In order to enforce a curfew, every city where the government is stationed has to lock the gates at night and prohibit people from entering and leaving the city. and the keys of the gates shall be given to the magistrates. At the same time, a fence should be erected at the intersection of the main street, and there is a gate on this fence, and there is a card gate at the door, and there is a "card room" similar to a modern guard box, which is guarded by the government officials and does not allow people to pass.

In the Qing Dynasty, because of various political, ethnic and other factors that everyone knows, this curfew has stricter restrictions, for example, the key to the city gate must be handed over to the local garrison governor for receipt, even the most senior civil officials in the city, they have urgent business to go out of the city at night, but also to apply for the key from the garrison commander.

However, due to the low level of productivity in ancient times, there was naturally no so-called nightlife, so the night curfew was not a big obstacle to people's lives, but it was a big problem for those illegal industries that could only be carried out under the cover of night. For example, if a prostitute goes out to sing at night, she will have trouble when she comes home. But if the meeting is held by a rich or powerful person, it is different, for example, in the background of the Song Dynasty in "Golden Vase Plum", there is no problem in the story of the Ming Dynasty, because the male protagonist Ximenqing himself is a local official who manages public security.

In addition, the gambling industry is also strictly prohibited by the laws of the past dynasties, so in order to avoid people's eyes, most of the gamblers gamble at night. Often in the dead of night, gamblers who have lost all their capital are willing to go home. But the roads in the city have been blocked by fences and are not allowed to pass. Gamblers had to take detours, or wade into stinky ponds, or cross the wilderness. Even so, they will be stopped and interrogated by the husband who patrols the night or the commander who leads the patrol, and it is inevitable that the flaws will be exposed.

In the Qing Dynasty's novel "Divergent Lights", it tells the story of gambling harming people's children. So this book talks about many ways for gamblers to escape curfews. Powerful gamblers can take advantage of their power, such as Sheng Xiqiao, whose father is the political envoy, and said with a big grin: "It's late at night, and no one dares to stop me on the fence when I put on the lantern of the political secretary; The fence was locked, and they didn't dare not open it. ”

And the powerless gambler can only rely on oil slippery. For example, there is a supporting actor in the story Xia Fengruo who took the protagonist Tan Shaowen home for night gambling, and happened to meet the county official patrolling the night, and the book wrote, "I saw a lantern in big characters at the mouth of the bowl, with the words 'main hall' written on it, four or five people followed, and a master rode a horse."

Then the two people were stopped and interrogated, and Xia Fengruo said unhurriedly: "It's to take medicine." The county magistrate who was riding on the horse immediately asked, "Take the medicine to test!" Xia Fengruo took out a letter of medicine from his sleeve, and there was a prescription on it. When the person picked up the lantern, the county official looked at it and asked, "Who are you sick?" What is the disease? Xia Fengruo replied: "It's the villain's mother who hurts her heart." The magistrate smiled and said, "This doctor is really damned." So he handed the medicine to Xia Fengruo, and asked, "What about that person?" Xia Fengruo said: "It's a villain brother." ”

So the magistrate let them go through the fence. Tan Shaowen was half frightened to death, Xia Fengruo told him with a smile: "Walking around the streets at night, if you say that you take medicine, you won't be at night." This bun of honeysuckle, I have used it three times. The honeysuckle he had bought for five cents of silver was used as a pass to walk around at night, and the prescription was also stolen from the drugstore, so the chief saw the flaw, but he was unwilling to investigate it in detail.

The purpose of this rule was of course to maintain their rule and law and order, but the effect was highly doubtful. Matteo Ricci, an Italian missionary who entered China at the end of the Ming Dynasty, wrote in his book Matteo Ricci's Notes on China that during the Ming Dynasty, "thousands of groomers in every city patrolled the streets at night and struck gongs at prescribed intervals. Despite this, and the streets are barricaded and locked, it is not uncommon for houses to be looted by night thieves. This may be because the husband himself is a thief, or is in partnership with a thief. The result of frequent thefts is that people are used to keep an eye on the husband. The Chinese were indeed surprised to hear that in densely populated cities in Europe, guards were not used to prevent domestic theft, but to defend citizens from invaders."

……

Therefore, when Hu Guang and the others returned to the intelligence station after reconnoitring Master Gao's house, they mentioned this concern to Wen Desi, and the fat man laughed, "Chief, we already have a solution to this matter." ”

After speaking, he took out another bunch of keys from the drawer, and the sound of "Ding Ling Dangchang" sounded, "Chief, you see this is the key to these street fences." ”

"Hey, you're so well prepared." Hu Guang was a little surprised, although those wooden fences were not high, with the skills of these soldiers he selected, it was no problem to climb over with his bare hands, but it was also a troublesome thing to say, so with these keys, it must have saved a lot of trouble.

