today! Come on, let's go back to the hall and have wine and meat!"
“Is there really good beef?”
"He's so fat that he looks like a flower cake. Do you think it's okay?"
"Then why are you delaying? I'll call Lao Ma and leave now!"
The share capital of Xuyi Consulting Market is as high as 165,000 yuan, which is no small matter. According to the imperial system, every time the market opens, the officials who are directly responsible for the collection, processing, and promotion of orders must be present to supervise the market. However, these positions are all held concurrently by local officials such as Zhijun and Tongpan. However, local officials know that the situation is deep and are reluctant to intervene. Therefore, the two people who are actually in charge now are the supervisor, Lao Ma, and the escort officer, Lao Luo.
Both of them had friendships with Jia She, and what was even more frightening was that in this group there was Lu Boda, a Jinshi-born envoy from Sizhouchang of the Jin Kingdom across the Huaihe River.
The four officials across the Huaihe River are all good friends. They have shared their wine, sex, wealth and wealth with each other. In fact, they all know each other, and each of them has a little mission to find out information for his own court.
The three of them went directly to the hall. Sure enough, Lao Lu, the merchant who had accompanied the merchants from the Kingdom of Jin across the river, had already arrived. He also brought a servant and was cutting the fat beef.
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The four of them sat down and had a meal and a drink.
Jia She suddenly felt that Lu Boda's face was not good, so he asked with a smile: "Why, didn't I say last time that you were going to replenish the minister's salary? Go to Zhongdu Shangshu, and you should be polite when you go out and talk less. Deputy envoy Du, you will really become a big shot, what else is there to be dissatisfied about?"
Luboda threw the wine cup away and sighed heavily: "Where is the Shangshu Province? The central capital of Dajin is already in chaos, how can we care about the transfer of officials in the Shangshu Province!"
Jia She rarely saw Lu Boda be so forthright. He laughed and asked, "What's going on? Is it because a new prime minister has taken office and started political strife again? Or are the Tatars from the north coming again?"
Lu Boda also looked at Jia She: "It's a rebellion! No, it's King Qin! It's not...cough!"
He let out a long sigh: "There is a Dinghai navy on the border of Laizhou in Shandong Province of our Kingdom of Jin. Do you know that?"
"Of course I know that. The name of Ding Haijun Jiedushi is Guo Ning. It is said that he has many elite soldiers under his command, and he is also powerful in the Jiaoxi Forging Field in Mizhou."
"This Guo Ning is an evil tiger! You don't know that since last autumn, this man led an army of 100,000 people and marched across Shandong, Hebei, Liaodong and other places, killing tens of thousands of Tatar Khans and leaving the fields littered with horse corpses. . Just last month, he broke into Zhongdu City again, killed countless imperial officials, and now imprisoned the emperor in the palace and made himself the marshal of the capital! At this time, countless military and state capitals around Zhongdu were in a state of excitement. The Kingdom of Jin is about to suffer from war and disaster, so why the hell does anyone care about a minister?"
Lu Boda slapped the table gum hard, causing the food and wine on the table to jump: "Even if someone appoints me a document, would I dare to go? In Guo Ning's eyes, the Imperial Court of Dajin may not even be worth it. And he is He kills people without blinking an eye, because the iron bone flower in his hand killed so many people, the smell of blood is so strong that you can smell it from twenty steps away!"
"Is there such a ruthless character?"
Several fair-weather friends exclaimed together. Jia She looked at Lao Ma and Lao Luo beside him, leaned forward and lowered his voice: "How could Guo Ning do such a thing?"
Others would just pay it back, so Jia She couldn't help but take it seriously.
Because he knows better than anyone the extent of Shandong's maritime trade with Song Dynasty, and the huge amount of food and other materials that have been sent to Shandong in the past two years.
In Jia She's view, Guo Ning's Dinghai navy was simply fed by the smugglers of the Song Dynasty!
