Yue Guanchao looked at her, and indeed heard Song Siyuan mention such a thing: "You take this matter seriously, I thought you were so emotional that you said it casually." ”

"A gentleman promises a thousand dollars, how can I casually promise others things, since I agreed, I will definitely do it, in addition to the purpose of helping Lan Ruling, I am also very curious about where Joseph has gone now."

After saying that, Song Siyuan opened the envelope, and her eyes immediately became puzzled, Yue Guanchao noticed the change in her eyes, and walked to the side to stare at Fengtian's reply carefully.

"It said that the Mukden side could not find the name of Joseph through diplomatic channels."

Song Siyuan thought that Joseph's information was sent by her family, but now there was only this empty sentence, and she immediately became curious.

Yue Guanchao said: "This is also normal, didn't Joseph tell Lan Xian that he was going to return to China, maybe he hasn't come back at all since he returned to China, at that time it was still the previous dynasty, and it was impossible for the Republic of China to have his information." ”

Song Siyuan didn't think much of it, and retorted: "If the Republic of China hasn't come again, then at least the previous dynasty has information, why hasn't the information of the previous dynasty been sent, Fengtian has taken over the Prime Minister's Yamen Clearance Archive Museum, and it is impossible to find Joseph's old residence in the previous dynasty." ”

"Unless!" Song Siyuan's eyes lit up: "Unless, we were deceived." ”

"You mean, Lan Xian deliberately deceived us?"

Yue Guanchao's eyes widened before he could finish speaking, and he was immediately grabbed by Song Siyuan's ears: "Fool, I mean maybe Lan Xianchao got a fake name." ”

She paused and continued to explain: "Perhaps, the name Joseph is just his pseudonym, and the name that is really used for customs declaration is another name, in this case, of course, we can't find any information about Joseph, and even the old books of the previous dynasty do not have many records. ”

"But, isn't this old man named Joseph?"

When he was on Xuanwu Island, John Hua, an old foreign dog, said that he and Joseph joined Huasheng Trading House at the same time, which shows that Joseph's name is indeed his usual name.

Song Siyuan listened to Yue Guanchao's suspicions, and her eyes became curious: "This can only show that even John Hua doesn't know his real name, if according to our guess, this person's true identity is quite mysterious, otherwise, why would he go to great lengths to hide his real name." ”

"Then, if this is a fake name, it will be difficult for you to find relatives for Lan Ruling by this, the only clue is that photo, now twenty or thirty years have passed, even if there is a real person, it is estimated that the appearance is completely different."

Xu Xiake's words were exactly the reality, and Song Siyuan had to shake her head helplessly: "It seems that the heavens are not beautiful, we can only press the clues first." ”

"Don't worry about this matter for now, I see that there is a letter in it, which was written by Hua Ling to Sun Daqiao."

After speaking, Song Siyuan took out a folded letter in the envelope: "Sun Daqiao has been following us out for several months, Hua Ling is probably worried about him, write to him to report his safety, and give it to him when he comes back." ”

"What about Sun Daqiao? Since the second uncle went to send Luo Shi Niang, I haven't seen him for several days. Song Siyuan asked.

Yue Guanchao scratched his head and said, "Yes, this old man is elusive, who knows what he's doing." ”

"He, after being an old bachelor for more than 20 years, what else can he do." As he spoke, Yue Erpao kept blinking his eyes, and a clear-eyed person knew at a glance that he was holding back something to say.

"Yue Guanhai, you have learned badly, you even know what the old bachelor does, it seems that you have done a lot of work." Yue Guanchao smiled evilly and put his arms around his neck, teasing him.

Yue Erpao scratched his head and sneered: "Hey, don't wronged me, I'm a good young man, when I got up at night to pee, I met Sun Daqiao coming back, full of the smell of theater powder, you know what to do if you think about it." ”

"I said, I was going to have fun." Xu Xiake suddenly realized.

"Then why don't we follow him to the theater garden?"

Yue Guanchao's words made Song Siyuan have no good face: "When you three say this, shouldn't you carry me behind your back?" ”

Yue Guanchao continued to explain: "Actually, there is nothing to avoid, we didn't go to the opera garden to watch the play, we just wanted to catch Sun Daqiao back, or you should come along!" ”

"Yes, the drama in Jianghancheng is much more exciting than other places."

Seeing that the three of them were curious, Xu Xiake continued to explain: "When I traveled to the south, I lived in Jianghan for a while, and I still know a little about this place. ”

There is a saying in Jianghan, calling goods to Hankou to live, and playing to Hankou red, a few catchy sentences, which explain why Jianghan City is prosperous.

The history of Jianghan City can be traced back to the previous dynasty of Zhu Ming.

Here by the river, near the Han water, for the heart of Kyushu, the hole of the four directions, starting from the river, to the southwest can be through the Yangtze River navigation Shudu, Chongcheng, Yunnan, to the southeast can pass through Jinling, Hangzhou, Sucheng, Yangzhou, it can be said that as long as through here, the north and south of the river are navigable.

