Chapter 185, Agui’s Story (Part 2)
Although Agui already had a bad premonition when his "courtship" to Wu Ma failed, the bad luck was not yet over. Next, he still successfully bought a batch of cheap rice from Qian's family, hired a boat to bring it back to the "Bailian" store in the city, paid back the previous credit payment, and used the remaining money to buy a batch of Australian goods. , and then spent a few days eating, drinking and having fun in the city, and then returned to Weichuang in high spirits.
However, when Agui returned to Weichuang again, he found that the situation was not good.
First, because there was an engineer battalion of short-haired soldiers stationed in Weichuang, and everyone knew that these short-haired soldiers had always been well paid and had strong spending power, which was far inferior to those rundown military households like beggars in the Ming Dynasty. As a result, in a short period of time Within a few days, many hawkers of all kinds gathered in Weichuang, most of whom were selling vegetables, but there were also salesmen from other Australian and Song Dynasty companies. All kinds of Australian products were not uncommon in the market in Weichuang. . As a result, the "fake young master" of the Zhao family happily smoked "Holy Ship" cigarettes again and read the latest issues of "War History Research", while Mr. Zhao was so distressed that he muttered all day long that he had told him last time Agui really lost money on the cans and candies he bought, and the people who came later sold them for a few cents cheaper.
——Agui returned to Weichuang with a cart of groceries, and was shocked to find that he suddenly had many competitors in business.
Secondly, because of his public "wooing" to Wu Ma in front of the hotel, the women in Weizhuang seemed to remember his past "wild and debauched". Now there are other vendors who can buy Australian groceries, so Everyone was afraid to avoid Agui again. As soon as they saw Agui coming, they hid in the door one by one and refused to take care of his business anymore. Even if Agui went door-to-door to sell goods with a smile on his face, he would most likely be kicked out.
Agui, who had just become prosperous, suddenly felt the frustration of working as a part-time worker in the past and the depression of being regarded as a god of plague.
With no choice, he had to cut prices and promote sales. Although the profits became much thinner, there were finally people who were willing to care. But other hawkers soon followed suit and lowered their prices. Seeing the many choices now available, the customers in Weichuang suddenly became reserved. No matter what they bought, they had to shop around, and they were even more aggressive in raising the price, and even demanded higher prices. Accounting on credit. The anxious Agui was already trying to save his capital, but after struggling for seven or eight days, there were still many Australian products that could not be sold, and he would lose them if they failed, making Agui even more anxious.
Seeing that the golden avenue of getting rich seemed to be far away from him, Agui was naturally very frustrated. In a bad mood, he teased the little nun in the monastery several times in public, kneading and teasing the little nun. No, I didn’t dare to leave the nunnery anymore.
However, Agui also found courage from her. One day, he drank a few more bowls of turbid wine and gained courage. He actually picked up a stick and tried to open up the stalls of his business rivals, but was surrounded by several hawkers from other villages. After a brutal beating, he finally crawled back to Tugu Temple with his whole body covered in bruises and his face almost bruised.
A few days later, the fortress-shaped Weizhuang Police Station was basically completed, and the engineering battalion of the short-haired soldiers was also moved away. This made the idle people in Weizhuang very confused: the Xu family's house in Suzhou had just laid a foundation, and even the courtyard was built. The wall has not been built yet, why do you soldiers just leave it alone?
However, a few days later, under the banner of a certain construction company, a group of strong "fake Kun" men wearing blue cloth jackets similar to Agui came to Weichuang from the city and took over the construction of the Xu family's mansion. project. This "construction team" brought many strange things that were unknown to the country people, making the idlers very curious. In addition, there are several short-haired police officers in yellow clothes and rattan hats who also live in the police station at the entrance of the village and patrol the village from time to time.
The "Fake Young Master" of the Zhao Mansion was very happy in the past few days, because he went to the city to participate in some kind of conference, and when he came back, he had a silver medal on his chest for "Village Worthy Representative", which was about It means the gentry of the new dynasty. In addition, he was given the title of "Weizhuang Liaison Officer", which was roughly equivalent to the temporary village chief: because this was tantamount to usurping his father's position, Mr. Zhao lost his temper for several days.
