The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

The morning at Tongzhou Wharf is punctuated by the shouts of the canal boats.

Before dawn, the first group of porters had already begun their day's work on the shaky planks.

The mist on the river had not yet dissipated, and the taverns on the opposite bank still had their lanterns from last night hanging up, their dim yellow lights blurring into indistinct shadows in the mist.

Shangguan Jinhong stood under an old willow tree by the dock, holding a bowl of coarse tea in her hand, her gaze sweeping over the dense masts on the river.

He had been in Tongzhou for some time now, and the soles of his new cloth shoes had worn thin.

It wasn't from carrying heavy loads, it was from walking.

He walked through every alley, warehouse, and wharf within a ten-mile radius of Tongzhou Wharf.

He knew exactly where to dock which boat, who was in charge of which business, who he could afford to offend and who he couldn't—all of this was in his mind.

The power dynamics at Tongzhou Wharf are complex in some ways, but simple in others.

The top floor was the Grand Canal Transport Office.

The official ship dock of the Ministry of Revenue's Grand Canal Transportation Office occupied the best location, guarded by soldiers, and ordinary gangs dared not approach it.

Secondly, there were the canal gangs, the local strongmen of Tongzhou, who controlled the dispatch of civilian boats on most of the canal.

The gang has thousands of members, with several hundred permanently stationed at the docks alone. The gang leader, Luo Sihai, is a seventh-rank cultivator and has been operating in Tongzhou for three generations, with a network of relationships as deep as the silt at the bottom of the canal.

Next was the Hai Sha Gang, which specialized in smuggling salt and iron at sea and colluded with several major salt merchant families along the coast.

They had their own private piers and warehouses at the dock. Although their power was not as deep-rooted as that of the Canal Gang, they had more money and were ruthless.

The gang leader, Qiu Wu, is said to be a seventh-rank official, but he rarely appears in public.

Further down are several local forces with martial arts school backgrounds.

The branches of Tongyuan Escort Agency, the dock hall of Zhenhai Martial Arts School, and some small gangs in twos and threes.

Although these forces are not as powerful as the Canal Gang and the Sand Gang, they each have their own backers and territories, and ordinary merchants dare not provoke them.

At the very bottom are the porters.

There were about a thousand people carrying bags at the dock, from all walks of life, including farmers from surrounding villages who came to earn a few copper coins during their off-season.

There were displaced people who had lost their land, gamblers fleeing their debts, and some unranked martial artists.

These people had no organization, no backing, and whoever was the strongest was in charge. They were exploited by the various gangs at the docks.

The boat captain takes a cut, the gang takes another, the thugs take yet another, and by the time the porters finally get their hands on the copper coins, they can barely make ends meet.

It was in this very quagmire that Shangguan Jin Hong began to drive his first nail.

On the day the Tongzhou Wharf Workers' Association was officially established, there were no firecrackers or lion dances. Instead, a red paper was simply pasted on the door of an abandoned old warehouse at the east end of the wharf.

The three characters "工友会" (Workers' Association) were written crookedly in ink above.

The warehouse was negotiated personally by Shangguan Jin Hong.

The owner was an old boatman who had worked at the docks for forty years and built up this warehouse. Now, his legs are crippled, and his children are unwilling to take over, so the warehouse has been empty for three years.

On his first visit, Shangguan Jin Hong brought a pot of wine and chatted with the old man for an afternoon about the glory days of the Grand Canal.

On the second trip, I brought a bag of rice and we chatted until dark.

On the third trip, I didn't bring anything, so they just quoted a price.

The old man finally agreed to rent the warehouse to him at a very low rent, on the condition that the workers' association would send him rice and noodles twice a month and help him repair the leaky roof.

"What kind of condition is this? It's only right that we show our respect to you." Shangguan Jin Hong made the decision on the spot, his tone as calm as if he were talking to his own brother.

As he walked out of the old boatman's house, he was thinking about something else: the old man had worked at the docks for forty years and knew many people; word of mouth was far more effective than a piece of red paper.

In the first few days after the union was established, the reaction at the docks was lukewarm.

A few porters peeked over and asked a few questions, but when they heard that it cost twenty coins to join, they retreated.

This was also within Shangguan Jin Hong's expectations.

These people at the docks have been ripped off so many times that most of the mutual aid societies and hometown associations are just different names used to exploit others.

He didn't say anything, but simply had a large pot set up at the entrance of the warehouse to boil a pot of bone broth every day, which the workers' association members could drink for free.

