Chapter 1 The owner of the charity house ()

There is a mountain city called Chen Jiachong more than 20 miles northwest of Shaoguan. Due to its special geographical location, some merchants who are unwilling to pay tariffs will detour to avoid the Shaoguan checkpoints. This makes this small mountain city as prosperous as Shaoguan County, and even more than that. However, what surprised those passing merchants were that the Qing court guards in Shaoguan turned a blind eye to this phenomenon, perhaps because someone was defending the Chen Jiachong, or perhaps the Qing court's attention was all focused on the revolutionary party in the south. In short, for some unknown reasons, Chen Jiachong became a paradise in this chaotic world.

As the name suggests, most of the people in Chen family were surnamed Chen. Although there were officials from the Qing court in the mountain city, the real master was Chen Deshang, the head of the Chen family. Chen Deshang, the direct descendant of the Chen family, was from Suzhou. Some of his ancestors served as governor of Jiangsu during the Kangxi period. In the early years of Yongzheng, he served as the commander of the Han army in the Green Camp of Jiangnan. Unfortunately, not long after, he was dismissed from office because he was involved in the corruption case of the Cao family in Jiangnan, and almost confiscated his family. Later, because some of his ancestors were good at leading troops to fight, they were attracted by Nian Gengyao, a slave of Yongzheng's robbery, and recommended him to Yongzheng, and were able to restore his post and followed Nian Gengyao to the northwest to quell the rebellion. Because of his repeated military achievements, his ancestors also became a brave general under Nian Gengyao, on par with Yue Zhongqi.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. As Nian Gengyao was deliberately suppressed by Yongzheng, the ancestors of the Chen family were also dismissed from office and transferred to the south because they were too close to Nian Gengyao, and were eventually sent to the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi to serve as a minor official. Because the Chen family had several ups and downs in the Kangxi and Yong dynasties, they had the danger of raiding and extermination of family members every time. They felt that the officialdom was too complicated. After guidance from experts, they knew that if they continued to stay in the officialdom, their family would sooner or later be destroyed. So the ancestors of the Chen family voluntarily resigned and changed to business. With the guidance of the master, they bought a piece of land in the northwest of Shaoguan and built a small village, which was the predecessor of the Chen family.

Although the Chen family suffered a lot in the officialdom, they were extremely proud in the business world. After several generations of operation, they became the richest man in Huguang. His shops were spread across southern prefectures and counties such as Huguang, Zhejiang, and Fujian, and even some business names were set up in the north. While their wealth surged, Chen Jiachong also expanded more than ten times, from a small village in a mountainous area to a mountain city with a large scale. Over the years, many of the children of the Chen family passed the imperial examination and became officials in the court. Even if they did not pass the imperial examination, they would hold small positions such as masters and tax collectors in the southern governments such as Huguang.

Although the officials held by the children of the Chen family were all inconspicuous small official positions, the heads of the Chen family were good at managing all dynasties, and used some means to increase the influence of the children of the Chen family in the southern officialdom. They repeatedly lost money and did good deeds, which made the Chen family gain a good reputation among the people. With the accumulation of few and a large amount, the Chen family's influence in the south became increasingly greater. As a result, during the Xianfeng period of Daoguang, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi who came to the south to take office as the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi was the first to visit the local officials of various departments, but to personally go to the Chen family to pay homage to the Chen family, and he became an unknown local emperor in southern China.

Later, with the decline of the Qing court's national strength, the Chen family began to make friends with all forces under the guidance of the descendant of the master, thus allowing the Chen family to stand firm in the troubled times. Even if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was so big in the south, it did not hurt the Chen family at all. It was also under the guidance of the descendant that the Chen family braved the danger of being accused of being a foreign slave, and made great friends with foreigners, and illegally bypassed the Qing government and traded large-scale contraband goods, thus gaining the absolute trust of the foreigners and becoming the general agent of the foreigners' business in the south.

During the Tongzhi period, Cixi ruled the country from behind the curtain and began to respect the Westernization faction such as Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang, etc. The relationship between the Chen family and the foreigners was exposed, and its political influence began to extend to the north. However, because of this, the government and opposition forces of the Chen family gradually surfaced. Cixi felt that the Chen family's power in the south was too large and wanted to cut it off, but because of the foreigners, they did not dare to attack the Chen family directly, so they supported Hu Xueyan, a Hui merchant, who wanted to suppress the Chen family and win over the foreigners from the Chen family.

