"No wonder that's the case. I, Master Huo, have a high prestige here. Many people come just by saying hello."
Ma Kui said:
"That's right, at the Liaojia Pier next to here, at least two to three thousand people carry bags and earn a living here every day! It's hard to live on the wharf, and it's inevitable that someone will get injured. Master Huo's family has been practicing medicine here for two generations.
, always doing good deeds and helping those who have no money."
"This is not just a day or two of practicing good deeds, it is a matter of good popularity accumulated over two generations. I heard that even if the deputy leader of the Pai Gang comes here, his prestige is not as high as that of Master Huo!"
Fang Linyan pondered for a while and said:
"Master Huo seems to be a gentle man, but he doesn't seem to know any martial arts?"
Ma Kui said:
"Young Master Liu, you are mistaken. Master Huo has been very strong since he was a child. When he was sixteen or seventeen years old, he could carry seven to eight hundred kilograms of medicinal materials at home and run away."
"Not only that, he also became a disciple of the old Taoist who gave him fortune-telling in the past, learned the Hong Quan, and also practiced the special Wudang inner martial art of fishing toad strength, which even a dozen people can't get close to."
While the two were chatting, Master Huo had already walked in with Wang Wu. This time when he arrived at Fang Linyan, he immediately bowed deeply to Fang Linyan:
"Sixth Young Master has ruined his family and established his country. Please accept Huo's worship."
Fang Linyan did not refuse, stood upright and bowed to him, and then bowed back deeply:
"The Japanese are rampant and the country is in turmoil. If they succeed easily, the consequences will be extremely serious. The rest of England, Russia, and France will think that China is extremely weak and treat it as a big fat meat. At that time, it is inevitable
If it triggers the frenzy of the great powers to carve up China, we may risk the destruction of our country and our species!"
"Although I am trying my best to save everything, I still feel that I am weak and weak. I don't know if Master Huo can accompany me on this dangerous road of near death?"
Master Huo said word for word:
"I have my wish, but I don't dare to ask for it!"
***
In the next two days, Fang Linyan could only spend the next two days waiting. All the cards in his hand had been exhausted. To be honest, he could only wait for the situation on Song Yuren's side.
It's just that the situation in the past two days has inevitably worsened in a direction favorable to Japan...
The outstanding performance of the Huai Army in North Korea was just a flash in the pan, and then collapsed at the first touch. Ye Zhichao's troops even showed an extraordinary "stunt skill", flying two hundred miles day and night, but it was not an attack, but a runaway.
The foreign guns and cannons that Li Gongzhang spent a lot of money to buy were simply abandoned in the muddy water.
What's more, now that the waterway is cut off, Japan continues to increase its troops. The number of troops in Korea is close to 10,000, while the Huai army only has 6,000 troops at full strength.
Under such circumstances, even if the current Japanese army is not the powerful modern army that forty years later would occupy the three eastern provinces in the west, resist the Soviets in the north, attack the United States in the east, and invade Southeast Asia in the south, it has not even experienced the Russo-Japanese War.
But it was still not something that the Huai army could contend with at this time.
Not only that, under the crisis public relations of the Japanese, many British media began to favor the Japanese side when discussing the sunken British merchant ship.
Just yesterday, The Times, which was founded in 1785, also published an editorial on this incident, and even used related words like the merchant ship "bringing it to itself". Of course, this editorial = 8,000 pounds.
Brown, the deputy president of the House of Commons, said that we should not be blinded by superficial things. Those who are always trying to challenge the authority of the sun are our serious problems. These words = 5,000
GBP.
Russia's attitude continues to fall into a strange ambiguity.
Among these confusing messages, Fang Linyan couldn't figure out how much of it came from the promoters of the space warriors, and how much came from the spontaneous evolution of the international situation.
However, Fang Linyan estimated that it would take at least a month for Song Yuren to get any definite news, and it was not his style to wait quietly.
Therefore, after making sure that the rotten corpse poison was completely removed from his body, Fang Linyan entrusted all the affairs of Qiao's store to Wang Wu:
What Wang Wu did was very simple. He supervised the shopkeepers of the Qiao family to sell foreign goods at the price specified by Fang Linyan, then helped collect the money, and then remitted most of the money to Mr. Song, a Song Yuren in the UK.