(Due to the lack of reliable local cadres, the Zhejiang occupying forces only carried out punitive land reforms in some towns and villages that resisted fiercely and were stubborn. However, most of the "peacefully accepted" villages in the Zhejiang occupied areas still basically maintained their original autonomy. There were no new civil servants such as women directors and militia captains, but a group of "good gentry" who took the initiative to serve as liaison officers, responsible for coordinating labor and tax matters)
But the "fake Kun eldest master" in the Zhao family's success these days has nothing to do with Agui in Tugu Temple.
Because the grocery business became increasingly difficult, he kept losing money in gambling, and he was beaten when he tried to set up business rivals' stalls. Agui's mood became worse day by day, but he couldn't find a place to vent his anger, so he had to drink to drown his sorrows. Later, Agui drank a few more bowls of wine one day. Thinking that he hadn't seen the little nun outside for a long time, he was so worried that he drunkenly climbed over the wall into the monastery, and then got into the nuns' residence. 's backyard. Next, he went into the old nun's wing in the dark, causing a scream immediately, and then Agui suffered a lot of sticks and gouges on his head.
If Agui was awake, with the old nun's strength, she would definitely not be Agui's opponent. But that night, Agui was half awake and half asleep. He was staggering when he walked, and his fists were even worse. He was helpless, so he was knocked unconscious by the old nun.
Then several nuns in the nunnery held lamps and came out to have a look, and recognized the wild man as Agui. The little nun who was often bullied by Agui before became extremely angry and declared that she wanted to report to the police. But the old nun felt that this matter should not be publicized, otherwise it would definitely damage the reputation of the monastery, so she just took away his money bag as compensation, and quietly threw the still unconscious Agui out of the back door. The little nun also drew two turtles on Agui's face.
However, there is no airtight wall in the world. A few days later, Agui's great deed of breaking into the monastery at night and harassing the nuns finally spread among the idle people in Weichuang. And Agui's reputation in Weichuang has become increasingly tarnished, making his grocery business even more bleak. Even the old man in charge of Tugu Temple wanted to kick him out again, so Agui had to give the old man two pieces of soap as rent money before reluctantly sending him away.
Next, an even more terrible disaster befell Agui, who was increasingly unlucky.
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Late that night, Agui drank a few bowls of wine and was sleeping soundly in the shabby house of Tugu Temple. Suddenly, he heard bursts of noise and gunshots coming from the unfinished Xu family mansion construction site. , was suddenly frightened and woke up. When I looked out from the wall, I saw that the construction site was crowded with people, torches were swaying, and the sky was full of excitement. There were also people running out dragging various things, which shocked the few native dogs raised in the village and barked wildly.
By the next day, the news spread throughout Weichuang. Last night, a murderer from nowhere sneaked into the construction site of the Xu family's mansion and stole something. It seemed that he had taken a fancy to the semen left there by the fake Kun construction team. Items such as steel shovels, axes and saws. Unexpectedly, he encountered a patrolman from the Weizhuang Police Station. The patrolman immediately fired a warning shot, hoping to scare away the culprits. Who would have thought that these thieves were so brave that they did not run away when they heard the gunshots. Instead, they swarmed up, knocked over the patrolman with sticks, and took away his gun. By the time other police officers heard the news and rushed over in their coats, the thieves on the construction site had already fled, and the police officer whose gun had been taken away had a bloody head and was dying. He only had time to barely explain a few words, but could not survive. He died at dawn.
The incident in which a police officer from the Weichuang Police Station was killed and his gun was stolen obviously shocked the government. The "fake young master" of the Zhao family who served as the liaison officer in Weizhuang went to the city with a dark face. When he came back, there was a group of short-haired soldiers with him, and he also claimed to launch a "strike hard campaign" to arrest Those who commit crimes. Then they painted slogans on the courtyard walls of every house in Weizhuang, "Fighting crime, improving public security, and engaging the whole people."
At first, Agui, who was just worried about the increasingly difficult grocery business, didn't pay much attention to this matter. Unexpectedly, when he closed the stall in the evening and dragged the cart back to Tugu Temple, he was shocked to see Zhao's "fake young master Kun" and the short-haired soldiers who had followed him back from the city. Guarding the door of Tugu Temple, and when the "fake young master Kun" saw him, he shouted: "...This is the kid! Catch him quickly!"
