When the patrolling soldiers blew their whistles, the tightly covered carriage, surrounded by several fast horses, had arrived at a grain warehouse in the west of the Trade City.
A group of people, including Pavlov, the owner of the grocery store, rode into the yard in a hurry. Four men lifted up the animal skins and debris covering the sled, revealing the two men below who had their hands and feet bound and their mouths gagged with towels.
Female and male.
"Pavlov, where is the tunnel?"
"In the stable, follow me."
After hearing this, Major Ragutin asked his men to carry Fan Tong and others, and followed Pavlov straight to the stable.
Fan Tong was dazed because of the stick on his neck, but with the ups and downs of the Cossack carrying him, the other person's shoulders pressed against his abdomen, making him shake.
He was almost out of breath. Just when Fan Tong thought he was about to be suffocated to death, the man beneath him stopped walking. Just as he was feeling dizzy, a strand of horse tail mane brushed past his head.
Fan Tong turned his head vigorously, trying to find Ushiha and Polya, but he saw nothing except a trembling black velvet.
Pavlov opened up the hay piled on the ground in a corner of the stable. Underneath was a tan wooden board with a side length of about 60 centimeters. He moved the board away, revealing a deep dark passage with a diameter of about 80 centimeters. Because he often used to
There were people coming in and out, and the edges of the secret passage were worn very smooth.
Then, he took an extinguished pine oil torch from the stable wall, lit it with flint, and then climbed down the steps dug in the wall of the secret passage shaft very skillfully.
After Pavlov went down, Major Ragutin also climbed down. Then several of his men connected the ropes tied to Fan Tong and the other three with a thick rope and let the three of them down from the entrance of the cave one by one.
When Fan Tong was first put down, he struggled instinctively and stuck his chubby body at the entrance of the hole, hoping to delay time. But unexpectedly, a Cossack picked up a stick and hit him hard in the stomach.
, Fan Tong let out a groan in pain. As soon as his feet relaxed, his body slipped down the three-meter-deep secret passage. Not to mention, he got dirt all over his face and even sprained his feet when he fell.
When he woke up a little, he heard the Pavlov speaking to him viciously. He didn't need to guess to know that the other person must be warning him.
Fatty Fan spanned two time and space, and had never experienced anything like this. After being beaten once, all that was left in his mind was fear. He breathed desperately through his nose, and the dark space combined with the feeling of suffocation made him
His ears were ringing, and his heart was beating wildly, as if it was about to jump out of his chest. At this time, he didn't dare to move anymore, for fear that the other party would jump over the wall and stab his legs and arms, which would be too bad.
After Ushiha and Polya were also hung down by ropes, Pavlov held a torch and walked forward. Major Ragutin took out his dagger and scolded Fan Tong to get up and follow him, and waited for Fan Tong to stand against the wall.
After getting up, I noticed that the height of the secret passage was about 1.5 meters high.
It is said that as long as there is cross-border trade, smuggling trade will definitely exist. During the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods, the Manchu and Qing government strictly prohibited the export of raw silk to Russia, and offenders were punished with death. But even so, a large amount of raw silk was still transported to Chak by smuggling every year
picture.
Although there is a Kyaktu River between Russia City and Buying City, the water here is only more than two meters deep. In addition, the distance between the two sides is only more than 100 meters, which provides conditions for digging a secret tunnel for smuggling.
However, it is precisely because Tsarist Russia is dependent on Sino-Russian trade that the previous Kyakhta officials turned a blind eye to this. Anyway, the tariffs that should be paid cannot be less.
In these years, Sino-Russian border smuggling involved many commodities, ranging from local specialties such as cattle, horses, camels and mules, which are abundant in Mongolia, to tea, cloth, daily necessities, etc., covering almost all types of commodities in Sino-Russian trade. Shanxi merchants smuggled to Russian merchants
The goods in hand were mainly tea, tobacco, cloth and daily necessities. The goods smuggled by the Russian side to the Chinese and Shanxi merchants were mainly various types of fur goods, horses and camels, etc.
Of course, large-scale smuggling activities will definitely not happen in Kyakhta. The border area between the Qing Dynasty and Russia is long, vast and sparsely populated. The cattle and horse trade will definitely not be carried out through secret passages. The main business here in Kyakhta is small business.
Large-scale tea and leather goods smuggling.
Fan Tong, Wu Xiha and Polya staggered along as they were pushed forward. In the dim light, they noticed that the dark passage had a gentle slope going down, and they walked about dozens of meters away.
After that, there is another gentle slope upward.
During this period, he wanted to look back at Ushiha and Polya, but as soon as he turned around, he was pushed hard by the Cossack behind him, and his head hit the wall of the tunnel, which made his head hurt. At this time, Fan Tong
Then he heard the "whining" sounds of two women behind him, and he felt a little more relieved.
It seemed like a long time passed in a daze, and the road finally came to an end. Fan Tong leaned on the wall of the secret passage and gasped desperately. He heard the voices of several people talking above his head, but they all spoke in Russian. He was
At that moment, I didn’t even bother to discern what the other person was saying.
After a while, a rope hung from the top of his head, and Major Ragutin, who was walking in front, tied the rope behind Fan Tong by the light of the torch. Then the rope tightened, and Fan Tong's fat body began to rise slowly.
.
