Winter turned to spring, and in the blink of an eye it was the fifty-fourth year of Qianlong's reign.
In the spring season, the land outside the Pass is still frozen for thousands of miles, but deep inland on both sides of the Han River, spring is already blooming.
At dusk, with the smoke and sunset glowing like a curtain, several awning boats sailed upstream from the Yangtze River and stopped at the pier outside the north gate of Xiangyang Fucheng. On the first awning boat, Xu Da walked out of the cabin with a stoop, straightened up and stretched out.
Looking back, I saw that the river was full of sails and merchants gathered there. The river bank is full of people, constantly shuttling back and forth. The shouts of the vendors, the sound of cooking with spatulas and chopping on the food stalls, the aroma of onion, ginger, garlic and minced meat overflowed, and my stomach couldn't help but growl.
At this time, people on the five boats also started to head out of the cabin, and after a while, twenty or thirty people appeared. These people looked at the lively scene on the shore and pointed, excited. They had been sitting on the boat for several days since they passed Biyang, and they were already very bored.
"Brother Xu, how far is it from here to Chongqing Mansion?"
After hearing the questions from the young people around him, Xu Dayong smiled and said: "It's still far away! We have to take a boat from Xiangyang to Jingzhou and follow the Yangtze River to the west. It will take a month."
The young man said in surprise: "Good boy! It's so far!"
After saying that, he unconsciously raised his hand to take off the melon skin hat on his head. Xu Da used his sharp eyes and quick hands to stop him as soon as he saw it. He said in a low voice: "Be careful with your pigtails. This is not Jiangsu Province. We have to be careful in everything."
The young man smiled awkwardly, then clasped his fists and said thank you.
It was already dark at this time, so it was difficult for people on the shore to see clearly the faces of the people on the five boats. If it were daytime, many people would definitely notice that these people are obviously different from the sailors on other ships. They were far from having the dark faces of the sailor coolies of this era, and they did not open their arms to reveal their bare chests and abdomen.
Most of these people have rosy complexions and strong bodies. However, due to being on the boat for many days, some people's faces look sallow, which seems to be caused by seasickness.
At this time, Xu Dayong said to a man next to him: "Brother Zhang, there are many people on the shore. Li Shun will stay on the boat with you. I have to go to the Inspection Department to check my ticket first."
The man named Zhang nodded and said, "Go back quickly."
Half an hour later, Xu Dayong, who had gone to the inspection department, walked along the river bank to a small restaurant called "Kangmaoji" near Xiaobeimen. The place is not big, but business is booming. The surrounding shops are lit up with green lights and red candles, and the sounds of clinking dishes and noisy joking and gossiping are intertwined.
"I heard that your physalis noodles are the best?"
Upon hearing this, the waiter hurriedly came over to say hello: "So that the guest will know that my physalis noodles are the best in Xiangyang. The lamb soup stewed in the morning and the pancakes made from freshly picked wild toon are also famous."
"What a fucking braggart!" Xu Dayong scolded with a smile, and then said: "Get forty copies of each and send them to the boat on the riverside with the 'Huang Shengtai' flag."
"Forty?" The guy was startled when he heard this.
"What? You don't do any business that comes to your door?"
The waiter had already woken up and thought that once the order was completed, he could close the door early and put it on the board, so he nodded hurriedly: "Do it! Do it!"
Xu Dayong nodded and took out the money bag from his arms, took a small piece of broken silver and handed it to the waiter, saying, "Is it enough?"
The waiter took a look at the angry wind lantern sitting next to him and was immediately overjoyed. He kept saying, "There's a lot more."
Xu Dayong looked around and said, "Let's cut a sheep and send it over. I've been running on boats every day these days, and my mouth is tight."
Seeing Xu Dayong sitting aside and waiting, the waiter quickly served tea, then jumped three feet high, ran to the kitchen and shouted: "Dad! There's a big deal!"
After the Qingming Festival last year, Xu Dayong took Zhao Xin's order and led people to Nanba Laolin, preparing to recruit refugees and send them to Beihai Town. However, when he got there, he realized that what he had thought before was too simple.
In another time and space, the junction area of the three provinces that gave birth to the "White Lotus Sect Uprising in Sichuan and Chu" was actually composed of two primitive mountain forests, collectively known as the "Nanba Old Forest".
One section is the "Nanshan Old Forest" in the north, running from Lueyang, Shaanxi through Fengxian to the east, passing through Baoji, Yunxian, Zhouzhi, Yangxian, Ningshan, Xiaoyi, Zhen'an, Shanyang, Xunyang, to Yunxi in Hubei .
The other is the "Bashan Old Forest" in the south, which runs eastward from Ningqiang and Baocheng in Shaanxi, through Nanjiang, Tongjiang, Bazhou, Taiping, Daning, Kaixian, Fengjie and Wushan in Sichuan, and then from Ziyang, Ankang, Shaanxi, Pingli travels to Zhushan, Zhuxi, Fangxian, Xingshan and Baokang in Hubei.
