8-47 A Girl from a Poor Family

The price of 8,880 taels of silver is indeed very low, you must know that there are too many things involved in a mile of river embankment, and it is definitely not a sandbag to hold the mud on the wall, it must be in accordance with strict construction standards, with stones, mortar, and sand to build a solid embankment, and the embankment should be planted with shelter forests, and when encountering a branch river, a sluice gate should be built so that when necessary, the sluice gate can be opened to relieve the pressure of the main river, and a flood channel must be dug every fifty miles for backup, which does not include the funds for the acquisition of farmland near the embankment. The cost of stone earthwork, the meals of migrant workers, etc.

In short, the embankment project was built in accordance with the high standard of a once-in-a-century flood, and it was definitely not something that could be stopped by 10,000 taels of silver, and the quotations of other builders were much higher than this number, and the lowest was 15,000 taels, no wonder Ma Yun was so confident in winning the bid.

The people here are all insiders, and they know that it is impossible to lower the floor price of eight thousand eight, this time it will allow Lin Ruhai to earn political achievements, regardless of whether such a small amount of money can be built into a dam, anyway, this number will definitely be praised when reported to the imperial court.

The applause rang out, and everyone stood up to congratulate Ma Yun and Lin Ruhai, and the builders who failed to bid walked up to Ma Yun and congratulated them, but they maliciously thought in their hearts that 8,880 taels would see how you build this embankment, anyway, when you subcontract it to us, it must not be less than 15,000, Ma Yun seemed to know their thoughts, and said with a smile while returning the salute and secretly saying: "It's all up to everyone's help." ”

Liu Ziguang did not appear, thinking that so far, there have been no irregularities in the bidding of the river embankment, although he believes that there must be fraud in this matter, and there will be greater corruption in the near future, but this is all a matter that has not yet happened, he can only instruct the fans to pay close attention to this matter and report it at any time.

As for Lin Daiyu's refusal to get married, Liu Ziguang has also heard about it, so he doesn't have the energy to get any heroes to save the beauty, but he doesn't want to see such a beautiful girl fall into the hands of Ma Yun, a dirty guy......

The matter of Huguang has been dealt with almost over, the long-coveted Wuchang Shipyard was acquired by Jiangnan Shipyard and became Liu Ziguang's invisible assets, the refugees returned home 6 times, and an army loyal to the imperial court was also established, the core force of this army is Liu Ziguang's Zhuangding troops, Xiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan-Guizhou matters, involving complex national issues, not something that can be solved by simple force, Liu Ziguang is not interested in care, he just wants to go home as soon as possible to see his wife.

A huge river boat moored at the Wuchang wharf, Liu Ziguang boarded the machine boat under the send-off of Huguang officials, and said goodbye to countless people on the shore, although he was not a civil affairs official, but the local people still sent Wanmin umbrella to him in accordance with the rules of his parents' official leaving office, and left a boot of the Marquis of Zhenwu to hang on the head of Wuchang City, saying that the Hou Ye will always remain in the hearts of the people of Wuhan.

The time is already the end of August, along the Yangtze River all the way to the east smoothly, only one day to Jiujiang, when crossing the Jiujiang River, the garrison at the head of the city saw the Zhenwu Marquis's boat transit, specially fired a cannon salute, the machine boat whistle returned the salute, after the Jiujiang River is not far from the mouth of Poyang Lake. I saw that the Yangtze River came here, and the yellow river water and the turquoise lake water were completely separated, forming a clear boundary in the waterway. The white sails of Poyang Lake in the distance are dotted, lined with the vast and beautiful blue sky. Nearby Shizhong Mountain stands by the river, and the cliff at the foot of the mountain is empty and sound by the river water. Looking behind it, a tall blue shadow towered in the sky, and there was Lushan. The main channel of the Yangtze River often does not see both sides of the river, and sometimes you can see many wide tributaries on both sides of the river, leading to a wild lake and swamp. Boatmen who are not familiar with the waterways of the Yangtze River often drive their boats into a fork in the river, and it is very dangerous to get lost.

All the way to see the scenery of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Thousands of miles of plains on both sides of the river, you can see the rice waves rolling everywhere, often see a shepherd boy grazing cattle by the river, the wind comes to the fishing song bursts, the sound of the shepherd flute. Such a beautiful scenery is refreshing, unconsciously the journey has gone halfway, to the territory of Anqing in Nanzhili, Liu Ziguang did not want to alarm the local government, so he let people lower his flag, anchor and rest on the dock side of Anqing City, buy some fresh vegetables to eat, just by the riverside someone peddled puffer fish, the next person bought a few by the way to give Hou Ye a try.

Puffer fish taste extremely delicious, since ancient times there is a "bite of puffer fish meat, never smell the world's fish" saying, although the practice is extremely cumbersome, a little careless can poison people, but this is not difficult Liu Ziguang, he has both a clever cook, and a master of poison, dealing with a small puffer fish is a big deal, the chef uses a knife to cut off the fins, cut off the fish mouth, dig out the fish eyes, peel off the skin of the fish, and then cut open the fish belly to take out the fish intestines, liver, ovaries and kidneys and other highly toxic internal organs, Then put the puffer fish meat into the water one by one, and rinse off the poisonous juice on it. After washing, the fish pieces are as white as jade and crystal clear. Next, cut it into paper-thin slices and place them on a plate to prepare a plate of soy sauce and chili oil to eat. In addition, a bucket of stool was secretly prepared, and in case anyone was poisoned, vomiting could be induced immediately. No matter how clean it is, you have to prepare it, this is the rule of eating puffer fish.

