"The Golden Triangle in Shu" serialized
(written by Gao Minxiang)
[Abstract] "The Golden Triangle in Shu" is a story that describes the story of the area of Yazhou, Yazhou, and Catholics in the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It describes the legendary life of the Tibetan, Qiang, Yi, and Han people, as well as the grievances and hatreds between warlords, Pao Ge, and Catholics. The lingering love and the terrible revenge are fascinating and thought-provoking.
[Author Profile] Gao Minxiang, male, from Lushan, Sichuan. Member of Sichuan Writers Association and Member of Chengdu Collectors Association. He has been engaged in education and work in municipal and district organs for a long time. He once "goed to the sea" to do business. He has served as the manager of a state-owned company, the factory director of a private enterprise, and the vice chairman of a Sino-foreign joint venture. After "get ashore", I learned the article. He has published articles and poems in newspapers and magazines many times. He has published the novel "Spring Rain and Autumn Sun". "The Golden Triangle in Shu" is the author's second novel.
- 9 Poppy flowers bloom
days, Lushan, Muping, in this triangle area, except for several large flat dams along the river, they are almost all mountainous. There are strange scenery everywhere among the mountains and ridges, and strange flowers and plants are everywhere in the vast forest. Clear springs, waterfalls, rapids, and dangerous shoals outline beautiful paintings. Wild fruits such as wool pears, prickly pears, red plums, grapes, etc. are all over the mountains and fields, emitting an intoxicating fragrance. There are rich minerals in the mountains and all kinds of strange beasts in the forest. The towering snow-capped mountains, jasper-like meadows, dense primeval forests, mysterious dragon caves, clear rivers, the largest funnel in the world... In short, it is a very beautiful place.
This is the intersection of the transition from the Han area to the Kangzang area. It has peaks, clouds and mist, a mild climate, abundant rainfall, which is most suitable for tea tree growth.
Due to eating habits in Kangzang area, tea is in great demand. Tea has been supplied in the mainland for a long time. Most of the local specialties such as horses, medicinal materials, furs, etc. needed in the mainland are exchanged from the Kangzang area. Therefore, since ancient times, this region has become the forefront of tea production, processing and trade.
In ancient times, the road here was called the Tea Horse Road and the Post Station, called the Tea Horse Post, and the management agency was called the Tea Horse Secret. Various tea-related guild halls, such as Shanxi guild halls, Jiangxi guild halls, , etc., are rushing to appear here.
All dynasties have implemented the policy of "using tea to control borders" in this region. The most severe thing was that the Ming Dynasty strictly controlled tea, and even transported tea, was also served by military servants. It was stipulated that "ten miles are used as a paving, there are soldiers, the soldiers have a journey, and the monthly gifts are given. If the punishment is not as good as the style, the punishment will follow." It also stipulated that "those who leave private tea and passes will be executed in silence." Tea seedlings and tea tree seedlings are not allowed to leave the country. In short, the implementation of monopoly policies on tea production, processing and marketing shows the importance of this area.
During the Guangxu period, tea from Britain and India continued to dump in Kangzang, and the tea trade was greatly impacted. Many tea farmers destroyed tea and planted grains, and the tea-horse trade was setting.
Since abandoning tea and growing grain, this land is also the same land. Due to high mountains and dangerous roads, inconvenient transportation, poor land and thin land, grain output is insufficient to make a living. The people are "breaking their stomachs in the wasteland and tightening their pants in the good harvest." It is said that in the year of famine, eating tree bark, grass roots, Guanyin soil to break her stomach, but in the year of harvest, the taxes were all left, so I had to tighten my belt and endure my muscles and starve.
I don’t know what year, month and day? It was like a gust of wind, or perhaps a wave, and people abandoned food and grew smoke.
In this area of hundreds of kilometers of mountains, in this area called the corner of the Jinshan Mountain in Shu, in spring, most of the fields do not plant wheat, barley and other spring crops, but poppy are grown in large areas. This year, even poor valleys like the Spotted Bamboo Forest have been planted with poppy.
Looking far away, the mountains and fields are full of poppies, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and bright flowers, making the entire mountain area look particularly enchanting, it is simply a sea of flowers and a world of flowers. However, under the cover of this dazzling flower, there are bloodstains and white bones.
People rushed here from all directions to buy opium, and at the same time, a lot of money was also thrown on this land.
The western Sichuan plain has long been no longer allowed to grow opium, and here it is still in the sky due to political, military, central, local, ethnic, geographical, transportation and other reasons - it is still in the sky.