Non-members are welcome to come and drink, but they must follow the rules of the workers' association.

He stood by the pot, holding a bowl of bone broth, and spoke in a moderate voice to the porters who had gathered around: "Our workers' association has only three rules."

"First, the workers' association should take on and distribute jobs in a unified manner, and no middlemen should be allowed to take a cut."

"Secondly, the workers' association members help each other. If someone gets sick, someone will take care of them; if someone is bullied, someone will stand up for them."

"Third, we don't cause trouble, but we're not afraid of trouble either. If anyone bullies our people for no reason, our fellow workers will stand up for them and seek justice for them."

This method of preaching may seem clumsy to others, but Shangguan Jin Hong knows in his heart: the people at the dock do not believe in contracts or promises, they only believe in things that can be seen and touched.

A bowl of hot soup is something you can see.

What truly allowed the workers' association to gain a foothold was a small incident a few days later.

A young porter who had joined the association was extorted by three local thugs who claimed he had damaged a cartload of goods and demanded half a tael of silver in compensation.

The young man's elderly mother was bedridden, and he was so anxious that he kept crying.

Upon hearing this, Shangguan Jin Hong put down his teacup and personally led six brothers to the small tavern frequented by the three thugs for a "talk."

His tone was as gentle as if he were an old acquaintance visiting: "The goods he damaged were my goods; if he wants compensation, he should come to me."

He placed half a string of cash on the table, saying, "This will compensate you for your lost wages, but you can't take any more of his wages."

"From today onwards, what jobs he takes is none of your business. His employer is the workers' association, and the employer's goods are the workers' association's business. If you want to cause trouble, come directly to me, Shangguan Jin Hong."

The three thugs looked at each other, then at the six taciturn men behind him, weighed the copper coins on the table, and wisely left.

The news spread like wildfire at the dock, and the very next day, more than thirty porters came to pay their dues and join the association.

Shangguan Jin Hong had several literate brothers register their names and addresses one by one in an old ledger. He personally looked each person over when they joined the association.

This was a habit he had in his previous life.

He would meet each person who joined the Money Gang face-to-face and remember them.

But what truly drew the attention of various factions at Tongzhou Wharf to the workers' association was something else entirely.

Bamboo Lever Gang.

A small gang of twenty or thirty people who make a living by extorting money from bamboo poles at the docks. Most of them are second-rate martial artists who spend their days deducting wages and exaggerating weights.

They avoid the boats of the Grand Canal gangs and the goods of the Sea Sand Gangs, focusing instead on individual merchants and less-than-truckload (LTL) cargo, and never provoke anyone with a powerful background.

Before the workers' association was established, the Bamboo Gang took about 30 to 40 percent of the wages from the porters each month, which was their main source of income.

Now that the workers' association has unified the work and the money distribution, the bamboo gang's cut-off source of income has been cut off.

Three days ago, Liu Mazi, the second-in-command of the Bamboo Gang, led about ten men to the entrance of the warehouse, where they blocked the door and cursed at the innkeeper.

They said the workers' association had broken the dock rules and gave them three days to disband, or they would come and "move" for the workers' association.

Shangguan Jin Hong stood inside the door and listened to every word of the other party's threat. Then she said, "Understood. Meet me under the old willow tree at the east end of the dock at noon three days from now."

He said this with the door not fully open, only half of his face showing, his tone calm, as if he were inviting someone for tea.

The Bamboo Gang naturally refused to wait until the third day.

Their henchmen began spreading rumors at the eastern dock where merchants gathered, saying that the workers' association was a group of fraudulent refugees.

It is said that Shangguan Jin Hong ran to the dock to hide from his gambling debts, and that the workers' association's kickbacks are even more ruthless than those of gangs, but they haven't shown their true colors yet.

Even more disgusting, the two newly joined workers were cornered in an alley that very night by members of the Bamboo Gang, who threatened them to quit the gang and stole their wages for the day.

This underhanded tactic is low-level, but it is effective.

The dozens of people who were initially hesitant about joining the membership immediately backed away.

After listening to his brothers' report, Shangguan Jin Hong sat in the warehouse, slowly sipping a bowl of cold tea.

His fingers tapped rhythmically on the table, once, twice, three times, stopping on the fifth tap.

He looked up at the young gang member who had come to deliver the message, his tone calm and resolute: "Let them spread it, the more widely they spread it, the better."