The first Chinese community organizations to land in North America were all nominally affiliated with the triad, which is also known as the "Hongmen Brothers".

Regarding the origin of Hongmen, there are many legends in the society, and the more mainstream ones are Zheng Chenggong's subordinate Chen Jinnan who founded the "Heaven and Earth Society", the five ancestors of Hongmen in Southern Shaolin during the Kangxi period, and the Fujian Yunlong monk founded during the Yongqian period.

At present, it can be confirmed that this organization originated from the famous anti-Qing organization "Tiandihui" in the Kang Qianyong era, and Fujian and the Liangguang region were their main areas of activity.

As for the name "Triad", it was originally taken from the convergence of the three rivers of "Dongjiang", "Xijiang" and "Beijiang" in Guangdong, so there are words and phrases such as "Sanhe River Water Flows for Ten Thousand Years" in the incision of the gang, and at the same time, this name also implies the meaning of the aggregation of the three talents of "heaven, earth and man" in ancient philosophy, implying that they were born from the "Heaven and Earth Society" in the early years.

In fact, when the triad was founded, it was already in the middle of the Daoguang period, and it can be said that it had little connection with the "Heaven and Earth Society" in the Kang Yong period, and was essentially a secret society group set up by some people with anti-Qing ideas in the name of the "Heaven and Earth Society".

During the Taiping Rebellion, the Triad staged several uprisings in Guangdong, and the members of the revolt called themselves "Hong Bing", where "Hong" refers to "Hongmen", and has nothing to do with the Hong Heavenly King.

At that time, Ye Mingchen, the governor of the "Six Noes" in Liangguang, did not look at this scholar who was full of ugliness in the Second Opium War, but when he encountered the problem of suppressing the rebellion against the "chaotic people", he suddenly became a ruthless and resolute murderous butcher.

The leadership of the Triad and the main forces of the Triad were slaughtered by the Manchu army, and the remnants fled to the countryside and lay dormant among the people.

After the end of the two crows, the Qing court began to form local militia groups in Foshan and Zhaoqing, and many members of the "triad" became the backbone of these militia groups, and the "Hongmen" was able to resurrect on this basis.

However, because the high-level leaders were almost wiped out, the Hongmen Triad organization was also in the process of survival, and gradually underwent some transformations, although the concept of "anti-Qing and Mingming" was still retained in the door rules, but more of a strict hierarchy and gang rules, and there were no longer those earlier political demands.

As mentioned earlier, the triad disciples played a very important role in the coolie trade in Guangdong, and they colluded with the Chinese brokers who practiced coolies, and deceived many innocent people. When they found out that the "gold mountain" was really a gold mountain, the infiltration of gang forces into the Americas was of course inevitable.

The triad members who first arrived in North America regarded this land as a "land of lawlessness", and the so-called "Heavenly Emperor Yuan" was like this.

These thugs, who usually liked to dance with knives and sticks, soon discovered the value of their existence, and began to be active in the battles between the various guilds and clubs, and soon made a name for themselves.

Conflicts and even fights caused by regional contradictions actually began at the beginning of the gold rush era.

The coolies in California mainly came from Guangdong, and the people of Guangdong at that time had a strong temperament, and they paid attention to righteousness in everything, and at the same time could not bear the slightest grievance, so they were extremely impulsive when encountering problems, and often did not consider the consequences of their actions, so that they often regretted it too late afterwards.

At that time, in order to seize territory or for commercial interests, the conference halls would often gather the coolie members below to start bloody fights with real knives and guns.

Some clubs even hired American veterans to help train a team of Chinese guns, but the purpose was just to gain the upper hand in a fight with another club.

Each coolie fight resulted in casualties ranging from five or six to more than a dozen, such as the one mentioned above with a foreign gun, which resulted in more than 30 casualties in just fifteen minutes, because even an old front-loading smoothbore gun was enough to cause a massacre against an opponent who still held a homemade spear and iron fork.

After 1850, the guild halls were merged with each other, reducing from eight at their peak to six, which is what later became known as the Six Great Companies era.

However, when the triad forces appeared, the force in the hands of these guilds was a little insufficient.

The original purpose of Hongmen's establishment was to protect the rights and interests of ordinary coolies, and no longer be oppressed by those assembly halls and clubs. The triad doesn't care about the clan and origin of the members at all, as long as they are willing to join, they are regarded as "Hongmen brothers", and they are protected by the "Hongmen", and no one is allowed to bully them at will, so the bottom coolies enthusiastically joined, and their strength expanded extremely rapidly.

At that time, the so-called "beaters" hired by the guild were not at all the opponents of the professional thugs of the triad, who fought bravely to be the first in the face of trouble, and slashed and fought with human life as if they were a mustard.

