Not daring to say it would be easy, he handed over a shiny silver dollar with a dragon pattern. The dull dock worker suddenly smiled. He held the silver dollar tightly and warmed it with his body temperature, not to mention how much he was ironing it!
Jiangnan's economy has indeed recovered a lot in recent years, but it has not reached the point where ordinary people can earn silver dollars. These dock workers can only earn five or six cents a day, barely making ends meet!
If you have money, you have the courage to speak. He looked around and said carefully, and the translator also whispered the message. The cause and effect of the fight became clear, but this story made Simpson dumbfounded!
It turns out that the cause of everything is one hundred catties of tea, to be more specific, one hundred catties of top-quality literati tea!
Simpson often drinks tea, of course he knows it, and unlike ordinary British people, he doesn’t know black tea. He knows that there are many, many classifications of tea in China!
But searching all the memories in his mind, he still doesn't know what this scholar's tea is?
I learned a lot today. It turns out that He Literary Tea was created by a group of poor and well-fed literati. Of course, they must be rich literati!
This fat man, Master Guo, is a juren. He is originally from the edge of Taihu Lake in Jiangsu Province. Later, he fled to Shanghai to buy a property to avoid the war!
Because of his rich family background, he owned many shops and warehouses in Shanghai as early as he bought it, and he lived a very prosperous life!
Later, after the war ended, he bribed senior officials of the Hunan Army, and soon retrieved his family's land with the original title deed. By the way, he also misappropriated a large amount of ownerless land at a very small price!
Now Guo Juren lives near Dongting Mountain in Taihu Lake. He is also a big landowner with a thousand hectares sign. In addition to the industry in Shanghai, he is also a wealthy family. Most people will give him a bit of treatment, even from the government. Same!
But today, things got weird. Originally, Shanghai Dao had a good relationship with him, but they had a falling out more than ten days ago because of some tea leaves!
For the wedding of Emperor Tongzhi, the whole country began a collective operation to collect rare treasures, including gold, silver, jade, antique calligraphy and paintings, porcelain and silk... lacquer furniture and Western treasures!
Everything you need including food, clothing, housing, transportation and entertainment!
Many officials wanted to find their presence in this big gift-giving to make the emperor remember them, so they racked their brains to find a way!
Shanghai Daotai knew from some source that Guo Juren had a treasure in his family. It turned out to be a favorite tea among the literati, called lip tea!
There is a kind of tea called Biluochun, which is rich in Dongting Lake, commonly known as frightening fragrance! This kind of tea is a type of green tea, and you will feel refreshed when you drink it!
Therefore, Biluochun before the Ming Dynasty was much more expensive than before the Yuqing Dynasty, and Guo Juren hired a large number of young and beautiful girls before the Qingming Festival, and they must be virgins!
These girls go to their own tea mountains, pick the tenderest buds with their lips, collect them together and fry them. No man can touch them during the process, and the girls who get them have to be carefully selected!
This kind of tea is called lip tea. Since it is a popular specialty among literati circles, it is also called literati tea. It is a very niche variety!
Guo Ju's family has numerous tea mountains and hires hundreds of girls to pick them. However, the output of this lip tea in a year is only about a hundred kilograms, and there is not much left in the literati circle!
Shanghai Daotai knew that there was such a good thing, and he immediately wanted to offer the treasure. He took the initiative to contact Guo Juren and wanted to buy this batch of lip tea at a high price!
Who knew that Fatty Guo was quite stubborn and refused to admit that he had this treasure? For ten days, Shanghai Dao sought many connections but couldn't buy it!
This angered the government. The Shanghai Taoists were ruthless and determined to get this batch of tea. They actually colluded with local gangsters and deliberately falsely accused Guo Ju of being a human trafficker!
The soldiers of Daotai Mansion now have the right to come and search, and Fatty Guo also has a wide network of contacts. He has friends who urgently report the news. This fat man is really hard to give up. He wants these tea leaves even if he lives!
He sent people overnight to transfer his family property and tea leaves, trying to sneak them onto a boat and transport them from the Yangtze River to a friend's house to hide for a while!
Unexpectedly, Shanghai Road mobilized countless gangsters and surrounded his home. As soon as there was any movement this morning, they immediately sent soldiers to surround the cargo ship. This is what the Simpson reporter saw!
Simpson was dumbfounded by this oriental legend. He didn't expect that there was such a legendary tea in the world, and that the Qing Empire actually mobilized the whole country for the emperor's wedding... What good news material!
At this time, Guo Juren's cargo ship had been occupied by soldiers. Fatty Guo, who was crying and wiping away his tears, was thrown aside. He gritted his teeth and said that he was going to file a complaint, go to the capital to file a complaint, and go to Jiangning to ask for help!
The leading soldier sneered and took out a whole box of Indian horseshoe soil from the cabin and threw it in front of him and said, "Guo Juren! See for yourself, what is this? I copied it from your ship, but you are selling big tobacco soil privately!"
"This is a frame-up! This thing is not from my ship. You are frame-up!"
"Okay, stop yelling... You are also a member of the Juren family, and you are no stranger to officialdom! When you were stealing other people's land in your hometown, you did a lot of dirty things..."
"Stop making trouble and think about how to atone for your sins! Take a look, it's obviously just a matter of ordering tea... If you have to make a big fuss..."
"Haha... prepare your money carefully and prepare to save yourself!"
The scholar's tea, which he regarded as a treasure, was finally snatched away and confiscated. Simpson watched Guo Juren and his party being escorted towards the Yamen by the guards. He had nothing to say and nothing to do!
Of course, as a traveler who came to China for the first time, he obviously wouldn't mind such nosy matters!
Apart from a sigh, all this today can only be a wonderful article in a newspaper!
Walking around Shanghai, at this time the area under the Qing Dynasty was still called Songjiang Prefecture. Simpson really felt the efforts made by the Qing Empire for the wedding of Emperor Tongzhi!
Local officials went from shop to shop to collect taxes. These were new taxes that were beyond the usual taxes. They were called pro-government taxes. Even if it was the smallest department store selling needles, threads, and accessories, one silver dollar would be collected from each family!
As for big restaurants, big silk shops, and porcelain shops, they all charge from 60 to 30 yuan depending on the size of the shop!
Simpson was surprised to find that there were no tax standards. It was as if every police officer had a ruler in his heart. When he went to the store, he could naturally quote the amount, and the store owner did not dare to bargain and had to pay obediently!
"Oh God! Don't these people have any evidence to collect taxes? Do they collect taxes with empty words?"
The friend smiled bitterly and said, "This is the East, this is the Qing Empire! Where are the rules... These people like to follow unspoken rules, and the officers have already discussed it with these shop owners in advance before they come to collect taxes!"
"If you are willing to give bribes to these officers, you can pay ten or twenty yuan. If you are not willing to give bribes, I'm afraid seventy or eighty yuan won't be enough!"
"God bless, fortunately our Hurd is managing the country's customs, otherwise business would really be impossible!"