The Qing government has issued a smoking ban law since the seventh year of Yongzheng, but the ban on smoking has achieved little effect. Long-term opium smuggling has led China to China, from high-ranking officials to ordinary people, and even monks, nuns, and Taoist priests. Many people have become "addicts". The buyer's market is so big that smugglers will definitely come up with various ways to open up various joints and smuggle opium in. After the Opium War, the opium trade became legal, and the Qing government also publicly set up checkpoints and set up opium tobacco tax, which made opium more and more out of control.
In the 38th year of Qianlong's reign, the East India Association, with the support of the government, began to plant poppy in Bangladesh and India, and monopolized all production. The net profit of each box of opium in the Kolkata market is as high as four or five times the principal. Then it smuggled into China through various pipelines, making profits even more astronomical. At that time, one-seventh of the fiscal revenue of a country relied on opium. Some countries have salivated, but given its toxicity, they are unwilling to plant them in their own country. Therefore, they have opened planting sites in third countries, and poppy has been planted one after another in Myanmar and Yunnan.
Over 180 years ago, opium was smuggled into Sichuan from Yunnan. In order to monopolize the supply of goods, smugglers have strictly kept the production technology confidential, so poppy cultivation is gradual. It was transmitted from India and Bangladesh to Myanmar, from Myanmar to Yunnan, from Yunnan to Sichuan, and spread from southern Sichuan to northern regions.
There is a Pacific Field more than ten miles away, which is under the jurisdiction of Tianquan County and was built during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty.
The earliest, there were only dozens of families scattered here. In the early Ming Dynasty, Yang Yongxiao, the chieftain of Tianquan, recruited 800 families from the Central Plains area, which was thousands of miles away from the naked land and settled them in this area to become tea farmers. Later, a revenge occurred between Gao and Yang, and Gao Shi defeated Yang Tusi and drove Yang Tusi's men out of Gaoqiao in Qiongzhou. He and other villages and towns such as Huojing at the foot of the west mountain of the town were renamed Gaochang, Hechang, and Gaoxingchang, and immigrated to this area in large numbers. After that, the tea grown could not be sold, so the tea farmers in Taiping had to abandon the tea and grow grain. The food was not enough to make a living, so I had to move to a foreign land to make another way to make a living, and the population dropped sharply.
In recent years, due to the widespread planting of poppy, and the decayed wooden boards called Pianqiao by the Yuquanxia Plank Road, the locals call Pianqiao, have been removed to avoid the inconvenience of people taking a detour due to fear of dangerous plank roads, which has led to a sharp increase in the number of migrant people going to Taiping Field.
Every day of the "torrent tobacco party", those tobacco dealers, grain dealers, goods dealers, paint dealers, those who play tricks, dismantle words and fortune tellers, those who "play guns and cannons", those who pay grain and donate", those who set up checkpoints to collect "public cigarettes", and those who set up platforms to sing Sichuan operas, make the peace scene lively.
On this day, Gao Jinquan got up very early. He asked Jinghua to put a bag of corn and went to Taipingchang with him, saying that Taiping was a good price, so he sold the corn and bought some daily necessities.
Baosheng is about ten miles away from Taiping Square, all of which are Yangyan paths and plank roads. Although the plank roads have been renovated, they are still very dangerous. Gao Jinquan walked carefully in front with a cane, and Jinghua followed behind with corn on her back.
After passing Yuquan Gorge, I saw fireworks blooming along the banks of Taiping River, layer by layer, until the top of the mountain, as if rainbows fell from the sky. A scent of flowers is brought by the river breeze, which makes people feel refreshed. The noise of the Taiping Square came faintly, and the brother and sister accelerated their pace, and in a short while, they arrived at the Taiping Square.
hasn't come to Taiping for a long time, and there are really many changes here. The people on the street were crowded and crowded. In the market, there are everything you eat, wear, and use, which is dazzling. He took nothing but crutches, so he didn't feel tired. He looked around and stopped along the way.
"Brother, where is the grain market?" Jinghua felt that the corn on her back was getting heavier and heavier, sweat flowed down both sides of her forehead, her hair became messy, and her face was dirty.
"Yes! Go quickly, it will be out of the market and you won't be able to sell for a good price." Gao Jinquan then accelerated his pace.
On the grain market, corn, rice, beans, peas, green beans... In short, there are all kinds of grains and cereals. Finally, I found a seat at the end of the grain market and next to the cloth market, and put down the corn.
However, it took only two liters in a long time.
Gao Jinquan sat on the edge of the street, first dozing off, but later, maybe he got addicted to smoking? Yawning for the sky, tears and snot flowing straight out. I was so impatient that I stood up, stretched my body, and asked Jinghua to stand aside.
"'relative' sold,'relative' sold! Come quickly if you want to buy it!" Gao Jinquan cheered up and shouted.
