Republic of China: Guandong Ginseng King

Chapter 2: The Tiger

The raft moved forward steadily in the river. Leng Hu, who was standing on the second row, did not hear the conversation between the towman and the second rower.

At this moment, he was holding the oar in his hand, looking into the distance, his thoughts surging in his mind like the rolling river in front of him.

After coming to this world for several months, Qu Shaoyang has gradually accepted the fact that he has traveled from modern society to one hundred and forty or fifty years ago.

The original owner's surname was also Qu, and his nickname was Huzi. He was from Qujiazhuang, a village under the jurisdiction of Dengzhou Prefecture in Shandong Province. His family made a living by farming and fishing.

The land of Qi and Lu suffered from disasters for years, and the people lived in hardship and suffered great hardships, and Dengzhou Prefecture was not spared.

Life was hard, with no food to eat, so many people thought about going to Kanto to try their luck.

The original owner had been a dull person since childhood, and did things without considering the consequences. So, despite his family's opposition, he took a boat across the sea to Guandong.

The ship was originally heading for Dalian, but encountered strong winds, deviated from its course, and eventually drifted near Andong.

People say that it is easy to be poor in Guandong Mountain. If the poor go to Guandong Mountain, they can somehow make a living.

Hu Zi followed everyone, traveled a long way and went through many hardships to reach Guandong, but found that it was not easy to make a living.

When outsiders arrived in Guandong and wanted to make a living, the safest way was to work as porters or to cultivate land.

To get a good job as a porter, you need the guarantee and recommendation of a hometown association. You need to know the person’s background well, otherwise how can the employer be confident in keeping you?
The jobs that don't require a guarantee are dirty and tiring. You have to work from morning till night and at best you can only earn enough to eat and drink.

Reclaiming wasteland and cultivating land is not as simple as imagined. After working hard to reclaim a few acres of land, the next moment, bannermen or Mongolian nobles will come and occupy the land.

It's okay if you meet someone who is easy to talk to. You can first rent the land and farm it, pay rent annually, and then you can slowly settle down.

If you meet someone who is difficult to talk to, your land will be confiscated and you will be driven away. After all, the land belongs to him.

In addition, you can also go into the mountains to cut wood, hunt, and dig ginseng. If you are brave and not afraid of death, you can also go gold panning.

Hunting requires experience and tools, ginseng digging depends on luck, and gold panning is a life-threatening journey. Neither of them is an easy one.

Therefore, some people chose to go into the mountains to work as woodcutters.

The vast Changbai Mountains are rich in various high-quality timbers, including yellow pine, red pine, elm, oak, linden, yellow pineapple, etc., which are everywhere.

Once these timbers are transported to the border, they become expensive and sought-after commodities.

In the late Qing Dynasty, as the imperial court lifted the two-hundred-year ban on Guandong Mountain, government officials and private individuals began to set up lumberyards.

Timber felling and transportation gave rise to the wood gang industry in Northeast China, and people who work in this industry are called "wood gangs".

There are two types of wood-pullers: one is to go up the mountain to cut down trees and do mountain work, and the other is to go down the river to float rafts and eat wood-puller meals.

Rafting down the river is a high-risk, high-return activity, while logging in the mountains has lower returns but also less risk.

The only thing is that it has high physical requirements for the wooden handle.

In the days when there were no chainsaws or other types of machinery, trees with a diameter of more than one meter had to be cut down with a two-meter-long saw and an eight-pound axe, which required extraordinary physique.

Although Hu Zi is only sixteen years old, he has a good physique. With the genes of a Shandong man, he is tall and strong, and has a lot of strength.

In the beginning, this kid worked very hard as a porter at the dock, and he could barely make a living after working so hard all day.

It happened that in July and August, the rafts from Changbai Mountain arrived in Andong, and everyone was in high spirits and enjoying themselves.

Hu Zi saw this and was extremely envious. He happened to meet a "dresser" (similar to an agent).

After hearing the groom bragging about how much money a woodcutter could make, Hu Zi was tempted. Without saying a word, he signed a three-year contract with the groom and went into the mountains to work as a woodcutter.

Only when I got to the mountains did I realize that Mu Ba’s job was not easy.

In the dead of winter, I was cutting trees in the crotch-deep snow, swinging a large axe weighing eight kilograms for the entire day, and sweating profusely.

