Chapter 87: Passing the Message

Outside the restaurant, an inconspicuous cargo ship sailed slowly into the Zhihai Stockade dock.

The ship stopped steadily, and the boss greeted the laborers on the shore to unload the cargo.

A round-faced teenager in a light cyan silk long gown with smiling eyebrows turned out of the ship's cabin and quietly went ashore behind the coolies moving the cargo.

He strolled around the new street of the dock.

Spending less than twenty copper coins, he bought two fist-sized hard steamed buns with offal and sweet sugarcane wine, eating until his stomach was bloated.

The round-faced teenager strolled away from the dock and walked toward the depths of the military stockade.

Originally, he thought that after walking for a while, someone would inevitably stop him and question him, but as a result, no one cared at all.

"It really has some pattern, a bit interesting."

Muttering to himself, the round-faced teenager, facing the big sun, shielded his eyes with his hands and looked around for a while.

Seeing the "Solemn and Quiet" archway unique to the Ming Song yamen, he walked toward it.

In front of the yamen.

The only personal soldier on duty watched the round-faced teenager come all the way, but remained silent throughout.

Finally, it was the round-faced teenager who spoke first,

"This soldier brother, although I am not old, I have experienced a lot and can be considered well-informed.

But I have really never seen the rules of your Zhihai Stockade.

The yamen of a dignified commander, there is only one gatekeeper who also serves as the military stockade duty officer.

Is it necessary to be so frugal?

And I have already walked to the yamen entrance and blocked the door, and as a gatekeeper, you don't care at all?"

The personal soldier on duty pointed to his nose after hearing this and said:

"Is the little brother talking to me?"

"There are only two of us at the yamen entrance, if I'm not talking to you, who am I talking to?" the round-faced teenager asked back amusingly.

The personal soldier replied with an admiring face:

"Little brother, you don't know.

Our Dudu hates vanity the most, work that one person can do, he resolutely doesn't use two.

And he hates meddling in other people's business the most.

He says the yamen only manages wrongdoing and shouldn't meddle in other things.

Just like you are blocking the yamen entrance now, as long as those coming to file a complaint aren't maliciously blocked by you, I can't manage it."

"Interesting, interesting," the round-faced teenager clapped his hands lightly: "I originally knew that your Dudu Zhang Jiugui was a bit different, but I didn't expect him to be such an interesting person.

Please pass the message, just say that a friend of his who is a gatekeeper at Longmen Berth has come to see him."

Saying that, the round-faced one reached into his sleeve and handed a piece of broken silver to the personal soldier,

"A little bit of meaning.

We can be considered peers, I know the hardship of the gatekeeper, I won't tell your Dudu."

The personal soldier was stunned, waved his hand and said: "No, no.

Our Dudu said, liking money is very normal, who in the world doesn't covet money.

But if you love money, you have to love it openly.

I am on duty today, exposed to wind and sun, and cannot avoid it, so there is a bonus.

Although it's not much, it's long-term.

Taking your gift, even if the Dudu doesn't know.

But as time goes by, there is no wall in the world that doesn't leak wind.

So it's better not to 'lose the long for the short.'

However, little brother, our Dudu is a person who can't stay idle.

He is not in the stockade now.

If you want to see him, you can only come on the first and fifteenth of every month.

Or leave a letter, and I will give it to him.

Actually, I am on duty at the yamen entrance, and I do the work of passing letters."

He was just speaking when he suddenly saw Zhang Gui walking over from the direction of the stockade gate, and his eyes couldn't help but stare.

And the round-faced little brother seemed extremely good at observing expressions, and without even turning his head, he said with a smile:

"My luck is not bad.

Isn't this not the first or fifteenth, and your Dudu has also wandered back to the military stockade."

Zhang Gui had been active on Giant Serpent Island for the past few days.

Except for occasionally holding the fort in the True Dragon Kingdom and feeding chicken soup.

He spent more time hanging out in the Western He people's sphere of influence on the west side of the island, making connections.

There were two reasons.

