On May 3rd, the scenery in the south of the Yangtze River was still the same. The endless Chinese industrial zone on the Huangpu River was bustling with people. The other side of the Huangpu River, the Pudong area, was originally a wasteland. But when the Chinese industries began to gather, It has become a densely populated commercial area.
Along the riverside are all trading shops. Various Chinese company branches are opened here, and various Chinese industrial products are concentrated here for dumping to the Qing Dynasty.
There are not many retail businesses here, and the real large-scale ones are wholesale. A large part of the Chinese goods shipped from all over the world, whether they are local products or Chinese industrial products, are unloaded here.
Then many merchants from Jiangnan came here to buy goods and wholesale them one by one. You can know the scale of goods hoarding here just by looking at the rows of warehouses in the back.
The commercial district occupies the best location, and then the warehouse district and residential areas are mixed together. In order to save land, the Chinese even built some three-story Western-style buildings for people to live in!
All this changed under the eyes of the foreign embassy in Puxi. The British and French ministers watched helplessly as the Chinese business grew bigger and bigger in the past few years, while their own side became increasingly depressed.
After all, the Chinese and the Qing Dynasty share the same culture and race and are one family. As long as the goods are similar, Qing merchants are more willing to accept Chinese goods. Currently, 60% of the cargo throughput on the Huangpu River belongs to the Chinese family.
Jealousy, the entire group of foreign devils are going crazy with jealousy, but there is no way the Chinese have soldiers stationed in their hometown, so they don’t dare to cause trouble!
However, what has happened in the past few days has made these foreigners with big noses very relieved. Since half a month ago, chaos has suddenly begun in the Chinese industrial zone.
Sometimes shots would be fired for no apparent reason in the middle of the night, and the gunfire would crackle and crackle, shattering the glass of countless buildings of Sihai Commercial Company, the Mi Group, and the Chinese Telegraph Office, and making the people on duty tremble with fear.
Then there were vicious cases of theft, home invasion, and even kidnapping!
Within half a month, the family members of four senior Chinese managers were kidnapped. In the end, a large ransom was paid to save their lives.
Although no life was harmed, that life would have cost more than 10,000 yuan!
Until a week ago, there was actually an arson case. This is really serious. Several Chinese cotton textile warehouses were burned down. The flames burned in the sky all night long, and the whole Shanghai was shocked!
The entire city's water dragon teams gathered in the Pudong Chinese Industrial Zone and fought the fire for 24 hours to suppress the fire. On the third day, smoke was still coming out of these warehouses!
It is not just these vicious cases that make people in the entire Chinese industrial zone feel in danger. It is also the fact that at the scene of the arson, someone threw countless leaflets and slogans, and even painted the outer walls with slogans.
They were all slogans supporting Emperor Guangxu's ascension to the throne and shouting "long live Emperor Guangxu!"
Now all the fools understood that this was done by Guiziliu's people! But no one knows why Guiziliu does these things? Is it good for him to offend the Chinese people?
This is unreasonable! It was too late for the Japanese to hide in Xiao Letian, so why would they take the initiative to provoke him?
Many people have projected their imagination on the British, which makes the British Embassy unable to argue!
The British fleet is about to set sail, and Guiziliu here has already regarded itself as an ally. Do they want to cooperate with the British to compete with the Chinese?
Rumors spread all of a sudden, but the Chinese people fell silent amid this series of events!
This kind of silence makes people feel even more depressed, and the calm before the storm is nothing more than that!
At around eight o'clock in the morning on the 3rd, several Chinese bosses doing business in Shanghai gathered in the teahouse according to the old rules. They chose a seat on the third floor by the window along the street, sipping tea and chatting while looking at the scenery of the Huangpu River in the distance.
In the corner of the window, people can still see a dark patch, which is the edge of the fire!
"I wonder what happened to the war in the capital? The newspapers are not very good, so there is no latest news... Look, it's already past eight o'clock, and the new Ta Kung Pao still hasn't been delivered!"
Holding the morning newspaper of the second day with tea in his hand, he politely slapped the newspaper on the table, "Man! What's going on... Your restaurant has not ordered the newspaper? What time is it, and you haven't sent the latest newspaper?"
"Oh... Bosses... please bear with me... We don't know what happened, it just didn't arrive! I'll rush it for you, and I'll make sure you see the latest..."
Another boss with a mustache took a sip of tea and said, "Hey guys... you know the business of this Pudong teahouse!"
"Why do we want to come to your place to drink tea and have breakfast so early in the morning? It's not like you teahouses can get the earliest newspapers. We want to read something new!"
"If you can't do this, who will support your business in the future?"
"Hey, hey, hey... you are right... we know, we know, we really need to hurry up... We have the latest Chinese two-wheeled bicycles in our store! I will ask someone to go to the newspaper office to get it in person..."
"That's pretty much it... Go quickly..."
In any place where merchants gathered, the most valuable thing was news, and newspapers were the best tool for disseminating news in that era. Although telegraphs were faster, they had too few words and did not carry enough information, and they were too expensive!
So the channel for people to accept new things is newspapers!
These teahouses in Shanghai are very smart, and Shanghainese people are very good at figuring out business. These teahouses actually unite to negotiate for a number of newspapers.
On the condition that the tea house can guarantee large orders throughout the year, the newspaper exchange agency will provide the tea house with newspapers for an hour in advance!
Ordinary people's homes and companies can usually get the day's newspapers at eight or nine o'clock, but these teahouses can deliver the latest newspapers at six or seven o'clock.
They rely on this time difference to seduce the bosses to spend money. Although this trick is simple, the effect is really good!
But it’s strange today. It’s already half past eight and the new newspaper still hasn’t been delivered!
People had no choice but to open yesterday's newspaper and read it. It was still at the stage where a bloody battle broke out at the Yongding River defense line and the rebels had partially broken through. No updated news was released at all.
In that era, no matter how fast newspapers were, they still had delays. It was very, very difficult for Chinese newspapers to shorten the reporting period of the battle in the capital to just one or two days.
The expired newspapers were boring. Several people read the old newspapers and began to speculate on the current situation. "Brothers! Do you think the Yongding River defense line can be held? I think it's quite mysterious..."
"I think that's the case... the Japs Six's spies have come to us to kill people and set fires, which shows that he has established a foothold in the capital. I guess the Six Japs' army has already approached the walls of the capital today!"
"Damn... This devil dared to burn our Chinese property. He really took the courage of a leopard! He took advantage of the fact that the head of state was not at home. If the head of state was here, the soldiers would have killed him long ago!"
"Haha... it's just... the head of state is not here, Naha's weaklings are actually in power, and the capital is like this and doesn't even know how to increase its troops?"
"Shanghai is such an important strategic location for the Chinese people. These three thousand soldiers are still stationed here. If you ask me, I will add 10,000 troops..."
Just as he was talking, suddenly outside the window, life was thundering like a rebel: "Ah... it's not good... look at the Huangpu River... look at the Huangpu River..."
Tens of thousands of people pulled their necks and roared!
