America 1881: Legend of the West

"No. 230 Meng Jinmali Street?" Li Sifu took the note in his hand and compared it with the house numbers.

On the street behind them, yellow-skinned Chinese people carrying burdens passed by one after another. They were walking in a hurry, and from time to time they would turn their heads and glance at them.

People riding horses are rare in San Francisco's Chinatown.

"Hey, fellow, can I ask where this place is?" Li Sifu stopped one of them and asked.

The Chinese worker looked at him blankly.

Apparently, he could neither read nor understand Li Sifu's Hunan dialect.

Chen Jianqiu got off the horse, took the paper from Li Sifu's hand, and started communicating with the Chinese worker in Cantonese.

Hua Gong finally started to speak.

Although both of them spoke Cantonese, their accents seemed quite different. However, the Chinese worker finally figured out what they were looking for.

"Go straight along this street, turn left and see a three-story building. There it is."

After Chen Jianqiu thanked him, he got on the horse again.

Not long after, a dozen horses stopped at the entrance of a guild hall.

"Ning Yang Hui Guan." Li Sifu raised his head, glanced at the plaque on the front door, and read out each word.

"Well, I have made some progress recently, and I am finally able to read literacy books." Chen Jianqiu stood in front of him, with his hands behind his back, looking up at the plaque.

“The Chinese Association established in San Francisco by people from Xinning (Author’s Note: Today’s Taishan) is now probably the largest Chinese Association in San Francisco.”

Chen Jianqiu said.

Most Chinese workers entered the United States through the port of San Francisco. Generally, Chinese workers from Cantonese would stay in California and join associations from their hometowns, while those from other places of origin would not be so lucky.

Due to the number of people and the language, they could not form any large-scale hometown organization, so they could only continue to move inland with the Pacific Railway and their strength was weak.

Chen Jianqiu was just about to lift his foot and step into the threshold, but suddenly thought of something.

He turned his head and glanced at the dozen or so people behind him.

Since the last battle in the valley, Chen Jianqiu personally selected seven or eight Chinese with better conditions based on the Chinese from that operation, and formed a team of about twenty people.

Chen Jianqiu asked Zhang Danian to choose a name. The old man scratched his head for a long time and mentioned "Longxiang".

Therefore, this team was called Longxiang Group.

They received personal training from Abiot and Chen Jianqiu, and were all equipped with the most advanced weapons and the strongest horses.

A black jacket and cowboy hat.

When Chen Jianqiu came to San Francisco this time, he only brought Li Sifu and a dozen of them.

Others have their own affairs.

If these dozen or so heavily armed men followed him in, they might cause some misunderstandings.

"You guys just wait outside, Sifu and I can just go in." Chen Jianqiu waved to them.

Then, he turned around and walked into the door.

This guild hall looks unremarkable from the outside, but when you walk in, you find it is extraordinary.

As soon as I walked in, there was a screen erected with exquisite carvings and exquisite workmanship. As I walked further in, there were four words written on it: "courtesy, kindness, loyalty, and trustworthiness."

Walking further inside, it becomes lively. There is a stage in front of the hall, which is usually used for singing or other performances.

There were many square tables under the stage, and some Chinese businessmen were sitting at the tables, drinking tea and chatting.

One of them, a middle-aged man in a gray silk robe, put down the tea cup in his hand when Chen Jianqiu entered the door, and his eyes stopped on him.

Chen Jianqiu's eyes were in contact with him for a few seconds, and then the middle-aged man looked away.

A young man in a cloth coat came over.

At first, looking at how the two people in front of him were dressed, he was still hesitant about how to talk to each other, but when Chen Jianqiu and Li Sifu took off their cowboy hats, his hesitant heart dropped.

"Excuse me, who are you looking for?" the young man asked cautiously.

He has been in the guild hall for many years, and he still has good eyesight. People dressed like this are generally not easy to mess with.

"I'm looking for you to help." Li Sifu on the side handed over Chen Jianqiu's name card.

The young man looked at the name card.

It read: Roswell Refinery Director, Chen Jianqiu.

Although he really didn't know where Roswell was, he knew the word director.

He did not dare to neglect, bowed and said to Chen Jianqiu: "Huang Tongshi is on the second floor, please come with me.

Chen Jianqiu and Li Sifu followed the young man up the stairs.

Turning up the stairs, you will find the lobby on the second floor.

