Lu Ming

In addition to the rich people being able to enjoy the changes in the dietary structure brought about by technological progress, the majority of dicks still can only eat fish heads with chopped peppers and freshwater fish boiled with various strong seasonings... Salmon sashimi for hundreds of yuan a plate, Not something the poor can afford.

……

After mooring the boat, the fishermen on the Herring started to pickle salted fish in the afterglow of the setting sun.All fish caught must be disembowelled and their internal organs taken out, and then the fish body shall be rubbed with salt grains.

There is a shortage of salt in Fujian. What Yu Chengde and the others are using now is a little private salt cooked in an iron pot secretly in the village.Even so, the amount of salt is not enough, so part of the fish has to be dried by hanging on the rope.

At this time, Yu Sibao would take off his clothes and dive into the bottom of the sea to play.

On the reef coast near Cormorant Island, the sea water is extremely clear.But today, after Yu Sibao plunged into the bottom of the sea, he vaguely saw a dark shadow under the water.After holding his breath and diving down for more than ten meters, Yu Sibao saw a lucky boat dumped on the bottom of the sea.

More than 2 months was not enough time for the boat to be covered with sea sand, so Sibao recognized it as a big blessing boat at a glance.

After turning around and getting out of the water, Sibao took a few deep breaths, and then plunged into the sea again.This time he dived vertically from the top of the ship, so he had plenty of time. Not long after, he got into the poop of the Fuchuan.

There are not many corpses in the stern tower, only one human corpse that has been decomposed and exposed a lot of bones and fish teeth marks is floating on the roof of the cabin.

... During the battle that day, almost everyone on the Fuchuan was on deck, so when the ship sank, all the living swam away, and the dead had already been swept away by the current.As for the man in the cockpit, he was pierced to death by a heavy machine gun bullet a long time ago.

Yu Sibao, a small fisherman in the 17th century, was naturally not afraid of dead bodies.In this era, from the poor to the rich and powerful, those who live to adulthood have countless times more experience with all kinds of dead people than the people of later generations.

So after Sibao entered the cabin, he quickly focused his attention on an object with a slight metallic luster in the corner of the overturned cabin.

The boy's thinking is very simple: all metals are useful.So after he picked up the object, before he had time to take a closer look, he turned around and swam out of the cabin that was soon muddy with sand, and swam all the way to the surface of the sea.

The matter got out of hand, because it was a bronze Buddha that Yu Sibao threw onto the bow for the first time.

After the sand on the surface was washed away by the sea, this 6-inch-high Xuande-style copper Sakyamuni lotus statue shone golden in the setting sun, and at the same time, it also ignited the atmosphere of a group of poor fishermen on the bow. ——Everyone knows that everyone is going to be transferred now, and it is impossible for this little property to be on the sunken ship.

As a result, Four Treasures soon dived into the sea again in the eyes of everyone's expectation.

After going up for the second time, Sibao brought an inkstone, a machete, and a waist card from the dead body.Although the people on board were all illiterate, and no one recognized the tokens of the Zheng family, the machete and inkstone must be worth a few taels of silver, so everyone's mood became more and more high.

On Sibao's last expedition before dark, what he brought back was the ingot of silver and military thorns.

Originally, when he fumbled in the dark and invisible cabin where the mud was floating, he only got the ingot of silver.However, when he swam out of the cabin and was about to float up, he found a dagger stuck in the crevice of the reef outside the boat, so he took the sheep by hand and brought it up with the general thorn.

After getting the black ingot, Yu Chengde hurriedly asked his son to wash his body and get dressed, and brought over the boiled ginger tea with his own hands.

The tea is the worst kind of bitter tea, and the ginger is the wild ginger from the field at the edge of the village.After Yu Sibao drank a few sips of tea, another piece of news that made everyone excited came out of his mouth: there was a large cabinet that was overturned in the poop of the Fuchuan, and he had already touched the position of the lock.

……

Early the next morning, the Herring stopped fishing, but slowly moved the ship above the sunken ship and anchored.Soon after, Yu Sibao, who was wearing a crotch wrap and a thick cloth belt around his waist, began to enter the water.

