Chapter 93: Sanshan Street

The grandeur of Nanjing city in this era also left a deep impression on Zhou Dongtian. Needless to say, a small county town like Lingao couldn’t compare. Even the city walls of Guangzhou, where he had once been for an “internship,” and Hangzhou, which were considered first-class cities at the time, could not compare with it.

Zhou Dongtian had visited many cities in the old world, and Nanjing was one of them. The city walls of Nanjing, even though they were already in ruins at that time, had made him marvel at the determination of the Ming Taizu to defend his capital and the immense resources he had invested.

The construction of Nanjing’s city walls was entirely based on the local terrain. It not only utilized the city walls of the Yuan Dynasty’s Yingtian Prefecture but also made extensive use of the various hills around Nanjing as part of the defense system. In some sections, the mountains themselves were directly used as the foundation for the city walls. Therefore, it had an irregular shape. It connected to Zhongshan Mountain in the east, was defended by Shitou Mountain in the west, was backed by Xuanwu Lake in the north, and was crossed by the Qinhuai River in the south. It was built against mountains and by water, giving it an extraordinary momentum. And the foundation of the city wall was also luxuriously made of granite or limestone blocks. The two walls were built with large bricks, and the joints were filled with a mixture of lime, glutinous rice or sorghum rice juice, and tung oil, making it extremely strong.

At this moment, despite many years without war, the city walls and defense facilities of Nanjing inevitably showed signs of decay. But the city walls were still in good condition. Although Zhou Dongtian was not a soldier, he knew that the army’s current artillery could not destroy the city walls of Nanjing at all. Even the artillery of the Japanese army in the 1930s could not destroy the city walls of Nanjing, let alone the smoothbore cannons of the Fubo Army, which were much more backward than the Japanese artillery.

“If the Southern Ming court had been able to resist resolutely, the Qing army would not have been able to take this city,” Zhou Dongtian said with emotion. When the Xiang Army besieged Tianjing, the 20,000 starving and exhausted Taiping soldiers in the city could still rely on the city walls to resist for a long time. The conditions of the Southern Ming were much better than those of the Taiping army. Unfortunately, the court, exhausted by factional struggles, was alienated from both within and without, and finally surrendered without a fight.

Mei Lin, on the other hand, was thinking about the Qinhuai River. He had temporarily given up the idea of meeting the “Eight Beauties of Qinhuai.” Before they left, Zhao Yigong had given him a history lesson. One of the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai had long since passed away. Of the other seven, besides Liu Rushi, who was born in 1618 and was just over 14 years old, the others were all true lolis.

“Can you bring yourself to do it?” Zhao Yigong had asked. “Even Liu Rushi is too young.”

Mei Lin was, after all, a modern man, and he still had some bottom lines. However, since he couldn’t enjoy the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai for the time being, he still had to go to the Qinhuai River. He was very curious to see what this famous “pleasure quarter” of the Ming Dynasty, said to be a place where beauties gathered, was like. He also wanted to verify whether the aesthetic tastes of the ancients were really that special.

The prosperity on the streets made it hard to believe that this was the end of the Ming Dynasty, which was on the verge of collapse. Although the activities of the “Jian bandits” and “roving bandits” were becoming more and more common in people’s ears, and various places had suffered from disasters for years, news of “widespread famine” and “the roads being filled with the bodies of the starved” was constantly heard. Even the terrible news of “exchanging children to eat,” which was rarely heard in the past, was also heard… There was news of famine, defeat, additional taxes, and popular uprisings everywhere. The situation of the country was getting more chaotic day by day. Even in Jiangnan, which had always been considered prosperous, the price of rice had risen to three taels of silver per shi. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the price of rice in Jiangnan had never been so high. But all of this seemed not to have cast a single shadow on this Jiangnan metropolis.

However, many unsettling shadows could also be seen here. Among those speaking with southern and northern accents were not only officials, gentry, and wealthy households, but also many refugees and beggars. The number of such people on the streets had clearly increased, and there was a trend of them increasing even more. In the winter, the number of “roadside” corpses collected by the various shops in the city was also much higher than in previous years. The number of refugees fleeing from various places, especially from northern Jiangsu and Anhui, was so large that the human market outside the city was crowded with people selling themselves into slavery. As a result, the price of people had plummeted.

Cai Yibang, the major employee of the Qiwei Nanjing branch who had been accompanying the sedan chairs, now stopped them, slightly lifted the curtain, and said to Zhou Dongtian, “Master! Sanshan Street is just ahead. Please give your instructions, which bookstore should we go to?”

Zhou Dongtian didn’t know how to answer for a moment. His purpose was to investigate the local book-carving industry. He had long heard that Sanshan Street in the Ming Dynasty was the center of book-carving in Jiangnan, which was why he had come here. But he didn’t know which specific one to go to.

After a moment’s thought, he said, “We’ll get out here and walk around the street. Tell the sedan chairs to wait here.”

