Chapter Fifteen: The Wedding
It can be said that Tan Yanke's itinerary for this trip to the countryside is still very important, after all, Wang Yun is the person whom Tan Zhonglin respects the most, and Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi are both high-ranking officials who have left their mark on history. Tan Yanke has been facing Tan Zhonglin for a long time, and as his son, he didn't feel that Tan Zhonglin was anything special as the governor-general, at least in the study of the Fujian-Zhejiang Governor-General's Office, he was the core figure, not some kind of military or national affair, he could even be considered half of the Fujian-Zhejiang Governor-General. But when thinking about facing Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi, his heart would involuntarily beat faster.
No matter whether it was Wang Xianyun or Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi and other high-ranking officials, these people were important in his journey, but the most important person was another person - Jiangxi Governor Fang Ruyi, who would be Tan Yankai's future father-in-law! Five years ago, Tan Zhonglin had severe eye disease and began to submit memorials one after another, hoping to resign from his position as Shaanxi-Gansu Governor to return home for medical treatment. However, the Qing court did not respond to this request, only sending doctors to treat his eye disease. It was at this time that Fang Ruyi, who was then the educational commissioner of Gansu Province, became friends with Tan Zhonglin. They were both colleagues in the Hanlin Academy, but Fang Ruyi entered the academy later. The two men had known each other for less than a year when Tan Zhonglin left to become the prefect of Hangzhou. However, they maintained contact. Fang Ruyi brought his whole family to visit Tan Zhonglin and it was at that time that the marriage between Tan Zhonglin and Fang Ruyi's daughter Fang Yongqing was arranged.
Feng Wenyu, who possessed Tan Yanqin's body, naturally recalled this matter clearly from Tan Yanqin's memories. He himself found it quite amusing - in his previous life, he hadn't married until he was over 30 years old, and now, after reincarnation, he was going to marry again before the age of 18. The Fang Yiqing in Tan Yanqin's memory was still just a 10-year-old girl, one year younger than him. Although five years had passed, thinking about getting married at such a young age made him feel somewhat awkward. However, this marriage was absolutely unavoidable. Fang Ruyu was now the Governor of Jiangxi, and his official rank was only slightly lower than Tan Zhonglin's. Not to mention what others thought, even if he wanted to refuse, his father would not agree. This was not an era where one could freely choose their partner; parental orders and matchmaker's words were paramount. Tan Yanqin and Fang Yiqing had no say in this matter, especially since both families were high-ranking officials of the Qing dynasty, and they were prominent figures in the region.
However, Tan Yanxin was slightly better than those who had arranged marriages in that he had at least seen his bride - although she was only ten years old at the time, and now they were about to meet again, so they could cultivate some feelings. The wedding date set by Tan Zhonglin and Fang Ruyi was March two years later, when Tan Yanxin would be eighteen years old, and Fang Congqin seventeen years old. Although it wasn't considered "early marriage" in this era, they had reached the age where they should get married. They were both from official families, and delaying too long would not be beneficial to Tan Yanxin's development, especially since Fang Congqin's marriage age was already somewhat late, which would have a greater impact on her family.
Tan Yanjin brought a letter written by Tan Zhonglin to Fang Ruyu, the content of which he had already known - to postpone the engagement for several months. This was entirely for Tan Yanjin's future, as this time going to Hunan Changsha to take the imperial examination, Tan Yanjin passing the test would not have too much problem, Tan Zhonglin's intention was to strike while the iron is hot, next year directly go north to participate in the Yiwei College Examination held in Beijing, and look at the result of the examination to determine the date of late marriage. However, regardless of the outcome of the imperial examination, both of them would have to get married in the second half of next year.
Tan Zhonglin estimated that delaying the wedding would not be a problem, after all, in this era, a man's career was extremely important. If Tan Yan could pass the imperial examination and obtain the desired honor, it would be acceptable to pay a certain price. Fang Ruyi was also a scholar who emerged from the battlefield of the imperial examination, and if his future son-in-law had ambition, he would not disagree. In fact, even if Tan Yan passed the provincial examination that year and got married, it would still be very tense. After passing the provincial examination, the palace examination would follow immediately, and it was impossible to have three months of free time without a busy schedule. If he became a successful candidate in the imperial examination, there would be even less time left for the wedding that year. Tan Zhonglin knew the examination cycle arrangement, but considering Fang Ruyi's age, it couldn't be delayed any longer. He didn't want to delay again, so he decided to make it clear with Fang Ruyi first. If the provincial examination went smoothly, perhaps the Fang family would understand and even voluntarily postpone the wedding for a year.
Tan Yanxin was clearly opposed to this marriage, but he couldn't oppose it - he didn't have the ability to do so. Although he carried a lot of weight in the Fujian-Zhejiang Governor's Office and basically made all the decisions himself, Tan Zhonglin was very confident in letting him handle everything on the surface. Unfortunately, he didn't have the right to make his own marriage decisions. In this era, men could have three wives and four concubines, but for someone like Tan Zhonglin with five or six wives and concubines at the level of Governor, it was still considered few. In Beijing, officials of the second rank would often keep a group of wives and concubines at home, and also frequently visit the Eight Great Alleys as guests - this wasn't anything new. However, Tan Zhonglin didn't have such thoughts at all, which was also why Feng Wenyu remained unmarried until he was over 30 years old - he idealized love too much.
