Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

Of course, China has public bathhouses, which also provide services such as back rubs, nail clipping, shaving, and massage. They also provide guests with tea, wine, and fruits.

Its basic service content is not much different from that of a modern bathing center.

The largest public bathhouse in Luoyang is at Tianwang Temple, and the largest public bathhouse in Kaifeng is at Xiangguo Temple.

Because the concept of public baths originally came from India following Buddhism. As early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties, public bathhouses have become essential facilities in large and medium-sized temples. They are mainly used by monks and pilgrims to wash away disasters and obtain blessings.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, with the rise of the civil class, public bathing places broke away from religion and became completely secular.

Why can’t I find a public bath in Aksukh?

Because the officials who accompanied him to Beijing were in a hurry, they said perfunctorily that they didn't have that thing.

Even when he was in Kaifeng, he wanted to walk around Kaifeng City, but he gave up after only walking half a circle. The accompanying officials came to urge him to get on the ship.

At this moment, six second-generation officials were in the bathhouse of Xiangguo Temple in Kaifeng.

Several monk attendants were giving them manicures and faces.

Beards and hair should also be trimmed.

Hair that is too long is prone to dryness and breakage and must be trimmed regularly to look more beautiful. The same goes for beards, especially beards, which must be taken care of regularly, otherwise they will look too sloppy. A beautiful long beard requires a lot of effort.

After pruning, Bai Shihou looked in the mirror and said with emotion: "It's still comfortable at home. In order to accompany the envoys to Beijing, we didn't even enjoy it when we came back."

Lu You had a goatee on his chin and a mustache under his nose: "I have to go back to Luoyang after all. Do you dare to go back?"

"You have to go back even if you don't dare," Bai Shihou sighed, "Let's play in Kaifeng for a few days first."

The elders in the family have already found out that the second-generation officials secretly went to sea. Everyone was jumping anxiously, fearing that the child would die outside and that Bai Shihou would definitely be beaten when he returned home.

After the hair, facial hair, hands and nails were repaired, the monk took them to a simple rinse before entering a private room in the bathhouse.

There was a new batch of monks and waiters, this time they were here to provide massages and baths.

In fact, these are not regular monks, they cannot obtain ultimatums, they just dress up as monks.

The second-generation officials sat in the same bath and chatted. The monk first helped them wash themselves and used scented soap. They moved to another bathhouse midway, changed to clean hot water and continued soaking, while the monk continued to massage them.

As we chatted, we didn’t say anything, just closed our eyes and enjoyed the massage techniques.

After coming out of the bathhouse of Xiangguo Temple, everyone felt refreshed, so they went to Goulan to listen to music together.

They even brought their Armenian maids with them to let the foreign maids experience the Ming Dynasty folk art.

Those maids had long been stunned into numbness. They came from the County of Edessa and had never seen a huge city like Constantinople. The longest time I saw him was only sold to Baghdad, and because of his status as a slave, he only stayed in the suburbs for a month.

When the maids landed at the outer port of Guangzhou and followed their master into Guangzhou city, they thought they had arrived in heaven.

After the expansion, the size of Guangzhou City is still slightly smaller than that of Baghdad. But they could only view the city of Baghdad from afar in the suburbs, but now they can freely enter and exit Guangzhou. The constant flow of people and the dazzling array of goods have had a huge impact on these Armenian maids.

Then came Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, Huai'an, Shangqiu, and Kaifeng. Guangzhou, which they thought was unique, seemed to be everywhere in the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, and Kaifeng are larger than Guangzhou!

They followed their master to a high-end tile house, but before they even entered, they attracted a lot of sideways glances.

"Learn from Brother Pu!" A young man called to Bai Shihou.

Bai Shihou turned around and saw that it was his friend Su Ping in Kaifeng. He immediately introduced everyone: "This is Su Liulang, Su Ping Su Dingbang, the great-grandson of Su Ziwengong (Su Shunyuan)."

"Disrespect, disrespect!" Everyone stepped forward to salute.

Su Shunyuan was originally from Shuzhong and was an official with outstanding political achievements. He later returned to Beijing to become an official and settled in Kaifeng.

The tribesmen who stayed in his hometown of Mianzhou also paid to recruit rural soldiers to follow the Chengdu Fulu transit envoy to resist Ju Ming's move south. The Sichuan army of the Song Dynasty was severely defeated. The Mianzhou Su family instantly changed their attitude and quickly sent several tribesmen to join the Zhu bandits.

