Compared with the freighter on the shore, it is indeed like a small boat, but compared with the canopy boat, it is a behemoth, and it is a pity not to load goods.

"Yes, they are boat people, and they make a living from boats, fishing and hunting." Seeing that her conjecture came true, Song Siyuan suddenly realized: "Then I know that in the coastal areas of Fujian and the middle and lower reaches of the Minjiang River, there are also people living on the water, and the local people call them egg people." ”

"In the previous dynasty, the government was very discriminatory against the egg people, describing them as lowly beggars, and did not allow them to go ashore to dock, and once they landed, they had to pay heavy taxes, so as to force them to live in the water for generations, so that they could pick pearls for them in the South China Sea." Ren Peacock took the goods on the side of the stall and explained: "I know a little bit about what you said, but these boat people were not expelled from the case, they took the initiative to drift on Dongting Lake, and now they are better, they have their own fishing boats, and a few more than fifty years ago, their land is just tied to a sheepskin raft, and countless sheepskin rafts are connected to form a small floating island on Dongting Lake." "Speaking of which, the history of the boat people has to go back to the last years of Zhu Ming and the entry of the previous dynasty.

At the end of the Zhu Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chong hanged the mountain behind the capital, and the Southern Ming Dynasty was then established, occupying the south of the Yangtze River for decades, and Dongting Lake was under the rule of the Southern Ming Dynasty, which belonged to the front line of the resistance to the flag soldiers.

In the following years, the Southern Ming forces continued to retreat to southern Yunnan, and when the previous dynasty destroyed the Southern Ming, there were countless Southern Ming generals who refused to submit to the new dynasty, so they built ships as camps, entered Dongting Lake, and relied on 800 miles of Dongting water to cover their whereabouts.

At that time, Yueyang City was indeed prosperous, but the Dongting Lake basin was uninhabited for hundreds of miles, these Southern Ming generals were well versed in water, the flag soldiers ran when they came, and they continued to make chaos when they left, the soldiers were strong and strong, treacherous and cunning, and it was more difficult to deal with than the water bandits.

Because they did not accept the new dynasty and did not respect the rule, they still dominated the old Zhu Ming dynasty, and the new dynasty had no choice but to designate these people as lake bandits, and asked the local government to exterminate them as appropriate.

Originally, the new dynasty still had a chance to persuade them to submit, but after the local government issued a notice, it directly pushed the Nanming generals to the opposite side of the government, cutting off their back road.

In order to invite merit, these officials and lords also issued notices prohibiting the people from trading with the lake bandits, and the violators were exiled, blocking their way to shore for supplies.

These Southern Ming generals were originally only enemies of the government, in order to get supplies, they could only plunder the people, and there was no turning back when they got out of this road, and they also made a reputation for plundering water bandits, and later, no one regarded them as Nanming generals, just a group of dead water bandits who died and did not attach to the new dynasty.

In the past few hundred years, the Dongting boat people could not make contact with the shore, and their lives were extremely difficult, and they gradually divided into two factions, one faction was the water bandits, who made a living by robbing people's boats and killing people and goods.

The other group is the boat people, the boat owners they just met. These people put away their surnames and places of origin, men take Zhu as their surname, women take Ma as their surname, and start a fishing and hunting business on Dongting Lake, they fish in Dongting Lake and release nets, if they catch fresh fish, they will get close to the fishing boat, sell them to the fishing boat at a lower price, and at the same time buy some salt seasoning with the boatman, if the boat runs aground and stops sailing, they can also help the boatman repair the hull and supply various things, although they can't get rich, but they can also survive.

Whoever dies will put the body in a small wooden boat and burn it, scatter the ashes into the lake, and never stay on the riverbank for the rest of their lives.

This situation did not change until the fall of the previous dynasty, and the previous dynasty was gone, and there was no need for these people to insist, either they built a rest house on the shore, or they continued to fish and hunt in Dongting Lake like ordinary fishermen.

After the boat people finished talking about the past, the things they wholesaled were almost the same, Ren Peacock came from the southwest, knew what the southwest mountain people lacked, and bought some headscarves made of foreign yarn, hairbands, hairpins, earrings, kerosene soap, needles and threads, these things are not worth much, but they are all in demand for the mountain people!

"My sister, I have to walk the streets and alleys to buy so much, do you need a flat basket?" Some bosses saw that they had a lot of things in their hearts, and they shouted for them to go back and take a look, Yue Guanchao saw that these things were really good, so he simply bought two bamboo baskets and a piece of disguise, which looked no different from the merchant.

After the groceries were done, they had another makeover, Song Siyuan took Ren Peacock's clothes, as for Yue Guanchao and Yue Ercang, then they could only find the clothes that the innkeeper didn't want to deal with first, and when they were completely busy, the sun sank into the sunset and gradually returned to darkness.

The night in Xiangdi is coming. Yueyang is close to Dongting Lake, there is a lake wind blowing day and night, moist and cold, foggy and cool, but where the sky is good, it must be a sunny day with lakes and mountains, and the moon ring is bright and high after night, and it can be seen that the gray clouds are rolled up in the sky, and the stars are hanging all over the sky.

Song Siyuan opened the window of the lakeside room, and after the lake in the distance darkened, she saw thousands of huge ships crossing the lake like bright yellow stars, and the sound of whistles and whining gradually approached the shore from far and near, and the closer place became noisy, she picked up the camera, grabbed the ship before the shore, and took a photo.

"Song Qianjin, your camera can really shine people's souls into it!" Lan Ruling saw Song Siyuan lying by the window, and walked over to watch her take pictures of the lakeshore.

"It can indeed shine people in, but it's just an image, it doesn't collect people's souls, and there is no yin in it." During the Republic of China, people in remote areas did not dare to take pictures, for fear of sucking their souls in, and Lan Ruling looked at the camera and did not dare to approach, most of them still think like this now!

"Are you going to touch it?" Song Siyuan took the camera off his neck and handed it to Lan Ruling, he was blowing and hitting like a hot potato at first, and he was sure that it was just an ordinary object, so he felt at ease to get started with the button.

"Have you used this camera to photograph a lot of foreigners?"

"Here we go again!" As soon as Ren Peacock heard Lan Ruling's words, he knew that this woman had Song Siyuan's idea again, and pouted and stopped persuading her.

Song Siyuan heard Lan Ruling mention her old foreigner three times twice, and became curious about the identity of this foreigner for a while: "Lan Ruling, if you tell me about your family, I may really be able to help you, there are newspapers in the West with missing person notices, and if he is really still in the world, maybe he will come to contact you." Song Siyuan gave Lan Ruling new hope, the woman put down the camera, pulled her to sit at the square table, and talked about her own affairs.