Liu Ziguang asked people to set up a table on the deck, gathered his subordinates to taste the puffer fish together, the cook tasted it first, and then everyone raised their chopsticks together, picked up the fish fillet, dipped it in the soy sauce and chili pepper on the plate, put it in their mouths and chewed slowly. After eating the fillet, drink a bowl of puffer fish soup, which is really refreshing and delicious.

Eating and drinking, suddenly heard a noise from the wharf in the distance, it turned out to be a group of fierce men searching for passenger ships, the Yangtze River is the most important waterway in the Ming Dynasty, from Sichuan to Shanghai are busy routes, cargo ships and passenger ships are endless, passenger ships are mostly sail-powered wooden ships, when there is no wind, you can use a slender man to pull forward, a ship can carry dozens of passengers, Anqing is a big city along the river, all passenger ships have to get on and off passengers here, so there are a lot of people on the wharf.

Dressed in short beatings and carrying knives in their waists, they looked like evil slaves of large families, and they blocked the entrance and exit from the pier to the trestle, checked every person who came out of the pier, and searched every passenger ship as if they were looking for someone. And there were a few soap clerks standing nearby, holding water and fire sticks in front of the spectators with great interest, and they didn't seem to have any intention of asking.

Liu Ziguang frowned slightly, just wanted to send a few people to take a look, there was already a commotion, the big men grabbed two people dressed as scholars from a passenger ship, although the two were dressed in men's clothes, but they were petite, and their voices were sharp, and they looked like women dressed as men, and the big men did not move roughly, and persuaded the two people very restrainedly, the two people kept screaming, and a big man couldn't help but slap one of them, and the surrounding people surrounded him, accusing these big men of rudeness, But the unarmed people could not fight against the evil slaves with steel swords, and they were about to take the two women away.

"My lord, that woman with a sharp voice seems to be from our Nanchang." One of the guards said.

"Oh? That's not enough to take a look, the people who dare to bully the South Factory have turned against them! ”

The handsome spoke, and immediately a few guards put down the sampan and shook it over, boarded the dock and negotiated with the big men, and the conversation between the two sides could not be heard from a long distance, but it could be seen that the big men were not afraid after seeing the Nanchang waist card, but fought according to reason, and finally the Nanchang fan pulled out the knife, and the fire gun was taken out to gain the upper hand, and the two women got on the passenger ship and went to the direction of the capital, and the fans put away their weapons and came back.

The fans jumped on the sampan and rowed back, and reported to Liu Ziguang: One of the two women dressed as men is Lin Daiyu, the daughter of Lin Ruhai, who patrols the river and the imperial history, and the other is the maid Cuifeng of the Lin family, but the maid is just Cuifeng's cover identity, her real identity is an intern Nanchang fanzi, she is the one who peeked into the content of the secret letter in the capital from Lin Ruhai's study, and this time she took Miss Lin to escape from the marriage was ordered by Nanchang, and those big men were the family members of Ma Yun's family, and they came to arrest Miss Ma and Lin Yushi to go back to complete the marriage. They thought that the arrest of the girl from the Qiao family was a dignified matter, and they had also greeted the local government, so even if they saw the Nanchang waist card, they were not timid, but they fought on the basis of reason, but Nanchang Fanzi was not a vegetarian, and they copied the guy on the spot to kill someone, and then they knew that they were afraid, so they had to watch Lin Daiyu's boat leave.

After listening to the report, Liu Ziguang said with satisfaction: "It's a good job, arranged marriages kill people, let's just be a good person to the end, order to anchor and go on the road, and escort this passenger ship all the way into Beijing." ”

So Liu Ziguang's machine boat slowed down, and accompanied the sailboat all the way to the capital slowly, and there were two luxuriously decorated medium-sized machine ships with the Ma family flag following all the way, but they never started to rob people, obviously afraid of the official ship of the South Factory.

The distance from Anqing to the capital is not very far, two days and nights will arrive, the power of the south factory of this acre and three points of land in the capital is not to be underestimated, before the Ma family's machine boat docked, it was stopped by two Yangtze River sailor ships, the soldier jumped on the boat, not to mention beating everyone up and then detaining the boat to take people, as for the crime, just an illegal carrying weapon is, no matter what background he has, first detain half a month.

The sailor commanded the soldiers to escort the Ma family's family into the bilge with a straight face, raised his head and saw the official ship of the South Factory passing by, and quickly changed his smile to wave his hand, the South Factory entrusted him to do things that was worthy of him, how could he not try his best to do it beautifully, alas, I don't know if this task was arranged by Zhen Wuhou himself, if so, then I am not far from Feihuang Tengda, I always thought happily.