Chaos

Hu Fangyong is a native of Xiangxi. He came out of a ravine. When he was a child, he lay under the wall of a private school of a wealthy family and he knew some words after listening to it for a few days.Later, I went to Hangzhou. Because I had a good mouth and could talk and do things, I met a nobleman in Hangzhou——Huang Yecheng, a famous warlord at that time.

At that time, Hu Fangyong was in the waiting room in Quelou. When a clerk was serving water for Huang Yecheng to wash his hands, he stumbled and hit Huang Yecheng's head with the basin, scaring him to kneel on the ground and kowtow.The other people at the table were so frightened that they kept cursing, almost eating him.

Hu Fangyong saw it when he was passing by, rushed up and knelt down and said, "Master, calm down! He didn't mean it! Your lord has a lot, please spare him!"

"If you say you'll be spared, you'll be spared. What are you! If you knock Mr. Huang into trouble, how many heads do you have?"

Hu Fangyong turned his head, and said: "The gentlemen are going to do big things, and this guy happened to bump into the boss's head. This means that the few will be a 'best lottery', and the business will be a success!"

Huang Yecheng was very happy to hear that, not only let the little guy go, but also gave Hu Fangyong a small official. Because he could talk and was promoted by Huang Yecheng, he made great progress all the way. Before Huang Yecheng was assassinated, Hu Fangyong had always been his right-hand man.After Huang Yecheng's death, many people who followed Huang Yecheng continued to follow Hu Fangyong, and gradually developed into a new warlord with [-] troops in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Hu Fangyong would say that he also loves to make friends. In the Jiangnan area, he made friends with many celebrities from all walks of life. Among them was Feng Zhenyang, Mr. Feng Jiada from Shanghai.When Hu Fangyong and Huang Yecheng's other backbones competed for military power, Feng Zhenyang gave very important financial and military support.

In the past few days, Feng Zhenyang came to Hefei to check and accept several newly built tobacco houses, and visited Hu Fangyong by the way.

Hu Fangyong just came back from the office, took off his hat and coat, walked over with a smile and said, "Brother Zhenyang, long time no see!"

Feng Zhenyang took down the pipe in his mouth and said with a smile, "Long time no see!"

Hu Fangyong looked at Feng Zhenyang and said, "The body looks pretty good, a bit fatter!"

"Of course I'm fine, but you, it's not a big deal during this time, so how come it's cleared?"

Hu Fangyong waved his hand: "Greed for cold, eat bad stomach, but it's healed, it's okay. Where's Zhenyi? Didn't you come to see the opium hall? Why didn't you come?"

"At the pier, a batch of tobacco from India has arrived, and we can't leave."

Hu Fangyong smiled: "Yan Song is still a child after all, and he is still worried without his father!"

Feng Yansong is Zhenyang's son and Yanqing's younger brother.Yanqing is mainly in charge of the black goods of the Feng family at the pier. Yanqing is not around these days, so he temporarily handed them over to Zhenyi. Yansong is originally in charge of silk fabrics, but for training, he will also help Zhenyi when he goes out to escort bulk goods. help.

Hu Fangyong each lit a cigarette, and Feng Zhenyang said slowly: "It's not that he can't be in custody, but Zhenyi is worried. Li Nan met with some old workers of the Li family a few months ago, which made him very nervous. .Li Nan is Li Shu, who was called Li Nan when he was in the Li family 20 years ago."

"Just met once?"

"It's okay to meet her. Compared with her, Li Lu is not a star and a half away. She doesn't care about inheriting the family business. Li Nan was only a teenager and had the courage to face so many people at the chamber of commerce. Let alone the Li family. Now, I would be reluctant to let her leave home. Now that she is back in Shanghai, it is reasonable for the Li family to want to see her or want her to go back, but I don’t know if she has the intention to go back. It's hard to handle..."

"Is there any news that she is going back?" Hu Fangyong asked carefully.

"That's not true. The old workers of the Li family went back after talking. Could it still be Li Shu? She is not stupid, she doesn't do things that are easy to be caught, and leaves all the dock affairs to Li Kang. "

Hu Fangyong smiled: "That's no big deal, right? Didn't you say that Li Kang has been at the pier for more than ten years, and he has been in charge of it all the time, and if you leave it to him, isn't it just a circle in place!"

