Before setting off to negotiate with the Manchus, Zhao Xin made a special trip to bring Director Liu back from another time and space to inquire about the progress of preparations for his wedding with Shen Xuan.
When a person reaches a certain social status, many private matters become public affairs. Beihai Town is different from the past, and the marriage of Zhao Xin and Shen Xuan is no longer their business.
Last year, Zhao Xin was still thinking about whether it could be simpler. Isn't it just a lively event? As a result, Shen Xuan's face turned ugly before she even said a few words, let alone Shen Jingdan, who shook his head to express his disagreement.
As the only descendant of the Shen family in Dongtai, Shen Xuan needs to go through a ceremonial marriage ceremony to comfort her relatives; while for Shen Jingdan's family, they have to come all the way here to endure the cold and endure hardship, carrying the reputation of rebellion. Isn’t it the right to live on the great road of human relations? I decided to get married just because I wanted to have a meal. Do you think my Shen family is marrying their daughter as a concubine?
Alas, this really makes no sense. Who told Zhao Xin to call himself His Highness in the first place? Now that the tide has risen, the Shen family demands that it be done at least according to the "prince's etiquette".
It was only then that Zhao Xin regretted a little. He had been foolish enough to set up a banner with the word "Ming" in the first place, and he was really setting himself up.
Afterwards, Liu Siting came to the door after hearing about this and volunteered to help. This person now claims to be taking care of himself and preparing to have a baby. By helping Zhao Xin in his wedding, he has only been working half a day every day since more than half a year ago. All the specific affairs in the hospital are handled by a large group of subordinates.
Zhao Xin was very grateful that someone could help, so he entrusted Director Liu Da with full authority to help handle it. So the "marriage preparation group" to find the big boss was announced. There are three main leaders, Shen Jingdan, Director Liu Da and Wang Zhong, and there are more people who help out.
The problem is that both the Shen family and Director Liu wanted to keep things simple regarding the "Prince's Wedding".
According to the wedding rules of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the marriage of a man and a woman needs to go through six items: receiving gifts, asking for names, accepting gifts, accepting levies, asking for an appointment (the emperor calls it "announcement"), and welcoming in person, which are the so-called six rites. From the emperor down to the common people, they could not avoid it. Each class just had different rules in details.
Shen Xuan and her biological father Shen Chengzhuo were just a small country squire from southern Jiangsu, and Shen Jingdan's family was not even considered a wealthy businessman in Yangzhou, let alone one. With their little knowledge, they don't know what "Prince's Gift" is.
Not to mention Director Liu Da, with her and her husband Doctor Hong’s meager historical knowledge, they thought it was just a lively ceremony to worship heaven and earth in Hanfu.
However, when Wang Zhong heard Shen Jingdan's thoughts, he shook his head repeatedly and said that it was inappropriate for Li. Looking at the confused Shen Jingdan, Wang Zhong, who claims to read everything, took out a copy of "Da Ming Hui Dian", opened the sixty-ninth volume "Prince's Wedding", and pointed to the words above to express his gratitude to Shen Jingdan. Said: "Brother Zhengtong, please first see what the prince's gift is."
Shen Jingdan was stunned after reading it, and Director Liu Da who came after hearing the news was also dumbfounded.
Shen Jingdan was anxious at the beginning and hurriedly asked for Zhao Xin's horoscope and asked Wu Xianning to temporarily act as a magic stick to close it. He felt that there was no big problem so he accepted a simple gift and exchanged it for a red book and green paper. But now after reading "Da Ming Huidian", I realized that this is not how the princes and royal families play at all. The rules are complicated!
Just the engagement gifts, the twenty pieces of silk and satin, a box of Dongzhu, two gold rings, a pair of gold earrings, and two jars of white wine that Zhao Xin gave, were simply child's play.
Although the Cai Cai and Zheng Nashengs were performed right next to each other in ancient weddings, the etiquette had to be prepared twice. The gifts that Zhao Xin gave were so-so, and they were only enough for the lottery process. As for the collection, there were still more, and they were much more than the first time.
Not to mention anything else, since you are marrying a princess, you must have a Yugu Gui.
According to the "Book of Rites of Zhou": Gu Gugui is seven inches long, so the emperor can hire a girl. This thing is made of white jade. It is rectangular in shape, with the upper tip and lower part. There are no words or patterns engraved on the surface. It is just a whole side of evenly sized and neatly arranged raised circles within a circle of neat raised edges. point.
Whether an emperor or a prince, when marrying a wife, shouldn't he use dragon or phoenix? Why should he use "gu"? University scholar Wang Zhong gave a perfect answer: "Zheng Xuan of the Han Dynasty has long said that the so-called Gu Gui is also the auspicious festival of the king's envoy. Gu means good, and its decoration is like millet and Wenran. It means that the emperor and the prince should have the world in mind when they get married. And 'gu' means 'good' in ancient times."