"What did this guy grow up on? This is too heavy!"
"What nonsense are you talking about, hurry up, hurry up!"
After a while, Fan Tong felt his eyes light up. When he was pulled up on his back and his feet came out of the hole, he realized that the space here was not big. It was surrounded by walls made of wooden boards, which was about 20 meters.
It looked very flat. There were five or six guys with half-covered faces standing around the entrance of the cave. They must have been the ones pulling the rope just now.
Although these people tried to hide themselves, Fan Tong was shocked when he saw the other person's bare forehead and the thin braid on the back of one guy's head.
"Manqing! I have arrived at the trading city in the south?!"
Soon, Fan Tong saw Polya with a painful look on her face, her face stained with tears and mud. Her originally beautiful black swan dress had turned khaki, and her golden hair had also turned dull.
Messy.
"Woo~" Fan Tong struggled to move towards Polya, but what followed was a kick that pushed him hard to the edge of the wooden wall. This kick hit Fan Tong's face, causing pain.
His nose was filled with snot and tears.
Wu Xiha was the third one to be dragged up. Her fox fur cloak had been left in the grocery store, and now she was wearing an emerald green silk singlet. Hezhe's little daughter-in-law was unruly, and she
I have never suffered such a crime in my life. The first thing Ushiha did after she woke up was to stare at the people in the room with her big black eyes. Her gaze made people shudder, like a hunter looking at herself.
of prey.
When the last Cossack climbed up from the cave, as soon as his head came out, he said hurriedly: "Oh no, I heard voices, please block the entrance of the cave!"
The other people in the room panicked as soon as they heard this. If the Beihai Navy chased them, the game would be over!
At this time, Pavlov said in Russian to a Qing man whose face was covered: "Hurry up and block it with something, don't let them come up!"
"Follow me, there are stones and tools outside the door!"
Major Ragutin and another Cossack took out the pistols of Fan Tong and Ushiha from their arms and pointed them at the entrance of the cave. The other people pushed the door out, brought in a stone and log from outside, and threw it at the entrance of the secret passage.
Go down.
As more than a dozen pieces of stone and wood were thrown into the entrance of the secret passage, large pieces of soil on the secret passage shaft were smashed and fell down. After that, these people kept shoveling the soil in from outside the door, shoveling one after another.
After falling into the shaft, I saw that the secret passage was completely blocked and no one could climb up!
At this time, a few exclamations and coughs were faintly heard coming from the bottom of the shaft, followed immediately by a burst of yelling.
Afterwards, the masked man left two people guarding the entrance of the cave, and then moved Pavlov, his party, and Fan Tong to a slightly larger warehouse next door. There were piles of sacks and wooden boxes stacked against the wall.
The air is filled with the mixed smell of tea and rhubarb.
Only then did Pavlov and others heave a sigh of relief. He asked a guy with his face covered and wearing a coarse cotton coat: "Are the horses and clothes ready?"
The man said: "I have prepared a horse and a horse for you. Everything is on the horse mattress. I will send two people to take you away."
Ragutin nodded. He knew that with his appearance, he would definitely be in trouble when encountering patrolling officers and soldiers. He turned around and motioned to one of his men to go out and take a look. After a while, the Buryat man came back.
He nodded to Ragutin. After seeing it, Pavlov asked again: "Where are the documents? Without them, we can't escape when we encounter your patrolling officers and soldiers!"
"Where's the money?" The masked man opened his hand toward Major Ragutin.
Major Ragutin and Pavlov each took out a heavy animal skin bag from their arms and handed one to the other first. The other person took it and opened it. It was filled with half a bag of gold sand. He said "hmm" to express his satisfaction.
After he finished examining another bag of gold sand, he took out an envelope from his arms and handed it to Pavlov.
Pavlov opened the envelope and took out the contents. He saw that it was a piece of paper with two pages connected, with a large red seal at the junction. In addition to dense Chinese characters, there was also Manchu writing on the back.
Ragutin came over to take a look and asked in surprise: "What is this?"
The masked man explained: "This is called a soldier's card. We paid three hundred taels of silver to get it from the trustee. The front is the main text, and the back is the tail slip. If you encounter patrolling officers and soldiers on the road, you must
Show this to them. The patrolling officers and soldiers will check the number of people according to what is written on the text, and then fill in the number of people to be checked on the final slip, and you can only go through after it is stamped."
Pavlov laughed, hugged the masked man, and said: "Tian, thank you for your help, otherwise this matter would not have been so easy. When I come back with the Queen's army, I will definitely thank you very much.
.”
The masked man said: "I also work for the imperial court, but it's a pity that the secret passage can be used in the future. It's hard to say."
Ragutin urged at this time: "It's no longer necessary, we have to leave quickly!"
At this time, a group of people heard a "woo woo" cry from behind them. When they turned around, they saw the fat man with a bruised nose and swollen face humming, indicating that he had something to say.
The masked man said solemnly: "You can take away the cloth, but you can't shout, otherwise you will be responsible for the consequences!"
After hearing this, Fan Tong nodded desperately. When the cloth on his mouth was pulled out, he took a big breath and felt that his breathing was smoother. Then he gasped and said: "Here, bring them thick clothes.
In such a cold weather, you will freeze to death if you ride a horse! They want, if something happens, you all will not be able to survive!"