The dog-skin hat and cotton trousers could be covered with a layer of ice armor. When returning to the house at night, he had to go to the stove to warm himself up before taking off his trousers.

Moreover, logging in the mountains is only slightly less dangerous than rafting, but it is still not zero.

When a mountain collapsed, a meter-diameter tree would roll down and smash anyone into pieces. When a rocket launcher hit someone, people would be crushed into meat paste by the flying logs.

The unlucky original owner happened to encounter a landslide and was hit by a falling tree. His head was bleeding and he died on the spot.

When he opened his eyes again, the core had been replaced by Qu Shaoyang, a person from more than a hundred years later.

After several months, Qu Shaoyang finally faced the reality and had to accept the identity of Mu Ba.

Now he is alone and has nothing, so it is difficult to do anything even if he wants to.

Although being a woodcutter is a bit dangerous, you can earn a lot of money. You can cut wood in the winter and float rafts in the spring, and you can earn at least 180 taels of silver.

In those days, the purchasing power of silver was still quite strong, and an ordinary family could only earn a few taels of silver in a year.

He still has three years left on his contract, so for now he can only play a safe and stable role.

After three years, save more money, find a nice place with beautiful mountains and rivers, build a few houses, buy a piece of land, and live a stable life.

"Lenghu'er, what are you thinking about? Are you engrossed in looking at Widow Mountain?" Qu Shaoyang was lost in thought when suddenly someone called him.

Lenghu was the nickname given to the original owner by the people in the mountain area.

The main thing is that this kid is particularly stupid, and his nickname is Hu Zi, so everyone calls him that.

Hearing the voice, Qu Shaoyang turned his head and looked to the side, and saw a young man in his twenties on the other side of the raft, winking at him.

"Widow Mountain? Where is it?" Qu Shaoyang asked casually.

Zhao Dagui, who was standing next to him, raised his hand and pointed forward, "Look, isn't that Widow Mountain?

Doesn’t the shape of the mountaintop resemble a woman with her arms folded across her chest, looking into the distance? People say that it is the raftsman’s wife, waiting by the river for her man to come home.”

Qu Shaoyang looked in the direction Zhao Da Kui pointed, and sure enough, not far away on the right bank of the river, a large and sharp mountain stood among the clear sky, clouds and trees.

On the top of the mountain, there stands a huge rock alone. Looking at the shape of the rock, it really looks like the beautiful woman that Zhao Da Kui described.

"Widow Mountain? Why is it given such a name?" Qu Shaoyang asked in confusion.

Zhao Da Kui was not a novice, he had already performed it several times and knew a lot, so he started to show off.

"Don't you know Widow Mountain? Once upon a time, a raftsman picked up a woman. The woman came to Guandong Mountain to look for her father and brother who were fleeing from famine.

Later, the woman married the raftsman, and they loved each other very much. "

"One year, when a man was rafting, he walked to the straw stack and started to build it. He suddenly hit a rock and the raft was destroyed and he died.

The woman waited day after day, but the man never came back. As time went by, she turned into a stone pillar.

When Zhao Da Kui said this, he couldn't help but sigh.

"In fact, there are many places on both sides of the Yalu River and the Songhua River, such as the Wangfu Stone and the Wangson Stone, which all have sad and miserable stories about us raftsmen."

Qu Shaoyang opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.

At this time, Wang Changliang, the second rower in the first row, shouted, "What are you all mumbling about? Work honestly. We are almost at the threshold, so cheer up."

There are 9981 dangerous rapids on the Yalu River, and Xiaomenshizi is the first one.

After several months of procrastination, the new book is finally out.

In fact, I have always wanted to write about the stories of the older generation who went to Guandong, but I never got around to it. In May, at the invitation of the Provincial Writers Association, I took a trip from Linjiang to Changbai on the most beautiful highway, G331. This was the opportunity for me to gain a deeper understanding of the culture along the Yalu River.

After I came back, I consulted a lot of information including county chronicles, folk stories, etc., and finally made up my mind to write this.

At first, I wanted to write a local male protagonist directly, so that the story would develop more smoothly. After thinking about it, I decided to give the male protagonist an identity of a time traveler.

This book may not have so many exciting plots, nor any golden fingers, so you can just read it as a story.

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(End of this chapter)