At noon, the steamboat steamed upstream with billowing black smoke, astonishing all the ships on the way.
On this canal, there are flags and flags of the Jinyi Guards commanding Qianshi, Zunhua Guards commanding Tongzhi, and the Hexi Guards Qianhu Commanding Officers.
Under the awning on the bow of the ship, Yang Fan and his wives and concubines were sitting, surrounded by personal guards with their hands on the hilts of their swords. It's really majestic, actually a bear.
Most of the merchant ships along the way moved aside to let Yang Fan pass.
There were two powerful figures from the East Factory on the ship who did not display flags, otherwise they would scare these merchants to death.
Speaking of which, at the local level, Yang Fan's official position among military attachés is coming to an end. The higher one is the provincial commander-in-chief.
At this time, there were several scholars in Qingyi on a merchant ship that was sheltering aside. They frowned a little as they watched Yang Fan's canal boat sailing upstream menacingly.
"Gandu, a martial artist, is so domineering in the local area. The Ming Dynasty really has no rules." A tall and thin scholar waved his sleeves and cursed.
The people on this boat were Zhang Pu, Zhang Cai, Yang Yi, Gu Menglin and others, the founders of Jiangnan Yingshe.
Yingshe is the predecessor of Fushe.
It was founded in Changshu (now part of Jiangsu) in the fourth year of Tianqi (1624), with only eleven members in the first batch. Later, members from all over the country joined, making the name of Yingshe famous all over the world, so it was also called Jiangnan Yingshe, Jiangbei Yingshe, and Guangyingshe.
In the second year of Chongzhen (1629), Zhang Pu and others merged other literary societies and established Fushe based on Yingshe. At its peak, Fushe had more than 2,000 members, all of whom were talented people from the Jiangnan area at that time. The gentry represented behind them was very powerful.
Yingshe and Fushe are known as Xiao Donglin. It is generally believed that these two groups belong to the youth group and second echelon of the Donglin Party.
This time Zhang Pu and others came to Beijing at the invitation of Qian Longxi and other Donglin elders.
They first took a sea ship and inspected the shipping situation in the northern sea. After Donglin monopolized the overseas trade in the south, he has been eyeing the overseas trade in the north.
After disembarking from Beitangkou, we followed the Ji Canal all the way, first to Zunhua, then to Jizhou to change ships and enter the Grand Canal, and the final destination was Zhangjiawan, Tongzhou.
They came here with the mission of reorganizing the Zhangjiawan stronghold. At the same time, the Jiangnan gentry forces represented by Yingshe also have different fundamentals from Donglin, and they also have some demands that need to be discussed with Donglin.
Zhang Pu glanced at Gu Menglin and said nothing.
It is not a wise move to provoke Jin Yiwei's people.
Moreover, this leader of the Jinyi Guards has soldiers in his own hands, so he is not an ordinary person.
What's more, they still had issues with him. At this time, it was best not to let him notice that they and their group were coming to Beijing in secret. Don't add unnecessary complications.
At the local level, perhaps the commander of the guard station is nothing. After all, by this era in the Ming Dynasty, the warriors were already as cheap as dogs. Third-level commanders and deputy commanders had to kneel down when they saw the troops prepared.
However, the commander of Jinyiwei is still very valuable, and his deterrence is enough to stop a child from crying at night.
Zhang Pu knew who this person was. Last year, Yang Fan led troops to Beijing and helped the emperor overthrow Duke Wei, which made him famous throughout the world.
When discussing rewards for merit, he was secretly stabbed by the gentlemen of Donglin. As a result, I saw that the title I had was gone. They didn't even get the land, and used the large wasteland east of Zunhua to get rid of it.
This matter is extremely secretive and very few people know about it. Zhang Pu estimates that Yang Fan himself doesn't know the inside story.
This is an insider transaction between Donglin and the emperor. Because they were involved in the core affairs of the Jiangnan Gentry Group, they knew about it.
Although there was a hint from the emperor behind the Yangliuqing incident. However, Yang Fan is an active and executor after all. After this incident, he and Dong Lin's Liang Zi were completely connected.
As for later, he actually braved the disapproval of the world and took the adopted daughter of Duke Wei as his concubine. He is completely on the opposite side from the gentlemen of Donglin.
In fact, Zhang Pu had some admiration for Yang Fan in his early days. After all, a hero comes from a young age, and he also has a powerful private soldier in his hand. The means of struggle are also clever. It's worth wooing.
It's a pity that this man is just a martial artist who doesn't care about the country but loves beauty. He actually took Lin Yueru as his concubine, which is really self-destructive.
There are so many beauties in the world, and Dong Lin has too many Yangzhou thin horses, so why should he get involved with the eunuchs. It's really unwise.
