Qu Yuan's "Lisao" "said that dusk is a period of time, and the road is changed in the middle of the Qiang". "Peacock Flying Southeast" Jiao Zhongqing and Liu Lanzhi "After the dying dusk, the lonely people are set." My life is not today, and my soul will remain forever." Jiang Kui's "Yangzhou Slow" "is gradually dusk, the clear corners are blowing cold, all in the empty city". Back in ancient times, dusk was inseparable from sadness, parting, and even death. In other words, Wang Xiaobo's words "there is no difference between ancient and modern".

The first year of Xuantong in the Qing Dynasty, 1909 in the Western calendar, late spring. Another imperial twilight, a pancake-like sunset, through the decaying North China Plain, shining on the Weide Concession in Tianjin, the black, white, and red flags of the German Empire hunted and fluttered. In the classroom at the Wilhelm II Primary School, a female teacher from Königsberg in Prussia, wrote on the blackboard "die Daemmerung", which is "dusk" in German.

"Who are you?"

Qiu Xiaogeng sat behind his desk, looking out the window at the dazzling sunset. The sea and river are sparkling, full of sailboats and small motorboats. Every dusk, when there is such a stick of incense, he will wander too far and ask himself this difficult proposition? It would not be unusual if he was too old to read poetry and books, or if he was an old monk, but he was a milky child, and he was not yet ten years old. Qiu Xiaogeng subconsciously scratched his arm. A few days ago, the family just invited a German doctor to come to the door and planted cowpox for him, leaving a small acne scar.

“Matthias！”

The teacher was calling Qiu Xiaogeng's German name "Matthias" and warning him not to desert in class. The school, named after the current German emperor, is half German, half Chinese, and all boys. Qiu Xiaogeng's academic performance was the best in the class. Adhering to the craftsman spirit of the Germans, there is a mechanical class in the school, and the parts of any machine, in the hands of Qiu Xiaogeng, can play new tricks, or turn scrap iron into sharp weapons, so that the mechanical teachers from the Ruhr area are amazed. The principal of Wilhelm II Primary School, who is a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg and vice president of the Ministry of Industry of the German Concession, also values this kid and promises to sponsor Matthias to study in Germany in the future.

When the bell rang for the end of class, he grabbed his schoolbag and rushed out of the school, with a slender braid on the back of his head and a cat's tail flying. A few Chinese classmates greeted him, do you want to watch a foreign film? Qiu Xiaogeng shook his head with a smile and said, "Do you want to play chess with me?" No one dared to respond to the result, because he had never lost chess since he was seven years old. On weekdays, German classmates rarely interact with Chinese classmates, and both sides are grouped according to race, but Qiu Xiaogeng is alone. His only good classmate was a blonde boy named Herman, and the two often played chess together.

When he ran past Wilhelmstrasse, where a bronze statue of the Kaiser stands, the German soldiers standing guard saw the Chinese boy's braids and laughed loudly, and Qiu Xiaogeng immediately replied, "Arschloch!" "It's a dirty word from a German classmate, it means muddy. The German soldier was stunned, and for the first time a Chinese child scolded him in German.

The scope of the Tianjin German Concession, in the current Dayingmen Street and Xiawafang Street in Hexi District, and now the ruins are gone, all of which are newly built cottages by later generations. Tianjin is the gateway to Gyeonggi, the gateway to the sea in North China, and the residence of the Minister of Beiyang. Since the British and French forces burned the Old Summer Palace, the British have encircled the concession in Tianjin. Later, France, Russia, the United States, Japan, Italy, Austria-Hungary and even Belgium established concessions here, and Tianjin became the most foreign city in the north. During the Republic of China, Junichiro Tanizaki traveled to Tianjin and was amazed as if he had arrived in a European capital.

Nine-year-old Qiu Xiaogeng trotted along the winding Haihe River. Last winter, a kitten fell into the Haihe River and was about to drown, so he took off his padded jacket and plunged into the water, risking his life to save the kitten, and he almost fell seriously ill from the cold.

When I got to the door, it was already dark. This is a brick house in a courtyard house, with a single house, swallows nesting outside the eaves, and the courtyard is full of moon flowers. Mom has prepared dinner, and there are crabs and razor clams that Xiao Geng loves to eat.

Father Qiu Desheng took off his glasses, put down today's German newspaper and said: "The regent's younger brother Zaixun is inspecting the navy in Germany, and there are still people who are going to inspect the constitutional monarchy. ”

Qiu Desheng was in his 40s, one of the first students to study in Germany, and settled in Tianjin after returning to China, where he worked for Deutsche Bank Tianjin Branch. Last year, he was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Qing court to translate the full text of the Constitution of the German Empire into Chinese for reference in the preparation of the constitution.

The son wolfed down dinner and suddenly interjected: "Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be an admiral." ”

"You kid is thinking nonsense again, as soon as the regent comes to power, he will replace Yuan Shikai. Now those who can become generals are either royal families or Manchurians, which round will get you? ”

"Daddy, I want to sail the earth with a huge ship to the gates of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia, so that they will no longer dare to point their guns at China's coastline."

