Chapter 1405: Wind Rises from Yangcheng

Human suffering comes in many forms, from unfilial children to new shoes pinching your feet.

But human happiness is very similar, it is the same over and over again. For men, 80% of it is concentrated on that one point, but the way to achieve it is different.

For the rich and powerful, it is three wives, four concubines and twenty-five women, and the grand feast on Jin'ao Island. For the poor scholar, it is "sitting alone in the study and making guns by hand". For the business traveler living in Guangzhou, it is the painted boats with colorful lights and flower boats decorated with flowers in Baietan.

The two types of prostitute boats moored on the Changdi to entertain guests, the former served wealthy merchants as patrons and were monopolized by Han prostitutes, while the latter provided services to ordinary sailors and travelers and were cheaper. The main source of boat prostitutes was Tanka women.

Tanka people are untouchables who cannot live on land, cannot intermarry with Han people, and are not qualified to study. They can only spend their entire lives on boats. Tanka people either take risks and do bloody jobs, or they can only make a living by fishing and sailing. They are often exploited and bullied by Han people, and their lives are very difficult. Therefore, many Tanka girls have to sell their smiles on boats to support their families and become prostitutes.

Prostitutes only support themselves, but Hua Niang has to support the whole family. Naturally, they are not as picky as Han prostitutes. They do not accept foreign barbarians, those who do not take baths, and those who do not like them... They accept everyone and are very aggressive in paying prostitutes, so they are very popular among depressed sailors. So in the end, Hua Tan was exclusively occupied by Tanka women.

The Canton Fair, held twice a year, is the busiest time for the boat business. Portuguese merchant ships sail from Macau to Baietan for trade. Although the red-haired devils on the ships cannot enter Guangzhou, they can get off the ships and move around at the Baietan pier without anyone noticing.

These sex-hungry ghosts finally got the chance to move around in the Celestial Empire, so of course they wanted to have fun. But they were dirty, smelly, ugly, and hairy, so even if they were given extra sex power, they couldn't get on the pleasure boat.

It's not just that the sisters are particular, but they mainly want to let their patrons know that if they take in the red-haired ghost, their value will immediately drop and they will no longer patronize them, which is really not worth it.

After a long time, the red-haired devils learned their lesson, so as soon as they got off the boat, they went straight to the small boats with square heads and flowers on them, and no longer tried to hit the walls on the painted barges with carved beams and painted buildings.

It was now late at night, the music had stopped, but the long embankment was still lit with red lights and the sounds of women were incessant.

One of the flower boats was particularly noisy and had a total of five cabins, front and back. The last one was a kitchen where food was prepared for the guests.

In the kitchen, a young man with a dark complexion and bare feet squatted beside the charcoal stove, listening to the screams of a woman in front of him in a daze, his eyes red from the reflection of the fire.

Two barefoot, dark-faced men were sitting cross-legged on the floor next to him. The leader reminded him, "What are you doing? The pot is almost boiling dry!"

"Oh..." The young man came to his senses and hurriedly moved the clay pot away from the stove. He then put it heavily on the chopping board and said angrily: "Damn it, the red-haired devil raped my wife, and I still have to make boat porridge for him! What's going on!"

"Who made us boat people?" Another man sneered, "We are born lowly. Not only you, but your son is also destined to be lowly!"

"Lost!" Veins on the young man's forehead throbbed. He took one look at the baby sleeping in the hanging basket and covered his face helplessly.

"Do you want to change your fate?" The leading boatman patted his shoulder and took out a cardboard box with two big red characters "Victory" printed on it. He pulled out two thin tubes rolled with white paper from the box and lit them in the furnace. He held one in his mouth and then handed one to the young man.

Encouraged by the other party, the young man took a puff of the cigarette and immediately started coughing violently. "Duilei, what the hell is this?"

"Cigarettes are the red-haired devils' light rice, but they only know how to chew them raw." The boatman said complacently, "How can they be so civilized as to cut them into strips and roll them up to smoke?"

"Oh..." The young man took another puff, it was still very choking, but the strange feeling made him feel a little less depressed.

The boatman asked the young man, "You haven't answered yet?"

"Of course I do, even in my dreams!" the young man gritted his teeth and said, then he became depressed again. "But can I change my worthless life for generations?"

"Yes!" The boatman nodded heavily and said, "As long as you do as I say, you will definitely be able to do it!"

"It can not only change your family, but also the fate of all the boat people in Lianjiang!" Another man also encouraged: "Brother, do you want to be a pariah for the rest of your life, or fight for yourself and your descendants? Make a decision now."

"Let's do it! We must give it a try!" Young people are easily impulsive. Once instigated, their heads get hot and they don't even ask why such a sad thing could actually change the fate of the untouchables.

"Okay, then you just..." The leading boatman motioned for him to come closer and whispered instructions in a low voice.

~~

The Wuyang Trading House was originally located at a dock outside Guangzhou. As the business of the foreign companies grew bigger and bigger, and their relationship with the provincial officials became deeper and deeper, owner Lin moved the house into the city, opening it on the avenue in front of the Governor's Office that led directly to the Zhengnan Gate, on the most prosperous Chengxuan Street.

In front of the street is a three-story storefront with a golden signboard of "Wuyang Tongshangguan" shining brightly in the sun, and in the back is a spacious house with four entrances. When Mr. Lin came to Guangzhou, he lived here to facilitate his exchanges with the provincial officials.

He was turned down last night, and after returning home he tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep, and fell into a daze at dawn. He simply did not get up in the morning and took a nap first.

Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep well. I kept having nightmares. I either dreamed that the Wuyang Trading House, for which I had devoted my life, was raided by the government, or I dreamed that I was arrested and paraded through the streets as a traitor. I kept waking up from the nightmare.

At this moment, he dreamed that the common people smashed the trading house again. Feeling sorry for him, he sat up suddenly. The concubine quickly wiped his sweat and asked: "Master, are you having a nightmare again?"

"Oh my god, I dreamed that my trading house was smashed by the common people. I was so sad." Lin Hongzhong breathed a sigh of relief and said thankfully: "Luckily it was just a dream..."

Before he finished speaking, there was a hurried knock on the door, and the shopkeeper outside shouted, "Boss, it's bad, some villains are trying to smash our shop!"

"You're just a fool! You're still dreaming!" Lin Hongzhong said to his concubine in frustration, "Hurry up and pinch me to wake me up."

The concubine obeyed his orders and immediately pinched the skin on his neck with her long pointed nails and twisted it hard.

“Oh, damn it…” Lin Hongzhong screamed in pain, kicked the concubine over, covered his neck and cursed: “You are really twisted!”

"But fortunately I'm completely awake now..." The feeling of pain made him more alert, maybe it was because of the increased nerves.

However, the life-threatening knock on the door became clearer, as did the shopkeeper's anxious voice:

"Boss, come out quickly, something bad has happened!"

"Damn it, it turns out I wasn't dreaming..." Lin Hongzhong rubbed his neck depressedly. He didn't even bother to put on his clothes. He put on his slippers and walked to the door.

"What's going on? Why are you so panicked?" He opened the door and saw that the old shopkeeper's face had turned pale. "Do you keep so many thugs for free? If there are troublemakers, just kick them out!"

"I'm afraid it won't work, Boss. There are too many people." The old shopkeeper said with a bitter face, "If we didn't have a lot of people, we would have let them in long ago!"

"Oh?" Lin Hongzhong put on the robe given by his concubine and walked quickly towards the front yard.

When the two entered the store, they saw the shop assistant climb up the plank and prop it up with a pole. The plank was pounded by the people outside, making a loud noise and causing a great disturbance.

Lin Hongzhong went up to the third floor with a gloomy face, opened the window and looked down, and almost fainted from fright.

The spacious Chengxuan Street was crowded with people!

People pointed at his trading house and cursed him in unison, the curses were as harsh as they could be.

Before he was discovered, Lin Hongzhong quickly retracted his head and closed the window to block out the deafening greetings.

"Why do I hear them asking us to hand over someone?" He asked the old shopkeeper beside him, "Who do they want?"

"Hey, it's unfair." The old shopkeeper also looked puzzled and said, "Everything was fine this morning, but suddenly a group of troublemakers came in the afternoon, yelling at us to hand over the red-haired ghost. It's true that our store sells foreign goods, but we don't sell red-haired ghosts. I asked the people from the gang to ask them to leave, but as soon as they were thrown out, they lay on the ground and shouted, shouting things like 'Wuyang Tongshangguan sheltered the red-haired ghost who raped the Ming women', 'The humiliated girl has committed suicide in Baietan' and so on..."

He said with a puzzled look on his face, "Then it seemed to have aroused public anger. So many people suddenly showed up and joined in the commotion. I was afraid that they would rush into the store and rob us, so I quickly had people put up the floor planks..."

The floors of the trading house were specially made, all made of thick and hard ironwood, otherwise they would have been torn apart by outsiders.

But this is not going to work. Lin Hongzhong saw through the window that more and more people were gathering on the street, and saw that someone had found a ladder and was preparing to attack from the second floor.

"Hurry up and send someone to the second floor to guard and don't let them climb the ladder in." Lin Hongzhong quickly ordered: "Go through the back door and report to the police immediately. Ask our old parents and ancestors to make the decision. We usually provide for them to ward off disasters!"

"We've sent someone to report to the authorities," the old shopkeeper said hurriedly.

"Go again, go in person, and take the silver!" Lin Hongzhong stared at the surging crowd on the street, feeling that things were not that simple. "Tell them that whoever can help me settle this matter, I will give 10,000... no, 20,000 taels of silver!"

"Okay." The old shopkeeper responded and went downstairs quickly.

Lin Hongzhong was like an ant on a hot pot, anxiously waiting for the government to come to rescue him. However, after waiting for a long time, the government officials did not arrive, and the unruly people who besieged the trading house became more and more arrogant. No one knew who started it, but they began to throw bricks and stones at the expensive rosewood lattice windows of the trading house. They also soaked rags in oil, tied them to wood, set them on fire, and threw them into the trading house through the broken windows.

"Master, let's retreat quickly. It will be too late if we don't leave now." Several guards carried him downstairs.

"Let me go, I'm not going anywhere!" Lin Hongzhong struggled and yelled. "I don't believe that there is no law in Guangzhou!"

"Fire!" The panicked shouts of the guys and the thugs drowned out his voice.

Without saying anything, the guards carried him downstairs and into the study in the backyard.

They took Lin Hongzhong and his concubine through the secret passage in the study to a house on the back street.

When the two of them changed into cloth clothes and skirts and came out onto the street, they saw that the sandalwood plaque of "Wuyang Tongshangguan" had already caught fire...

The streets are filled with sandalwood, making one want to make a pot of tea.

p.s. Today is the weekend, so I will only update once. I will get up early tomorrow and try to update three times!

(End of this chapter)