When Ju Ming led his army to capture Chengdu, the Su family in Mianzhou directly defected to Marshal Zhu!

And when Ju Ming captured Kaifeng, he persuaded all the Kaifeng Su family who had separated to join the new court.

Bai Shihou introduced several second-generation officials, and everyone bowed to each other.

Su Ping pointed at the foreign female slaves: "Hu Ji or Bodhisattva Barbarian?"

Bai Shihou said: "They are considered Hu Ji. They come from a certain country in the sky. Because of the defeat and the destruction of the country, they were sold as slaves by a Seljuk governor."

Su Ping commented: "But it is slightly different in appearance from the Orchid in the East and West Beijing. I also have an Orchid in my family, from Gaochang, and I have never seen the Orchid in Tianfang."

Bai Shihou smiled and said: "It's a pity that I only have one. If there are more, I will give them to you."

"No, no need," Su Ping waved his hands repeatedly, "A gentleman doesn't take advantage of others, he just asks out of curiosity."

As he spoke, everyone walked into Wazi.

We sat down, tea and preserved fruits were served, and an ordinary geisha was warming up the show.

Suddenly, several more people came in, and Su Ping pointed at one person with his mouth open: "The king of Xixia's country is here. He has been very prosperous recently. He has been admitted as a scholar in Kaifeng County based on his ability, and will soon be specially recruited to study at Luoyang Imperial College."

Li Zuqia was puzzled and said, "He is just a scholar. What's so glorious about him?"

Su Ping said, "The king of a fallen country took the exam to become a scholar, and it was all based on his ability. He gave up his position as a duke and was determined to take the imperial examination to become an official. Although he only has the title of a scholar, he has won the recognition of the scholars in the two capitals. They no longer regard him as a king of a fallen country, but have accepted him as one of our own."

Fan Chengda nodded and said, "This is truly precious."

Su Ping continued, "There are many scholars who sympathize with him. They all think that it was not his fault that the Western Xia Kingdom was destroyed. It was because of the accumulated problems that were difficult to reverse, and he was lazy in literature and martial arts. If he were placed a hundred years ago, he would have been an accomplished monarch."

When these words came out, everyone laughed.

It is true that the Western Xia and the Song Dynasty were mortal enemies, but that was a thing of the past. Now they actually sympathize with the Western Xia emperor.

Wang Lianqing suddenly asked, "What happened to Zhao Kai?"

Su Ping said, "He's even crazier. He often gets drunk and sleeps on the street. Last year, he got seriously ill and was saved by a famous prostitute who hired a doctor. After recovering from the illness, he became even crazier, but his paintings are also more expensive. I don't know much about painting, but according to the evaluation of painting masters, Zhao Kai's paintings have been possessed by demons."

"Possessed by demons?" Li Zuqia was stunned.

Su Ping nodded, "It's full of ghosts. It looks weird at first glance, but it's creepy when you look at it carefully. There are also folk strange people who say that the soul of the former Song Dynasty's tyrant came back and possessed Zhao Kai to open his yin and yang eyes. So the same thing is different in Zhao Kai's eyes than in ordinary people. What Zhao Kai sees is most likely the appearance of all things in the underworld."

Everyone didn't know whether to laugh or cry when they heard this, but they chose to believe it a little.

They played in Kaifeng for several days, and Bai Shihou, Lu You and Wang Lianqing's father sent people to urge them to leave Tokyo and go to Luoyang to be beaten.

Fan Chengda and the other three were gloating over the misfortune and ran to Luoyang to watch the fun.

Good friends being beaten with sticks is a good show worth appreciating.

Lu You and Wang Lianqing were only scolded, but Bai Shihou was really beaten. Bai Sheng broke his son's legs, and he walked with one leg higher than the other. It was unknown how long it would take for him to recover.

Unfortunately, there was no time for him to recover, and they were soon summoned to the palace to meet the emperor.

Before this, the Eastern Roman envoy had already met the emperor.

Zhu Ming asked a lot of questions in a roundabout way, and finally confirmed that the Byzantine emperor at this time was the famous Manuel I.

To be honest, this man's political and military capabilities were far inferior to his father John II.

