Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1878 Remove the Old and Bring the New ([-])
"No, this thing must be kept, as well as the yellow cloth cover and the seal, all of which must be kept well. This is the best weapon to educate the common people." Shen Ruiming said, "Let them see, this so-called 'Imperial Seal Group' What's the head 'true face."

Cui Hantang is not interested in such things as "education". He has watched "Notre Dame de Paris" and has a strong curiosity about this Guangzhou version of "The Kingdom of Beggars", so he started to search around. .
On both sides of this "lobby", there are long rows of corridors.Open the door and enter, but inside is the place where the masters work. At this time, the room is empty, but the four treasures of the study on the table, various account books are still there, and some rooms have cabinets for storing files and account books.There are those who handle money and rice coming in and out;

Turning around the public seat in the "main hall", there is a small shrine in the back hall. The incense candles have been extinguished by the search team, but it can be seen from the thick ashes in the incense burner and the wax tears accumulated on the candlesticks. It is long-term worship.

The idol in the shrine is roughly made, and it can only be seen that it is an old man with a baby in his arms.Cui Hantang knows a lot about Chinese Taoism and the system of folk gods. It can be said that only seeing the statues, combined with specific images, decorations, and magical instruments, can probably know who it is.But he looked at it for a long time and still couldn't see it.

Looking at the statue, it seems to mean the orphan of the Zhao family.However, this story has little to do with beggars.

Judging from the enshrining situation, this should be the "ancestor" of the beggars.All walks of life in China have the custom of enshrining the "ancestor" of the god of the industry, even low-level actors and prostitutes are no exception.There are also beggars.

Cui Hantang saw people who worshiped Fan Dan in the Spring and Autumn Period—it is said that when Confucius traveled around the world, Fan Dan lent food to Confucius and his disciples; there were also people who worshiped Lu Mengzheng in the Song Dynasty. It is said that Lu Mengzheng was reduced to a beggar when he was young... In short It is clinging to celebrities, and most of them have a legend that is not recorded in history.

But with Cui Hantang's knowledge, he had never seen this one before. Fortunately, the beggar who was in charge of the daily affairs of Jinhua Temple was still here, and was used to "assist in the search", so he called one immediately.

After asking, I found out that this person is called "Old Dou". It is said that he was the prime minister of Emperor Ping of the Han Dynasty. He fled with the prince in his arms and lived by begging.

Based on Cui Hantang's limited historical knowledge, he probably knew that the Dou family, who were foreign relatives in the Eastern Han Dynasty, was once powerful, but Emperor Han Ping was the emperor of the Western Han Dynasty.

Whether it was true or not, Cui Hantang didn't bother to care about it, so he asked the beggar in charge to lead the way, and started to visit the Golden Flower Temple.

After looking at it, I realized that the beggar's nest in Jinhua Temple is really amazing. There are not only "court halls", "six chambers", and even "prisons". Just beside the main courtyard, there is another side courtyard , there are more than a dozen low and damp huts inside, and iron chains are fixed on the walls with iron rings.The person in charge said that all beggars who make mistakes will be escorted here, put on chains around their necks, and lock them up for one to several days. Call it "wearing chains".This is the lightest punishment among beggars.

There were more than a dozen "prisoners" in the hut, and all of them were released by the police and taken away.It's dark and damp here, and the ground is not only full of urine but also emits a foul smell due to excrement and urine.Cui Hantang looked at the rusty iron chains and iron shackles in this dark and humid "prison cell", and couldn't help but feel a burst of terror.

Shen Ruiming muttered: "This is simply setting up a private court."

"This old society is so fucking dark..." Cui Hantang came out of the small dark room, stood under the blue sky and let out a deep breath, feeling that he had never been so convinced of the invincible justice of the Senate.

"If the sky does not descend on the Senate, eternity will be like a long night," he suddenly said.Shen Ruiming couldn't help being startled, why did this rough guy in Taoist robe suddenly say such a sentence?
"It's nothing, I'm just expressing my feelings." Cui Hantang said, "Let's go to the Gao family's private house and see what his family has sucked blood for hundreds of years."

He and Shen Ruiming both had a strong curiosity about the Gao family's private life, and wanted to see the private life of this well-known "local prefect".The Gao family's private residence is in the second half of the Jinhua Temple, which is located through the Moon Gate from the courtyard behind the main hall.Walk in and take a look, it looks like the mansion of an ordinary rich family.Although the green tiles and vermilion eaves, carved beams and embroidered houses, they did not exceed Cui Hantang's imagination.

If there is anything special, it is that this group of Gao family has not lost the "Australian fashion" in Guangzhou at all, such as glass windows, glass mirrors, various glass daily necessities, "Guoshi Wushuang" wine... Basically, the purple brand All kinds of "Australian" luxury goods sold can be seen in Gao Zhai.

