The Black Sails of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 47 Along the River During the Qingming Festival

It was getting late.

Pedestrians hurried along the port, vendors packed up their carts, and houses in the distance closed their windows and doors.

Several women stood in the street, calling out their children's names to come home.

Soldiers patrolled the streets, banging gongs to warn pedestrians not to linger.

The scene of everyday life in the city before Lin Qian found quite interesting.

Zheng Zhilong reminded him, "Brother Lin, curfew is approaching, we need to find a place to stay as soon as possible."

Lin Qian snapped out of her daze and said, "You're familiar with Guangzhou, so you can lead the way and find a high-class place."

"Okay," Zheng Zhilong replied.

Zheng Zhilong, with Lin Qian's satchel draped over his shoulder, led the two through the streets and alleys. After a short while, they arrived at a bustling street.

They chose an inn called "Songfeng Pavilion".

Lin Qian asked the innkeeper for three superior rooms and also asked the owner to prepare bath water and wine and dishes to be delivered to the rooms.

The shopkeeper, all smiles, personally escorted the three of them upstairs.

Lin Qian entered the room and found it to be exceptionally clean, with very elegant furniture and decor.

Soon after, the waiter brought over wine and dishes. After Lin Qian had eaten and drunk her fill, she asked the dishes to be cleared away. Then, servants brought over a wooden tub and hot water, and two girls came to help her take a bath.

Lin Qian was used to girls accompanying her while bathing in her previous life, so she acted naturally at this moment.

Although the two girls were in the prime of their youth, their looks were average, and Lin Qian had no other thoughts about them.

After taking a bath, Lin Qian felt as if she had lost two pounds. It was the first time she had felt so clean since arriving in Daming.

He fell asleep on the bed as soon as he lay down.

This was the most comfortable sleep Lin Qian had had in the six months since she transmigrated.

The next day, at the first light of dawn.

Lin Qian got up and went downstairs, where she met Zheng Zhilong and Bai Langzai waiting for her in the lobby of the inn.

The three of them went to have breakfast first.

At that time, Guangzhou did not yet have a morning tea culture, but as the birthplace of Cantonese cuisine, the variety of breakfast options was already quite rich.

Lin Qian chose a restaurant on the second floor and a window seat on the second floor.

I ate breakfast while gazing at the scenery outside the window.

In his eyes, Guangzhou was like a living scroll of the Qingming Scroll, and everything he saw was very new.

It's likely that Western missionaries who first arrived in Guangzhou shared similar thoughts, which explains why travelogues are filled with praise for Chinese cities.

After introducing Guangzhou for a while, Zheng Zhilong couldn't help but ask, "Brother Lin, what are we going to do today?"

"Let's explore the city today," Lin Qian said.

The meeting with the councilors was scheduled for the tenth day of the seventh lunar month. They arrived four days early and happened to arrive just in time for the Tanka boats to return. They decided to find a doctor first and take the opportunity to experience the local customs and culture of Guangzhou.

“Okay, I know a lot of good places to go,” Zheng Zhilong said excitedly.

After breakfast, the three of them strolled around the city.

Although he said he was just strolling around, Lin Qian was not without purpose. He focused on studying the layout of Guangzhou's city gates, waterways, and the patterns of soldiers patrolling the streets.

Afterwards, he visited various shops, not to buy anything, but to observe the development of handicrafts and technology.

Afterwards, I visited the market and learned about the prices of grains, vegetables, and meat.

Lin Qian is not a very talkative person.

However, today she especially enjoys chatting with all sorts of people, from servants and waiters to vegetable farmers and butchers, as well as brokers and shopkeepers; she'll chat with anyone she can get a word in edgewise. At first, Zheng Zhilong had to translate Cantonese for her, but within half a day, Lin Qian could understand a few everyday phrases.

This left Zheng Zhilong speechless, considering that it took him more than a month to understand what people were saying when he first learned Cantonese.