Today's Yu Sibao came prepared.Not only could he sink quickly along the anchor chain this time, but there was also a wrought iron awl for picking locks tied to the cloth belt around his waist.

However, good things take time, and more than two months can't turn the lucky boat made of good wood into rotten wood.Therefore, when Yu Sibao touched the cabin and used a wrought iron awl to pick the lock, the door lock made of fine copper naturally remained motionless.

Under the simultaneous action of buoyancy and limited time, Yu Sibao struggled to pry the lock 6 times in the morning, but finally found nothing... Not only did he not pry open the cabinet door, but even the wrought iron cone was bent.

After eating at noon, Yu Chengde decisively changed his mind based on his son's description.He first let Yu Sibao dive into the water lightly, and then began to carefully stroke the seams along the overturned cabinet.

Chapter 256

Facts have proved that Yu Chengde's thinking is correct.Later that day, Yu Sibao successfully found a crack between the corners of a cabinet.

The next step is the arduous process of prying the door.It took Yu Sibao two full days to pry open the cabinet along the gap between the cabinet boards with the tough and thick steel army thorn.

This mouth is not big, but it is enough for Yu Sibao to reach into his head and arms.

The hard work finally came to harvest time: in addition to the paperwork and letters that had been turned into mud, a lychee wooden box was dragged out later.

The box is small, but heavy.After Yu Sibao dragged the box to the deck, he first floated up to take a breath.After he dived down again, he stretched out his hand and twisted lightly, breaking the delicate copper lock on the box that was as big as a finger belly.

There are 12 neatly placed gold ingots in the box.

Each of these high-quality gold ingots weighs 10 taels. Even according to Daming's gold and silver exchange rate, the value of 12 gold ingots exceeds 1000 taels of silver.

After Yu Sibao delivered the gold ingots to the ship three times, everyone including his father Yu Chengde went crazy.

When the scene that he had fantasized about countless times really appeared in front of him, Yu Chengde, who was prone to accidents, couldn't hold back any longer. He announced a long-standing wish of everyone while laughing: buy a new boat!

For 1000 taels of silver, you can buy a 300 material good boat made of hardwood.And after Yu Chengde announced the news, he would naturally not treat those fellows who had followed him to the sea, endured hardships and fought against pirates for many years.

So he made a public promise, according to the old partnership custom among fishermen, that when the new boat was bought, all the brothers would have a share.

Now all the problems don't exist.The joyful fishermen took out the last bit of brown rice on the boat and served Comrade Yu Sibao - the Herring has been stranded outside for three days, and the others have only eaten fish since yesterday.

After eating the last bit of rice, Yu Sibao dived into the seabed again under the hot sun at noon in September.

In the afternoon, the boy searched the poop of the sunken ship and the nearby seabed.This time the harvest was not so much: a brass telescope, six or seven good axes and javelins, a few pieces of blackened silver, some ordinary china for drinking and eating, and finally There are two iron ball shells...that's all.

After seeing the earthen pot porcelain that his son finally salvaged, Yu Chengde resolutely stopped the salvage work and ordered to return tomorrow morning.

First of all, the supplies on the Herring have been exhausted, and it is unbearable to stay any longer.Secondly, according to Yu Chengde's experience: since my boy did not find a large amount of silver, then this sunken ship must have capsized here shortly after sailing with cargo.

In this case, those valuable goods, such as raw silk and satin, would have been destroyed long ago; and Yu Chengde would not let his boy venture into the dangerous cargo hold.

So, it's time to go back.Herring's voyage to sea had been delayed for several days than usual, and the family's wife and daughter might be worried about it.

So early the next morning, everyone returned to the voyage happily.While the fishermen were grinding away the rust on their knives and axes, they were arguing over the philosophical question of whether the new ship should be called the Herring or the Great Herring.Laughter continued all the way on the bow until the moment they returned to the fishing village pier.

……

Departing at 6 o'clock, it took only 3 hours for the Herring to complete the route of more than 10 nautical miles.Before 10 a.m., Yu Chengde, who was standing on the bow of the boat, saw the dilapidated small pier in his fishing village from a distance.

Chengwei Village is on the east coast of Putian, facing Nanri Island far away.There are only 11 households and 2 fishing boats in the whole village. It is a barren fishing village that cannot be any smaller.

