King Kong was unfamiliar with Quzhou, only knowing that it was a small town on the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway, which he had passed by on the train. So on his way to Quzhou, King Kong was thinking about how to get money to buy a train ticket to Shanghai.
It took him about two hours to get to Quzhou. Quzhou has city walls! Quzhou is a very small city. The city wall is a circular one, not the square one often seen in TV dramas. Could it be that time and space have changed, and what was square in another time and space has become round in this time and space? But this city wall, in King Kong's view, could also be a tourist attraction.
The Quzhou dialect was completely incomprehensible to King Kong. When King Kong asked people about the railway station, no one knew what he was asking. Mandarin was not commonly used here. After much effort, he finally figured out that there was no Zhejiang-Jiangxi line at that time. It was not until a year later (March 1930) that the construction of the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Line began, and it was not until September 1937 that the line was fully operational. Now you have to take a boat or walk from Quzhou to Hangzhou or Shanghai!
Because he inquired about how to get to Shanghai, someone told him that Zhangji Tea Shop might deliver goods to Shanghai and asked Jingang to inquire.
Zhang Ji Tea Shop is outside the west gate. Though it's outside the city wall, it's also a bustling commercial street. Entering Zhangji Tea House, I asked if anyone was going to Shanghai. The accountant, who looked like a bookkeeper, spoke to King Kong in Shanghainese and finally managed to speak smoothly. It seems that it is necessary to promote Mandarin.
According to the background of the editor, King Kong introduced himself as an orphan since childhood and was adopted and educated for many years by a master who returned from the West, was well-versed in both Chinese and Western learning and was a scientist. He traveled with his master to do scientific research, and his master passed away in Wuyi Mountain half a month ago. On his deathbed, the master said he had reached the level of an engineer and was ready to go out and do something for the country. So he was going to Shanghai to see if he could find an industrial company where he could put his skills to good use. A few days ago, he met bandits on the road. Although he rushed out himself, he lost a lot of luggage and his identification documents.
These are the words that Little Z has prepared, learned from some crappy novel, apparently influenced by martial arts novels. Of course, Little Z just needs to say that his master is a master of martial arts. Anyway, his military skills are fine. It doesn't make much sense when the master is changed to a scientist. But King Kong couldn't come up with a better excuse for the moment, so he had to use it. Fortunately, people in this small town don't have a clear definition of scientists, and a few don't even know what engineers do. "Engineer, simply put, is someone who does industrial technology," said King Kong, and they are getting a bit of an idea.
He added the identification himself, fearing that people would ask him for his ID. Later, King found out that in this time and space, apart from some graduation certificates and such, most people have no identification. Everyone has no household register, no ID card.
Mr. Zhang Mingli, who speaks Shanghainese, is the accountant of a tea shop of Zhangji Tea House in Shanghai. They were all aware of the current bandits everywhere, so they expressed sympathy for what happened to King Kong. They were going to transport tea to Shanghai the next day and shared a boat with a local silk boss. The silk boss was transporting a batch of raw silk to Shanghai for sale. It should be fine to take the boat together, but you need to say hello to the boatman and the silk merchant.
Zhang Ji Tea Shop owner also joined in the conversation, but Zhang Mingli had to be the interpreter for the speech. Engineers are still highly respected these days, especially King Kong, dressed in a suit that is very neat, indicating that he is well ironed; It doesn't fade at all, so it's new. So the clerk had already made tea and served it.
At this time, King Kong noticed that the clock on the table in the shop kept pointing at 9:50, and he felt it was almost noon. When asked, he found out that the clock had been broken for several months. King Kong said he could check if it could be repaired.
The boss was overjoyed. The clock was one of the most valuable items in his home, the store's treasure, and had not been repaired since it broke down. When King Kong opened the back cover, he found that the spring had broken.
There was no new spring, only the broken one was managed to be rewound. He asked his boss for pliers and files. The boss asked someone to borrow from the blacksmith's shop on the street. King Kong clamped the cut with pliers, leaving only about a centimeter exposed, and placed it on a kerosene lamp to anneal. Both ends of the fracture were annealed by a centimeter, holes were drilled with the tip of a file, and the spring was riveted with wire rivets.
When King Kong was repairing the clock, a large crowd came into the shop to watch, including nearby neighbors and passers-by. The locals have such a hobby of watching the spectacle, and King Kong really wants to charge an entrance fee. The clock was fixed, and everyone in the store admired the appearance of King Kong. After all, he's an engineer. What amazing skills!
