Chapter 133: All Quiet in Lingnan (Part 1)
In April of the sixth year of Chongzhen's reign, when the snow in the north had not completely melted, Guangzhou in Lingnan was already a beautiful spring scene with all things sprouting.
Outside Guangzhou, on the bank of the Pearl River, Li Fugui, a refugee from Jiangxi, was sitting on a bench under a large pergola. He stretched out his neck, propped his ears, and stepped on the bench with one bare foot, drinking leisurely. Herbal tea and listening to a book , a skinny old man was talking on the stage with excited expressions and saliva flying around. From time to time he picked up the broken fan placed on the table and made gestures, causing the spectators around him to burst into applause or laughter from time to time.
Li Fugui, who just turned 20 this year, fled from his hometown in the mountainous area of southern Jiangxi to Guangzhou last summer to make a living.
As early as the last years of Tianqi, swarms of thieves had emerged in the mountainous areas of western Fujian and southern Jiangxi. During the Chongzhen period, large-scale public killings of officials and rebellions began. The heroes from all over the mountains first worked together to drive away the government, and then started endless melee fighting with each other. The local people were plundered and massacred over and over again, and all the fields were abandoned... Li Fugui's family embarked on the road of migration because they could not bear the disaster of war. But unfortunately, after overcoming many dangers along the way and successfully escaping to Guangzhou, Li Fugui was the only one left in their family.
However, what almost made Li Fugui despair was that he had just fled to Guangzhou when the imperial court issued an order to attack the "Australian Kun people" entrenched in Qiongzhou. As a result, before the Guangdong official army had time to mobilize, the "Australian" large iron ship had already entered the Pearl River and arrived at the provincial capital of Guangzhou!
As a result, the unlucky Li Fugui was also captured by the Guangzhou government. He tremblingly guarded the city with a sharpened bamboo pole, preparing to serve as cannon fodder when the Australians came to kill him. There was also a group of local people from Guangdong who were muttering all day long about the majesty of the Australians in the past when they swept across the Pearl River and bombarded the city of Guangzhou. Li Fugui was so frightened that he chanted Amitabha Buddha every day for three days and asked the Bodhisattva not to let the Australians. Kill yourself with a cannonball...
Fortunately, the battle did not break out after all. Because the power of this group of "Australians" is so despairingly strong that they no longer look like mortals - first, dozens of "Flying Fairy Boats" (airships) came to cover the sky and the sun, playing terrifying music. The sound of music was pressing on the heads of the people in Guangzhou; and then somehow, Ming In the Ming Dynasty, no city gates fell, but hundreds of "Australian elite soldiers" poured out from the government offices in the city (opening the "arbitrary gate" directly in the Guangzhou government offices), bringing together the governor, governor, prefect, and chief general. Soldiers, envoys and other civil and military officials were all killed in one fell swoop...
In this way, relying on such irresistible decapitation tactics and psychological deterrence, Guangzhou City naturally fell without a fight. After the change of ownership in Guangzhou, Li Fugui was first detained as a prisoner of war for a period of time, working hard to build bridges, pave roads, and carry large bags for the Australians. Then he received a small severance pay and was released. But because it was hard to find jobs in the market, after going around for a while, he came back to take care of the Australian boss's job.
——For more than half a year, every morning as soon as it gets dark, Li Fugui gets up early, rushes to the Australian recruitment office outside the east gate, and delivers a bamboo sign with his name on it to a large Australian holiday shop. Kun took it into his hands, and then went to the pavilion next to him to wait for the assignment.
When Li Fugui first came to work as a part-time worker, the pergola could only accommodate a hundred and eighty people, but later it became larger and larger, and now it can accommodate a thousand people, because there always seems to be something that these Australian masters can't do. Completed the work - built bridges and piers one after another, paved spacious roads one after another, and even tore down the city wall of Guangzhou for some unknown reason and changed it into a ring road with coconut trees on both sides. He also talked about building some kind of "factory" on the wasteland next to the Pearl River, and gathered many people to build construction on the wasteland. Li Fugui and his companions had a good look at the diorama for a while: no one among them thought about it. There are so many ways to build a house. The yellow iron animals brought by the Australians are bigger than the house, roar like thunder, and can dig out hundreds of people in one meal, even if they work for a month. A big hole from which to escape. In addition, many other strange-looking iron objects were also transported. The iron used may weigh more than tens of thousands of kilograms, which made the onlookers in Guangzhou stunned.
