Chapter 1632 - Australian Books
While vigorously rubbing his shoes on the ground to scrape off the "grains' reincarnation," Huang Binkun silently cursed the Ming officials in Guangzhou. A perfectly good city, yet under their rule it could not even compare to the Hair-bandits' tiny Lingao. Truly, they were all incompetent people.
Just as he was pacing about, he heard a hawker's shout from the street side: "Pulling Australian films! Pulling Australian films!" A group of children running out of an alley rushed past Huang Binkun, causing him to stagger as his center of gravity was already unstable.
"Kids, don't rush—one wen to watch once, one fen of circulation notes to watch twice—" Huang Binkun did not see the circulation notes he was so familiar with from Lingao, nor did he know the saying about starting evolution from dolls. But seeing the children flocking to it like ducks, he understood that his trip to Guangzhou would not go smoothly.
"The Hair-bandits... how venomous are their intentions."
After hesitating again and again, Huang Binkun still settled down in an affiliate inn of the Qiwei Inn. Not only was it clean and tidy here, but the key point was that he could directly use circulation notes—this prevented an immediate financial crisis. In the markets of Lingao, silver had unconsciously become rarer and rarer, slowly replaced entirely by the notes. Even the money chests in Huang Family Village were filled with circulation notes. Ordinarily, one could not even glimpse a sliver of silver. Although Old Master Huang still had five or six hundred taels buried in several earthenware jars under the study floor, that was the Huang family's reserve capital and could not be used lightly. The silver he was using now was exchanged at Delong Bank with a "road pass"—he had only exchanged twenty taels total. He would have to go to the black market in East Gate Market to exchange for another dozen.
Huang Binkun settled into the inn, took a bath in the inn's bathhouse, and changed into clean clothes, feeling relaxed all over. The various unpleasant feelings from entering Guangzhou City also vanished.
However, along the way he had also realized how deeply the Hair-bandits had infiltrated Guangzhou. "Better to settle down first, then think of a way."
The methods Huang Binkun could think of were nothing more than finding connections to capable people. The ideal would naturally be to become a private advisor. However, he was just a mere xiucai, an anonymous nobody from a remote small county. To become an advisor, he could only rely on the recommendation of powerful bigwigs.
Unfortunately, although his family counted as a "prominent family" in Lingao, placed in the whole of Guangdong it was too insignificant. Even within Guangzhou City, it was unknown how many people knew there was even a county called Lingao in this province.
He had no relatives or friends here to turn to. The distant relative planning to move to Lingao was from elsewhere and could not help much. In his document bag was a letter from Liu Dalin, entrusted to one of stern Master Liu's "same-year" graduates who was a jinshi. But he had just inquired and found out this old master had passed away only a few months ago.
Thinking of this, he felt his aspirations were bleak indeed. He freshly remembered how much ridicule and mockery he had suffered when he came to Guangzhou with his father as a youth, because he spoke stuttering Cantonese mixed with many local accents.
Thinking it over, the only way was to "travel and study"—try to contact the local scholar circles as much as possible and find a way to integrate. Although scholars ranged from poor to rich, relying on his status as a xiucai, making acquaintances should not be too difficult.
It was just a matter of which people to befriend and which not to—that would require some thought. Huang Binkun prepared to go to a bookstore to buy a copy of Record of Officials and Gentry to see who was listed and who required his extra attention.
After settling down, Huang Binkun followed others' directions the next day and arrived at a large bookstore in Guangzhou. As soon as he entered, he saw the shop assistant at the door greeting customers with buck teeth showing: "This gentleman, please come inside. We have various new Australian-style books..."
Huang Binkun hated hearing the word "Australian" the most. His face immediately darkened as he said repeatedly: "No need, no need."
The assistant hit a snag for no reason. Hearing his strange Cantonese accent, he silently cursed: Turns out to be a country bumpkin!
However, for the sake of sales commission, he still spared no effort in promoting.
"Master, look—the storybooks in the bookstore now, apart from the Four Great Talents' books, the most interesting ones are the magazines brought from Australia. Master, take a look—"
"I just want the Record of Officials and Gentry!" Huang Binkun's tone became a bit impatient.
"We have it, we have it. That book is very common. Wouldn't the Master look at other things first..."
Huang Binkun waved his hand impatiently, and the assistant could only resentfully go to fetch it.
While the assistant dilly-dallied getting the goods, Huang Binkun strolled around the bookstore. The tables were selling popular books. Leaving aside traditional goods like collections of eight-legged essays, storybooks, and essential household compendiums, more than half the books on the table were so-called "new books." Judging from the horizontal typesetting and simplified characters, these new books were genuine Hair-bandit publications—he had seen plenty in Lingao.
Besides the Record of Atrocities by the Zheng Rebels he had already seen, there were many he had not seen before. Quite a few "Australian books" were not even available in the Australian libraries and bookstores in Lingao: things like How Red Sleeves Are Tempered, Thirty-Six Strategies for Solidifying Favor at Home: Bedchamber Edition, Soup Brewing for Health, Learning to Cook Australian Dishes, Wits Against the Chief Examiner—The Imperial Exam Mental Journey of Eighteen Provincial Top Scholars, The Art of Serving Superiors, The Way of Being an Advisor...
