Chapter 24: Exciting

I don’t know if it’s the good climate in the South China Sea, or if it’s just the turbulent winds, I feel comfortable after stepping onto the land. Or if I simply see a stunning little beauty, Xu Yifan feels comfortable. Xu Yifan, who slipped back after a close meeting with those Chinese youth last night, had a good night sleep all night. After waking up, I didn’t know that Dongfang was white. His whole body was soft and he felt extremely comfortable. Hearing the sound inside his room, Du Juan, who was sleeping outside the bedroom, had already pushed the door and walked in, holding a hot green salt tax in his hand. The little girl’s eyes were red, and she didn’t know what she was thinking about last night.

Speaking of which, girls who grew up under traditional education, even Du Juan, who grew up in the crowd of horse thieves, definitely regards men as the most. She takes care of her very meticulously. This little girl endured the extreme seasickness along the way and served him everywhere. Thinking of herself secretly watching Miss Li Xuan last night, Xu Yifan couldn't help but feel a little ashamed.

Du Juan handed the green salt water into his hand, lowered his head and took out his boots, and carefully dusted them. He didn't dare to look at Xu Yifan at first glance. Du Juan's body was the most seductive, but he was also the shyest. Even Luo Shi was bolder than her. When she was shy, she often shrank into a ball in Xu Yifan's arms, and the strange uncle had psychological shadows when he wanted to start.

He held back and didn't make any jokes, and then reminded Du Juan of biting his tongue. This little girl wouldn't live a while ago. Unexpectedly, Du Juan fiddled with her boots and suddenly raised her head bravely: "Next time, my mouth is wide open. I won't bite you again!"

Xu Yifan was stunned, held his smile tightly, and nodded seriously: "Well, I will teach you well next time..."

Seeing Du Juan's little face slowly turning red, and the outer door sounded again. Xu Yifan got up and put on his boots, then asked in his white middle clothes, "Who, come in!"

The footsteps sounded, and it was obvious that the two generals Chu Wanli and Li Yunzong, the two Hum and Ha, were entering the door.

Yesterday, the battle made Consul Cao go through a lot of hardships from the smoke bed and pulling it out. Finally, the guard range of the foreign soldiers policemen was expanded by five or six hundred meters, and no longer thrust his nose. Outside the consulate, the students also set off their own sentinels. That's how they can safely pick up Xu Yifan. No one knows what happened to him.

This one seemed to have made Li Yunzong feel good, and his face was very bruised and swollen. But his stern face was a little loose. Chu Wanli still looked the same smile. The two of them walked in neatly in uniform, and they were banging a military salute with a flat chest.

Chu Wanli spoke first: "Sir, I'll go to the dock later. Are there anything else to explain?"

Xu Yifan nodded: "I told Lord Deng and others what I saw inside and outside Sishui City. Please bear with me for a while. Now the sailor brigade is on the street, I am afraid of intensifying the conflicts... What we are asking is to leave an impression on the minds of the Chinese merchants in Sishui, that is, because we are here, these natives dare not cause trouble. When the intensification occurs, the variables are difficult to control..."

Chu Wanli smiled and said, "Is it your order! We just have this airs tense... we understand the mark." After that, he turned around and went, but Li Yunzong handed over a pile of newspapers he was holding in his hand.

"Sir, the telegram from our military training yamen in China, and the telegram from the waterline have been chased to Sishui. Please check it out."

Xu Yifan was holding it in his hand and was about to look at it when he heard a loud noise outside the consulate. He sat up again: "What's the matter?"

Li Yunzong looked at him and stood aside, waiting for Xu Yifan to put on his clothes in a hurry. He walked out of the consulate with big strodes.

Outside the consulate, a group of Chinese people were walking here. Most of them were long gowns and jackets, wearing clothes from their hometowns. They were old, and some were gray-haired. No matter how they looked, some of them had dark skin like old farmers. But they all had a bookish spirit. The oldest ones were holding incense and candles, holding them over their heads, and walking with a serious expression. The team was getting bigger and bigger, and there were solemn and solemn atmosphere behind them.

The Java natives followed from behind and gathered more and more. The eyes of these natives were hard to describe, and they seemed to have a natural cold and cruelty, which was indescribable and uncomfortable.

The Chinese team ignored them and just moved forward. The foreign soldiers looked at each other, wondering if there was any reason to stop the Chinese group in front of the Qing Dynasty consulate. The indigenous police officers were already running over with their rattan hats and waving the batons to expel them.