But John II took over a mess, and there were many nobles who opposed him to be emperor. In such a situation of internal and external troubles, he could continue to improve the national strength and carry out some reforms to save relatively rich capital for his son. He did not even leave a bad reputation, and was called a "good man" and a "handsome man". His private life was also very simple and frugal.

Because his father laid the foundation, although Manuel still faced foreign threats, at least the internal situation had been sorted out, and there was enough national strength to support him to resist foreign enemies.

In Zhu Ming's opinion, Manuel I's character was a bit like the Sun King of France later.

He was ambitious, extremely luxurious, and would send troops to fight at any time.

In his later years, he became even more arrogant and even joined the Crusaders to invade Egypt.

It was possible to win, but during the siege, the Byzantines and the Crusaders dragged each other down, and both wanted to get rid of their allies and take the fruits of victory alone. During the withdrawal of the troops due to the depletion of military rations, half of the Byzantine elite died in a storm in the Mediterranean.

Because the attack on Rom (a sultanate granted by the Seljuks) was annihilated, the Byzantine Empire lost its ability to expand abroad.

But Manuel I was really brave.

Facing the backstab of the Antiochus Crusaders, this guy led 500 cavalrymen in person as an emperor without waiting for the main force to arrive at the battlefield. He arrived at the battlefield like a god, and frightened the king of Armenia (a country formed by Armenian refugees) into fleeing into the mountains, forcing the Duke of Antioch to kneel down and surrender in torn linen clothes.

As the Eastern Roman Emperor, he not only often led the army in person, but also led a small team to scout the enemy many times.

While scouting, it turned from scouting to ambush.

"Your emperor wants to ask for books from the Ming Dynasty?" Zhu Ming smiled.

Aksukh said: "Yes, your Majesty, the great Emperor Taohuashi. The books brought back from Taohuashi by Fatima (Egypt) are hidden in the Caliphate Library. Our emperor has sent people to borrow them many times but was rejected."

Zhu Ming asked: "What did Rome use in exchange?"

Aksukh said: "The Great Roman Empire allows Confucian monks from Taohuashi to preach and build churches in Constantinople. After we rebuild a powerful Roman navy and seize the capital of Fatima, we will buy a large amount of goods from Taohuashi."

Confucian monks go to Constantinople to preach?

Zhu Ming was so amused that he didn't even bother to explain anything. He just let them continue to misunderstand: "I can give Rome a batch of books, which have been translated into Arabic. They were translated by those green-robed scholars in the Ming Dynasty."

Aksuhe was overjoyed: "Praise your kindness, the great Emperor Taohuashi."

Zhu Ming said: "When you go back, I will also send a team of envoys to follow you. These Ming envoys can browse the Roman collection at will. How about it?"

"As you wish," Aksuhe said, "I heard that the Ming army is about to go on an expedition to Jurhan. Can I go with the army to witness this great war?"

Zhu Ming thought carefully: "Yes. But you must be restrained when you arrive in the army. You cannot walk around at will and cannot interfere with the war, otherwise you will be punished by military law."

Aksuhe knelt down and praised: "May God bless you."

Zhu Ming inquired about the various systems of Byzantium again, and finally sent Aksukh away.

In Zhu Ming's opinion, he could help Byzantium, and it would be best if Byzantium could stay there.

It was not that he was a Roman patriot, but that Byzantium had a special role.

It contained the eastward expansion of the European Catholics, blocked the westward advance of the West Asian Sultans, pressed the Egyptian Caliphate to the north, and carried the Holy Roman Empire and Kievan Rus to the south. Zhu Ming did not like these forces very much, and the longer Byzantium could stay, the better.

Except for firearms, Zhu Ming even planned to give away 200 sets of high-quality cotton armor.

Except for scientific books, other books could be given away.

No matter how much support they gave, the Eastern Roman Empire would not become the real Rome, and it would be difficult for them to expand in the land of war. Not only the ethnic issues, but also the religious issues were more troublesome, and only the barbaric Russians could pee in the same pot with them.

Byzantium had been completely Hellenized, and only official documents and religious texts had to be written in Latin.

People used Greek in daily communication, and most of the official documents, religious pamphlets, poems and articles were written in Greek.

The real enemy of Byzantium was not the pagans from West Asia, but its own allies, the Crusaders.

Constantinople was conquered by the Crusaders!

Zhu Ming muttered with a strange expression: "May the Roman Empire last forever."