Yu Chong was a businessman who bought these people's debts from the captains and sold them to the mines.
His purpose is to make money, not to cause trouble.
Seeing that Chen Zhengwei was not a kind person, Yu Chong thought for a moment and asked, "How are your skills?"
"It's okay!" Chen Zhengwei grinned, revealing a pair of strong white teeth.
"Wait for me here!" Yu Chong said and walked away.
Chen Zhengwei waved to Chen Qiaoniang and Chen Zhengwu, then sat aside and watched Yu Chong and two of his men check the people before arranging them to get on the carriage.
And outside the fence in the distance, the white people were still holding signs and yelling.
In the distance, tall chimneys were spitting out black smoke.
"Brother, what should we do next?" Chen Qiaoniang asked in a low voice, her eyes full of anxiety and uneasiness.
"One step at a time, a living person can still be suffocated to death by urinating?" Chen Zhengwei looked at the two oil bottles and felt troubled in his heart.
However, they are relatives of this body. If I let them go, these two people might be sold somewhere.
Forget it, it’s just two more pairs of chopsticks, let’s keep them for now.
After the others had arranged to be sent away, Yu Chong waved to Chen Zhengwei and the others, and then got into a carriage.
Only two people could sit in the carriage, but there was still a little space in front of the knees, so Chen Zhengwei let them squat there.
Chen Zhengwei himself disliked the smell of the three of them, and Yu Chong still felt uncomfortable covering his nose with a silk scarf.
"Where are you going to send me?" Chen Zhengwei turned around and asked.
"Ningyang Guild Hall! I'll help you with this, but it's up to you whether they keep you or not," Yu Chong said.
"oh?"
"The Ningyang Guild Hall is all from Taishan, you guys." Yu Chong explained simply.
There are mainly three types of forces in Chinatown. One is the brotherhood association, which is also the most common gang.
The second type is the township party.
The third type is the clan association.
Township parties and clan associations are tied by region or blood to help newly arrived Chinese gain a foothold. At the same time, they will also provide some protection and help them solve some problems.
However, if you join the township party or clan association, you still have to pay membership fees every year.
It's not much, just five yuan a year.
Chen Zhengwei is from Taishan, and Yu Chong knew that Ningyang Guild Hall was in trouble recently, so he took him there to have a look.
"According to their calendar, what year is it now?" Chen Zhengwei asked while looking at the low buildings outside.
The buildings on both sides are very short, mostly one or two-story wooden houses, with few three- or four-story masonry buildings. There are signs hanging at the door, such as bakery, grocery store, clothing store, etc. Chen Zhengwei can even guess and understand half of them.
The ground is paved with small stones, and the gaps between the stones are full of mud and sewage.
The wheels of the carriage rolled over the bumpy road, and occasionally sewage could be seen spilling onto the roadside.
"According to Gui Lao's calendar, it was 1878! Did you go to school?" Yu Chong said in surprise. The piglets he took over were no longer in two batches, but this was the first time someone asked him this question.
"certainly!"
Yu Chong looked at the two children squatting on the floor of the carriage at his feet and reacted immediately.
There are very few people who come here who have studied, and most of them come here to work as coolies.
But the one around him was different. He brought his family here to escape the crisis.
The carriage passed through an archway at the intersection of the street and it was an uphill road. This was Chinatown.
When he arrived here, Chen Zhengwei felt as if he had returned to the county town of his former hometown. The low buildings on both sides had wooden signs for pharmacies, laundries, and grocery stores.
Most of the pedestrians around were wearing two-piece mandarin jackets, and many people were also wearing long robes with yin and yang heads on their heads.
There are also people wearing robes and top hats with their braids wrapped in top hats, which looks a bit nondescript.
Compared with the streets outside, the streets here are narrower and the buildings on both sides are shorter. But it's quite lively here.
After all, there are more than 40,000 Chinese living in these dozen streets.
The aroma of steamed buns coming from the roadside made Chen Zhengwei very hungry, and Chen Qiaoniang and Chen Zhengwu were also swallowing their saliva. However, the two of them were sensible and didn't say a word.
When Chen Zhengwei was wondering whether to borrow some steamed buns, the carriage stopped in front of a somewhat dilapidated two-story building.
There was a man in his twenties squatting at the door, wearing a coarse mandarin jacket and with braids on his head.
After several people got out of the car, Yu Chong said to Chen Zhengwei, "Wait here."
He whispered a few words to the man squatting there and was taken inside.
After a while, the man came out on his own and asked Chen Zhengwei: "You just got off the boat?" "Where is Taishan?" "What's your name?"
"Xinning, Chen Zhengwei."
A smile suddenly appeared on the man's face: "Is your hometown Chen Wencun?"
Chen Zhengwei thought for a while, and it was probably his father's generation who arrived in Xinning County.
The man burst into laughter and chatted enthusiastically: "We are the real family. My name is Chen Zhenghu, and I am also from the Chen family in Wencun. My father, Chen Fengsheng, and my grandfather are from the same generation."
"The ancestors should be responsible, and they should uphold their aspirations and uphold their righteousness..." Chen Zhengwei said with a smile, but he still had it in his memory.
