Chapter 84: The Human Market (II)

Sure enough, it wasn’t a free market inside. As soon as these well-dressed people came in, several human traffickers came up to sell their goods:

“What do you think of this one? A mouthful of fine glutinous rice teeth that can bite through gold and jade—how about fifteen taels?”

“Look at this girl’s hair, it’s so black…”

“Don’t look at my age, but I can read! I’m from a scholarly family. The old procuress of Jincui Lou offered fifty taels and I didn’t sell!”

“Are you looking for someone to serve you? This girl is good. She used to be a maid in a big family in Fujian. She’s well-trained, and her looks and figure are all good! I’ll give you a price, twenty-five taels!”

…

The noisy scene stunned Xiao Zishan and his party for a moment. They had never seen such a scene before. Seeing these seven or eight people spitting and pulling the girls towards them, fiddling with their hair, and pulling up their arms to show them their skin. These girls, ranging in age from eleven or twelve to their early twenties, all had decent looks, but they were all sallow and emaciated. They were being pinched and kneaded by the human traffickers, wanting to cry but not daring to, with a look of suppressed tears and sorrow. Xiao Zishan’s heart sank. It was indeed a miserable sight. The few people around him also showed unbearable expressions.

The two escorts hurried forward to block the human traffickers. Liu Gang turned back and asked Xiao Zishan, “Boss, are you going to buy a few children?”

Xiao Zishan was hesitant. It seemed that almost all the girls with some looks here had been bought by human traffickers. The price of each girl ranged from six to fifty taels, and there were thirty or forty of them in total. If he bought them all, it would be a bit expensive. Besides, they were a bit young. Were these twelve- or thirteen-year-old girls considered girls or children? While he was hesitating, Yan Maoda said, “Commissioner Xiao, let’s just do a group purchase. We can bargain hard.”

“Even if we bargain, it will still cost several hundred taels.” Zhang Xin shook his head. “We might as well start with the people that the human traffickers are not interested in. When we buy more, they will see that we are not interested in their goods and will reduce the price.”

“That’s a good idea. We were also planning to buy some children to raise and educate.”

“How much is the budget? I need to have a bottom line.”

“Under five hundred taels. A little over is also acceptable.”

The group got rid of the human traffickers and walked straight inside. They saw that the shacks and open spaces along the road were full of famine-stricken refugees, supporting the old and carrying the young. The cries of begging when someone came over were endless.

A large group of people gathered at the crossroads ahead. They approached and saw that it was a woman pulling a man’s leg, wailing and begging. There were also two children in a pile of rags on the ground. The older one was only three or four years old, and the younger one was still in swaddling clothes. It turned out that the woman’s whole family had fled to this place, and all her family members had died, leaving only the mother and her three children. The human trafficker had taken a fancy to the woman, but did not want the children.

The woman had been beaten until her nose and mouth were bleeding, and she was lying on the ground. The human trafficker was still kicking her and cursing, “You shameless hussy who won’t starve to death! I’m not running a charity, why should I raise your children!” He grabbed the woman’s hair and was about to drag her away.

Just as Zhang Xin was about to speak, someone suddenly shouted, “Stop!” The crowd parted, and a few servants came over, surrounding a young man of about thirty. Whispers arose from the crowd: “Young Master Liang is here, Young Master Liang is here.”

The man walked up to the human trafficker: “Since you bought her, why are you forcing her to abandon her children! These two children are so young, without their mother, isn’t it a dead end!”

The human trafficker seemed to recognize the person who came and hurriedly defended himself: “Your Honor, it’s not easy for us to make a living in this business. With her sickly body and two children in tow, who would want to buy her? If I agreed to her, I would have to feed two more mouths for nothing.”

This Young Master Liang said angrily, “If you can’t make a profit, then don’t buy her. Why do you have to force her to separate from her flesh and blood!”

The human trafficker smiled bitterly: “Alright, alright, I was trying to be kind but ended up doing a bad thing. With her looks, if I don’t buy her, her whole family will starve to death tomorrow! At least I can save her.”

Although this was almost roguish, it was also the truth. This Young Master Liang was speechless for a moment. The human trafficker did not dare to say any more and slipped away from the crowd. Zhang Xin looked at the woman on the ground again. She was actually only in her early twenties, her face was so thin that it had lost its shape, and her sallow skin had an abnormal flush, which did look sick. Young Master Liang asked his servant to buy a few steamed buns for her. He also distributed some money to the hungry people who had gathered around.

“Let’s buy them,” Guo Yi said with some pity.

Xiao Zishan thought this was not a good idea. First, she was sick, and second, the children around her were too young. Buying them back would be a burden. He hesitated for a moment, and seeing that everyone was looking at him, he nodded: “Let’s buy them!”

When the crowd saw that the few merchants had bought the woman’s whole family, there was a sudden commotion. The news spread quickly in the market. The old, the young, the men, and the women of the refugees all squeezed to the front, more and more of them, surrounding them, all begging them to take them in, not wanting any money for selling themselves, just asking for a mouthful of food.

For a moment, it was a mess. Fortunately, Liu Gang had some experience. He and the escorts squeezed out and asked the yamen runners and militiamen on the scene to help maintain order. Xiao Zishan had Gao Ju’s name card in his hand and immediately rewarded them with several thousand coins. The yamen runners did not dare to be negligent and quickly found an official broker to write up the deeds of sale like an assembly line.

