Republic of China: Guandong Ginseng King

Chapter 4: It's Hard to Get Married

"Well, I just do it randomly. I hope everyone is not picky and will just give in to me."

Qu Shaoyang smiled and casually passed it off, then picked up the spoon and added some soup to everyone.

Everyone gathered around the stove, drinking the hot soup, feeling warm from the inside out and feeling so comfortable.

After being nervous and concentrating all day on the raft, this group of people finally relaxed and started talking nonsense.

"You rookies have never seen the world. When we get to Anton, I will take you to broaden your horizons.

Anton is a great place, prosperous and lively, with flower terraces, sea terraces, theaters, and everything else."

Li Yongfu, the second counter attendant, held the soup bowl in his hand and began to talk to everyone with great excitement.

"When we arrived at Andong County, we were like princes standing on the street. We had three meals of fine white flour every day, and after eating, we went to look for Xiao Hongyan.

At that time, you could do whatever you wanted.

Hold Xiaoguo in your arms and go to the theater to listen to books and watch plays. Xiaoguo will sit on your lap and eat melon seeds for you, feeding you mouth to mouth.

At night, the delicious laughing fruit will warm your bed. When you take off your clothes, it looks like a peeled egg, white, tender and plump.

The taste is so wonderful. "

"A man should be a man of integrity. If he has never touched a red fruit at this age, what's the point?"

Li Yongfu became more and more excited as he spoke. His eyes swept across the faces of the young guys in the platoon, teasing them on purpose.

What Li Fu said was the jargon used by the gangsters.

The sea stage is a casino and the flower stage is a brothel.

Hongguoer is a woman, Jianguoer and Liangguoer are young and beautiful women, and Xiaoguoer refers to the women who sell their smiles and bodies in brothels.

Among those who work as woodcutters, very few of them marry and start a family.

There are many reasons for this, one of which is that there are few women in Guandong.

Although the ban in various places in Guandong was gradually lifted starting from the tenth year of Emperor Xianfeng's reign, and refugees from Shandong, Shanxi, Zhili and other places were no longer restricted from entering the pass to cultivate the land, women from inside the pass were expressly prohibited from going to the Northeast.

The rulers at that time wanted to use these refugees to develop the land in Northeast China, but they were also afraid that they would take root in Northeast China and not leave.

So at that time, most people who went to Guandong were like migratory birds.

The men set out at the end of the first month of each year to ensure they arrive in the Northeast before spring.

After working in the Northeast for most of the year, they would hide all their wages close to their bodies when winter comes and take them home to reunite with their wives and children for the Spring Festival.

Those men who have not yet married dream of earning money in Guandong Mountain so that they can return to their hometown and marry a wife to live with.

Of course, the imperial court’s ban cannot completely restrict women from coming to Guandong Mountain. As long as they want, there is always a way.

By the fourth year of the Guangxu period, the imperial court simply lifted the ban.

However, the journey to Guandong is long and dangerous, and it is indeed not suitable for the entire family to participate, so there are very few women in Guandong Mountain.

In Guandong Mountain, women are a scarce resource and it is not easy to find a wife.

Although the muba earn a lot of money, it is still very difficult for them to start a family and build a career.

Besides, the woodcutters went into the mountains to cut wood in winter and floated rafts on the river in summer. Both were very dangerous and you could lose your life any day, so ordinary women didn't dare to marry.

Therefore, these guys can't keep the money when they have it, they just eat, drink and have fun, so that they won't die one day and all the money will be taken away by outsiders.

It doesn’t matter if the money is gone, just find an inn, lie down on the kang and let it go.

The shopkeeper would never drive them out. Instead, he would bring in three meals a day on time, with plenty of millet rice, flatbreads, and stewed cabbage and tofu, and even wine and meat every now and then.

Of course, all these have to be recorded. When the weather turns cold and snow falls, the innkeeper will "talk" to the woodyard's big shopkeeper. After the deal is done, the woodyard's big shopkeeper will give the innkeeper a hook fee (similar to an agency fee) and pay off the wood on credit. This is called "dressing up people".

Afterwards, Mu Ba rolled up his bedding, stuffed his boots with grass, picked up the big iron axe, carried a large saw, and went into the mountains to work.

If everything goes well and no one loses their lives, in the spring of next year, the woodcutters will come out of the mountains with a lot of money and start to be masters again and enjoy life.

This cycle repeats itself over and over again until one day, either an accident occurs during logging or the logs are stacked, and the life of the log ends.

Among this group of guys, only a few are married, and the rest are bachelors.

When they heard the second counter talk about women, their eyes widened and no one knew what they were thinking.

"Second Cabinet, why are you talking about this so late at night? After listening to you, how can these people sleep at night?"

The old crow at the head of the boat was slightly displeased and cast a cold gaze at everyone.

"Have you finished your meal? After that, clean up and go to bed.

Be alert when you go to bed at night, as there may be black bears, big-clawed foxes, green-skinned foxes, etc. in the wilderness.

If you go out to relieve yourself at night, you must go with a few others and be careful."

The black bear is the black bear, the big claw is the Siberian tiger, and the green-skinned one is the wolf.

Shui Laowu wasn't joking or trying to scare anyone when he said this; this really happened.

There is a sentry post in the upper reaches of the Yalu River called Heixiazi Sentry Post, which used to be home to a platoon of soldiers.

Once a gang of thugs stayed there overnight. When they woke up in the morning, they found that one of their gang members was missing, leaving only bloodstains on the ground.

Following the trail, we found that the small piece of wood had been eaten to pieces by a black bear, it was a horrible sight.

Later, that place was called Black Blind Post.

Everyone was very tired after being on the raft during the day, and now that they were full and satisfied, they felt lazy.

The bridal chamber was far from the market town and there was no entertainment. What else could they do except sleep? So the bridal chamber workers packed up their things and went back to the flower shed to sleep.

Qu Shaoyang lived with Dazhuizi, Ermao, and two other guys.

The weather in early April was warm but still cold, and the flower shed was drafty everywhere. The people living inside were shivering with cold.

The river was surging, the wind was blowing, and there seemed to be the howling of wolves in the distance.

In such an environment, everyone tossed and turned, and it was unknown how long it was before snoring was heard.

Dazhuzi drank two extra bowls of soup in the evening. In the middle of the night, he couldn't help it and wanted to go to the bathroom.

Just as he sat up, he heard some "crunching" noises outside. The boy was very brave, so he leaned out of the shed and looked outside.

In early April, the moon in the sky was only a hook, and everything around was pitch black.

But Dazhuizi saw clearly that there was a woman squatting in front of the stove, holding a steamed bread in one hand and a piece of pickled vegetable in the other, and she was chewing them.

Looking more closely, the young wife was quite pretty, with bangs that reached her eyebrows, wearing a plaid jacket, and her eyes were bright and twinkling in the night.

Dazhuzi suddenly came to his senses. There was no one in this remote place, so where did the young wife come from? Could she be an elf from the mountains?
Dazhuzi was so scared that he screamed and cried out.

The woman was stunned for a moment, then stood up and ran away quickly.

"What's going on? Who's yelling there in the middle of the night?"

Dazhuzi's voice startled everyone and someone asked loudly.

(End of this chapter)