A man came over and grabbed his chest. The person who came was tall and ferocious, and the black hair on his chest almost rushed to his neck. He is Li Dongbiao, who opened a cigarette in Baosheng Field.
"Damn it! I've been looking for you for several days. No wonder I can't find you in Baosheng Field. You've been limping to Taiping. What do you say? I'll pay back the money!" Li Dongbiao stared at me.
"Hi, hi! A gentleman doesn't do anything. I don't have a penny on me, why should I pay you back? Brother, I'll give you a few more days to give you a grace, the next game, right! It's OK? Today, the straw hat is used as a loudspeaker - I don't even think about it." Gao Jinquan asked him.
"Don't let your damn bad fart! Today is pushing tomorrow, tomorrow is pushing the day after tomorrow, how long do you have to delay? Show me a knife under the moon - Mingkan." The hand that grabbed my chest lifted up, overturned the corn pocket, and spilled the corn all over the floor.
"Hey, hey, hey! The tailor's head - take it seriously?" Gao Jinquan left the ground with one foot.
"Brother, please give me a few days to give my brother a grace!" Jinghua kept begging.
Li Dongbiao pulled Jinghua with his slutty breasts and shaved her face with his fingers: "I'll tell you my youngest sister to follow me, and the account will be written off." Then he cracked his mouth, revealing his rotten corn-like teeth, and laughed.
Someone really couldn't stand it and said to Li Dongbiao: "If you collect the bill, you should collect the bill. You can't be embarrassed about the other person's sister's 'skin'."
"Dog bite rats - meddling in other people's business!" Li Dongbiao overthrew the man to the ground with one palm. The man got up, grabbed the crutch of Jinquan, and glared, "You want to 'hammer', right?"
Everyone came up to dissuade him when they saw that they were about to fight.
There is a young man selling "cloth heads". He asked for a piece of paper from the fortune-telling stall. He drew a turtle on the paper and applied paste. He took advantage of the opportunity to come forward to persuade him to fight and quietly paste it on Li Dongbiao's back. When people saw it, they burst into laughter.
Li Dongbiao didn't know what to laugh at, and looked around in surprise, looking around, making the crowd laugh endlessly. He thought people were laughing at him in public and teasing good women in broad daylight, so he hurriedly retracted La Jinghua's hand and turned around to Gao Jinquan and said, "Crip, for everyone's sake, I'll spare you today! Do you think the end? OK! I'll wait a few more days." After that, he hurriedly left, like a stray dog running away with his tail between his legs.
Along the way, people on both sides of the street turned around and looked at him and laughed constantly. Some people even pointed at him and called him "Tortoise". Many children who watched the fun kept following him and even threw him with rotten fruits. While throwing, he shouted, "Beat the turtle! Beat the turtle!"
Gao Jinquan saw him walking away and said, "Ba, bah, bah!" He spitted three spits of saliva, "It's amazing if there are a few stinky money, two days... I've sent it..."
Among the onlookers, the down-and-out literati Gu Xianhe interrupted him: "I've been away, don't fuck the turtle - hit the shell! I've sent it two days, let's 'revving' again?"
"You..." Gao Jinquan couldn't speak.
The young man who sold "cloth head" helped Jinghua hold the corn sprinkled on the ground into his pocket. The brother and sister continued to do their business and sold out the corn when the market was about to end. The brother and sister packed up their things and went home. Not far from the exit, Gao Jinquan suddenly stopped.A smell of smoke drifted into his nostrils. He took a deep breath, stretched his neck, looked around like a dog sniffing something, his eyes stopped at the doorway covered by a broken linen, and the smell of smoke drifted out there. He said to Jinghua in a hurry, "Wait for me" and turned into the door.
After getting out of smoking, Gao Jinquan rubbed his eyes, stretched his waist, and recovered his spirits. Although the scene has ended, there are still people coming and going on the stone-paved streets, and the shouts in tea shops and restaurants are still endless. In front of Chunxiao Tower, there were several women wearing facial powder, waving to the men passing by frequently. Gao Jinquan looked at all this and couldn't tell what it felt. He stood still, how he envied those who lived on Taiping Street. There are food, clothes, and fun here, and there are everything to eat, drink and have fun, unlike the bamboo forest, which is nothing, and it is so deserted that it makes people feel uncomfortable. He buried his head in his eyes and looked at his legs, sighed long, and said in his heart, "There is no hope in this life."
"Brother, it's going dark, let's go quickly." Gao Jinquan came to his senses and went home reluctantly.
(Statement: The copyright belongs to the author, and this media is authorized to reprint; if you need to reprint or quote separately, please contact the author)
(Approval: Liu Zhaohui; Editor: Song Jiaping Huang Luyan)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-