Today is still a sunny day. There are some clouds in the sky. The sun has just risen, like a red ball hanging on the horizon to the east. The morning glow in the sky is particularly gorgeous. The fields and forests are covered with heavy snow, and it is silver-white. There are vague black spots in the distance. They are several farmers who get up early to pay New Year's greetings; the air is cold and fresh, without a single dust; there are curling smoke rising in the village where you look. You can hear a few dog barking and a few rooster crowing in your ears.

Isn’t this the most beautiful Chinese painting? Li Qinglin doesn’t remember when he had enjoyed such a peaceful and peaceful rural scenery in his previous life. Was he five or six? The modernization of society has accelerated the pace of people’s lives and also concentrated people who originally lived on the wilderness into the city. The cement and steel jungle of the city blocked the eyes that should have looked into the distance, including the morning glow, sunset, cattle and sheep, pasture, rivers, and mountain mist. These scenery that were originally part of our lives became luxurious dreams that could only be seen by spending money.

My parents were in a good mood and chatted with Li Qinglin all the way. It seemed that my mother rarely went out. Every time my father went to a place, he would either introduce the place name here, or plant a house here to make a good harvest, or what origins did this village, or what big and small things happened in this place. Li Qinglin got a lot of urgently needed information while talking to his parents. Although this information is fragmented, it is very important to Li Qinglin now, and Li Qinglin silently remembers it in his heart.

Li Qinglin's uncle's family lives in Liujiaying. Liujiaying is located at the foot of Woniu Mountain, 18 miles from Xiaolizhuang. It is said that Liujiaying stationed troops during the Song Dynasty. The descendants of the Liujiaying garrison advocated martial arts for generations. Crossing Woniu Mountain from Liujiaying is another county in Henan Province - Wanlin County.

Before he knew it, Liu's camp arrived. When he walked into his uncle's house, he heard his uncle shouting at his cousin Liu Zhengsheng. His cousin Liu Zhengsheng stood timidly in the corner of the house with a sad face.

My sister came back, but my uncle couldn't continue to teach his son a lesson, so he started to invite guests.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, it is an important day, that is, the married daughter has to go back to her parents' home. On this day, the husband and wife have to travel with her, so it is commonly known as "Son-in-law Day" in the countryside. On this day, the daughter who returns to her parents' home must bring some gifts to her children and have lunch at her home.

In this extremely poor era, what a daughter brings back to her parents' home is usually food. On the one hand, her daughter's family is not rich, and she can only take food. In addition, being able to eat full is the top priority in this era, and bringing back to her parents' home to eat is what children expect most.

The mother took out gifts from the basket like a trick and gave them to the children to eat. This year, Li Wanquan was well-manned and brought more food than in previous years. Li Wan bought a small bundle of "scalding" (dialect: fried dough sticks) a year ago. Children in rural areas usually eat simple food, and parents cannot buy them home due to financial reasons, so they are particularly popular with their children today.

After the food was distributed, the adults sat down to talk about housework. The mother winked at Li Qinglin, and Li Qinglin pulled his cousin to the inner room to talk.

His father was like a huge stone pressing on Liu Zhengsheng. Liu Zhengsheng, who walked into the inner room, breathed a sigh of relief. He enthusiastically chatted with Li Qinglin.

Li Qinglin asked about borrowing money curiously. Liu Zhengsheng told the story. The situation of the book was not much different from what his mother told him.

Li Qinglin asked him: "What he said may be lies. Why do you believe him so much?"

Liu Zhengsheng said: "I was not dazed for a moment, but I also tried him in the conversation. First, from his eyes, he could tell that he was a decent person; second, he should be a businessman, or a person who is very familiar with business; third, he also left a token, saying that he would use money to redeem him in the future."

Li Qinglin asked: "What kind of business is he familiar with?"

Liu Zhengsheng said: "Not to mention cotton yarn and cotton cloth, he is completely expert in foreign fire business."

Since the Qing Dynasty was opened by foreigners with foreign guns and cannons in 1840, a large number of industrial products have entered China. These Western industrial products have no name in Chinese, so Chinese people simply call them "foreign". For example, matches are called foreign fire, cement is called foreign ash, kerosene is called foreign oil, and there are also foreign nails, lacquer, foreign carts, etc., and even Shanghai's flower world is abbreviated as "Shili Foreign Field".

Liu Zhengsheng continued: "Our Wantong Business Company operates the Hongsheng brand foreign fire in Shanghai Hongsheng Match Company in recent years. The sales have always been very good, but the price is very low by the Japanese foreign fire price, so the profit of the distribution is not large, and sometimes it even sells at a loss. I only realized that this is a Japanese thug. They deliberately lower the price of Japanese matches and use the method of selling at a loss. The purpose is to force domestic products to withdraw from the market, and then Japanese companies monopolize the Chinese market."

Japan's trade with China has always adopted the method of dumping goods to suppress China's national industry.

In the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, the domestic cement of Shanghai Qixin Yang Ash Company was sold very smoothly due to its good product quality. Qixin Cement was soon adopted by major construction projects across the country. The Huaihe Railway Bridge, the Yellow River Bridge, the Luohe Railway Bridge on the Jinpu Railway, the Weishui Iron Bridge on the Beining Railway, and the sea dams and wharves in Qingdao, Yantai, Xiamen, Weihai and other places used Map Cement produced by Qixin; famous buildings at that time such as Beijing Library, Fu Ren University, Yenching University, Mainland Bank, Bank of Communications, Hebei Gymnasium, Shanghai Postal Administration, etc. were also built with Map Cement. In order to occupy the Chinese cement market, Japan sold Nissan cement with a production cost of 2.97 taels of silver and a transportation cost of 2.5 taels of silver in Shanghai at a price of 3 taels of silver, and each bag of cement lost 2.47 taels of silver.

Especially after Japan occupied Northeast my country by force during the September 18th Incident in 1931, in order to plunder China's wealth, many Japanese companies used the rich resources and cheap labor of the Northeast to open many factories. In order to monopolize the Chinese market, they have become more and more serious about dumping Chinese goods, and the varieties dumped on China have expanded to all aspects. Bulk consumer goods like Match are the tools they can use.

After hearing this, Li Qinglin nodded and asked, "He is very proficient in business. So what kind of token did he leave?"

Liu Zhengsheng leaned his head and looked out the door, then turned around and closed the door, reached out his hand and pulled out a sheathed dagger from his waist and handed it to Li Qinglin.

The dagger sheath is very ordinary and is made of cowhide. In order to prevent the handle slipping after the blood is soaked, the dagger's grip is carefully wrapped with thin cowhide strips and wrapped with fine cowhide strips. The cowhide strips are neatly shaped and look very good.

Li Qinglin gently pulled out the dagger, and the faint cold light came into his eyes. Li Qinglin knew that this was a very good-mouthed dagger, and even if ordinary people had money, they might not be able to get it.

There are two lines of small seal characters engraved on the dagger, one is "loyalty and righteousness to save the country" and the other is "great potential".

Seeing these two lines of words, combined with Liu Zhengsheng’s narrative just now, Li Qinglin pondered for a moment. He had basically confirmed Pan Kewei’s identity, so he said to Liu Zhengsheng: “You did it right!”
Chapter completed!