Chapter XI

Salvage of shipwrecks

Looking at the boat from afar, the big boat and the crowd around it looked noisy and grand, and I drove the boat closer and closer, trying to see what they were doing. But before I could get closer, the people over there spotted me and screamed at me to stop.

"Pai Jiao Xinghe, idlers avoid it!" A bare-chested man stood on a small sampan next to the boat, crossed his waist and shouted to me, "Don't come close!" "

As soon as I heard this, I was slightly shocked in my heart, no wonder there were so many people around the big ship, it turned out that the platoon was doing things.

When it comes to platoon, many people may feel unfamiliar, and when it comes to platoon, we must first talk about "repatriation". The so-called release row is that in the forest farm in the upper reaches of the river, after a large number of logs are cut down, they are directly pushed to the water's edge, and then more than a dozen logs are nailed into a row, and more than a dozen rows of such logs are connected together in series, and the wooden rows can float on the water surface and move along the direction of the water flow. In this way, it can be transported by natural rivers, but so many wood needs to be taken care of in the process of rafting, and on the first wooden raft, a small shack will be built, and some people will eat and live in the shack, and be responsible for various matters between the starting point and the end point of the wooden raft, this kind of person is called a platoon person.

The release of the platoon is the same as sailing, full of dangers, encountering bad weather, or the wooden platoon hits the rock, the release of the platoon may lose their lives. Before liberation, there were at least two or three accidents in the ten discharge attempts, and the people who released the discharge died in the river and never came back. Like the "Jade Gang" in the south and the "Mining Sect", this kind of group of people engaged in high-risk occupations gathered together to form a group over time in order to survive and for profit. The ancestor of Pai Jiao was Chen Silong, a native of the Tang Dynasty, who was said to be a warlock, who gathered the Pai people together and taught them to use magic to cross the river and reduce the accidents when Pai. It was from that time that Pai Jiao arose.

There is no forest area in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, and there is no Paijiao, but since the end of the Qing Dynasty, there are more people who mine sand and walk the river, and many things can be fished out of the Yellow River every year. The people who moved north are no longer engaged in simple delineation work, but they still continue to follow the rules of the river.

To tell the truth, the people who eat by the river in this neighborhood usually don't provoke the Pai Jiao very much, because those who let the Pai people live a life of mixing their heads, all of them are stout and tall, and they are not afraid of death, and the members of the Pai Sect are mixed, and the three sects and nine streams gather together, among which there are many people with great ability, and ordinary river walkers will not touch this moldy head.

Two years ago, I went back to my hometown in Xiaopanhe, and after two days of casual walking, I couldn't hear any news about Pai Jiao, and they may disappear completely with the passage of time. However, in the early 80s, Pai Jiao experienced a dormant period of several decades after liberation, and its momentum was very great, monopolizing many "water-staining" businesses on both sides of the strait, and engaging in it in full swing.

I didn't want to get into trouble, so the strong man shouted out at a loud voice, and I immediately turned around and slowly approached the shore, not far from the big boat, there were some locals gathered, all watching the excitement. I asked the fellows for a few questions, and my heart sank, and I couldn't tell whether I was excited or afraid.

"You just came, you don't know yet, do you?" A local villager in his forties pointed to the big boat and said to me mysteriously: "Their boat had an accident here a few days ago. "

The accident was caused by a boat transporting parallel goods, a Yellow River has flowed for tens of millions of years, the embankment has been broken and diverted countless times, and countless things have been washed and submerged by the river. Parallel trading is Paijiao's largest business on both sides of the Yellow River. It was already dark when one of their boats came here the other day, so they wanted to rest for the night and continue the journey the next day.

The next morning, when the nearby villagers came to the river, they found that the boat was empty, and the seven or eight people on board were nowhere to be found, except for a man in his thirties, standing on the deck in a daze, muttering something. It was a boat for Pai Jiao, and the local villagers didn't want to provoke it, but from early morning until noon, the boat stopped in place, and the man in his thirties was still muttering. People with good deeds cautiously leaned over to talk to each other, but the man ignored him, and at this time, the villagers vaguely heard that the man seemed to be babbling muttering, but in fact, he was talking about two words over and over again.

Coffin.

Obviously, the man may have had something wrong with his nerves, and he poked on the boat in a daze. A few brave people in the local area got together and quietly discussed, although the people on this boat were gone, but the full ship of goods were still there, a boat of parallel goods was varied, for the villagers, it was a windfall, and the bold villagers wanted to take the opportunity to move something on the boat.