“Yes,” Cai Yibang replied. Under his command in Nanjing Mandarin, the sedan chairs turned sideways. Zhou Dongtian got out and stretched his back. The sedan chair bearers were certainly tired, but sitting in a sedan chair for a long time was not necessarily comfortable either. The chairs in the sedan chairs were not sofas, not even rattan chairs, but standard hardwood-backed chairs. The person in the sedan chair could only sit upright and could not move around much. To outsiders, it looked both majestic and comfortable, but in reality, sitting for a long time also made one’s legs and back numb.

After getting out of the sedan chair, Zhou Dongtian surveyed the street. Sanshan Street was much quieter than the bustling market they had just passed through. There were few pedestrians on the narrow, bluestone-paved road, and most of them were “well-dressed” people, mostly wearing long gowns. The occasional person in short clothes was a servant sent by their master to buy books.

The two of them attracted the attention of the pedestrians on the street as soon as they got out of the sedan chairs. Compared to the people around them, they were indeed too different: their tall and sturdy physiques, their dark skin, and their height, which was taller than most people.

Mei Lin felt a little uncomfortable. He had not received special training from the intelligence bureau, only a week-long short course before leaving. The long gown always felt ill-fitting to him, and his topknot and turban felt like they were about to fall off. He also didn’t know where to put his hands and feet.

Zhou Dongtian was much better in comparison. After all, he served in the intelligence and security department. According to the decision of the Joint Security Conference, personnel from the intelligence and security department had to undergo a certain amount of cross-training, so he had studied systematically at the “farm.”

“Let’s go,” Zhou Dongtian said to Cai Yibang. “You lead the way. We’ll just look around here.”

“Yes, Master.”

A faint scent of ink filled the air, the real scent of ink—with the smell of pine soot. Zhou Dongtian had once smelled such a fragrance in the rare book room of a certain library. It was the smell of high-quality Song Dynasty books, even richer than here.

On both sides of Sanshan Street were bookstores of all sizes. The large ones had five-bay storefronts, while the small ones had only one. But regardless of the size of the storefront, the eaves of the shops were very high. Looking in from the street, one could see rows of tall bookshelves against the walls, filled with all kinds of books.

Each bookstore had its own name and sign. Most of the bookstores here were “comprehensive bookstores,” selling all types of books. There were also some that specialized in certain categories, such as Buddhist sutras, Daoist scriptures, and other religious books, as well as those that specialized in “examination essays.” The so-called “examination essays” were the eight-legged essays, trial poems, and policy essays from the successful candidates in each imperial examination. In the old world’s terms, they were specialized in selling “supplementary teaching materials.” Although people at that time sneered at “examination essays,” the imperial examination system created a great demand for this industry. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the speed of book publishing was very slow. It took at least three or four years for a book to be published from completion of the manuscript to carving and printing. Only the eight-legged essays from the current year’s imperial examination were selected and printed almost as soon as the examination was over, which showed the strong demand.

Zhou Dongtian knew from the lectures at the Great Library that these bookstores specializing in “examination essays” were basically run by people from Jiangxi. Besides selecting and carving “examination essays,” another major business was to participate in examination fraud, acting as intermediaries between the chief examiners and the candidates. Except for the less important routine examinations and the children’s examinations, they could handle the business of bribing officials for almost every level of the imperial examination. By the Qing Dynasty, this business had even become their main business.

Besides some bookstores that sold books on consignment, almost every large-scale bookstore had its own carving and printing workshop and stored a large number of printing blocks. Almost every such bookstore had a “front shop, back workshop” model. Standing outside the shop, one could hear the sounds of the printing workers in the backyard rubbing impressions, applying ink, and brushing with horsehair brushes. Sometimes, when the front and back courtyard doors were open, one could even directly see the busy figures of the carvers and printers.

Zhou Dongtian strolled with great interest, observing the situation of each bookstore. This place was somewhat similar to the book markets in the old world’s cultural markets, but it lacked the hustle and bustle of a cultural market. The quiet atmosphere, mixed with the faint scent of ink and paper, made him feel a sense of pleasure.

But this pleasant mood would not shake his determination to personally destroy the printing industry of Sanshan Street. As long as books were published and printed using traditional methods, they would always be a cultural luxury that only a very small number of people could possess. The Senate had to completely shatter this system, and making knowledge cheap and popular was a necessary condition.

With this in mind, he strolled into a bookstore. Mei Lin and Cai Yibang followed him in.

This bookstore was not the largest on Sanshan Street, but its storefront was spacious—a three-bay storefront, tall and bright. The variety of books inside was abundant. On the tall bookshelves that filled three walls, there were all kinds of books, from classics, histories, and philosophical works, to examination essays, plays, and novels, as well as medical books, painting manuals, and treatises on wine and tea.

The bearing and attire of Zhou Dongtian and Mei Lin were different from ordinary people. The shopkeeper was very obsequious and immediately came forward to greet them, inviting them to sit down. He then instructed a clerk to brew tea and serve a fruit platter, and then asked for their surnames and hometowns.

“My surname is Zhou, and I am from Guangdong,” Zhou Dongtian said. “I am here on a study tour.”

“I wonder what kind of books Master Zhou would like to see?” the shopkeeper said with a humble but proud expression. “Our shop dare not claim to have a complete collection of books, but we are considered to have a full range of goods on this street.”