Chapter 122: The natives of the Tang Dynasty are very dark
Lin Wanwan put away the letter from the so-called "senior brother", looked at Sun Yao who was kneeling on the ground, and said softly: "Get up, stop kneeling. Tell me, is the journey going well?"
Sun Yaoyao got up and replied: "With the blessing of the master, there was no danger along the way. Although we encountered a storm, nothing on our boat was lost."
Lin Wanwan nodded and asked, "Didn't you encounter any water bandits?"
Sun Huiyao shook his head: "The fleet of Huizhou merchants is huge, and ordinary water bandits don't dare to mess with it."
Lin Wanwan thought that she was lucky. There were so many valuable things on board, and there was no force on the ship. There was only a sun hoe and twenty fishing guns and crossbows. She was also worried that the Huizhou merchants would take advantage of the evil, but it turned out that there was no such thing.
.
It seems that the name of the Xiao family and Xiao Chong, the magistrate of Luan County, is somewhat useful. After all, Huizhou merchants' maritime trade depends on the port of Luan County, and the county magistrate is now in charge.
In the early Tang Dynasty and the previous dynasties, the management of maritime trade had always been vested in local governors. The central court did not covet the rest of the profits from maritime trade, except for some regular offerings.
Even though the central government of the Tang Dynasty later began to set up municipal shipping envoys (usually eunuchs) to intervene in municipal shipping matters and manage Tibetan ships, until the fall of the Tang Dynasty, local governors still had the main power to manage municipal shipping.
After knowing that there were no military incidents along the way, Lin Wanwan asked again: "Xiao Ming's Mansion has already interrogated you? How did you answer?"
Sun Cheyao recounted the conversation between Xiao Chong and him three days ago, word for word.
After Lin Wanwan thought for a moment, she stood up and said, "Okay, then you can follow me from now on."
"Yes, ma'am."
Lin Wanwan asked again: "How are those children doing all the way here?"
Sun Cheyao replied: "A few of them were seasick at first and vomited violently. After more than ten days, they got used to it. I asked them to wait in the back cabin. Does the master want to see them?"
Lin Wanwan said: "Well, let's call them all."
Sun Huiyao responded, and Lin Wanwan thought that in order to legitimize these little beggars from their status as wanderers, she had been blackmailed by Xiao Chong for a large sum of money.
Fortunately, she used pepper to cover it all, so she didn't feel bad.
But Lin Wanwan had a new understanding of Xiao Chong's evil heart and the provisions of Tang Law.
This Xiao Chong has a flawless pretty face for nothing, but he is simply black. In vain, she always calls her cousin "older" and "cousin shorter".
It's just a few children who just turn a blind eye and insist on extorting so much money from her. She doesn't believe that Xiao Chong can really enforce the law so impartially. It's probably just because the county government is building it and there is a shortage of weirs.
money!
She had heard that all the squires in Luang County had been blackmailed by him for some unknown reason, and this time it was finally her turn.
Don’t think too much about this matter, the more you think about it, the more it will make your teeth itch!
Lin Wanwan took a few deep breaths and waved Xiao Chong's handsome face that seemed to be smiling but not smiling out of her mind. After a while, ten little beggars who had become her servants were brought to her by Sun Chueyao.
A month later, Lin Wanwan's dress had changed drastically. In addition, when she first met these little beggars, she was wearing a hat and a veil. Naturally, none of the little beggars recognized her at this time.
Lin Wanwan calmed down and said calmly: "Do you have a name? Tell them all."
The ten little beggars, who were washed clean and put on new winter clothes, looked at each other and replied in a flurry of words: "My name is Donkey Dan."
"My name is Ergou."
"I'm Ah Huang."
"Okay, okay." Lin Wanwan stopped their replies, "These are not really surnames. You are arranged according to age, but do you all know your own age?"
Among the ten children, only one nodded, and the remaining nine shook their heads.
They were all orphans who lost their parents at a very young age. They followed the beggars on the docks to steal chickens and dogs, and begged to survive. They were the tools for the beggars to ask for mercy from the nobles. Who could remember their own birthday?
Lin Wanwan sighed and said, "Then let's rank them according to their height. Now you are considered servants of my Lin family. If you be obedient from now on, you will have something to eat."
After admonishing the children for a few words, Lin Wanwan waved them away.
Most of these little beggars, who are only five or six to seven or eight years old, are still ignorant.
Due to the strict boundaries between good and bad in the Tang Dynasty, the children and grandchildren of untouchables will always be untouchables. If they want to be good, it is useless even if their masters sell themselves to the family and they will have to be pardoned by the court (very rarely). Moreover, slaves and untouchables are treated differently than livestock.
, the legal status is extremely low.
So originally Lin Wanwan just wanted to raise them until they grow up. If they are willing to stay in the Lin family, they can stay, and if they want to leave, they can leave. When they turn sixteen, they will be given a chance to choose freely, and there will be no such thing as a contract of sale.
.
Of course, Lin Wanwan was 90% sure that this group of people would stay, and she was originally training them to be helpers. As for children, she still didn't believe that she couldn't teach them well.
But she didn't expect that Xiao Chong would now become slaves for them all, so Lin Wanwan had no choice but to accept it.
Alas, with the huge mountain of prostitution, the possibility of raising white-eyed wolves is impossible, but it is really a sin to make such a group of children slaves.
Now that things have come to this, let’s start the brainwashing education.
After completing the handover procedures, the fishermen from Linjiazhuang drove their new boats away from the south pier and rode the wind and waves to their own clan's small pier.
Lin Wanwan wandered around the boat and came to Guan Xiaoxiang's cabin. As soon as she opened the door, the baby elephant rushed towards her excitedly like a lonely child seeing its mother.
Lin Wanwan didn't expect that a month later, the baby elephant would still remember her. She couldn't help but feel relieved and took a radish out of the bag to feed it.
The little elephant rolled up the carrot with its long trunk and started eating it. The nearly month of cabin life did not make it sluggish, and Lin Wanwan was quite surprised.
After it finished eating, Lin Wanwan took Kunlun and the baby elephant and began to inspect her cargo under the tarpaulin on the ship. Sure enough, there was nothing missing.
Lin Wanwan came to the place where she hid the life jacket and fishing gun and crossbow, and mysteriously called Lin Mengbo over and pointed it out to him.
"Cousin, these are imported goods. This piece of clothing is called a life jacket. It can be used to hold you up in the water. It is more buoyant than wood. When you go out to sea and encounter a heavy rain, put on a life jacket to protect yourself. If you accidentally fall into the sea, you will not be afraid of sinking.
"
Lin Mengbo picked up a simple life jacket and looked at it. He quickly figured out how to put it on and said with a smile: "This is a good thing."
Lin Wanwan picked up a fishing gun crossbow and the matching steel balls, fish darts and high-power wire, put it in Lin Mengbo's hand and said: "This is for shooting fish, you try it."
Originally, this set of fishing crossbows actually came with a matching laser sight, but it was dismantled by Lin Wanwan. It was better not to bring something that was too advanced. The material of this crossbow itself was already at the level of the Tang Dynasty's industrial level.