There is a wooden model of a dreadnought on the windowsill, carved by Xiao Geng himself, which is vivid and not inferior to any metal model. Every time he saw a model ship, even if it was just a ship drawing in school, he would automatically see the rough sea in front of him, a ship spewing black smoke to ride the wind and waves, the keel under the waterline was shining, the propeller at the stern of the ship was flying, from the displacement to the speed to the boiler horsepower and even the position of the center of gravity of the hull, it was like a dense newspaper typesetting flying through his brain......

"Daydreaming! I see, China will have to be poor and weak for another hundred years! Qiu Desheng lit a cigarette, touched his son's forehead and said, "Xiao Geng, you are the only son of our enemy's family, since ancient times, the only son is not a soldier, and no one will want you." ”

"Daddy, you said I was born in the year of Gengzi. I heard Zhang Lezi, who was pulling a cart at the entrance of the alley, say that that year, the Eight-Nation Coalition hired him to push a wheelbarrow to transport grain from Tianjin to the capital, and he saw with his own eyes that foreign devils killed innocent people indiscriminately, and the corpses of ordinary people were all along the way, especially the soldiers of Germany, Japan, and Russia. The German teacher in our school said that this is the punishment of civilization for barbarism, is this really civilization? ”

Hearing the words "Gengzi Year", Qiu Desheng's face changed, and he slapped the table and shouted: "Hugh has to mention Gengzi Year again!" Don't go to Zhang Lezi again, he's a big fool who runs the train with his mouth full! Don't talk about what the teacher said, don't miss your bright future! ”

Qiu Desheng has never scolded the child, let alone been willing to fight. The wife came to dissuade him and told him to dissipate his anger and let the child eat quickly.

"Isn't there a 'Geng' in my name?"

Mom said that he was born in the year of Gengzi, and in order to make a living, he added the word "small", just like the rural children's nicknames Goudan, Erniu and the like. Qiu Desheng stopped talking, looking at the dark night outside the window, faintly uneasy.

"Daddy, I'm sorry." The child's EQ and IQ are equally good, and he came to comfort the angry father again, "I know that Gengzi Year is a taboo in my family." The child promised not to mention it again. ”

Looking at this smart son, Qiu Desheng opened his face again and smiled faintly: "It's okay! Daddy is also busy with work these days, and he is in charge of the settlement of Gengzi indemnity at Deutsche Bank. ”

"450 million taels of silver for Gengzi? On average, each Chinese has to pay one or two silver for Gengzi indemnity? ”

"This huge amount of money will be repaid in thirty-nine years, with an annual interest rate of four percent, and one billion taels of silver with interest! Germany received 20 percent, 5 million taels of silver a year, and from this year onwards it was transferred to the Tianjin branch of Deutsche Bank for processing, and it had to be converted into Deutsche Marks, and then the silver was loaded and shipped to Germany, which was really a headache. ”

"Five million taels of silver, how much does that cost?"

"When I was studying in Germany, the contract cost of the Dingyuan ironclad ship of the Beiyang Naval Division was 1.63 million taels of silver."

Qiu Xiaogeng immediately converted the answer: "It is equivalent to China compensating Germany for three Dingyuan ships every year!" If someone hijacks a ship halfway, won't it be rich enough to rival the country? ”

"Two years ago, the Gengzi indemnity sent by China to Japan, carried by a Japanese steamer loaded with one million taels of silver, set sail from Wusongkou in Shanghai, but disappeared in the center of the East China Sea. There were several hundred passengers on board, whose fate is unknown. Some people say they encountered pirates, others say they were shipwrecked, and some even say that the captain guarded and stole himself. In short, after this major case, all countries have strengthened the protection of Gengzi indemnity silver during transportation. ”

"A million-dollar silver case? It sounds interesting, like the story of Sherlock Holmes's four signatures, maybe it was done by a thief who robbed the rich and gave to the poor! ”

"Hugh is going to talk nonsense, go and do your homework!"

Qiu Xiaogeng said "um", but the scene of a ghost ship full of millions of silver floating on the sea surface......

The house was already lit up, and after he finished his homework under the lamp, he went to his father's study and flipped up the embroidered book of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

Last night, I just read the one hundred and fourth episode of "The Fallen Star Han Prime Minister Returns to the Sky, and I See the Wood Like Wei Dudu Lost Fear". On August 23, the autumn of the twelfth year of Jianxing, Zhuge Liang died in the autumn wind Wuzhang Plain before he left the army——

"It's night, the sky is miserable, the moonlight is dull, and Kong Ming is dying."

Reading this, Qiu Xiaogeng seemed to see the yellow earth on the bank of the Weishui River, the vast night sky, and a red star falling, and his heart was sour, his nose was stuffed, and tears fell.

Outside the gate of this quadrangle, there was a crisp knock.

Qiu Desheng, who sighed for a long time, opened the door nervously. In the night, there was a man standing, wearing a blue silk coat and a top hat, but his face was that of a young man, and his eyes were like daggers piercing Qiu Desheng's face. There were also two Chinese policemen from the German Concession in the back.

The person who came showed his documents: Ye Kenan, an inspector of the Patrol Police Bureau on Jingcheng West Road, plus an official letter issued by the Ministry of Industry of the German Concession.