After confirming that Fang Linyan really easily spent hundreds of thousands or millions of money to fight against the Japanese, Master Huo was also greatly shocked. He immediately dropped all matters at the drug store and volunteered to help.
.
With these two people to assist him in executing his plan, Fang Linyan was preparing to go to Japan. Unexpectedly, he met Hu Xueming again before leaving.
At this time, Hu Xueming looked much better. At least he was not the same as before with a disheveled face and a gray face. When he arrived at Fang Linyan, he strode over with a smile on his face. He really seemed to have no grudges. On the contrary, Fang Linyan got up.
Very guilty...
"Good nephew, good nephew!!"
Hu Xueming took Fang Linyan's hand intimately and said:
"I would have known that my wise nephew would be the best among men, and his future would be limitless..." (Omit two hundred words here)
Fang Linyan was really impatient and said directly:
"If you have something to say, just say it."
Hu Xueming took out a box from his arms and said with a smile:
"The sun was nice yesterday, so I asked my family to take out the old books to dry them, and suddenly I found something, which was left by my fourth brother back then. I thought this thing might be useful to my nephew, so I gave it to my nephew.
Take a look..."
Fang Linyan left the thing behind. It turned out to be a pamphlet called "Taoyuan Collection".
He then took a rough look and realized that this thing was a manuscript. The preface basically made it clear that this was when the cheap old man was studying. In the spring, he and a group of classmates went to a peach garden somewhere to enjoy the flowers, and then a group of scholars
I started chanting and writing poems.
This booklet records the masterpieces of these scholars.
Ancient parties such as garden gatherings are very popular among scholars. The most famous one is a group of people in the Jin Dynasty who drank at Lanting, drank poison (taking Five Stone Powder), bragged, used big swords, and chanted in passing.
poetry.
Then they organized a Lanting Collection. However, what made their big sword gathering spread through the ages was an old man named Wang who took advantage of the crooked mouth after drinking to write a note for this collection.
Preface, and then write a masterpiece...
It's a pity that the booklet left by Fang Linyan's cheap dad was very mediocre.
Whether it is the words or the quality of the poems in it - there are even famous lines such as "The peach blossoms are all red, and Tweety is among them" which is enough to stun the audience.
Therefore, Fang Linyan simply threw the thing back, then shook his head and said indifferently:
"I'm not interested in this."
Hu Xueming didn't expect Fang Linyan's reaction to be so indifferent, because according to the current customs, the "late father's" articles must be kept carefully, and at all costs, and he must shed tears of gratitude when he gets them back.
How come table wine is like throwing away trash like Fang Linyan?
"You are unworthy of your descendants! You are unworthy of your descendants!"
Hu Xueming cursed ten thousand times in his heart, but he still could only catch the book with quick eyesight and quick hands, but he also caught it in a hurry. The pages of the book were scattered, and suddenly something like a bookmark fell from it.
Floating and floating in the air.
At this time, in Fang Linyan's eyes, the "bookmark" actually gave off a faint light. He was moved in his heart and hurriedly reached out to grab it. He realized that the material of the bookmark was not quite right.
At this time, there are wooden bookmarks, leaf bookmarks, silk bookmarks, etc., but the material of this bookmark is very strange, it actually looks like leather.
Suddenly, a prompt appeared in front of Fang Linyan:
"You have obtained a mysterious item: unknown leather."
"This prop will trigger a unique mission. This mission is unique to this world. It may involve supernatural aspects. The dangers involved are at least fatal to you at the moment."
"If you are interested in this, find someone who is interested in this leather."
After receiving this series of prompts, Fang Linyan was stunned:
"Oh, this cheap man's relics actually lead to a hidden mission? And it's even more dangerous?"
Before he came to this world, he also conducted various investigations and immediately caught a series of key words in the mission description:
"Supernatural, unique to this world, and relatively dangerous... This world is in the Qing Dynasty at this time, and the famous writer was also in the Qing Dynasty. Could it be... Liaozhai
Are there any related tasks inside?”
After so many thoughts flashed through his mind, Fang Linyan suddenly found that Hu Xueming in front of him was much more pleasing to his eyes, and then he naturally stepped forward, took back the "Taoyuan Collection", and stuffed the "bookmark" back.