However, since he had encountered such an unavoidable situation, he had no choice. In fact, he thought that in this era, he should be able to find a relatively ideal partner at the Zhongxi Nüxiao (Middle-West Girls' School) - the famous school that was known for cultivating Song Qingling, and at least its students should have relatively modern ideas, which would also make them more compatible with him in terms of personality. Unfortunately, as a local official, Fang Ruiyi naturally could not send his daughter to a Christian school. As for the so-called "talented women" of this era, he did not dare to hope - the photos in history books had already given him a profound lesson. Although he had not had the opportunity to see what the "talented women" looked like, he had seen many women with bound feet.
Tan Yanqing, who was holding back a belly full of anger, led the convoy out of Fuzhou City with a swagger. However, he didn't know that as soon as his foot stepped out of Fuzhou City, someone had already set their sights on him - everyone thought that Tan Yanqing's Jianmin Pharmaceutical was making a fortune. In reality, this was indeed the case, and Tan Yanqing's convoy was transporting silver to his hometown in Hunan.
Fujian's terrain is complex, with mountains covering a large area. As we enter Jiangxi from Fujian, the terrain will become even more complicated, making this section of road a haven for bandits and robbers. Tan Yanqian had already spread the word that this caravan was carrying 300,000 taels of silver, as well as a large quantity of Fujian's precious local products, and its route clearly indicated that it was heading from Fujian into Jiangxi, rather than taking the coastal road to enter the Yangtze River.
The provincial officials, such as He Jiong, had to swallow their anger and give 50,000 taels of silver to Tan Yanqing due to the incident of opening a gambling den with detoxification pills. Although they couldn't openly rob this batch of goods, it didn't mean that mountain bandits and local gangsters wouldn't dare to do so. He Jiong and others indeed passed on the message to the Green Gang in Fujian - there was a deep connection between the provincial officials and local gangsters, with neither side wanting to ruin the other's rice bowl. Forming an alliance of mutual defense was an unwritten rule in the officialdom of the late Qing dynasty. Of course, He Jiong also believed that Tan Yanqing's identity was special, and if something happened on his own turf, he couldn't guarantee that Tan Zhonglin wouldn't direct his anger at him. The governor-general's authority wasn't something he could resist, and his own family wasn't clean either - Tan Zhonglin wouldn't need to use much effort to make him lose his official position. Therefore, He Jiong also expressed the idea that the governor-general's son must not be harmed in a very implicit way.
He Jiong and others did not expect that Tan Yanqin had already set his mind on them, if he still hadn't gained anything after bringing the guards to circle around outside, then he would really be vomiting blood, probably he was also the first "merchant" who hoped for mountain bandits to come visit him.
Tan Yanqian and his men had just left the territory of Fuzhou Prefecture, and they were rampaging across the borders of Jianning Prefecture and Shaowu Prefecture. Any bandit gangs that dared to attack them were annihilated by Tan's bodyguards - the bodyguards had been trained for so long, their marksmanship was unparalleled, and in their eyes, Tan himself was a godly shooter, although they had yet to see bloodshed. This time, Tan really went on a killing spree, and anyone who dared to block his way would be pursued and beaten by his bodyguards, and if caught alive, would be forced to reveal the location of their hideout, which would then be eradicated along with it.
The Green Forest Road in Fujian did not expect that the fat sheep in their eyes would be a big killer, with extremely ruthless means, and from this road, they never left any survivors. The killing and looting were more professional than these local bandits who had been robbing for years. When Tan Yanqin and his party entered Jiangxi from Zhaowu Prefecture, the guard team was already bloodthirsty, and the convoy had increased by five or six cars. They also recruited several strong men from the local area to push the carts when they passed through Taining.
These five or six vehicles were part of the spoils from several bandit lairs they had raided, with more silver being directly deposited into the money shops along the way. The cars were loaded with relatively rare items that couldn't be easily disposed of locally, so they had to be carried around, prompting Tan Yanxing to exclaim "The mountain bandits are still richer!", and he couldn't help but want to raid a few more bandit lairs.
On this road, Tan Yanqian and his men were not without encountering danger. At the beginning, two soldiers of the guard team were lightly injured due to a surprise attack by bandits. Especially since these soldiers were excellent but had never stained their hands with blood or had any killing aura on them. This time, Tan Yanqian's main purpose was not to let them escort these goods, but to let them come and kill people.
Apart from the initial injuries due to inexperience, the guards showed their strength after adapting. Friedrich, as the instructor of this guard unit, taught them the German army's field marching methods. As long as they could discover the bandits' whereabouts in time, it didn't matter if the enemy outnumbered them several times. However, on this journey, Tan Yankai also witnessed what "bandits are as numerous as hairs on a cow" meant in this era. They encountered small groups of bandits numbering tens of people every two or three days, and even met with larger groups of mountain bandits numbering three to four hundred people several times. However, facing the guard unit armed with uniform 93-style rifles, numbers didn't matter; they also had a Maxim machine gun in the boxes behind their cavalry that hadn't been used yet, just as a decoration, and the situation wasn't critical enough to use it.
