The Three Spirit Stones

When they arrived in Yangzhou, the sailboat needed supplies, so Manager Xu led two other managers and twenty people to go off the ship to purchase supplies.

Cheng Yu also got off the boat. He wanted to see the local conditions and customs of Yangzhou at that time.

Although Yangzhou was not as prosperous as Bianjing at that time, it was still a wealthy city.

The streets are bustling with people. There are shops on the roadside selling tea, pickles, Gaoyou duck eggs, flowers, lacquerware, jade... There are also restaurants and hotels. Some of them specialize in selling ducks, such as three-piece duck, duck soup, barbecued pork duck... There are also Gaoyou Lake hairy crabs, but it is February now, not the season for eating crabs.

He took twenty or thirty people to walk around the street. Whenever he saw any unique handicrafts, he would buy them and take them back to Acai. Soon, he had bought a lot of them.

After lunch, I walked around again. When I was about to go back, I heard the faint sound of men and women crying in the distance.

He exchanged glances with Ma Sheng and walked towards the sound.

After turning a corner, I found a market similar to that of cattle and horses, but what was sold there were not cattle and horses.

It turned out to be... a person,

All I saw were men and women, half-dressed, skinny, unkempt, and dirty, standing in rows. Some buyers, dressed in fancy clothes, were selecting products, and there were dealers selling products to them.

Not far away, a shirtless, burly man was whipping five or six men and women kneeling on the ground with a whip. The crying just now was probably caused by them.

"What's going on with these people?"

Cheng Yu frowned and asked the guide,

The guide named Liu said, "In reply to your question, these people were refugees who had suffered disasters before. They drifted here and became tenants. They are called tenants, but in fact they are neighbors. They have been slaves for generations. The children they gave birth to are also slaves. They are beaten and scolded by their masters. When the masters want to sell them, they bring them here to sell them."

"Alas! They are called human beings, but in fact they are worse than animals."

Guide Liu sighed,

Cheng Yu listened, was silent for a moment, and then said, "Go and ask why those people were beaten?"

"Yes,"

After a while, Guide Liu came back and said that those people were beaten because they wanted to escape, and asked him to ask how much it would cost to buy them. Guide Liu went over and talked to the person who was probably the manager, and then brought the manager over.

The manager had a sharp face and a monkey-like appearance.

When he came over and saw Cheng Yu, he was amazed. What a handsome and handsome young man! He was surrounded by dozens of followers. He must be from a wealthy family.

He immediately bowed to him and said, "Sir, do you want to buy these servants?"

"right,"

"How many do you want to buy, sir?"

"If it's cheap, buy more; if it's expensive, buy less,"

“Uh,… let’s put it this way!”

"An adult male is 7,000 wen each, I will charge you 6,000 wen. As for women, that's 3,000 wen each, I will charge you 2,500 wen each. I wonder if you are satisfied?"

Cheng Yu thought, six taels of silver for a man, two and a half taels of silver for a woman,

Alas! Human life is as cheap as a dog's!

"How many people do you have here?"

When the manager heard this, he was immediately excited and said, "Sir, I have a total of 123 people here."

"How much is it?"

"Yes, yes, sir, please wait a moment, I will calculate it immediately."

After a while, the steward came back and said that the total amount was 580 taels of silver. Cheng Yu asked Ma Sheng to give him the money. The steward happily took the banknote and thanked the young master repeatedly.

Ma Sheng asked Cheng Yu in confusion why he bought so many slaves?

He said that planting crops like sweet potatoes and peppers requires human labor, but he actually just doesn't want to see people being treated like animals.

After buying these people, they asked someone to buy porridge and rice for these serfs at the local restaurant. These people probably had not eaten a full meal for a long time. When they saw the steaming porridge and rice, they stared at it closely and swallowed their saliva desperately, but they dared not move. They must have been scared of being beaten!

A large bowl was filled for each person, and they began to wolf down the food with a chuckle.

"If it's not enough, you can get more! But you have to queue up. If you don't queue up, you won't get more."

Upon hearing this, they finished their meal in no time, then took their bowls to queue up again. They ate until their bellies were full, and only then did they feel a little more energetic.

Cheng Yu kept watching and thought, in fact, as long as people have food to eat, everything else can be endured.

Then, he gathered these people together, took out the thick indentures and said to them, "I bought you and originally planned to send you to Linping, Hangzhou to farm, but I don't know if you are willing to go."

"If any of you don't want to go, please stand up. I will return your indentures to you and give you 500 coins each as travel expenses!"

Is there such a good thing?

When these people heard this, they didn't believe it and no one dared to move!

Cheng Yu asked his followers to take out the copper coins they had just withdrawn from the bank. Looking at the full box of coins, the group of people were extremely surprised and began to whisper to each other.

After a while, one of them bravely took a few steps forward, raised his hands and said in fear, "Sir, sir, I want to seek refuge with my brothers. Please show mercy..."

Cheng Yu nodded and asked, "What's your name?"

"Li Ergou,"

Then, he asked someone to find Li Ergou's indenture and gave him 500 coins.

Li Ergou held the money and the contract in his hands, and finally believed that this was true.

He knelt down on both knees, kowtowed to Cheng Yu several times, and said with tears in his eyes, "Thank you very much, sir! I cannot repay you in this life, but I hope that in the next life, I will work like a cow or a horse to repay you."

Cheng Yu said, "I don't need you to repay me. I just hope that you can be a human being in your future lives, and no longer be a beast of burden!"

Li Ergou was stunned and cried even harder! He cried and said, "Yes, yes, I will be a human being instead of a beast of burden in the future."

"Let's go!"

Li Ergou kowtowed to him three times again, wiped his tears and turned to leave.

These people finally believed it, and one after another forty or so people took the money and left. There were still more than seventy people left. Cheng Yu asked them why they didn't leave?

A tall man came out. It was one of the men who was whipped at the beginning.

The man bowed and saluted Cheng Yu with both hands, and said respectfully, "I am from Xihe, Fenzhou, and my name is Di Shicheng. I became a refugee because of the disaster in my hometown and drifted here. I became a branch household of a local rich family."

"But they treat me like animals and now they are selling me like animals."

At this point, the man choked up.

"Sir, you are the only noble who treats us as human beings. We have nowhere to go. We just hope to follow you. As long as we have food to eat, you will do anything for us."

Cheng Yu saw that the man spoke in an orderly manner and guessed that he must be from a wealthy family. He nodded and said, "Since you have nowhere to go, come with me to farm."

After saying this, he returned the indentures to them again, gave each of them five hundred coins, and told them to use the money to buy nicer clothes in the city, and get to the canal dock to board the ship before dark, and leave Yangzhou early the next morning. Latecomers would not be waited for.

Before the sun went down, these people had already arrived at the dock one after another, found a large ship with the Cheng flag, and boarded the ship to count the number of people, not missing a single one.

After changing their clothes, these people looked a little happier and looked around curiously while sitting on the big boat.