Happy Tycoon

Judging from the skins of these two notebooks, it is obvious that these two notebooks have been with Alfred for a long time, and they are definitely often flipped by Alfred. I can tell.

Yang Jing couldn't figure out what the numbers recorded in the book meant, and the place names recorded in this time and space were temporarily unknown because there was no Du Niang and Wikipedia, but Yang Jing knew a little about the book titles recorded above.

For example, there is a book title in the notebook that is recorded like this.

Sea Power, 1926

Then the number 1926 is followed by a series of other Arabic numerals.

Yang Jing really doesn't understand what these numbers mean, but the famous On Sea Power Yang Jing knows that this is Alfred Thayer Mahan, a famous American military theorist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries writings.

This book expounds in detail the importance of sea control at that time, and was regarded as a classic by navies of various countries before World War I.

However, how could General Mahan's On Sea Power be involved with Alfred? One of them is in the navy, and the other is a gunpowder maker. It can't be said that they are inseparable, but if you want to say that the two of them are closely related, Yang Jing himself doesn't believe it anyway.

You can be forgiven for saying that Alfred liked the navy, so he wrote down the name of the book Sea Power in his notebook. But the question is, what do those numbers after that mean?

It’s okay if it’s just a copy of On Sea Power, but there are more inexplicable titles besides On Sea Power in the notebook, such as this National Geographic, 08/1931, followed by What's the matter with a series of numbers?

What's up with Charles-Louis Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws, 1942?

There is also this Outline of Civilization written by the Japanese Fukuzawa Yukichi, 1938

A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume, 1940

If most of the above books are about philosophy, Yang Jing can still understand. After all, Alfred was kicked out by his cousin, and it is very likely that he started to study philosophy because he was discouraged. This makes sense, but What about the following books on music, history, art, etc.? What surprised Yang Jing the most was that in this notebook, Yang Jing also found such purely academic texts as Mark Polo's Travels, Copernicus' On the Movement of Celestial Spheres, and Darwin's Origin of Species. Books, is it possible that Alfred is planning to change his career to study Chinese, geography and biology after pondering some philosophy?

What puzzled Yang Jing the most were the names of purely literary books, such as the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Mrs. Stowe, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, and Tom... The Adventures of Sawyer.

You said that Yang Jing can understand those pure literary works, for entertainment, but the problem is that Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a children's literature

These books didn't match each other at all, and even Yang Jing couldn't think of any connection between these books after thinking for a long time.

However, Yang Jing discovered a secret number from these books, that is, the numbers 19** followed by those books. Yang Jing guessed that this should be the publication date of these books, or which year they were published.

Based on these figures, Yang Jing deduced that the names of the books recorded in these two notebooks were mostly published in the 1930s to the early 1940s.

This discovery also made Yang Jing immediately realize that the secrets hidden in the two notebooks written by Alfred should have a lot to do with these books.

But with so many titles, where should Yang Jing start.

After looking at the National Geographic, 08/1931 and the series of numbers behind it on the notebook, Yang Jing immediately remembered that when he first came to this basement, he found a set of preserved books in several cardboard boxes. Half a century of National Geographic.

So he immediately turned out the set of National Geographic magazines that he had just sorted out, and searched for a long time, before he found the magazine that was issued in August 1931.

Finding this magazine made Yang Jing excited. Obviously, the titles of the books recorded in the notebook were obviously read by Alfred back then, otherwise he would not have found this magazine here.

Now that I found this magazine, can I also find other books recorded in the notebook?

Thinking of this, Yang Jing suddenly remembered that in the big study room on the second floor of the main building, there were many big bookshelves, and most of the books on the bookshelves were old books.

Thinking of this, Yang Jing immediately grabbed the National Geographic magazine he had just found, got up and left, and soon returned to the big study on the second floor of the main building.