The place is filled with smoke and brightly lit. Compared with the hall on the first floor, the atmosphere of the hometown association is stronger.

In the center of the hall on the second floor, Second Master Guan is enshrined!

Just as Li Sifu was thinking about whether to pay homage, the young man had already walked to a room next to the hall.

He knocked on the door.

"Come in." A man's voice came from inside.

The door was opened, and Chen Jianqiu and Li Sifu walked in.

Facing the door is an antique coffee table and a set of wooden sofas. There is a tea set on the coffee table.

On the stove in the corner, a pot of boiling water was boiling, and the water was gurgling inside the pot.

The person the young man was talking about, Mr. Huang, was sitting in his desk, staring blankly at a newspaper.

Chen Jianqiu glanced at it and saw a photo of a white man giving a speech in the newspaper.

Seeing Chen Jianqiu come in, Huang Tongshi put the newspaper aside and looked up at Chen Jianqiu, looking a little tired.

"Excuse me, do you have any business with me?" Huang Tongshi asked in Cantonese.

He thought it was another Chinese cowboy coming to speak for his boss.

"I want to recruit some workers for my company." Chen Jianqiu also replied in Cantonese.

Huang Tongshi was stunned for a moment. The accent didn't sound like Xinning's, but it was a bit close.

Li Sifu put the name card he just handed to the waiter on the table of the person opposite.

Huang Tongshi saw the words "refinery" and "director" on the name card, and the expression on his face changed slightly.

In the United States, the Chinese who are capable of working in factories or oil refineries are not ordinary people.

He stood up from his seat, picked up the boiled kettle from the corner, walked to the edge of the wooden sofa, and made a "please" gesture to signal Chen Jianqiu to sit down. He sat on the side of Chen Jianqiu's side. opposite.

"Your accent doesn't sound like our Xinning people, are you?" Huang Tongshi picked out the teacup with a tea clip, lifted the boiling water, and started to boil the tea set.

Chen Jianqiu said nothing.

In fact, he didn't know when or where he learned his Cantonese accent. He only knew that he knew it.

Huang Tongshi is a very sensible person. Since the person opposite doesn't say anything, he must have his reasons.

He picked out some tea leaves from the tea can on the coffee table and put them into the teapot.

After some operations, the second cup of tea soup was handed to Chen Jianqiu:

The aroma is rich and the soup is bright yellow-green in color.

"Xinning's Baiyun Tea is hard to come by in this place. People here love to drink coffee." Huang Tongshi smiled, "You just said you wanted to recruit workers? How many people will you recruit?"

Chen Jianqiu stretched out a finger.

"A hundred people?"

Chen Jianqiu shook his head:

"No, a thousand people."

The movements in Huang Tongshi's hands stopped, and he looked at the young man in front of him in astonishment.

He suddenly felt like laughing.

What an international joke, one thousand people? Does this young man know what the concept of one thousand people is?

He began to look Chen Jianqiu up and down.

Is this person a liar?

Chen Jianqiu still didn't speak. Li Sifu on the other side took out several more name cards and documents from his bag and handed them to Huang Tongshi.

The above are: Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lincolnshire United Agricultural Company - Chen Jianqiu

Chairman of the Board of Directors of Santa Fe Railroad Corporation—Chen Jianqiu

Chairman of the Board of Directors of Roswell Firearms Manufacturing Company——Chen Jianqiu

……

There are also a lot of other messy companies and titles, and those documents are licenses and company information, as well as qualifications for labor recruitment.

Huang Tongshi's eyes almost dropped.

Who is this? Why have I never heard of it?

After being stunned for a long time, Huang Tongshi finally spoke: "If there are a thousand people, I may need to discuss it with everyone. I would like to ask, where is Roswell?"

Chen Jianqiu shook his head: "Time is very tight, and I would like to ask you to help me contact the Chinese Federation and ask them for some help."

Huang Tongshi fell into silence.

"Let's go." Chen Jianqiu stood up and walked out of the room.

When passing by the hall on the second floor, he walked to the statue of Guan Gong and offered a stick of incense to this foreign god.

When Chen Jianqiu walked out of the hall door.

The curtains on the third floor of the guild hall were opened, and a person looked downstairs through the curtains.

After watching Chen Jianqiu go away, he closed the curtains and muttered to himself: "This is impossible!"

First update, second update later

Recommend a book that is on the shelves today, very, very, very wild