The entertainment tycoon of the Republic of China

Hankou City, Wen Family Courtyard, late at night.

Most of the mourning guests had already left, and the temporary altar was still brightly lit. The flickering candles cast uneasy shadows on the white Po, illuminating the sleepy faces of a few maids.

"Ah! Mr. Xie." The maid guarding the brazier suddenly came back to her senses, and saw a familiar figure standing in the mourning hall at some point.

Xie Yan raised her hand to signal the servant girl not to panic, but she still hurriedly stood up.

"Mr. Xie, I..."

"You're all too tired these days, it's okay."

The servant girl's face was hot, "I think it's almost time to change shifts, and when I saw no one, I took a nap, and I don't dare to do it again."

Xie Yan nodded, "I'll go back and tell the housekeeper, every time I send a few fewer people to change a few more shifts, there's nothing to do these two days, just keep an eye on the candlelight, and you'll be busy when the second young master comes back from Sichuan. "

The servant girl's eyes turned red when she thought of the master of the mourning hall, the second young master who died young, and felt even more guilty.

"When will Second Young Master's coffin come back?"

Xie Yan's expression didn't look abnormal at all, "It's already on the way, maybe seven or eight days at most."

Watching Xie Yan leave, the servant girl didn't dare to be lazy anymore, checked the candles one by one, sat at the entrance of the mourning hall and stared at the sky in a daze.

These days, the wife is seriously ill, the master is too busy to get away from business, and the eldest and young master are not familiar with common affairs. Fortunately, Mr. Xie came to help, so they will not be in a hurry.

The madam and the master seem to regard Mr. Xie as their own son. When the master returned home this evening, he only saw Mr. Xie and the young master alone.These servants secretly speculated when they were chatting, whether the madam and the master planned to betroth the third lady to Mr. Xie, so they thoughtfully asked Xi Lian and Fu Zhu who were beside the madam, but the two just shook their heads and said nothing, admonishing them Don't think about it.

Speaking of Miss San, after she got lost a few days ago, the Wen family put in a lot of effort to find her, but there was no news. It was convenient, so she was temporarily sent to a relative's house, and it was not specified which relative.

Whether the third lady was found or not is often discussed by the servants. From the current point of view, it's just that she won't come back until the second young master's funeral is over.

The servant girl hugged her knees and sighed. She didn't sell herself to Wen's family. Both her father and brother worked on the dock. She was only responsible for some odd jobs on weekdays, and she didn't know much about it. But she hoped that Wen's family and Mr. Xie would be fine. , so that the lives of ordinary people like them can be better.

Second Young Master bless you, don't let anything happen again.

……

Xie Yan returned to the building, and did not go to rest as the maid thought, but turned around and walked towards the back building.

Wen Jiulou came back this evening, naturally for the confidants Wen Heng sent back. Although Mrs. Wen did not show up in public, she actually came back.Several people heard the news that Wen Heng was safe and sound from the staff, and their hearts, which had been tensed for more than ten days, finally relaxed.

After the man finished talking about the situation in Sichuan, Mrs. Wen and Wen Jiulou took reassurance, but the cruelty in their eyes did not weaken in the slightest. If they dared to use a knife on their heads, they had to be prepared to be smashed to pieces. I am afraid that the methods for couples who have experienced countless bloody storms will be even more ruthless.

Xie Yan couldn't disappear from everyone's sight for too long during the day, and there were other people around. Xie Yan had a lot to say and didn't have time to ask the buddy, so after Mrs. Wen and Wen Jiulou finished asking what she wanted to ask, she signaled the buddy to come see him again at night Once, Mrs. Wen and Wen Jiulou knew it well and didn't say much.

Pushing open the door of the small living room, the clerk had already washed and tidied up, but he was still wearing a disguise. Before Wen Heng showed up, he could not be identified.

"Mr. Xie." Seeing Xie Yan coming in, the man hurriedly stood up.

"Don't be so polite, sit down quickly, you have worked hard on this journey."

"Where is Mr. Xie, I still want to thank you. If it wasn't for the cripple you sent to save my life, I'm afraid I would have been feeding the fish in the river."

Xie Yan and the buddy asked some details about the accident, and finally asked the question he was most concerned about, "You two young masters, are you injured? Is the injury serious?"

"This……"

Xie Yan keenly caught the flash of hesitation on the buddy's face, and didn't give him a chance to make up nonsense, "It seems that there is."