But when they tried to approach the ship, the stupid man on the boat jumped up with a shout, and then hurried into the cabin, and the villagers could not figure out the truth and did not dare to move again. After the man got into the cabin, the people on the shore faintly heard a continuous muffled sound, and soon the ship began to sink, according to the situation at that time, the purpose of the man entering the cabin was probably to scuttle the ship.

The boat was sinking, and the villagers were frightened, so they dismissed the idea of taking the opportunity to get some oil and water, and watched the boat slowly sink.

They inquired for two days, found it all the way, and then sent a bigger ship to salvage the sunken ship, even if they couldn't catch the sunken ship, they had to get a shipload of parallel goods.

What excites and frightens me is that the man muttered the word coffin more than once before scuttling the ship. I'm not sure if he's talking about a stone coffin, but there is a hunch in my heart that it will be a stone coffin, the stone coffin that took away my grandfather. I was afraid of the stone coffin, but I knew that only by finding the coffin could I find my grandfather.

Thinking about it this way, I paid more attention to the situation over there, stopped the boat, and stopped to watch with the nearby villagers.

In fact, the people who pai jiao also walk in the river all the year round, and they are extremely familiar with the river, and they probably know that the shipwreck is very abnormal, so they have not acted rashly before the big boat arrived. When I came, they were well prepared, but in those days, the people who mingled by the river did not have advanced equipment and technical tools, and could only rely on their own hands and experience. The boat of the sect was firmly anchored, the thick rope on the winch was put down, and then the two shirtless men drank a few large sips of liquor, apparently wanting to enter the water.

"They will go down and have no good fruit to eat." A villager scolded in a low voice: "These turtle grandsons are usually too bullying, and the Dragon Lord will take them all in." "

"It's all five thunderstorms in the past few days, who will they accept if they don't accept it?"

"It's best to make this ship upside down, we are all natives, and we usually worship the Dragon Lord, these dogs' Pai Sect is an outsider, and the Dragon Lord is a god, and he can distinguish between distant and close relatives."

Paijiao may usually be a bit domineering in this vicinity, which makes the locals very dissatisfied, and the two men have not yet entered the water, and they are drenched in blood by the cursed dogs. I didn't participate in the swearing, I have been watching carefully, the meaning of the sect is obvious, these two people who are going to enter the water are only responsible for feeling the situation, and only after the wait is completely understood can they decide how to salvage.

After drinking the liquor, two shirtless men came out of the cabin of the big ship, one of them was an old man in his sixties, thin like a ghost, with two goatees, the old man was wearing a coarse cloth coat, his hair was very long, and he wore a bun on the top of his head. This old man is more ugly than the big uglies in our village, but the people who rank him are very respectful.

The old man with the goatee walked behind the two men, and the two knelt down on one leg with a puff, and someone next to him held the adjusted cinnabar, and the goatee drew two strange-looking talismans on the back of the man.

"Blessed by the ancestors, there are no taboos." After the goatee was finished, he dropped his pen and slapped it on the top of each of the two men's heads.

This should be a secret method pursued by the Pai Sect, and their ancestor himself was a non-monk and non-Taoist warlock, and some of the rules that have been handed down are also chattering. I don't know if this kind of ghost painting talisman is effective, but the two men are holding the bright red talisman on their backs, and their faces are relaxed, as if they have this talisman to protect themselves, and there are really no taboos after entering the water. Anyway, I don't believe in these, sand mining boats and rivers, that relies on real skills, things like ghost whips are just foreign objects, they are auxiliary, if a person with no experience skills, even if he holds a ghost whip, it won't help, such as me.

Everything was ready, and a cowhide drum was erected in the bow of the great ship, which was quite large, and the beating was amazing, and the drum beat like thunder. This is one of the most authentic rules of Paijiao, the boat opens the way with a drum, and the sound of the drum can shake off the evil in the water.

With a goatee behind his back, someone moved out a Taishi chair, he sat firmly on the chair, nodded slightly, and a person next to him shouted: "Open the way!" "

The two men who were about to enter the water took a sharp breath, but at this moment, a string of splashes suddenly appeared on the surface of the water, and the water lines were mixed with mud and sand, making the already not very clear water even more turbid.

Sou!

Suddenly, a white mass of tumbling water bubbled out, jumped out of the water two or three meters high, and then fell into the water and floated on the water. At this moment, the two men who were about to go into the water stopped, and the people on the boat and the people on the shore stretched their necks together to see what was floating in the water.

There was something floating in the water that was a little strange, I can't tell what it was, like a huge translucent white cocoon. I didn't get close to the boat, but the villagers on the shore got a little bit closer.

"I'm a mother!"

A few villagers who approached looked at the cocoon and swished back, their faces full of disbelief.