Feng Zhenyang sat upright, and said seriously: "Not only that, she also gave Li Kang control of her white goods. If she didn't want to go back to Li's house, why would she give her goods to an outsider for no reason? What Li Heng said Among the children, apart from Li Nan, I am most worried and wary of Li Kang, who left a well-behaved son from a rich family and went to the pier to move goods. There are many people at the pier, and they often get acquainted with troubled talents in the name of helping others. Porters, ship managers and even coachmen and beggars are very familiar with each other. Now they have the power to manage two kinds of goods, both black and white. Half of the wharf is under his command, and the excess goods can be found without anyone noticing. Send it out. Zhenyi is worried about this batch of smoke and soil, as well as the [-] bolts of silk and satin shipped to England, so he stayed behind and supervised himself."

"It's right to be cautious, but Li Kang is on his own, no matter how powerful he is, he won't dare to touch the Feng family's goods, right?"

"Who knows what Li Kang is planning? It's not easy to hide from the General Administration of Customs to exchange the goods! During this period of time, bandits are rampant. When the Feng family's tobacco is transported inland, half of it will be good for the next family. , besides, the checkpoints are getting stricter as they go in, and it costs people and money. If this batch of big cigarettes is misunderstood from the moment they arrive, it will be a big loss!"

Hu Fangyong nodded, pouted his mouth, thought for a while, and said: "Brother Zhenyang, speaking of this, let me say something unpleasant. The Feng family has been in the opium business for decades, and they have earned a lot of money. Quite a lot, you know how harmful opium is, and it’s all your own people.”

"Why do you suddenly bring this up?"

Hu Fangyong sighed, and said: "To tell you the truth, when I came back just now, a few people suddenly ran out to stop the car, knelt on the ground and begged me to seek justice for them. I heard from them that the man in this family smoked opium Smoked to death, people from the smokehouse came to ask for debts, and they had no money to repay the debts, so those people insisted on using their children's words to pay off the debts, but the kid's brother refused to let them go, and dragged those people to anger, and shot the kid's body Brother, they are not satisfied with killing people, they still want to take that child away! They dragged them to the street, and they happened to meet me. You are in this business, and all you can see is big cigarettes, and money, which is also It’s the first time I’ve come out to inspect the smoking hall, and I’ve never seen how the big smoke drains these people. I’m a bit overwhelmed when I say this, but I feel a little uncomfortable when I hear that woman and child crying so hard that their voices are hoarse ..."

"Which smokehouse?"

"It's from the south of the city, not from the Feng family."

Feng Zhenyang exhaled smoke, wrapped himself in it, and said, "Fang Yong, you know, people in this line of work are too humane, it won't make your enemies less, and it won't make people think you're a good person."

"I know, I just want to tell you a story, if it doesn't sound good, it's fart."

On the way Feng Zhenyang went to the tobacco shop the next day, he saw many beggars on the side of the street, and a skinny man lying on a straw mat next to him looked lifeless.

Feng Zhenyang asked: "Who are these people lying on the straw mat?"

"They are all smokers who are about to die, or who are already dead. Those who are not yet dead, don't look at lying on the mat now, when the time comes, they will be addicted to it, no matter how far they are, they will run to the smoking den to grab the kang Some smokers smoked, some were killed directly, and some ran away after smoking two puffs, but most of them could not survive a day or two."

Feng Zhenyang put down the curtain, smiled in a low voice, and said, "It's self-inflicted. Smoking opium is more important than life."

The driver smiled and said: "Sir, I don't know. Some people don't want to smoke, but they are infected and can't quit. My aunt in my family used to have stomachaches, and I wanted to find some medicine for stomachaches. It was very useful, so she went to buy some, and it didn't hurt after using it. Later, when she became addicted, her family wouldn't let her use it, so she started stealing valuable things from the house and selling them. Smoking hurts people, and it makes him and his family stay late together. This taste is not as quick as a knife and a gun."

Feng Zhenyang felt a strange feeling in his heart, as if he was a little soft-hearted.

Suddenly a sudden brake, Feng Zhenyang almost hit the front.

"what happened?"

"Are you okay? A woman rushed out suddenly, I'll go down and have a look!"

Feng Zhenyang raised his head to look, and when he saw that woman, his heart skipped a beat: The woman who stopped the car looked exactly the same as Yan Qing!just haggard and pale

He couldn't take his eyes off the woman, feeling inexplicably uncomfortable.

