The purpose of Zhao Xin's visit to Guangzhou this time was to buy medicinal materials. Before setting off from Beihai Town, Hong Tao had a special talk with him, and the topic was medicinal materials.
Now that the population of Beihai Town has exceeded 100,000, it is no longer enough for Zhao Xin and Hong Tao to buy medicine from another time and space. As the boss of Beihai Town's health system, Hong Tao urgently needs to find alternative medicines in this time and space.
After discussing with the Wu brothers, they suggested that Zhao Xin should buy some medicinal materials from the south and made a list.
For example, Tianqi is used to stop bleeding and blood stasis, Acanthopanax bark is used to dispel rheumatism and swelling, tangerine peel and Tianzhuhuang are used to remove cough and phlegm, green peel is used to eliminate accumulation and stagnation, rhinoceros horn is used to clear heat and cool blood, and King Cobra - commonly known as Guoshan Wind and so on.
The biggest advantage of buying Chinese medicinal materials in this time and space is that there is no chemical fertilizer or pollution, and you can buy bezoar and rhinoceros horns at will. With these alternative Chinese medicinal materials, Zhao Xin only needs to purchase medicines that cannot be replaced in this time and space; such as antibiotics or medicines for chronic diseases.
In fact, this kind of thing can be entrusted to the Cai family, and there is no need to go to the city yourself. Therefore, there is another reason why Zhao Xin came to the city that is difficult to say, even if he comes... As the most magical Chinese admonishment word, countless people have compromised under this sentence, and Zhao Xin is no exception.
Speaking of sending an unidentified person into Guangzhou City, this is just a trivial matter for the Cai family of Wanhe Xing. They just need to get the gatekeepers and soldiers at the city gate. But for Zhao Xin, it was a bit uncomfortable for him, a big man, to sit in the carriage of a carriage.
When the carriage entered the city from the west gate, no one checked it. The soldiers guarding the gate saw that it was Wanhexing's carriage and didn't ask at all. After entering the city, the group walked eastward along Huai'ai Street and turned left at the intersection of Gongchenfang. The flower pagoda of Liurong Temple was clearly visible.
Zhao Xin looked out from the carved window of the car and saw that the street was very crowded with people of all kinds. Shops also occupied the street to set up stalls, making the street that could originally accommodate two carriages running parallel congested.
During the Qianlong era, there were about one million people living in and around Guangzhou, and commerce was extremely prosperous. The destination of their trip was the Yaowang Temple to the north of Liurong Temple, which was the largest medicinal market in Guangzhou.
According to the accompanying manager Wan Hexing, the most famous traditional Chinese medicine shop in Guangzhou is "Chen Liji" which was founded in the Wanli year. His tangerine peel is the best; if you want to buy Tianqi and other medicines for reducing swelling and removing dampness, Then go to "Feng Liao Xing"; as for herbs such as Guoshan Feng, you can go to "He Ming Xing Tang".
"Does Wong Lo Kat have it?" Zhao Xin asked, blinking.
Manager Yu was stunned: "Wong Lo Kat? What are you selling?"
"Herbal tea."
"I've never heard of it. Mr. Wang, do you want to drink herbal tea? 'Chen Li Ji's' herbal tea is very famous."
Zhao Xin asked again: "What about Pan Gaoshou?"
Manager Yu thought for a while and shook his head blankly. He raised his hands and asked, "Mr. Wang, I'm sorry for my ignorance, but where did you hear the names of these two shops?"
Zhao Xindao: "To the north."
Manager Yu stroked his beard and smiled and said: "Then Mr. Wang must have heard something wrong. I almost all know the numbers of the famous medicinal shops in Guangzhou City. If the two you mentioned are medicine shops, they definitely don't exist."
Zhao Xinlu was timid. Little did he know that Wong Laoji and Pan Gaoshou were nowhere to be seen at this moment. Want to drink Wong Lo Kat? Just wait another forty years!
When Zhao Xin followed the Wu brothers' instructions and pretended to select the tangerine peels at "Chen Liji" and was about to pay, Manager Yu came forward.
For the Cai family of Wanhehang, today they are like an escort accompanying bandits and bandits when they go shopping. They must take good care of this visitor from the North named "Wang" and must not let him get into a lawsuit in Guangzhou, and must ensure a good shopping experience.