In addition, one Yanju crown and four sets of Yanju uniforms are also required. This is the so-called Fengguan Xiapei (for details, please refer to the actual objects unearthed from the Dingling Tombs of the Ming Dynasty in later generations). The biggest difference between the Yanju crown and the dress crown is that there are two strings of pearls held by golden dragons on both sides of the dress crown. As for other jade belts, shoes and socks, and head and face jewelry, there are a lot of them, and each item not only has a specified style, but also a weight requirement.
The above is just for the woman, it is more troublesome for the man.
The first thing is to prepare a leather bean suit, which is the court dress, also called "缿衣"; then to prepare the palace, which goes without saying; the third thing is to have an ancestral hall, if it is a royal family, there must be a Fengxian hall; The fourth is to have a band to perform "Zhonghe Shao Music".
If clothes and music are relatively easy to deal with, matters such as the ancestral hall and the ancestral hall are not things that can be dealt with carelessly. The ancients talked about names and disciplines. When getting married, the ancestors must be informed, and the new daughter-in-law must also go to the ancestral hall to offer incense and worship, so that she can be included in the family tree and have a name.
The problem is that even if we build a Fengxian Hall, who will be worshiped in it? Isn't this a joke to put a large group of Zhu family members who can't compete with Zhao Xinba inside, and then kowtow to them?
When Director Liu Da sent a telegram to Zhao Xin to ask how to solve it, Zhao Xin said that the matter was too simple. If you want to build it, it is better to build a big Mingtang. Before getting married, you should offer heaven and earth first, and we should also be treated as Zhenyuan Immortals. After we get married, we will put the memorial tablets of those who have sacrificed their lives in Beihai Town over the years and turn it into the Martyrs' Shrine.
Liu Siting later discussed it with other time-travelers, and everyone felt that this trick was really effective; with Zhao Xin's demeanor, he really couldn't say anything if he said it was only for the ancients of heaven and earth.
So five months ago, a large-scale building covering an area of 5,000 square meters, with a steel-wood hybrid structure on the inside and a Chinese-style Mingtang on the outside, broke ground on an empty lot north of Beihai Town. Now the interior tracing has begun. Painting stage.
With the matter of Fengxian Palace settled, the next step is the band. At the level of Beihai Town, it is very simple to set up a 200-person drummer band, but the problem is that folk drummers simply cannot handle "Zhonghe Shaoyue".
There is no place to learn this thing, unless you go to Taichang Temple in the Qing Dynasty to capture a few officials in charge of court music... Oh, that's right! A few eunuchs from the Divine Music Department at the east gate of the Temple of Heaven also had to be arrested.
Because the performance of Zhonghe Shao music requires not only 72 musicians, but also more than 130 civil and military dancers. The musicians returned to Taichang Temple, and the dancers returned to the Divine Music Department. In addition, more than 90 kinds of musical instruments must be prepared, including chimes and chimes.
Forget it! It's better to play the recording, this is the easiest.
Before Zhao Xin left for Khabarovsk, he sent Director Liu Da back to another time and space. He took a plane back to China to find a studio to customize clothes. Anyway, Boss Zhao was a wealthy man, and he had access to gold mountains, so Director Liu went directly to the Yunjin Research Institute in Nanjing.
Gu waited and took a look at the place, wow~ Director Liu Da was immediately elated, this is too expensive and beautiful!
Liu Siting pretended that she was not short of money, and hurriedly placed an urgent order. In addition to the ones specially made for Zhao Xin and Shen Xuan, there were also two sets for Director Liu and Doctor Hong himself.
After that, she found a jade shop, selected a piece of mutton-fat jade, and had a seven-inch-long Gu Gui made based on the photos of the cultural relics unearthed in Dingling. Then I went to several studios that made Hanfu, and spent a lot of money to buy a green "six dragons and three phoenix crowns" and a Tongtian crown. In addition, I also bought a lot of various jewelry.
Shen Jingdan was not idle either. Before going to Guangzhou, he made a special trip to Jiangning and asked someone to spend a huge sum of five hundred taels of silver to get some pieces of brocade from Jiangning Weaving.
The output of ancient Yunjin brocade was very low and the price was extremely expensive, mainly because its weaving process was very complex and cumbersome. The two weavers were dizzy after a busy day, and they could only weave a brocade of about 5 centimeters at most.
It is said that after Shen Jingdan went to Guangzhou, he met the Cai family smoothly. Now, thanks to Zhao Xin, the Cai family has lost its position as general merchant and was fined a large sum of money by Guangdong Customs.
When they learned that Mr. Shen, who spoke Yangzhou dialect, came to inquire about the progress of buying a boat, Cai Shiwen and his son, the owners of Wanhe Bank, quickly explained. Only then did Shen Jingdan realize that buying a boat was not that simple.
Zhao Xin made a big fuss in Guangzhou City, and then left with Liu Zheng never to return. The Cai family wanted to communicate with him about the market information they had learned from the shipyard, but nothing happened.
