Double-Cut During the War of Resistance: My Wife Came from 1937

During the Republic of China era, the houses of ordinary landlords, apart from being larger in size, were far inferior to those of later generations.

Ma Hongwei glanced at it twice and then stopped looking.

The group went straight to the granary and began storing rice and canned goods there.

Looking at the bags of white rice, the four leaders were all overjoyed.

This is the most scarce resource for them, besides guns and ammunition.

In many cases, food is even more important than guns and ammunition.

People are iron rice and steel, and if they don't eat a meal, they will be very hungry.

If they lack guns and ammunition, they can still resort to robbery.

But a lack of food can be fatal.

After placing the food and supplies, Division Commander Liu and Deputy Division Commander Xu led Ma Hongwei to look around the division headquarters.

Commander Liu pointed to a row of houses and said, "This is our telegraph office. With the solar panels you bought, it's much more convenient than before!"

"Beep beep beep beep!"

Before even entering the house, Ma Hongwei heard a series of electronic sounds.

Although we now have walkie-talkies and repeaters, these can only connect to areas within 50 kilometers.

To contact other divisions, the Eighth Route Army headquarters, and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, it was still necessary to use a telegraph machine.

Deputy Division Commander Xu asked, "Shall we go in and take a look?"

"I'd better not disturb your work!"

Ma Hongwei waved his hand and prepared to turn around.

"Um?"

Suddenly, Ma Hongwei noticed a set of furniture in the main room that had a very traditional Chinese style.

Among these pieces of furniture, there are three pairs of grand master chairs, one eight-immortal table, one long table, and two flower stands.

Most importantly, the color of these furniture pieces is a deep purple that is almost black, somewhat resembling the legendary sandalwood.

As the saying goes, nine out of ten sandalwood trees are hollow.

It takes at least 400 years for sandalwood to grow into timber.

This type of wood has a fine grain, extremely high density, and is rich in oil. It becomes shinier the more it is handled, and it will not crack or warp even after a hundred years. It also has a faint, elegant fragrance. It is a type of wood that is under royal control.

This is why furniture made of sandalwood, or more specifically, small-leaf sandalwood, sold for very high prices in later generations.

"What's wrong, Comrade Hongwei?"

Commander Liu asked, "Is there something wrong with it?"

"without!"

Ma Hongwei shook his head, pointed to the furniture, and asked, "Sir, did those pieces of furniture belong to the landlords in the past?"

"right!"

Deputy Division Commander Xu nodded and said, "If there weren't so many stools and chairs that I needed to sit on, I would really like to burn them as firewood."

"What's wrong?"

Seeing that Ma Hongwei was staring at the furniture, Commander Liu asked with a smile, "Comrade Hongwei, do you like those pieces? Then we'll just give them to you!"

"That won't do!"

Ma Hongwei quickly said, "If I'm not mistaken, those are all sandalwood furniture."

"This type of wood was reserved for the imperial family during the Qing Dynasty, which is why it is so expensive in later generations."

"A pair of rosewood armchairs could easily sell for several hundred thousand yuan!"

"What did you say?"

Upon hearing Ma Hongwei's words, Deputy Division Commander Xu couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, "These two broken chairs are worth hundreds of thousands of yuan?"

He remembered that Xia Weiwei had said before that the wholesale price of rice was only 2 yuan per jin (5 grams).

Even just two chairs could sell for 20 yuan.

There are six chairs in the room, which adds up to 60.

These chairs can be exchanged for at least 29 jin of rice.

Ma Hongwei brought less than 29 jin of rice this time, but that was enough to feed the entire army for more than six days.

29 jin of rice can definitely last for more than 6 days.

Commander Liu couldn't help but swallow hard, and said, "Comrade Hongwei, take all this furniture to... somewhere else and dispose of it. How about we split the profits among you?"

"Sir, what are you saying!"

Ma Hongwei quickly said, "I already received enough money from selling gold bars and silver coins; how could I possibly get any more?"

With the profits split several times, Ma Hongwei has already received more than two million yuan.

Based on his annual income of 60,000 yuan, it would take him more than 30 years to earn that much money.

Ma Hongwei is not a particularly greedy person; he feels that having enough money is enough.

That two million yuan is enough for him to buy a car, a house, and get married.

"Eh!"

Commander Liu said, "We agreed on a share of the profits. We were only going to give you 5%, which wasn't much, so how could we not pay you?"

In the past, the Kuomintang blocked them from trading with those merchants, and the prices of necessities such as salt and gunpowder raw materials would increase by 5 to 20 times.

In the White Area, one silver dollar could buy 10 catties of salt, but the merchants in the White Area sold it to them for only a few taels for one silver dollar.

Many times, they have no choice but to accept it reluctantly.

For someone like Ma Hongwei, who not only helps them sell goods at high prices and buy them at low prices, but is also only willing to take a 5% cut, is absolutely rare in the world.

"OK! OK! OK!"

Ma Hongwei nodded and said, "Let's stick with 5%."

He was afraid that if he talked any longer, the other party would give him more money.

Gentlemen love fortune, in a proper way.

He didn't want to profit more from the Eighth Route Army now that they were facing such difficulties.

Commander Liu invited, "Comrade Hongwei, why don't you look for anything else, see if there's anything else worth anything?"

They're desperately short of money right now; they'll sell as many items as possible.

Then, Ma Hongwei went inside and wandered around.

He also discovered a sandalwood paperweight.

Then, in the other rooms, a set of rosewood table and stools inlaid with marble and inlaid with burl wood and gold wire was found.

Besides these items, there are also several decorative vases, I don't know if they are from the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China.

Ma Hongwei said to Commander Liu, "Sir, could you please have someone put all the furniture I just found into a separate room? Please handle it carefully and avoid bumping or dropping it."

"good!"

Commander Liu responded and immediately began making arrangements.

One by one, the Eighth Route Army soldiers from each division began to move these antique furniture pieces and carefully place them into separate rooms.

"receive!"

After the Eighth Route Army soldiers left, Ma Hongwei had an idea and put all the furniture into his storage space.

"Comrade Hongwei!"

Deputy Division Commander Nie asked, "I wonder what kind of furniture is valuable?"

Upon hearing this, everyone else perked up their ears.

They were all eager to know as well.

After all, they had repeatedly seized land from the wealthy and distributed it to the rich.

In the future, revolutionary base areas will be established in the Japanese war zone, and the land will continue to be seized from local tyrants and distributed to the people.

In the homes of those gentry and landlords, there might be antique furniture, and they need to figure out what is useful and what is useless.

In this way, they could obtain furniture and have Ma Hongwei exchange it for money and supplies.