A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 686 Robbery
During this period, Li Yu went to Shanghai again, mainly for the Red Cross fundraising activities.

There was really no way. During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the domestic disasters were too severe, including several major droughts, which resulted in the death toll reaching tens of millions.

There was not much rain this spring, which was a very bad sign, so Li Yu contacted the Red Cross in Shanghai to make some preparations in advance, raise emergency supplies, and buy more food from abroad.

Li Yu personally provided 20 oceans, enough to buy six or seven million kilograms of grain.

Although the numbers seem large, it would be very difficult to deal with if the disaster area was a little larger. We could only barely get through a few weeks of hard times, and then we would have to continue to find ways to raise supplies.

When returning from Shanghai, Li Yu met several representatives sent by the Rockefeller Foundation and French scholar Sang Zhihua.

Sang Zhihua is a paleontologist and has built two museums in China in recent years.

Li Yu chatted with him and asked, "Mr. Sang, are you going to continue expanding the museum?"

Sang Zhihua said: "It is very likely that I will go north along the Yellow River and continue to excavate ancient culture. Although I don't know what the results will be, I am full of hope."

To be honest, Chinese archaeology was still in its infancy at that time, and most of the people doing archaeology were foreigners.

Li Yu asked: "Ancient culture?"

Sang Zhihua said: "I have dug up some relics of prehistoric civilization, which are estimated to be tens of thousands of years old."

"It is difficult to estimate the age of relics of prehistoric culture," said Li Yu.

Sang Zhihua said: "That's right, we can only make a rough estimate based on geological ages."

He later unearthed some Late Paleolithic fossils in the Hetao area of ​​the Yellow River.

Li Yu said leisurely: "If we use the half-life of elements, we can actually estimate the age of the cultural relics more accurately."

"Half what?" Sang Zhihua asked.

"It's the achievement that won Professor Rutherford the Nobel Prize in Chemistry," said Li Yu.

Sang Zhihua said: "It turned out to be chemistry, which is beyond my ability."

His words inspired Li Yu. He believed that he could work with several domestic chemists to master the carbon-14 dating method which had not yet been introduced. This would definitely be a discovery worth the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

-

The train continued to head north. Before dawn the next day, the speed suddenly slowed down and a few sharp gunshots woke everyone up.

A few minutes later, the train stopped completely. Looking through the window, we saw that thousands of bandits surrounded the train.

"Get off the car, get off the car!" Several bandits shouted back and forth on horseback.

Li Yu and other passengers had no choice but to get off the bus and wait and see.

After everyone got off, hundreds of bandits immediately and skillfully unloaded the cargo from the train and moved it onto the horse-drawn carriages.

Then, a bandit leader riding a tall horse came up to the crowd. He looked at the spoils and said, "I am Sun Meiyao, the leader of the Autonomous Army. All foreigners, come out first!"

He had an assistant who spoke broken English and translated it haltingly into English.

There were dozens of foreigners on the train, and they were whispering to each other.

Sun Meiyao raised the pistol in her hand and fired a shot into the air: "Don't dawdle!"

"Quickly!" the deputy yelled.

Dozens of foreigners could only take a few steps forward reluctantly.

Sun Meiyao said with satisfaction: "Very good! Send a representative to write a letter to the police and the army, asking them not to act rashly, otherwise I will kill the hostages!"

An American raised his hand and said, "I can speak Chinese and English and can write a letter."

Sun Meiyao glanced at him and asked, "Who are you?"

The American said: "My name is Powell, and I'm an American journalist."

"Reporter?" Sun Meiyao said, "Very good, reporters can write letters!"

Powell asked, "Chief Sun, what do you want to write?"

Sun Meiyao said: "Let the army and police calm down and say we will negotiate and release the hostages at a later date."

Powell was relieved when he heard that he would not really kill him. He asked, "What are the conditions for release?"

Sun Meiyao said: "I haven't thought about it yet, I'll talk about it when the time comes."

While Powell was writing the letter, Sun Meiyao came to the crowd again and said loudly: "I am not some devil. I will not take everyone away. If any of you have any connection with Mr. Sun, or have participated in the Haizhou and Haozhou riots, or have no more than 40 acres of land at home, or have any medical or witchcraft skills, I will let you go!"

Sun Meiyao immediately sent dozens of people to verify their identities one by one.

After seeing Li Yu's ID, a bandit asked in surprise, "So you are on the train too?"

"Do you know me?" Li Yu asked.

The bandit said: "I used to be a Chinese worker sent to France."

Li Yu asked: "Why did you return to your hometown and become a bandit again?"

The bandits said: "We are not bandits, we want to resist!"

