Two days later, Zhao Xin arrived at Uncle Sun's home alone.
After meeting me. Zhao Xin, who originally had some ideas, immediately backed down. Again, the old man is getting older. After meeting him, Zhao Xin found that the other person's physical condition was not as good as he said on the phone. Not to mention the eighteenth century, even the farm I bought in the north would not work. If something happens, it will cause a lot of trouble for yourself.
He bluntly rejected Uncle Sun's request. He didn't stay for a minute longer and left directly.
After leaving Uncle Sun's home, he told Wang Yuanfang about the situation on the phone.
Wang Yuanfang wished that the old man would stop calling him, and felt relieved after hearing this.
Zhao Xin told him that he would leave for the north in two days, and that both Zhao Liang and Wu Siyu would go there.
Now Liu Sheng is watching over the refugees, and Zhao Xin is really worried.
The most critical thing now is the inspection and subsequent modification of the cargo ship, and time is urgent.
Zhao Xin plans to leave with the refugees immediately after the seawater around Bear Island thaws in early March. He didn't know how Hunchun or Ning Guta would react if they discovered that a hundred armored soldiers had disappeared during this period.
After experiencing a continuous battle from morning to night and killing dozens of Qing soldiers with his own hands, Zhao Xin's temperament had changed a lot without even realizing it. He hasn't realized it yet, but Zhao Liang and Wu Siyu have noticed it.
Zhao Xin's eyes became sharp, and he already had a sense of killing and decisiveness.
When Wang Yuanfang saw Zhao Xin for the first time, he felt something was wrong. He was different from Liu Sheng and others. He had been seconded to perform some tasks when he was in the army, and he had seen blood.
"Mr. Zhao, what happened over there?" Wang Yuanfang's intuition told him that he had been unable to contact Zhao Xin in the past few days, so something might have happened.
"Qing soldiers are on the island." Zhao Xin said calmly.
The three of them were very surprised when they heard what he said and quickly asked what happened.
Zhao Xin told the three of them that you should go back and ask Liu Sheng for the details. After sending the three people back, he had to rush to the south to handle the follow-up handover procedures for the cargo ship. Then we will take back the five people who have completed the exit procedures.
So, Zhao Xin went back and forth like this, busy non-stop...
On the 30th day of the first lunar month of the fourth year of Tianming (the forty-ninth year of Qianlong), Nagasaki Port.
A nearly seventy-foot-long Nanjing sand ship (one foot in the Qing Dynasty was about 3.2 meters) was parked on the sea outside the Nomujia Peninsula in Nagasaki Bay. The anchor was lowered and the sails were lowered. Three large characters were written in white paint on the outside of the bow: Yin No. 10.
The owner of the ship, Shen Jingdan, went from below the deck to a cabin in the cabin. He looked around for a while, then softly knocked on the door a few times. After the door opened, he stepped into the cabin.
"Ah Quan, we have arrived at the Japanese country. Later, officials from the execution office will board the ship for inspection. You must remember what I said before, and you must never make a mistake." After Shen Jingdan entered the door, he looked at the back of the person facing him. whispered.
Four candles were lit in the cabin. Under the bright lights, a woman wearing a blue quilted robe and an otter skin hat, dressed in business attire, sat beside the bed. There was a small table on the small table next to her. A mirror and some paint pastels.
The woman turned around and saw a small oval face with dancing eyes, graceful charm and extremely beautiful appearance.
After listening to Shen Jingdan's words, the woman bowed and saluted and replied: "Dad, I understand."
Shen Jingdan frowned and said, "Why did you forget it again?"
The woman quickly stood up, held her throat, tried it a few times, then changed her voice like a young man, bowed and said: "Remember."
"Yes." Shen Jingdan nodded, stroking his beard and said, "Be sure to pay attention later. Once you enter the club, you don't have to worry."
After finishing speaking, Shen Jingdan repeated in a low voice the details of what happened after the officials from the enforcement office boarded the ship, and how to deal with the critical moment. The woman listened and kept nodding and repeating. After giving instructions, Shen Jingdan asked the woman to cover her face carefully with the paint on the table, and then left the cabin and returned to the deck.
