In order to enhance the actual experience, we also specially organized a visit to the county government office - except for the inner government office, we visited them all, and there were government officials giving special explanations everywhere we went.
Master Wang Zhaomin was also invited to hold "symposiums" from time to time. Unlike the "reformed" government clerks, he was at a higher level and had a more subtle identity. In order to prevent him from being suspicious of a large group of people, he refused to talk in depth.
, usually Xiong Buyou invites you to the office to chat in the name of "drinking tea and wine".
The county office has built a small courtyard, which has been slightly renovated and decorated with some flowers and trees. The environment is relatively elegant. It is specially used to communicate with county officials. The atmosphere here is relaxed and quiet, and it is easier to talk to each other.
In order to keep in touch with each other, we also hold activities such as tea tastings and banquets here from time to time.
Master Wang's "teaching" was here. But he didn't know that he had this "honor". When he and Xiong Buyou were talking, the surroundings were actually full of people - this place had been specially renovated, and it seemed like there was no one around.
People, actually the students were sitting in a dark room listening to them chatting.
Mr. Wang was very willing to come to the county office to have fun and chat. He was bored sitting in the county government office - Lingao was originally a place with "light business". As the Australians continued to intervene in county affairs, he had no choice but to "wait for work."
"This" can be transferred to official documents, and there is nothing else to do except deal with the county's official articles. Moreover, the Australians have made summary courts and have taken away more than half of the master's main business, "criminal names."
Nowadays, when someone invites guests to chat, Wang Zhaomin of course comes to every invitation, drinks every time, and then talks loudly. So much so that Xiong Buyou has to prepare the topic of each conversation in advance to prevent his talk from getting too exciting.
But the content of his casual chat is of great value to the traveling public. As a master, Wang Zhaomin’s observation and understanding of the officialdom is more in-depth and comprehensive than that of the officials. Moreover, the master travels all over the world and is well-informed.
, the horizons are much wider than those of the government office clerks in small counties. And they have contact with the upper, middle and lower classes of society. Li Yan asked the county office to invite him to hold a "symposium", which to a large extent also broadened the horizons of expatriates and enhanced their knowledge.
The purpose of understanding the social conditions of the Ming Dynasty.
Wang Zhaomin's symposium was recorded in its entirety - he would review it and organize it into materials after he returned home - but there was no on-site interpretation. He spoke in official Chinese, so Li Yan asked everyone to retell what he said into a report when they returned. This was the first test.
The expatriate’s mastery of Mandarin, and secondly, the expatriate’s ability to “recover” intelligence content.
Another important indigenous teacher who gave lectures on the social conditions of the Ming Dynasty was Zhou Shizhai, a consultant at the police headquarters. He taught various ways of the Ming Dynasty society and various rules and risks when going out.
Traveling in ancient society was tiring and dangerous. No matter whether rich or poor, everyone would encounter great risks when traveling. Zhou Shizhai had been a escort and a hospital guard, and had extremely rich social experience.
"... When walking on the sidewalk for a long distance, remember to scald your feet every day without washing your face." He passed on his experience to everyone one by one. "As long as you have the conditions, you must scald your feet and soak them to soothe your muscles and bones, but you don't need to wash your face."
Not washing your face is to prevent facial skin from cracking. The road is dusty and the sun is poisonous, making it easy to get sunburned and cracked. The ancients did not have sunscreen, so they had to use dust as a cover.
As for places to be careful about on the road, there are countless places. Zhou Shizhai focused on how to avoid staying in illegal hotels, which places are prone to robbery by thieves, and how to arrange your sleep at night to avoid being stolen...
"... Once everyone is on the road, their money must not be exposed." Zhou Shi Zhai Chunchun taught, "There are many people who are interested in seeing money along the way. In addition to bandits, there are many bandits among the people in cars, boats and shops who are waiting for opportunities." Then he said
Speaking of how he once crossed a river on his way to escort, the boatman saw that they were escorting a lot of goods, and he suddenly became malicious and tried to rob the escort. The escort finally managed to escape while protecting the escort.