Lying on the bed at night, Feng Zhenyang thought of the two new opium dens. The opium dens were spacious and bright, with four rows of large shops and more than a dozen single rooms, which could accommodate dozens of old smokers. Be a fairy for a while.Two new restaurants, hundreds of people, behind these people there are a lot of people who can't pay their cigarette debts and are looking for life.

Illegal goods accounted for more than half of the Feng family's money.Arms can barely be regarded as warlords fighting and suffering the common people, but opium is different. It is a needle tube that can empty people, and whoever smokes it will die.It seems that some ordinary people are willing to go to the opium hall to pay debts and pay for their crimes, and even implicate the whole family after being smoked to death, but in fact everyone in this business chain twisted with blood and tears is a killer.Although his reputation in Shanghai is fairly good, people who will evaluate him in the future will say that he holds money out of blood in both hands.

Feng Zhenyang has lived to this age, and he has passed the age where he wants to fight for everything, not to mention the constant physical problems, which make him start to cherish his life. What could be more important than being alive?But I can still cherish my life, these people who can numb themselves for a while by smoking opium seem to have only the choice of where to die.

That woman who looks like Yanqing always makes him think that if Yanqing was not born in Feng's family, would she be like this?Yanqing has been away for almost a month, although Feng Zhenyang occasionally writes letters, but Feng Zhenyang still has some thoughts.Thinking of this, he got up and wrote a letter to Yanqing, asking about the current situation, and also explaining some things about the smokehouse.

The next morning, Feng Zhenyang woke up and confessed to posting the letter, his complexion was ruddy, and he looked in a good mood.But this state did not last long, and was soon interrupted by a message from Hu Fangyong.

A few small bandits were found during the patrol a few nights ago. Hu Fangyong paid great attention to it and asked his subordinates to keep checking. Yesterday, they finally found the bandit's den, and found several boxes of arms of unknown origin in the bandit's den.

Feng Zhenyang came to the warehouse, opened a new box, picked up the guns, and asked, "How much is this batch of munitions?"

The small patrolman said: "□□[-], □□[-], [-] rounds of ammunition, no heavy machine gun was found after the search."

Hu Fangyong asked: "How is it?"

Feng Zhenyang folded his hands behind his back, frowned, and said: "The quantity is not large, ten boxes are enough. But this batch of goods is not from the Feng family, and the model does not look like the Li family's."

"Is that Li Shu's? But in the last battle of Anqing, Hou Wannian used Li Shu's. The guns we captured seem to be different."

"It's not Li Shu's." Feng Zhenyang shook his head. "The last time the battle in Anqing was urgent, I temporarily ordered a batch of munitions from the Li family to send to the front. The Li family's munitions were made in India by the British, and the Feng family's munitions were made in Germany." Locally made, Li Shu's is made in France in Vietnam. Although the quality of these arms is not much different, they are different in model and workmanship. The source of this batch of guns may be a new place."

Hu Fangyong thought for a while and said, "That means, the seller is someone else?"

"That's right." Feng Zhenyang nodded.

"However, the supervision of the escort checkpoint of the arms is very strict. Without your signature or the signature of those two, it will not be allowed. How did he transport it in?"

Feng Zhenyang looked at the ammunition box, asked someone to empty it, bent down and took a lamp to look carefully at the ash at the bottom, and suddenly found a lot of white powder, and some gaps in the gun were also stained. After sniffing and tasting it, his face suddenly sank.

"What is it?"

"Salt. Hid the gun and bullets in the salt and smuggled it in together with the salt." Feng Zhenyang clapped his hands and shook the ashes off his hands.

"Then there are arms from other places here. Is there any other news from the pier?"

Feng Zhenyang shook his head and said, "No, the news on the pier these days is all about Li Kang. The customs may not be unaware of the transfer of black and white goods. It may just be that there is no evidence to confront Li Kang."

When Hu Fangyong heard Feng Zhenyang's words, he suddenly had a very bold idea.

"Is it possible that this batch of goods was shipped out by Li Kang with white goods?" Hu Fangyong himself couldn't believe it.

Feng Zhenyang woke up suddenly as if he had been hit with a stick. He felt his temples twitching. If it was as Hu Fangyong said, then the Feng family would be at a very disadvantageous position in the battle of arms interests.