More than half an hour later, a small boat came from Nagasaki Port and docked next to the sand ship. An official from the Nagasaki Prosecution Office climbed up to the deck from the rope ladder lowered by the sand ship. This person was the observer set up at the Nomuga Lookout Post.
After the official greeted Shen Jingdan, the ten water diversion boats that followed had tied the cables to the bow of the sand ship and began to take the No. 10 sand ship to the Nagasaki Port to dock.
It was just after midnight, and after the Yin-10 docked at the pier, the Tang Dynasty Interpreter, the Chinese New Year Travel Secretary, Su Ding, and Fu Ding, who were already waiting at the pier, boarded the ship together and prepared to start the entry procedures for the Tang ship.
After the ship docked, more than 60 people including the financial officer, fire chief, chief officer, helmsman, gunner, and handymen were waiting on the deck. After a while, more than ten businessmen came up from the cabin below, including the girl Ah Quan who had dressed up as a man.
After questioning the owner of the ship, Shen Jingdan, the observer at the execution office confirmed that everyone on the ship was present. He ordered the interpreter of the Tang Dynasty to hang a wooden sign on the mast, and then began to read the content on the wooden sign in Chinese.
What he read out was the "sectarian ban" promulgated by the shogunate, which was the shogunate's relevant regulations prohibiting the introduction of Catholicism. The shogunate must first proclaim the sectarian ban on all Qing and Dutch merchant ships entering the port.
Although everyone in the crowd was really impatient, no one dared to show it, and they stood and listened to the reading. Afterwards, the interpreter from the Tang Dynasty began to ask Shen Jingdan about the number of people on the ship and when and where it set sail from the Qing Dynasty.
Shen Jingdan replied: "It sailed from Shanghai on the seventh day of this month. There were 130 cargo owners and shipwrights on board, and there were no false reports."
Then he took out the prepared letter plate, the copper certificate (permission document for purchasing copper), the ship's loading catalog, the crew list, and the pre-written "book catching request document" (obeying the shogunate's prohibitions). A letter of guarantee and a report recording the recent court situation and civil affairs in the Qing Dynasty. This is not an act of espionage, and the Qing court also recognized it. Please ask a Tang interpreter for visual inspection.
After finishing their work, they saw the observer of the observance office taking out a copper plate from a wooden box and placing it on the open space on the deck. Many sailors and merchants who were already very familiar with this procedure lined up to step on the copper plate.
When it was the turn of the girl Ah Quan, she pretended to be walking like a man, walked to the copper plate, paused for a moment, stepped on it, and then stood back among the businessmen.
She had already seen clearly before she stepped out that there was a cross engraved on the copper plate. What they had just done was a "step painting" done by the shogunate to prove that there were no Catholics on this sand ship.
After the "painting" was completed, the ship owner Shen Jingdan and a group of businessmen accompanied the observers from the execution office into the cabin to check the catalog of goods and the actual goods one by one. After each item of goods was counted, the observer took out a stamped seal and affixed it to the package.
At this time, the two sailors and handymen on the ship had covered the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva with red silk from the cabin. They followed the others off the ship and boarded the dock, waiting for Shen Jingdan and a group of businessmen to disembark.
After the inventory of goods was completed, Shen Jingdan and the merchants disembarked from the ship and landed. Led by Shen Jingdan, they formed a line behind the two handymen carrying the statue of Bodhisattva. Accompanied by the Chinese Nianxingsi and the town officials, they passed through the Tangren Pier and walked to a hill on the south side of Nagasaki Port, facing north. In front of the large rectangular courtyard.
This is the designated residential area for the Tang people in Nagasaki Port, also known as the Tang people’s house.
Ah Quan walked in a long queue, following a businessman, and in front of him was Shen Jingdan. When she walked through the red Tang Ren Yashiki gate, she saw two large houses on the right side of the gate. These were the "Yi Mingbu House" that Shen Jingdan had told her before, which was responsible for supervising the Tang Ren Yashiki area and the "Tong Ren Yashiki House" where the Tang Ren Interpreters lived. "Ministry of Affairs House".
On the left side of the gate, there is an empty field. Ah Quan saw a wooden cage in the empty field, containing an unkempt man. There is also a clothing and clothing store nearby, as well as some vendors selling vegetables and fish.
