In the end, Tan Yongqing agreed to let his daughter follow him to Guandong.
At noon that day, Li Jie and the other two had a simple lunch at Lao Tan's house and then returned home to pack their things.
Early the next morning, at dawn, the five members of Lao Zhu's family quietly left Zhujia Village before the villagers got up.
This time, Lao Zhu's family did not notify anyone else of their departure. After all, Zhu Kaishan was still wanted by the Qing government.
There are generally two routes to travel through Guandong, one is the land route, and the other is the sea route. The land route is not only time-consuming, but also contains many dangers along the way.
Compared with the land route, the faster sea route is undoubtedly the best choice.
Li Jie and his five friends will go to Guandong this time by sea. They will take a boat at Longkou Port on the Jiaodong Peninsula and go to Lushun Port across the Bohai Bay.
Longkou Port is located on the south coast of the Bohai Sea and in the northwest of the Jiaodong Peninsula. It has good natural conditions. It is protected by a natural sand bar connecting islands 8 kilometers long from east to west in the north, and is surrounded by golden beaches in the south. It does not freeze or silt up, making it a natural ice-free port.
In the future, Longkou Port will be one of the best deep-water ports in the Bohai Bay region.
However, it is only 1904, and it is still about eight years before Longkou Port is opened for the first time. It will not be until 1912 that the Beiyang government officially decides to open Longkou Port as a foreign trade port.
Although Longkou Port has not been officially developed yet, thanks to the excellent hydrological environment, private merchants have already regarded Longkou Port as one of the docks.
The ship Li Jie and the others took this time departed from Longkou Port and crossed the Bohai Bay. It took about two to three days to arrive at Lushun Port, located at the southwest tip of the Liaodong Peninsula.
The straight-line distance between Zhujia Village and Longkou Port is about more than 300 kilometers. In later generations, the distance of more than 300 kilometers would be reached by driving in a few hours.
(It is mentioned in the play that the Zhujia Village is in Zhangqiu. I checked the map and found that it is more than 300 kilometers from Zhangqiu to Longkou. Although the Zhu family arrives at Longkou in a scene in the play, this journey will definitely take a while.)
But based on the road conditions in the late Qing Dynasty, a journey of more than 300 kilometers would take seven or eight days at the fastest.
However, although the journey was relatively long, there were no accidents along the way. It took Li Jie and others about ten days to finally reach the vicinity of Longkou Port.
The closer we get to Longkou, the more pedestrians there are on the road. Like Li Jie and others, most of them are traveling with their families and carrying large and small bags.
"Mom, there are so many people on this road."
Zhu Chuanjie is the youngest cub of the old Zhu family. He is only ten years old this year. This is the first time for him to see so many people. The people he saw along the way were simply more than what he saw at the market.
“It’s good when there are people, and there’s safety when there are people.”
Wen Ta Niang looked around and sighed with a smile.
When going out, the most taboo thing is to take small roads, especially in the years of war and chaos. If you take small roads, you are likely to encounter robbers.
Once you meet a robber, if you meet a kind-hearted person, you may only lose your money but not your life. If you meet a ruthless person, you may lose both your life and money.
Therefore, as long as people with a little experience go out, even if they choose to take a detour and spend more time, they will choose to take the "official road", that is, the main road, and will never take a shortcut just to rush.
"Uncle Chunshan, are we almost there?"
On the other side, Zhu Chuanwu looked at the bustling crowd around him and asked Zhu Chunshan on the side.
"Well, we're almost there."
Zhu Chunshan raised his head and glanced at the sea in the distance. They had been walking along the coastline for more than two days. Calculating the distance, if they walked fast, they could reach Longkou this afternoon.
"We are on our way today. I think we will arrive in the afternoon."
Knowing that they were almost there, Zhu Chuanwu breathed an inexplicable sigh of relief. He had traveled more than 600 miles in ten days, averaging more than 60 miles a day. For Zhu Chuanwu who had been hungry for a long time, it was definitely a big deal.
challenges.
What's more, he is only fourteen years old and has not yet grown up.
Therefore, these days, he has been exhausted.
Looking at his younger brother Zhu Chuanjie jumping around in front of him, a trace of envy flashed in Zhu Chuanwu's eyes.
'Why am I not the youngest in the family?'
'This boy Chuanjie had such a comfortable life along the way. One moment Uncle Chunshan was carrying him, and the other moment it was his elder brother who was carrying him.'
At the same time, Tan Xian'er glanced at Li Jie distressedly and whispered in his ear.
"Brother Chuanwen, please put me down. I'm not tired."
"It's okay, I'm not tired."
Although Tan Xian'er is already seventeen this year, the current food conditions are simply not comparable to those of later generations. In addition, the past two years have been bad, and the food grown is simply not enough for the family.
In addition, Tan Xian'er is not only a woman, she also has a brother.
Therefore, most of the family's food rations go to the mouths of the Tan family and his son, but there is nothing that can be done about it. Since the Tan family and his son are the main labor force in the family, they must ensure that they have enough to eat.
To put it simply, Tan Xian'er often eats very well every day, and has very little meat on her body. She is a little over 1.6 meters tall, weighs less than 80 kilograms, and is as skinny as a stick.
Seems like.
"Brother Chuanwen, just now Uncle Chunshan said that we are almost there. Do you think we can live a good life when we arrive in Kanto?"
"I've heard people say that the land in Guandong is all black soil. If you pinch the fat, you can get oil. If you plant food in the ground and do nothing, you can have a good harvest in autumn. Also, in the river
There are endless fish to eat.”
As she spoke, Tan Xian'er's stomach suddenly made a gurgling sound.
Immediately, Tan Xian'er secretly glanced at Li Jie from the side and found that the other person seemed not to hear the movement and was still walking forward unhurriedly. This discovery made Tan Xian'er let out a long sigh of relief.
Li Jie naturally heard it, but he didn't point it out. After all, Tan Xian'er gave him most of his own rations.
"There will be. When you get to Kanto, I will let you eat meat every meal!"
Tan Xian'er said stupidly, "Well, Brother Chuanwen, I believe in you!"
At three o'clock in the afternoon, after traveling for more than ten days, Li Jie and others finally arrived at their destination.
However, when they arrived at the pier and saw the dense crowd on the beach, they were stunned.
At a glance, there were at least four to five hundred people on the pier.
Zhu Chunshan is a veteran of the world, and when he saw this scene, he immediately frowned.
The scene in front of me is not good news. There are so many people gathered on the pier, which can only mean that there have been no ships out to sea for several days.
Otherwise, even if there are many people traveling to Guandong, the beach will not be full of people.
Thinking of this, Zhu Chunshan couldn't help but secretly worry, and left after leaving a few words.
"Zhuan Wen, please take care of your mother and your brother first. I'll go over there to get some news and see when the next boat is."