Brother Rong of Red Mansion

Chapter 90 Buying a Corpse

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This time Jia Rong came out, she really gained a lot of knowledge. He knew that it was very chaotic outside and the place was not peaceful. But I didn't expect that it would become such a mess.

As soon as they left Shenjing City, they encountered such a large-scale ship robbery by water pirates. Murder, arson, and all kinds of evil are committed. It seems that we have suddenly entered troubled times.

Is this still the emperor's feet?

Jia Rong is suspicious.

But he only found out last night when he was chatting with the sailors on the building ship. There has been chaos on the canal for a long time, not just one or two years, nor even one generation or two. But since the Yuan Dynasty when the Grand Canal was dredged, people along the coast have had the custom of being good citizens during the day and water pirates at night.

Moreover, most of those people are fathers, sons, brothers, clan relatives, or even the whole village working together. There were so many people and they were so courageous that they even dared to rob official ships. There were even cases where officials from the border areas who came to Beijing from other places were robbed and killed.

Do you dare to kill even the most powerful official in the border area? Jia Rong was taken aback.

"It's more than that."

A sailor laughed and said, "I heard that rich and powerful country gentry and water transport officers and soldiers would occasionally disguise themselves as water pirates to rob ships."

After saying that, he looked at the water of the canal and couldn't help but shook his head, "This river smells very fishy."

"Does the court not care?" Jia Rong asked.

"How to control it?" A sailor said with a smile, "The watermen themselves are not clean. Even the governor of the water transportation who is sitting in the government office has to take a commission. Unless the emperor himself becomes the governor, there is no way to control it. If it were someone else, it would still be chaos!"

After listening to the stories of the sailors on the building ships, Jia Rong just understood the bloody development history of the Grand Canal. This is the truest aspect of history. But there may be only a few sentences in the historical records. Most of them still record the great achievements of the Grand Canal connecting north and south commerce.

At this moment, Jia Rong suddenly understood a truth.

"History is real!"

Jia Rong may have committed dogmatism and imagined the "history" in books to be the real "history". Little did he know that the real history would be more cruel and bloody than he imagined!

In fact, the truth is easy to figure out.

Let alone the ancient feudal dynasty. Even in the modern society of later generations, the peaceful and prosperous age that ordinary people boast about, many magical facts will also happen. You simply can't believe that this actually happened.

"I understand the truth, but I still can't believe it. It turns out that this is the real ancient society..."

Jia Rong clenched her fists, feeling a greater sense of crisis in her heart. I am eager to learn skills, master the power, and live a better and safer life.

However, chatting with the sailors on the building ships, it’s not all bad news. Someone said something that surprised Jia Rong.

"Buying a corpse? How to buy it?" Jia Rong asked a sailor on a high-rise ship in surprise.

This person just asked him if he could stop for a while when docking at Jinmen Pier and let him "buy" his brother's body.

Then, some sailors from the high-rise boats kept saying that after dawn, the warships and corpse-recovering teams on the canal would take action to fish out the corpses in the canal and sell them. Whether it is water pirates, merchants or common people, or even officials and servants. As long as they can afford the money, they can "fish it out" for you.

Jia Rong was shocked when he heard this. He harvested the corpse and sold it?

Think again about the fact that the warship did not show up last night and came out to "recover corpses" for sale early this morning. Jia Rong suddenly understood that this horse riding was a complete industrial chain. Not even sparing the dead man's money, this is too cruel!

"Buy, you must buy!" In order to stabilize people's hearts and boost morale, Jia Rong announced that he would pay for the corpse himself and would never let his brothers follow him into the belly of the fish and die without a complete body.

After hearing this, the sailor of the building ship and the boy of Ning Mansion were moved again and became more loyal to Jia Rong.

So, Jia Rong led the boys from Ning Mansion to go ashore to buy funeral objects. There were also ship sailors on the move. Taking the money given by Jia Rong and the official license of Ningguo Mansion, they went to find the cavalry soldiers and the corpse recovery team to buy the corpse.

After docking at Jinmen Pier for more than half a day, a warship suddenly approached and carried the bodies of the sailors from the building ship and the boy from Ning Guofu who died in the battle last night to the ship.

I actually bought the corpses back, not a single one was missing.

"General, do you want a boat escort?" At this moment, the boat handler came forward and made a request with a smile on his face.

Jia Rong was stunned for a moment, and then saw the greed on the face of the captain. He seemed to understand something, and asked directly, "How much is it?"

The captain of the boat smiled and waved his five palms, "It's not much. I am humble enough to escort the general to a section of the river. I guarantee that no one dares to infringe. It only costs 500 taels of silver."

500 taels!

Jia Rong clenched her fists.

Although Jia Rong spends money like water in Ningguo Mansion, who are those people? They are either eunuchs or eunuchs, or nobles. It is impossible to deal with them without money. And the "double pension" he rewarded last night may seem like a lot, but it is also money from the hard work of the sailors and the servants of the Ning Mansion!

500 taels of silver is really a lot.

The key is that he only escorts one section of the river. As for the entire canal, there are only 6 river sections left to enter Jiangnan. The cost of escorting him all the way down was 3000 taels of silver.

It only cost 1200 taels to go to Dai Quan and buy a genuine fifth-grade Dragon Guard. For 3000 taels of silver, he was able to get the Supreme Emperor to decree that he be promoted to the third rank of military service as a guerrilla general. But Jia Rong just wanted to escort the spirit boat down to the south of the Yangtze River, but he had to pay 3000 taels of silver!

Is there any heavenly principle? Are there any laws?

Is this Grand Canal no longer the territory of the Zhou Dynasty? I am a noble son of the Spyker, a dignified third-grade guerrilla general, and a descendant of Ning Guofu. Why should I suffer this injustice?

"Then thank you to Boss Zhang for your hard work."

Jia Rong nodded with a smile, and immediately took a 500 tael silver note to Mr. Zhang.

After a short period of deep thought, Jia Rong decided to spend money to buy peace.

Of course, he could refuse. But experiencing this ship robbery made Jia Rong understand the cruelty of history. Therefore, Jia Rong warned herself not to be arrogant and think she could cope with all dangers with her golden fingers and hundreds of capable men.

Look at what happened to Jia Qiang.

A stray arrow shot from an unknown source can kill him in an instant.

"It's not hard, it's not hard." After receiving the banknote, Mr. Zhang immediately got off the boat with a smile on his face. After the boat set sail, there were two cannon boats guarding it. With flags flying during the day and lanterns hung at night, the boat was sent from the North Canal to the South Canal.

Entering the South Canal, Zhang handed over the boss to the next ship officer. The process went smoothly. Jia Rong spent another 500 taels of silver and sent it into the Lu Canal.

In this way, spending money along the way, the journey was safe, passing through the Middle Canal, the Li Canal, and finally entered the Jiangnan Canal.

The Jiangnan Canal is 224 kilometers long, connecting the Yangtze River and Taihu water systems. After entering the Jiangnan Canal, the scenery on both sides of the river has taken on a completely new look. Although it is cold in autumn, the greenery remains unchanged. There are hundreds of boats on the canal competing for water, making it very lively and lively. Jia Rong's boat went down to Yangzhou City, turned into the Yangtze River, passed through Zhenjiang City, and finally arrived at a stone city.

Jinling, here we come!

(End of this chapter)