Seeing that there was actually a "wide lock" in this bunch of keys, Hu Guang was curious, so he continued to ask, "How did you get some keys?" ”

Because the locks in ancient China are very different from the modern locks, several locks in ancient China, their types are roughly divided into two categories: reed structure locks and text combination locks.

Among them, reed structure locks can be divided into four types: wide locks, citi locks, torture locks and jewelry locks, most of which are horizontal locks, which are used in doors, cabinets, boxes, etc. Guang lock, in the Qing Dynasty Guangxu years mostly produced in Shaoxing, commonly known as "Shao lock", folk also called "horizontal lock", "spring lock" or "pillow lock". Most of them are made of copper, with a concave front and a combination of triangular and rectangular ends.

Before the Ming Dynasty, most of the wide locks were made of iron, and the end face was long and cylindrical. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the wide locks were mostly made of copper, and the upper part of the end face was triangular, and the lower part was obliquely square. After the Qing Dynasty, most of their materials were brass, and there were also Yunnan white copper and iron, and the upper part of the end face was the same as that of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the lower part was square.

Now in the hands of Hu Guang this iron lock is inherited from the Ming Dynasty before the style of the wide lock, its two ends are long cylindrical, there are three hoops, the function of this hoop is to add this kind of patterned iron hoop in the cylindrical lock body, can increase the beauty and strength. However, this lock is not polished because it is not nickel or copper plated on its surface, probably because it is just a lock used to lock the street fence.

Seeing Chief Hu asking himself, Wen Desi laughed before he could say anything, and then said how to get these keys. In fact, at the earliest, after they settled in Fuzhou Mansion, they had considered the problem of traveling at night, so they put the idea on the "master key".

In the "agent training" class they gave them in Huangshi, they heard that there are two kinds of things in the upper realm: "master key" and "lock picking tool", and this kind of universal key and tool only needs to be **** after the keyhole. Then use the space of the spring to push all the pins out of the lock cylinder to make the lock cylinder rotate; Or use the tolerance between the marble and the marble hole, as long as you gently turn the lock cylinder to form a step between the upper and lower marble holes, and use iron wire or special tools to dial the upper marble to the step one by one, you can turn the lock cylinder to unlock.

In class, Huang Shi also showed them those tools. Those "master keys" are not much different from ordinary upper realm keys, they are used to open the lock and burglary, and the key can be opened within a minute after inserting the lock hole, which is as easy as entering the door of one's house.

And those "lock-picking tools" are sandwiched in a small gray wallet, a dozen small tools like ear spoons, and it doesn't take a few minutes for clever people to use them to unlock the lock.

It's a pity that Huangshi is not a locksmith, and he doesn't have time to learn these lockpicking skills, and these are just modern locks, so Huangshi just showed them these tools, so that they can think of this solution when they encounter similar problems in the future.

So Wen Desi, Jin Tashan they encountered problems, they thought of this "master key", but after studying the wide lock, only to find that their idea does not work at all, although the principle of these locks is the same, but it is not mass production, are the masters of the locksmith shop handmade, each lock is different, the lock has large and small, various styles, and the key is the same, there are straight, bent, long, short, flat, and round bar.

Since this trick did not work, they immediately changed their minds, and turned their attention to the husbands, trying to deceive them into obtaining the keys to these streets.

Every night when they go out on duty, they will knock on bamboo sticks or gongs to remind people what time it is, and there is also fire prevention and theft prevention. In today's society, which is usually only available in movies or television, their original jobs are now replaced by community security guards or joint defense team members.

The husband usually works in pairs, one holds the gong in his hand, and the other holds the bang in his hand...... Boom". The watchman has to knock five times a night, every two hours to knock once, and when the fifth time is knocked is commonly known as the fifth watch, at this time the chicken also crows, and the day is almost bright.

Don't look at the small beating, there is still a lot of exquisiteness, generally speaking, from slow to fast, three times in a row to the end of the change.

For example, at seven o'clock in the evening, one slow and one fast, hit three times in a row, and the sound is like "Knock! …… Boom! "Boom! …… Boom! "Boom! …… Boom! ”；

Hit two at nine o'clock in the evening, hit again and again, hit many times in a row, the sound is like "Knock! Boom! ”。“ Boom! Boom! ”；