It seems that there aren't many people who can repair clocks these days. King Kong's confidence soared. If not, we can make a living as a watchmaker.
The boss gave King Kong two yuan. King Kong thought it was too little, not much like sending a beggar, but still took it. The boss, not sure if he saw through King Kong's thoughts, treated him to lunch. The boss invited King Kong to a small restaurant on the street, ordered a bowl of rice, a small fish, a bowl of green vegetables, left King Kong alone to eat, and went home to eat. King Kong called the boss "King Kong"!
Jin had just finished his meal when Zhang Mingli came and told him that someone had asked him to fix the clock again. There are no mobile phones or QQ groups here, but the news spreads fast enough. Decades later, people living in the same building don't exchange much information, but here, a little news can spread throughout the city in half an hour. That's why Quzhou is truly an "information society" now! By this time, half of the city knew that an engineer dressed in a dress and speaking Mandarin had come to fix the clock of Zhangji Tea House.
Zhang Mingli led him into a large mansion, where he met a rich man named Huang. His house was a large floor-standing self-striking clock that could move, but the mechanism that struck the clock was broken. As soon as the spring was wound, it struck all at once until the spring was completely loosened before it stopped. When King Kong opened the back cover, he found that if he bent down a limit bar a little, the problem would be solved in less than a minute. But King worked slowly, disassembling the clock, carefully wiping each part with cloth, asking for soybean oil, and slowly applying it. Finally, when he put it back, he found that it was still light, so he turned it here and there. It took at least three hours to wind the clock and get it running. I tried to strike the clock, and the fault was fixed. Of course, there was no problem, and the work was done.
Mr. Huang gave King Kong three silver dollars and invited King Kong and Zhang Mingli to dinner. King Kong, feeling guilty, had no choice but to accept the three yuan as much as he had cheated. For dinner, there was only a bowl of braised pork, a scrambled egg, a fish, a sliced bamboo shoot with pickles, a green vegetable, and a soup. Zhang Mingli still kept saying, "So sumptuous, so sumptuous." In another time and space, not to mention a King Kong with an annual income of several million, even for an ordinary family, this is just the level of daily life.
After a few days, King knew that such a meal was indeed sumptuous. Because in the time and space he was in, most Chinese people were just getting by, so even the rich didn't eat like that on a regular basis. But at that time, King Kong only thought the braised pork was terrifyingly fat, only the bamboo shoots, pickles and scrambled eggs were okay.
After the meal, King Kong wanted to borrow one or two hundred yuan from the rich man and return it to him after he started working in Shanghai. But it was too difficult for him to speak up, so he asked Zhang Mingli first how much it would cost to get to Shanghai from here? Zhang Mingli replied that it usually costs more than five yuan, at most six yuan! But Mr. Xu doesn't have to pay for the boat fare for the first leg of the journey with them, so he only needs a little over five yuan. King Kong was taken aback. Later, when I asked about local prices, I learned that one yuan in Quzhou is equivalent to about twenty or thirty yuan in another time and space! Zhang Mingli said that prices in Shanghai are much higher than those in Quzhou. King Kong has twelve dollars in his hand, so it seems he doesn't need to borrow money.
After dinner, he went to see the silk shop owner. Mr. Zhao, the owner of the silk shop, was already aware of his legend and clock repair. When he heard that he was an engineer and intended to look for a job in Shanghai, he enthusiastically wrote a letter of recommendation, asking him to go to Shanghai to find his friend, Mr. Sun Tongqing of Meiya Company.
He slept at the Zhangji Tea Shop for the night. The next day, at dawn, King Kong and his group went to the boat on the Qujiang River. Among them were Zhang Mingli from the tea shop and a young apprentice, Zhao Youde, the steward of the silk shop, and a middle-aged fellow. The boat was a wooden one, with two people pulling the rope and one rowing the boat, and the boatman was rowing. Decades later, "The Love of the boatmen" will be sung by many people, but how many have actually taken a boat pulled by a boatman?
In the evening in Lanxi, transfer to the "little fire boat" on the Fuchun River to go to Hangzhou. There are two shipping companies, Nissin and Tonglu. The old gentleman, Zhao Youde, wanted to take the Tonglu Company's boat. He knew the owner of the boat and it was a bit cheaper. Zhang Mingli, on the other hand, wanted to take Nissin, saying that the Tonglu ship was too old and often caused trouble. Two of them asked King Kong to judge.