Although these iron animals are indeed extremely powerful, the work is still a bit rough. Many detailed tasks such as laying bricks, building walls, polishing stone slabs, compacting earth mounds, and planting saplings still require manual labor, so This gave Li Fugui and others the opportunity to work part-time and earn a living.
In fact, at the construction site of the Australian master, in addition to the day-labor coolies who are paid on a daily basis, there is also a kind of "employee" who has signed a long-term contract, and the treatment is much better than that of the day-laborers. Not only is the salary more generous, The boss also took care of a meal and gave out small gifts called "welfare" from time to time, which made Li Fugui envious. But if you want to be an Australian "employee", the first thing you need to do is to go to a "purification camp" to take a bath and shave your head. This requirement of shaving makes Li Fugui feel really embarrassed, so he still hasn't made up his mind yet. Determination...
The wages paid to them by the Australians were not free money, but pieces of paper. The kind of paper given to them at first was called circulation coupons, and later it was changed to another piece of paper with more precise patterns called Huayuan. In fact, To put it bluntly, it is the Ming Dynasty treasure note of the Australians. But these Australian banknotes are much better than the waste paper deceptions of the Ming Dynasty government - next to the pergola of the recruitment office, there is a shop opened by an Australian, which only accepts Chinese dollar banknotes. What they sell are the best-selling Australian products in Guangzhou nowadays: candies, cakes, refined salt, cigarettes, soju, white paper, steel needles, and many other strange and weird things. The most eye-catching ones are Australian glass mirrors and cosmetics, but the prices are also ridiculously expensive.
Of course, day laborers like Li Fugui, who work and eat for one day, cannot afford such expensive luxuries, but this does not trouble them. Because savvy businessmen have already set up money exchange stalls near the Australian Labor Recruitment Office outside the east gate to exchange the Chinese dollar notes in the hands of workers into silver and copper coins. Moreover, as time goes by, Australian banknotes have gradually established credibility in the Guangzhou market, and more and more stores are willing to accept Chinese dollar banknotes. Nowadays, Li Fugui no longer needs to exchange banknotes and let the dealers peel off a layer of skin.
Today, Li Fugui came extra early, so there were only a dozen people sitting sparsely in the shed. There was a water point in the corner of the shed, and a row of large tanks were filled with herbal tea at any time. So Li Fugui quickly took out his I filled the bamboo tube on my back with a full tube of tea, and then while drinking tea, I started chatting about the mountains from east to west with a few coolie men I knew.
After a while, more and more people came to work part-time, and soon the pergola became lively. Hundreds of people gathered together, and the courtyard was filled with laughter and talk with a southern and northern accent. There is also an old man who loves story-telling in his spare time, spitting and dancing, repeating the new "Three Kingdoms" jokes he heard in the teahouse yesterday... Although the old man's words are very absurd and formal, it still makes life boring and boring. The entertainment-starved coolies were delighted to hear this.
On the roof of the Australian Recruitment Office, there is a small clock tower. After several months of working part-time, Li Fugui, although illiterate, could already understand the purpose of the round plate on the bell tower - whenever the thick and short hands point to seven and the slender hands point to twelve, , the bell will ring in the bell tower, and a clerk wearing an Australian "uniform" will appear on the steps of the recruitment office door on time. He held a stack of orders in his left hand and a large tin trumpet in his right hand. With a long and long tone, he shouted at the waiting coolies to distribute various tasks. For example: "...it takes four hours to dig ditches, two hundred people, six yuan per person..." "...80 square meters of wood transported to the dock, fifty people, three yuan per person..." "...unloading coal at the dock Five hundred bags, ten people, eight cents each..." "...Plant one hundred and twenty coconut trees, twenty people, seven cents each..."
Every time the clerk shouted something, there was a buzz of discussion below. Then, just like the red-haired barbarian captain recruiting sailors in the tavern, the coolies who are willing to go will gather at the registration office under the steps, report their names, and then specialized personnel will lead them to their respective construction sites.
After you finish the work, there will be another half-year-old child wearing an Australian uniform on the construction site. He will stamp a blue stamp on the back of your hand one by one. After you come down, you can go back to the pergola to collect your wages. Someone will check the name and stamp there. Then use a special potion to erase the blue stamp on the back of your hand.
However, the situation seems to be a little different today. Although the stubby hand on the round plate on the clock tower has already pointed to seven, the other slender hand has also moved a good distance past twelve, and the bell has also struck. , but the document that distributed the work has still not come out. This made Li Fugui and his co-workers gradually panic, and the chatter became quieter and quieter. Finally, it became completely quiet. Everyone stared at the closed door on the steps while exchanging frightened words with each other. Eyes - looking at this posture, could it be that... there is no work today, right?
