Great Zhou Empress

Asked the Quanzhou magistrate to deal with Chen Jiancai's matter, and Xue Zhijing borrowed funds from the Yuanjia cabinet to invest in the tea garden of Su Mingcha's family.

For Su Mingcha, having Xue Zhijing's help can be said to be a pie in the sky, but for Xue Zhijing, investing in this tea garden can get involved in the tea business more deeply, and it will be more beneficial to the future court trade management. Targeted.

For this reason, Xue Zhijing stayed for a few more months, trained several shopkeepers for Su Mingcha, and sorted out the tea production situation in the southeast region by the way.

It wasn't until autumn that she got up and went to Guangzhou to do her last mission on this trip, to investigate the Guangzhou Shipping Department.

When I went to Guangzhou by boat, I didn't expect to meet Ayila again.

However, when she approached Ayila, she saw two men following her, and saw her approaching and staring at her motionlessly, but maybe because she was a woman, the other party did not move extraneously.

Xue Zhijing felt weird, so he asked Ayila.

Ayila said coldly, "They were sent by my father to take me back. He fell in love with a son of Duke Gui's family and wanted me to marry him."

Seeing Xue Zhijing's surprised face, Ayila continued to say angrily, "It is said that the kid's wife just gave birth to a child and died. Although their family is a clan, daughters of ordinary families don't want to marry and feel unlucky. Our family is Fan, my father wished me to marry a nobleman of the clan, and the other party was a second marriage, so he couldn't dislike me as a fan, so we hit it off right away."

Xue Zhijing looked at the two men not far away, and asked softly, "Can't you discuss it with your father?"

"Discussion? He's just an antique." Ayla's eyes showed helplessness for the first time, "Actually, I also understand him. We Tibetans traveled across the ocean to come to Dacheng. Although we have a lot of money, we still can't integrate into this world." nation."

Xue Zhijing's attentive listening gaze made Ayila more eager to share.

She slowly told her story, "Although my ancestral home is Dashi, I was born in Dacheng, and my mother is Han, but she died when she gave birth to me, and I have never seen her. But you also saw I have changed my appearance, and I am not a Han Chinese at first glance, and I have a face that is called a monster."

Xue Zhijing smiled and said sincerely, "It's not a monster, but a beautiful face."

Ayila sneered, and I don't know if she was comforted by Xue Zhijing's words, but her tone softened obviously, "My father will go to Dashi every two or three years, and my family has its own sea. Ships, rich in assets, can bring a lot of tax revenue to the Shibo Department every time, so my father became the head of the Fanfang, and when he was in Dacheng, he also had to be responsible for managing all the affairs of the Fanfang."

"But we are still outsiders. This feeling appears in many obscure places in life, so my father especially wants to marry me to a nobleman, so that our family can fully integrate into Dacheng."

Xue Zhijing especially understands their feelings, in fact she is the same, she does not belong to this place.Fortunately, she has the empress and so many friends, which made her feel the connection with this era and the people of this era, but Ayila's family obviously did not feel such a connection.

That's why I thought about marriage.

"Then do you want to marry?"

"Marry?" Ayla snorted coldly, "I don't even know him."

After a long time, Ayla said desolately, "Once I get married, I will no longer be able to do the things I love to do."

She looked at the gradually falling sunset and sighed, "Sometimes I hate myself very much, if only I didn't know so much, ignorant, married, had a child, and my whole life will be a chaotic past Yes. But I am full of curiosity about this world. I want to build a ship that will never sink, I want to draw a map of the ocean current and wind direction in the entire sea area, and I want to measure the length of the earth. If possible, I I even want to grow wings and go to the sky to see if the sun is a fireball."

Xue Zhijing was touched by Ayila's sigh, how could she not know this feeling of powerlessness and longing.

In her previous life, she could have obtained a higher position, but because she was a woman and a foreigner, she was discriminated against in that country, and the position that should have belonged to her was given to a local man.

"If you don't mind, when I get to Guangzhou, I'll go and talk to your father."

Ayla looked at her strangely, "You? Who are you?"

Ayla's words were still stinging.

Xue Zhijing didn't take it seriously, and smiled slightly, "Let me introduce again, Xue Zhijing, a sixth-rank female official of the Dacheng Dynasty, an imperial envoy arranged by the empress to the Guangzhou Shipping Department."

After the identity was revealed, Xue Zhijing openly asked Ayila about the situation of Shibosi. Ayila had a very good memory and told Xue Zhijing everything she knew in detail. In some places Xue Zhijing didn't understand, I broke it up and told Xue Zhijing.

Xue Zhijing summed up a few points. First of all, the customs duty collected by the Shibo Department is actually quite arbitrary. Although the regulation is to collect one-tenth of the value of the goods, the value of the goods is debatable.Secondly, the officials of the Municipal Shipping Department can always collect some additional taxes in various names.In addition, there will be officials who require maritime merchants to take their goods with them when they go to sea, and the income will belong to them, etc.

Not to mention smuggling, pirates.

The ship is moored in Guangzhou Port.

