Volume 1: Mission in Danger Chapter 75: Xie Family Warehouse
The warm yellow afterglow was half in the sky and half on the ground, and Yuexiu Mountain in the distance was dyed half red and half green. Xie Laosi squinted his eyes to look at the salted duck egg yolk, and closed and locked the gate of the last warehouse.
This is the warehouse of Hongtaihang located by the Baietan Lake. The warehouse has three floors, with three gates in total. The outermost one is where the goods are counted, and the valuables are placed in the warehouse behind the second gate. Only servants that the Xie family trusts very much can enter here. Behind the third gate is a separate building with a small door that weighs a thousand pounds. The walls are extremely thick and built very high, like a fortress . Inside is the cash that has not yet been shipped to the Xie family's warehouse - only confidants of the Xie family are allowed to enter.
"Lower the gate! Release the dogs!"
Warehouse "Guli"" Everyone has left. After clearing the goods from the outer warehouse, Xie Laosi began to arrange people to cook and patrol. It's almost time to take a break and drink tea.
It was the prosperous era of Kangxi and Qianlong. This place was close to the provincial capital, with the most important military forces of Guangdong and Guangxi within easy reach. There were many foreign sails floating on the surface of Baietan Lake, isolating the pirates outside the Lingdingyang. Xie Laosi didn't know how many years had passed since he had lived in such a peaceful day. Anyway, since he had taken over the shift of taking charge of this warehouse, he had only seen a few short-sighted thieves, and there had never been any thieves among the group.
When people live in comfort for a long time, they begin to get used to this comfortable life.
In the past month, the warehouse secretly added a lot of patrols. The original guards of more than 30 people at night suddenly became more than 50. Xie Laosi recognized that some of them were servants of the Cai family. The leader was called Cai Xianxian. At first, he was a little resistant. He didn't know why the merchant allowed outsiders to interfere with the guards of his own warehouse. Even if Cai and Xie were allies, they were still outsiders. Fortunately, the people of the Cai family knew what to do and Cai Xianxian was a decent person. Slowly, Xie Laosi became indifferent. Anyway, there were not many people around the warehouse at night, let alone dogs taking a shit. After a few months, everyone gradually slacked off. Although they still patrolled every day and let a few dogs run, Xie Laosi himself was actually bored.
"Hey, why is the dog barking so loudly today? Did he take the wrong medicine?"
The dogs that were just released from the gate are usually like quails, not even barking when kicking, but today they are barking like mad dogs.
Xie Laosi kicked the largest yellow dog at the gate and cursed him: "Stupid dog! What are you barking about? You've been idle for a long time, right? Don't we have any bitches in our warehouse for you? Bah!"
The big yellow dog seemed to have not heard what Xie Laosi said at all and continued barking at the outside of the fence.
“That’s not right.”
Xie Laosi squinted his eyes and saw that at the corner of the river, a number of Tanka fishing boats suddenly passed by, coming very fast, one after another, continuously rushing towards him!
Why did the Tanka fishing boats suddenly come here? There are no fish for them to catch in this river!
Xie Lao Si secretly said, "Here comes someone with bad intentions," and immediately went to gather some people: "Let's set up a support, someone is here to cause trouble, everyone, those who have good stuff, come out, and the rest of you, put down your iron horses!"
Xie Laosi shouted again and again, he picked up an abandoned large door bolt with one hand, and helped others to block the iron horses tied with iron wire outside the warehouse, "People are coming! Get ready!" Xie Laosi looked back and counted, it should be all ready, even the uncle who cooked rice came out with a rice shovel, it should be OK. He left more than a dozen people in the warehouse to watch the doors and windows, and took more than 30 people outside to wait for the people outside.
There were more and more fishing boats. The first ones had already jumped people ashore. In the dim light, we could vaguely see that they were indeed Tanka people. The ones behind were still having people jumping ashore. It looked like there were at least thirty or forty people.
But the Tanka people were weaker than the land people. Although there were 30 or 40 of them, Xie Lao Si was not afraid. He blocked the door of the warehouse with his men, pointed at the big bolt and said, "What are you doing? Do you know where this is? Get out of here if you know what to do."
Seeing that the group of people were approaching, a Tanka man shouted, "It's the tall guy behind us. He got on our Tanka boat and ordered prostitutes but didn't pay! Catch him and beat him up!"
At this time, Xie Laosi was too late to find the "tall guy". He cursed inwardly that the blind boy had gone to prostitute with the Tanka girl without paying and brought this trouble upon himself. The Tanka men had already rushed over, and Xie Laosi shouted, "Beat them!" No matter he was right or wrong, he must never show weakness when facing the Tanka men, otherwise he would be laughed at if the news got out.
The thirty or so guards were as fierce as wolves and tigers, they started to attack with their weapons. Although the boatmen, who were about the same number, also had harpoons and had more people, they were unable to resist and were defeated.
Seeing that they were outnumbered and had driven the men back to the river, Xie Lao Si was feeling somewhat proud when suddenly Cai Xian shouted, "It seems like there are more people coming!"
