Siqin was kicked by Gong Gur and had a miscarriage. She lay there for ten days before recovering. Because Gong Guer's family kept this secret secret, no one in the nearby herdsmen knew about it, so no one came to visit her at all.
Every morning, a maid would bring a bowl of leftover rice and a bowl of herbal tea, like feeding a dog, put them next to Siqin, then walk away without even saying a word, and take the bowls back in the evening. Siqin couldn't eat or drink tea. The yurt with thousands of holes was ventilated on all sides, and it was extremely cold at night. After lying there for two days, she was able to eat something.
But people, when supported by a hope, can often endure any suffering. Although Siqin had a miscarriage and suffered these days, her heart was filled with a strong desire to live!
You must know that before this, death was a happy ending for her. Now, in order to survive, she has to endure no matter how much torture.
Although the child in her belly was gone, it relieved her of a huge mental burden. He felt that he could go to see Timur again with his chest raised and his head raised high. If the other person is willing, I will leave this hellish place with him, even if we go far, far away, even if we fetch water and cook for others. This thought was like a fire, warming her whole body and giving her the power to be reborn.
During this period, a major event occurred in Khalkha Mongolia, that is, the Northern Navy occupied the city of Ulyasutai. This also marked the end of Manchu rule in Khalkha Mongolia.
The work team led by Wang Rong received new orders on the fifth day after Timur left and also left. When they left, the surrounding herdsmen who heard the news came to see them off. They took out the best food at home as gifts, but they were all rejected by the navy north of Wang Rong due to discipline.
Before leaving, Wang Rong told everyone that the Northern Navy would send people again, and by then, Khalkha would be transformed.
Siqin lay there until the morning of the eleventh day, and finally she was able to get up and take two steps slowly in the yurt. Although she was dizzy, these two steps gave her great encouragement and comfort. She felt that if she could walk, she would not die and she would be able to go to Timur in a few days. Thinking of this, she shed tears of joy.
After another three days, her body had just recovered to be stronger, so she decided to sneak away to Timur's house to look for him early tomorrow morning when the people in Gonggul's house were not awake.
Unfortunately, that night, the first heavy snowfall on the grassland suddenly came. Looking out from the hole in the yurt, there are white flowers everywhere. The snow finally subsided in the middle of the night, but the north wind picked up again and the temperature dropped suddenly.
The north wind kept pouring snowflakes in through the cracks in the door and the felt, and Siqin was almost buried in the snow. It wasn't that she didn't want to crawl out of her bag to find some dried cow dung for the fire to keep warm, but she was worried that if someone from the Goncourt family discovered her, they would spy on her and she wouldn't be able to escape tomorrow.
"I've endured all kinds of hardships, so what's the big deal if I freeze all night?" She thought like this and gave up the idea of lighting a fire to keep warm. The whistling wind roared violently outside the bag, the dilapidated yurt was shaking, and the door, felt and Hanam wood were all rattled by the wind.
Siqin finally stayed up till dawn, the wind was still blowing hard outside and the snow was still falling. She felt that this was the best time to escape, so she got up and shook the snow off her torn cotton robe. She walked to the door and listened for a while, then gently opened the door.
The dog guarding the cattle and sheep noticed the movement here, but the dog was very familiar with Siqin and did not bark. He ran over and smelled her hand with his wet and cold nose, then turned and left.
After Siqin ran for more than two miles despite the wind and snow, and got into the willow forest on the river bank, he slowed down and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Finally escaped!" Thinking of this, she felt that her whole body became weak, and she could not stand firmly on her feet. She reluctantly leaned against a tree, closed her eyes and rested for a while. Only then did she realize that the two shoes on her feet were missing.
The yurt of Timur's family was still some distance away from here, so Siqin thought it would be better to borrow a pair of shoes from the nearby old man Dorji and put them on before leaving. When she arrived at Dorji's house, her feet were already numb, and her body, which had just recovered from the miscarriage, could no longer hold up after some intense torture.
