To say, the most special thing about the theater in Hankou is the selection of the queen of Han drama!

When the rise of Han opera, Peking Opera was not yet popular, and Flower Drum Opera was not qualified to enter the city, and the wind of movies had not yet blown from the coastal cities, so that Han Opera was able to defeat Ping Opera, Chu Opera, and New Opera, and it was popular in Jianghan City.

With so many venues and such a big reputation, Han opera has of course also given birth to a large number of actors engaged in Chinese opera, in addition to the actors who sing on stage, Han opera has gathered a large number of businessmen, runners, apprentices, drama newspaper commentators, gossip newspaper reporters, literati, line tailors, color face craftsmen, etc., it can be said that although Han opera is only an entertainment business, it does feed tens of thousands of people.

When the Han Opera Guild was established, there were nearly seven or eight thousand registered Han Opera Actors with names and surnames, and all walks of life would also select Sanding Jia actors, and the most glorious one was, of course, the Queen of Han Opera!

Every time the queen of Chinese drama is selected, it has begun to warm up after a month, and the troupes of various theaters invite popular actors to show good performances and entertain all visitors.

On the day of the election of the queen, the audience will sit in the conference hall, and the organizer will count the votes, and the one with the highest number of votes will be the queen of Chinese drama.

The momentum of choosing the queen of Han drama is strong, and the topic is abundant, and some gossip newspapers ridicule that the head of the Republic of China election court is not as good as the queen of Han drama.

Yue Guanchao, they came to the front of the Fuhui Building while laughing.

This hibiscus building is located at the head of Jianghan Road, it is a theater garden that is renovated from a separate building, with regular squares, red bricks and white walls, simple lines, and a courtyard surrounded by four courtyards, which has a feeling of antique and foreign atmosphere.

In front of the gatehouse, the huge arch window is clear and translucent, sticking to the selection of the queen of Han opera, the pictorial everywhere is rich in color, the beauty is charming, on the door, the neon tube flickers, bends out the plaque of "Fuyuan Lou Grand Theater", you can see the lanterns are colorful, and the colored silk is stacked.

The roadside on both sides has been parked with all kinds of rickshaws, horse-drawn carriages, foreign cars, big-headed cars, the surrounding foyer is full of enthusiastic visitors, if you look at the opposite side, you can see the entrance and exit of the foreign port boundary diagonally, there are many modern high-rise buildings inside, and the ten-mile foreign field adds a modern atmosphere.

It can be said that the most prosperous place outside Jianghan Road is the area adjacent to the Yangbu boundary, and all the buildings are also distributed in a straight line along Jianghan Road, with shops and halls on the street and private houses in the lanes.

As mentioned earlier, such a layout is actually a combination of Western Western-style buildings and local courtyard styles, and when Hankou first opened its port, it was only along Jianghan Road.

Until more than ten years after the opening of the port, land prices soared and commerce prospered, and many local wealthy gentry directly purchased houses in the foreign port boundary, and even the wealthier families, although they could not enter the port boundary, were also willing to settle near Jianghan Street and Hanzheng Street, where commerce was prosperous.

Seeing the huge business opportunities, the businessmen began to buy land frequently, and built a large number of such buildings outside Jianghan Road and Hanzheng Street outside the boundary of Yangbu.

Don't mention the past, just look at today, they walked into the Furui Grand Theater, and the runner wore an apron and a towel, and trotted up with a smile on his face to meet him: "Guest officer, how many seats are there!" ”

"We're here to find someone?"

Yue Guanchao looked at the furnishings of the Fuhui Building, which was extravagant and elegant, and it was unspeakably expensive, probably a theater with a lot of consumption.

The people who ran the hall didn't come to listen to the play, and they still explained with a smile on their faces: "Hey, distinguished guest, our Fuyuan Building is the venue for this year's selection of the queen of Han opera, and people come and go every day, who are you looking for, you have to tell us to understand, otherwise, which of us will call you." ”

"He was a half-blind man with a leather hood, and his head was still a little bald, and his head was full of white hair."

Yue Guanchao recalled that Sun Daqiao's most distinctive features were his half-blindness and thinning hair.

"This, are you talking about Sun Banxian'er?" Running the hall recalled the people he had seen and guessed.

"Yes, his surname is Sun, and his name is Sun Daqiao." Yue Guanchao gave some news again.

"Then come with me, Mr. Sun is our boss's honored guest."

Running the hall's words, the people around them became curious, they and Sun Daqiao were both coming to Jianghan for the first time, and they couldn't talk about any acquaintances they knew immediately, if they knew anyone, most of them were old people from the past.

"Isn't it, your boss is still Sun Daqiao's old friend." Yue Guanchao asked tentatively.

"As you can all guess, we haven't seen this person before, probably an old man who shared hardships with our boss before."

The runner took them up to the second floor, stopped in the corridor, opened the door of the box and walked in, Sun Daqiao was really sitting in the box, in addition, there was a slightly rich middle-aged man, who was talking with Sun Daqiao warmly.

"Sun Daqiao, you came to listen to the lone show by yourself, this is not righteous."