And when the enthusiastic Yu Chengde saw his own pier, he felt a "thump" in his heart, and secretly said that it was not good—the villagers who used to come out to pick up the boat on the pier seemed to be in a bad mood at the moment.After the boat approached for a certain distance, Yu Chengde took a closer look. The person sitting on the pier with loose hair and crying was not his old wife, but who was it?

... After the Herring hurriedly landed on the pier, before Yu Chengde who jumped off the ship could ask, his dark, thin, wrinkled old wife rushed over, hugged Yu Chengde's thigh and cried, "The head of the house!" , why did you just come back~ The third sister was snatched by that goddamn Wang Fuqi just now!"

"...Why does he rob people?!" After Yu Chengde heard the bad news, his flushed face became more and more bloodshot.

"Wang Fuqi said that you hadn't returned for many days, and you must have died at sea, so he took the third sister to pay the 13 taels of silver that our family owed him."

Hearing this, Yu Chengde couldn't help feeling dizzy, and then he woke up.He reached behind his waist and pinched the handle of the military thorn, then he turned his head through gritted teeth, and asked a man in his thirties with a simple face and long arms and legs, "Monkey, are you just looking at that man like this?" The bastard took Sanmei away?"

The man named Monkey gave a wry smile when he heard the words, and then pointed to a large bruise on his face: "Wang Fuqi brought 5 people with him, and these are the only old and weak people in the village, so we can't stop them!"

At this moment, a white-haired old man with a walking stick squeezed over.As soon as the old man came, he held onto Yu Chengde's hand tightly and said, "Chengde, hurry up and take the fish on the boat to Wang Fuqi to redeem the third sister. I'm afraid it will be too late. That bastard said that he will sell the third sister to the township tomorrow." The brothel."

... At this time, Yu Chengde calmed down instead.He took out a silver ingot from his pocket and shook it: "Grandpa Ba, Chengde has silver now, don't worry."

After seeing Yu Chengde take out the ingot of silver, the doomsday-like scene suddenly became quiet.The poor fishermen suddenly showed smiles on their faces. They knew that with the money, Sanmei would be saved.

And Yu Chengde was already making arrangements at this time.He first took out a piece of silver and threw it to a hunchbacked villager, and bought the only pig in the village from him, and then he took out the silver and bought all the chickens in the village.

Next is the whole village feast.

Yu Chengde didn't know what illness he had today. It seemed that his money was inflated. The whole village, including the fishermen on the boat, was being ordered around by him. Under the slogan "Blessings in exchange for the third sister", everyone started to kill pigs and chickens, wash rice and cook rice with smiles on their faces.

When everyone was busy, Yu Chengde quietly pulled the middle-aged man named Monkey to a place where no one was around, and then he stared into the other person's eyes and asked, "Monkey, the Kunzhou people you mentioned last time, But is there really such a thing?"

Chapter 257 Resignation

The middle-aged man nicknamed "Monkey" is also from Chengwei Village.This person was outgoing since he was a child, and he was unwilling to go fishing for a living. As an adult, he often went out to make a living, leaving his old mother to suffer alone in the village.

Fortunately, there are only about 10 households in Chengwei Village.Although it is a place with mixed surnames, the hard life day after day has already twisted these villagers into one rope: without mutual support, no one can survive in the face of various natural and man-made disasters.

In this way, the monkey became the "informed person" in the village.

He travels around all year round to work for businessmen, and at the end of each year, he always brings some money back to visit his old lady, and then brags to the closed-off villagers, letting them experience the colorful world outside.

What is different from previous years is that the monkey broke the routine not long ago and came back suddenly... You know, it is still early before the end of the year.As soon as he returned to the village, he approached Yu Chengde, the village speaker.

Generally speaking, it is the white-bearded old man, Grandpa Ba, the village chief, who comes out to deal with the food service of various officials in Chengwei Village; but in fact, Yu Chengde, who controls the whole village, is the real backbone.

As soon as the monkey saw Yu Chengde, he danced and described the situation when he went to Dayuan Port in Devzhou not long ago to sell goods.With his eloquence, he then preached to Yu Chengde the immigration policy on the other side. In short, in addition to shaving his hair, he can eat and clothe himself as a senior official, get rid of the sea of ​​suffering, and reach the pinnacle of life.

