My eunuch godfather

Chapter 7 Steaming

The following morning, after practicing several sets of boxing, Zhang Kun instructed his maid to brew a pot of strong tea, thus consuming a large amount of caffeine.

He also took out the dried watermelon that the doctor had prepared last year and ingested a large amount of citrulline.

The dried watermelon was hard and tough, and watermelons were generally not sweet at the time. Zhang Kun chewed and swallowed it with strong tea, grimacing.

Add sugar? No, you shouldn't add sugar. Too much sugar will reduce athletic performance.

After completing the pre-match preparations, Zhang Kun summoned a carriage, rode ahead on horseback, and led Ning Xuan'er and the maids out of the city...

The Mongol Yuan dynasty designated a large royal hunting ground southwest of Dadu (Beijing), called Xiamafeifangbo.

During the Ming Dynasty, it was renamed Nanyuan, and was popularly known as Nanhaizi.

The terrain is low-lying, and before the first year of the Jiajing reign, the Hun River flowed through it, with many lakes and swamps.

The waters flow eastward to form the Liangshui River, which flows past the Hongren Bridge and eventually merges into the Grand Canal.

The area around Hongren Bridge was often used for horse racing by high-ranking officials and nobles, hence the local name "Maju Bridge" (Horse Colt Bridge).

The Majuqiao Niangniang Temple, which enshrines Bixiao Yuanjun, is very popular, with its worshippers mainly being the female relatives of high-ranking officials and nobles.

In a courtyard near the Niangniang Temple, the woman in the fur robe and Zhang Kun walked out one after the other and boarded the carriage parked outside the courtyard.

"You little rascal, where did you learn so many fancy tricks at such a young age?"

The beautiful woman in the fur robe leaned languidly against the armrest, her face rosy and her eyes glistening with tears, and instructed Zhang Kun:

"Give me some of the freshly made tampoo to try."

Zhang Kun, whose back and legs ached, took out a cigarette case from his satchel and handed a slender, light-flavored mint cigarette to the woman in the fur robe.

The woman in the fur robe leaned closer, took a cigarette, and while Zhang Kun lit it with a tinderbox, she reached out and touched Zhang Kun's chin.

"Next time, shave your stubble clean first; it's really itchy."

After exhaling a few puffs of smoke, the woman in the fur robe smiled lightly at Zhang Kun:

"That little girl with the mixed features, look at her hairstyle, haven't you taken her in yet?"

"She is too young and her body is not fully developed. If she gets pregnant, she is likely to have a difficult childbirth."

Zhang Kun lifted the carriage curtain, looked at another carriage parked not far away, and explained to the woman in the fur robe.

"snort!"

The woman in the fur robe kicked Zhang Kun and sneered, "Aren't you worried I'll get pregnant?"

Zhang Kunqian laughed a few times, but dared not reply.

"After a great disaster comes disease and bandits."

The woman in the fur robe flicked the tampons out of the carriage and reminded Zhang Kun:

"Be careful on your journey south, lest you lose your life there."

She pulled out a 200-tael silver note and slapped it on the table. "Take this and use it to hire some good men or something."

"Thank you, sister."

Zhang Kun carefully put away the silver notes, then took out a small booklet from his satchel and handed it to the beautiful woman in the fur robe, explaining:

"This is a location where land prices will rise after the river engineering project starts. Sister, you can make some arrangements in advance."

"Give it to your godfather, I don't have that kind of money! Get out of the car and call that little girl over here."

The woman in the fur robe shooed Zhang Kun out of the carriage. After Ning Xuan'er boarded, she gave her a cold look and then chuckled:

"This is the one that little rascal mentioned, what's it called... 'I feel sorry for you'?"

Looking at the beautiful woman in the fur robe before her, Ning Xuan'er felt an instinctive hostility rising within her.

However, Zhang Kun had told her that this was the wife of the Grand Eunuch Zhang Ye, so she could only speak in a humble tone:

"This servant greets Madam."

"Zhang Kun is going south on business, so you'll be staying with me these days."

The woman in the fur robe was pleased with Ning Xuan'er's humble demeanor. "I heard you can play the pipa. What pieces are you good at?"

......

After everything was arranged, Zhang Kun set off south from Zhangjiawan in Tongzhou.

The grain supervisor of the river work camp, Zhang Kun's cheap thirty-fifth brother, had already prepared 10 of the most common flat-bottomed shallow boats.

It requires 400 pieces of wood, 14 workers, and can carry a maximum load of 2000 shi (a unit of dry measure).

