money player

Eleven o'clock.

Zhou Ruoyun was lying on her back, snoring.

Xian Yaowen came back from the bathroom after cleaning up, put a nightgown on her, adjusted her sleeping position to her left side, and raised her pillow.

Sitting at the head of the bed, listening to the snoring and daydreaming, can relieve the tiredness in my heart.

Pregnant women are like Jun porcelain, with a thin body that is easy to crack, but they are also active and love to play the game of pitching pots. Pitching pot enthusiasts don't want to spoil their fun, so they can only be cautious and tread carefully.

When you've rested enough, lie down and turn off the lights.

Seven o'clock.

Xian Yaowen and Cen Peipei sat in Shanjinlou and ordered aged Pu'er tea and chicken ball steamed buns.

Shan Jin Lou's dim sum used to be exquisite and small, with controlled size and price. There were no large and expensive chicken ball buns. The fillings of these buns include chicken balls, which are whole eggs, shiitake mushrooms, bone-in chicken, and salted egg yolks. Other ingredients would be added according to the season, so they could not be sold too cheaply no matter how much they calculated.

Generally, teahouses sell chicken ball buns to attract customers. They sell them at a break-even or loss-making rate, and they are in limited supply, sold once or twice a day.

Shanjinlou didn't have the luxury of selling chicken ball buns, but since a group of special guests came, they had no choice but to add this snack to entertain them.

These special guests were the spinsters from Gupo House, most of whom came from Shunde and Nanhai.

The meaning of "gupo" is a female elder who never marries, that is, a spinster. Add the word "wu" (house) to it, and it means a house bought or rented by a group of spinsters together.

Generally speaking, the spinsters who buy houses are a little older, and they buy houses in groups of two or three or thirty-five. They then recruit younger spinsters to live with them, and the two parties sign a contract for "life, support, and burial". The younger spinsters send off the older spinsters, and the property rights of the house belong to them. Then, the younger spinsters are about the same age, and the next cycle begins.

The spinsters who do this all have the experience of being a majie. It is the need for survival that pushes them to become spinsters. The situation of the spinsters who rent houses is more complicated. A large part of them are unwilling to accept blind marriages and are unwilling to be sold into marriage by their parents. They comb their hair as a formality and swear to never marry, thus transforming themselves into spinsters.

To put it bluntly, the identity of a spinster is just a kind of protection. Some people are too embarrassed to change their identity and thus continue to be spinsters their entire lives. Others abandon their identity when they meet the person they like, get married, have children, and become normal women.

There are two tables in Shanjinlou that belong to the spinsters. One is for serious spinsters, all of whom are over 40 years old. Their aunt's house is right next to the Xian family's, so they can be considered neighbors. The other is for single spinsters, whose ages vary, ranging from teenagers to forty-something.

Shanjinlou allows spinsters to buy on credit, and the settlement is made at the end of the month. The former are not charged interest, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t have enough money at the end of the month, Wang Xiamin will help them to pay for it; the latter are charged interest, but it is not money, but labor. They take turns to come to the teahouse to help before opening in the early morning, such as cleaning the steamer.

The spinsters (the latter) are smarter than the red headscarves in Singapore. If one person eats, the whole family will not be hungry. However, they have little education and basically no valuable skills. They are busy looking for food every day and have no time, mainly because they are too lazy to cook. They usually eat out. Shanjinlou has become their designated canteen.

Of course, coming to the teahouse is not just to fill your stomach, the teahouse also serves as an information exchange center. On the pillar to the left of Xian Yaowen is a notice board with red notes posted on it. Most of the content is "Shunde maid is looking for a job", which means that the purpose is to find a stable job, and the notice is posted for rich wives to have tea and look for maids.

However, not every spinster is willing to be a mahjong. Two of a man's two hobbies in life are to attract decent women to become prostitutes and to persuade prostitutes to become good women. Spinsters carry the double labels of being a decent woman and being an undercover woman, so they are most likely to attract men. Those who can afford to hire a mahjong must have some money in their pockets. Money emboldens cowards, and there are many employers who do improper things to mahjongs.

Normally, the job would be done, and the woman would be given some kind of explanation, either double salary or simply taken as a concubine. However, not many people would do this, and the ending of a majie was usually not very good, which led to young spinsters being reluctant to be majies.