Just feeling disappointed, someone suddenly came to report: "Chief, I found it hidden in the cellar!"

Now Cui Hantang and Shen Ruiming are both interested.Since ancient times, rich and powerful families have kept secret cellars in their homes to store money and valuables.And once the big households fall, the hoards they leave behind will become legends.There are often stories in the society where someone bought an old house and rebuilt it. When the house was demolished and the ground was dug, the story broke out overnight.

Although the veterans did not intend to "get rich overnight", they also had a strong interest in the "harvests" of local tyrants.In the past few years, the Senate has made a lot of windfalls from digging "hidden" in previous wars and social reforms.For a local tyrant like the Gao family who has been rampant in Guangzhou for hundreds of years, how much wealth has he accumulated?
The silver cellar is in the study of Gao Lingxiang. The study of the head of Guangzhou is called the "study". In fact, there are no books except the calendar. It is the place where the Gao family's principals work, which can be called the "study room" for the people and horses of Guandi Temple.

The secret cellar is in the corner of the study, and there were several large boxes on it.The boxes are filled with copper coins handed in by the big bones.

These copper coins are by no means "little money" or "bad money" like the sand shells that are common outside. They are all good money. It is said that people from the Planning Institute estimate that there are nearly a thousand copper coins in these boxes alone.According to the market situation in the late Ming Dynasty, there are also six to seven hundred taels of silver.

The special search team of the Planning Institute poured out the copper coins, and after removing the box, they found that the bluestone slab underneath was loose.They are all old people, they know that there must be something strange under the stone slab, and they will move the stone slab away immediately.

A dark hole was exposed under the stone slab, and there were steps to go down. The search team lit torches and went down to see that there was a stone room below, dug a foot deep, five feet square, and the sides and bottom were paved with glutinous rice lime juice and patterned stones.A thick layer of charcoal is piled on the bottom, which is strong and moisture-proof.

Countless amounts of silver are piled up in this stone room. There is no silver box and sheath here, and the silver has not been re-smelted into ingots in the furnace room. It seems that the silver here is thrown into the cellar at will in the state it was received. Inside.Silver ingots and nuggets vary in size and color, and there are even various silverware and silver jewelry.

Probably this silver cellar has been placed too much for a long time and used less. Most of the silver ingots and silverware have been oxidized and blackened, losing their shiny color.Some of the scattered silver that was pressed at the bottom had turned into a large black mass.The members of the search team could only use pockets and boxes to carry them out and weigh them, regardless of their fineness.

"It's kind of like the king of the mountain." Cui Hantang recalled that when he was suppressing bandits on Hainan Island, the "trophies" captured by the bandits were so messy and random.

Seeing the team members constantly carrying and weighing, and sealing the registration number, he asked, "How much silver is there?"

"Report to the chief, the preliminary estimate is [-] taels."

Cui Hantang nodded, and now Mayor Liu and the comrades at Caijingkou can breathe a sigh of relief again, and the banknotes in circulation in the market have more credit support.

"One beggar has hidden 10 taels of silver in his head, and the families of the rich gentry in Guangzhou don't know how much money they have hidden..." Cui Hantang couldn't help sighing, "If they all—"

Shen Ruiming quickly coughed twice, signaling him not to talk nonsense in front of the naturalized people—even if it was a "tested" special search team.

Although the raid on Jinhua Temple failed to capture key persons, it captured a lot of money, and Gundam Ling and others fled in a hurry.The Gao family has been exploiting beggars in Guangzhou for 300 years, and the accumulated savings obtained by extorting the people have not had time to transfer except for a small amount of soft goods.It can be regarded as a little comfort to Cui Hantang and others.

It is of course a good thing to have stolen a large amount of money, especially the residence of the Gao family was not the only one who had copied a large amount of money. In the residences of the big bones in Doukou, various amounts of silver were seized, as few as dozens of taels. There are even thousands of taels in savings.

Although the big bones who were arrested all argued that this was the "public money" on Doukou, which was used to help the beggars on Doukou, or was sick, or gave relief when it rained, but in fact this kind of "care" The expenditure of the government is extremely meager, and the amount of the so-called "official money" and where it is used are all decided by the big bones, which is like a private pocket.The beggars of the lower class don't ask questions, they will be beaten severely if they even ask a question.

The big-boned beggars from all walks of life have rich private pockets, but the group of beggars live a life of hunger and cold, running around for a day, and even "paying tribute" to the beggars for a few small coins they begged for by self-harm.Even if what they ask for is just leftovers, they still have to be handed over to Dagu to be used as feed for raising the "three birds" for profit.This level of exploitation is called beating the bone and sucking the marrow.Liu Xiang looked at the clean-up report of each sinus, and secretly felt emotional.

This time the whole city took a unified action, although Gao Lingxiang and several of his capable men escaped, the work of sheltering the beggars and refugees in the whole city was quite smooth.

(End of this chapter)