It is not surprising that merchants in this era had close personal relationships with foreign businessmen. In order to survive in the fiercely competitive environment focused on the world, businessmen must have extraordinary business methods.
For Thirteen Businessmen, the reason why they can gain the trust of foreign businessmen is closely related to their shrewdness and international vision, but more importantly, they attach great importance to interconnecting business expansion and emotional communication. Business development in this era is not a simple profit-making activity that will be flattened in later generations, but must be based on mutual trust and exchanges.
The Qing court's excessive demands intensified the contradiction between government and businessmen, which was one of the reasons why businessmen smuggled opium on a large scale in the later period; otherwise, the Qing court would not have been able to support various forms of exploitation.
It is said that doing business is so difficult, but someone said that I would quit and quit.
It’s a dream! The government's requirement is that all debts, arrears and fines must be paid off, and approval must be submitted to the court. And even if you quit, one day the palace will issue an edict that you have to do it even if you pinch your nose to borrow money. If you don't want to do it, you will have your house confiscated and exiled.
This time Beihai Town borrowed money from the Cai family, and the Cai family paid hundreds of thousands of taels less in interest alone. Spending a few thousand taels to buy Zhao Xin was nothing.
So Zhao Xin didn't have to pay for anything he bought today. Whatever he wants, the Cai family can settle with the store; and the Cai family is a well-known merchant, and the transactions with each store are kept in accounting, and the store will not come to settle the payment until three festivals ago.
However, from the manager's point of view, Zhao Xin bought a lot of things, as if he wanted to empty out all his inventory.
"How old is the tangerine peel?" Zhao Xin asked.
"Sir, the tangerine peels in our store are all top-quality products that are fifteen years old."
"That's it, two hundred bags."
"Ah? Yes! Sir, please take a seat and serve some good tea!" The shopkeeper almost went crazy with joy. What a big deal!
So when Zhao Xin and his party walked from one end to the other, all the drug stores in the street knew that a big customer came today. Tian Qiyi bought three hundred dan (one hundred kilograms per load), and the rhinoceros horn opened his mouth for one hundred. root......
As a result, after Zhao Xin bought all the medicines on the list given by the Wu brothers, Manager Yu's liver began to tremble. This "Master Wang" bought more than 50,000 taels of medicinal materials at once! Wanhe Xing is in big trouble now!
Fortunately, Guangzhou is the distribution center for medicinal materials in the entire south. If Zhao Xin went to Yangzhou to buy, he would not be able to buy so many goods. Manager Yu tremblingly asked the store owner to place an order and send it to the warehouse of White Bear Store, which was also owned by Wanhe Store.
Zhao Xin also saw Yu Guanshi's anxiety at this time, and said: "Mr. Yu, don't worry, I will transfer the money for the medicinal materials to your account after I return it."
Yu Guanshi originally wanted to say "no", but this was not five hundred taels or five thousand taels, but fifty thousand taels. He really didn't have the courage to refuse.
It was past noon, and Zhao Xin and his party were a little hungry after walking around the medicinal materials market for a long time. Manager Yu wanted to invite Zhao Xin to a restaurant to have a meal in a private room. Zhao Xinxin said it was so troublesome. He pointed to a small restaurant on the corner of the street and said, "Don't bother. If you have to go somewhere else after eating, that's fine."
Seeing Zhao Xin's insistence, Manager Yu had no choice but to agree. When I walked over, I saw that it was a porridge shop. Because it was past noon, there were not many people eating, and there were only three people eating in the shop.
By the way, there are no such things as rice rolls and shrimp dumplings in Guangzhou’s delicacies right now. The snacks, snacks or dishes that are familiar to later generations would not appear until the late nineteenth century.
The staple foods of Guangzhou people in these years were rice, porridge, noodles, noodles, and cakes; there were many types of vegetables, and even snow peas were introduced and started to be cultivated; as for the specialties, dogs, snakes, rats, centipedes, and dragon lice were introduced.
The porridge shop was not big, so the Cai family's waiters found tables and chairs at the door to sit down. They were determined not to enter the house and eat at the same table as Zhao Xin.