Many of the knowledge and tips explained by Zhou Shizhai were accumulated by the escort agency during long-term escort operations, and are of great practical value to the dispatched intelligence personnel. Not only did the intelligence agency invite him to give lectures, but the police headquarters also specially collected and compiled the content he taught.
As a reference.
Liu Gang, who has been selling illegal salt for a long time for the Ministry of Colonization and Trade, was also invited. He made his fortune by trafficking illegal salt for the Crossing Group. This time he was quietly invited to teach business and illegal trade in Ming Dynasty society, especially how to be a small and medium-sized businessman.
Doing business in Ming society.
As for He Xin, who was rescued by Lin Baiguang, he was specially recalled from Qiongshan and gave a series of lectures on the brothels of the Ming Dynasty. This lecture also included many entertainment methods and methods of the Ming Dynasty. They learned the rules of the high-end brothels,
Jargon, scams, consumer standards and taboos,
When He Xin heard that he was going back to Lingao, he was so frightened that he thought he would fall into the hands of the devil Fu Youdi again. Unexpectedly, after he came back, he actually taught a group of strange people how to visit the courtyard and eat flower wine.
Fanshaotan...
Aboriginal people from various professions under the control of the Traveling Group, as long as their knowledge and insights are considered to be useful, will be "invited" on a sedan at night and quietly carried into the training center, and then they will be held in a strict manner
Across the curtain, I had a face-to-face conversation with several chiefs, teaching them everything they wanted to know. No one knew what was behind the curtain, but smart people probably guessed that there was also the Australian chief executive sitting behind it, because when a certain person
When the local accent is too strong, a leader will repeat what he said in Australian Mandarin.
In order to enhance the sense of involvement of expatriates, Yu Eshui conducted life-scenario-style drills, with indigenous personnel playing different roles. He designated a life scene each time, and then designated expatriates to play one of the roles. The indigenous people played the role.
Another one or several foreigners are sent to invest in a shop, and the natives are the bosses and assistants; to buy maids, the natives are Ya people; to discuss business, the natives are business partners; to go to government offices, the natives are concierges, government servants, masters, and county magistrates.
…
The indigenous people used in each performance try to use indigenous people who have such professional experience in order to be as accurate as possible. In order to stimulate the courage of the indigenous people to make things difficult for the expatriates, Yu E Shui has to score every performance.
The best performing natives on expatriates can receive additional rewards.
After each performance, everyone must gather together for a playback analysis. Yu Eshui specifically requires the expatriates to remember the jargon and expressions used by various characters, and to understand each other's thinking patterns and methods of doing things.
"Don't have the feeling of 'I am a superman'. You will never suffer a loss." Yu Eshui attacked them mercilessly in class, "You are just ordinary citizens in the 21st century, and you will not become big shots in the 17th century.
Without the Cross-Travel Group as a whole, you are nothing. Unless necessary and approved by the General Administration - do not rush to show that you are different, knowledgeable, and outstanding anywhere; let alone talk about "democracy" or "one country, one political party" everywhere
A leader' or something like that. We are not sent to Ming Dynasty to make you scientists, politicians or other people. Your task is to be 'like a common people of Ming Dynasty'."
In order to ensure that they are "like", it is necessary to enhance their sense of substitution. At every other stage, expatriates have to go out for internships as Ming Dynasty people. The content of the internship ranges from simple shopping and hiring servants to trying to make things on their own.
A little business...Everyone has to make himself unrecognizable.
Personnel from the Operations Division of the General Administration of Political Security will track and monitor the expatriates to see if they are discovered by the natives. Li Yan believes that the natives in Lingao are the ones who get along the most with the traveling people. If they can be deceived, they can go to the mainland.
Not a problem.
Later, such an operation was developed into a confrontational exercise. Both sides limited the location and number of people, and then students from the Intelligence Bureau and the Political Security Bureau identified and arrested each other.
After generally believing that they will not have any problems and pretending to be very similar, the overseas veterans will go on several long-distance land trips alone or in groups under the secret escort of the special reconnaissance team. The destination of the trip is usually Qiongshan County.