In her previous life, Lin Qian was a businesswoman who had dealt with many people. She was well aware of the importance of knowing what to say to whom and how to make people lower their guard and talk freely in just a few words.

In just one morning, he got a general understanding of what he wanted to know.

For lunch, Lin Qian once again chose a luxurious restaurant. Having come all the way to Guangzhou, Lin Qian was not going to skimp on her food.

We have to make up for the losses we incurred from eating the "sailing three-piece set" for half a month.

While eating, Lin Qian pondered the information she had gathered that morning.

Based on his understanding from his previous life, he had a general idea of ​​the current economic problems of the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty is currently caught in a vicious cycle of imported inflation from the south and contractionary deflation from the north.

Due to the massive influx of Spanish silver into Jiangnan, the productivity level could not keep up in a short period of time, causing silver inflation. The rich participated in overseas trade and earned silver at a speed comparable to printing money directly. Under the massive consumption, they exploited the wealth of the poor.

The Ming Dynasty was short of silver overall, and the difficult roads and poor transportation, coupled with the resistance of wealthy households to taxes, made the further north one went, the more silver was needed, resulting in a tight supply of silver.

Officials and wealthy households in the Northwest took advantage of the Single Whip Law to tighten the reins of credit during harvest season, causing silver to appreciate rapidly; after harvest, they loosened the reins of credit, causing silver to depreciate drastically.

When ordinary people had grain, grain was cheap; when they had silver, silver was cheap. They could only be ruthlessly exploited by landlords.

Ordinary people truly embody the saying, "Prosperity brings suffering, and so does ruin."

Lin Qian had been immersed in the business world for a long time and knew some basic economics. In just one morning, she discovered countless ways in which officials and gentry were exploiting her.

After lunch, the three went downstairs and saw a clinic after walking a few steps.

The plaque above the clinic reads "Qingmeifang".

Lin Qian suddenly remembered that the wound medicine she bought from the pleasure boat had a plum blossom logo on it, so she guessed it must have been produced by this clinic.

In a place like a pleasure boat, cosmetics may not be the best, but wound medicine must be top-notch.

As it happened, the ship was short of a doctor, so Lin Qian went in to take a look.

As soon as you reach the door, you can smell a very strong Chinese medicine odor.

Upon entering, you are greeted by a row of huge medicine cabinets. There are no doctors or waiters next to the counters, only a girl of about thirteen or fourteen years old minding the shop.

After wandering around all morning, Lin Qian hadn't seen a single woman yet, so she couldn't help but feel curious and cupped her hands in greeting, "Young lady, where is your husband?"

Upon hearing this, the girl looked up, her clear black and white eyes glancing at the three of them before she smiled and said, "My doctor is treating patients in the backyard. You three may wait a moment."

The girl had a clear, melodious voice and spoke Mandarin. She wasn't shy around strangers, which made her quite endearing.

Lin Qian and the other two did as instructed and found a place to sit down.

The girl cleverly poured tea for the three of them.

Although it was just a small amount of tea, considering the dilapidated decor of the clinic and the fact that they couldn't even afford a waiter and had to rely on a young girl to run the shop, the fact that they had this tea already showed great thoughtfulness.

After the girl sat back down at the counter, Zheng Zhilong lowered his voice and said, "Brother Lin, if you want to see a doctor, I know a few good ones. This clinic is deserted and business is terrible, so I guess the doctors are just so-so."

As soon as he finished speaking, as if to confirm his words, a scream came from the backyard.

Then came a stern male voice: "Bear with it!"

"It hurts! Have mercy, doctor!"

“Your illness won’t get better without pain; you have to drain all the pus. Here’s the stick I gave you; bite down on it and the pain will go away.”

Then came a muffled scream from the man, who was clearly biting the wooden stick so hard that he couldn't make a sound.

Zheng Zhilong's face turned pale, and he and Bai Langzai looked at each other in bewilderment.

(End of this chapter)