Chinese martial arts: From human punching bags to martial arts mastery

"The old sluice bridge!"

Hu Sanzhen slowly stroked the few strands of white beard under his chin, his tone as heavy as a leaden block soaked in water, each word carrying the stench and coldness of the bottom of the Suzhou River.

He pointed to the dark shadow slowly emerging at the end of the river. The bridge was dilapidated, the railings were broken, and a lingering stench permeated the area beneath the bridge arches.

This was the area in the concession specifically for docking garbage boats. Dirty water, waste, and rotting debris piled up day and night. The people never called it by its official name; they just gritted their teeth and shouted, "Garbage Bridge!"

Just then.

Wang Xiaoer crawled out of the cabin for some fresh air, but as soon as he took a breath of the river breeze, he was hit in the nose by a mixture of stench, fishy smell and mold.

"vomit--"

He suddenly covered his mouth and nose, bent over and dry heaved repeatedly, tears streaming down his face.

Hu Sanzhen glanced at him indifferently, his voice low but each word piercing: "North of the bridge is the foreign concession, a place of dazzling lights, luxurious mansions, and horse-drawn carriages, a place of nightly revelry; south of the bridge is our Chinese-controlled shantytown, a place of endless thatched huts and countless starving corpses... Shanghainese are sharp-tongued; the phrase 'Northern garbage, southern people' perfectly encapsulates the state of the world!"

He suddenly turned his head to look at Chen Feng, a sarcastic smile playing on his lips.

"This is the middle section of the Suzhou Creek, no longer under your jurisdiction, Section Chief Chen. Out of sight, out of mind!"

"However!"

"Hehe—if you get promoted to river chief, all three sections—upper, middle, and lower—will be your territory!"

Chen Feng didn't respond, but quietly raised his eyes and looked at the stinking river.

The murky, black river water churned with foam, and piles of garbage floated on its surface—rags, rotten vegetables, decaying wood, and excrement swirled together. Occasionally, between layers of filth, the edges of tattered straw mats would peek out, their stiff outlines beneath revealing the carelessly discarded dead infants. The garbage, carried by the waves, repeatedly crashed against the hull of the garbage boat, the muffled thuds like the pounding of ghosts on the coffin lid of this filthy world.

"Squeak squeak squeak—"

One by one, fat, almost ferocious rats scurried in and out of the garbage heap, their skin glistening with oil and their eyes gleaming with malice.

Each garbage dump rat carries tens of thousands of fleas, and plague, cholera, typhoid fever... all kinds of deadly diseases breed wildly in this small space.

Seven garbage boats were lined up in a row on the river!

Countless children scavenging for scraps were crawling around the bottom, seams, and sides of the boat.

They were so thin they were just skin and bones, with big heads and small bodies, and their hands and feet were as thin as twigs. Nearly 80% of them suffered from rickets—their chests were severely deformed and sunken inward, pressing hard on their hearts and lungs, leaving them with lifelong disabilities at a young age, and even taking a deep breath was a luxury.

They rummaged through the garbage, searching and crawling, just to find a little bit of junk that could be exchanged for money.

Working yourself to the bone all day, and the income is barely 0.5 silver dollars! 0.5 silver dollars!

You have to pay half of the "basic tax" first, and then deduct the fixed monthly "private business transaction tax" - calculated at 0.2 dollars per day for twenty days.

So, what do they have left?

These children, who should have been cherished and pampered by their parents, worked themselves to the bone all day, only to end up not even getting to drink moldy rice porridge, and were left with nothing but despair, unable to even snatch a bran.

But what if we don't do it!

The family, which was already so poor that they couldn't even afford to eat, suddenly had an extra mouth to feed!

The shallow beach of Garbage Bay not far away.

The riverbank was crowded with women and children, all carrying tattered lead buckets and bending over to dip into the foul-smelling black water to scoop water.

After returning home, sprinkle some alum on the water and let it settle for a while. The still murky water then becomes the family's drinking water for the day.

In the shantytowns, more than 90% of the people were infected with hookworm disease. They were emaciated and their bellies were swollen like drums. Those who couldn't survive were simply thrown into a straw mat by the river and became one of the many floating corpses on the river.

Chen Feng gazed at the hellish scene before him, a chill creeping into his eyes—why was this so different from the glamorous photos he had seen in the museum?

next moment.

He suddenly remembered the "water rat" who sold fake medicine and made money from tainted water—this trip to Songjiang was not only to redeem the person, but also to clean up the family and eliminate the root of the problem!