When Sun Daqiao saw that it was them, his face was happy and he called them in.

"Shopkeeper Sun, who are these people?" The middle-aged man's eyes became curious.

Sun Daqiao explained: "This is the youngest son and nephew of Yu Er's family, and the other two are also friends. ”

"Sit down, all of you, this man in front of you is very famous."

Sun Daqiao continued to explain: "The owner of the Furui Grand Theater and the president of the Han Opera Guild, Tan Yanqiu, to put it mildly, I haven't seen him for decades, back then, he was one of the four beams and eight pillars of the Golden Rat Club. ”

Yue Guanchao looked at Boss Tan in front of him, this Tan Yanqiu has been the president for a few years, and he is the owner of the Furui Grand Theater, he has already taken off the gangsterism of the rivers and lakes in his momentum, and his official spirit is rich and elegant, wearing a jujube brown coat with an autumn-colored robe, a pocket watch on his chest, and gold wire glasses, just like the agarwood ebony, the older he gets, the more rich and heavy the taste is, and it is very calm and graceful.

Boss Tan was full of smiles, and said with a smile: "It's all a false name, it's all a false name, but it's just a profit-seeking person, where is it compared to one-tenth of the Golden Rat Club, that is the real chivalrous righteousness, robbing the rich and helping the poor." ”

Yue Guanchao listened carefully to Boss Tan's words, he was shrewd and elegant, he was indeed very good at talking, and he belittled himself in a few words to promote the Golden Rat Club, so he also complimented Yue Qingshan and Sun Daqiao, which was regarded as removing his social relations and returning to the status of the Golden Rat Club.

In fact, if you talk about fame, Tan Yanqiu is much more powerful than his grandson Daqiao and Second Uncle Yue, just in business, and he can still be the president of the Han Opera Guild, which can be regarded as half a foot in the Jianghan Political Academy, even if the guild is just a private guild with such great influence, the benefits in it will definitely not be less.

A person can not only run the largest theater, but also wander around in the political courtyard, he can be regarded as a capable person, his second uncle is just a mountain village man, as for Sun Daqiao, it is even more of a ninth-rate cheap person who ordinary people can't look down on, if the two of them don't have the relationship of the Golden Rat Club, it is rare for people to greet you on the road.

When Yue Guanchao thought of this, he felt more and more that Boss Tan had other plans, if it was just to reminisce about the past, why bother to belittle himself and elevate Sun Daqiao and the second uncle, thinking about it, it was probably something to ask for.

After Yue Guanchao and a few people sat down, he continued: "According to the road, we have to call you Uncle Tan, and my second uncle is a stuffy gourd, so he didn't even tell us that there are powerful people like you in Jianghan City, otherwise, we would have come to visit earlier." ”

"Sun Daqiao, you are sneaking around what you are doing, and you don't tell us when you see acquaintances, a few of us still think you have done something bad."

Yue Erpao's words made Sun Daqiao embarrassed for a while: "Hey, I just found out that Brother Tan left an incision twist for me, and I don't know what the hell is going on, plus Brother Yue is not there, so I didn't call you." ”

The twist, as mentioned earlier, is an incision left by the people of the rivers and lakes for contact, if it is the twist left by Boss Tan, it means that he is looking for a peer from the Golden Rat Club in the past, so guessing, Tan Yanqiu is most likely purposeful.

"So, what the hell is going on?" Yue Guanchao asked.

"This? Can you tell these juniors? Boss Tan was a little hesitant.

"Anyway, my second brother and I combined, we don't have the ability of this kid."

Boss Tan got Sun Daqiao's consent, took out the letter in his arms, and explained: "Shennongjia came to Xin'er, saying that there are many white-haired and golden-topped animals near Nongshen Village. ”

"White-haired golden-topped?"

Yue Guanchao listened to Boss Tan's words, and immediately became suspicious in his heart, the last time they saw the white-haired and golden-capped animal, it was still on Broken Leaf Island, but at that time, it was just a trick to cover the eyes, and it was not true, but I didn't know what Boss Tan said in the letter, whether it was a trick or something else.

"yes!"

Sun Daqiao picked up the tea and took a sip: "This, what do you think?" ”

Song Siyuan guessed: "It won't be another trick, I remember that the white-haired mouse on Xuanwu Island is not Luo Shi Niang's trick, and these animals are likely to be like this." ”

Boss Tan shook his head: "No, these white-haired animals have existed for decades, but since the last six months, there seem to be more and more white-haired animals, and some farmers have beaten a lot, and after peeling the skin, they are indeed white-haired, which can't be used as a trick." ”

Saying that, Boss Tan walked to the high table behind him, picked up a one-meter-long and half-arm-wide box, and after opening it, there was a white fox skin with a complete peel, and the position above his head was like a flame growing a pinch of golden hair.

"Then, Boss Tan is in Hankou, how could he get the news of Shennongjia?" Yue Guanchao was quite curious about this.

"Oh, it's related to an old incident back then, back then, when we were digging the mausoleum from Jiangnan, we had stolen and excavated the tombs of the nobles of the Chu State, and there were many tombs of the nobles of the Chu State in Shennongjia......"