As soon as King Kong heard that Nissin was an Oriental company, he immediately supported taking the Tonglu Ferry. King Kong used to avoid buying goods from the East as much as possible.
King Kong said to Mr. Zhang, "We are all Chinese. We should make money from our own people." When the captain of the Tonglu ship heard this, he was very pleased and found good seats for the five of them. The cargo was loaded onto the tugboat at the back.
A "fire wheel" is a ship powered by a steam engine. Seven passenger and cargo ships were also towed behind the fireship to form a fleet. Because of the beautiful scenery of the Fuchun River, King Kong found the smoke and noise at the bow of the ship very interesting. But just three hours into the boat, something that worried Mr. Zhang happened: with the bow "hissing..." The ship came to a halt, spewing out a lot of steam.
Mr. Zhao went to inquire about the situation and soon returned with the boatman. It turned out that the boiler was broken and the boatman couldn't fix it, so Mr. Zhao introduced that Engineer Xu, who was with him, might fix it.
When King Kong went over to look, it turned out that the gasket in a pair of flanges in the steam pipe had been broken for a long time and had been leaking air. Now it was completely broken and cracked. There were no spare parts on board, so there was no way out.
King Kong asked if there were any rubber sheets? Are there any lead strips? None. Finally, King Kong saw a thin rope. He took off a long, thin one and asked someone to bring a raw egg. After soaking the rope in the raw egg, he coiled it a few times on the open flange and smeared it with the remaining egg. Finally, the flange was put back in place, the bolts were tightened, and the air was inflated. Surprisingly, there was no air leakage at all. Because of the high temperature of the flange, the protein solidified into sealant, and the hemp rope bore the pressure in the middle.
King Kong incidentally studied the foreign-made antique steam engine and found that the mechanical design of the steam engine was ingenious, but the boiler design was too unscientific and the thermal efficiency was relatively low.
The boatman was extremely impressed by King Kong and was extremely polite to their group.
A day and night later, the ship arrived in Hangzhou. The boss of Tonglu Firewheel Company gave King Kong ten yuan and invited him to work for his company, offering a "high salary" of one hundred yuan a month. Seeing that King Kong insisted on going to work in Shanghai, he wrote a recommendation letter for him to Guan Liqing, the owner of the new steamship factory in Shanghai.
King Kong knew that in the 21st century it would take less than two hours by car (highway) or train from Hangzhou to Shanghai, but now the fastest train takes five hours. Train tickets are said to be hard to come by.
Mr. Zhang and his group have to keep shipping, so they have to continue on the boat. It takes twelve hours to travel from Hangzhou to Shanghai by steamship via Jiaxing. It takes only twelve hours to travel from Hangzhou to Suzhou, and about twelve hours to travel from Shanghai to Suzhou... .
In summary, inland waterway shipping was the main transportation system in the Jiangnan region during this era, especially for freight. This is something that King Kong had never known before. In his impression, the role of ships in rivers was only for tourists to play in tourist attractions.
Because the boss of Tonglu Firewheel Company gave King Kong a free ticket, King Kong still went to Shanghai with everyone by boat.
When he got on the dock, he saw a completely unfamiliar Shanghai: narrow streets, dilapidated wooden houses along the streets, and people dressed in clothes that were generally more tattered than beggars in the 21st century... If he hadn't heard the familiar Shanghainese, King Kong would have thought he had come to the wrong place. It was not until he reached the concession that some decent roads and houses began to appear, but they could not be compared to 21st-century Shanghai at all.
King Kong went to Meiya Company with Mr. Zhao Youde. The company was an industrial conglomerate founded by a Ningbo-based financial group, and Mr. Sun Tongqing was the comber in charge of silk and other matters. After reading the letter of recommendation from Mr. Zhao, the boss of the silk store, and having heard Zhao Youde talk about King Kong repairing steam engines, he introduced King Kong to work as an assistant engineer at the Meiya Chemical Factory.
Sun Tongqing dared to recommend King Kong, who had no diploma, to work as an assistant engineer. Zhao Youde's flattery was one aspect, and King Kong's English was good enough to have a few conversations. This is the first time that the English listening dialogue he has learned has worked since taking the CET-4 and CET-6 exams.
King Kong's suit also helped a little. The suit was crisp and the middle seam of the trousers was obvious, as if it had just been ironed. It shows that Liu Yi is very particular and well-mannered. Zhao Youde was also puzzled by the clothes of King Kong. Why, after wearing them for several days, they still looked like they had just been ironed and had no wrinkles?