Chapter 1525: Powerful Enemy
Now, including Hao Qing himself, there are only ten people in total. Regardless of whether the next plan is to come to Wen or to come to Wu, such a small number of people is obviously not enough. There are also several injured people who have difficulty moving. If we don't make arrangements in advance, when our group of people run away afterwards, the injured people staying in the local area will be a hidden danger that may lead to their identities being exposed.
Hao Qing is a ruthless person. The accumulation of many misfortunes throughout the day finally aroused his ferocity. He said with a dark face: "Let's put other things aside for now. Do you have the messenger who injured our brothers?" News?”
"Brother, do you want to avenge us?"
"Brother, my opponent is a native of Hangzhou. We have found out the situation long ago..."
When everyone heard Hao Qing ask about this matter, they suddenly became excited. They had suffered a big loss a few days ago, and naturally they had been thinking about how to retaliate. However, due to the lack of manpower and lack of background, they did not dare to take action rashly. But now that Hao Qing was going to take charge of the matter, their confidence was immediately rekindled. After all, they had done a lot of big business under the leadership of Hao Qing in the past, and they rarely failed. Only with such confidence would he be willing to endure hardship on the Hangzhou dock, waiting to follow him to make a comeback.
After everyone talked about it, Hao Qing roughly knew the background of his opponent this time.
Because the Qiantang River Terminal outside Hangzhou is close to Hangzhou, the regional political and economic center city, and has a unique terrain, it has naturally become a cargo distribution center for the entire Hangzhou Bay and the lower reaches of the Qiantang River. The fierce competition surrounding this place is not only in the fields of commerce and shipping, but also in various related industries including cargo handling.
The continuous influx of large amounts of capital has changed the market share of various industries in a short period of time. The wealthy and powerful behind-the-scenes financiers are naturally eager to monopolize the industries they operate in this region. Even the most humble and cumbersome work such as dock handling has begun to become a monopoly.
The wharf workers on the Qiantang River originally formed an agreed-upon territory through long-term running-in. Which wharf will be responsible for which person to take over the work is generally relatively fixed. However, after the shipping industry suddenly prospered, the manpower originally fixed at a certain dock to take over work became insufficient, and people were often called in from other areas where there were no tasks for the time being. In this way, firstly, the original inherent land distribution was gradually broken; secondly, some people realized the business opportunities and huge benefits, and began to merge with small dock workers groups and implement various means to attack competitors.
If Ren Liang, who is in charge of Haihan's public security affairs, hears these things, he will probably immediately characterize them as "organized crime." However, in Hangzhou, the government is not yet aware of the social harm that such non-governmental organizations may cause. Of course, maybe even if they are aware of it, the yamen may not be willing to meddle in such nosy matters. After all, nowadays, there are very few businesses in Hangzhou that do not have official figures behind them. No one can guarantee whether there are adults behind these labor groups.
The labor organization that expelled Hao Qing's men from the dock worked for a man named Guo Ziping. This person is a native of Hangzhou. He was not in this business in the past. He was the number one figure who suddenly appeared after Haihan obtained the trade rights along the coast of Zhejiang. This person spent a lot of money and quickly recruited a group of thugs to work for him. He then successively merged with the labor groups of several terminals, monopolized the freight business of these terminals, and then raised labor prices to obtain huge profits.
Although Guo Ziping is not the only one doing similar things at the Hangzhou docks, he is the fastest expanding among them. In just a few months, he has already won nearly half of the handling business at the docks outside Hangzhou. All the laborers working on these docks must obey his organization and arrangements, and those who are not obedient enough, such as the group of people under Hao Qing, can only find excuses and be expelled from their original territory.
If their attitude had been a little softer at that time, they might have been able to resolve the matter peacefully, but this group of people were originally water bandits, and they could not bear to be trampled on, so they stood up to resist, which resulted in the subsequent fierce conflict. Guo Ziping didn't know their identities, and he didn't feel any pressure to deal with such a group of workers with no background, so he directly mobilized hundreds of people to beat them up. If Guo Ziping didn't want to cause trouble, it would be possible to kill several of them on the spot.