After the group entered the second gate from the outer courtyard, they saw a very wide square. Shen Jingdan led everyone from the left side of the Tushen Hall directly opposite to the end and then turned right. The end of the road was the Guanyin Hall located in the southeast corner of Tangren Yashiki.
After arriving at the Guanyin Hall, the servants first enshrined the statue of Guanyin on the altar next to the statue of Guanyin, and everyone in turn offered incense and kowtowed.
Until then, the entire process of the ship entering the port has been completed.
After everyone finished offering incense, they left. The handyman sailors on the ship all ran to the square in front of the Tushen Hall at the entrance to the second gate. Some went to drink and have fun, play dice and gamble, and some went to the stage to watch the show.
Ah Quan followed Shen Jingdan out of the Guanyin Hall and went directly to the longhouse on the south side of the residential area. The shogunate built more than 20 Japanese-style two-story row houses here to accommodate ship owners, merchants and sailors on cargo ships.
The area inside each townhouse is very large. The upstairs is where the ship owner, businessmen and senior sailors on the ship live, while the downstairs is where ordinary handymen live. More than 20 buildings can accommodate more than 2,000 people at the same time, and nearly 10,000 people live here every year.
Ah Quan followed Shen Jingdan to the second floor and came to the door of a room.
"Ah Quan, you live here." Shen Jingdan opened the shoji door and pointed at the room and said to Ah Quan.
After Ah Quan entered the door and looked around, she found that it was a suite with two rooms inside and outside. The window of the inside room was the wall of the living area.
"Dad, I want to go out for a walk. When I entered the second gate just now, it was so lively there." At this time, without the supervision of Japanese officials, Ah Quan relaxed.
"What's good there is just some vulgar sailors and handymen drinking and gambling there. You stay here in peace for a few days, and when the matter is over, the Wang family will probably not bother you again." Shen Jingdan looked at his daughter. , said dissatisfied.
"I'll ask Lu Jun to bring some water later. You have a rest first. I'll talk about other things in detail when I come back." The Lu Jun that Shen Jingdan was talking about was the Japanese concubine he was looking for in Nagasaki.
"Dad, are you going out?" Ah Quan asked.
"Well. I need to talk to someone about something. I'm leaving first." After Shen Jingdan finished speaking, he turned and left.
Ah Quan returned to the house, closed the barrier door, walked to the inner room, and then sat on the tatami, looking around and taking in this new environment.
Ah Quan, whose surname is Shen, has a single name of Xuan. Ah Quan is her nickname.
The reason why Shen Jingdan wanted to secretly bring his precious daughter to Japan was actually due to a debt he had with the salt merchant Wang family. The cause of this debt is because of "Xinpai".
Since the fifty-fourth year of Kangxi (1715), more and more Chinese merchant ships came to Japan to sell copper, and the outflow of a large amount of copper caused the price of domestic copper to drop upside down. The shogunate stipulated that the number of merchant ships coming to Nagasaki to sell copper every year was thirty. The annual limit is three million catties. Cargo ships entering Nagasaki Port must have a sign, otherwise they will not be allowed to enter.
Due to the huge profits from selling copper, letter cards have become a hot commodity. Since the Eighth Generation Shogun Yoshimune, the shogunate has actively introduced Chinese culture, and to this end has made pre-order requests for various books to Nagasaki. Therefore, the maritime trade merchants who could not get the letter plaques tried their best to serve the shogunate, hoping to get the temporarily issued additional "commendation plaques".
Yangzhou businessman Shen Jingdan is one of them.
This man brought a large amount of raw silk and books to Nagasaki three years ago. He thought that the shogunate would be very satisfied and would issue a letter to himself.
According to the regulations of the shogunate, all books shipped on merchant ships need to be transported to Shuntokuji Temple or the church immediately after the ship docks, and content review begins without delay.
Unfortunately, the shogunate's Book and Property Bureau discovered a copy of "Scenery of the Imperial Capital" among the books shipped by Shen Jingdan.