In the end, the Sixth Great Hall was defeated in this battle, and could only give up some of its interests and choose to compromise and coexist with the Hongmen Tangkou, and the Association no longer prevented its members from joining the Hongmen organization, and at the same time, all walks of life in the Chinese community began to pay "protection fees" to their respective Tangkou every month by region.

The "protection fee" system of the Hong Kong gangsters in later generations was completely copied from the North American triads, because the early gang leaders in Hong Kong were basically the returned children of the North American triads.

"Zhi Gong Tang" was actually originally called "Hong Shun Tang", and when it was registered with the local government, it was renamed Zhi Gong Tang in order to avoid obstruction by Qing embassies abroad.

Although in the Xinhai year, there were many Hongmen disciples under the Zhi Gongtang, who devoted themselves to the anti-Qing revolutionary cause one after another, but it is undeniable that in the early days of the establishment of the Zhi Gongtang, it was completely an underworld organization.

Like other Hongmen halls, the former is responsible for fighting with other halls, and the latter is dedicated to collecting protection money from merchants on the site.

Like all triad halls, Chi Kung Tong was involved in a variety of black trades, particularly brothels, casinos, and opium dens.

According to the literature, the Victorian Zhi Gong Court in Canada even sent someone to assassinate a Canadian priest because the other party revealed to the police that the Zhi Gong Court had been trafficking Chinese prostitutes for a long time.

The murder case shocked the entire North American society, and the Canadian police seized a large number of internal documents from the Zhi Gong Court, such as the life and death contract signed with the subordinate killer, which caused all walks of life in North America to pay attention to the security of the Chinese community.

The civil war in Hongmen in North America began in 1880 and lasted until 1938, and the battlefields were all over the United States and Canada, and in these 58 years, not to mention the thousands of casualties, the economic losses caused by the destruction of Chinese communities in various places were astronomical.

The most serious is because of this senseless gang war, a large number of immigrants have to choose to leave the Chinese community, or even drag their families back to China.

For example, the Chinese community in San Francisco once had a population of more than 30,000 in Chinatown, but by the end of the war, only 12,000 Chinese remained in Chinatown.

In 1906, an unprecedented magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck San Francisco, the Chinatown community was almost flattened, and the Chinese diaspora suffered heavy casualties.

However, instead of dying down as people imagined, the devastated churches began to redraw their territory and intensify the struggle as they took advantage of the opportunity of community reconstruction after the earthquake.

Seeing that this war has almost no end in sight, the result will only be everyone's end, and the bloody dispute between the halls has seriously threatened the survival of the people in the Chinese community.

Therefore, with the efforts of the bigwigs of the convention halls and chambers of commerce, an armistice agreement was finally reached at the entrance of the eight remaining halls in San Francisco, agreeing that any gang disputes from now on would be handed over to the specially established "Peace Association" for arbitration and mediation.

"I've seen them fight in the streets, and these Chinese mafias are all ruthless characters, but they're all afraid of the 'white devil' right now. Clay slipped the cigarette butt into the ashbox and twisted the steering wheel onto a side street.

"White Devil?" Welbe tilted his head to look at the back of the driver's head.

"It's John. Jack. Inspector Manion, a tough veteran police officer, has been leading the Chinatown Police Force for 20 years. After Clay finished speaking, he honked his horn twice, urging the cars in front of him to speed up a little, and the traffic on this street was still the same.

Welbe opened the small wine cabinet between the front seats and took out a glass.

"I remember you advised me to take the time to visit the Inspector." Verbe said.

The driver nodded and replied, "Yes, I think that if he helps, it will save us a lot of trouble." ”。

"I don't think a police chief can do anything to help our plans." Verbe uncorked the crystal bottle and set it aside, then picked up the bottle and poured himself a glass of water.

"He's still very useful, I think you may have forgotten, the United States.... Clay suddenly hit the brakes in the middle of speaking, and then he poked his head out of the window: "Hey, look at the road, you idiot hillbilly!" ”。 The driver roared and spoke ill of the guy crossing the road from the front of the car.

The man wanted to talk back or something, but when he saw this magnificent limousine, the people on it were obviously not something he could afford to provoke, so he quickened his pace and blended into the flow of people.

"I'm sorry, sir, but these Yankees never learn to behave." Clay turned his head and said apologetically to Welbay, who was rubbing his pants down.

"It's okay, what did you want to say...", fortunately, there wasn't a lot of water spilled, and Welbe threw the handkerchief up and threw it into the wine cabinet.

"Oh, what I want to say is, do you remember the Chinese Exclusion Act in the United States?" Clay expertly puts up gear.

PS: Thank you for your support, the author is going to work hard this month.