1 - Setting Sail
Qiwei Escort Agency
Chapter 31
Published December 21st, 2024”Help rescue a hostage?” Sun Kecheng, the old owner of Qiwei Escort Agency, turned his eyes around and stared at Sun Chang.
Sun Chang was, formally speaking, his martial nephew, and was relatively close to Sun Kecheng. However, Sun Chang was too straightforward and spoke too bluntly, and was not liked much by others. After drifting to Guangzhou, Sun Chang had become someone else’s servant. Sun Kecheng felt a little regretful about this—it was a waste of Sun Chang’s skills.
Sun Kecheng had wanted to give him a job in the escort agency, but the market had turned sour in recent years, and business was not as good as before. An escort agency was not like other businesses. Adding another worker added another pair of chopsticks into your kitchen drawer. The business of the escort agency was like using these chopsticks to push carrots into holes. When business was good, you needed more people. But adding more people meant higher expenses, and there would be less profit. If business went down, you couldn’t fire people, so everyone had to work hard and endure together. So if business wasn’t good, there was naturally no way to take on more workers.[1]
“Yes, my masters want to invite you over to discuss a matter.” Sun Chang clarified.
Sun Kecheng was a little confused. He remembered that Sun Chang worked for the wealthy businessman in Haopan Street, Master Gao Ju. Master Gao was a person well-connected to the higher-ups of Guangzhou City. If he encountered bandits, why would he send Gao Chang to ask their little agency, rather than call for dynastic officials?
Speaking of hostage rescue, escort agencies were themselves not usually interested in this type of job. The relationship between the escort agencies and the bandits was based on peaceful coexistence, and they valued "getting married" and "making friends". They didn’t like to kill and fight each other to the death. Going to save a hostage was like snatching food from the mouth of a wolf. Bandits who dared to openly kidnap people in this provincial capital would definitely not be ordinary bandits, so any clash would inevitably spiral into a fight to the death. In the end, no matter whether a hostage rescue succeeded or failed, as long as their agency’s participation was revealed, they would have an irreconcilable feud with local bandits in the future.
However, the overall atmosphere in Guangzhou was not looking optimistic either. Since the first year of Tianqi, various parts of the country had fallen into chaos, and their escort route had become more and more difficult to work. Their income was decreasing day by day. And even worse, there were still hundreds of people in their agency to feed...
After thinking about it, Sun Kecheng finally agreed to the deal proposed by Sun Chang. First, this deal could ease the dire financial straits his agency was in. Secondly, he heard from his nephew that his new master was an Australian merchant, whose goods had become famous all over Guangzhou recently. This aroused the interest of Shopkeeper Sun.[2] Furthermore, this group of merchants was not only rich but also kind, and they, to much astonishment of Sun Kecheng, allowed Sun Chang to restore his original surname. Hearing of such righteous and kind people,[3] he felt compelled to lend his aid.
Xiao Zishan and Ran Yao looked at the owner of Qiwei Escort Agency, who had been strongly recommended by Sun Chang, with some scepticism. They had expected a burly man with a full beard, like those the characters in martial arts movies, but instead was faced with a middle-aged man wearing a silk scarf and a loose robe. He didn’t look any different from an ordinary person walking by on the street. Although his footsteps were steady, he certainly didn't look like a martial arts hero.
However, they urgently needed someone to gather intelligence. Although Gao Di had volunteered, no one dared to put all their hopes on the young children he had gathered. Xiao Zishan immediately told Sun Kecheng everything that happened and the results of their investigation so far.
After listening to Xiao Zishan’s long-winded explanation, Sun Kecheng just nodded:
"You have a real expert here.”
"However, we are still unfamiliar with the place and don't know the current situation of the city. We have to ask Shopkeeper Sun for help."
"Not a problem, you flatter me." Sun Kecheng smiled and nodded, "You treat that kid Sun Chang well. Just based on this, Qiwei Escort Agency is obliged to help."
"So what does Shopkeeper Sun think?"
"Didn't Master Ran say that there was a man who was barefoot? In Guangzhou, even if the villagers from the countryside come to visit they all have to wear a pair of clogs or straw sandals at the very least. There is only one group of people who go everywhere barefoot regardless of season–the Tanka people.”[4]
"Tanka?" Xiao Zishan seemed to have heard of them before, they seemed to be a kind of outcast in ancient history.