Later, Yuan Chonghuan stopped by to meet Yang Fan. In fact, there was Zhang Pu's mediation behind the scenes.
He persuaded the elders of Donglin that Yang Fan was not in the same group as the eunuchs after all. As long as Yang Fan is willing to hand over his more than 3,000 elite soldiers, Yang Liuqing will not have to let him go.
It is not impossible to give him a place as a commander. After all, he deserves that official position and territory. He also contributed a lot to the defeat of Nine Thousand Years Old.
Unexpectedly, this kid had quite a bad temper and even Yuandu walked away in anger.
This time, several key members of the Ying Society came to Beijing. One of them was to discuss the issue of trade control rights in the northern sea with Qian Longxi. Fight for the interests of the Jiangnan gentry.
The other is to investigate the inside story of the Japanese pirates' attack on Zhangjiawan. This thing is so weird.
The Jiangnan gentry had a large sum of money stored in the Li Mansion, but all of it was robbed by the Japanese pirates and they lost all their money. The Jiangnan gentry will not swallow their anger.
"Why is this ship still emitting black smoke? It's not on fire." Zhang Cai couldn't help laughing. In fact, they all knew who this was, they were just taking pleasure in his misfortune.
"Hey, that's not right. There is no one rowing the boat, and there is no one pulling the fiber. It actually goes upstream by itself." Yang Yi said in surprise.
At this time, the steamer was already approaching and was passing by their ship.
Yang Fan and his beautiful wives and concubines were sitting on the Grand Master's chair at the bow of the ship, drinking tea, chatting and laughing, not paying attention to the ships on both sides of the ship and the people on them.
The four boilers at the back of the ship were burning vigorously, and eight big men were sweating profusely as they shoveled coal into the furnaces. The coal in the boiler burned red. Under the scorching flames, every worker looked like he had been fished out of water, and his clothes were soaked.
The cylinder on the boiler was constantly expanding and contracting, and the connecting rod pushed the crankshaft, driving the four steel wheels behind it to rotate at high speed, setting off big white waves. There was even a mist at the stern of the ship, and a rainbow appeared in the mist.
This was obviously the hull of a large tanker, sailing through the middle of the river at high speed. It seems that the speed is much faster than that of a sea-going ship with a tailwind.
In the blink of an eye, this large cannon has rushed past. Behind it, the sailing wake and waves rolled up, shaking the ships on both sides and almost capsized.
Zhang Pu and the other four were no longer in the mood to joke.
The water stirred up by the paddle wheel drenched them like drowned rats. Each one of them quickly grabbed hold of the surrounding masts and boat awnings to prevent being thrown into the water.
After a while, the rocking ship slowly returned to calm. The boats on both sides of the river breathed a sigh of relief. There was a lot of discussion.
The four of them turned pale and were in shock. They had never seen such a steel monster that could push such a large boat upstream.
Zhang Pu's palms were sweaty, although he didn't know what Yang Fan was doing here.
But he had a premonition that this strange monster that breathed fire and steam would change the order of the world. An inexplicable fear spread throughout his body.
Qianqing Palace, Xinuang Pavilion.
The young emperor put down the memorial and looked at Wang Chengen and Luo Yangxing, who were bowing in solemnity below. He asked slowly and logically: "Where has Governor Yuan been lately?"
Wang Chengen didn't react. He knew that these words were meant for Luo Yangxing.
After Luo Yangxing squeezed out Yang Fan and took charge of Jinyiwei alone, his work was not very good, and the emperor was still investigating him.
Luo Yangxing's work was far different from Yang Fan's. Wang Chengen glanced at Luo Yangxing calmly. Colleagues are enemies, and now Dongchang, led by Wang Chengen, and Jinyiwei, led by Luo Yangxing, are in a competitive relationship.
There was basically nothing that Yang Fan couldn't handle that the emperor entrusted to Yang Fan.
Even what the emperor didn't expect, Yang Fan thought of it in advance and took care of it.
Luo Yangxing can't do it.
Many of the things the emperor told him could not be implemented.
Luo Yangxing's back was sweating.
The emperor glanced at him seemingly casually, and he could tell in his peripheral vision that the emperor was not very satisfied with his current job.
"Well, let me answer your Majesty's question. Governor Yuan recently visited a temple and wrote a poem."
"Oh, write poetry. Well, let's talk about it and listen to it."
"Forty years have passed since I was born,
Only the tree separates the world from the human world.
Now I am in the King of Empty Land,
Learn to kill before you learn more. "
Chongzhen paused while correcting the memorials, raised his head, and said to himself: "Who is this southern barbarian going to kill?"