Manager Yu accompanied Zhao Xin into the shop, and each ordered a bowl of porridge, two crispy silkworm cakes, asked the shopkeeper to cut a chicken, and ordered a pot of rice wine.
Zhao Xin took a sip of rice wine, and then said, "It would be nice if it was iced."
When Manager Yu was about to talk, the voices of the three people eating on the left suddenly became louder.
"Mr. Liu, your recipe is wrong!"
The speaker was a woman with a delicate face, who looked about seventeen or eighteen years old. Sitting on her left was a middle-aged man in his forties, and to the left of the middle-aged man was an elderly man in his fifties.
"Oh?" The elderly man named Liu smiled faintly and said, "Why is my prescription wrong? The patient has rhinorrhoea, retching, aversion to cold, fever, and a slight chest tightness. I first use Aconite Decoction to warm the yang, and then use Dachengqi Decoction. With the method of purifying heat, although cold and heat are intertwined in the middle burner, Sini Powder can be used to harmonize yin and yang.”
"That's right, Brother Liu has used medicine to become a master and minister, and he has reached the state of Jinghua. You kid, what are you talking about!"
The woman spoke with a Nanjing accent and argued unconvincingly: "Dad, I'm right. The patient likes to drink, and in addition to internal and external moisture, it's rainy and humid in Guangzhou. If you eat dew in front of the mausoleum, you will be attacked from both inside and outside, and the disease will be damp." If it is inevitable, you should use cinnamon twigs to remove the cinnamon and add Poria and Atractylodes decoction."
"Huh?" The old man surnamed Liu was stunned. He sat blankly for a while, then suddenly slapped the table and said, "That's right! How could I forget this!"
When Zhao Xin and Manager Yu heard this, they already knew that the three people next to them seemed to be doctors.
Wait! Were there female doctors in the Qing Dynasty?
When Zhao Xin thought of this, he couldn't help but turn his head and look at the woman. It didn't matter at this glance. The three people next to him all noticed that Zhao Xin was tall and looked like a banner official. The three of them were afraid of causing trouble, so they got up to check the account and left in a hurry.
Zhao Xin was surrounded by people when he was buying medicine at the drug store in the morning, but he didn't take it seriously at this time.
After lunch, Zhao Xin told Manager Yu that he wanted to visit Fuxue West Street in the city. When he was buying medicinal materials in the morning, he inquired with someone and found that the bookstores in the city were concentrated near several academies on Fuxue West Street. He wanted to see if there were any Song edition books for sale. Anyway, all the important things have been done, so I have nothing to do.
It is said that old carvings from the Song and Yuan Dynasties became increasingly rare and valuable in the Qing Dynasty, and the style of Song Dynasty became even more popular in the Qing Dynasty. At that time, Lu Liuliang and Huang Zongxi had a very good personal relationship, but they finally turned against each other because of several sets of Song edition books. One called the other party a squealing pig, while the other called him "disobedient", "ironic", "nu Yan"...
What is the current price of Song edition books? The most expensive ones in good condition are six taels per volume, and those in poor condition are eight taels of silver each. Even at this price, it is extremely expensive for most scholars.
It is easier to understand if we use food as an analogy. At present, one stone of rice in Guangzhou costs 1.6 taels of silver, and a Song-printed book in good condition costs more than 600 kilograms of rice.
This price is not even worth a hair to Zhao Xin. A set of 360 copies of "Taiping Yulan" costs 240 taels. It is not easy to get another time and space for ten thousand times the price.
Although there are a lot of Song edition books in these years, they are not just big carrots on the roadside. Yu Guanshi took Zhao Xin to seven or eight bookstores, and finally bought three sets of Song editions: "Taiping Yulan", "Spring and Autumn Fanlu", "Longshui Handbook"; others such as Yuan editions and Ming Dynasty editions I bought more than a dozen sets of this book.
After coming out of the bookstore, Manager Yu saw Zhao Xin looking like he still had something to say, so he suggested going to Gao Di Street, where there were also several bookstores. In fact, when you arrive at Gaodi Street, you are already not far from Jinghaimen. Anyway, as long as they are closer to the outside of the city, the Cai family can feel more relaxed.