... Yu Chengde naturally didn't believe these nice stories.The world is as black as crows, and even though the king on the other side of the sea is short of people to cultivate, he probably doesn't have any good intentions behind his back. The bitter haha ​​will suffer wherever they go, and he still understands this truth.

However, the monkey who regarded Chengde as an authority since he was a child did not buy it this time.He not only scoffed at someone's outdated ideas, but also tried to continue to brainwash the boss.During this time, he ran around the village, yelling that he wanted to take his old mother to the elders to live a fairy life...

Quite a few young people were tempted by him.

Seeing this situation, Yu Chengde also had some headaches, so he finally compromised.The two parties agreed that when the group returned from fishing this time, the village would send someone to send the monkey and his wife to Dayuan first, and then wait for the "observer" to come back and report the situation, and then the rest of the people would make a decision.

However, things are impermanent.What Yu Chengde didn't expect was that after he came back from fishing today, without any further urging from the monkey, he himself brought up the matter on his own initiative.

……

Monkeys are naturally not stupid.On the front foot, Yu Chengde stewed the pork and chicken in the village, and on the back foot, he secretly came to him to ask about the senior officials. It was clear that he wanted to run away!

After trying to understand the cause and effect, the monkey solemnly said to Chengde: "Uncle, what my nephew said these days is absolutely true, if there is a false statement, I will die badly! The lives of my mother and the whole village are here, nephew!" An dare to talk nonsense?"

Yu Chengde nodded slowly. At this moment, he made up his mind.

In fact he had no choice. The great joy brought by the 1000 silver and the sudden and shocking bad news, like ice and fire, have completely broken down the old man's moral bottom line.

As the saying goes, wine is strong and courageous.Yu Chengde was not a coward in the first place, not to mention that now he has 1000 taels of silver and a utopia that are more powerful than fine wine.Now that the conditions are all in place, he will naturally go berserk—he will resign from Daming now, and will no longer be an obedient citizen to the gentlemen.

After discussing with the monkey carefully, when they returned to the village, they found that the pigs and chickens had been cooked, and the feast was ready.After laughing and accompanying everyone to have a full meal, Yu Chengde opened the only pot of local wine in the village and filled a bowl for all the young and strong.

After drinking in unison, Yu Chengde yelled: "I quit!" As soon as he spoke, he smashed the rough porcelain bowl on the mud floor under his feet.

While everyone was stunned, Yu Chengde said loudly: "Brothers get up early and work late, and go to sea to fight for their lives. They are just looking for a breadwinner. But now that the government's pressure is getting worse every day, we are trying our best to support it."

When Yu Chengde said this, he slammed a fist on the table: "I don't want that dog Wang Fuqi to stab us in the back! Tell me, even if I redeemed my third sister with money today, there is that dog Now, can we go to sea with peace of mind in the future?"

Following Yu Chengde's angry words, the people in the yard empathized with each other, and their faces were full of anger.

"Uncle, you can't take it easy, Wang Fuqi, that idiot, if you want me to say, let's just snatch the third sister back!" Following the monkey's next loud shout, everyone who was already full of anger immediately found a vent, and one after another echoed loudly.

After Yu Chengde glanced at the courtyard, the next moment he said slowly: "There is no place to stay here, but there is a place to stay. Since everyone can't survive, they simply went to Dezhou to vote for that son of a bitch, King Cao! There is no restriction over there. Anyway, it's probably better than the Great Ming Dynasty!"

Seeing a group of young and strong people enthusiastically giving him praises, Yu Chengde nodded in satisfaction, and then suddenly took out the military thorn from his back waist and stuck it on the table: "You have to pay the bills, brothers who have been working for so many years!" Someone has to reimburse Niaoqi! Whoever has the guts can follow me to kill that dog Wang Fuqi!"

"Come along!"

"Come along!"

……

In this day and age, when all young adults have decided on a matter, women and children have no right to express their objections.They can only drift with the tide and entrust their destiny entirely on the men.

After unifying his thinking, Yu Chengde immediately began to give orders.