Immediately afterwards, Agui was knocked to the ground with a gun butt, and then was tied tightly with hemp rope. In his daze, he listened to the eldest son of the Zhao family ramble on about his various crimes: selling goods as substandard goods, molesting good women in the street, and a bunch of thefts and robberies committed by others. The incident was also put on his head, and an inference was drawn from this: the robbery of the construction site and the attack on the police officers that night was probably related to Agui and his group of bad friends. Finally, the eldest son of the Zhao family vividly recounted the recent rumors among the Weichuang neighbors about Agui breaking into a monastery at night to play with the nuns. He was described as being like a flower-picking thief in a play. Several soldiers heard this. Kicked Agui several times.
By the time Agui woke up, he had been dragged into the fortress-like police station at the entrance of Weizhuang Village, and then thrown into a dungeon. Agui struggled to sit up against the wall. Looking carefully, he found that many people were already packed into the dungeon. Except for a few refugees who had fled from other provinces, the rest were local bachelors, idlers, ruffians and beggars. Among them was the leper Wang Hu who had fought with Agui before.
But at this point, everyone didn't care about their old grudges, and soon started playing tricks on each other. They found out that they were all caught by that damn fake eldest young master Kun and his short-haired soldiers, and he just falsely accused them of being involved in the Xu family's mansion construction site. It was related to the case of assaulting a police officer and seizing a gun. For a moment, I couldn't help but be filled with indignation and cursed again and again. And Agui is even more worried that he will be fired from his status as a salesman by Bailian Trading Company, and his hard-earned future will be ruined again.
Fortunately, before the red-eyed Fujian policemen from the Weizhuang Police Station could wait, they took out the suspects one by one from the dungeon and tortured them (Agui later learned that the policeman who was beaten to death was their chief). , the murder case on the construction site of the Xu family mansion has been solved, and Agui was spared a grievance. The pain of flesh: It turns out that the gang of damned fugitives, after robbing the construction site of the Xu family mansion in Weizhuang and beating to death the chief of the police station in Weizhuang, went to Xiaoshan County to commit crimes, but were killed by the heavily fortified police station. The local garrison caught them all, and then confessed their crimes in detail in prison. So while the crackdown was being organized vigorously in Weichuang, the real criminal had actually been arrested in Xiaoshan County. However, due to delays in dissemination of the news, the police in Weichuang didn't know about the above situation until a day later...
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However, although these suspects who were arrested had nothing to do with the murder, they all had a record of petty theft or having affairs with other people's wives. I heard that they had been arrested, and many old enemies in the village came to testify. And the little nun at the Jingxiu Nunnery, the one who was rumored to have been forced to sleep with Agui many times by Weichuang idlers, also secretly came to the police station and cried out about the harm done to their nunnery by "the rotten Agui"...
In fact, under normal circumstances, this small crime would actually be nothing. Qiansheng is now in the period of severe crackdowns, and all criminal offenses must be dealt with severely and quickly. As a result, Agui and his fellow victims were all put on paper hats by the short-haired soldiers, taken out of the dungeon of the police station, and taken to the entrance of the village for a public trial. In the end, they were all sentenced to "hooliganism."
Then, according to a hunky-backed officer with a sinister face, "sinners" like Agui and others have two choices: either serve their sentence in the local labor camp, or go to the quarry in Yuyao for five years to smash rocks; Just like these military masters, they go to sea on a ship and serve as coolies with the army. If they perform well or perform meritorious service, they will be released in about one or two years. Then they may be able to replenish their military status and become a glorious soldier.
Faced with these two choices, most people who were afraid of going to sea chose to go to the quarries in Yuyao to smash rocks. Only Agui, who had failed to join the army in Shaoxing before, was completely disappointed with these bird people in Weichuang and no longer wanted to stay here, so he resolutely followed the short-haired soldiers.
At the same time, Xu Xiake, a "bachelor of the Australian Song Dynasty Hanlin" (a member of the Chinese League Writers Association) who temporarily lived in Zhao Mansion in Weizhuang with his family, also boarded a wooden boat from the river pier of Zhao Mansion under the collective welcome of his host. , saying that he was going overseas to run errands for the Australian Song Dynasty. Everyone in the Zhao Mansion was in awe, and made up his errand as "inspecting the censor" or something like that, but they didn't know that Xu Xiake was actually just a royal scholar who was ordered to write travel notes.
The short-haired soldiers who were ordered to escort Xu Xiake to sea happened to be the small group of people who left with Agui. From then on, Agui, a "rogue criminal" from Weichuang, Shaoxing, as a coolie on an expedition team, ignorantly embarked on a long journey that far exceeded the limit of his imagination... and continued until Agui's death. At that time, I could never return to this Jiangnan water town...