Chapter 392: The Bandits' Lair

Time rewound to the very moment the Cabinet had just concluded the King's Rescue conference.

The black-blue seawater churned and heaved; gust after gust of briny wind swept across the surface, bringing a vast bleakness that left the winter seashore desolate and mute.

Due to latitude and temperature, transparent seawater is rarely seen off the coast of East Asia. That kind of crystal-clear water, where you can see fish swimming near the bottom of seaside bathing spots, usually only appears in the tropics or in the year-round warmth of the Mediterranean Sea.

So when Han People living deep inland stand by the murky, black-blue sea with breakers pounding the shore, they feel no poetic sentiment or tropical languor — instead, what arises are thoughts of solemn grandeur and soaring ambition... Back in his day, Cao Cao could stand on a rocky crag and declaim that immortal line "Severed, yet ever remembered," but he certainly never had the notion of opening a seaside resort hotel.

This mindset, cultivated by the environment, is very hard to change — unless the ancient person standing by the sea happens to be a Transmigrator.

Wrapped in a fur robe, Xiong Dao stood atop a reef, gazing at the dark, heavy cloud banks in the distance while mulling over a host of rather frivolous questions. For instance: it was about time to open a gambling den, raise a few girls, and win back all those peasant laborers' wages.

Right behind Xiong Dao, an exquisite port industrial zone was steadily expanding.

Six meters wide and painted with a white center line, the cement harbor avenue ran parallel to the coastline; its left and right ends connected in sequence the industrial zone, the Pier District, the Old Warehouse District, and the commercial district — these were the core structures of Shanghai Port.

The Pier District consisted of two stone docks and two wooden docks. The two long stone docks were prepared for large-tonnage seagoing vessels, for which the Port Affairs Department had spared no enormous expense. This included not only a full half-year of time and vast quantities of rock, cement, and steel mesh, but also the labor hours of over a thousand workers.

On the iron rails laid across the ground in the Pier District, horse-drawn carts or human-pushed cargo trolleys glided by from time to time. Following the rail line across the harbor avenue, one reached the Old Warehouse District, isolated behind enclosing walls and gates.

Several rows of large warehouses, whitewashed with lime and built of red brick, stood in neat formation on the freight yard. These flat-roofed, rectangular structures with their crisp geometric lines looked somewhat strange in the eyes of Ming People. In fact, for fire prevention, the warehouse complex used no wood at all in its construction. Apart from the red brick, the wide-span roofs had been laid at enormous cost using reinforced concrete.

Guards in blue cloth training uniforms, short-brimmed hats, and carrying rifles patrolled the warehouse district without pause. These men, together with the watch posts on the warehouse roofs and two "domestically produced" lever-type fire engines, formed the theft and fire warning system of the Old Warehouse District.

Crossing the Old Warehouse District and following the cement road — now narrowed by half — all the way west for about one li, one reached the commercial district, situated on what had once been the weedy field of Zhang Sutan.

Since time and priorities had not been focused here, the commercial district's construction was currently the most lagging and slapdash. There was no paved ground here; only a few ordinary buildings familiar to Ming People had been erected on the lime-stabilized earth: wine shops and large cart-and-mule inns.

Yet a commercial district was a commercial district. From the moment construction began, the clamor and bustle had never ceased for a moment. Swarms of all kinds of people pouring in brought boundless vitality and a wealth of information; merchants from every region, driving large carts or poling boats, converged on this desolate mudflat. No one cared about the quality of the lodging; in their eyes, there was only commercial opportunity.

And so, around Zhang Sutan, people soon threw up makeshift shacks and thatched huts on their own, providing shelter for merchants who could not get a room in the inns and for their hired hands. Do not look down on these shacks — like the capsule apartments of later-generations Tokyo, the truly poor could not afford them. The masses of peasant laborers who came to the port for work were, to this day, still crammed into the more distant Zuo Family Village.

The construction of Shanghai Port had instantly siphoned away all the surrounding commercial activity. The Hangzhou Tangzhuang River Dock, for instance, which had been on the verge of bursting from overcrowding, was relieved overnight.

Whenever a fleet sailing up from the south docked at Shanghai Port, it stirred a flurry of activity in the commercial district. The spot and futures prices of various industrial goods would fluctuate in an instant; merchants and brokers would all spring into action, and a great number of open or covert transactions would begin to appear.

About one kilometer south along the coast from the Pier District and commercial district, a plume of white smoke rose without cease.

The source of that white smoke was the industrial zone's core structure: the Boiler Room.

The boiler not only supplied the surrounding industrial zone with clean hot water but also provided thermal energy, making the processing of certain semi-finished industrial products possible.

As for the white smoke emerging from the chimney — this 17th-century environmental measure was not something the Transmigrators actually wanted to see. The chimney only emitted white smoke after some environmentally friendly dust-removal equipment was added, which unquestionably increased construction costs.

However, considering the precarious situation Shanghai Port was in, the Port Authority ultimately had this modest boiler fitted with dust-removal equipment: public opinion is a fearful thing. A large building belching thick black smoke every day — who knew if they might be burning ominous things like human bones and dead infants inside?

Having to take local public opinion into account even while firing a boiler — this in itself reflected how weak Xiong Dao's position was here. The Transmigrators' boiler room in the Kiln District never had to worry about whether the smoke was white or black.

