Chapter 648: Settling In

For any large-scale operation, pathfinder scouts are always sent ahead first — this is common sense.

Although there was no Wuhan Station before, since the Intelligence General Bureau had already set up a Grade-A Main Station in Nanjing, it was impossible for them to leave a major upstream town completely unattended.

Huang Zhong and Fang Yanxiao — one a native of Dongting, the other of Yueyang, both Hubei locals — had been dispatched to Wuhan as scouts two years earlier as a two-man team.

Stationed in Wuhan, these two operated somewhat like a foreign correspondent bureau of later eras. Day to day they had no missions to carry out; they only needed to collect open-source intelligence locally and periodically send it back to Nanjing — that was the whole job.

Half a year ago, when the decision to establish Wuhan Station was confirmed, Huang Zhong's team gained greater importance. They promptly received funding support from Nanjing Station and began purchasing properties in Wuhan and developing a lower-level intelligence network.

Right on the heels of that, the real principal, Nan Wang, arrived.

So the advance team Nan Wang led was actually the second wave. The true vanguard was the two-man team of Huang Zhong.

The moment they met Nan Wang in the ship's cabin, Huang Zhong and his partner were overwhelmed with emotion. Fighting alone for so long, they had finally waited until the main force arrived — the clouds parted and the moon shone bright.

At their first meeting, Nan Wang also spoke warmly and praised them repeatedly, pulling them close by the hand without any reserve to offer encouragement.

Nan Wang's attitude, of course, had to be good.

First: anyone who could be sent out to work independently two years ago was certainly an old team member recruited when the intelligence system was first established. In truth, they all knew each other — they were old colleagues, so he couldn't just put on airs.

Second: Huang Zhong's team were not only the local power brokers now, they had also developed a miniature intelligence network in the area. On top of that, the real-time intelligence they possessed was exactly what Nan Wang, as station chief, needed right now.

Next, for the remaining time today, the two-man team needed to give their new station chief an oral briefing.

Communication goes both ways. While reporting local intelligence, the pair, who had been on the "front line" for so long, were equally eager for news of the "rear area."

So while digesting the intelligence, Nan Wang had Zhou Yi at his side find time to tell the two seniors about the rapid changes back home.

Zhou Yi accordingly picked out some news from the rear.

For example: the Navy's newest battleship had launched — what caliber were its naval guns; the Steel Plant's great furnace had been lit — what was its annual molten iron output; the "high-speed roads" had now connected how many towns and villages; the Tainan Plain had brought in another bumper rice harvest — what was the yield, and so on.

Most of the above information was public knowledge in the rear. It was just that the specific figures Zhou Yi gave were more detailed, the kind only the relevant departments would have.

The two-man team listened with rapt attention. Because information was normally so hard to transmit, they had received very little news from the rear over these past few years.

In fact, although it was their old home, the driving force that had sustained the two-man team fighting far away in "enemy-occupied territory" all these years was precisely this kind of powerful information — the Transmigrators' efforts over the years had succeeded in making their native followers understand where true strength lay.

And so, until the lamps were lit, the ship's cabin still echoed with the sound of murmured conversation, punctuated now and then by bursts of laughter, not ceasing even deep into the night.

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Early the next morning, a hired horse-drawn carriage stopped at the pier.

"Hired" isn't quite the right word, because this carriage belonged to their own household in the first place.

Huang Zhong and Fang Yanxiao's cover identities in the area were as the owners of a cartage firm. Fang Yanxiao was the proprietor, and Huang Zhong was the shopkeeper.

A cartage firm made an excellent cover. After all, a firm always has people and goods moving in and out, which makes it convenient for passing information and transporting supplies.

However, limited by the two-man team's size and their principle of keeping a low profile, the firm was very small — only four horse-drawn carriages in total.

Once the carriage reached the pier, Nan Wang, Zhou Yi, and the others, fully prepared, boarded it.

Then the carriage set off and traveled without stopping. It followed the riverbank for a stretch, then turned into a bustling bluestone-paved street.

This street was called Drum Street, one of the streets in the Pier District.

In fact, this was the precursor to the famous Hanzheng Street of later generations.

As early as the Ming dynasty's Chenghua era, the area around the river-mouth docks already had "River Street." Later, as commerce flourished, River Street gradually expanded to include Main Street, Inner Street, Jia Street, and Li Lane.

Main Street was also called Official Street. In 196, it was renamed Hanzheng Street, and it has over five hundred years of history now.

In this period of the late Ming, the "Official Street" that preceded Hanzheng Street was already the largest goods distribution center in northern China. It bustled with Huai salt magnates, Shanxi-Shaanxi tycoons, Jiangsu and Zhejiang heavyweights, local merchants, and traders from every region.

The saying "goods come alive once they reach Hankou" referred precisely to Hanzheng Official Street.

The "Drum Street" where Nan Wang and his party stopped today was separated from Main Street only by Jia Street. In the dense, web-like commercial block of Main Street, this counted as the core area of Xiakou Town.

And the shopfront where the carriage now halted had a tall and imposing lintel, with four large characters on its black-lacquered signboard: "Jiangsu and Zhejiang Guild Hall."

Proprietor Nan had come to the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Guild Hall today to lodge. Master Nan's ancestral home was Hangzhou — he was as proper a Jiangsu and Zhejiang man as could be.

Regional guild halls of this sort were essentially the comprehensive hotels of later ages, with fairly complete functions — food and lodging services all included.