It is also because of the convenience of Cao Yun, here from the Zhu Ming Dynasty to the previous dynasty, it is the north and south freight port, there are several ports in the world, and there are incomparable advantages.

In the feudal era, it was only convenient for transportation, but Ganghan City really developed and became a prosperous city like Chicago, which has reached the end of the previous dynasty.

Shipping here is more convenient, is one of the earliest areas to open the port, as early as seventy or eighty years ago, has been set up by the former government as the opening of the port, allowing Western merchants to trade here, the demarcation of the foreign port boundary, so that foreign merchants from all countries began to bring funds into the port boundary, investment and trading companies, commercial banks, banks, hospitals, theaters, embassies of the countries also settled in.

In that closed and conservative era at that time, this was tantamount to a thunderbolt for the people of Hankou, and it also made the people begin to open their eyes to the world.

Although the demarcation of the foreign port boundary has ushered in the prosperity and development of the northwest direction of Jianghan City, although the foreign port boundary is indeed a loss of power and humiliation of the country, it is undeniable that the development of the foreign port boundary has brought the concept of Western civilization and lifestyle to the Jianghan City.

With the opening of the port, on the river outside Hankou, ocean-going ships and cruise ships and barges have been navigating for countless days and nights, transporting Western goods to Tiannan and Haibei through here, making Jianghancheng connected to the world trade network.

At that time, the entire Jianghan city included Hankou, Hanyang, and Wuchang, and was connected by a river bridge, and hundreds of thousands of foreigners gathered in Hankou, while in the area outside the boundary of the foreign port, most of the people living in the Chinese community were Chinese.

There are more than five or six times more people living here than in the Yangbu Boundary, at least 500,000 or 600,000 people, and a large number of people live in the Chinese Boundary.

Some people, a family of three generations, can only live in a single-room courtyard, and even sleep in a single bed with only one bed.

Although this is aggrieved, it is already happy enough for them, after all, it is not easy for them to survive in troubled times.

The prosperity of commerce in Hankou was only one of the reasons why so many people could gather in the Chinese world, and the war in the north was also the most important factor.

Since the opening of the port of Hankou, the north has experienced too many civilian chaos, twisted armies, bandits, and locust plagues, and the people's livelihood has long been withered and increasingly difficult, and many people have been displaced and can no longer live, so they either fled to Jiangnan, or, through the fame of Hankow, poured into Jianghan.

After refugees, displaced people, landless peasants, and exiled merchants entered Jianghan, they all gathered in the Huajie and Hanyang areas of Hankou, and they combined with nearby peasants and immigrants from other provinces to form an extremely complex social group.

The most important way to promote the integration of folk customs is the flow of immigrants, these northern refugees poured into Hankou, so that the folk customs, dialects and slang, food habits, and craftsmen of the north and south began to converge and blend here, and finally formed Hankou's unique water and dry dock market culture.

At that time, the operas of various provinces were mostly sung on the same stage in Hankou, and Chu opera, Cantonese opera, and Sichuan opera came to Hankou with the Chamber of Commerce.

At the most prosperous time, various churches, temple fairs, and temple mansions have set up a stage outside to reward the gods for performances, and when they perform, they often gather thousands of people, competing with the Western dance halls in the foreign port world, and they are very interesting.

"Business is prosperous, no matter what tricky foreign goods are bought, folk customs are integrated, no matter what southern and northern tones can be popular, Jianghan has been prosperous from the last century to today, and it can indeed be regarded as the Chicago of the East."

After Xu Xiake introduced the history of Jianghan, everyone was surprised, but also had a trace of curiosity about the culture of the market wharf.

"Why don't you go and have a look?" Yue Guanchao asked.

"But we don't know which opera garden Sun Daqiao went to!" This is difficult, there are thousands of opera gardens in the entire Chinese world, not including the wild stage, it is very difficult to find Sun Daqiao, and Xu Xiake can only speak truthfully.

"I know." Yue Erpao's face was full of pride, he paused, and said in a mysterious tone: "After I locked the door, I went to his house to take a look, and there was a ticket stub after reading it, it seemed to be some kind of Fuyuan Building." ”

"Then let's go, let's also follow Sun Daqiao, the gourmet, to see what kind of drama he listens to, and he can forget to sleep and eat for more than half a month."

While Yue Guanchao was talking, Song Siyuan was already dressed neatly, the four of them locked the door, and took out the map of Jianghan City and left the hotel.

The place where they live is called Lifen, which is a mixture of Western townhouses and Oriental courtyard styles, regular and compact, serious layout, straight lanes, unified buildings, mostly Chinese and Western buildings, and live in hotels here, because it is not far from Jianghan Road, and across the street is the foreign port boundary that is lined into blocks.

The stage mentioned by Xu Xiake is mostly concentrated near Jianghan Road, and you can see a large number of stages surrounded by spectators, endless southern and northern accents, and endless omnivorous northern and southern tones.