Some of them worked as textile workers, earning two or three Hong Kong dollars a day, or took odd jobs such as embroidery and sewing. Some also associated with gangs and smuggling gangs, doing activities such as transmitting information and stalking.

Like other groups, the self-combed women also present a variety of faces and there is no simple, fixed image.

Xian Yaowen picked up the chicken ball bun, broke the bun along the folds, broke it all the way through, broke the dough and filling into four even portions, and handed one portion to Cen Peipei.

Cen Peipei took the big bag and complained, "It's better to have breakfast at home than to come to your own teahouse for breakfast."

"I am thinking about you. How many Hong Kong people don't know Mazu? If you go to someone else's teahouse to have morning tea, what will the teahouse owner think? Is it a compliment or a hindrance?"

"Excuse me, you've read all the notice boards. Are you trying to find a maternity sister for Ruoyun?"

Xian Yaowen withdrew his gaze from the notice board and chuckled to Cen Peipei, "We're not looking for someone for Ruoyun, we're looking for someone for the child. A nanny, a Western nanny, and a Chinese and Western tutor are the standard configuration for the child. We need to find a good match before the child is born."

"Why aren't Qianzhi, Renmei, and Camilla here?"

Xian Yaowen said calmly, "There will be a nanny and a babysitter, but no tutor. They are not my biological children, so I have no right to deprive them of a happy childhood. When they are in their teens and have their own complete thinking, I will ask them what they want."

Cen Peipei understood the meaning of the song, "I want to find my child myself."

"Your understanding of educating children is definitely not as deep as mine. If you are lucky enough to give birth to a child prodigy and I don't participate in his training, he will most likely be ruined in your hands."

"why?"

"You are arrogant and a mother who is superior to you. You want to believe that he is the smartest child in the world, but you are arrogant that you are smarter than him. Like father, like son. You will not put down your mother's airs and listen to his childish words as an equal. You will only tell him what to do, and shackle him to your cognition."

"According to you, it's wrong to educate children?"

“A cat can teach a tiger to climb a tree, but a dog had better not teach a wolf to eat shit.”

Tseng Peipei glared at Xian Yaowen and said, "You are the dog."

Xian Yaowen laughed and said, "Why are you putting yourself in the role?"

"Isn't that what you mean?"

"You're not a dog, you're an ungrateful wolf. We've been sleeping together for more than a year, and you still think so badly of me."

"It's been more than a year, and I still have some toes that I haven't used." Cen Peipei said resentfully.

"It will come in handy. One day you will have to count the hairs on your head."

"It's just a trick."

Xian Yaowen chuckled, picked up the teacup and took a sip, "Hey, Song Pin, is there a big reward in the store?"

Cen Peipei rolled her eyes and said, "Playing dumb, you're not blind."

"Haha, I forgot, I forgot, the boss lady is sitting here, I should take some advantage of her, how much is a cake from Song Pin now?"

"Two hundred for the blue label, one hundred and fifty for the red label."

"Is there any new tea arriving in Hong Kong now?"

“The Teochews have been shipping goods from Vietnam.”

"Where did Song Pin in the store come from?"

"Master, don't worry about drinking it. It's not bought from the market."

Songpinhao is the name of a tea house and also a brand of Pu'er tea. It was founded in the early years of the Guangxu period. In the first few decades, Songpinhao was a well-known brand of Pu'er tea. It was the living room tea of ​​Jiangnan gentry and the taste anchor of Cantonese immigrants.

Song Pinhao is very well-known in Hong Kong, and everyone who drinks Pu'er tea is proud of it. The reason for this is that Song Pinhao set up a branch in Hong Kong in the early years of the Republic of China and started marketing early and did a good job. The second reason can be traced back to Zhanglin Port in Chenghai in the 1860s.

At that time, Zhanglin Port was the largest port in eastern Guangdong. Merchants from the Chaoshan area shipped goods to Southeast Asia from this port. There was a group of Chaozhou tea merchants who specialized in Pu'er tea cakes from Thailand and Vietnam. The bows of their merchant ships were "painted red to prevent sea monsters" and were commonly known as red-headed ships.

In fact, the red paint does not mean painting the bow red, but equipping it with homemade cannons, and the sea monster is not a real sea monster, but Da Tianer and a Frenchman.