Gao Di Street mainly sells Suzhou and Hangzhou groceries. There are not many bookstores, but the prices are very affordable. In addition to books related to the imperial examinations, there are also various books such as scripts, calendars, almanacs, and arithmetic.
Zhao Xin went to a bookstore without much success. When he reached the second bookstore and just stepped across the threshold, he heard a somewhat familiar voice coming from the room.
"There is Mr. Gao Xi's book here! Show it to me quickly."
Zhao Xin took a look and saw that it was the woman he had seen in the porridge shop during lunch, but the two middle-aged men were not in the bookstore.
"Sir, what book are you looking for?" The clerk saw Zhao Xin's clothes and hurriedly came forward to greet him.
Zhao Xin was a few steps away from the woman, so he curiously asked the waiter in a low voice: "Who is Gao Xi?"
"Dai Dongyuan."
Zhao Xin blinked, never heard of it.
When the waiter saw Zhao Xin's appearance, he thought that he was also a fool, but he said, "Have you never read "Pythagorean Cutting the Circle"? This is a new book published by the bookstore."
"Oh, show it to me." Zhao Xin was very curious about the level of mathematics in the Qing Dynasty. The few mathematicians he knew were all figures after the Opium War.
Not long after, Zhao Xin took the book from the clerk and opened it.
"Tsk~~What do I think it is? Isn't it just spherical geometry?"
As soon as he said this, several people in the bookstore looked over in surprise, especially Manager Yu and the young woman. Everyone thinks that this tall and big man looks like a killer, but he actually knows arithmetic?
Zhao Xin didn't even look up. He picked up the next volume and opened it and read it again. The disdain on his face became even more obvious. He thought to himself, "What the hell is this!"
Seeing this, Manager Yu stepped forward and asked, "Mr. Wang, Mr. Gao Xi is a world-famous scholar."
"A great scholar?" Zhao Xin sneered: "He makes trigonometric functions so obscure and difficult to understand. The simple principles are written like a bible. Do you intend for people to learn them or not? This person is purely It’s unconventional and opportunistic.”
As he spoke, he opened a page from the previous volume and said to the manager: "There is no need for tangents and cotangents. We have to make some sort of moment and divided moments. The three hundred and sixty degrees of a circle were originally introduced by Westerners. They Isn’t it nonsense to say that the ancient method has three hundred and sixty-five degrees of wonder?”
Zhao Xin has been teaching artillery ranging in Beihai Town recently, and he discusses map measurement with Lin Ziping from time to time. He is now very familiar with spherical geometry.
Manager Yu was stunned for a while. Although he liked arithmetic, he had never learned this kind of spherical geometry.
At this time, Zhao Xin put down his book and was about to go out, when he heard the young woman say: "Then according to Mr. Pythagorean's opinion, how to cut a circle in Pythagorean?"
"Ah?" Zhao Xin turned to look at the woman and was stunned. "Girl, aren't you studying medicine?"
The woman said unconvinced: "Medical skills are a family tradition, and I am actually very interested in arithmetic. Sir, since you said that Mr. Gao Xi was wrong, what do you think is the correct one?"
Zhao Xinxin said, "What are you talking about with your little girl?" He said to the manager: "Let's go to another house and have a look."
The woman suddenly stopped at the door and said loudly: "No! If you don't make it clear today, don't even think about leaving. Mr. Gao Xi is famous all over the world, and you can't help ruining his reputation."
Zhao Xin was amused and said with a smile: "Did he write books for others to read? Why can't he tell me if he made a mistake? Girl, please stop blocking me. I have something else to do."
"You can leave if you want, bow to Mr. Gao Xi's book and apologize."
"Why!" Zhao Xin was dumbfounded. This girl was too arrogant. If he goes out regardless, the two parties will have physical contact, which is a long-winded situation.
He thought for a moment and asked the bookstore clerk: "Please bring me a piece of charcoal and two pieces of white paper."
While waiting for the clerk to get the paper, Zhao Xin said to the woman: "Just thank God for allowing me to teach you a lesson today. Then again, if you don't understand after I finish speaking, you won't return the favor. Are you holding the door and not letting me leave?"
The woman's face turned red and she spat: "Bah! Who wants to rely on you? You make it clear, me, of course I won't stand in the way."