The students who were guarding and patrolling at the door ran faster than them. He was the first to be a tall and strong northern man yelled like thunder: "Stop! This is the gate of our Qing Dynasty consulate. What do you want to do?"

The one yesterday was probably the tall man was so majestic that he yelled, and actually suppressed the police. The Chinese and old men who were leading the way didn't look at the indigenous policemen, but just walked forward quietly.

Xu Yifan came out and saw this scene. He was already neatly appointed as an imperial envoy. He looked at the tall scholar who was the first to protect the old men and glared at the police and foreign soldiers. He whispered to Li Yunzong beside him: "This... is called Zhang Xuzhou, right? How about it?"

Li Yunzong just whispered simply: "A powerful general." Xu Yifan shook his head slightly: "I still have the burden and my bloodiness."

After saying that, he looked solemn and stood there quietly waiting for the Chinese team to approach.

Several old men walked in front of them and bowed deeply with the incense and candles. Some people were already quite tall, but they were still meticulous in their etiquette: "Sir, save the Chinese School! This is the root of our descendants of Yan and Huang!"

These are all decades of life, under the rolling eyes of the natives and even atrocities, under the oppression of foreign colonial authorities, working hard to raise funds, guarding the inheritance of Chinese traditions, and teaching generations of travelers, where is their roots, and who are they?!

Over the decades, they have experienced many storms and many times, and the Chinese schools they have worked hard to raise funds have been forcibly closed down and were smashed by native thugs. However, they still guarded this seeds of Chinese civilization and scattered all over the land of Nanyang.

From the end of the 19th century, as the Chinese stubbornly expanded their influence in Nanyang, the colonial authorities and local indigenous peoples oppressed Chinese schools more and more deeply until they were forced to survive. The existence of Chinese schools has become one of the most fundamental contradictions between Nanyang and China and China. Such oppression and run development to a climax is the symbol of the final end of Nanyang Dragon Hall, which is the forced closure of Zhongzheng Middle School in Singapore in the 1960s!

In that tragedy, Britain, Malaysia and even CIA used high-pressure water dragons, tear gas, and rifles to deal with unarmed Chinese teachers and students, and captured the backbone of Nanyang Dragon Hall.

Of course these were all later events, but the disaster at the Chinese school began with the time and space that Xu Yifan stepped into.

According to Cao Tianen's words yesterday, just before he arrived in Sishui, seventeen Chinese schools had been smashed in a short period of time, dozens of people were killed and injured, even flower girls who had just entered school. In order to protect the students, teachers stood up, and the majority of those who died and injured were even more.

Some of the old people in front of them obviously knew that they were so kind that they would never argue with others for the rest of their lives. They just wanted to pass on their knowledge in their hearts to the next generation so that they could be a human being. Now, some people had scars on their faces!

It is precisely this atrocity that makes Sishui feel like a gunpowder barrel now. With the arrival of Xu Yifan and the warships, it has temporarily cooled down. I don’t know if it was the tranquility before the storm. However, the tolerance of the Chinese people has reached this threshold and has almost reached the bottom line.

Xu Yifan's high-profile arrival, two military ships were moored in the port. This new style and the attitude of the imperial envoy leaving at the foreign banquet made the Chinese people's mouth-to-mouth, and it seemed that they saw hope again. Although the motherland in the distance hurt the hearts of these wanderers again and again and cold the blood of these wanderers. However, when it was this tense, the wanderers were still thinking about relying on their own country!

Seeing the old people bowing solemnly, Xu Yifan rushed forward and helped them up one by one: "Old man, I can't treat you! I can't treat you! But I should be the younger generation, as a junior, kowtowed to you. Thank you for sticking to your duties as a Chinese and a teacher in such a difficult situation!"

An old man looked up and cried: "Sir, our Chinese school is pitiful! It's like a motherless child, empty and unreliable. We have a conscience, and the Chinese school has never lacked money. But what can conscience and money work for? Others have knives and guns! The adults come over with warships and are also members of the Nanyang Yang. Can't we negotiate with foreigners and give our Chinese school a way out? We are Chinese, supporting the entire Nanyang Yang! We never fight with others, everything is made by our sweat beads falling into eight petals!"

Looking at the silent team of Chinese school teachers, Xu Yifan was speechless. With the weakness of the Qing Dynasty, even though he was his personal high-profile, he took advantage of the situation and made a little bit of a limelight. But when he was really like this, he didn't have many ways. His purpose was to raise funds, to build his own power. What use can he use now when he was not strong yet? The warships were not his, and there were only dozens of students and there were a whole Javanese colonial authority and hundreds of thousands of natives who hated the Chinese!