First of all, what Zhao Xin originally wanted was a British three-masted sailing ship, but Siam could only build Tang ships, not British ships at all. The Macau shipyard actually inherited the traditional craftsmanship of Guangdong. If you really want to buy a British-style ship, you can only buy it from India through the British or Portuguese, and the price will become much more expensive.
Cai Zhaoping told Shen Jingdan that he thought Siamese ships were actually suitable. The largest ones could carry one thousand tons, the medium ones were 770 tons, and the small ones were more than 500 tons. Moreover, the shipbuilding craftsmen in Siam are all overseas Chinese. What they are best at is building three-masted red-headed ships with hard sails.
As for the price, the cost of Siam Shipyard is not expensive, only 15 taels of silver per ton. The total price of a 500-ton three-masted sailing ship is between 7,500 and 8,000 taels of silver, while the current cost of a 1,600-ton (90-ton) medium-sized sea-going ship in Fujian Shipyard is 3,000 taels of silver.
In addition to being very cheap, the shipbuilding period in Siam is also very short. A 580-ton Tang ship can be completed in just three months from keel laying to launching.
So judging from the current situation, the Siamese ship's load capacity can definitely meet Zhao Xin's requirements, but the Cai family doesn't dare to decide whether the ship type is suitable. What if Zhao Xin doesn't want to do it if the order is placed?
And in addition to this, there is another biggest problem. After the ship is built, Beihai Town must send people to drive the ship back. It is impossible to stop in Guangdong.
As a former sea trade merchant who went to Japan, Shen Jingdan knew this very well.
In the 42nd year of Kangxi's reign, the Qing government stipulated that merchant ships built in coastal shipyards were allowed to use two masts, but the beam of the ship could not exceed 18 feet and the number of sailors could not exceed 28.
This means that the thousand-ton ship purchased by Beihai Town from Siam can at most stop at Tanzai Island. But there are so many berths on Tanzai Island!
After a serious discussion between the two parties, Shen Jingdan made the decision to buy a Siamese ship. Five thousand tons, five 770 tons. Zhao Xin had given the Cai family a deposit of 70,000 taels before, and this time Shen Jingdan took out a silver check of 50,000 taels issued in Yangzhou.
Seeing that Mr. Shen was so forthright and knowledgeable, Cai Shiwen and his son were very happy and entertained him warmly. After finishing his work with the Cai family, Shen Jingdan took a boat to Lei Yue Gate to meet Zheng Lianchang from the Red Flag Gang.
Ever since Zheng Yi followed Zhao Xin to the north, Zheng Lianchang has been in a bad mood, and even the number of times he goes to Hua Ting per month has been reduced from ten to eight times. Ever since he heard that the imperial court had gathered a large army in the north, he had become even more worried and worried about his son's safety.
Shen Jingdan went to Lei Yue Gate. After some pleasantries, he first handed over the letter Zheng Yi wrote to his father, and then talked about the situation in Beihai Town. When Zheng Lianchang heard that his son was already a trainee captain of a thousand-ton British ship, he couldn't help but feel relieved, but then he looked sad again.
Shen Jingdan comforted him: "Brother Zheng, you can rest assured. Wen Xian is smart and studious. Now he is mainly responsible for the commercial trade with the Japanese country. He will be familiar with the shipping routes and gain experience. It will be of great use in the future."
Zheng Lianchang sighed: "Mr. Shen, you are an old expert in running the sea. I am a rough man, so don't mind what I say. I am the only one in the Zheng family, and that bastard Wen Xian doesn't even have a son. Although the big ship in the North Sea is safe, , but the wind and waves on the sea are really unpredictable!”
Shen Jingdan said: "Brother, there is no need to worry. We are already familiar with the route to Japan. We have experience when the weather is bad and when there is wind. Besides, Ah Yi's big ship is not driven by sails alone. , with Beihai Town’s mechanical secrets, it only takes three to five days to go back and forth.”
"Oh? Then I must see it some other time." Zheng Lianchang changed the topic and continued: "To be honest, the Xu family of the Black Flag Gang has mentioned it to me several times, and one must be honest. Now that it's settled My dear, you can’t keep your word.”
Shen Jingdan said: "What are Brother Zheng's plans?"
Zheng Lianchang said: "Let Ah Yi come back and get married. When my daughter-in-law is pregnant, I will ask him to go back and help you."
Shen Jingdan originally wanted to propose to Zheng Lianchang that Hongqi help send sailors to bring the ship back from Siam. But if Zheng Yi is allowed to drive back on the Beihai No. 1, he will be more assured of taking the ship back.
Even if the Cai family sends people to Siam to place an order to start construction, it will still take four months. Taking advantage of this time, Zheng Yi can come back to get married, and they can go back with the ship in February or March next year, killing two birds with one stone.
Thinking of this, Shen Jingdan said: "This matter will be taken care of by me. I will make it clear to King Zhao when I get back."
So when he returned to Beihai Town in October, he told Zhao Xin about the situation. Zhao Xinxin said that he was so sleepy that he encountered a pillow, and he was considering who to send to Fujian to open a tea road!
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