"That's right. Do the masters not know about the Tanka?" Sun Kecheng then explained that the Tanka were also called "Danhu". They were water dwellers mostly living in coastal ports and inland rivers in Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. "They live on the water and fish for a living. It is said that they can tell if there is a dragon by the colour of the water, so in the past, they were called Dragon People."[5]
"Are they all fishermen?"
Sun Kecheng said: "Although the Tanka make a living on the water, only some of them are fishermen. Of course, not all fishermen are Tanka." He explained that Tanka did all kinds of business on the water, and their boats were almost everywhere throughout the many ports and forks of the Pearl River.
Since there was a Tanka among the kidnappers, the fog surrounding this incident was now much thinned. Chief Wen was very likely held on a boat somewhere on the river. They were in the south parts of the city, and the Pearl River was just over the city wall. However, as long as the perpetrators managed to board a boat, they would have the freedom to go anywhere in the world. Moreover, the Tanka were a very isolated group, with a different dialect and set of social customs from the mainlanders. It would be difficult to get news about them, especially since they were not already within their close circles.
Hearing Sun Kecheng’s exposition, everyone's heart sank. Things did not sound good.
"There are at least thousands of boats on the water, if not tens of thousands. It would take a month to just go through the database." Ran Yao was distressed, forgetting that he had no records to check in this time and space...
"Do not lose hope. Things have not become that difficult. Although the Tanka and the people on land have never had any contact, and are hostile to each other, the Tanka should not be the main culprits of this kidnapping. It must be that some bandits have colluded with the water brothels on the flower boats.[6] These brothels often do some illegal things. For instance, that incense is a method commonly seen in the jianghu, but is also something that water brothels often use to steal people's valuables." Sun Kecheng smiled confidently, "Master Wen should be in one of those flower boats."
“Where are all the flower boats moored?"
"Most of the flower boats of the Tanka families are in the Bai’e’tan area in Shicuizhou.[7] I will send the escorts to investigate when I return. But first, there are a few more things that I have to explain to you all. Take heed and listen!"
“The first is to not report this matter to the authorities. Although with Master Gao's reputation, a single petition from him may be able to mobilise the mounted and unmounted constables of Guangzhou Prefecture and the two counties, these people are bad people themselves. If such a fat sheep is delivered to their door, they will not do anything unless they are first stuffed with money. They might even collude with the bandits!
“The second is to not arrest the messenger who brings the ransom letter. These people are either beggars hired temporarily or just lowly thugs. They don't know the people behind them at all. It would be useless to arrest them and will only alert the other party.
"Finally, don't act rashly. They must have spies around your residence. But these spies are also hired helpers, and we won’t find out anything even if we interrogate them."
After taking Shopkeeper Sun’s advice to heart, they bade farewell. After talking things over, they all agreed that waiting for news passively like this was not a good solution. Fortunately, the other party was likely after a ransom, and so there must be messages exchanged between the two parties. This was a trail that would lead right to the kidnappers. Although directly tracking a person would not be possible in the city of Guangzhou in the Ming Dynasty, some modern surveillance technology could still be of assistance. At present, they had installed cameras everywhere inside and about the courtyard, and a central monitoring station had been set up in the courtyard, powered by several sets of batteries. Twenty-four hour surveillance coverage of the surroundings was thus achieved. Lin Shenhe even walked along the road and installed several wireless cameras on the roof of the front courtyard to monitor the main street. Afterwards he donned a camouflage sweater, and brought a pair of binoculars, night vision goggles, a walkie-talkie and a rifle with him. He carefully climbed up into the branches of the only big tree in the courtyard, set up a cosy bed between the dense leaves, and took turns on watch duty with Bei Wei. The two were ready to respond to developments at any time.
Ran Yao changed into a servant's clothes, tied a DV to his waist, and walked back and forth along Haopan street behind Sun Chang.[8]
When he came back he put the DV on the table, and said excitedly, "We found a stalker!"
Everyone’s spirits were reinvigorated by this news and they quickly gathered around the table.
"There were four people following us." Ran Yao turned on the DV to show everyone, "Look here," he pointed at the hawker on the screen, "this one is completely absent-minded, and his eyes are trained on the door of Gao Ju's house.
"This one, although dressed as a beggar, does not beg on the busy street, but instead hides in the alley at the corner gate of Gao Ju's house.
"This one monitors the gate to our residence.