Yang Jing has been to this study room twice. It has a large area of ​​more than 200 square meters. In addition to a few large bookshelves on the floor, there is also a large oak desk near the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Yang Jing started to look for it from the first bookshelf. After searching for a short time, he saw a copy of Copernicus's On the Movement of Celestial Bodies. , which happens to match the number recorded in the notebook.

Finding two books in a row made Yang Jing even more excited. In the next half a day, he searched almost all the books on all the bookshelves in this study, and found in these bookshelves More than 30 books recorded in the notebook, and the publication date can correspond to the numbers written in the notebook.

These books are all unique in this study and have not been published in other years.

By this time, Yang Jing could already confirm with certainty that the numbers 19** after the names of the books in the notebook were the publication years of these books.

What made Yang Jing somewhat disappointed was that even though so many eligible books were found in the study room, they were still a little short of the more than 50 books recorded in the notebook.

Obviously, the names of some of the books recorded in the notebook were either Alfred saw them from other places and wrote them down, or those books were cleaned up by the servants after Alfred passed away. go out.

But it doesn't matter, there is another guy who grew up with Alfred here.

After asking the housekeeper for Seldon to inquire, Seldon tried his best to recall and said: Sir, after Mr. Du Pont passed away, I remember that some books were taken away by Mrs. Vanessa, but specifically those books, I really don't know. Can't remember.

Yang Jing knew that Vanessa was Alfred's wife, and there were still large photos of the two of them in this manor.

Her husband died, so she naturally wanted to take away some important relics. It is estimated that Alfred liked to read those books when he was alive, so Madam Vanessa took them away as important relics.

Alex, I would like to ask you to do something these two days. After thinking about it, Yang Jing knew that those books that were taken away should not be found back, but these books are not rare ancient books, they are all published There are a lot of books, although most of them were published 40 or 50 years ago, there should still be a lot of them in existence. Therefore, even if there were no such books, these books could still be found in the market or library, so Yang Jing was going to ask Seldon to buy these books for himself.

Sir, you are too polite, you can just ask for anything.

Well, it's actually not that difficult. I have a list here, can you see if you can buy these books for me?

As he said that, Yang Jing pulled out a piece of paper, and then relied on his own memory to write down the titles of those books that he couldn't find in the study room. Of course, the focus was still on the year of publication.

Alex, I need these books to inquire about something, but there are none here. Yang Jing pointed to some messy books on the bookshelf, which was his credit for a long time, These are the books I wrote name, I would like to trouble you to buy it for me. But please note that you must buy it according to the publication year I wrote, if it is not published in that year, don’t buy it.”

Butler Seldon's eyes fell on those slightly messy bookshelves, and he frowned slightly, but then he took the list with a smile and looked at it, and said, Sir, most of the books you need are Published in the 1930s and 1940s, this kind of books should not be easy to buy in the market now. I need to arrange for people to go to libraries in some big cities to find these books. This kind of old books can only be found in those big books. There are surplus collections in the museum.”

Yang Jing nodded and said: As long as there is a way to buy these books, I don't care what the cost is. Alex, this matter will trouble you.

Don't worry, sir, I will take care of this matter for you. Well, if it goes well, you can see these books tomorrow night. Of course, because most of these books are books with a relatively long publication date, if it doesn't go well If not, you may be able to see these books a little later.

Yang Jing smiled and said, It doesn't matter if you are two days late, but you must buy these books back for me.

Butler Seldon nodded, and then said: Sir, after an hour and a half, the restaurant will prepare dinner for you. Today is Mexican food. This is the hometown dish of our chef, Mr. Carlos. I think you will like it.

Seeing Yang Jing nodding in agreement, Housekeeper Seldon nodded slightly and left the study.

Yang Jing returned to the big desk and sat down, picked up a book he had just found and put it in front of him, then took out the two notebooks from the storage space and spread them out, his eyes were constantly on the book. Move back and forth between the book and the numbers after the title of the book recorded in the notebook