One was that the situation where Yuan Mountain and Ming Song were fighting fiercely suddenly turned into a fragile defeat for Ming Song.

Which made him raise his already high evaluation of Yuan Mountain even further.

He gave birth to the idea of not just talking on paper, but actually understanding it.

And those Western He sea merchants have been trading very frequently and closely with Yuan Mountain nobles in recent decades.

Using them as a springboard is very suitable.

However, this reason was just a side dish.

More importantly, the Yuan Mountain master Chang Sheng Tie Mu also started his rise at sixteen or seventeen, and achieved hegemony in less than twenty years.

Although Zhang Gui's personality was steady, he felt that he was also "not small" anymore, and shouldn't always spend time on the line of Pingyang Town, Zhihai Stockade, and True Dragon Kingdom.

After all, no matter how well a frog at the bottom of a well develops, it is still a toad.

A person who is sixteen years old should also climb out of the well, jump to the master of the river to swim, and develop a bit.

It's just that recently, in the Western He sea port cities on the west side of Giant Serpent Head Island, because of the disastrous defeat in the national war, there were more Ming Song slaves.

As a madman who set himself up as king, although Zhang Gui didn't have much compatriot heart for them, he always felt inexplicably uncomfortable in his heart.

Today, he saw with his own eyes a batch of Ming Song prisoner slaves transported by a cargo ship, who were trapped in the bottom cabin because of an epidemic, and dozens of them died rarely.

Seeing the corpses thrown ashore one by one, he felt his mood getting worse and worse.

Finally, he couldn't help it, instantly moved back to the mainland, intending to rest for half a day and change his mood.

As a result, just after returning to the Zhihai Stockade Yamen, he saw someone waiting for him.

Taking a closer look, the person who came was actually the little eunuch he had forcibly shown off and rewarded when he went to the Longmen Berth Trading Bureau to pull the tribute.

Although very surprised.

But a eunuch visiting an official privately couldn't possibly be bored and come to chat blindly.

With a move in his heart, Zhang Gui laughed, "So it's an old friend visiting.

Please, please.

Let's talk in the backyard."

"Good." The round-faced teenager nodded.

The two entered the stockade yamen and turned to the backyard.

The sweet berry trees planted here were more ripe than a few days ago.

The clusters of purple flowers blooming were even more brilliant.

Inviting the round-faced little eunuch into the pavilion, Zhang Gui was about to make tea when he heard the little eunuch say:

"Dudu Zhang, tea is not needed.

No matter how good the tea is, it is bitter and astringent, I don't like it.

Just pick a few bunches of berries."

"Then berries with cold well water."

Zhang Gui nodded, picked several bunches of fruit from the berry trees, washed them, and put them in a willow branch basket.

Beads of water oozed on the berries, looking delicious.

The round-faced little eunuch directly picked up a bunch of fruit, swallowed it in one gulp, and chewed with a mouth full of sweet juice.

Seeing this, Zhang Gui suddenly thought of Guan Xihui.

An old pirate, a little eunuch, people who were originally unrelated, but their style of eating fruit was almost exactly the same.

"Little brother wouldn't be surnamed Guan, would he?"

"No.

Before I entered the palace, my surname was Chu, because my family was poor, my parents were both tenant farmers, and none of the previous generations had read books.

So I just casually gave myself a name, Tuan Tuan.

In my hometown, dry food made of fine flour is called steamed bun, and coarse grain is called Tuanzi.

Being able to eat sorghum Tuanzi with pickled vegetables every meal in the future, this is the greatest expectation my parents have for me.

Later, I entered the palace, and I couldn't be named before I had a rank, so my master gave me a nickname, Little Tuanzi."

"Then I will call you Brother Tuan Tuan.

Actually, the name Tuan Tuan is quite good, very domineering.

Uniting all friends who can be united can defeat all powerful enemies.

It has much more meaning than my name Zhang Gui."

Chu Tuantuan was stunned after hearing this, and even forgot to smile,

"Dudu Zhang, your words and actions are really quite strange, but they don't make people dislike you, otherwise I wouldn't have come to find you today.

This is really a skill."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 88 =====