Li Yu sighed and said nothing more.

The bandit returned the certificate to Li Yu: "I know you, you are a good person, Mr. Sun also praised you, you can go."

Li Yu said: "These Americans are from the Rockefeller Foundation and they came to China to build schools. Mr. Sang is a Frenchman who is an archaeologist. There is no benefit in arresting him."

The bandit said, "Master Li, we must take the foreigners as hostages."

It seems that the main purpose of this group of people is to rob foreigners, escalate the severity of the situation, and threaten the Beiyang government.

The chaos lasted for most of the day, and the head count was not completed until near noon. Sun Meiyao's large group escorted more than 20 foreigners and 30 Chinese away from the railway line.

They even retreated in a very orderly manner.

The train crew spent several more hours repairing a small section of damaged track before they could restart the train in a panic.

After arriving in the capital, Li Yu saw that the newspaper had reported the "Lincheng Robbery".

The envoys of various countries were very annoyed because few of the foreigners who could come to China at that time were ordinary tourists. Most of them were upper-class people or even diplomats.

The ministers of various countries immediately sent a sternly worded note to the Beiyang government. In their view, this might very well evolve into the next Boxer Rebellion.

Shandong was the territory of the Zhili clique, and Cao Kun immediately ordered the Shandong governor to lead 20,000 troops to Lincheng.

However, the diplomatic corps was worried that Sun Meiyao would kill the hostages, so they decided to negotiate with them.

What’s interesting is that the American journalist Powell has become the representative of Sun Meiyao’s side…

This guy became a famous journalist in the Republic of China period because of this incident.

The final result was that the Beiyang government paid 8.5 silver dollars to the bandits, and the autonomous army was changed into the "Shandong New Brigade." In other words, they were recruited.

However, before she had served as brigade commander for half a year, 25-year-old Sun Meiyao was invited to a "Hongmen Banquet" where more than 600 people were killed by machine guns.

They still have too little experience in struggle.

It is said that reporter Powell was extremely angry when he learned about this, believing that this move violated the agreement signed previously.

-

A few days after this "little incident", Duan Yi, a descendant of Duan Fang, suddenly approached Li Yu and said, "Master Li, my father met you a few times in the past."

Li Yu asked casually: "What's the matter?"

Duan Yi said, "Now that our family is in decline, we have a batch of goods we want to sell."

He said it very tactfully, but he actually just wanted to sell the cultural relics.

Duan Fang served as the Governor-General of Liangjiang during his lifetime. He was very rich and collected a large number of cultural relics. He still has many treasures in his home.

Li Yu was speechless: "What is that?"

Duan Yi said, "A set of bronze tripods from the Shang Dynasty. Previously, through the introduction of Mr. Fu Kaisen, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States was willing to pay 20 yuan to buy it. However, we are afraid that the matter will be leaked and we will have a bad reputation if we sell it to foreigners, so we found you."

This set of tripods in Duan Fang's collection is very impressive. Most of the unearthed bronze artifacts are unlikely to be very complete, let alone a complete set of more than ten pieces, otherwise it would not be possible to get such a price. The key is that there are inscriptions on them, which makes it easy to date.

Li Yu knew that this set of cultural relics was later lost to the United States, and sighed: "Okay, I'll take it over."

Duan Yi said happily: "Great! Not only will I have money, but I won't have to be a traitor!"

Li Yu thought, you also know that there is psychological pressure.

The next day, when he went to Duan Mansion to make the delivery, Li Yu felt as if he had really become a collector.

This was a big deal, enough to make a living for several years. Duan Yi was in a very good mood and said, "Good things should be sold to people who know the value of them! Those ignorant people in the Ministry of Internal Affairs on Di'anmen Street can't sell them at a good price even if they have treasures."

"The Ministry of Internal Affairs?" Li Yu asked.

Duan Yi said: "It's an open secret. People from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the eunuchs in the palace would steal a few treasures from the palace and sell them at any time. This year, they even opened a few antique shops."

Li Yu suddenly remembered that there seemed to be a fire in the Forbidden City this year. It was because Puyi wanted to count the treasures in Jianfu Palace, and Jianfu Palace was burned down that night.

Jianfu Palace is a newly built building in the Forbidden City, which is specially used to store some cultural relics that Emperor Qianlong liked. There are many large suitcases that have never been opened. They are tributes from various places over the years. The seals have been affixed for hundreds of years. It is equivalent to the warehouse with the most cultural relics in the Forbidden City.

The loss of cultural relics caused by this fire was very heavy, and the cause was too absurd. According to Puyi himself, several eunuchs were afraid of being punished, so they used fire to destroy the evidence.

