At this time, it was the fourth watch, and although the heat of the day had dissipated, the cabin was still stuffy because there was no wind on the river. The Grand Duke (the boatman who controls the bow of the ship, equivalent to the navigator and first mate) quietly slaughters a rooster on the bow deck to sacrifice to the god of the river to ensure a smooth voyage.

Originally, this kind of ceremony should be more solemn and cumbersome, but in this special situation, it can only be dealt with simply. Most of the junior shipwrights were completely unaware of the transaction between Boss Qi and Wu Dewei, and only a few of his henchmen knew part of the inside story, and the Grand Duke, who had a certain authority on the ship, was of course one of them. So the prestige of the former captain and the endorsement of the owner in the back, so that no boatman dared to raise objections to this completely unruly ceremony.

The current of the river in the urban section of Chongqing is quite gentle, and after loosening the cable, the wooden boat begins to slowly follow the current into the central course of the river.

Although traditionally speaking, the Yangtze River is generally not a ship at night, but there are still many cargo ships in order to catch up with the cargo period and choose to set sail at night, especially after the national capital enters Sichuan, because of the increase in freight pressure, this has almost become a norm.

The Chongqing Unified Water and Land Inspection Institute, which is responsible for the inspection of waterways, generally does not have many people on duty at night, and most of the patrol boats have already docked at this time.

In fact, there is an unspoken rule in this, usually the ships that choose to set sail at night are basically loaded with some taboo private goods, and the shipowners have already made the money up and down, and only need to hang the predetermined lights on the top of the mast, and all the checkpoints along the river will "never see this ship".

Although Boss Qi has the identity of a robe brother, he actually belongs to the boat gang, the pure Sichuan gang, although in the early years of the Republic of China, Sichuan changed the establishment of the civil ship business association, and in the past two years, Chongqing has started a crew association, but in fact, the control of ships and boatmen is still the boat gang to which they belong. The government tried in every possible way to wrest control of these resources from the boat gang, but in the face of entrenched traditional local forces and the old-fashioned thinking of the boat workers, every effort ended in compromise and failure.

Just like Boss Qi patted his chest and promised, this transport ship turned into the Yangtze River in a big way, without any inquiry or obstruction. Two red and one blue three light balls hung from the top of the mast, and the thirty-ton dhow became as transparent in the night.

Safely passed the last checkpoint of the Chongqing Waterway Unified Inspection Institute, and Qi Laoda's cargo ship slowly sailed into the Yangtze River route, looking back, there was no longer a spark in Chongqing.

Arriving here, it does not mean that they will be safe on the way below, they just passed the first difficulty on the way to escape, after leaving Chongqing, the Yangtze River channel has become extremely difficult, from here to the Three Gorges natural danger, there are not many reefs and dangerous shoals along the way, at that time can only rely on the luck and experience of the owner and boatman who controls the ship, under the technical conditions at that time, three points depend on people and seven points rely on the sky. Every month, unlucky river boats sink, and those who die in those rapids often mean that dozens or even hundreds of unjust souls are sent to pay tribute to the river gods.

Perhaps it was the rooster that worked, and the first night's voyage was uneventful, with nothing unexpected. After sunrise, Wu Dewei and his party were finally allowed to climb onto the deck to breathe, and Boss Qi warned them in advance not to talk to any of the boatmen, especially Shiranefeif, who could not reveal his Japanese accent.

The group also expressed their understanding and agreement, they also knew that they were involved in a big case, hiding their identities was the most basic truth, and no one would gamble with their lives. So Wu Dewei and his party gathered in a corner of the ship's side, avoiding the group of working boatmen, whether they were eating or resting, they kept their distance from the people on the boat as much as possible.

At first, it was nothing, and after a long time, the shipwrights also sensed the abnormality of these people, but the merchants who were more eccentric than this group of people were also carried, and the shipwrights only talked a few words in private, and no one thought deeper.

But the people on Wu Dewei's side began to become nervous, originally their group of people was not a strong-willed character, and after getting on the boat, they were confiscated of their personal weapons, and they tasted the taste of human swords and fish and meat. As time went on, the boring life on board made them weaker, and some of them began to become noisy, and the slightest unusual behavior of the boatmen would think that the other party was preparing to work against them.

Bai Gen is one of the most serious of the group of people, he subconsciously does not trust the Chinese, since childhood education, the Chinese also appear as treacherous, vicious and greedy, all of them are money-eyed and immoral thugs. After coming to China from the army, Bai Gen really came into contact with a large number of Chinese traitors, and this group of bottomless things strengthened his cognition.

To tell the truth, he didn't even feel at ease with Wu Dewei at this time, this battalion commander was too greedy for money and obsessed with officials, and he didn't have the morality and roots that a soldier should have. In Bai Gen's eyes, Wu Dewei's group of subordinates, except for one or two people who also have some military qualities, the others are all incompetent waste with hooligan habits.