Suddenly, dozens of big men appeared from the west corner. They were all with broad shoulders and arms, and each of them was holding a wooden stick. They rushed towards this side.
By this time, it was already very dark , and Xie Laosi couldn't see who was in charge. He just heard someone in the crowd shout "Beat them up!"
That group of people rushed up and joined the battle. They were actually helping the Tanka family! The Tanka men suddenly seemed to have gained courage and became more brutal than before, and counterattacked. The combined number of the two groups of people on the other side had already crushed the warehouse guards. With the two groups attacking from both sides, the Xie family guards were immediately defeated.
Xie Laosi shouted: "Who are you? Do you know where this is? You... Ouch!" He was hit on the head with a stick and almost fainted. At this time, the people brought by Cai Xianxian showed their effectiveness, retreated to the vicinity of the iron horse, and fought hard.
Xie Laosi told a young man who was usually very fast on his feet, "Go and drag the horse!"!”
In the evening, Henan Island.
Suddenly, an old man wearing a bamboo hat came to Pan Garden next to Haizhuang Temple. He knocked on the door of Pan Garden, looked at the doorman, and asked with a smile, "Are you Pan Tiegun's son?"
The concierge was surprised. Tiegun was his father's nickname. His father had returned to the countryside to retire for nearly ten years. Few people knew this nickname. It seemed that the other party was an old friend of his father. He also felt that the other party looked familiar, so he changed his face to please the elders and said, "You are?"
The visitor did not answer but asked, "Are you the eldest or the third? If you're the third, when you were a kid, I took you to buy sweet chicken olives. You ate too much and lost two teeth because of the sweetness. That's why Tiegun came to my house and had a quarrel with me."
The doorman exclaimed, looked the man up and down, and called out, "You are Uncle Qiang! Oh, why are you here!" He quickly invited him in for tea.
This old man was none other than Wu Guoying's right-hand man, Lao Gu. The Pan and Wu families had a close relationship, so Lao Gu also recognized the old doorman of the Pan family.
After entering the house and drinking a cup of tea, Lao Gu said, "No more nonsense, I have something to ask your boss."
Being the doorman of the Pan family, he must be well-informed. Seeing that he looked a little embarrassed, Old Gu said, "Don't worry, as an elder, I won't make things difficult for you. If I can't see your head of the family for a while, you can help me find someone who can make the decisions, but don't make it public. I have something urgent to do."
"Okay!" the concierge said, "If it were someone else, I would have kept him company for a long time. When Uncle Yang calls me, I will go right away."
Many pavilions and towers in Pan Garden were still under construction. In terms of floor space, it was several times larger than the Grand View Garden in Dream of the Red Chamber. The concierge ran errands himself and returned after a meal. He invited Lao Gu to a lake in the garden and boarded a pleasure boat. When Lao Gu got on board, he saw Liu Dazhang waiting inside and asked, "Lao Gu, why are you here at this time?"
Lao Gu said, "It's already sunset, and you're still in Pan Garden."
Manager Liu smiled and said, "The bank's affairs are almost done. I am here to help return some of the deposited silver to the warehouse."
The two of them were old acquaintances, both working as senior workers for a large insurance company. Manager Liu didn't waste any time and went straight to the point: "You've been retired for a few years, right? Now things are urgent, and the old boss Wu even moved you out! But you shouldn't have come. The situation has been decided now. If the boss sees you, it will be awkward. If he doesn't see you, it will ruin our friendship."
Lao Gu has many elderly friends in the Xiguan business circle. When he came to visit for something, Pan Youjie could not just turn him away. Moreover, at this time of year, Wu Guoying was in poor health and had difficulty moving, so he could almost represent Wu Guoying outside.
Lao Gu smiled and said, "Do you know why I came?"
Manager Liu said, " It could be anything else except the 'Yongding River Disaster Relief'! But let me tell you, we, the Qi officials, can't help with this matter. If we could help, the Wu family wouldn't have to ask, and we would have done it long ago."
Lao Gu smiled and said, "You guessed wrong. I came here purely to handle a matter. If you can make the decision, it doesn't matter whether I meet with you officials or not."
Now it was the turn of Manager Liu to be a little surprised. Old Gu didn't say anything more and took out an envelope from his sleeve. Manager Liu took the envelope, opened it and took a look. There was half a piece of paper inside, half of which was written with Chinese characters and the other half was written with "chicken intestines" (English).
This thing was exactly half of the authorization letter issued by Milton, which was torn into two halves in front of the manager Liu. The upper half was given to the Pan family, and the lower half with the signature was withheld by the East India Company. According to the original agreement among the four parties, as long as this half of the paper was presented, the money for the tea from the foreign family from Yihe Bank could be withdrawn.
Manager Liu stared at Lao Gu and said, "How did you get this?"
Lao Gu smiled and said, "Don't worry about that. Just look carefully to see if this piece of paper is real or fake."
Although he had already seen that it was true, it was a serious matter, so Manager Liu did not dare to be careless. He said, "Wait a minute!" and put down the envelope and ran out.
Old Gu was not in a hurry either. He drank his wine and ate his snacks without any hurry.