In recent months, Hao Qing has seen some aspects of society that he had not had the opportunity to contact in the past, so he was a little more cautious. After listening to his subordinates' explanation, he asked: "Does Guo Ziping have any official background behind him? Or is it related to Hangzhou?" When someone under his command commits a crime, how does he resolve the lawsuit? "
The men looked at each other and said they didn't know. This group of people can be said to be brave and ruthless, but they are completely laymen when it comes to understanding and collecting intelligence information. At most, they can only pay attention to the places where Guo Ziping appears on a daily basis, and have never thought of investigating this aspect. Details. What they think of as revenge is to pinpoint the opponent's whereabouts and then launch a sneak attack to kill or maim the opponent. That's why they took this breath. As for the serious consequences that may result from this, they have never thought about it at all.
Seeing this, Hao Qing could only sigh helplessly, knowing that his group of people were indeed not qualified for such a task. If he wanted to ask them, it would be better to go find out the information himself. It's just that now that he has a mission, how can he have more energy and time to deal with things here? He wants to change his mind, but he feels that he has already spoken out his words. If he regrets it at this time, he will inevitably endanger his subordinates. I lost my prestige in front of me.
"Where does this person usually hang out? Is there any place where I can find him today?" Hao Qing thought for a while, at least his momentum cannot be weakened, otherwise if people's hearts are scattered, it will be difficult to lead the team in the future. Even if you pretend, you still have to pretend that you want to seek revenge immediately, and we will see how to make things right later.
Someone responded at the moment: "Brother, this guy took over the pier where we used to work. He was afraid that the people on the pier would be unstable, so he has been sitting on the pier recently. If brother goes now, I will come with him!"
Everyone claimed that it was, which made Hao Qing a little moved. This group of people would rather stay on the dock and work hard as laborers, waiting for him to come out again. Moreover, knowing that the opponent's strength is beyond what our own manpower can handle, these people are still willing to follow him to fight for their lives, which shows their loyalty.
Hao Qing thought for a while and felt that he had to calm down his brothers first, otherwise he would lead this group of people there and start taking action without asking any questions. That was not the situation he wanted to see.
"Everyone, the opponent has a large number of people, and if they are able to gain a foothold here by fighting and killing, they must have the support of people from the government. If we fight hard against them, I am afraid it will be difficult to take advantage. In my opinion , first find out where this person is, and then find a quiet area and give him a quick kill." Hao Qing said while making a knife motion with his hand.
"Brother is right!" "Outsmarting is the key!"
Everyone is not stupid. Since Hao Qing has said not to be tough, then everyone doesn't have to fight in vain. If you can take revenge as Hao Qing said, then why not do it? Now that Hao Qing has made up his mind, everyone no longer cares about the work at hand and plans to follow Hao Qing to the market. However, Hao Qing was worried that with so many people traveling together, his whereabouts would be exposed too easily, so he still asked everyone to stay on the dock, and only ordered Noshichiro, the smartest one, to follow him.
Nori Shichiro is not yet eighteen years old. The reason why he hangs out with Hao Qing and his gang is because his old man used to take care of Hao Qing and was kind to him. Later, Dian Qilang's parents passed away one after another, and Hao Qing took him by his side. Normally, Noshichiro is not required to do errands that require hard work. Hao Qing usually assigns him some tasks such as gathering information, and Noshichiro is often able to complete these tasks better due to his flexible mind.
When this group of people clashed with Guo Ziping's men last time, Norishichiro retreated early when he saw that the situation was not going well. He was the only one of the group to escape the disaster unscathed. However, everyone did not think that he was shrinking from the battle. Instead, they believed that Noshichiro was indeed unsuitable to participate in such a conflict. As a result, Norishichiro's identity was not completely revealed, and the people on Guo Ziping's side probably didn't recognize that he was in the same group as Hao Qing's group. This was one of the reasons why Hao Qing chose to take him with him.
The two of them first went to find a tea shop and sat down to have something to eat. Hao Qing asked about the conditions of the wounded, then took a piece of silver from his body and gave it to Norishichiro, asking him to go back and ask the doctor to come. Let's take a good look at it and prescribe some medicine for the wound to be used first. Noshichiro responded repeatedly and carefully collected the money.