"not me……"

"Wen Heng won't let you tell?"

"Mr. Xie—"

"Is it more serious?"

"..."

The buddy complained secretly in his heart, the task given to him by the second young master was really not for human beings.Thinking of how the second young master had told him countless times not to disclose his condition to Mr. Xie before leaving, the man thought to himself, where did the second young master get his confidence, thinking that he could fool Mr. Xie.

Although the guy is clever, Mr. Xie's insight, which he has practiced countless times in his previous life, is even better, and he broke through all the disguises.

However, the buddy still kept Wen Heng's entrustment in mind, and did not disclose a word of the details.

"Mr. Xie, don't embarrass me. You must know better than me why Second Young Master refused to let me speak. When Second Young Master comes back, why don't you ask yourself? If I tell you, I will definitely be punished."

Xie Yan didn't make things difficult for the clerk too much, seeing that he couldn't find out, he asked the clerk to leave quietly after a few words.

Judging from the clerk's reaction, Wen Heng was indeed seriously injured, but he was able to send someone back to report his safety, planned to do something in Sichuan, and even had time to let the clerk hide it from him, so it was not a fatal injury.

After learning that his sweetheart was safe, Xie Yan's heart that had been hanging for more than ten days was finally relieved, but at the same time, some other emotions also emerged accordingly.

Wen Yuanqiong, oh, Wen Yuanqiong, Xie Yan was grinding her teeth in her heart, she really has a lot of skills, not to mention secretly leaving a suicide note, but also dare to let the buddy play tricks when you come back, hum...

Swallow, who was far away at the Sichuan port, was cold for no reason, attracting the attention of people around him.

Piaozi secretly handed him half a pancake, "Hungry? After eating, you can take a breather, and you can rest after pulling another boat."

Since the last time Yanzi helped to identify that the reward given by the guest was not a serious newspaper, but just a few leaflets, Piaozi took note of the favor and took care of this taciturn newcomer like a brother.

He sat beside the other party while talking, and took out a few newspapers from his arms.

"Swallow, help me take a look, is this the latest People's Voice?"

Yanzi took the newspaper, and rubbed some rough knuckles on the name of the host column, "Yes."

"That's good. My little brother likes the famous newspaper the most. I will bring it to him next time I go home." Yanzi babbled, "I didn't expect you to be able to read, and my little brother is also literate. The Mr. Patrol Sect taught me. I didn't It’s too late to study when the time is good, so I have to earn money to support my family. But it’s enough to have one scholar in the family. When my child is born, I will let my younger brother teach them to read, so that every generation will be better than the next generation.”

Normally, when Piaozi talked, Yanzi never answered, and he was used to talking to himself, but tonight, when Piaozi finished talking and was about to take a breath, Yanzi actually spoke.

"When will you come home?"

"In about ten days, I'll go back when I save enough silver dollars. It's cold this year, so I just make two padded jackets for my parents." Piaozi rubbed the back of his head, "Why do you ask?"

"Come back tomorrow."

"What?" Piaozi was taken aback, then lowered his voice, "Did you hear something?"

Yanzi didn't answer directly, "What's the matter?"

"Oh! It's about the young master of the Chuanwang family from Hankou!" Piaozi patted his legs, "It is said that the young master of the Chuanwang family was killed by foreigners, which is what we talked about a while ago. The body of young master Wen was brought up. The family sent someone to pick it up, I heard that there is something on Young Master Wen that foreigners want, and it is very likely that they will rob the hearse halfway!"

"Laozi, what are you talking about so lazy?" Xizi passing by glanced at them.

"Uncle Xizi, sit down, let's talk about that young master Wen."

Xizi lifted the sweat towel up, sat down on her buttocks, and sighed for a while, "It's so pitiful, dying outside at a young age, my parents will be so distressed."

"Uncle Xizi, have you noticed? It seems that there are always strangers looking for things on the pier these days. Do you think it has something to do with Master Wen?"

"Maybe, Young Master Wen must have brought a lot of people with him when he went out, and maybe there are still people alive."

"If there are survivors, shouldn't they leave with the Wen family who will accept the spirit?"

"I do not know then."

Piaozi looked at the silent Yanzi again, "Yanzi, what did you mean by telling me to go home tomorrow?"

"As you said, the pier is not flat, so it's better to hide for a while."