The elders of Pai, like all the natives, set out on the road on foot or in a sedan chair with simple luggage and a small amount of travel expenses. This kind of trip will give them a first-hand experience of the environment they will live in in the future - Lingao has been transformed "
"Modernized", which is very different from the real time and space of the 17th century.
In Qiongshan County, they can move around for a few days to half a month under the covert protection of Qiongzhou Station to experience the social conditions under the rule of the Ming Dynasty. After this trip is deemed qualified, the expatriate elders will have the opportunity to
Go to Guangzhou to experience the big city scene in this time and space.
In addition to the camouflage course, the veterans also had to learn everything that intelligence work might require. They learned tracking and counter-tracking, fighting skills and dagger use skills; mastered simple surveying and mapping; learned to rely solely on visual inspection to be accurate.
Judging the number of people, the size of objects and the length of distance; learning to use radio stations, encryption and decryption - before there were reliable indigenous telegraph operators, all this had to be done by the elders themselves; radio stations are precious and limited in number, so they need to be used most of the time
For encrypted letters, the Intelligence Bureau developed a secret writing method: in fact, it was written with rice soup and developed with iodine. The Ming Dynasty did not have iodine except for the traveling public, so there should be no problem in keeping it secret.
They also mastered a simple set of special code words: "center" is the intelligence agency headquarters; "swimming" is traveling; "sickness" is arrest; "wet work" is assassination; "legend" is a forged false identity experience;
"Liquor" refers to secret medicine; "Pipa" refers to the radio station; "neighbor" refers to the General Administration of Political Security; the hawker refers to the traffic officer...
Finally, they were sent to the field exploration team and spent four weeks of field survival training under the guidance of Liu Zheng and others, ensuring that they would be useful if they needed to escape.
While Department B of the Intelligence Training Center is undergoing intensive training, the indigenous intelligence personnel of Department A of the Intelligence Training Center are also intensifying their training. Their courses are more numerous and intensive than those of the elders, and the content is mainly about intelligence business. This group of personnel will
As the attachés of the senators, all of these attachés are men - it is very inconvenient to take women on the road without settling down.
On this day, Li Yan gathered everyone together and announced a message:
"Everyone, pack up and go to Fangcaodi now."
After arriving at Fangcaodi, they learned that they were asked to select their own "life secretaries." Li Yan announced that the selected life secretaries would receive additional intelligence training in Department A. After everyone is stable at the workplace, they will be gradually assigned to
They were sent to their respective places to handle intelligence work.
"The leader is really considerate of us." Someone burst into tears of gratitude.
Some people didn't appreciate it very much: "Didn't you say that you can buy women at will? Why do you need a life secretary?"
"Isn't the life secretary safer than the women you buy from outside?" Li Yan said, "and it can also help you with intelligence work, killing two birds with one stone. What's wrong with that?"
After saying this, everyone was relieved. After reading the materials, everyone chose the girl they wanted. Most people spent the amount of the maid subsidy to buy a C-level maid, and some people were interested in a higher level.
Yes, we can only register first and wait for the subsequent lottery. Anyway, the maids will not be available soon - according to the "center's" plan, they will not be dispatched until they have settled in the local area for at least three months.
There is a large house near the cooperative headquarters in Dongmen City. This house is a rare traditional house in Dongmen City. It has a large front yard for parking vehicles and sedan chairs.
The two compartments are warehouses used to store goods.
The main room is a cabinet room, and the wooden counter is polished with raw lacquer and tung oil. It has a wide variety of goods, but unlike the cooperative, the goods sold here are all goods from the mainland: cloth from Songjiang, cloth from Suhang
Silk, candied fruits, porcelain from Jiangxi, tea from Fujian, citrus... all kinds of goods from the north and the south. There could be such a large shop with a complete range of goods in Lingao. If the population hadn't doubled in recent years, everyone would have so many goods.
It is unimaginable to have some spare money.
