Chapter 19: Salt Locks the River
As mentioned earlier, the ship is divided into three floors. The floor below the deck is the cargo hold and the boatmen's rooms, while the passenger cabins above the deck are all occupied by everyone in the Jia family.
Because the second floor was more closed, it was allocated to the female family for use.
Ruan Rong went up to the second floor with a worried look on her face, and ran into two flustered old women. She had something to hide, so she didn't dare to stop them and ask them what was going on, but instead dodged and moved aside.
Unexpectedly, the two old women didn't even bother to be polite. They just apologized without even turning their heads and hurried downstairs.
Servants in wealthy families have always been very particular about etiquette. If nothing serious had happened, they would never have panicked like this.
Ruan Rong couldn't help but feel curious about what was happening outside, so she went straight to Daiyu's room - as the hostess on the ship, the room where Daiyu lived had an unobstructed view of the bow.
When they pushed open the cabin door, they saw Lin Daiyu, Zijuan and Xueyan lying on the window, looking down through the gap. Except for Daiyu who was barely calm, the other two maids all looked panicked.
"What happened?" Ruan Rong walked quickly behind the three people and asked curiously, "Look at you all, it's like the sky has fallen."
The three girls were startled. They turned around and saw that it was Ruan Rong. Daiyu quickly made way for them and said, "Sister, you will know for yourself after taking a look!"
Ruan Rong didn't bother to be polite with her. She went straight to the window and saw that they had carefully opened a crack, so she reached out and pushed it open, then looked out.
However, on the river nearly 100 meters wide, there were six large grain boats lined up in a row, blocking the entire river. The decks were crowded with at least seventy or eighty people, who were shouting and cursing at the slaves on Cao's boat across the river.
"Could it be that we encountered pirates?"
Ruan Rong muttered something casually, which frightened the two maids so much that they turned pale, especially the younger Xueyan, whose eyes turned red and she almost cried.
Daiyu pushed Ruan Rong away and protested in dissatisfaction, "Sister, stop scaring me! Where did all these pirates come from on the canal? Besides, how could pirates use canal boats? There must be some other reason!"
Then, she turned back to comfort Xueyan, "Don't panic yet. When Aunt Zhang comes back, you'll know what's going on."
As luck would have it, Nanny Zhang rushed in at this moment. Before she could catch her breath, she replied, "Don't be afraid, young lady. The people ahead are not some strong men, but a group of salt dealers!"
It turned out that the six grain ships were actually a caravan transporting salt to the north. Because they were loaded with too much cargo and the draft was too deep, one of the ships accidentally got stuck on a reef, and a hole of moderate size was created in the bottom of the ship.
Seeing that if the delay continued, the shipload of salt would be lost, the salt merchants simply blocked the river and tried to forcibly requisition passing passenger ships to transport the salt to the ferry thirty miles away.
If Jia Lian had set off two days later, this misfortune would have been borne by someone else - but with the help of Sun Shaozong, the Jia family set off a few days earlier, and ended up running into this group of "roadblocks"!
The sudden violent shaking of the ship just now was caused by the boatmen urgently dropping the four-claw iron anchor.
If it were an ordinary passenger ship, it might have been scared when seeing the enemy had so many people and so powerful - but the powerful servants of the Jia family usually did good deeds by not bullying others, so why would they be willing to be coerced by a few salt merchants?
So the two sides started swearing at each other when they had a disagreement!
Jia Yucun was taking a nap in his room. After , he quickly got up and put on his clothes. He rushed to the deck and saw the two men cursing at the top of their lungs. He stamped his feet and shouted anxiously, "Stop cursing, stop cursing, shut up!"
However, the wealthy servants in the Jia family never took him, a "poor man", seriously.
After hearing Jia Yucun's rebuke, the slaves cursed even more loudly, and some even shouted at the top of their voices: "Jinling Prefect Jia Yucun is here, you bastards, get out of the way!"
Jia Yucun was so angry that his hands and feet were shaking. He could do nothing about it, so he had to go to Jia Lian and plead, "My Second Master Lian! Tell them to stop scolding quickly. What if something bad happens?!"