Old Dorji saw her appearance and knew that she had escaped, so he told her to lie down quickly, found a worn leather jacket to cover her, poured her a bowl of wine, and added a few pieces of firewood to the fire pit. When the temperature in the bag came up, Siqin felt breathless.
Dorji asked: "Poor child, how did you escape in the dark night with such heavy snow? Are they trying to harm you?"
"Uncle, I escaped to find Timur. Please lend me a pair of shoes!"
"Where are you going to find Timur?" Dorji pulled out a pair of worn-out felt shoes and handed them to her. He sighed and said, "He left more than ten days ago, and the members of the work team also left in the first few days. He said he wanted to go to Uliasutai with the army."
Siqin opened his leather jacket, struggled to put on his boots, stood up and walked out of the bag. Dorji chased her out and tried to pull her back.
"Where are you going? You'll freeze to death!"
"I'm going to find him!"
"Company Commander Wang said there are thousands of them, and more people will come from the east in the next few days, and they will also attack Khovd. If Timur goes to Khovd, how will you find him?"
"I will find him wherever I go!" Siqin's tone was decisive.
Dorji recalled what Company Commander Wang and the others had said and done in these days. For the first time, he was not afraid of the officers and soldiers, but more like family members, so he gritted his teeth and made a decision.
"Okay! I'll hitch the horse and go with you. You can't go far in this weather!"
By daybreak, the wind had not stopped, and it was clear that the snow was still going to continue. But for Siqin, no matter how heavy the wind and snow are, it doesn't matter, because after the wind stops and the snow subsides, it will be a brilliant sunny day.
...
In the middle of the tenth month of the lunar calendar in the fifty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign, three large ships with a load of about 1,000 tons slowly sailed into the waterway of Anping Port in the southern part of Jeju Island under the close surveillance of two small motor-driven sailboats and gunboats of the North Navy and the island fort. .
This place is "Seogwipo City" in another time and space. It was originally part of Dajeong County under the rule of the Li Dynasty, and was just an unknown fishing village on the coast. Before coming to Beihai Town, the local area was extremely poor. The only thing that interested the Li Dynasty government was collecting pearls, abalone and other seafood from the villagers.
Since Beihai Town set it up as a transfer station for disaster victims in Henan six years ago, it was renamed Anping Port. After the naval battle of Changxing Island ended, it became a commodity distribution center in Northeast Asia. Soybeans from the Liaodong Peninsula, tea and tobacco from Fujian, silk and tussah cocoons from Shandong, and cotton, cotton cloth and tung oil from Jiangnan can be seen everywhere in the market in Anping Port.
Beihai Town has shipped here a large number of leather goods, mountain goods, Chinese medicinal materials, seafood produced in the Northeast and Siberia, as well as various light industrial products produced by Beihai Town; these include flat glass and aluminum pots. , matches, cigarettes, lanterns, etc.
You must know that at the beginning, Li Zuojun and his ministers hated Beihai Town for occupying Jeju Island. They wanted to take it back several times, but they couldn't afford to offend the powerful perverts of the North Navy. In the early days, Jeju Mu once reported to Hanyang for approval and sent 500 soldiers to expel them. At that time, there were only ten Northern Navy and more than 50 Caobang sailors armed with cold weapons stationed here. With only one volley of guns and a charge, Li Chao's troops were frightened and fled.
Three years ago, Cai Jigong was ordered to go to Beihai Town as an envoy. One of his very important tasks was to solve the problem of Beihai Town occupying Anping Port. Later, after some bargaining between him and Shen Jingdan, Li Chao half reluctantly and half secretly agreed to let Beihai Town lease Anping Port for twenty years at a cost of five thousand taels of silver per year, on the condition that the entire rent be paid in one go. And it requires copper coins.