In 1857, Liu Yongfu, a member of the Tiandihui, founded the Black Flag Army. After the anti-Qing uprising failed, he led his troops to retreat into Vietnam and fought with the Qing army on the border of Guangxi and Yunnan. Later, the Qing army sent heavy troops to encircle and suppress the Black Flag Army, and the Black Flag Army moved to Baosheng (Lao Cai).

When the Nguyen Dynasty government of Vietnam saw a group of bandits coming, they had no choice but to fight them. The two sides had been fighting for more than ten years. France, which had occupied South Vietnam, suddenly attacked Hanoi. As a result, the two sides found common ground - go south to fight the French.

This went on for another ten years. The Black Flag Army fought several brilliant battles, and the news reached the ears of Empress Dowager Cixi in the Forbidden City. She threw the news into the court. The pro-war factions Zuo Zongtang and Zhang Zhidong immediately bared their teeth and barked, while the compromising faction Li Hongzhang narrowed his eyes and meowed. There was a lot of verbal sparring going on.

At last, Cixi said lightly: "It is not a pity for the remnants of the Tiandihui to die. Give them some arms and let them fight for the court."

The historical records of the Sino-French War began in 1883. In fact, before that, Liu, the second Song Jiang, Pan Zhaoan, and Yongfu had already served as Qing volunteers in Vietnam for more than ten years, and the war against France and aid to Vietnam had already begun.

It was precisely because of Liu Yongfu's existence that Chaozhou tea merchants would "paint their clothes red to prevent sea monsters" and set up their own guard team.

Of course, with armed forces in hand, the business they do is definitely not so clean. It is normal to have some gray or even some black. Over the past few decades, this group of Chaozhou tea merchants have earned the name of the "Chenghai Gang".

Especially in 1893, when the Black Flag Army was defeated, some Chaoshan soldiers joined the Chenghai Gang and created the "using tea to support soldiers" model. Since then, the Chenghai Gang has been involved in some historical events. For example, after the failure of Taiwan's anti-Japanese war in 1895, Qiu Fengjia transferred military funds through the Chenghai Gang's tea ships.

Entering the 20th century, the Chenghai Gang almost controlled the Yunnan-Vietnam-Shantou, Myanmar-Thailand-Shantou, and Shanghai-Hong Kong-Shantou tea routes. During the Great Depression, the Chenghai Gang jointly acquired the entire inventory of Songpinhao in Hong Kong, and after hoarding it for three years, sold it at a four-fold premium. After this battle, the Chenghai Gang and Songpinhao formed an indissoluble bond.

Afterwards, the Chenghai Gang carried out many hoarding and speculation activities around Songpinhao, causing Songpinhao to have financial attributes.

In the 1930s, overseas Teochew compatriots sent money via Qiaopi, and part of the money was designated to be exchanged for Songpinhao banknotes, because they were more valuable than paper money. According to the rules of Teochew merchants in Thailand, when they received Songpinhao banknotes from their hometowns, they had to send back gold ear hooks to complete the tea-gold cycle.

[Gold ear hooks: pure gold, containing a small amount of copper to prevent deformation, weighing about 3-5 coins, a secret currency and identity symbol in Chaoshan overseas Chinese remittances.]
During the occupation of Guangzhou, the Chenghai Gang exchanged the Songpinhao for a pass to the Japanese army.

By the early 1940s, the cost of transporting tea rose rapidly due to the semi-interruption of Yunnan's tea transportation channels. Also, due to the financial attributes of Songpinhao, people who bought tea did not drink it but used it to hoard and maintain its value. Therefore, the business of Songpinhao tended to become stagnant.

The expert from Chenghai Gang slapped his forehead and thought, got it.

As a result, the printing factories in the area of ​​Xiaogong Park in Shantou started a new business - purchasing old newspaper pulp from Shenbao and remaking it into cotton paper, imitating the Song Dynasty's hiring number inner flying (the anti-counterfeiting label in the tea cake).

A tea factory called Song Pin Hao appeared in Vietnam, making Song Pin Hao tea cakes using Vietnamese tea.

At this point, Song Pinhao completely became the Song Pinhao of the Chenghai Gang. The Song Pinhao on the Hong Kong market, except for those stockpiled in the early years, had nothing to do with Yunnan.

