America 1881: They Call Me Legend

Chapter 257 Ningyang Guild Hall
"No. 230, Mengjinmali Street?" Li Sifu took the note in his hand and compared it with the house number one by one.

On the street behind, yellow-skinned Chinese carrying burdens passed by one after another. They walked in a hurry and turned their heads to glance at them from time to time.

People riding horses are rare in San Francisco's Chinatown.

"Hey, fellow, may I ask where this place is?" Li Sifu stopped one of them and asked.

The Chinese worker looked at him blankly.

Obviously, he could neither read nor understand Li Sifu's Hunan dialect.

Chen Jianqiu got off his horse, took the paper from Li Sifu, and communicated with the Chinese worker in Cantonese.

Hua Gong finally started to speak.

Although the two spoke Cantonese, their accents seemed quite different, but the Chinese worker finally figured out what they were looking for.

"Go straight along this street, turn left to a three-story building, and there you are."

After Chen Jianqiu thanked him, he got on his horse again.

Not long after, a dozen horses stopped at the door of a guild hall.

"Ning~yang~hui~ hall." Li Sifu raised his head, glanced at the plaque on the main entrance, and read out one word at a time.

"Well, I've made some progress recently, and I can finally get into the literacy book." Chen Jianqiu stood in front of him, with his hands behind his back, looking up at the plaque.

"The hometown association established by Xinning (author's note: today's Taishan) people in San Francisco should now be the largest Chinese association in San Francisco."

Chen Jianqiu said.

Most of the Chinese laborers entered the United States through the port of San Francisco. Generally speaking, Chinese laborers of Cantonese origin would stay in California and join associations in their hometowns, while those of other native origins were not so lucky.

Due to the number and language, they could not form a large-scale association organization, so they could only continue to march inland together with the Pacific Railway.

Just as Chen Jianqiu was about to raise his foot and step over the threshold, he suddenly remembered something.

He turned his head and glanced at the dozen or so people behind him.

Since the last battle in the valley, Chen Jianqiu personally selected seven or eight Chinese with better conditions to form a team of about [-] people based on the Chinese in that operation.

Chen Jianqiu asked Zhang Danian to choose a name, the old man scratched his head for a long time, and mentioned "Longxiang".

Therefore, this team was called Longxiang Team.

They received personal training from Abiot and Chen Jianqiu, all equipped with the most advanced weapons and the strongest horses.

A watery black jacket and cowboy hat.

But Chen Jianqiu only brought Li Sifu and a dozen of them with him when he came to San Francisco this time.

Others have their own affairs.

If the dozen or so armed men went in with him, it might cause some misunderstandings.

"Just wait outside, Sifu and I can just go in." Chen Jianqiu waved at them.

Then, he turned around and stepped into the door.

This guild hall looks inconspicuous from the outside, but when you walk in, you find it unusual.

Just after entering the door, there is a screen with exquisite carvings and exquisite workmanship. Going inside, there are four characters "Li, Shan, Zhong, Xin" written on it.

Going further in, it became lively. There is a stage in front of the hall, which is usually only used for singing or other things.

There are many square tables under the stage. At this time, some Chinese businessmen are sitting at the table, drinking tea and chatting.

One of them, a middle-aged man in a gray silk robe, put down the teacup in his hand as soon as Chen Jianqiu entered the door, and his eyes stopped on him.

Chen Jianqiu's gaze was in contact with him for a few seconds, and the middle-aged man looked away.

A young man in a cloth jacket greeted him.

At first, looking at the outfits of the two people in front of him, he hesitated how to speak, but when Chen Jianqiu and Li Sifu took off their cowboy hats, his hanging heart finally fell.

"Excuse me, who are you looking for?" The young man asked cautiously.

He has been in the guild hall for many years, and he still has good eyesight. People who are dressed like this are generally not easy to mess with.

"I'll talk to you." Li Sifu on the side handed over Chen Jianqiu's name card.

The young man looked at the famous post.

It read: Director of Roswell Oil Refinery, Chen Jianqiu.

Although he really doesn't know where Roswell is, he does know the word director.

He didn't dare to neglect, bowed to Chen Jianqiu and said: "Huang Tongshi is on the second floor, please follow me.

Chen Jianqiu and Li Sifu followed the young man up the stairs.

Turning up the stairs is the lobby on the second floor.

