Nine idlers

Chapter 1 The owner of the Yizhuang (this chapter is free)

There is a mountain city named Chenjiachong more than 20 miles northwest of Shaoguan. Due to its special geographical location, some merchants who are unwilling to pay tariffs detour here to avoid the checkpoint of Shaoguan. This makes this small mountain city more like Shaoguan. It is as prosperous as the county town, if not more so.However, those merchants who passed by were surprised that the Qing court defense in Shaoguan turned a blind eye to this phenomenon. Perhaps it was because someone from above Chen Jiachong defended it, or perhaps the Qing court focused its attention on the southern revolutionary party. Unknown reasons made Chen Jiachong a paradise in this troubled world.

Chen Jiachong, as the name suggests, most of the people are surnamed Chen. Although there are officials sent by the Qing court in the mountain city, the real master is Chen Deshang, the patriarch of the Chen family.The descendants of Chen Deshang’s lineage are originally from Suzhou. Some of their ancestors once served as the governor of Jiangsu during the Kangxi period. In the early years of Yongzheng, they also served as the commander of the Han army in the Jiangnan green camp. Unfortunately, they were dismissed not long after being involved in the Jiangnan Cao family’s ink corruption case. , and almost ransacked the house.Later, because some of his ancestors were good at leading troops and fighting, he was favored by Nian Gengyao, the slave slave of Yongzheng, and was recommended to Yongzheng. He became one of Nian Gengyao's generals, on an equal footing with Yue Zhongqi.

It's a pity that the good times didn't last long. As Nian Gengyao was deliberately suppressed by Yongzheng, the ancestors of the Chen family were also dismissed because they were too close to Nian Gengyao.Since the Chen family experienced ups and downs during the Kangxi and Yong Dynasties, they were in danger of ransacking their family and exterminating their family every time. They deeply felt that the officialdom was too complicated.So Chen Jiazu voluntarily resigned from office and turned to business. Under the guidance of that expert, he bought a piece of land in the northwest of Shaoguan and built a small village, which was the predecessor of Chen Jiachong.

Although the Chen family suffered setbacks in the officialdom, they were extremely proud in the shopping malls. After several generations of management, they became the richest man in Huguang. Their shops are located in Hu, Guangzhou, Zhejiang, Fujian and other southern states and counties. business name.At the same time as the wealth surged, Chenjiachong also expanded more than ten times, from a small mountain village to a rather large mountain city.Over the years, many of the descendants of the Chen family have passed the examinations and entered the imperial court as officials. Even if they did not pass the examinations, they would still hold small positions such as masters and tax collectors in the government offices of Huguang and other southern regions.

Although the official positions held by the Chen family's children are some inconspicuous and small official positions, the successive patriarchs of the Chen family are good at management. He has also gained a good reputation among the people, and the influence of the Chen family in the south is growing.As a result, during the reign of Daoguang and Xianfeng, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi who took office in the south first visited not the officials of the local ministries, but went to Chenjiachong to meet the head of the Chen family in person, as if he had become an unknown local emperor in southern China.

Later, as the national strength of the Qing court declined, the Chen family, under the guidance of that master's successor, began to make friends with various forces, so that the Chen family could stand firm in the "turbulent" times, even if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was in the south. Such a big disturbance did not hurt the Chen family at all.Also under the guidance of the descendant, the Chen family risked being accused of being foreign slaves, made great efforts to make friends with foreigners, and illegally bypassed the Qing court government to conduct large-scale transactions of contraband with foreigners, thus gaining the absolute trust of foreigners and becoming a foreigner. The general agent of foreigner firms in the south.

During the Tongzhi period, Empress Dowager Cixi listened to politics behind a curtain, and began to rely on Westernization factions such as Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, and Li Hongzhang. The relationship between the Chen family and foreigners was put on the surface, and its political influence began to extend to the north.But because of this, the ruling and opposition forces of the Chen family gradually surfaced. Cixi deeply felt that the Chen family's influence in the south was too large and wanted to cut it off, but because of the relationship with foreigners, she did not dare to directly do anything to the Chen family, so as to support the Chen family. Hu Xueyan, a Huizhou merchant, wanted to use this to suppress the Chen family and win over the foreign forces from the Chen family.

It's a pity that Hu Xueyan is just a prodigy in business, but he doesn't understand the way of being an official and the international style. Under the deliberate guidance of the current head of the Chen family, he has achieved great success in the shopping mall in a short period of time, gradually replacing the Chen family in the southern shopping mall. position above.But also under the manipulation of the Patriarch of the Chen family, Hu Xueyan gradually became arrogant and began to attack the interests of foreigners, thus offending them completely.As a result, not only foreigners feel disgusted by him, but even Cixi begins to feel disgusted with him.Afterwards, the head of the Chen family designed a trap, ordering Hu Xueyan to invest huge sums of money in the construction of a silk factory, and spend all his money to buy new silk from across the country, making him monopolize the domestic silk industry, and then using foreigners to block all his sales channels, and at the same time sending People went to various banks and firms opened by Hu Xueyan to withdraw money, which caused a wave of runs that had been done before, forcing Hu Xueyan to sell his property and repay the owed money.