"And finally this one who’s drinking tea by himself in the teahouse. He’s probably the boss of this little gang. They may have another one or two people wandering around the area, ready to pass news onwards. Let’s print out the photos of these people, one copy for each of us."
"Okay!"
"Should we go catch them now?"
"Most of these people are peripheral figures, and they may not even be familiar with the entire story."
"It would be great if we could follow them. This little boss must meet with the masterminds behind all this."
"Maybe. Unfortunately, there’s no way to follow him."
"How about putting a wireless tag on him? "
"Then it would be better to just put the wireless beacon with the ransom money. Then we can go straight to the nest."
"Theoretically, that would be possible. But we don't have a map here, nor GPS, so we can't get any precise positioning. We can only use a radio direction finding method to triangulate a rough location, especially because the terrain is so complicated."
"The key is that there is no map."
"There should be maps in the Ming Dynasty, right? Let’s just buy a few."
"Sun Chang bought one, but that map... is really useless." The map-making method in the Ming Dynasty was still quite primitive, and modern cartography was only introduced to China by Matteo Ricci about contemporaneously with their current presence.[9]
"But this is also a plan. Who knows how to do radio direction finding?"
"I can do it." Bei Wei said.
"Then we’ll have to depend on you."
"It would still be best if we could find out the location, and directly kill our way in."
"It's probably not that hard to get our hands on that information. Judging from what Shopkeeper Sun said, it seems that we’ll have Wen Desi’s whereabouts within the next few days."
"I wonder how Chief Wen is doing right now."
This made all of them cross their fingers in the hope that Wen Desi was safe.
Shopkeeper Sun returned to the escort agency, drank a few pots of strong tea, and thought for a while. In front of the Australian merchants he had patted his chest saying that he was already 7 tenths confident. He was certain that there was a water brothel involved. Even if that Australian constable Ran didn't say that one of the perpetrators was barefooted, the lingering incense in the house was also a dead giveaway. But confirming this speculation was a little more difficult–the generally agreed rules of the escort agency was to not set foot in places like brothels and flower boats. Despite his promises to the Australians, he was also not familiar that side of society.
Luckily, the flower boat still relied on vendors on land for their food supplies. Those small vendors who specialised in flower boats would definitely know something. Disregarding all other signs, if there was an extra person staying on the boat, the food consumption would increase a lot.
Sun Kecheng called a few of his escorts over and divided them into two groups. One group would pretend to be travelling merchants to perform a covert investigation, while the other group would go and ask vendors that he already knew. After giving these instructions, he also added:
"You should also pay attention to boats that have chartered passengers recently, or boats that suddenly stopped accepting passengers."
The area of each flower boat was very small, so it would be impossible to both hide their hostage and receive customers at the same time.
As long as the location of the hostage was found, it would not be difficult to save them. Shopkeeper Sun had saved a few hostages for several old customers in the past. He knew that the masterminds were unlikely to be with the hostages, and most of the people who actually kept watch over the hostages were all small fry. One reason was that the leaders were usually afraid of being exposed in front of the hostage, and the other was that if the hostage’s location was uncovered by the government, they would not be immediately implicated.
However unlike Sun Kecheng’s previous hostage rescue experience, Constable Ran also instructed him: the main job of the Qiwei Agency this time was to just obtain intelligence, and as for what to do in the end, it would be up to the Australians.
[TN]
Escort agencies (biao ju) were sort of private security-for-hire in ancient China. See Chinese wiki entry. They weren’t necessarily just muscle-men though, more often than not their duties were far more comprehensive than just guarding, such as consulting on security risks, avoiding vulnerable routes, and if confrontations did arise, negotiating with bandits. Their presence would dissuade potential bandit attacks. The industry died off in the Late Qing dynasty due to the proliferation of firearms.
Because the escorts are sort of like a giant family, you can’t really just ‘fire’ a family member. ↩︎
Shopkeeper (zhang guan 掌管) is a title, referring to the owner of a business. ↩︎
The original uses the term junzi, which is a Confucian term referring to a virtuous person. See wiki. ↩︎
I’m not 100% sure what’s going in this section. But see the baidu entry for some insight. ↩︎
TODO: Explain flower boats ↩︎
Bai’e’tan is an area of the Pearl River, located just south of Shamian Island (which has an english wiki entry here). Shamian Island is the modern-day name for Shicuizhou, which is the name that Sun Kecheng uses. ↩︎
A DV (Digital Video) is what we would more often call a video recorder ↩︎