In ancient times, when transportation was difficult, any major trading port or mid-to-large city would have native-place guild halls funded and purchased by merchants from various regions.

The prevalence of guild halls was a matter of necessity. For one, a guild hall provided fellow-provincial merchants a platform to exchange commercial information. For another, everyone living in the guild hall came from the same home region, so if anyone had errands like sending a letter home, it was easy to find someone to handle it.

But Nan Wang's purpose in coming to lodge at the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Guild Hall today was something else: to make a name for himself.

As the Wuhan Station chief, Nan Wang would inevitably have to establish a large-scale commercial operation locally in the days ahead, in order to accommodate the station's large personnel roster.

That being the case, he couldn't just muddle along on a small scale the way Huang Zhong's two-man team had. Among fellow-provincials and local native merchants, Proprietor Nan, the sundry-goods trader from Jiangnan, needed to become a familiar face to some degree and establish his brand.

Thus, the moment he stepped off the boat, Master Nan brought his attendants straight to the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Guild Hall to lodge.

Lodging, naturally, went smoothly. As long as you have silver, everything is convenient anywhere. After entering, Master Nan quickly rented an entire courtyard at the rear of the guild hall, just right to accommodate him and his attendants.

The Jiangsu and Zhejiang Merchant Gang had always been one of the major power blocs on the domestic commercial map, so Jiangsu and Zhejiang Guild Halls everywhere were of relatively high standard.

This one in Xiakou not only had large communal bunks for traveling peddlers, but also small courtyards and large compounds, able to meet the needs of customers at different levels.

They settled in hastily. By lunchtime, Master Nan emerged into the central courtyard for his midday meal, dressed in a comfortable, everyday cotton-cloth robe, a jade pendant at his waist, three or five jade rings on his fingers, and two jade balls rolling in his hand.

The central courtyard was an open-air tea gathering space enclosed by long covered corridors on all four sides. It was crowded and bustling, with tea tables, a place specifically for merchants to mingle.

As soon as Master Nan came out, he quickly struck up conversations with the prominent merchants around him, using his native accent.

Jiangsu and Zhejiang merchants who travel far and wide are all sharp-eyed and shrewd characters. With one glance, and after observing his manner and speech, everyone could tell this newly arrived Master Nan was a man of substance.

And so Master Nan soon found himself completely at home, mingling effortlessly with the various merchants who came over to talk.

In this way, Nan Wang, newly arrived in Xiakou, stayed at the guild hall for a few days, letting the fellow-provincial merchants know that a Master Nan dealing in sundry goods had come from the old home.

Of course, during these few days, it wasn't only Master Nan who was busy within the team — the others were working as well.

First was the warehouse.

The warehouse was the easiest to solve. Xiakou was a large commercial trading port, with a huge number of existing warehouses locally. With Huang Zhong's team on the job, the group quickly rented a suitably located warehouse in the Pier District, then transferred the cargo from the East Guangfu over and assigned men to guard it.

At the same time, the work of buying a residence was also proceeding at an intense pace.

Master Nan could not stay at the guild hall forever. Bringing a whole team to port this time, they needed to gradually purchase not just a house, but also shopfronts, gatehouses, and other properties.

This task was likewise assigned to Huang Zhong's team.

In fact, as early as half a year ago, upon receiving the orders transmitted from the rear, Huang Zhong's group had already begun making preparations for the present situation.

Although their status as locals meant they couldn't purchase a large residence in advance, that didn't stop them from gathering information beforehand.

During the few days Master Nan spent socializing at the guild hall, Huang Zhong's group split up, taking Zhou Yi and the confidential staff to look at houses and residences all over Xiakou Town.

In the end, it was in the Pier District with its convenient transport that Zhou Yi made the final call and bought a residence with four rows of courtyards, front to back.

This residence was also the property of a merchant from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, a fairly good-quality new house, fully furnished with everything complete — a move-in ready type.

The residence's former owner had recently suffered business losses and was intending to shrink back operations, sell off assets, and return to his Old Home to recover. Previously, due to a slightly high asking price, this residence had never been sold. Now, meeting a fellow townsman with ample silver, the owner very readily transferred the deed.

The time of the residence purchase was Master Nan's tenth day lodging at the guild hall.

In the slow Rhythm of the medieval era, buying a residence by the tenth day was extremely fast. Of course, all the official paperwork — the transfer procedures at the yamen, the signed handover documents with the local baojia — had not yet been fully completed. But that didn't stop everyone from moving in with their bags.

And so, ten days later, after simply setting off a string of firecrackers at the front gate, Master Nan from the south, leading a retinue of attendants and clerks, moved into the residence.

Upon entering the residence, after a thorough inspection inside and out, top to bottom, confirming there were no issues, everyone's First Moment was to gather under the large poplar tree in the courtyard, craning their necks to watch the head of the confidential section Climbing the tree to pick peaches — no, to install the antenna.

For an external station buying a residence, the primary condition is this: the courtyard must have at least one tall arbor tree.

Very quickly, the matte-finished antenna, disguised as a tree branch, was fully installed.

At the same time, in the confidential section's wing room beneath the tree, the transmitter, hand-cranked Generator, and all other Equipment had already been fully debugged.

With a single command from Nan Wang, the beeping sound of the transmitter, in this plane, in the greater Wuhan region, sent out the first electric wave in history.