After more than ten years of development, the new "Songpinhao" has acquired special significance.

Among the self-combed women, it is said that "Drink Songpin to remember that you are from Shunde" and tea weddings are also popular, with three cakes of tea replacing dragon and phoenix bracelets.

In the smuggling circle, Songpinhao tea cakes can be used as currency. One tea cake can be exchanged for five penicillins. The inner flies in the tea cakes are used to transmit information. At the same time, tea cakes are also used as a cover for smuggling, and the inside is hollowed out to smuggle gold or opium.

In the society, 14K has set up a "tea hall" and used the Songpin number as a dividend certificate, which can be exchanged for cash if the inner flying secret mark is seen. Some Songpin code words have also been invented around the Songpin number.

"That makes me feel relieved." Xian Yaowen nodded, "Please prepare a few cakes for me. I will take them to Taiwan to give as gifts."

Cen Peipei hesitated for a moment, "If you want to give it as a gift, you should buy it from the market. Chenghai Songpin has already established itself, and everyone recognizes the ones from Shantou. Yunnan Songpin is easy to be mistaken for a fake."

Xian Yaowen chuckled, "Taiwan is not Hong Kong. People who know how to drink tea know what's going on."

"It's hard to say. As far as I know, passenger ships going to Taiwan no longer accept Hong Kong dollars. They use Songpin as collateral instead. Tea merchants in Taiwan also accept Songpin."

Xian Yaowen asked curiously, "Please elaborate on it."

Tseng Pei-pei lowered her voice and said, "At the beginning of last month, several bodies were found floating at the Triangle Pier. They had knife and gunshot wounds on their bodies. It seems that Fu Yixing used fake Hong Kong dollars in a transaction with the Taiwanese, and the other party found out and caused a fight. Fu Yixing suffered a loss."

"and then?"

"Only two days later, news spread that passenger ships from Taiwan would not accept Hong Kong dollars."

"Oh, how does Song Pin mortgage work specifically?"

"Taiwan only issues entry permits to the families of Tiu Keng Leng. Other mainland refugees are restricted from entering Taiwan. If you want to go there, you must provide asset guarantees. Master, you know this, right?"

"I know." Xian Yaowen nodded. "Assets are not necessary for guarantee. Guarantees from relatives or organizations in Taiwan are also acceptable. To put it bluntly, the government only wants to collect more taxes, not more people to be helped."

Tseng Pei-pei nodded, "The refugees who want to go to Taiwan are all eager to leave Hong Kong. The passenger ships from Hong Kong to Keelung are all controlled by the Teochew people. The Da'an of Chaofa Shipping and the Teochew Maru of the Thai Teochew people oversell 30% of the seats on each flight to create scarcity.

The refugees had no idea when they would be able to board the ship, so they had to keep listening to the news. Once the news came, assets that were inconvenient to carry had to be immediately exchanged for gold and songpin. If they wanted to cash out, the fastest way was to go to a pawnshop run by Chaozhou people. They would not ask about the origin of the items, and it was also the most convenient. There was a joint account in Taiwan, and one could go to Taiwan with a Hong Kong pawn ticket to withdraw gold or redeem the pawn.

Refugees with few assets need to mortgage their pawn tickets to shipping companies in exchange for ship tickets. The shipping companies will immediately notify the pawnshop which assets can be disposed of.

Refugees with a lot of assets may not pledge their pawn tickets, but instead provide collateral directly. The shipping company's standard is 3 cakes of Songpin plus 2 taels of gold for first class, 2 cakes of Songpin for second class, and 1 cake of Songpin for general cabin.

This standard is just for reference. The assessors of the shipping company will try to lower the grade when evaluating the songpin. If refugees want to get on the ship, they may have to pay two or three times more songpin.

Once the ship is dispatched, the people from the shipping company will spread rumors on the ship that "Taiwan Customs will ban Pu'er tea" and encourage the refugees who still have Songpin in their hands to sell it to the shipping company.

Refugees who didn't take the bait also had to face hidden bills and drifting clauses. Pawnshops and shipping companies wrote "temporary deposit" on the refugees' receipts, but the actual contract was "no sale". If the ship was delayed, 3% of the weight of the tea cakes would be deducted every day as storage fees.

"What if a refugee sees through the scam? Is there anyone responsible for suppressing it with force?"