It is said that 'like master, like servant', in fact, the same is true in reverse - the wealthy servants in the Jia family do not even take the salt merchants across the street seriously, so how can Jia Lian, who is used to acting like a big boss, be afraid of them?
"Misfortune?"
He curled his lips and said, "They dared to stop the boat from Rongguo Mansion. I think they are in trouble! When we get to Qingzhou Prefecture, I will make this bunch of bastards know what regret is!"
Jia Lian's heroic words made Jia Yucun laugh and cry. He pointed at the grain ships in front and said, "Second Master, you may not know that any ship carrying official salt must have flags from the Salt Administration. These ships have no flags at all. They must be carrying smuggled salt! To dare to use grain ships to transport so much smuggled salt, there must be some extravagant people behind them. They may not be afraid of our Rongguo Mansion!"
After saying this, Jia Lian showed hesitation on his face , but because of his face, he was still a little embarrassed for a moment.
Jia Yucun hurriedly said, "Besides, most of the private salt dealers are desperate criminals. When I was in Nanjing, I heard about several cases of salt smugglers killing officials and rebelling. If we really provoke them..."
Hearing the words "killing officials and rebelling", Jia Lian shuddered immediately. How could he care about his face?
He quickly jumped up and down and shouted, "Stop cursing, stop cursing! Quick, motherfucker, shut up!"
His shout had an immediate effect, and the slaves immediately fell silent.
However, it was too late to surrender . Five large ships from the opposite side had already surrounded them like a fan. The passenger ship of the Jia Mansion had just dropped anchor, and there was no time to change the sails to the wind direction. For a moment, it was paralyzed there, unable to move forward or backward!
The slaves then finally realized that the people they had just been provoking were actually more than a hundred ferocious-looking strong men holding sharp blades!
Suddenly, they all felt as if someone had strangled them by the throat and could not utter even a complete sentence. How could they still be as eloquent as before?
As they got closer, they saw a middle-aged fat man in a brocade mink robe on the opposite boat, surrounded by many salt smugglers, pointing and cursing: "What a shitty Jinling prefect, a petty official, how dare you pretend to be in front of me?! I'll drive everyone on this boat into the water later to wash their stinky mouths that only know how to spit shit!"
Everyone in the Jia family changed color when they heard this. If these pampered people were thrown into the water in the middle of winter, they would be half-crippled if not dead!
In a hurry, the slaves were forced to show some courage, and they hurriedly revealed their cards: "What do you want to do? The one who is in charge of this ship is our Second Master Lian from Rongguo Mansion!"
"Yes, we are from Rongguo Mansion!"
"My second master's in-laws are from the old man Wang, who is the ruler of nine provinces!"
The cards that were revealed were bigger and bigger, and the slaves straightened their backs again, and more dirty words were seen in their words.
The fat man on the opposite side laughed out loud when he heard this: "I was wondering who it was, it turns out to be the beloved son of the first-class general Jia She! Well, I will save some face for the Rongguo Mansion - except Jia Lian, throw them all into the water!"
After hearing the first half, the slaves thought that the other side had been intimidated and were waiting to take the opportunity to show off their power. However, they did not expect that the last sentence would take a sharp turn for the worse. They were immediately shocked.
It was not until this time that Jia Lian realized that Jia Yucun's guess was correct. The other party was indeed backed by a powerful figure who even ignored the Rongguo Mansion and Wang Ziteng.
As they were talking, they saw that the large ships were approaching. The salt smugglers worked together to throw the gangplank onto the side of the ship, and then rushed up like a tide with swords and guns in hand!
The slaves were immediately in a panic. Some froze on the spot, unable to move; some shouted and turned around to escape into the cabin; and some spineless slaves actually knelt on the ground and screamed "grandfathers and ancestors".
The situation suddenly deteriorated to such an extent that Jia Lian and Jia Yucun both looked pale - especially Jia Yucun, who was already regretting to the point of bitter regret. If he had known that he would encounter such a disaster, he would not have come running to go with Jia Lian!
But when everyone was feeling panic-stricken, they saw the slaves who had just escaped into the cabin rushing out again, tumbling and crawling, with a look on their faces as if they had seen a ghost.
Then, a large wooden pole as thick as a beam jumped out from the cabin and swayed towards the bow!