Li Yunzong stood beside him, his chest was just rising and falling. Consul Cao Tianen simply did not show up in this situation. He just pressed his hot forehead and finally could only smile: "Old sir, the country is weak... If you want to save this luck, you can only think of making the country stronger. When I go to Nanyang, I will raise funds to train new troops for the country and want to strengthen the country..."

Before he finished speaking, several old men slapped their chests in unison: "Sir, we have also seen the benefits of military ships. You have raised funds. We go all over for you! Just think of raising tuition for Chinese schools. These hundreds of thousands of Chinese in Java don't care about paying the third tax! As long as this happens, don't leave us behind and stand with us unarmed compatriots!"

At this point, what else could Xu Yifan say? He could only nod in silence and shout: "I won't leave! I will comfort the Chinese schools that were in trouble a few days ago. I will try my best to negotiate with foreigners! Everyone advises the Chinese and picks up the group. At this time, it is just a matter of protecting the family and school. I also want to tell the Chinese people that the country behind them is strong, so that everyone can stand up straight. I am staying with you and everyone. Xu also asks you to ask all the elders for this fundraising matter!"

There is also an atmosphere of silence in the Governor's Office in East Java.

Reports were sent one by one, all reported to Xu Yifan meeting with waves of Chinese communities in the consulate. Looking at the text description, the consulate now seemed to have become a place where those Chinese people gathered.

Lord Chuck sat on the lounge chair, and the old man was playing with a glass of whiskey with ice and soda, listening to the sound of broken ice cubes colliding gently in the glass, but he just didn't speak.

Around him, all the officers of the colonial guards in a well-equipped military uniform, and senior police officers of the police station. Without exception, they were all white. His adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel Detten, stood beside his recliner, was so angry that his nose was not the nose, his eyes were not the eyes.

Everyone was sweating heavily on their foreheads, and the air inside the room was so dull.

Detten made a gentle gesture, and the indigenous servant who had been standing by silently walked to the window quietly, completely opened the sunshade blinds around him, and a gust of sea breeze blew in, which immediately made everyone feel refreshed.

Chuck pondered, "Gentlemen, what do you think?"

A senior police officer sat straight with his wooden hat: "You can't let him stay anymore! In the afternoon, he began to comfort those Chinese schools, and the Chinese people were as enthusiastic as crazy. Such emotions were not conducive to Her Majesty's rule over this land!"

"...... There was such a bureaucrat in that braid country, which was really unexpected. We all thought that he would visit a Chinese family and walk with some money. Who cares if he put the money in his pocket?"

"The authorities have tolerated themselves, but they cannot tolerate themselves without limits. The prestige of the civilized world cannot be lost like this!"

"We should relax our suppression of the indigenous monkeys a little... The other end of the balance beam has sunk to the Chinese with the arrival of this imperial envoy. In order to maintain order, the indigenous monkeys must also be made to express their opinions..."

The opinions below seemed to be infinitely in line, but Governor Chuk always pondered without saying a word. Waiting for everyone to look at him, he muttered softly: "Where are those two Qing cruisers?"

Lieutenant Colonel Detten could not help it and said loudly: "They will never dare to fire at the white warships!"

Chuck whispered: "As the Governor, I pray for the safety of the territory ruled by Her Majesty the Queen. The flag of Aurangye will always fly here... I don't want to see too many bloody events happening. Whether it is the natives or Chinese, they are the objects we need to be vigilant when necessary. Letting them keep such an opposition is the principle of our rule... I think the opinions of all gentlemen are quite reasonable. Maybe we should indeed express it... Lieutenant Colonel, let me meet Consul Cao for me, and make the affairs of this troublemaker, and it is necessary for the top leaders of the Qing Dynasty to know our opinions..."

Detten turned around and left with excitement. Chuck sat upright and looked at the top of the colonial high-level officials in a serious manner: "Everyone, you can go back and arrange it. Scare them, but don't go too far! The arrangements for this operation must be reported to the Governor's Office, waiting for my signature and approval!"

Xu Yifan was busy banning himself from comforting the responsibility. While the Dutch Governor's Office secretly discussed how to resolve the current situation, there were also secret meetings in the main hall of the Li family in Sishui.