The place is smoky and brightly lit. Compared with the hall on the first floor, the atmosphere of the hometown association is even stronger.

In the center of the hall on the second floor, Second Lord Guan is enshrined!
Li Sifu was thinking about whether to pay his respects when the young man had already walked to a room next to the hall.

He knocked on the door.

"Come in." A man's voice came from inside.

The door was opened, and Chen Jianqiu and Li Sifu walked in.

Facing the door is an antique coffee table and a wooden sofa, and a tea set is placed on the coffee table.

On the stove by the corner, a pot of boiling water was burning, and the water was gurgling inside the pot.

And the Huang Tong the boy was talking about was sitting at his desk, staring at a newspaper in a daze.

Chen Jianqiu glanced at it. On the newspaper was a photo of a white man pumping his fist and giving a speech.

Seeing Chen Jianqiu coming in, Huang Tong put the newspaper aside and looked up at Chen Jianqiu with a tired expression.

"May I ask what you can do for me?" Huang Tongshi asked in Cantonese.

He thought it was another Chinese cowboy, speaking for his boss.

"I want to recruit some workers for my company." Chen Jianqiu also replied in Cantonese.

Huang Tong was stunned for a moment, the accent didn't look like Xinning's, but it was a bit close.

Li Sifu put the name card that he had just handed to the clerk on the desk of the man opposite him.

Huang Tongshang saw the words "refinery" and "director" on the name post, and the expression on his face changed slightly.

In the United States, the Chinese who work in capable factories or oil refineries are not ordinary people.

He stood up from his seat, picked up the boiling kettle from the corner, walked to the edge of the wooden sofa, made a "please" gesture, motioned Chen Jianqiu to sit down, and himself sat on Chen Jianqiu's oblique chair. opposite.

"I hear your accent, it doesn't look like we are from Xinning, are you?" Tongshi Huang picked out the teacup with a tea tong, picked up the boiling water, and began to iron the tea set.

Chen Jianqiu didn't speak.

In fact, he doesn't know when or where he learned his Cantonese accent, he only knows that he knows it.

Huang Tongshi is a very sensible person, since the person across from him doesn't say anything, there must be his reasons.

He picked out some tea leaves from the teapot on the coffee table and put them into the teapot.

After some operations, the second tea soup was handed to Chen Jianqiu:
The aroma is strong, and the soup is bright yellow-green.

"Xinning's Baiyun tea is hard to get in this place. Everyone here likes to drink coffee." Huang Tongshi smiled, "You just said that you want to recruit workers? How many people will you recruit?"

Chen Jianqiu held out a finger.

"100 people?"

Chen Jianqiu shook his head:
"No, 1000 people."

The movement of Huang Tongshi's hands stopped, and he looked at the young man in front of him in astonishment.

He suddenly felt like laughing.

What an international joke, 1000 people, does this young man know what 1000 people is?

He began to look Chen Jianqiu up and down.

I'm afraid this person is not a liar, is he?
Chen Jianqiu still didn't speak, Li Sifu took out several other name cards and documents from his bag, and handed them to Huang Tongshi.

The above are: Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lincolnshire United Agricultural Company - Chen Jianqiu
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Santa Fe Railroad Company——Chen Jianqiu
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Roswell Gun Manufacturing Company——Chen Jianqiu
……

There are a lot of other messy companies and titles, and those documents are licenses and company information, as well as qualifications for labor recruitment.

Huang Tongshi's eyeballs almost fell off.

What the hell is this? Why have I never heard of it.

After being stunned for a long time, Huang Tongshi finally spoke: "If there are a thousand people, I may need to discuss it with everyone. May I ask, Roswell, where is it?"

Chen Jianqiu shook his head: "Time is very tight, and I would like to trouble you to contact the Chinese Association for me, and ask them to help me."

Huang Tongshi fell into silence.

"Let's go." Chen Jianqiu stood up and walked out of the door of the room.

When passing by the lobby on the second floor, he walked up to the statue of Guan Gong, and offered a stick of incense to this foreign god.

When Chen Jianqiu walked out of the hall gate.

The curtains on the third floor of the guild hall were pulled open, and a person looked downstairs through the curtains.

After watching Chen Jianqiu walk away, he closed the curtains and muttered to himself, "This is impossible!"

　One more, two more later
　　Recommend a book that hits shelves today, very, very, very wild
　　


(End of this chapter)