On the surface, the Patriarch of the Chen family 'manipulated' everything, but in fact, it was the master's descendant's disciple who advised the Patriarch of the Chen family, which made Hu Xueyan never turn over with just one move.But ten thousand enemies were injured, and seven thousand were self-damaged. Although Hu Xueyan was eliminated by the head of the Chen family, the Chen family itself was also injured. , seized the large market left after Hu Xueyan fell.Although the Chen family also regained a lot of the market afterwards, this thing is insignificant compared to the previous shopping malls of the Chen family. Fortunately, the Chen family still holds the card of the foreigner, and still has great influence on Huguang and Huguang. Absolute influence.

Although the head of the Chen family has extraordinary influence in other places, most of the people in Chen Jiachong do not know the true identity of the head of the Chen family except for the direct descendants of the Chen family and the collateral children of the Chen family. In their eyes, the head of the Chen family Just a great good man with amazing wealth and always doing good.One of the greatest benevolent deeds done by the Patriarch of the Chen family is to collect the remains of those who died in the wilderness during the war in the troubled times. Those who know their identities will send people to search for their relatives, and those who do not know their identities will set up Yizhuang Serve it up lest it become a wandering ghost.On the mid-July, the Hungry Ghost Festival, they invited the Daoist Daoists from Longhu Mountain and Maoshan Mountain, as well as eminent monks from various temples, to perform rituals and save the dead.This good deed has been carried on for more than 100 years since the first generation of the Chen family moved here, and it has become a major event in the local area.

In [-], on the ninth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, less than a week before the Hungry Ghost Festival, eminent monks from Huguang and Guangxi were invited here one after another to prepare for the Water and Land Ceremony in July and a half.In addition to these eminent monks and real people, even foreign monks who preached in Guangdong and Guangxi also wanted to join in, so as to spread their foreign churches to the outside world.Chen Deshang, the contemporary patriarch of the Chen family who is proficient in Western learning, welcomed this. In his view, this was also an opportunity to use the beliefs of foreigners to make his position among foreigners more stable.

In addition to these outsiders, there are also many well-known squires from all over the country who came here. Apart from wanting to win the relationship with the Chen family and catch up with foreigners, they also wanted to use this grand event to make a contribution. Pray for yourself.The Boxer Rebellion in the past few years shocked the world, but because it was used by Cixi to attack foreigners, many merchants who did business with foreigners suffered losses. In recent years, the revolutionary party in the south has continued to launch uprisings against the Qing government, causing people in the south to The current situation is turbulent, and many merchants in the south have moved north because of this, most of them went to Shanghai.It is precisely because of leaving their hometowns that many merchants are deeply uneasy about their future, so they want to use this Dharma to seek peace of mind for themselves, and also want to meet those rare eminent monks and real people, and ask them to cast spells to cleanse themselves It's bad luck.

As night fell, the people in the mountain city gradually turned on the lights, and the number of tourists on the streets did not decrease because of the arrival of the night, but there were more and more signs. Many unmarried couples would go to the small river outside the city to relax. Lanterns, and those merchants will gather in the brothels in the city to connect with each other.A small road extends southward from the west gate of the mountain city. There are no guiding lanterns lit by the Chen family on both sides of the road like other roads outside the city. The above can't help but feel extraordinarily gloomy.

The path goes westward and divides under the Peach Blossom Mountain outside Chenjiachong. One path turns to the southeast, bypasses the mountain city, and connects with a mountain path leading to Shaoguan, while the other path continues to extend to the Peach Blossom Mountain, and finally turns over Taohua Mountain is integrated with a mountain road leading into the hinterland of Hunan at the other end of the mountain.This mountain of peach blossoms is the property of the Chen family. There is no household on the mountain, and all of them are planted with peach blossoms. There is only a Yizhuang built halfway up the mountain.

Different from the yizhuang on the east side of the mountain city, this yizhuang should be a big monster of Chen Jiachong.It was built at the same time as Chenjiachong. When the owner of Chenjiachong bought the land of Chenjiachong, he also bought Taohuashan and started the construction of this yizhuang at the same time.After the Yizhuang was completed, the Patriarch of the Chen family handed it over to a lay Taoist. Only the Patriarch of the Chen family and a few other people knew about the origin of this Taoist. Every time the head of the family saw this layman Taoist, he was always respectful and respectful.Afterwards, the heads of the Chen family in the past dynasties treated the owners of Yizhuang at that time with great courtesy, and it can be said that they responded to every request. Every time the Chen family faced a crisis, the owners of the Chen family would go to ask the owners of Yizhuang for their opinions. After returning from Yizhuang, the bad luck was quickly turned into good fortune, and the Chen family's business also flourished.