The people around soon discovered that these few people were particularly fond of children, especially the young children who had been ignored in the past. They took in every one they saw, and if the parents wanted to go with them, they would take them in as well. Orphans were even more welcome. Zhang Xin was very generous. Anyway, he didn’t spend a penny on the price of the people. For every one he bought, he would give the yamen runners and official brokers on the scene five hundred coins. The yamen runners in charge of suppression simply grabbed all the orphans in the field, whether they were willing or not, and had them sign the deeds of sale. In a short time, they had already bought seventy or eighty children, as well as forty or so adult men and women. When the human traffickers saw how generous these people were, they hurried up to ask to sell. Zhang Xin shook his head: “Isn’t it a waste of time to inspect them one by one? I’ll take all the children you have.”

After some bargaining, all forty-one girls in the hands of the human traffickers were bought for ten taels each. For a time, the front of the ruined temple was filled with a dense crowd of people sitting there.

Xiao Zishan on the one hand asked the escorts to inform Sun Kecheng: to empty a mule and horse inn, quickly start a fire to cook, and then ask a few doctors to be on standby. Those who had signed the deeds of sale were sent to the inn in batches of twenty, escorted by two escorts. For those who were sick and weak, he ordered people to hire mule carts to transport them.

While he was busy, a servant suddenly came over and said something to Liu Gang. Liu Gang had a respectful look on his face and came over to Xiao Zishan and said, “Young Master Liang would like to invite you all to have a chat.”

Guo Yi asked, “Who is this Young Master Liang?”

Liu Gang said, “He is a juren of this county, a descendant of a noble family, and has always been eager for public justice and has a good reputation in the county. He would like to invite you all to have a chat.”

The few of them looked at each other and felt that it was necessary to befriend such a local scholar-gentry. Zhang Xin continued to stay and arrange for the sending of the servants. The others followed the servant out of the field.

At the edge of the wasteland, there was a tea shed that sold tea, steamed buns, and other things. It was originally a place for the human traffickers and the yamen runners who were suppressing them to rest. At this moment, the inside and outside had all been replaced by the servants and maids brought by Young Master Liang, no less than twenty or thirty people. Everyone was surprised: this small juren had such a grand style!

This Young Master Liang was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a slightly pale face, looking like a young master from a noble family. He wore a gray silk long gown and held a gold-dusted Sichuan fan in his hand. Although it was not extravagant, it was clean and neat, without a speck of dust. When he saw them coming, he was not arrogant. He stood up and first cupped his hands in a salute:

“Liang Cunhou.” The young master smiled slightly, and a pair of black pupils under his eight-character eyebrows flickered. He said, “May I ask for the honorable names of you all? Where are you from?”

As he spoke, his eyes looked up and down at Guo Yi and the others. His eyes were extremely experienced, and Guo Yi couldn’t help but be startled: this person’s eyes were sharp, definitely not something an ordinary dandy would have. He repeatedly said, “I dare not, I dare not.” He reported the names of the few people in order.

According to the unified statement, they were all sea merchants. Because the sea was not peaceful, they were stranded here, and Liu Gang accompanied them to stroll around the streets to relax.

The servant served tea, and Young Master Liang asked again, “Since you are all sea merchants, why do you want to buy so many family members?” As he spoke, a look of suspicion appeared in his eyes.

Xiao Zishan had already prepared for this: “The sea has not been peaceful these past few years, and business is getting harder and harder every day, so I thought of buying some land to set up a village to collect rent and live. We are buying land and reclaiming wasteland in Qiongzhou. There are few people there, and the tenants and long-term workers often have no marriage partners, so we have to come here to buy some women.”

“That is also a good deed,” Young Master Liang sighed. “I saw that you just now pitied the weak and sick, were unwilling to separate flesh and blood, and were even willing to take in young children. You also arranged for food and lodging properly. You are truly kind-hearted. We, as the natives of Guangzhou, are really ashamed!”

“Not at all, not at all.” Guo Yi and the others quickly said modestly, and felt that this Young Master Liang was a bit pretentious. The transmigrators came from modern times and did not understand the cruel side of ancient society at all. They always felt that since they had bought people as slaves, it was the most basic treatment to feed them and keep them warm. It seemed that they had already taken a huge advantage by not having to pay wages.

Liu Gang took the opportunity to say some flattering words: “Young Master Liang has always been charitable in this county. Not to mention this Nanhai County, even in the whole of Guangzhou Prefecture, who doesn’t know of your great benevolence and righteousness, Young Master Liang. You don’t know, most of the silver spent on the porridge shed here comes from the Liang residence.”

Liang Cunhou, however, did not seem to mind. He waved his hand and said, “The world is not peaceful now. Fortunately, Guangdong is still relatively quiet. My Liang family has received the grace of the country for generations and is not comparable to a poor family. My family also has some small property. I am just doing my best to do good deeds, which is just to share a little of the court’s worries. What is lamentable is that my relief of the hungry people in this county is not even understood by the local gentry, and there are quite a few gossips behind my back.” He sighed longly.

Guo Yi saw that he had some difficulties and deliberately pretended to be confused: “Young Master Liang’s relief of the hungry people is a great good deed. Why should there be gossip?”