There were only a few hundred people on the boat, and most of them were poor. There were only so many people who were really willing to spend a couple of silver to go to Yunjing to paint. After all, the stuff was inedible, so after the initial novelty, they went to go to Yunjing.
There are fewer and fewer people painting.
As a result, Yunjing's business of making money by helping people paint on the ship only lasted three days before he could no longer continue.
On the first day, he gained more than fifty taels of silver, and on the second day, he earned more than twenty taels. On the third day, from morning to afternoon, he only painted a total of five paintings.
All in all, Yunjing earned about eighty taels of silver on the boat. After earning the ship's fare, he still had more than thirty taels more.
Although the painting business could no longer continue, he still made money, and Yunjing was still very happy.
"Brother Yun, aren't you bored? I don't know if anyone will come to you to paint. Why bother setting up a stall?"
At noon on the fourth day, although there were no customers, Yunjing still kept the stall open. Luo Zheng had nothing to do on the boat, and he didn't know many people. He was so idle that he came to accompany Yunjing and chat with him.
Time to pass the time.
Yunjing took a book and read it slowly. Hearing the words, he smiled and said: "It doesn't matter. Anyway, I am idle. If someone comes, I will make money."
"I really admire your patience. If I had been sitting around like you for a long time and no one came, I would have given up on it a long time ago," Luo Zheng said with a thumbs up.
Yunjing shook his head and said speechlessly: "Relatively speaking, I admire your patience, Brother Luo."
"Why?" Luo Zheng asked in shock.
Yun Jing said: "Isn't this obvious? I can sit here all day without feeling bored, but you have been bored with me, a boring person, for so long. Aren't you more patient than me?"
Blinking, Luo Zheng thought about it for a moment, and said with a smile: "Haha, it's true." After a pause, he added: "What, actually, I think it's a loss for those people not to come to you to paint."
"Brother Luo, why did you say this?"
Luo Zheng grinned and said: "Brother Yun, anyway, I think you will be very promising in the future. Now no one pays attention to a painting for just one tael of silver. When you become famous all over the world in the future, it will be hard to buy a painting worth ten thousand yuan.
Tell me, how miserable will those people suffer in the future? I think their intestines will be filled with regret."
"Brother Luo, you're teasing me with this again," Yunjing curled his lips.
Luo Zheng stood up, started to take off his clothes, and said carelessly: "That's what I feel anyway."
"Brother Luo, are you here again?" Seeing him starting to take off his clothes, Yunjing was speechless.
Luo Zheng, who had stripped down to his pants, revealing a strong body, flexed his muscles and said, "It's boring. Brother Yun, please watch and salute me. I'll go for a swim in the river."
As he spoke, he jumped a few meters high, drew an arc, and fell headlong into the river. The water spray was so heavy that Yun Jing would have put the Olympic champion in his previous life to shame. He didn't know how deep he had dived.
No matter how far you have to swim, you won’t show up for a while anyway.
"This guy is not afraid of being swallowed by a big fish in the river."
Shaking his head, Yunjing ignored him. Anyway, he often did similar things these days.
At this moment, some young girls and young wives in the distance were pointing and cursing at Yun Jing, saying nothing more than Luo Zheng had a cold and was immoral.
It's shameless for Luo Zheng to look like that in broad daylight.
However, since you think Luo Zheng has a bad cold and covers his eyes with the quilt, why are his fingers so spread apart?
Hey, woman...
"Um?"
After a while, Luo Zheng didn't come up, but Yunjing found that the cargo ship had slowed down and was still approaching the river. The problem was that there were no docks or towns on the river, so why did it slow down and move closer? Even if it was for supplies,
You need to find a town dock or something to dock.
"Mr. Yun, there is no village or store in front of you, and the boat seems to be docking at the shore. Do you know what happened?"
Bai Zhi, who was in the same cabin, came to Yunjing with a dagger and asked.
After getting along with each other for a few days, the two of them have become very familiar with each other. Bai Zhi rolled her eyes when she saw Luo Zheng's clothes next to Yun Jing, knowing what the other person was doing, so she was not surprised.