Unfortunately, Hu Xueyan was just a business genius, but he did not understand the way of being an official or international form. Under the deliberate guidance of the contemporary head of the Chen family, he achieved great success in the mall in a short time and gradually replaced the Chen family's position in the southern shopping mall. However, under the fiddling of the Chen family, Hu Xueyan gradually became arrogant and began to impact the interests of foreigners, thus offending the foreigners. In this way, not only foreigners were disgusted with him, but even Cixi began to dislike him. Later, the head of the Chen family designed a trap, causing Hu Xueyan to invest huge sums of money to build a silk factory, and used all his entire purchase of new silk in the country, which made him monopolize the domestic silk industry. Then he used the hands of foreigners to block all his sales channels, and sent people to withdraw money from the money shops opened by Hu Xueyan everywhere, causing a wave of bank runs in the past, forcing Hu Xueyan to sell his property and repay the owed silver.

On the surface, the head of the Chen family manipulated everything, but in fact, all of this was done by the disciple of the master who gave advice to the head of the Chen family, which made him use only one move to make Hu Xueyan never turn over. However, he hurt the enemy 10,000 and suffered 7,000 yuan. Although Hu Xueyan was removed by the head of the Chen family, the Chen family itself also damaged its vitality, which caused merchants from Jin, Hui, Guang, Hu and other places to seize the large market left by Hu Xueyan after the fall before the Chen family returned. Although the Chen family also regained a lot of markets afterwards, this thing seemed insignificant compared to the Chen family's shopping mall power in the past. Fortunately, the Chen family still mastered the card of the foreigner and still had an absolute influence on Hu and Guang.

Although the head of the Chen family has an extraordinary influence in other places, except for the direct descendants of the Chen family and the blood-related children, most of the people did not know the true identity of the Chen family. In their eyes, the head of the Chen family was just a great charity who had amazing wealth and always did good deeds. The biggest good deed by the Chen family was that in the midst of the chaos of war, specializing in collecting remains for those who were corpses and wilderness. Those who knew their identities would send people to find their relatives, and those who were unidentified would set up a charity to support them, so as not to become wandering ghosts. On the mid-Year of July, they invited the Youde Zhenren of Longhu Mountain and Maoshan and the monks from major temples to do great rituals to save the dead. This good deed has been passed down for more than a hundred years since the first generation of the head of the Chen family moved here, and has become a grand event in the local area.

In 1907, on the ninth day of the seventh lunar month, less than a week before the Zhongyuan Festival, the monks from both places in Huguang were invited here one after another to prepare for the water and land fair in the middle of July. In addition to these monks, even the foreign monks who preached in Guangdong and Guangxi wanted to come and play a step to spread their foreign church. Chen Deshang, a contemporary head of the Chen family who was proficient in Western learning, welcomed this. In his opinion, this was also an opportunity to take advantage of the beliefs of foreigners to make his position among foreigners more stable.

In addition to these people outside the world, many clan gentry and gentry from all over the country are also famous. In addition to trying to win over the Chen family and build the line of foreigners, they also want to use this grand event to pray for themselves. The Boxer uprising in the past few years shocked the world, but because it was used by Cixi to attack foreigners, many merchants who did business with foreigners suffered losses. Over the years, the revolutionary party in the south has continuously launched an uprising against the Qing court, which has caused turbulence in the south. Many merchants in the south have moved north, and most of them have gone to Shanghai. It is precisely because they want to leave their hometowns that many merchants are deeply uneasy about their future, so they want to use this Dharma Assembly to seek peace of mind, and also want to meet those rare monks and ask them to cast spells to wash away bad luck.

As night falls, the people of the mountain city gradually light up the lights. The tourists coming and going on the streets did not decrease due to the arrival of darkness. Instead, there were more and more signs. Many unmarried couples would run to the river outside the city to put on lanterns, while those merchants would gather in brothels in the city to communicate with each other. A small road extends south from the west gate of the mountain city. There is no lantern on both sides of the road that leads the way by the Chen family like other roads outside the city, which makes the darkness and desertion here contrast with the bustle and bustle in the city, making people feel particularly gloomy when walking on it.

The path is heading westward, and is divided into groups at the foot of Taohua Mountain outside the Chen Family Chong. One turns to the southeast, bypasses the mountain city, and is connected with a mountain path to Shaoguan. The other road continues to extend to Taohua Mountain, and finally crosses Taohua Mountain and integrates with a mountain path on the other end of the mountain that enters the hinterland of Hunan. This Taohua Mountain is the Chen Family's industry. There is no resident on the mountain. All of them plant peach blossoms, and only a charity village is built on the hillside.