"Oh." Piaozi still felt that something was wrong, "Then are you hiding?"

Yanzi answered irrelevantly, "If you don't want to hide, be smart and run away when you see something wrong."

"..."

Piaozi wanted to ask a few more questions, but Yanzi returned the half cake to him, got up and left.

Xizi grabbed the scoop who wanted to go after him, "Forget it, what Yanzi said is good, we just need to be careful, and don't ask the bottom line about some things, the more you know, the more dangerous it is."

Piaozi took a bite of the pancake, still muttering in her heart, everyone is usually together, where did Yanzi hear this news?Could it be that he accompanied the little cripple to the town to shop and inquire about it two days ago?

Don't think about it for now, I will find a chance to ask him tomorrow.

What Piaozi didn't expect was that early the next morning, he searched all over the sleeping man's shanty and couldn't find Yanzi.

And soon, without asking Yanzi, he knew what happened.

……

The early spring of this year is destined to add a lot of color to the history books.

Huo Dingwang, the inspector in Sichuan, and Luo Longsheng, the inspector in Gansu, secretly teamed up and quickly dispatched troops to occupy the mouth of the Yangtze River near the junction of the two provinces. The person leading the troops was Luo Weizhu, the fifth son of Luo Longsheng.

After the soldiers from Gansu took over the port, they stopped all the ships, checked their identities and released the ships of the Chinese merchants, and all those with foreigners participating in the shares were detained. The reason given was very honest-suspecting that they had not paid taxes in accordance with the provisions of the provisional government.

Luo Weizhu's move almost touched the interests of all foreigners. Soon, Huo Dingwang's desk was full of protest letters, urging him to send troops to drive away the troops in Gansu.

Looking at Coke, Huo Dingwang smiled and read these letters full of anxiety and anger for a long time in the study, but when he met the foreign envoy in person, he changed into a sad expression and vomited bitterness.

A brief summary is that Luo Longsheng’s reputation as a bearded man is not unknown to you. Although I can’t understand him, I still fear him. Moreover, the soldiers in Gansu are all tall and powerful. Our Sichuan Army can’t even pay the military salary. Can you beat them?

The foreigners are almost so angry that they blow their beards and stare. Don't look at Huo Dingwang crying, it's miserable, but they have actually touched the bottom of the Sichuan Army. It's not as good as Huo Dingwang said? !

Over the years, Huo Dingwang has been timid and fearful on the surface, and he has accumulated a lot of strength by recuperating behind his back. Foreigners dare not really push people into a hurry. Even if they dispatch troops from other places to clean up Huo Dingwang, the things to pay will far exceed the gains. , They are here to make money, not to lose money.

The foreigners pinched their noses and continued to argue with Huo Dingwang, but Huo Dingwang insisted on sticking to the soft and sticky, and later even turned his back on customers, crying to the foreigners about how inhuman Luo Dabeard is, asking them to help drive away this group of officials wearing official clothes bandit.

Foreigners will definitely not do business that loses money, so they can only find other ways while stalemate with Huo Dingwang.

At the same time, the team sent by the Wen family to pick up the spirit passed by Luo Weizhu's residence. Luo Weizhu paid homage to Wen Heng in the name of a long time ago. Unexpectedly, on the night of the rest of the spirit, a group of people came in to steal the coffin. The corpse was caught by Luo Weizhu's men.

Luo Weizhu was furious, interrogated himself, and found out that the group of people were sent by the Japanese, and immediately confiscated the detained Japanese boat, and drove out all the people on board.

The Japanese ship that was packed happened to come from Hankou. The Japanese hated and were anxious. They planned to follow them out of the Sichuan border and then start to investigate. Who would rush to find trouble under Luo Weizhu's nose!

The Japanese felt that they had been wronged, so they hurried to investigate. It didn't matter if they didn't investigate, but they found out that the group of people were probably sent by the British, and they were blamed.The news reached Hankou Consul Kaoru Tanaka. Thinking of the information he had received before, Kaoru Tanaka dropped several teacups in a row.

And at this time, Luo Weizhu, who had been shutting his doors to foreigners, accepted the invitation of the British merchant. After a friendly exchange of money, the British merchant ship successfully traveled with him.

Kaoru Tanaka is even more sure that Japan was pushed out to be the condition of the trade between the British and the Chinese. Since you don't keep your promise, don't blame me for stabbing in the back.Heartbroken, Kaoru Tanaka took out a piece of information from the file bag on a coal mine jointly mined by Britain and Japan near Hankou, and called his trusted spies.