Yunjing shook his head and said, "I don't know either."
After thinking about it, he simply closed the stall, since no customers came anyway.
At this time, a sailor from the cargo ship came over. Yunjing asked by the way: "Brother, why does the ship feel like it's stopping?"
The sailor untied the rope of the sail and cooperated with others to lower the sail. He replied: "Master Huiyun, it's like this. Not far ahead there will be a section of the river with nearly twenty miles of fast current. In that section
The water area is simply not large enough to pass through with the sails of cargo ships and rowing boats, so it is necessary to dock at the riverside and hire enough trackers to pull the boat through that section of the river."
"Well, this cargo ship is quite large and carries so much cargo, so you probably need to hire a lot of trackers, right?" Yun Jing suddenly said after hearing this.
Yunjing has only heard of the occupation of trackers, but has never seen one. People in this occupation are very hard-working. They usually make a living by the rivers with fast currents, helping others pull boats to earn some hard money.
In Yunjing's previous life, there was an old song called Tracker's Love, which sang about this kind of profession.
Sister, you sit on the bow of the boat, and brother walks on the shore...
However, the song was a bit romantic, singing about the love and love of the trackers, and did not mention the hard work of the profession of trackers at all.
The sailor who talked to Yun Jing said: "It does require a lot of people. I have been running on the river for many years, and I know very well that based on the amount of cargo we can carry this time, we will probably need two to three thousand trackers to cooperate this time. Today
It is estimated that there is no time to pass that section of the river. If everything goes well, we will hire enough manpower to set sail tomorrow morning, and we will be able to pass the twenty-mile section of the river in the afternoon."
Bai Zhi stared slightly when she heard this and said, "Invite two or three thousand people? How much will it cost?"
"Haha, girl, you're worrying too much. In fact, it doesn't cost much. Each tracker only has one or twenty copper coins at most, so it's a matter of several hundred taels of silver in total," the sailor said with a smile.
Bai Zhi was slightly silent after hearing this, and murmured: "They pull boats against the current, and they only earn ten or twenty coppers in a day?"
"No, there are just a lot of people rushing to do it. The girl doesn't know that there are at least tens of thousands of trackers making a living in that section of the river with fast currents. You will know when the boat docks. The riverside there is densely packed with people.
The trackers built shacks, hey, they are all poor people, hey, who am I to pity them? They are making a living on a boat, in the wind and rain, and they can't make a few taels of silver all year round. Maybe they have work to do every day.
He earns more than me." The sailor shook his head and said, very talkative.
Yunjing also felt this and said to Bai Zhi: "Miss Bai, hard work is actually very cheap. What you earn is hard-earned money."
There is another sentence that Yun Jing did not say, which is that hard work like trackers is actually making money with their lives.
They eat poorly, do heavy physical work, and generally do not live long. After the peak period of their lives in their forties or fifties, their physical condition will deteriorate rapidly. Most of them will die in a few years. Even if they survive for a few more years, most of them will be plagued by illness.
The pain was endless.
Who would engage in such hard work if there was no other way?
"Master Yun is right, but then again, the work of a tracker is a bit hard, but it can also earn some money to support the family. Those who can't even find a place to work hard are pitiful."
The sailor answered...
Next, the cargo ship slowly docked and anchored about 10 to 20 meters away from the river. Then the cargo ship lowered a small boat and approached to discuss inviting the trackers.
At this time, Yunjing and the others saw that the riverside was densely packed with shacks built by trackers. They were too numerous to count. It was difficult for the shacks to provide shelter from wind and rain, let alone provide a living environment.
Mosquitoes were flying all over the sky, and all kinds of excrement were everywhere. It was impossible to get down. And in that environment, there were many black, thin and malnourished children playing "carefree".
In such an environment, once an infectious disease occurs, the consequences will be disastrous!
When their cargo ship stopped on the river, trackers one after another emerged from the countless shacks, looking eagerly at this side, hoping to get a job.
