The next morning, Zhang Xudong returned to his home in the county town.
On the one hand, he wanted to show up in front of others, but more importantly, he was waiting for news from the old Taoist.
The old Taoist has been gone for three or four days, and there should be a response.
By the evening, the old Taoist priest came back exhausted.
The old Taoist sat down, drank a bowl of water and said:
“Dongzi, I have given your wine and medicine to the two gentlemen.
When I went to see the gentleman this morning, he said that both your wine and medicine were very effective.
He asked me to thank you on their behalf. They were all going to give you money, but I declined it on your behalf.
I said this is a gift you give to them as a junior, how can you ask for money?
You won't blame me for being the boss for you, right?"
Zhang Xudong quickly replied, "How could that be possible? You are doing the right thing.
We don’t sell medicine or alcohol, so how can we ask them for money?”
The old Taoist nodded and said, "As long as you don't blame me, that's fine.
Sir, after taking your medicine, he looks much better these past two days.
Your wife is very happy. Let me thank you on her behalf.
They also told you that if you ever go to Beidu again, you must visit their home.
She said she would cook a meal herself and thank you very much.”
Zhang Xudong heard this and said, "That won't do. We can't afford to trouble Grandma Deng.
It’s better not to cause trouble to her.”
"That's up to you, anyway I've brought the message to you.
The food issue has been handed over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and they will officially contact Mr. Lin tomorrow.
As for the mechanical equipment and materials, they are all taken very seriously.
They gave this task to the South China Sea Fleet.
This batch of goods must first be sent to the Shanghai Naval Port and then sorted and distributed.
When do you think the port city will have everything ready? When is the best day for the fleet to go and load the cargo?"
Zhang Xudong thought for a moment and said, "They are already transporting things to that island.
Counting the days, all the goods should be shipped by tomorrow.
Let's get the boat and go and pull it away the day after tomorrow. The sooner it's taken away, the sooner everyone will feel at ease.
Those things are like bombs in their hands, and they want to get rid of them as soon as possible."
"Okay, I'll call right away and have the fleet arrive at the destination by daybreak."
Zhang Xudong felt relieved after hearing this. These devices were finally going to come in handy.
The old Taoist stood up and looked at the deserted house and said:
"Where are your grandma and sister? Why does your house feel a little lonely?"
Zhang Xudong said, "They've all gone to visit relatives, and I'm the only one left at home. How can it not be lonely?"
After hearing this, the old Taoist immediately whispered, "You didn't let them all go over there, did you?
Will you get into trouble if you let them go like this?"
Zhang Xudong explained it to the old Taoist.
"They left under the pretext of going to Nandu to look for their relatives and even bought train tickets to Nandu.
Today is already the fourth day since they left. They should have called us tomorrow at the latest.
If there is no call tomorrow, it means that something happened to them on the way.
Or maybe these two people just disappeared from now on.”
The old Taoist nodded in agreement and said:
"This arrangement is fine, but is it safe for the old and the young to travel on the road?"
"My uncle has a lot of connections. He has already arranged for people to wait for them at the border."
"That's fine, as long as they can get there safely, they will have a good life from now on.
After they leave, what are you going to do?
I see that you have nothing to worry about here, so you should go out for a run more often while you can.
In a few years, I'm afraid you'll need to stay here quietly."
Zhang Xudong said dissatisfiedly:
"Master Dao, the matters concerning my grandmother and the others, as well as the supplies, have not yet been finalized.
I'm busy all day, and yet you're so anxious to order me to work for you. How can you exploit people even more than the capitalists?"
The old Taoist said embarrassedly:
"I'm afraid you'll get sick from being idle, so I wanted to ask you to go out for a walk."
Zhang Xudong curled his lips and said:
"Stop playing those little tricks, old man. Just tell me what you want to say."
The old Taoist thought for a while, then sighed and said:
“You don’t know, our country is really poor!
This time the higher-ups have decided to import grain, but after taking stock of our financial situation, we found that our foreign exchange reserves are only a little over 100 million US dollars.
What to do if we have no money? We have no choice but to exchange gold and silver for US dollars.
But now we have to pay 810,000 taels of gold and more than 80 million taels of silver!
This is so heartbreaking! Once all this gold and silver is gone, it will never come back!"
Zhang Xudong looked at the old Taoist with amusement and said:
"What's the point of you telling me all this? What can I do? My family's wealth can't fill such a big hole.
You want me to rob a bank? I don't do that."
The old Taoist sighed and said, "Do you know how much the Japanese stole from us during the war?
They have stolen at least 21,000 tons of our gold and silver, 640 million tons of coal, 1.5 million tons of copper, and 200 million tons of rare earths. They have also cut down hundreds of millions of cubic meters of our trees.
They took away two thousand boxes of our cultural relics, which contained approximately three million and six hundred thousand pieces.
And there is food. In those years they plundered 1.2 billion tons of rice and flour from us!
These are just the numbers on the surface, and the amount of property divided up by the Japanese officers is countless.
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