Chen Jizong and Xu Bengao each led one hundred soldiers to guard the camp, totaling two hundred men.

Nothing can stop us!

Zhang Kun hummed the tune of Blue Lotus, gazing at the fields on both sides of the Grand Canal:

It is now mid-April in the lunar calendar, and winter wheat is entering the turning stage, gradually turning from dark green to golden yellow.

After the frost heaves, it's time to mature, and then it's time to harvest and clear the stubble. There are two options.

If the soil is fertile, plant another crop of beans or millet; if the soil is not fertile, leave it fallow until August to prepare for the next crop of winter wheat.

Lowering fertilizer prices at this time allows more land to be planted again, producing more grain and feeding more people.

"Supervisor, the Lu family's place in Xianghe is just ahead."

The bow of the boat leaned forward and reminded Zhang Kun.

"Oh, so fast?"

Zhang Kun was somewhat surprised. It was about 60 li from Zhangjiawan to Lujiawu, and it would take two days to travel by land, with each day's journey being 30 li.

It's only been a little over half a day since we set off, but I never expected to have already covered sixty li (about 30 kilometers).

"Reporting to the foreman, we're currently going downstream."

The captain assured Zhang Kun, "As long as nothing goes wrong, we'll definitely reach Hexiwu before sunset!"

The distance from Lujiawu to Hexiwu is about forty li, which means that if you go downstream, you can travel 100 li a day.

Zhang Kun asked the chief captain, "After passing through the lock at Tianjin, how many li (approximately 5 kilometers) can we travel upstream each day?"

"Reporting to the supervisor, it should take about 40 li. The wind will be faster if it's favorable, and slower if it's headwind."

Upon arriving at the Luxiwu Wharf, Zhang Kun only allowed Xu Xin to take Chen Jizong's five servants to the market to buy some braised meat and pickles.

We had a simple lunch made with the congee cooked on the ship's heater.

Upon arriving at the Hexiwu Wharf in the evening, Zhang Kun allowed all the boatmen and soldiers to disembark and rest.

Dinner was plentiful, with a roast chicken for each person, radish stewed in bone broth, unlimited mixed flour steamed buns, and a pound of low-alcohol rice wine.

After dinner, Zhang Kun changed into casual clothes and strolled around the market, enjoying the long-lost nightlife.

"Sir, we've just received a rare and wonderful book, a sequel to the Water Margin, full of erotic tales!"

As Zhang Kun passed by a bookstore, the clerk enthusiastically tried to recruit him.

"Another version of Water Margin?"

Zhang Kun became interested, stopped, and asked the waiter, "Is it *Jin Ping Mei*?"

"Oh, you're from the south? We've only had our products on the shelves in Hexiwu for a few days."

"Give me one."

As early as the 25th year of the Wanli reign, there were already many handwritten copies of Jin Ping Mei circulating among literary circles.

The book that Zhang Kun bought for 3 taels of silver was a woodblock-printed edition.

The paper is of poor quality, the layout is cramped, and there are no illustrations. It shouldn't be worth much, but its subject matter makes up for it all.

"...That's too colloquial!"

Before his time travel, during his middle school years, Zhang Kun used the pretext of Chinese class to buy and repeatedly criticize *Jin Ping Mei*.

This version is very different from the one Zhang Kun saw:

It is more colloquial and rough, with a lot of storyteller's tone and vocabulary, and too much preaching, folk poetry and singing.

The characters are rather one-dimensional, and there aren't many compelling stories or even chapters.

It feels like the publisher just randomly picked a few storytellers and bookmakers and modified it from an incomplete manuscript.

"Damn it, what a waste of three taels of silver!"

Zhang Kun put down the engraving and began to ponder:

Selling books is definitely a very profitable business; even such a crude copy of *Jin Ping Mei* can sell for three taels of silver.

If you find a relatively complete copy, have it polished by a scholar, illustrated by an artist, and printed on good paper, you can sell it for at least five taels of silver!

Not only Jin Ping Mei, but also Feng Menglong's "Three Words" and Ling Mengchu's "Two Collections of Stories" are about to be published, both of which are expected to be bestsellers.

Zhang Kun couldn't remember long stories, but he could still write outlines for some short and medium-length stories that he remembered well, and hire someone to write them for him.

Moreover, owning a printing shop and supporting a few down-on-their-luck scholars will be of great use in the future.

However, the printing workshop required a considerable amount of start-up capital, and Zhang Kun also had earlier established projects such as tung oil and land speculation.

"Money, money, money! Everything costs money!"