But whether they can do this hard work is not decided by them, nor by their physical fitness, but by the gangs here!
Wherever there are people, there are rivers and lakes. These trackers gather together, and everyone wants to find a job to make money, but there are so many people, and the boats can't take so many people. Fighting for jobs is inevitable, so they form a group to keep warm.
The situation of forming factions came into being.
With an organization, there will naturally be people who get something for nothing. The upper levels of the gang manage the trackers and connect with the ships that need trackers, thus making money on both sides.
This kind of thing is unavoidable. It is unrealistic for the government to ban gangs, because once there is no restraint and balance of gangs, it will only be easy for tens of thousands of unorganized trackers to get into armed fights. Once it happens, it will not result in the death or injury of one or two people.
Something happened!
Therefore, those at the bottom will always suffer.
But as long as you can still live, it doesn't matter if you are a little bit tired, a little bit aggrieved, and a little bit wronged...
Plop.
The water surface broke, and Luo Zheng, who had taken a swim in the river, jumped out of the water and landed on the deck. He was wet and couldn't help complaining: "Why did this broken ship pull over? It made me swim more than ten miles. Don't say, this time
I felt so relieved when I came down..."
As he was talking, he found that Yunjing and others were not in high spirits, so he asked in shock: "What's wrong with you?"
"Brother Luo, it's okay, I just feel a little unhappy when I see the poor life of those trackers..." Bai Zhi pointed to the shack in the distance and sighed.
After understanding the details, Luo Zheng thought for a while and said: "If I have the opportunity to cultivate martial arts in the future, I can try to level the bottom of this section of the river. This should end the suffering of these people."
Yun Jing immediately shook his head and said: "Brother Luo, please don't do that. Even if you have the ability in the future, don't do that."
"Why?" Luo Zheng asked confused.
Looking at the shacks, Yunjing sighed slightly: "Brother Luo, your idea is good, but have you ever thought about it. Although it is a bit hard for trackers to pull boats on this section of the river, they still support so many people."
People, if you have the ability to level them in the future, where will these people go to make a living?"
"Uh..." Luo Zheng didn't know how to answer for a moment.
In fact, think about it, are there few people in the world who have the ability to widen and flatten this section of the river? Why has no one done this? It’s not because this place can support tens of thousands of people. Once this place is flattened and widened, the water flow will become smoother and passing ships will no longer be able to flow.
If trackers are needed, where will the tens of thousands of people go to earn a living?
The cargo ship has dedicated people to contact the regular trackers' gangs to discuss the number of people.
Early the next morning, the cargo ship set sail again.
But what is different from before is that when the cargo ship sets sail again, a large iron chain stretches out in front, and then ropes are connected to the chain. On the other end of the rope, there are thousands of trackers on the shore.
Nearly three thousand trackers, bare-chested and barefoot, tied the rope to themselves and walked for hundreds of meters. They gritted their teeth and dragged the rope, which was almost cut into their flesh. Their bodies leaned forward, almost maintaining an angle of 45 degrees with the ground.
, using all his strength, he dragged the cargo ship upstream little by little.
It was a difficult journey of nearly twenty miles. The trackers could not stop or relax at all. They had to walk for a whole day. Otherwise, if they could not drag the cargo ship into this section of the river, they would not be able to get the money.
The cargo ship retreated, and under the strong pulling force, the lives of those trackers were still in danger!
They dragged the cargo ship, chanted neat chants repeatedly, and slowly moved upriver step by step.
"Hey yo... let's go, hey yo... go, take one step, you can earn money, take two steps, you can earn rice, take three steps, you will sweat a lot, take four steps, don't
Crying, walking in five steps, the girl is waving, walking in six steps, putting money in the pocket, walking in seven steps, putting rice in the pot, walking in eight steps, putting on clothes, walking in nine steps, my son is urging me
, Walk ten steps, home is behind, walk and walk, the tracker is not afraid of the current of the river, but is afraid that there will be no work to do on the river bank, hey yo...go, hey yo...go...one step at a time
ah……"
…
This chapter has been completed!