Since the early Ming Dynasty, the Nanba Laolin area has been designated as a forbidden area by the imperial court, and outsiders are strictly prohibited from entering to avoid dangers beyond reach. Later, due to constant natural and man-made disasters, since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the old forest area gradually became a natural refuge for refugees.
No matter whether they are refugees or bandits, as long as they go into the mountains and face the virgin forest that blocks out the sun, no matter whether they are Yunyang Mansion or the official servants of the six counties under it, they can only look at the mountains and sigh, but they are beyond their reach. Once something happens to the villages in the mountains, it takes a few days for the surrounding county governments to learn the news, and then it takes several days to deal with it. The communication of government orders is extremely difficult.
These two areas have high mountains, deep valleys, dense jungles, and vast mountain areas. However, the land is barren, the products are scarce, and the mountains are inaccessible to people. Except for tributaries such as the Han River, Yihe River, Jishui River and Baihe River, which are accessible by boat, land transportation is extremely inconvenient.
I think back in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the "Thirteen Kuidong Families" were entrenched in the Nanba Laolin area. It was precisely because of the inconvenient transportation that it was difficult for the army to move. They persisted in resisting until the third year of Kangxi, when the Qing government mobilized Qin, Henan, and Huguang. The soldiers and horses of the three provinces completely wiped it out.
Since the Battle of Jinchuan and Jinchuan, the Qing government has imposed massive levies and levies in Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hubei and other places, leaving all treasuries empty and states and counties exhausted. In the fertile western Sichuan plain, land annexation has become more and more serious, and the poor have no place to stand on, and they have gone bankrupt and moved away from their hometowns. Although the land in eastern Sichuan is barren, because of its vast land and light resources, refugees from surrounding provinces continue to gather here, especially in Sichuan. Sichuan and Henan provinces have the largest number of refugees.
Speaking of which, if Zhao Xin hadn't put Sun Guiyuan, the leader of the Shuoyuan Sect, and Zhan Zhenglin, his eldest disciple, at the farm in Sheyang Lake, that group of people, including Wang Cong'er and his daughter, would have gone to Xiangyang to preach, and the harm would be even greater.
However, when Xu Dayong arrived in Yunxi and Zhushan, he discovered that the matter was far more complicated than what he had learned. What he has to face is not only Hunyuan, Mahayana, Bagua, Ligua and other branch sects of White Lotus, but also an important private secret society - "Tuluzi".
The famous Ge Laohui in later generations, also known as the Pao Ge organization, originated from "Tulu".
As an aside, looking at these secret sects in the early and mid-Qing Dynasty, except for the Luo Sect, which relied on water transport to make a living, other secret sects such as the Tiandi Sect, the Tuolu Sect, and the White Lotus Sect had nothing good! They all rely on murder, robbery, rape, robbery, deception and abduction as their main ways of making a living, and their methods are extremely despicable.
This is also the reason why Zhao Xin is determined not to cooperate with these civil society parties.
On his first trip south, Xu Dayong not only went to Nanba Laolin, but also to Chongqing Prefecture.
The reason why they went to Chongqing was because they learned from chatting with the locals in Yunyang that the Tuluzi were not only active in the old forests of Nanba. Many of the sailors on the Sichuan River sailing boats and trackers on the shore also joined the Tulu Society. Especially the area around Chongqing Prefecture has the largest number of stranded trackers, numbering in the thousands.
It is said that when large ships on the Sichuan River carry passengers and goods upstream from Hanyang and Jingyi, the faster the current, the more trackers are needed. Each large ship carries hundreds of stones, and the trackers require seventy or eighty people. When the cargo ship arrived in Chongqing and was unloaded, the merchants hired small boats to go to northern Sichuan and southwestern Sichuan respectively. Another group of trackers were responsible for pulling fiber in areas such as Jialing River, Qujiang, Tongjiang, Lushui, and Fulishui. As for the merchant ships going down the river, they needed half as many sailors as those going up the river. Each ship could only have thirty or forty people at most, so a large number of trackers were stranded in Chongqing Prefecture.
Xu Dayong didn't take Zuluzi seriously at that time. Now that even the imperial army and Rakshasa were beaten until their asses were wet by the Northern Navy, how could he be afraid of a few rogues? !
In his opinion, trackers are good, hardworking and hardworking. Thousands of trackers and their families are afraid of tens of thousands of people. If it can be transported to Beihai Town, it will definitely be a great achievement.
Later, when Xu Dayong arrived in Chongqing Prefecture, he was shocked by the scene on the river bank. Those trackers from Jingyi and Kuidong lived in densely packed huts on the river bank of Chongqing Prefecture. There were not just thousands, but almost Thousands of people!