The first is to clean up the belongings.The women will make dry food from the remaining brown rice and miscellaneous grains in the village, and then each household will pack one or two parcels, and everything will be over.Yes, the barren fishing village is so pitiful. Except for two parcels containing dry food and rags, these people have no wealth.

At the same time, Yu Chengde picked out six young men from the village.These few are all experienced sailors with him all the year round, and they have also fought with bandits on weekdays, and they dared to see blood under their hands.

At this time, the few knives and axes that were fished from the bottom of the sea came in handy.The weapons used by the Zheng family's direct lineage are naturally first-class, and they can be used to kill people after being sharpened.

There are two broken fishing boats in the village, one big and one small.After making arrangements in Chengde, the remaining few people and a lame carpenter were sent to the fishing boat for temporary reinforcement and repair.During this time, he also kicked his eager son and drove him back to the boat.

While everyone was busy preparing, Yu Chengde called his nephew Yu Chushui, and the two went to a cemetery outside the village one after the other.The owner of this cemetery is the tomb of Yu Chengde's eldest brother, Yu Chushui's father, Yu Chengen.

In fact, Yu Chengde also went out to do "business" when he was young.Back then, he and his elder brother Yu Cheng'en joined the gang of pirates to do the business of robbing houses.Who would have thought that it didn't take long for the eldest brother to be injured in a fight, and not long after the two returned to Chengwei Village, Yu Chengen's wound festered and died.

Before his eldest brother died, Yu Chengde once promised in front of his eldest brother that he would raise his nephew and stop doing that outrageous thing—this is the most fundamental reason why Yu Chengde has followed the rules all these years.

"Kowtow to your father, we will come back to move the grave when things get better in the future"... Yu Chushui knelt down in response, and kowtowed nine times to the tombstone.

Yu Chengde also kowtowed three times to his eldest brother, and then he explained in front of the grave: the world is so tough that honest people really can't live on.Yu Chushui is now an adult, but he can't even marry a daughter-in-law. It's impossible for everyone to use a knife.

After visiting the grave, the two returned to the village with murderous looks on their faces.

……

In this day and age, even the most disciplined fisherman is not lacking in the courage to kill—without this kind of courage, one should not even try to go to sea.

The reason why people endure injustice is that they are afraid of the power accumulated by the government for hundreds of years.And once this kind of prestige is reduced due to the weakness of the government, then the original system defenders will suffer backlash.

Wang Fuqi is an example.

Wang Fuqi is not a hero who can carry a tripod, he is just a fisherman.Relying on the fact that his brother is the inspector in the county, this person bought a job as a fish farm in the county government.

Fish bars are fish teeth, no different from those human teeth in the market, they all rely on the monopoly rights bestowed by the system to eat.Wang Fuqi has seven or eight rascals under his command, who usually bully the market and lend money, but any nearby fishermen who want to sell fish in the town have to be stripped of their skins first.

As for Yu Chengde, the village is small and weak, so naturally they are not less bullied by Wang Fuqi.In fact, the so-called arrears for taking away the third sister were all bought by Wang Fuqi from other people, and turned from a few taels of silver to 13 taels of silver.

……

Starting from Chengwei Village, go north for seven or eight miles to Chengtou Village, and then go north for more than 5 miles to the largest trade fair nearby: Shuixiu Town.

Yu Chengde and his group of 7 started preparations in the afternoon and did not leave for Chengtou Village until 3 pm.This time has been calculated: Wang Fuqi is from Chengtou Village. Usually at this time, the gathering in Shuixiu Town has already dispersed, and Wang Fuqi has returned from the town.

Under the watchful eyes of the villagers, seven fishermen with bamboo hats and salted fish lined up in a straight line and walked silently on the dirt road at the entrance of the village.

In less than an hour, seven people arrived at the entrance of Chengtou Village.After resting at the entrance of the village for a while, the seven people picked up the "full" fish load again, filed in single file, and went straight to a tile-roofed house at the end of Chengtou Village.

There are hundreds of households in Chengtou Village, which is much larger than Chengwei Village.The two-entry house of Wang Fuqi's family is located alone at the end of the village, in stark contrast to the dilapidated houses in the distance.