Lu Ming

Chapter 257 Resignation
The middle-aged man nicknamed "Monkey" is also from Chengwei Village.This person was outgoing since he was a child, and he was unwilling to go fishing for a living. As an adult, he often went out to make a living, leaving his old mother to suffer alone in the village.

Fortunately, there are only about 10 households in Chengwei Village.Although it is a place with mixed surnames, the hard life day after day has already twisted these villagers into one rope: without mutual support, no one can survive in the face of various natural and man-made disasters.

In this way, the monkey became the "informed person" in the village.

He travels around all year round to work for businessmen, and at the end of each year, he always brings some money back to visit his old lady, and then brags to the closed-off villagers, letting them experience the colorful world outside.

What is different from previous years is that the monkey broke the routine not long ago and came back suddenly. You must know that it is still early before the end of the year.As soon as he returned to the village, he approached Yu Chengde, the village speaker.

Generally speaking, it is the white-bearded old man, Grandpa Ba, the village chief, who comes out to deal with the food service of various officials in Chengwei Village; but in fact, Yu Chengde, who controls the whole village, is the real backbone.

As soon as the monkey saw Yu Chengde, he danced and described the situation when he went to Dayuan Port in Devzhou not long ago to sell goods.With his eloquence, he then preached to Yu Chengde the immigration policy on the other side. In short, in addition to shaving his hair, he can eat and clothe himself as a senior official, get rid of the sea of ​​suffering, and reach the pinnacle of life.

Yu Chengde naturally didn't believe these nice stories.The world is as black as crows, and even though the king on the other side of the sea is short of people to cultivate, he probably doesn't have any good intentions behind his back. The bitter haha ​​will suffer wherever they go, and he still understands this truth.

However, the monkey who regarded Chengde as an authority since he was a child did not buy it this time.He not only scoffed at someone's outdated ideas, but also tried to continue to brainwash the boss.During this time, he ran around all over the village, clamoring to take his old mother to the officials to live a fairy life.
Quite a few young people were tempted by him.

Seeing this situation, Yu Chengde also had some headaches, so he finally compromised.The two parties agreed that when the group returned from fishing this time, the village would send someone to send the monkey and his wife to Dazuo first, and then wait until the "observer" came back to report the situation, and the rest would make a decision.

However, things are impermanent.What Yu Chengde didn't expect was that after he came back from fishing today, without any further urging from the monkey, he himself brought up the matter on his own initiative.

Monkeys are naturally not stupid.On the front foot, Yu Chengde stewed the pork and chicken in the village, and on the back foot, he secretly came to him to ask about the senior officials. It was clear that he wanted to run away!
After trying to understand the cause and effect, the monkey solemnly said to Chengde: "Uncle, what my nephew said these days is absolutely true, if there is a false statement, I will die badly! The lives of my mother and the whole village are here, nephew!" An dare to talk nonsense?"

Yu Chengde nodded slowly. At this moment, he made up his mind.

In fact he had no choice. The great joy brought by the 1000 silver and the sudden and shocking bad news, like ice and fire, have completely broken down the old man's moral bottom line.

As the saying goes, wine is strong and courageous.Yu Chengde was not a coward in the first place, not to mention that now he has 1000 taels of silver and a utopia that are more powerful than fine wine.Now that the conditions are all in place, he will naturally go berserk—he will resign from Daming now, and will no longer be an obedient citizen to the gentlemen.

After discussing with the monkey carefully, when they returned to the village, they found that the pig and chicken had been cooked, and the feast began.After laughing and accompanying everyone to have a full meal, Yu Chengde opened the only pot of local wine in the village and filled a bowl for all the young and strong.

After drinking in unison, Yu Chengde yelled: "I quit!" As soon as he spoke, he smashed the rough porcelain bowl on the mud floor under his feet.

While everyone was stunned, Yu Chengde said loudly: "Brothers get up early and work late, and go to sea to fight for their lives. They are just looking for a breadwinner. But now that the government's pressure is getting worse every day, we are trying our best to support it."

When Yu Chengde said this, he slammed a fist on the table: "I don't want that dog Wang Fuqi to stab us in the back! Tell me, even if I redeemed my third sister with money today, there is that dog Now, can we go to sea with peace of mind in the future?"

Following Yu Chengde's angry words, the people in the yard empathized with each other, and their faces were full of anger.

"Uncle, you can't take it easy, Wang Fuqi, that idiot, if you want me to say, let's just snatch the third sister back!" Following the monkey's next loud shout, everyone who was already full of anger immediately found a vent, and one after another echoed loudly.

After Yu Chengde glanced at the courtyard, the next moment he said slowly: "There is no place to stay here, but there is a place to stay. Since everyone can't survive, they simply went to Dezhou to vote for that son of a bitch, King Cao! There is no restriction over there. Anyway, it's probably better than the Great Ming Dynasty!"