Later, Li Chao wanted to bargain again and proposed to convert one tael of silver into one thousand coins, but Shen Jingdan immediately rejected the offer.
Oh, co-authors smuggled copper coins with the Manchus for more than 800 fen, but with us, they smuggled copper coins for 1,000 fen. What good thing do you think? 800 Wen discount for one tael, do you want it if you love it?
You know, this is 80 million copper coins! Even if you exchange one penny for every tael, that's still 100,000 taels of silver. According to Li Chao's usual price of 230 taels of silver, that's a difference of more than 400 taels of silver. If there are two hundred more taels of silver, that's more than 80,000 taels of silver.
After that, the Beihai Town Mint went into full gear, and it took two years to deliver all the coins. During this period, Zhao Liang also led workers to imitate the drawings of the world's first "toggle press" and produced 20 coin minting machines. Five of them were shipped to the North Naval Base in Gancheng Ao to help Nguyen Phuc Anh produce coins. Copper coins.
The import of a large amount of copper coins greatly alleviated the currency pressure caused by the insufficient money production of the Li Dynasty. When King Li Zang had money, he launched the construction plan of "Suwon Hwaseong". By the way, the designer of Suwon Hwaseong Fortress happened to be Lin Ruoyu’s good friend Jung Yak-yong.
At this time, on the deck of a Guangzhou ship, Ma Baishan, the second steward of the He Mansion, said respectfully to the person in front of him: "Second Master, this is Anping Town."
"Well, it's so lively!"
The speaker was a middle-aged man who was less than forty years old. He was wearing a navy black fox fur lambskin robe, a black Ning silk batulu vest trimmed with embroidered beads and gold thread, and a sea otter skin hat. , with a fair complexion and a neatly trimmed mustache, he looks somewhat similar to He Shen, the No. 1 minister of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. This person is He Shen's younger brother, He Lin, who is currently the deputy commander of the Han Army in Xianglan Banner and the right minister of the Ministry of War.
This time he came not to secretly establish relations with Beihai Town, but to receive a batch of military supplies to support Fukang'an's entry into Tibet according to Qianlong's secret order and in accordance with the agreement reached between Zhao Xin and the Qing court. Escort it to Xining.
The original proposal from Beihai Town was to send the supplies directly to Dagokou, but Liu Quan rejected it directly. What a joke! If the big iron ship comes again, the emperor will have to chop off his head.
The three ships docked, and a person from the port office and two armed guards walked onto the deck and began to ask questions. He Lin listened and watched without interrupting. When Ma Baishan took out the money, she saw him counting twenty Beihai silver dollars with "one yuan" denominations from his wallet. The other party took the money and started Write documents.
He Lin noticed at this time that the entry procedures in Beihai Town were completely different from the imperial customs. There was neither a letter plate nor a business photo with a large seal, but a piece of light green paper about a foot long and half a foot wide. Register. There are many grids of different sizes drawn with black lines on it. The tonnage of the ship, the name of the captain, the name of the cargo owner, the number of sailors, the number of crew members, the number of days of stay, the type of cargo, etc. are marked on the front. The person who registers only needs to fill in the corresponding fields. A blank position is sufficient.
But what surprised him later was that the pen used by the person who registered was not a brush, but a "hard-tipped pen" that he had never seen before; after the registration was completed, Ma Ba San was asked to write at the bottom left of the form. Signed his name.
Just when He Lin thought that the other party would tear off the light green paper and hand it to her, she saw that the person turned over the light green paper, and there was actually a page of light red paper underneath. The content on it was exactly the same as the previous one, and There was already handwriting, even a signature, but it was just light blue.
The people in the port office tore off the red paper from the curtain, handed it to Ma Baishan, and then got off the ship with the guards.
After the people from Beihai Town left, He Lin immediately asked, "Guanshi Ma, what's the point?"
"Second Master, this is called 'carbon paper'. I don't know exactly how it was made. If you have been dealing with Beihai Town for a long time, you will know that many things are evil."