Obviously, if there is no work today, then naturally there will be no wages for this day. How awesome is this! Many of them are so poor that they "have no food to live in", and they are waiting to buy rice with their daily wages to cook!
As time passed, just when the day laborers began to become slightly commotion, the door of the labor recruitment office finally opened with a bang. However, what came out of it was not only the usual "fake Kun" clerk, but also a young Taoist priest with sword-browed eyes and starry eyes. The clerk looked around, then raised the tin trumpet in his hand and shouted loudly to the coolies in the shed: "...Young men! Listen up! The Changliu Sect is recruiting in Guangzhou today. Any servant disciples or outer disciples who want to take part in the assessment should come to this leader to sign up!”
He pointed at the young Taoist priest next to him and declared, "...this Changliu is the country-protecting sect of the Australian Song Dynasty. There is a gold-lettered plaque written by the Emperor of the Australian Song Dynasty hanging on the mountain gate! I was admitted to Changliu It’s like getting an official salary! Don’t miss this opportunity!”
This unexpected news immediately stunned everyone - what kind of method is this Changliu sect? But it sounds good...
"...Yes, our Changliu sect is a first-class sect that has been officially certified by the Australian and Song Dynasty courts, and our treatment is absolutely generous!" When the clerk holding the tin trumpet finished shouting, the young Taoist priest also nodded and spoke slowly. Di echoed, "...as long as they are willing to abide by the sect rules and obey the instructions of the master, all disciples, regardless of high or low, will be provided with food and accommodation, pocket money and seasonal clothes, and various levels of martial arts will be taught!"
Having said this, he suddenly patted his head as if enlightened, "...Oh, by the way, my disciples are not allowed to marry, and of course there is no need to shave their heads..."
Suddenly, Li Fugui, who had been longing for a stable life for a long time, his eyes lit up...
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On the newly built avenue in the south of Guangzhou, a carriage was driving slowly, followed by a small group of short-haired soldiers armed with live ammunition on foot. A morning star flag and a red background star-ring flag were erected on the top of the carriage, fluttering in the wind. , attracting countless envious and awe-inspiring looks on both sides of the road.
At this moment, Xu Xiake, the most famous travel companion in the world in the late Ming Dynasty, was sitting in this luxurious carriage specially sent by the "Australians" with his traveling companion and clan brother Xu Zhongzhao. The rhythmic vibration of the seat beneath them made the two people drowsy after a long journey.
——This Western-style four-wheeled carriage is a high-end product customized by Guangzhou Zichengji. It has a solid iron frame, a lightweight rattan carriage, and is covered with velvet curtains both inside and outside. The windows on the side of the carriage are equipped with detachable glass. The window frames and double-layered screens, black inside and white outside, fully ensure the privacy of passengers and prevent pedestrians from seeing what is going on inside the carriage. There are various drinks and snacks in the small rattan box under the seat, ranging from herbal tea, sherbet, kvass to rum, all neatly placed in small compartments. The interior and exterior of the carriage are exquisitely decorated, with extensive use of copper decorative parts and gorgeous relief inlays, as well as the newly launched soft sofas from Lingao Furniture Factory, which greatly improves the comfort of passengers during the journey.
But the biggest advantage of this kind of carriage is the use of rubber pneumatic tires and advanced suspension shock-absorbing system. Relying on shock-absorbing plates made of bamboo slices and various shock-absorbing springs, it can greatly reduce the risk of uneven road surfaces. The bumps caused by the Ming Dynasty were used to adapt to the poor road conditions of the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, this kind of carriage caused quite a stir once it was launched in Guangzhou. Although it was expensive, sales were still booming. The first batch of twenty trial version carriages were quickly sold out, and orders have been scheduled for half a year. , was regarded as a status symbol under the rule of the "Australians" and a must-have for wealthy dignitaries of the "New Dynasty" when going out. The relevant departments are also very supportive of the promotion of this kind of horse-drawn carriage. In any case, as long as it can replace the sedan, which is a slow and serious waste of human resources, it will greatly liberate the labor force. However, riding in this comfortable carriage that he had never experienced before, Xu Xiake once again set foot on the boundary of Guangzhou, Lingnan, but his mood was extremely upset - he never thought that he would actually be in such a wonderful form. On the way home!
Xu Xiake sighed and stared blankly at the glass window. All the magical experiences in the past year seemed to come to mind again...