The scale of Guangzhou Port is larger. Perhaps because of the large number of ships, the water in the harbor is very deep, which makes the entire river area appear more spacious.

There are more Fanbang people here. After all, this is the southern gate of the Dacheng Dynasty. Fanren from Nanyang and the West tend to come here to anchor. If you go further north, there is still a distance. Only sell tea and porcelain. Only those who are willing to park in Quanzhou go.

Judging by skin color, clothing, and facial features, there are mostly Nanyang people, and there are also many Arabs from Dashi like Ayla, and there are also blacks from Africa.

Without exception, they are all communicating in Chinese, some of them are not fluent in speaking, and they have to make gestures and guesses, and some of them are interpreters.

Xue Zhijing separated from Ayila and made an appointment to visit their house the next day.

This time, Xue Zhijing generously went to the prefect of Guangzhou to reveal her identity, hoping that the other party would cooperate, and then she went to the office of the Shibo Department accompanied by the prefect.

The Shibo Department in Guangzhou can be said to be the largest Shibo Department in the Dacheng Dynasty. The officials of the Shibo Department introduced, "The most wealthy businessmen, except for us Han people, are businessmen from the Dashi Kingdom. The heads of the Tibetans are all Dashi merchants. The land of the Dashi country is barren, and most of the area is desert. Therefore, the goods they sell are not all from their country, and they also sell medicines and spices from other countries along the way. If there is no business, the people of their country will have a hard time."

The yamen of the Shibo Department was set up not far from the port, and by the way, the officials took Xue Zhijing to the pier to watch the unloading.

If there are any items, the officials of the Municipal Shipping Department will board the ship to inspect the goods, and take one-tenth of the goods as tax, and some special luxury goods may need to be charged higher.

Looking at it this way, Xue Zhijing naturally can only see work that obeys the rules.

But even so, she needed to see it first, and she was really shocked.

Because there are too many sea-going ships moored in the entire pier, too many foreign merchants, and the goods are countless.

This kind of shock can probably only be described by words like "Yangyang Huaxia, Wuhua Tianbao, and all nations come to Korea".No wonder the Dacheng Dynasty, whose finances were on the verge of collapse, was able to survive only by relying on the commercial market in the north and the shipping department in the south.

After attending the dust-cleaning banquet held by the prefect of Guangzhou in the evening, she returned to Yuanjia Mansion, but the shopkeeper told her that a masked woman was waiting for her.

Xue Zhijing was concerned that he smelled of alcohol, so he told Ayila to give her some time to freshen up, but Ayila said, "It's okay, I'm upset, I want to ask you for a drink, can you still drink?"

"???"

It happened that the mansion shop had wine shipped from Dashi Kingdom, so Xue Zhijing asked someone to send a few jars to her yard.

It was hot in Guangzhou, so the two sat down in the yard, lit a dim lamp, and it was just right to drink and watch the moon.

After the food and wine were put away, all the staff in the mansion went down. Xue Zhijing opened the wine jar and poured wine into the bowls of the two of them. Ayila took off the veil that covered her face.

When he saw it from the corner of his eye, Xue Zhijing's hand shook, and the amber wine spilled out.

Ayla smiled and said, "Did you already drink too much? Why are your hands unsteady?"

Xue Zhijing was a little afraid to look at her face, the sense of impact was too strong, Xue Zhijing really couldn't tell where her facial features came from such impact, but all the cells in her body expressed that he could not resist.

That kind of feeling is like you started climbing the mountain in the middle of the night, and when you reached the top of the mountain, you just waited for the morning sun to rise, and the vast sea of ​​clouds was dyed with brilliant colors. You breathed the clear air and felt the most shocking beauty in the world.

At this time, Xue Zhijing felt like this.

Finally, after a long time, she slowly calmed down and was able to face Ayila directly.

"Do you also think I look too monstrous?" Ayla's face turned cold, revealing a tinge of sarcasm, "I thought you were different from others."

As she spoke, she was about to take off her veil and put it on again.

Xue Zhijing pressed her wrist, "Ayila, you misunderstood, I am also an ordinary person, your appearance is too powerful, so I was startled. Don't think too much, your body and appearance are just skins, Isn't the most important thing in a person's life is an interesting soul?"

In this world, anything that is too high or too low is troublesome.It's like people like to be tall, but being too tall is a burden, just like being too short is a burden.In the same way, being too ugly is troublesome, being too beautiful is even more troublesome.

Forget, Ayla is not only too beautiful, but also too smart.

These innate abilities did not bring her the life she wanted, but made her repeatedly struggle between expectations and reality, causing endless pain.

By the time she realized it, Ayla had already drank several bowls of wine.

In this era of low-alcohol wine, wine is already considered to be high-alcohol. Ayila's drinking method makes her easy to get drunk.

Xue Zhijing brought some food for Ayila, "Come, eat some food, don't just drink."

Ayla's eyes were bright, and she didn't seem to be intoxicated, but what she said had a kind of desperate courage.

"Aren't you a female official in the palace? Can you take me to Bianjing City? I also want to be a female official in the palace."