Cen Peipei chuckled and said, "Master is right, the 14K people will be guarding the dock."

"Why isn't it Fu Yixing or Chenghai Gang?"

“Both docks.”

"Oh, it's true that the refugees have some tea cakes in their hands. Where are they going?"

"It flows from pawnshops and shipping companies to tea merchants, who then sell it to the Jiaoji people in Southeast Asia."

"So, apart from those brought from the mainland and those stored in the past, only Chaozhou people can drink the real Songpin?"

"interesting."

Xian Yaowen thought of the "floor property subscription" game played by Chaozhou real estate developers in the 1960s from Song Pin's mortgage, and also thought of the blockchain traceability of Pu'er tea decades later. The underlying logic of the game is highly consistent, with only some minor adjustments in the details.

"That's more interesting over there." Tseng Pei-pei pointed to the left side of Xian Yaowen.

Xian Yaowen turned around and saw that there was a teacup lid on the table of the spinsters being moved back and forth by two of them, conveying different messages through the changes in position.

It is similar to the secret language used in the society, both of which are improved upon the code words of the Tiandihui in the early years. Different from the incision of "Why is your face yellow again", the code words are really not wanted to be known by others, but the incision has the attribute of pretending to be cool.

Just like three little friends in the mountains, Lucy and Lily, who work outside, communicate in Mandarin mixed with "Ingrid Xu words", while Cuihua, who can't understand them, stands by and envy and admires them.

"You leopard, we are going to talk about the incision, so listen carefully."

He got ready and raised his voice to 80 decibels, "Moha Moha, the king of heaven and the tiger of earth."

Those scumbags who talk about incisions are lucky enough to be born in an era without female detectives, otherwise they would rush to admit that they robbed the birthday gift and secretly watched Empress Dowager Cixi poop.

The meaning of the code words was decided by the small circle themselves, and outsiders had no way of knowing what each action meant. Xian Yaowen looked for a while and couldn't see any pattern in the positions, so he gave up and shifted his gaze to another spinster who was eating a bun of chicken balls.

The chicken ball buns had skin and a lot of stuffing, but she ate the mushrooms first. She was telling the other spinsters that she was in urgent need of money and asked them to help her if they had any work.

This spinster is pretty, with long, slender fingers, so she must be a deft hand. It should not be difficult for her to find work. She would probably ask for big jobs - doing dirty work for a gang or selling her body, which would make money quickly.

"Left three, the one eating mushrooms, who is her eldest sister?"

When three people travel together, there must be a leader. When a group of spinsters gather together, there will definitely be a eldest sister who is in charge. If people buy things on credit at Shanjinlou, the eldest sister must come forward and clearly explain which spinsters' accounts are recorded in her name. If the accounts are not repaid on time, Shanjinlou will only look for the eldest sister and not other spinsters.

Cen Peipei glanced at him and said, "Is he unfamiliar? Has the master shown any sympathy for him?"

"I'm just interested in knowing why she's in such a hurry for the big bucks."

"There are three situations: family needs, debts from gambling and smoking, or problems with your sworn brother."

"Do many spinsters smoke opium?"

"Not much, there are more bets." Cen Peipei retracted her gaze and looked at Xian Yaowen's face, "Master, does Song Pin want to get involved?"

Xian Yaowen glanced at Tseng Peipei and said, "Are you really not afraid that the Chaozhou people will draw the life and death lot from the beginning of the year to the end of the year?"

Cen Peipei chuckled and said, "It's not that exaggerated."

Xian Yaowen said calmly: "The implications are too wide and the benefits are too small. Just be a spectator and watch the fun. Don't worry about it."

"Yeah." Cen Peipei nodded, raised her left hand and looked at her watch, "I can still sit for another quarter of an hour."

"Where?"

"Where else can I go? I'll go to the Gasan Stadium for acting lessons."

"I won't go with you. I have to go to Friendship Company this morning. Are you free to have lunch together?"

"I'm going to the Tsz Wan Shan factory. The oil pressing machine has arrived."

"Okay, Boss Cen, let's meet again tonight."

Eight twenty.

Xian Yaowen sat in the general manager's office of the Youth Association, holding the account book of the Friendship Company in his hand, and the accountant Li Wentao sat opposite him. (End of this chapter)