"Waaah—"

A piercing whistle broke the oppressive silence as the small steamboat, billowing black smoke, slowly passed the old sluice bridge.

Looking up, the river surface instantly became lively again.

Deep-draft cargo boats were crowded in the waterway, their hulls pressed low, almost touching the water's surface.

On the ship, shirtless laborers carried sacks of rice, their steps faltering, their backs drenched in sweat... From the gaps in the rice sacks, a rather familiar and glaring grayish-white powder fell out due to the violent shaking!

At the bow stood an arrogant captain.

The man was dressed in short clothes, with a short knife tucked into his waistband. The dried bloodstains on the knife were cracked into a spiderweb pattern, indicating that it had not been wiped clean for a long time. It was clear at a glance that he had taken many lives on his hands.

The cargo ship was surrounded by a dense array of small sampans.

The boatmen on the sampan had dark skin, strong bones, and were as agile as monkeys. They stood as steady as flat ground on the swaying boat; it was obvious that they had all practiced some life-saving skills.

"These people are trained in sampan combat! They specialize in fighting and risking their lives on boats. They might not be considered martial arts masters, but on the water, they're top-notch ruthless characters!"

Hu Mingxuan walked over at some point, his gaze sweeping over the group of boatmen. His tone was calm, but the next moment when his eyes fell on the cabin of the cargo ship, his brows suddenly furrowed and his voice deepened.

"It's bone rice!"

Hu Sanzhen nodded heavily, his eyes fixed on Chen Feng with a deep, unfathomable gaze. He uttered two chilling sentences, each one deliberate and chilling: "Send the living to Shanghai, transport the corpses to Songjiang!"

Seeing Chen Feng's brows furrow slightly, as if he didn't understand, Hu Sanzhen took a deep breath and slowly unveiled the shocking mystery beneath the cargo ship.

These cargo ships set off from Songjiang Wharf loaded with rice. In order to make the ship reach the standard draft, they did not use stones for ballast, but instead stuffed people directly into the cargo hold—a single cargo ship could cramm in forty or fifty young and strong laborers.

They were forced to bend over and brace themselves against the crossbeams at the bottom of the hold—using their spines as ballast!

Each worker had to bear a weight of 850 kilograms.

Even the stiffest lumbar vertebra will develop butterfly-shaped cracks and break completely if subjected to continuous pressure for 72 hours.

A single trip by boat would take at least six young men.

Six lives are as worthless as six blades of grass!

Chen Feng felt a bone-chilling cold rush from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and remained silent for a long time.

Wang Xiaoer trembled all over upon hearing this, and couldn't help but ask in a trembling voice, "It's so painful, wouldn't those laborers... resist?"

"Resist?"

Hu Mingxuan gave a bitter smile, shook his head, and said in a voice filled with despair, "Do you know what's more terrifying than death? It's not pain, it's not illness—it's poverty! A whole family, with nothing to eat!"

Chen Feng added coldly, his voice icy: "And there's lead plaster! Applied to the body, it temporarily numbs the pain, making them unable to feel that their bones are broken!"

He didn't hear this from others; he witnessed it firsthand in the "beast cage," where human sandbags were smeared on their bodies.

Wang Xiaoer's face was deathly pale, and his voice trembled: "Then...then why not use ballast? Why insist on filling the gaps with human lives?"

After taking the last drag of his cigarette, Hu Sanzhen tapped the pipe against the sole of his shoe a few times to knock off the ash. His tone was eerily calm: "Traditional ballast takes up cargo space, and loading and unloading it is time-consuming... But human ballast can be stuffed in whenever you want, piled up whenever you want, no loading or unloading required, and it's disposable after use!"

Hu Mingxuan closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his eyes were filled with unbearable sorrow: "A laborer's life is only worth three silver dollars, cheaper than a ballast stone. Even in death, his body can still be used to extract the last bit of profit!"

Before he could finish speaking...

Not far away, a cargo ship had just finished unloading rice.

Several laborers were roughly dragged out of the hold by thugs from the bottom of the ship.

They were only in their early twenties, but because their spines were completely crushed, they lay sprawled on the deck like puddles of mud, their limbs twisted, their eyes vacant, unable to even utter a wail.

The captain, looking impatient, waved his hand dismissively as if dealing with a pile of garbage.

"These are useless, take them back to Songjiang and make bone rice!"

Chen Feng's eyes turned cold, and he could no longer hold back, shouting fiercely.

"Stop it, all of you!"