There is only one year left before the small court is driven out of the palace. What a pity!

When Li Yu got home, he wrote a letter to Puyi's teacher Johnston, asking him to tell the abdicated emperor not to mess with the wires and that if he wanted to watch a movie, he could go to the back garden.

——The official response from the Republic of China was that the fire was caused by privately pulling electrical wires, which is indeed a bit far-fetched.

Later, when the fire was being put out, the foreign fire brigade from Dongjiaomin Lane came, and many of the people who were fighting the fire couldn't help but want to go in and steal some cultural relics.

The most crucial part of the letter was that Li Yu agreed that the small court could continue to mortgage the cultural relics to the Salt Bank and reduce the interest rate to the lowest level. Professionals could be hired to value the treasures. The items would be sealed with the Salt Bank's seals and temporarily placed in the Jianfu Palace, but two personnel would be sent to supervise the site and would be inspected and transported away three months later.

After all, Li Yu is a major shareholder of the Salt Bank, so he has this convenience.

Not only would Puyi agree to this condition, but the eunuchs in the Imperial Household Department and the palace would also definitely like it.

After the farce of the small court being mortgaged to HSBC last year, the Republic of China issued the "Draft Law on the Preservation of Ancient Books, Antiquities and Historical Relics", which was obviously aimed at the Qing Palace's sale of cultural relics.

Since then, the Imperial Household Department of the small court has begun to contact domestic banks. The Salt Bank has received two mortgage requests, each asking for 40 yuan. However, the actual value of the treasure is far more than 40 yuan.

The royal family will also be cheated by the pawnshop...

But Salt Bank is much better than HSBC.

With time being allowed and the location chosen as Jianfu Palace, Puyi naturally would not think of conducting an inventory for the time being, because to them, Jianfu Palace was just a warehouse.

The next day, Li Yu received a call from the little emperor: "Hehe, you are Li Daxueshi? You are such a good person! How can you do business like this? You put the things with us and pay us?"

Li Yu said: "I definitely have my own way of doing business. If I do the same as others, then I will be the same as others."

Puyi paused for a moment before he could finish his sentence: "It's fun!" Then he lowered his voice and said: "I think you have too few people to stay on the scene!"

Li Yu asked, "Why? Could it be that there are still rats in the palace?"

"There are a lot!" said Puyi.

Li Yu said, "You can send someone to Di'anmen Street to take a look. There's no need to count the treasury. The palace is too big, and you can't do the counting yourself."

"Di'anmen Street?" Puyi said.

Li Yu said: "There are all treasures from the palace there."

Puyi said angrily: "I knew it!"

Li Yu said calmly, "Don't keep some unnecessary things. They are all people who don't have the necessary things anyway."

Puyi was almost amused: "You talk so interestingly."

After hanging up the phone, Puyi began to feel uneasy.

He is already an adult, and the incurable "genetic disease" rooted in the imperial family has begun to show up in him: suspicion.

Puyi often scolded the eunuchs. At the same time, he knew that he had lost his authority and was very afraid that the eunuchs would kill him, so he even slept with a stick.

The young emperor asked his most trusted person, his British teacher Johnston, who had no connection with eunuchs, to go out of the city to take a look around.

Johnston had known all this for a long time and hated eunuchs very much. He kept telling Puyi that eunuchs were an ancient bad custom and that if eunuchs were abolished, it would definitely be a major event that would be praised by the whole society!
The young emperor had long wanted to do something "big", so he called several celebrities in the capital to ask. Li Yu naturally agreed; Hu Shi also agreed.

Moreover, Li Yu gave him a reason that was hard for him to refuse: with seven hundred fewer eunuchs, the palace could save a lot of expenses!

These words touched Puyi's heart!
He was a man who could spend money. A few days ago, he bought a big diamond for 3 yuan! He also hired a veterinarian to raise a dog, because the veterinarian was good at currying favor with people. Puyi gave him many treasures.

He still had this habit of giving rewards casually.

But now the small court is in financial difficulties. It is better to spend the money yourself than to let the eunuchs spend it!

Puyi stomped his feet and said, "Cut!"

Historically, Puyi's elimination of eunuchs was quite smooth.

It was just that Li Yu secretly pushed for this matter to be brought forward by two months.

The final decision was to lay off all but 3 eunuchs from each of the five palaces, including the three dowager empresses, Puyi, and Shufei.

And after the order is given, one must leave the palace within a few hours.

A total of more than 700 eunuchs were laid off from the Forbidden City, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued severance pay, with each chief receiving 200 yuan and ordinary eunuchs receiving 20 yuan.

Anyway, history must be swept away by the dust.