After the two of them finished eating, they walked to the pier where they had picked up the work. Hao Qing found a slightly higher river bank and stood on the river bank with Norishichiro to observe the movements on the pier.
"Brother, the man in black shirt sitting under the pergola is Guo Ziping!" It only took a moment for Norishichiro to find traces of the target person from the dock, and he quickly informed Hao Qing.
Looking at it from this angle, Hao Qing could only see Guo Ziping's silhouette, and his appearance and figure were not very clear. There were several strong men standing around the pergola, but they were just idle and not doing anything. It seemed that they were all his thugs. Occasionally, Guo Ziping would give instructions, and someone would go to the shore to talk to the foreman who was counting signatures and counting, presumably to settle the labor costs.
Hao Qing knew that this kind of surveillance would last for a long time, so he asked Dianqilang to elaborate on the information he knew about Guo Ziping, reporting everything in detail first. Norishichiro was very obedient, so he followed Hao Qing's instructions honestly and began to recall the news he knew.
The two of them sat on the river bank for about an hour, both feeling dizzy from the sun. Hao Qing took out a few coins and asked Norianchiro to run errands to buy two bowls of herbal tea, which he poured into his stomach to feel a little cooler. Although he came from a rough background, he had his own way of doing things. Since he had made up his mind to keep an eye on Guo Ziping's daily activities and look for opportunities to assassinate him to avenge his brothers, he would persevere no matter how hard it was.
Hao Qing expected that people like Guo Ziping would not be able to squat on this dock all day. There would definitely be other places where they needed to move around. Sure enough, in the afternoon, after Guo Ziping had lunch under the pergola, he left the dock with seven or eight of his men and headed towards the official road.
Hao Qing and Norishichiro first hid on the side of the road, and then fell far behind them. I saw that this group of people was not going to other docks along the Qiantang River bank, but heading towards the city of Hangzhou along the official road. Hao Qing thought that if he entered Hangzhou City, as long as he touched the place where he stayed, it would be easier to do it than outside the city. Li Song specially gave him a curfew pass token so that he could act at night. Maybe it would come in handy this time.
Unexpectedly, Guo Ziping and his party walked leisurely to the place that Hao Qing had just visited in the morning, and then went straight into one of the construction sites. When Hao Qing saw this, he cried out that he was lucky. It seemed that Guo Ziping had some connection with the task he was going to perform. Maybe he could do two tasks at the same time and solve the problem together.
But he immediately remembered that when Li Song deployed the mission the night before, he had told him to be careful in his actions and try not to involve the government, especially the detectives. The implication was that the target he was dealing with might have a deep connection with the six doors. . If Guo Ziping is in the same group as the owner of the weaving workshop, it seems to explain why he can do whatever he wants at the Hangzhou dock.
At this time, Hao Qing had a deeper understanding of what power is. These seemingly unrelated people and things are connected to form a large network of interests, and people like him try to destroy this large network. In fact, It's just to make room for those who are weaving another big web.
Hao Qing pulled away from his chaotic thoughts and ordered Norichiro: "You think of a way to go to the construction site and find out what is the relationship between Guo Ziping and the owner there and why he appears. In that place.”
Norishichiro said: "Brother, it's impossible for Guo Ziping to live on this construction site. Is it useful to ask about this?"
Hao Qing did not expect that Norishichiro would question himself, and scolded him angrily: "Whether it's useful or not, that's a task given to you. You don't want to do it? If you don't want to do it, go back to the dock!"
Norishichiro hurriedly said: "I'm willing to do it! I'm willing to do it! Here we go!"
Norishichiro didn't dare to ask any more questions and hurried to the construction site. Hao Qing was not worried about how Norichiro got in. He knew that the kid was quite clever and would naturally have his own way to achieve his goal. All he had to do was wait patiently outside for a while. After about a while of drinking tea, Nori Shichiro came out of the construction site. He looked around and saw that no one was paying attention to him, and then hurried over to where Hao Qing was.
(End of chapter)