Xu Dayong's men made special observations and calculations on the docks along the river. For ten days, there are more than a dozen boats going upstream every day, and almost a dozen boats going down the river. So the trackers will need seven to eight hundred people on the way, and only three or four hundred people on the return trip, so the number of people on the river bank The trackers who can't find a living and stay on the river can gather thousands of people in ten days, and tens of thousands in a month.
With so many trackers unable to find work, they will surely cause trouble over time. Scams, abductions, robberies and kidnappings occur frequently outside Chongqing City. Although most of these people’s wives, children, and children are living in Kuimen, Fengjie, Wushan and other places downstream, how can they return home if they can’t make money and have no one to hire them?
When Xu Dayong found several tracker leaders and proposed that he could take their wives, children, and children to farm in northern Jiangsu, many trackers were moved.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he started negotiating terms with a few tracker leaders, the leader of the local grunt club over there came over. Nothing else, just blackmail for money. If you don't give it, start fighting until you get out or pay for the treat.
At the beginning, Xu Dayong agreed to give money in an attitude of calming down the matter, which was calculated as twenty coins per person. Unexpectedly, the leader of the Gulu Society saw Xu Dayong's dress and proposed to give each person a hundred cents.
So Xu Dayong was extremely angry, this was just an open robbery! Five thousand people is half a million yuan, which is equivalent to five thousand taels of silver. Although Beihai Town is not short of money, it cannot be taken advantage of.
However, when he refused the conditions for the leader of the Zolu Association, he found that no tracker dared to agree to follow him. Only then did he learn that there were so-called naked people in Chongqing Prefecture called "Jingsi Liu", which refers to trackers. Many people are so poor that their clothes have been sold out, leaving them with nothing but pants. If the "Jingshan Liu" is weak, he will become a beggar, and if he is strong, he will become a "Gulu", a complete gangster proletarian!
Afterwards, the people from the Tonglu Society began to constantly find troubles and provocations. In the end, they even refused to let the boat go without paying, and sent several boats to surround Xu Da with their boat.
Ever since he was sent to northern Jiangsu with Zhao Xin, Xu Dayong had never been so angry. But facing a group of rogues who were openly blackmailing people, Xu Dayong knew that a good man would not suffer the immediate consequences. I only have six subordinates here, but the other party has thousands of people. Even if one person and two guns are firing at full strength, thousands of people can still kill themselves by relying on their lives. In desperation, Xu Dayong had no choice but to spend money to settle the matter, and also spent money to book a table at a restaurant and send it over, as an apology to the other party.
Now he finally realized how powerful the Zoru Society was.
In fact, during the early and middle periods of Qianlong's reign, the local government of the Qing government launched many investigations into the bandits. Their advice was heartfelt and the punishments were harsh. However, some people still took the risk and became "bandits".
Especially when the Qing Dynasty was carrying out the Battle of Jinchuan and Jinchuan, the Gulu Society was extremely arrogant because they had no time to take care of it. After that, Fukang'an was appointed governor of Sichuan, and his main task was to investigate and deal with the bandits. In the five years before and after, thousands of people were tortured, beheaded and even exiled. It seems that he has disappeared, but in fact the Lou Club has moved from the public to the underground.
It is said that in an era of frequent natural disasters, corrupt officials, intensified land annexation, and even the bankruptcy of countless farmers, if you can find a place to settle down or be fully employed, who is willing to wander in society and risk beheading and distribution from time to time? What? Who doesn’t want to try their best to start a business and realize their dream of having enough food and clothing?
For example, many of the refugees living in the old forests of Nanba are mostly workers in wood mills and paper mills in Shaanxi, and are smugglers of salt well craftsmen in Bashu. They can basically make a living by themselves. If the grain harvest in the mountains had not been poor and food prices had soared, causing the workshops to stop working, workers would not have scattered and caused trouble.
Therefore, in the eyes of many refugees, the advice given by the Qing government officials and even the landlords and gentry was like standing up and talking without hurting their backs.
Take a look at what the official notice said, "Even if you die of poverty and hunger, you will be an innocent and good citizen, and your leader will be saved."
The problem is, if your life is on the line and your whole family is starving to death, who cares about your head? Hunger and cold are nothing more than this.
From an economic point of view, if a society cannot accommodate too many people so that it can obtain the necessary means of production, it will inevitably cause a large number of social members to be placed on the margins of society, followed by "thieves and thieves" and "traitors". Bandits are increasing."
After suffering such a big loss, Xu Dayong certainly would not give up. However, no matter how powerful the Northern Navy's large ships are, they can only wander around the coastal areas. They can't even think about it in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and they don't have the energy. So Xu Dayong had no choice but to leave Chongqing Prefecture in despair. In the end, he asked someone from the Cao Gang to establish a relationship with the Xiangyang Cao Gang and established a channel to recruit Shaanxi refugees from Yunxi to Beihai Town.