This book is actually a travel guide to Beijing in the late Ming Dynasty. However, during the book review process, it was discovered that this book contained an introduction to the Catholic Church in Xuanwumen in the capital and the tomb of Matteo Ricci.
This is a big mistake. The shogunate strictly prohibits the introduction of anything related to Catholicism. What do you mean by getting a copy of this book now?
So after more than ten days of investigation and correspondence from Nagasaki to Edo, the Lao Zhong in Edo finally decided that the entire cargo should be banned from trading and the ship should return home immediately.
Shen Jingdan's work was in vain and he suffered heavy losses.
However, he did not give up, and later went to the Wang family, a salt merchant, and borrowed a large amount of funds using his hometown's farmland and boats as collateral. The next year, he continued to borrow mostly raw silk and books.
As a result, not only was no banned book found this time, Shen Jingdan also got the letter card he dreamed of, and returned to Yangzhou with a full load. After receiving money from the sale of goods, trouble came when he went to Wang's house to pay back the money.
Mr. Wang, the salt merchant, has always wanted to curry favor with He Shen. So he said to Shen Jingdan, I don't need the money, just treat it as a small favor for your brother. However, I have been a salt merchant for so many years, and I have always wanted to be a salt ambassador. I heard that you have a daughter who is as beautiful as a flower and has hairpins. How about I step forward and recognize her as my goddaughter, and then dedicate her to He Zhongtang. Once I fall in He Zhongtang's eyes and I take the position of salt ambassador, your Shen family will be prosperous just around the corner, so why bother traveling to sea to earn this hard-earned money.
Shen Jingdan felt numb when he heard this.
Although he also wanted to establish a relationship with Zhongtang, Shen Xuan was not his biological child, but was entrusted by his old friend to raise him on his behalf many years ago. If this were sent to Heshen's house and some clues about his life were revealed, he wouldn't be able to chop off several of his heads.
So he promised Mr. Wang, the salt merchant, that he would discuss it at home and give an answer after seven days.
After Shen Jingdan returned home, he discussed it repeatedly with his family and decided to make it look like Shen Xuan died of an emergency to deal with Mr. Wang. He first quietly opened the joints, found the corpse of an unknown woman who had just recovered from the village, and pretended to be Shen Xuan, and then secretly sent Shen Xuan to the No. 10 sand ship docked in Shanghai.
Unexpectedly, Mr. Wang got the news from somewhere and sent people to trace it all the way to Shanghai County. In desperation, Shen Jingdan had no choice but to find a group of small cargo owners in the name of going to Japan for sea trade. After hastily organizing a batch of goods, he secretly brought Shen Xuan to Nagasaki.
He hoped that after a year and a half passed, Master Wang would not be able to find Shen Xuan and would no longer be entangled in the matter.
(Note: In the middle and early Edo period, all Chinese ship owners transporting books to Nagasaki for sale must submit a document stating that the contents of the books shipped meet the requirements of the shogunate. Otherwise, they will be punished and the entire cargo of the ship will be prohibited from trading. , immediately ship and return.
The "Scenery of the Imperial Capital" cited above is an example.
There is a samurai family (Mukai family) that has been passed down from generation to generation, and is responsible for the "book review service", responsible for reviewing imported books.
After receiving the books shipped by the Tang Dynasty ship, the assistants and secretaries of the "Book and Property Reform Service" would review the contents of the books in the order of the catalog provided by the ship owner. First, copy the preface and table of contents of the book to prepare for the explanation of the book's content. After completion, submit the proofreading memo, review memo, etc. to the Book and Property Improvement Reporting Office.
The book reviewer or his assistant then begins to review the content of the book page by page, paying attention to whether there are any forbidden words. At the same time, pay attention to whether there are peeling off paper, red dots, orpiment and eyebrow markings.
Once a banned book is discovered, it will be reported immediately; even if there is a slight doubt about the text, it must be reported to Nagasaki.
And if necessary, write a "general statement" that summarizes its content one by one. If these books do not contain taboo passages, they are ordinary books, so there is no need to write out abstracts one by one. It is enough to simply present the entire book and explain the recorded matters, including the fragments.
The notice must state that "the above-mentioned imported books contain no forbidden contents," and the Nagasaki Council will approve them for sale based on this identification. )