However, this is also good, the more such waste there is in the Chinese army, the more conducive it is to the imperial army's strategy and rule over China.

At first, Bai Gen was ready to go back and strongly recommend Wu Dewei to make him a high-ranking military official of the Nanking government, because the troops led by such a commander could not threaten the safety of the imperial army at all.

Because Shirakan was accustomed to speculating on the intentions of the Chinese with the greatest malice, when Boss Qi demanded that everyone's weapons be confiscated, he immediately became deeply suspicious and wary of the Chinese captain's decision.

At this time, even Wu Dewei didn't know that Bai Gen still secretly hid a Browning on his body. It was a gift from a puppet government official to Bai Gen, and the palm-sized weapon was so popular with Chinese merchants at the time that they nicknamed it the Palm Thunder.

Shirane likes this pistol very much, and hides it in the boot of the flying boot when he goes on a mission. After he parachuted and was captured, because the Germans were present at the time, the Chinese searched in such a hurry that they did not find this delicate weapon. After Wu Dewei rescued him, of course, he wouldn't retrieve it, so he didn't know that Bai Gen had other weapons hidden besides the southern army and a saber. What Wu Dewei didn't expect was that because of the apparent harmony and friendship between him and Boss Qi, Bai Gen even doubted him at this time.

After the transport ship departed from Chongqing, although it was going downstream, the speed did not increase much. In order to increase the efficiency of shipping, the government built a mechanized winch station in more than a dozen dangerous sections of the river, which used a mechanically driven winch instead of a manpower slender man to drag the transport ship through the rapids, and the efficiency was indeed much higher than that of manpower.

This area is often crowded with wooden boats waiting to pass through, so the government has also set up corresponding checkpoints here, on the grounds that it has become a major source of revenue for the local area. Because Boss Qi has some status in the gang, and he is familiar with people on the Sichuan River, he is willing to spend money on it, so the checkpoint often sees the boat from a distance, and waves the flag to let it pass, and does not come forward to make things difficult at all.

After passing Wanxian, it was already the afternoon of the next day, where the flow of the Yangtze River turned east and west, and the channel of the river was slightly wider. The boatmen were finally able to stop and rest for a while, and this trip was so different from the past that they had some bad premonitions.

Boss Qi didn't carry any goods on the ship, he knew the risk of doing this kind of business, one more merchant was equivalent to one more eyeliner, once the East Window incident happened, it would be a loss of head.

Originally, such a large transport ship was equipped with at least forty or fifty boatmen, of which except for some sailors who controlled the ship, most of the shipwrights were responsible for going ashore to pull fiber, and without the help of slender men on the Yangtze River, it was impossible to sail safely. During the dry season of the Yangtze River, slender men in some areas even have to use their shoulders to carry boats across the shallows. Therefore, the wooden ships on the Yangtze River will be equipped with a crew of as little as thirty or forty to hundreds of people according to the size of their respective tonnage, otherwise it is easy to go down the river, but it is difficult to return to the original place.

But this time, Boss Qi only brought thirty sailors on the ship, and if he returned with cargo downstream, this was far from enough.

Then I don't know where it came from, a rumor said that Qi Boss was actually running the last trip, he had already sold the ship to a merchant in Hunan, this time it was actually to deliver the goods to the door, and these "guests" on the ship were actually the thugs under the new owner, waiting to arrive at the dock and be responsible for driving himself off the ship and replacing his old people with newly hired sailors.

This rumor, which sounded very logical, spread among the bottom boatmen in an instant, recalling all kinds of abnormalities before departure, coupled with the sneaky performance of Boss Qi after departure, the more the boatmen thought about it, the more they felt that it was the case.

These low-level boatmen rely on running boats to get enough to eat, and Boss Qi doesn't conform to the rules of the gang by doing this, which is equivalent to smashing the big guy's job. But because the owner of the ship is the boss of the robe brother and has accumulated power for a long time, the shipwrights can only lament their misery, dare to be angry but dare not speak. But there was still resentment in their hearts, and they didn't dare to show Boss Qi's face, so they chose to vent their anger on those "guests".

So on the third day, three or four clashes broke out between the boatman and Wu Dewei's men in a row, and the last time the two sides also moved, and as a result, Ma Ben, who was good at skills, easily overturned several boatmen, and confirmed their rumored identity as "thugs".

The incident was finally temporarily calmed down after Boss Qi came forward, and the two sides shook hands and made peace, but neither Wu Dewei nor Boss Qi expected that this incident would become a fuse, and finally caused a tragedy that neither side could bear.

Ask for a monthly pass,Ask for a recommendation ticket,The anti-theft chapters of these two days have caused everyone trouble in reading.,The author is very upset.,I also saw the encouragement of book friends.,Thank you very much for your support.。 I'll try to get this book done. Thank you.

Thank you. (To be continued.) )