The people of Chenjiachong didn't know the relationship between the owner of Yizhuang and the Chen family, but they knew that the Chen family respected the owner of Yizhuang very much, and set the Peach Blossom Mountain where Yizhuang was located as a forbidden area, and no one was allowed to disturb him at will.Although the Chen family has always respected the owners of Yizhuang in the past, the owners of Yizhuang did not become overbearing because of this. On the contrary, they were extremely low-key and appeared to be no different from ordinary people.He walks around the mountain city almost every day. When some people in the mountain city encounter problems, he will also enthusiastically give ideas to solve them. It seems that he has installed various postures in his head, ranging from small farming to farming. The direction of national affairs is almost omniscient.However, each generation of Yizhuang owners would leave Chen Jiachong for five or six years, and when they came back, they would frown for a long time and thank guests behind closed doors, even the owner of the Chen family would not see him.

The previous owner of Yizhuang passed away ten years ago, and was replaced by a 17-year-old orphan named Xu Changqing.The origin of this Xu Changqing is also extremely mysterious. At that time, his mother came to Chenjiachong alone with a big belly. After staying in Fengxiang, the largest inn in Chenjiachong, she hanged herself that night.Because her mother was dressed luxuriously and her identity was definitely not an ordinary person, the Chen family attached great importance to this matter. After many investigations, they only knew that she had appeared in Changsha, her accent was a bit like a northerner, and the only thing on her body was related to her identity. His keepsake is a jade pendant engraved with characters that even Chen Jiachong's most educated people can't understand.

The next day, after the head of the Chen family invited the owner of Yizhuang at that time, the owner of Yizhuang recognized at a glance that the characters on the jade pendant were a kind of characters that were popular in Chu State during the Spring and Autumn Period.However, this kind of writing quickly disappeared from the people of Chu State at that time. Only a small number of nobles in Chu State could know this kind of writing, and now people who know this kind of writing are even rarer. The owner of the village can only recognize it, but he doesn't understand the meaning above.Although the identity of Xu Changqing's mother, the owner of Yizhuang was very lucky to save Xu Changqing who should have been suffocated in his mother's stomach, and brought this congenitally deficient coffin back to Yizhuang to treat him personally, and finally accepted him as Apprentice, imparting the skills of the whole body.

When Xu Changqing inherited Yizhuang, although he was still young, no one in Chen Jiachong dared to underestimate him. Chen Deshang also respected him as Mr. Xu according to the ancestral rules, and would respectfully call him Mr. Xu when encountering difficulties. He asked about the solution, and after helping the Chen family through several difficulties, the whole Chen family completely recognized Xu Changqing's identity.

On this day, Xu Changqing went to Chen's house to help the craftsmen arrange the water and land ashram, and arranged seats for the eminent monks who came from various temples and Taoist temples.After dinner at Chen's house, Xu Changqing left Chen's house alone and walked towards Yizhuang on Taohua Mountain. On the way, the locals in Chenjiachong stopped when they saw him, saluted him, and called him Mr. Xu respectfully. The scene made many merchants who came to Chenjiachong for the first time think that he was some kind of big shot.

Although it is already summer, the temperature is still a bit cold because it is in the mountains. Xu Changqing is still wearing his plain gown, the sleeves are slightly rolled up, and his slender fingers are as white as jade. If you look closely, it seems that the surface is covered with a layer of cloth. Faint white light.His face is delicate, with willow eyebrows and narrow eyes, thin cheeks and laziness in his eyes, giving him a morbid and elegant temperament. If he is holding a book in his hand, he is completely like a poet who is familiar with poetry and books. He is well-learned and Confucian.In addition, there is a very striking vertical red mark in the middle of his forehead, which is a birthmark he was born with, but outsiders look like an eye that is not fully opened.

In the south, due to the loose control of the Qing government and the impact of foreigners, many young people with new ideas cut off the braid that represents slavery on their heads, but Xu Changqing, who is also a young man, did not follow. In the trend of the tide, the big black and green braids were neatly combed and hung down to the waist.At the end of the braid, Xu Changqing was bound with gold wire, and a golden bell was tied on it. When walking, the braid swayed, and the bell made a very pleasant sound, which made people feel like a clear stream poured from the top of the head, cleansing the body and mind. , not only the mind becomes much clearer, but even the physical fatigue and pain will be relieved accordingly.Although Xu Changqing was dressed like a Qing Dynasty scholar, the exquisite Western pocket watch hanging on his chest gave him a touch of Western style.