Tan Yanqing led this "bandit suppression squad" to swagger through the territory of Fujian, leaving a trail of blood. In addition to gaining a large amount of wealth accumulated by the bandits, they also harvested several special individuals and some small things - these two or three people were the leaders of the largest bandit gang in the local area, as well as several letters written by He Yin, the governor of Fujian, to them. Tan Yanqing killed so many bandits on this trip, almost dispersing the bandit gangs that had been active in Shaowu and Jianning for a long time. The survivors were like those who had survived a typhoon, and they would not be able to do anything for a short period of time.
"In this chaotic world, wanting to live better than others requires both thunder and rain. The antidote is naturally the rain, but when it comes to dealing with bandits, especially those who dare to rob me, I need thunderous methods!" Tan Yanqin looked at the three shabbily dressed strong men tied up behind the central carriage of the convoy. These strong men were originally the leaders of a local gang of bandits, and after Tan Yanqin made an example out of one of them, the other two were "disciplined" by the Imperial Guard soldiers for over an hour. They thought their mouths were tough, but in the end, they still revealed some secrets about He Yi's private life, including several letters written in his own hand, which delighted Tan Yanqin."
Although He Jiong did not want his life, now that he had offended him, Tan Yanqing had already made up his mind to eradicate He Jiong. As for whether the Fu Tai and Fan Si were related to He Jiong, it was no longer something he considered. The old man would naturally make proper arrangements. However, he did not trust the prefectural government of Zhao Wu and Jian Ning, so he did not hand over such important human evidence and physical evidence to them, and simply took them all to Jiangxi together.
Tan Yanqun's thunderous methods also shocked the soldiers of the guard and Friedrich, although those bandits who lost their ability to resist were solved by them, but the order was issued from the mouth of this young man who looked gentle and elegant in the past, and it was not allowed to use bullets, must be resolved with a short knife. This ruthless method made everyone look at Tan Yanqun with some weirdness. Along the way, each of them had dozens of lives on their backs, and there were not many people who died under Tan Yanqun's hands, after all, he didn't need to participate in battles personally very often, but it was also because his methods were cruel when he took action personally, leaving a deep impression on these soldiers. The soldiers did not know where Tan Yanqun learned his methods from, and every time he interrogated the bandit leader, he would cry out loud and faint continuously for several times, which made even Friedrich, a German veteran, frown, let alone the soldiers.
"Among those bandits, many were also local villagers who couldn't make a living and joined the mountains to become one of them. Is it...?" The speaker was a young soldier named Liu Yu, who was from Shaowu, Fujian Province, and was very familiar with the local area. He was estimated to be only two or three years older than Tan Yanqin. Although he was young, he was extremely robust and had excellent performance in training, and was promoted to squad leader.
Tan Yanqin asked coldly, "Go ask those bandit leaders if they are really heroes who rob the rich and help the poor. If so, I will immediately apologize to them and let them go... Now I am a bit ruthless, later the common people will be better off, and there is less blood on their hands? Just look at the few women hidden in their lair, should they be killed?"
Perhaps it was just after everyone had arranged their camp, and after Tan Yanqin finished speaking, the soldiers who were still pretending to be calm all stopped what they were doing. The women that Tan Yanqin mentioned were those whom they had rescued from the bandits' lair. These bandits themselves were evil-doers, robbing and plundering was their daily routine, and it's easy to imagine the consequences for the women who fell into their hands. Two of the women hadn't even made it down the mountain before they died, while the others either wanted to kill themselves or sat there silently like lifeless wooden puppets. At that time, Tan Yanqin had encountered them and immediately slaughtered everyone in the lair, including the bandit leader who was cut into several pieces by his precise short knife. It seemed that from then on, none of the bandits under their command were left alive except for these three.
Tan Yanqun stood up, patted Liu Yu's shoulder and said: "This is a chaotic world. To govern a chaotic world, we must use thunderous methods, otherwise it will not be enough to deter the villains. The common people are too honest, they don't have much ability to resist when facing bandits, only we who hold guns can protect them! If people really have ghosts, I don't mind letting them die again!"
Tan Yanqin jumped onto a big vehicle beside him and shouted loudly: "You all remember this for me: the guns in our hands are used to protect the people, if one day I find out that someone among you dares to be evil and do evil things, even if it's at the ends of the earth, I Tan will send him to hell!"
"Our guns are here to protect the people!" The soldiers all stood up and responded to Tan Yanqing's words, shouting loudly.
Friedrich in the camp had lived for a considerable period of time and could slightly understand some simple Chinese, even if he couldn't understand the guards' soldiers, they could be equipped with simple German and gestures to make him understand. When he knew what Tan Yanqian and the soldiers were talking about, he silently muttered to himself in German: "Are the guns in our hands for protecting the people?!"