"The Lord of the Mountains has sent news that our people have had accidents in this coal mine recently, and the accounts are not correct. This is a trick of the British. You go and kill the British steward secretly and get back what belongs to us."

"But the consul..."

"go with!"

"……Yes!"

……

Kaoru Tanaka never imagined that Xie Yan arranged for Gu Shixu to do the coal mine.According to the information left by Xiang Yanlin, Xie Yan discovered that there was a British-Japanese joint venture coal mine near Hankou, so he devised a clever scheme to stir up conflicts between the two countries' forces in China.

Kaoru Tanaka took the bait and stabbed Britain in the back without any psychological burden. In fact, he had wanted to do this a long time ago.They were the first to examine the coal mine from the Chinese population. The United Kingdom, relying on its national strength, insisted on taking a share of the pie. Kaoru Tanaka was so angry that Kaoru Tanaka didn't sleep well for several days.

Now the British took action against them first, and orders came from the country asking him to properly warn the British. Something happened to this coal mine, which gave him a chance to attack.

The Japanese and the British had a secret dog-eat-dog fight, but after Luo Weizhu's interruption, the Wen family's hearse left the border of Sichuan safely.

The forces of all parties still wanted to find out whether Wen Heng had really passed away, and whether the Wen family's funeral was a trap. However, when they focused all their attention on the hearse, Luo Weizhu once again questioned the area of ​​the port under his control. shot.

This time it was the port trackers who made the noise. They felt that they had a better life under Luo Weizhu, and collectively demanded that the port would abolish the system established by the foreigners in the future, and Luo Weizhu would formulate a new system.

The port system affects the whole body. Many methods of tax avoidance and smuggling are taken advantage of. Hastily gathered strength to wrestle with Luo Weizhu.

What is even more surprising to foreigners is that these "troubleshooting" trackers are not chaotic, they are very clear about what they are doing and what they want, and they can send representatives to clearly put forward their requirements, as if someone has taught them fundamentally .

After several struggles, the Wen family's hearse arrived in Huguang smoothly, escorted by the people sent by Fang Qingming, and went straight to Hankou.Foreigners who were worried about the expiration of some fresh goods and were uncertain about the trackers repeatedly lowered their psychological expectations, and finally chose to accept some of the conditions proposed by Luo Weizhu.

So, in the end, those people with ulterior motives didn't figure out whether it was Wen Heng's body in the Wen family's hearse. They knew it might be different but had no direction, so they could only go to the Wen family to participate under various circumstances. funeral.

At the port of Sichuan, the system of trackers has also undergone some reforms. Huo Dingwang suddenly sent troops to the place occupied by Luo Weizhu after Luo Weizhu had negotiated with the foreigners.There was no conflict between the armies of the two provinces, and the handover was completed peacefully.

Only now did the foreigner realize that he had been tricked by Luo Longsheng and Huo Dingwang, but it was too late.Huo Dingwang sent troops to the temporary fortifications left by Luo Weizhu. Not only did he not have the slightest intention of withdrawing troops, but he also built a military camp on the spot, apparently intending to stay permanently.

Foreigners approached Huo Dingwang to protest, Huo Dingwang looked innocent, didn't you ask me to send troops to drive away the Gansu army?I finally mobilized the army to take it back to the port, how can you turn your face and deny anyone?

The foreigners tried to argue, and Huo Dingwang took out the new system formulated by them and Luo Weizhu, which stated that the Chinese army had the right to supervise the operation of the system along the coast.

During the discussion, the foreigners thought this was Luo Weizhu's excuse for occupying these ports for a long time, but they didn't expect that the Chinese army he was referring to was actually the Sichuan army under Huo Dingwang.

Luo Weizhu has already built some fortifications in the port area, and the terrain is easy to defend but difficult to attack. Under the encouragement of the new system, the trackers also wholeheartedly support Huo Dingwang.

At this time, a small cargo ship from Sichuan went down the river in a low-key manner. After several days of driving, the Hankou Wharf could already be seen from a distance.There was a family on the boat full of apprehension and excitement. One of them, a young boy of fourteen or fifteen years old, was holding a stack of newspapers in his hand, standing at the bow of the boat, eager to read.

At the same time, the Wen family's hearse finally arrived outside Hankou City.