He Lin took the copied registration form and looked at it for a long time. She was shocked beyond words. It was unfathomable that Beihai Town even had a secret method for such a thing. But then again, having this "carbon paper" is really convenient. If the customs along the coast and even some railway ticket documents can be processed in this way, it will really save a lot of paperwork.
However, he quickly rejected this idea. Looking closely at the strokes on it, He Lin felt that in addition to paper, the hard-tipped pen must also be important. However, under the Qing Dynasty, only writing brushes were used. Even with such paper, it would probably be cumbersome.
He thought for a while and asked again: "Just handed over twenty silver dollars, nothing more?"
Ma Bashi said: "If you go back to me, that's really all. There is no shipping material fee (charged according to the beam size of the merchant ship) and commercial tax here. There are only dock fees, inspection and quarantine fees, and inspection fees. Cargo charges. Precisely because the customs fees here are cheap, many people doing sea trade come here.”
He Lin was stunned after hearing this. He glanced at the various facilities on the port, especially the three-story high-rise building one mile away. He thought to himself, what is the use of charging this little money? So he asked: "What about miscellaneous items? Are there no officials extorting money?"
"There are no miscellaneous items. I heard that a guard extorted extra money from the ship owner before, but he was soon fired and a notice was posted saying that the man was exiled to Bitterleaf Island."
"oh?!"
Ma Baishan raised his hand and pointed to the port office not far away and said: "There is a wooden box at the door for submitting donations. Anyone can submit them."
"Haha, that's just superficial. There are a few ordinary people who are literate."
He Lin's disapproval is actually correct. As the stalls in Beihai Town get bigger and bigger, internal corruption problems have begun to breed. The so-called "traveling thousands of miles to become an official is just for food and clothing", not only scholars, but also common people who cannot read or write think so.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Trade have a large number of "clerks", and these people are officials in the eyes of the people. As Beihai Town has gone through several troubled years, the trend of unifying the world has become more and more obvious, and the clerks have become more and more official. Although they dare not do it openly, there are already many people who do it privately. Some people even form gangs in order to rise to the top in the "new dynasty".
In addition, life in Beihai Town has become more and more affluent in recent years, and many officials have become dissatisfied with the law that "cannot take concubines." Some middle- and lower-level civil affairs officials are already secretly raising wives.
In response to this situation, Yu Deli, after discussing with Zhao Xin and others, decided to establish a special anti-corruption team, similar to the "XX Office" in another time and space; this organization will directly report to Zhao Xin, Chen Qingsong and others A "committee of three" was formed to take charge.
Zhao Xin actually knew all these situations. He has been holding back because he doesn't want to be the one to initiate anything. Beihai Town belongs to him and everyone else; if you take the initiative in everything, you will be exhausted sooner or later.
After completing the procedures for entering the port, Ma Baishan did not rush to get off the ship. Instead, he asked one of his subordinates to take the invitation and deliver it to the "Government Office" in Anping Port. There must be no rumors about the handover of supplies between the imperial court and Beihai Town.
After having dinner on the ship at dusk, two four-wheeled carriages quietly drove into the port. He Lin, Ma Baishan, and two guards boarded one of them. Half an hour later, they met people sent by Beihai Town in a courtyard outside the Anping Port military camp.
"Hello, sir, I am in charge of this material handover. My name is Kong Shaoan."
"Mr. Kong, I have admired you for a long time! I am here with Xizhai." He Lin bowed her hands and said to herself that he almost knew the name of the big pirate boss in the North Sea, but he had never heard of anyone named Kong.
Standing in front of He Lin was a young man who looked less than thirty years old. He was wearing a military uniform of the Northern Navy without a military rank. His face was white and beardless, and he also wore very exquisite rimless glasses.
Needless to say, this person is also a time traveler and was previously responsible for centralized control in a power plant project.