The second entrance is to the main hall, which looks very majestic, with square tiles paving the floor, tables made of fine Guangdong rosewood, official hat chairs, large porcelain vases, and a large carved screen standing in the middle of the hall. Under the eaves.
There are eight lanterns hanging with the words "Full Blessing" written on them - logically speaking, this is illegal. But in the south, the sky is high and the emperor is far away, so no one will pay attention to it, and there is no need to be taboo in Lingao.
With such a grandeur, it looks like a traditional and substantial large-scale business. Everyone knows that this business is the property of Mr. Lin Quan'an, the number one "imperial merchant" in Lingao and the comprador of the Australians.
In such a luxurious shop sits Mr. Lin Quan'an, the designated supplier of the Ministry of Commerce and the director of the Dongmen City Business Association.
This Lin Quan'an, three years ago, everyone who knew him, including himself, never dreamed that one day he would be called "Master", let alone be able to accumulate such wealth.
He was sitting in the locker room at the back of the hall, surrounded by business documents and large account books. Mr. Lin was about thirty-five or sixteen years old, but his skin was dark and wrinkled, and he looked like a man in his early fifties.
He was a man from a poor background. He spent almost twenty years of his life carrying burdens and selling food in the village, living a day-to-day existence.
At this time, he was wearing a Nanjing Xiangyun gauze robe bought from Guangdong and a pair of straw slippers produced in Kaifeng Chenqiao. He was looking at the account book attentively. Mr. Lin was a businessman who dared to be the first in the world. In his early years, he did not recognize
He didn't know how to read and write an abacus, but later his business became big. Just like when he first did business for "Kun Thief", he did not hesitate to participate in a literacy class organized by the Australians, became literate, and learned how to use an abacus and abacus.
Accounting - this kind of accounting is Australian-style, even the numbers are Australian-style. This makes him very satisfied - because no one can understand it.
A quill was inserted into the ink bottle on the table. Lin Quan'an didn't know how to write with a quill. He learned this method of writing by dipping it in water from the Australians.
He was examining the pages of the large account book in front of him; each page was printed with horizontal and vertical lines, with liabilities recorded on the right and assets recorded on the left. The first page of the account book read in large characters: "Three Years of Chongzhen"
, Gengwu Year."
After Lin Quan'an reviewed the last account and carefully corrected the error above, he leaned back tiredly on his chair, feeling a little depressed.
The sales at the store are pretty good, and the gross profit earned is about 30%. But the amount of goods sold is too small - he is used to selling goods in batches, and he is not used to doing business in such a piecemeal manner.
.
In the past two years, he has been used to doing big business with smooth sailing. Lin Quan'an recalled that three years ago, he was just a small businessman carrying a burden and walking around the streets, with only four or five cents of capital. He relied on giving money to "thieves"
——The Australian man traveled from village to village to buy vegetables, pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks. Within a year, he made a fortune and opened the Quanfu Store. Then, under the instructions of Mr. Xiong, he gradually expanded his footprints to the entire Qiongzhou
The house purchased all kinds of goods for Australian gentlemen. It was easy to make money - the house and shop were renovated twice in three years: even the glass windows, porcelain toilets, porcelain bathtubs and tap water used by Australian gentlemen were used.
, not to mention small items such as thermos bottles and crystal mirrors. Not only was he able to afford a wife, he also had a second concubine.
All this came from the Australians who came in iron ships. The Australians are their own lucky stars and gods of wealth.
Recently, he feels that the light of this lucky star has dimmed a bit. The account books show that his biggest customer, the Australian, has had less and less contact with him in the past six months. He has only made a few large transactions on wood.
In terms of business, we sold a lot of goods from the north and the south, but the volume was not large.
Now the Australians supply all their own vegetables, pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks. If they can’t finish the vegetables they grow, they also use them to make pickles and sell pickles. As for the pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks, they have recently even been able to provide them to their group members every week.
They have all eaten meat for once. The ships under the Australians are constantly bringing the things they need from all over the place, and naturally there is less and less left for their own business.