Seeing a group of young and strong people enthusiastically giving him praises, Yu Chengde nodded in satisfaction, and then suddenly took out the military thorn from his back waist and stuck it on the table: "You have to pay the bills, brothers who have been working for so many years!" Someone has to reimburse Niaoqi! Whoever has the guts can follow me to kill that dog Wang Fuqi!"

"Come along!"

"Come along!"

In this day and age, when all young adults have decided on a matter, women and children have no right to express their objections.They can only drift with the tide and entrust their destiny entirely on the men.

After unifying his thinking, Yu Chengde immediately began to give orders.

The first is to clean up the belongings.The women will make dry food from the remaining brown rice and miscellaneous grains in the village, and then each household will pack one or two parcels, and everything will be over.Yes, the barren fishing village is so pitiful. Except for two parcels containing dry food and rags, these people have no wealth.

At the same time, Yu Chengde picked out six young men from the village.These few are all experienced sailors with him all the year round, and they have also fought with bandits on weekdays, and they dared to see blood under their hands.

At this time, the few knives and axes that were fished from the bottom of the sea came in handy.The weapons used by the Zheng family's direct lineage are naturally first-class, and they can be used to kill people after being sharpened.

There are two broken fishing boats in the village, one big and one small.After making arrangements in Chengde, the remaining few people and a lame carpenter were sent to the fishing boat for temporary reinforcement and repair.During this time, he also kicked his eager son and drove him back to the boat.

While everyone was busy preparing, Yu Chengde called his nephew Yu Chushui, and the two went to a cemetery outside the village one after the other.The owner of this cemetery is the tomb of Yu Chengde's eldest brother, Yu Chushui's father, Yu Chengen.

In fact, Yu Chengde also went out to do "business" when he was young.Back then, he and his elder brother Yu Cheng'en joined the gang of pirates to do the business of robbing houses.Who would have thought that it didn't take long for the eldest brother to be injured in a fight, and not long after the two returned to Chengwei Village, Yu Chengen's wound festered and died.

Before his eldest brother died, Yu Chengde once promised in front of his eldest brother that he would raise his nephew and stop doing that outrageous thing—this is the most fundamental reason why Yu Chengde has followed the rules all these years.

"Kowtow to your father, we will come back to move the grave when things get better in the future." Yu Chushui knelt down in response to the sound, and kowtowed nine times to the tombstone.

Yu Chengde also kowtowed three times to his eldest brother, and then he explained in front of the grave: the world is so tough that honest people really can't live on.Yu Chushui is now an adult, but he can't even marry a daughter-in-law. It's impossible for everyone to use a knife.

After visiting the grave, the two returned to the village with murderous looks on their faces.

In this day and age, even the most disciplined fisherman is not lacking in the courage to kill—without this kind of courage, one should not even try to go to sea.

The reason why people endure injustice is that they are afraid of the power accumulated by the government for hundreds of years.And once this kind of prestige is reduced due to the weakness of the government, then the original system defenders will suffer backlash.

Wang Fuqi is an example.

Wang Fuqi is not a hero who can carry a tripod, he is just a fisherman.Relying on the fact that his brother is the inspector in the county, this person bought a job as a fish farm in the county government.

Fish bars are fish teeth, no different from those human teeth in the market, they all rely on the monopoly rights bestowed by the system to eat.Wang Fuqi has seven or eight rascals under his command, who usually bully the market and lend money, but any nearby fishermen who want to sell fish in the town have to be stripped of their skins first.

As for Yu Chengde, the village is small and weak, so naturally they are not less bullied by Wang Fuqi.In fact, the so-called arrears for taking away the third sister were all bought by Wang Fuqi from other people, and turned from a few taels of silver to 13 taels of silver.

Starting from Chengwei Village, go north for seven or eight miles to Chengtou Village, and then go north for more than 5 miles to the largest trade fair nearby: Shuixiu Town.

Yu Chengde and his group of 7 started preparations in the afternoon and did not leave for Chengtou Village until 3 pm.This time has been calculated: Wang Fuqi is from Chengtou Village. Usually at this time, the gathering in Shuixiu Town has already dispersed, and Wang Fuqi has returned from the town.

Under the watchful eyes of the villagers, seven fishermen with bamboo hats and salted fish lined up in a straight line and walked silently on the dirt road at the entrance of the village.

In less than an hour, seven people arrived at the entrance of Chengtou Village.After resting at the entrance of the village for a while, the seven people picked up the "full" fish load again, filed in single file, and went straight to a tile-roofed house at the end of Chengtou Village.

There are hundreds of households in Chengtou Village, which is much larger than Chengwei Village.The two-entry house of Wang Fuqi's family is located alone at the end of the village, in stark contrast to the dilapidated houses in the distance.

Seeing a group of people carrying fish loads walking towards the door, the rogues squatting in front of the green brick gate habitually sent someone to report inside—they had seen too many such scenes of carrying fish to the door, It's all poor ghosts who come to pay the rent and pay the debts.

(End of this chapter)