These were one thing—such "lifestyle books" had existed in Ming bookstores since ancient times. They just were not this "comprehensive" and "plain-spoken." Picking up one at random, almost all were accompanied by lifelike illustrations, completely different from the embroidered portraits in ordinary books.
Judging by the wear and tear on the covers, these books had a good market. Many people read them, and probably quite a few bought them. However, he had no interest in these. His gaze turned to the "Australian studies" books.
The first cover depicted a large sailing ship, looking similar to the Red-haired Barbarians' gunships. The title was Naval Knowledge. A book cover with such a large picture was already rare. The bottom right corner also had subtitles: "Why Did the Spanish Navy Lose to English Pirates?", "Battle of Noryang"... Huang Binkun neither knew who Spain was nor where this so-called "Noryang" was. They seemed to be military history books. Looking at the shelf, there were similar books, quite large in format and not thin either—things like With and Without Horses—The World of Inertia, War History Research, and so on. These books were not cheap: one or two taels of silver per copy.
National affairs are becoming difficult daily. Even the Hair-bandits know that scholars are most concerned about military matters now, Huang Binkun sighed secretly. Then he glimpsed another book: Win by Watching—How to Exterminate the Eastern Tartars.
Hmph, what a big tone. The Hair-bandits really know no shame, boasting shamelessly that one can win just by watching?
Picking up this book, it did not look very thick. The cover was plain without an image. The author was Shi Zhengxin. Opening the title page, Huang Binkun was startled at first glance.
On the title page was a portrait: bald and hairless, with an eagle beak and wolf neck, wearing the Hair-bandits' military uniform, round glasses on his face, a fine Japanese sword at his shoulder. This person looked like a monk, yet like a general, and also like a scholar. Even more marvelous was that the image was vivid, as if the person were right before him.
Huang Binkun was staring at the picture in a trance when the assistant appeared at his side, wrapped book in hand: "Master, the book you wanted is ready."
"Oh... who is this person on the book?" Huang Binkun pointed at the image and asked.
"Replying to the Master, this lowly one hears everyone say this person is the author. He is said to be an Australian Senator, surname Shi, given name Zhiqi, courtesy name Zhengxin. He is now leading troops on Hong Kong Island to the south." The assistant spoke nonchalantly. "Back then, this Chief Shi led men on small boats crisscrossing the Pearl River—simply entering uninhabited territory."
Huang Binkun nodded thoughtfully. The assistant hurriedly added: "Master, although this book costs four taels of silver, if you use Australian circulation notes, you can get a twenty percent discount."
"I don't want it!" Huang Binkun suddenly became very angry, hurriedly paid for the Record of Officials and Gentry with silver, and turned to leave. The assistant watched his retreating back with slitted eyes. Country bumpkin!
Huang Binkun ignored the assistant's disdainful gaze and returned directly to the inn clutching the Record of Officials and Gentry in his arms. He thought to himself that the Hair-bandits bought popularity, and the marketplace folks of Guangzhou actually pursued them so eagerly. He feared even the gentry and scholars might not fully understand the Hair-bandits' methods.
He flipped through the Record of Officials and Gentry for half a day but could not make heads or tails of it. He circled a dozen names among the gentry marked as "residing in hometown" in Guangzhou Prefecture. But looking at their resumes, the worst was a juren who had served as a county magistrate. With status like his, without being a relative or old friend, let alone visiting to ask for an audience—even the doorman would probably be too lazy to say an extra word to him.
It seemed he still needed to make more friends with scholars. He called the assistant and asked where in Guangzhou City literati gathered for elegant gatherings. The assistant said there were the Eight Sights of Guangzhou locally, and almost every day there were literary gatherings and banquets. If interested, he could go look at any time.
So the next day, Huang Binkun changed into an eighty-percent new straight gown and went "sightseeing." However, he was soon greatly disappointed. It turned out that while there were many literati holding elegant gatherings in these places, they were guarded by family servants. Let alone joining in to talk, he was driven away as an "idler" before he could even get close.
Thinking it over, the only way was to thicken his skin and go to the Nanhai County School to look around and see if he could strike up a conversation.
Nanhai County was the attached county of Guangzhou. The scale of the county school of this First City of the Southern Sky was not comparable to Lingao County—even the Qiongzhou Prefecture School was not as large. Not only was it grand in scale, but the repairs were very tidy, completely different from the knee-deep weeds and desolation of the Lingao County School back then. In those days, because money and rice could not be issued monthly, the xiucai scholars rarely went there once a year.
Scholars came in and out, the sound of reading aloud came from the lecture hall, servants were humble and polite.
This is the real "Great Ming," Huang Binkun lamented while wandering around. If all prefectures and counties under heaven were like this Guangzhou, how could the Hair-bandits succeed? At most, they would just be like the Franks, squatting on a small island to do business.
(End of Chapter)