Reality proved that carrying out industrial construction in the Jiangnan reactionary gentry's headquarters provoked a rather strong backlash.

Ever since Xiong Dao had launched that surprise attack back then and requisitioned the two contiguous tracts of Zhang Sutan and Zuo Family Village, he had not been able to purchase a single additional contiguous parcel of land to this day.

In fact, not long after Xiong Dao pulled back to focus on construction in May of this year, word came from the Jiading County Yamen — there were households of "high threshold" who were extremely displeased with Xiong Dao's previous actions, and equally furious at the county yamen for "aiding the tiger in its savagery," "helping the tyrant perpetrate his evils," and "sitting idly by while a treacherous merchant seized the people's property."

Moreover, the gentry making such statements numbered more than one family. Consequently, the county yamen immediately went into hiding; the political pressure was too great, and the County Magistrate's shoulders simply could not bear it.

With that, Yu Bende, the Adviser Yu who had truly been aiding the tiger in its savagery, found himself unable to move. He could no longer step forward or call upon the county yamen's power to help Xiong Dao buy land, because the Yu Clan had received a message: if they dared to keep meddling, the county yamen's clerical staff would be replaced!

Under this series of overt and covert pressures, the thwarted Xiong Dao soon ferreted out the whole story: multiple gentry families had been provoked by his bizarre method of land requisition. A mere Merchant household — even if there was some damned military officer behind it — dared to act so rampantly in the cultured heartland of Jiangnan; multiple gentry families declared this could not be tolerated.

And so Xiong Dao promptly assumed a Turtle Flow Posture.

Fortunately, the land already requisitioned was sufficient to begin construction. However, because of the boycott, the port's construction direction was adjusted accordingly: full effort went into building the docks and the Old Warehouse District. As for the originally planned priority of the industrial zone, apart from a few workshops using manual machinery to produce items like Mahjong Tiles, all other planned factories were suspended.

After adjusting the work sequence, the laborers gradually completed a portion of the port and storage facilities after May, and then welcomed the merchant ships arriving from the south.

From the moment those merchant ships arrived, Xiong Dao could finally catch his breath: those merchants who had originally been standing on dry ground watching the excitement, and the agents behind them, would not stand by and watch their trade routes be severed.

Thus, having ceased all activities and stopped expanding outward, a certain person and his port reached a precarious equilibrium with a group of gentry who neither lacked money nor could stand the sight of him — each side coldly watching the other.

And so, after the better part of a year had passed, the originally planned Shanghai Port now had only its docks and warehouse district built out fairly completely; the planned commercial and industrial zones had not been developed at all, merely thrown together in a perfunctory manner. Xiong Dao did not want an industrial zone belching thick black smoke to give certain people a pretext, nor did he want the commercial district to become a New York where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold, attracting greedy eyes and actions.

Standing on the reef, facing the icy November sea wind, the slightly portly Xiong Dao could not help but tighten his bamboo rat fur robe: "Ah, just look at how stifled I've been living. The power of primitive capital is still too weak. I wonder if the Old Home has gotten things sorted out yet."

Just as Xiong Dao was lamenting to the sea, a figure in a training uniform but with a graceful silhouette came running over from a distance, a sheet of paper waving in her raised hand: "Master, a telegram!"

"Hm?" Hearing the call, Xiong Dao turned around on the reef, and after his Confidential Concubine had leaped up onto the rock, he took the telegram draft she handed him — this telegram Xiong Dao received was precisely the one the Cabinet had sent him after concluding the King's Rescue conference.

The next moment, after Xiong Dao had skimmed through the telegram in one glance, he could not help but plant both hands on his hips and suddenly throw his head back in roaring laughter.

After laughing fiercely for a good while, Xiong Dao wiped away the tears of mirth. At this moment, a heroic impulse surged within him; standing on the reef, one arm around his concubine's waist and the other hand pointing like a halberd toward the inland, he sang out a passage of opera to match: "Look ahead — pitch black! Surely that is the bandits' lair! Wait till I charge forward and slaughter them clean — every last one!"

... After this outburst, Master Xiong withdrew his power and strode briskly back to the port's only two-story building: the Port Authority Building.

Once back, Xiong Dao first went to the telegraph room and dictated several telegrams to be sent out. After this, he summoned in succession a group of management personnel from the various Action Groups, Security Groups, commercial departments, port departments, and so on.

After conveying the guiding thought to these core personnel and holding a briefing session, Xiong Dao remained in the Port Authority Building all that day, sending and receiving telegrams.

Once communication with all parties was clear, the next day he boarded a fast ship and went straight to Tangzhuang outside Hangzhou City.

Tangzhuang had now reverted to its original desolate appearance: all commercial activity had been relocated to Shanghai Port, leaving this place responsible only for the transfer of some immigrant ships.

Upon arriving at Tangzhuang, Xiong Dao, the Deputy Station Chief, immediately held a secret talk with Lu Cheng, the Station Chief of Hangzhou. While the two plotted, they also sent telegrams from time to time to Dayuan and various parties for discussion; only after everything was fully planned did Xiong Dao take a ship back to Shanghai Port.

At the same time, a name card was also delivered through the main gate of a certain household's grand residence.