The Li family is so charming that the main hall is extremely extraordinary. The space is wide, and the teak decks are paved on the warships, which can isolate the local heavy moisture. Several South China Sea agarwood incense burners burn spices, and the smoke rises. The lobby is completely Chinese, but the blinds are opened according to Western style, and there is no darkness of the traditional Chinese hall.

The children of the second generation of the Li family sat on their seats and looked at each other. Li Daxiong was different. He wore a foreign dress and closed his eyes to rest. The brothers of the same generation, Li Daren, Li Daxin, and Li Dazhi, were all Chinese-style robes and jackets, and were full of wealth. They were mostly responsible for the Li family's business. In this traditional family, if they had mastered the financial power of the business, they would have a much higher status than Li Daxiong, who just ran for the Li family, showed up, believed in foreign religions, and married foreign women. If it weren't for the conflict between foreign indigenous people and Chinese schools, Li Daxiong might not even be able to catch up with the core meeting of this family.

The brothers of the family were talking in a low voice. No one looked at Li Noixiong more. While talking, he heard a cough in the inner room. Everyone sat upright, and even Li Noixiong opened his eyes quickly.

I saw an old man in the hall slowly stomping out. The typical Hakka people had deep eye sockets. Although his beard was white, he still looked very smart. He glanced at his sons, and there was indescribable sternness in his eyes. A maid held a silver hookah for him, and another was holding a chair cushion. Seeing that the old man was about to sit down, he quickly spread the chair cushion on the mahogany chair.

"Sir, Father..." The voices of greetings below were heard. The sons looked extremely respectful.

This old man was the head of the Li family in Sishui, and developed the Li family to such a wealthy level as the country. The four great masters of Li, Huang, Zheng and Chen in Nanyang, and were also directors of the gentry bureau of East Java, the Netherlands. Li Yuanfu, who was stomping his feet, was trembling in the Chinese society in Nanyang.

There are almost no Chinese in Java who act without looking at his old man’s eyes.

He sat down, glanced at his sons lightly, and asked casually: "Who proposed to open a sovereign meeting?"

The eldest son Li Daren accompanied him to be careful: "Father, isn't everyone not going to find out this? They are worried. The Chinese school has smashed 17 families, and the Chinese young people are secretly uniting. Some of our four families have come to ask our Li family what their ideas are... There is also an imperial envoy here, and there is a lot of trouble. It is also a matter of how much money to raise for him to send him. We can't make any decisions about these things, so we can only report to our father. It's better to open a sect meeting and discuss it."

As soon as Li Daren said the words, the voices of the people below echoed. In this situation, even these people were all thinking about it.

Li Yuanfu glanced at them, reached out to take the hookah, but didn't put the paper on it, and snorted heavily: "I'm afraid that the world will not be in chaos or why? I've been here for so many years. What should I do with those children to fight against foreigners? Be kind to make money, this is the foundation of the Li family! So everyone is like breaking up, where are you going to beg for food? They are all scrambling! What other sect meetings are going to hold!"

He blew Li Daren with paper and said, "Chacha, Chacha, which of our Li family is mixed with those guys and wants to make trouble... We donate a lot of money to run a Chinese school. We have always been a big deal, but don't do it! If the foreigners want to close it, just close it. Let's just open it again? In short, don't join in the fun!"

Li Daren secretly glanced at Li Daxiong, and the old man's eyes turned: "Is it your Axing Axuan? Especially the girl Axuan, the four kids who attract bees and butterflies make the four kids follow her. The female devil who can't enter the ancestral grave!"

Li Daxiong trembled and just replied lightly: "My son doesn't know, so ask when he goes back."

"Ask a lot!" The old man never concealed his majesty in front of his sons: "Hurry up and go to the accounting office to pay money, use public quotas, and provide some for foreigners. We only want to restrain the natives and the Chinese school affairs, we will never interfere! Do you understand?"

Li Daxiong nodded, and Li Yuanfu was still on the verge of anger: "Let you go out to contact, a large amount of money. You are not asking you to contact those messy people, we just spend money to buy peace. Even the association party heard that you have a little contact, what do you want to do?"

Li Daxiong just lowered his head: "It's all my son's." He looked up at the old man again: "Why should we get rid of that imperial commissioner? Now he seems to have become a backer of the Chinese in Sishui."

The old man sighed: "So what about backing? If you send a telegram in China, you have to go back in shame... You have seen too many things like this. You can't stay in Sishui for too long. Otherwise, if you have ulterior motives, those children don't know what to do... Within one million, you can make an idea and spend money to buy peace..."
Chapter completed!