I was a god in the 18th century

Chapter 524 Rebellion Agent

August was the dry season in northern China, and the water power could not easily float the boats. Therefore, the boats carrying the British delegation, Qing officials, and many tribute gifts needed to be pulled by boat trackers when they were on the way.

Sometimes when the boat reaches shallows, the trackers cannot pull the boat even if they try their best.

Whenever this situation occurred, under the strict requirements of the Qing officials, the boat owners and trackers would jump into the water and push and pull the boats despite the falling temperature for several days.

Even so, even if everyone was exhausted and exerted all their strength for the whole day, they could only travel a dozen miles a day, and the progress was extremely slow.

However, Xia Qingdai and Owen were not in a hurry at all, because the former's current interest was mostly focused on Wenren Yi, the new little man, and Owen's purpose of coming to China was not for Emperor Qianlong.

He came here to understand Chinese civilization, and this had already begun the moment he set foot on Qing territory. Whether the journey was slow or not did not affect his observation.

He lived for a long time with the navigator who boarded the ship from Dinghai, the boat owners and sailors who boarded the ship from Dagukou, and others. He also came into close contact with the porters, servants, craftsmen, musicians and other low-level people sent by Qing officials. He witnessed their hard work and was deeply moved.

Owen was very impressed by the hard-working spirit of the Qing people, their serious and steady behavior, their wise techniques, such as lifting heavy objects with a lever, and their astonishing speed of infrastructure construction, such as the two warehouses built by hundreds of laborers in Zhangjiawan in two days to store the gifts they brought.

There is no working people with such efficiency and wisdom in the whole of Europe, not to mention the East and West Indians and the black people in Africa.

The ability to lift anything heavy alone was something that no working person Owen had ever seen before could achieve.

The good qualities possessed by ordinary people in the Qing Dynasty were completely different from those of the adults and masters who lived in luxury, and the gap was huge.

Owen could be sure that the Qing Dynasty, like Britain, was a country with extremely serious polarization.

But the lives of the lower-class people in the Qing Dynasty were more difficult than those in Britain, so it is not difficult to draw this conclusion.

This can be seen from the way the common people were dressed every time they came to watch, and their frantic scramble for the dead pigs, chickens, and even rotten meat that the British delegation casually threw away.

Those Qing Dynasty people who grabbed the meat were reluctant to eat it immediately, but instead salted it and kept it well.

Owen asked them why they did so, and they replied that meat was hard to come by and they had to hide it until the New Year.

Upon inquiry, it was learned that those who were recruited by the Qing Dynasty officials to work as porters, craftsmen, and boatmen were paid extremely low wages, which were far from enough to support their families.

The old sailors who served as pilots on their own ships worked at their own expense.

Along the way, there were people who were unwilling to pull the oars, and they were mercilessly beaten and whipped by the officers and soldiers. The screams were endless, and it was hard not to feel pity.

All of this was something Owen had never imagined before, and it was extremely painful.

Owen often shared his food with these poor trackers, and when Dinghai's navigators left, he gave each of them a few guineas as a reward.

Although the British guinea did not belong to the Qing Dynasty's monetary system, gold coins made of gold could naturally circulate throughout the world.

However, Owen knew that what he had done was just a drop in the bucket. He alone could not save all the poor people in Fucui Villa, let alone the people of the Qing Dynasty, who were much more densely populated than Fucui Villa.

But there was one thing that was strange about him. The goddess who had sprinkled silk rain in Dinghai and bestowed mountains of rice and seas of meat on the general town government had been very low-key and quiet after arriving at Dagu Port, and had never "appeared in spirit" even once.

During this period, the goddess rarely appeared beside him. Every time, she would just peek out from the clouds and leave without saying a few words to him.

He didn't know what the goddess was busy with in the future world. It seemed that she didn't care much about their progress here. He had a feeling that the goddess seemed to have a "newcomer".

Xia Qingdai is indeed just as Owen guessed, and currently "only the laughter of the newcomers can be heard".

Ever since she saw the miserable state of the onlookers, she chose to turn a blind eye and never showed up on the barge Owen was on again.

Things like women who work with babies on their backs, suffering from the wind and frost, skinny barefoot children in tattered clothes, trackers pulling ropes with their upper bodies naked in the cold weather, etc., make people feel sad just by looking at them, so it is better not to look at them.

Like Owen, she knew that she, a "god" alone, could not save the people of the Qing Dynasty.

In that case, it would be better not to show my power.

If you want to fundamentally change the miserable situation of the lower class people, you must fully support Wen Renyi's rebellion.

Now Wen Renyi's base is still in its early stages, so she needs to help out a lot.

Of course, the task of "storing up food" cannot be entirely dependent on her. The children must also be able to be self-reliant. After all, they also have to guard against changes that may occur at any time.

The matter of the stone statue is still full of variables.

Who knows if after Owen leaves China, this place will disappear from her "map" just like Fucui Villa?

She could have directly given Wen Renyi a bag of 100 kilograms of rice, but the village currently had no place to store it. If she had just taken an iron barrel down to use as a granary, it would have been too conspicuous and not in line with the strategy of "slowly becoming king".

Unless she could always be the god above their heads, she could not let this place be exposed to the Qing court too early.

In addition, Xia Qingdai had been blocked by the Qing government before, so she was a little afraid of the dynasty's luck.

It is unwise to go into battle yourself and reveal all your cards. It is safer to cultivate a rebellion agent.

Let Wen Renyi's power grow stronger first, and then continue to support his next rebellion.

Wen Renyi did not delay and had been working day and night to dig the mountain and build a warehouse. However, the labor he could mobilize was limited, so this matter could not be rushed.

After all, the wild mountain strongholds are not like the government, which can easily mobilize hundreds or thousands of free laborers.

They have to develop secretly while avoiding the eyes and ears of the imperial court and cannot be too conspicuous.

Just as his men were busy digging the mountain, Wen Renyi, along with two clever men, were walking down the mountain, leading a donkey loaded with food.

Taohua Village, the nearest village to the mountain village, is quite far away. The mountain road is difficult to walk on. It takes half a day just to come down from the mountain. Then you have to walk several miles to reach Taohua Village.

Almost all the people in Taohua Village were subdued by them through intimidation and inducement. Previously, most of the supplies in the mountain village were transported through Taohua Village.

For example, the spoils they get from hunting in the mountains are handed over to the "old hunter" in Taohua Village to find a suitable peddler to sell them, and then exchange them for things needed in the mountains.

Since the addition of the mountain "hunters", life in Taohua Village has become a little better than before when they simply relied on the weather for their livelihood.