"I thought about it. Since it belongs to my late father, I think about it, so I might as well keep it."
Then Fang Linyan gave Hu Xueming another banknote:
"Uncle Qi has preserved this thing until now. He has no credit but hard work. Let's take it and have a cup of tea."
Hu Xueming didn't care about his dignity and opened the banknote on the spot. After that, he was overjoyed because Fang Linyan actually gave him two hundred taels of silver.
For him, what he originally expected was just a hundred taels and he would be satisfied. He immediately bowed and bowed, pouring out basketfuls of free words...
***
After this episode, Fang Linyan started rushing along the canal from Tianjin to Shanghai. From Shanghai, he could then take a boat to Naha Port in Ryukyu, and then from Ryukyu to Kobe Port in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan.
Under normal circumstances, it would only take a day and a night to go directly from Tianjin Port to Nagasaki, Japan. However, if Fang Linyan made such a big circle, it would take at least almost a week even if he had to travel overnight at all costs!
After arriving in Shanghai, Fang Linyan stayed here for almost a day, asking people everywhere about the bookmark, but of course he found nothing.
Fortunately, he was not short of money now. He also met a Western hospital in the concession, so he replenished some medicine there, then bought a ferry ticket and left the port.
His luck was really not that good this time. He spent a full eight days on the road. Although he made a big circle, he avoided the range of Japan's combined fleet patrolling at this time and could absolutely ensure safety.
However, Fang Linyan can travel on this road, but it is difficult for large quantities of imported foreign goods to travel. Tianjin Port has been completely blocked. Foreign goods can only be transported to Shanghai, and then taken overland to Tianjin, BJ.
During this period, it was troublesome enough to travel almost two thousand miles by land. Not to mention the freight costs, the key point was that it was a drop in the bucket. At that time, the cargo throughput of a merchant ship could reach more than a thousand tons. The cargo of this ship reached Tianjin
/The capital requires two thousand carriages to load it, which is really incomparable with shipping by sea.
As for the famous water transport, it has long since declined. As early as 1848, almost fifty years ago, because the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was in disrepair, the Qing government had already begun to transport grain by sea, hoping that foreign goods would be delivered by water ship.
It is even more impossible to go to Beijing, so the prices of foreign goods are still strong.
Needless to say, there was no need to describe the ups and downs along the way. When Fang Linyan set foot on Japanese soil, he received several pieces of news that shook him to the core.
The first news is that the Indochina Steamship Company, the owner of the sunken British merchant ship, actually filed a lawsuit against the Qing government!!
After seeing this news, Fang Linyan really felt that this was really nonsense! It was the Japanese who sank the Gaosheng. Why the hell are you suing China? China is also a victim.
Fang Linyan looked more carefully and found that the other party actually made a lot of nonsense, and he also made it sound:
It is believed that the Huai Army failed to clearly inform the Gaosheng about the risks of transporting cargo, which resulted in the Gaosheng being engaged in transporting ground combat troops that was hostile (to Japan).
Therefore, China should clearly know that this will result in being intercepted by the Japanese army and captured as trophies.
Therefore, the Qing government should bear responsibility for this and compensate for the corresponding losses, with a total price of 33,411 pounds.
What's even more outrageous is that a secret message from the Qing Dynasty was leaked, saying that it was Lafayette's edict that as long as the foreigners could make her worry less, she would just pay compensation, and it wouldn't be much money, so she could avoid disaster and lose money.
Such remarks really caused the whole country to be in an uproar.
The second news is that all the Qing Dynasty's troops in Korea were destroyed. Only less than 800 of the 6,000 Huai army escaped. And these 800 people suddenly mutinied at the beginning of the war, betrayed the flanks of the friendly forces and fled directly.
of.
The person who led these eight hundred people away was Ye Zhichao, the most powerful person in North Korea in the Qing Dynasty...
The third news is that many Oxford and bridge scholars published newspapers to defend Japan's attack on the Gao Sheng.
In the first maritime hearing held two days ago, more than 40% of the members believed that the Gaosheng was serving Japan's enemies and that the Japanese military had the right to sink or detain it.