"Then you have to call me cousin!" Chen Zhenghu nodded repeatedly, with a look of surprise on his face.
They were of the same generation, not only from the same hometown, but also blood relatives, so they became close immediately.
Ten minutes later, the door was pushed open and Yu Chong waved.
"I'll go in first!" Chen Zhengwei patted Chen Zhenghu on the shoulder and went inside.
After wallowing on the boat for a month, the smell on his body almost suffocated Chen Zhenghu.
After entering the door and turning into the hall next to him, he saw several men with gloomy expressions.
However, the two of them did not stay and went directly to a room on the second floor. Before going upstairs, Yu Chong whispered: "The person I want to see soon is Mr. Huang."
When he arrived at the door, Yu Chong knocked twice and heard a voice inside: "Come in!"
Chen Zhengwei entered the room by himself and saw a man in his thirties sitting on the chair, wearing a black silk mandarin jacket.
He is thin but has sharp eyes.
Mr. Huang looked Chen Zhengwei up and down. Chen Zhengwei was born tall and tall. He was 1.72 meters tall, which was much taller than ordinary people.
At this time, the height of Chinese people was around 1.65 meters, while the height of white Americans was only 1.7 meters.
"Did you come here after committing a crime?" Mr. Huang asked.
"It's just a small matter!" Chen Zhengwei grinned and showed his white teeth.
"It's just a trivial matter to travel halfway across the world..." Mr. Huang smiled and changed the subject: "How are your skills? Are you brave?"
"What do you want me to do?" Chen Zhengwei asked directly.
"It's not easy for us Chinese to take root here. Those ghost guys treat us as second-class people. That's okay, we can still live our lives. But recently, many people have been targeted..." Mr. Huang pondered for a moment before speaking.
"Recently, many people were attacked when they went home at night. A dozen people were injured. This was still a small matter. But they got worse. The night before yesterday, two people were beaten to death. They hit their heads with hammers, and they were beaten to death. He was smashed to death, but I took someone to get the body back, and he couldn’t even look human."
When Mr. Huang said this, his blood surged and his face turned red. He spoke word by word:
"Blood for blood, tooth for tooth, I want you to solve this matter! Do you dare?"
"Do you know who the target is? How many people are there? If you kill them, will the matter be solved?" After hearing this, Chen Zhengwei's expression did not change at all, and he just asked with a smile.
This made Mr. Huang, who had been staring at Chen Zhengwei's expression, nod secretly in his heart.
This kind of thing should not be done by a new person whom he met for the first time.
However, he didn't have any suitable manpower, and Chen Zhengwei brought his family and younger siblings, so that was different.
"We Chinese people work hard here, earn half of other people's wages, and do better than others. Therefore, we have offended many people, especially the Irish ghosts. They feel that we have taken away their jobs!"
"What happened this time was done by an Irish ghost gang. There were more than a dozen of them."
Speaking of this, Mr. Huang's voice also contained some dissatisfaction and resentment: "Those older generations always want to endure it when things happen. But what problem can tolerance solve? It will only make those ghosts worse. Yes. Let those ghost guys know that we Chinese are not easy to bully, and they should think more carefully when they have ideas about us!"
Chen Zhengwei suddenly realized that the Ningyang Guild Hall was not monolithic. There were different voices inside, and maybe different factions.
I guess this Mr. Huang is a hardliner.
But this is normal. Ningyang Guild Hall is just a mutual aid organization for fellow villagers. When there are more people, there will be various voices.
"How much do you pay?" Chen Zhengwei asked directly.
"Eight hundred yuan! You have to kill their boss and at least three members." Mr. Huang stretched out his hand and made an eight sign.
Here, the income of an ordinary Guilao worker is about 380 yuan a year, or 30 yuan and 50 cents a month.
The Chinese's income here is 180 yuan a year, which is only 15 yuan a month, which is half of that of Gui Lao.
So eight hundred yuan is already a huge amount of money.
The only problem is that there are a lot of ghost guys.
But as long as the leader of the gang is killed and at least three members are killed, the remaining people should not dare to show up again.
"Eight hundred yuan for four lives? And it's a gang. Do you think it's for killing pigs?" Chen Zhengwei said with a half-smile, while his mind was racing to figure out what price should be more appropriate.
After all, in this era, human life is not very valuable, and one hundred yuan can buy a human life.
"One thousand two hundred yuan, give me half of the deposit first. Give me a gun, and find me a helper to lead the way! Just Chen Zhenghu below."
The deposit of 600 yuan was enough for him to come to the company first.
The remaining money is just enough to eat, drink and change clothes for the next few days.
"Besides, I need two days to recover."
Mr. Huang looked at him for a long time and said slowly: "Okay!"
He couldn't run away anyway, and he couldn't use the money to do things. If he missed it, the money would definitely be with his siblings and he could get it back at any time.
"Remember, if you are caught, keep your mouth shut. Don't say anything you shouldn't. Maybe you can still survive! And if you don't think about yourself, you have to think about your siblings!"
Chen Zhengwei smiled and narrowed his eyes to block the coldness in his eyes.