Unlike the charity village on the east side of the mountain city, this charity village should be considered a big monster in Chen Jiachong. Its construction time was the same as that of Chen Jiachong. When the head of the Chen family purchased the land of Chen Jiachong, he also bought Taohua Mountain and started construction of this charity village. After the charity village was completed, the head of the Chen family handed it over to a lay Taoist. Only the head of the Chen family and a few tribesmen knew the origin of this Taoist, and the others were

He just knew that his name was called Jiuliu Yiren, and every time the head of the Chen family saw this secular Taoist, he would be respectful and respectful. After that, the head of the Chen family treated the owner of the charity house at that time with great courtesy, and it could almost be said that he would respond to all requests. Every time the Chen family was in crisis, the head of the Chen family would go to ask for advice from the owner of the charity house. Every time the head of the Chen family returned from the charity house, he would soon turn bad luck into good fortune, and the Chen family's career would flourish.

The people of Chen Family Chong did not know the relationship between the owner of the Yi Manor and the Chen family. They only knew that the Chen family respected the owner of the Yi Manor very much and set up Taohua Mountain where the Yi Manor was a forbidden area, and no one was allowed to disturb him at will. Although the Chen family respected the owner of the Yi Manor in all dynasties, the owner of the Yi Manor was not arrogant because of this. Instead, he was extremely low-key and seemed to be no different from ordinary people. He would go around the mountain city almost every day. When some people in the mountain city encountered problems, he would also enthusiastically come up with ideas to solve it. It seemed that he had put various postures in his head, from farming in the farm to the direction of state affairs, almost everything was known. However, every generation of the Yi Manor would leave the Chen Family Chong for five or six years, and when he came back, he would be frowning and closed to thank the guests, and even the head of the Chen Family would not see him.

The owner of the Yizhuang Manor in the previous generation passed away ten years ago. The person who took over her was a seventeen-year-old orphan named Xu Changqing. The origin of this Xu Changqing is also extremely mysterious. His mother came to Chen Jiachong alone with a big belly. After staying at Fengxiang, the largest inn in Chen Jiachong, she committed suicide that night. Because her mother was dressed in luxurious clothes and her identity was not an ordinary person, the Chen family attached great importance to this matter. After many visits, they only knew that she had appeared in Changsha, with a somewhat northern accent. The only token related to her identity was a jade pendant, which was engraved with words that even the most knowledgeable person in Chen Jiachong could not understand.

The next day, the head of the Chen family invited the owner of the Yi Manor, and the owner of the Yi Manor recognized at a glance that the words on the jade pendant were a popular text in Chu State during the Spring and Autumn Period. However, this kind of text quickly disappeared from the people of Chu State. Only a few of the nobles of Chu State who knew this kind of text were rare. Even the owner of the Yi Manor could only recognize it, but he did not understand the meaning above. Although Xu Changqing's mother's identity, the owner of the Yi Manor was very lucky to save Xu Changqing, who should have been suffocated to death in his mother's belly, and took the coffin back to the Yi Manor to take care of it himself. In the end, he accepted him as his disciple and taught him all his skills.

When Xu Changqing inherited the charity village, although he was still young, no one in the Chen Family Chong dared to underestimate him. Chen Deshang also followed the rules of his ancestors to him and respectfully called him Mr. Xu. When he encountered difficulties, he would ask him for solutions. After helping the Chen family overcome several difficulties, the Chen family completely recognized Xu Changqing's identity.

On that day, Xu Changqing went to the Chen family to help the craftsmen to arrange the water and land temples, and arranged seats for the monks who came from various temples and temples. They arranged each other's conduct and reputations in order to avoid unnecessary disputes on the 19th of July. After the Chen family had dinner, Xu Changqing left the Chen family alone and walked towards the charity village on Taohua Mountain. Along the way, the locals in Chen Family Chong stopped and saluted him when they saw him, and called him Mr. Xu respectfully. This scene made many merchants who came to Chen Family Chong for the first time think he was a big man.

Although it was already summer, since it was in the mountains and the temperature was still a little cold, Xu Changqing was still wearing his simple long gown, his sleeves were slightly rolled up, and his slender fingers were as white as jade. If he looked closely, he seemed to have a faint white light on the surface. His face was elegant, his eyebrows were thin, his thin cheeks and the laziness in his eyes made him look sickly and elegant. If he had a book in his hand, he was like a well-educated scholar who was familiar with poetry and books. In addition, there was a very eye-catching vertical red mark in the middle of his forehead, which was the birthmark he had when he was born, but outsiders looked like an eye that had not been completely opened.
Chapter completed!