1928: The rise of giant merchants

French Consulate General in Shanghai.

Cao Fan drove a Rolls-Royce Phantom and parked in the parking lot reserved for senior officials of the consulate. Ye Luo saw that Verdi's Ford was not there, so he and Fan Juli were probably still sightseeing.

This honeymoon trip is too long.

The three of them got out of the car and walked straight into the consulate.

Seeing it was Yello, the French soldiers at the door immediately stood up and saluted. One of them ran in and informed Verdy's secretary. After a while, a young blonde ran out.

"Mr. Ye, thank God, I was just about to send someone to find you." The blonde patted her undulating breasts, her face full of nervousness and uneasiness.

Ye Luo smiled and walked inside: "What's wrong, Virgil. Let's talk while walking."

"Mr. Ye, something bad has happened! The Consul General and his wife were kidnapped by bandits in Taihu Lake!" Secretary Virgil whispered in French and welcomed Ye Luo into Verdi's office alone.

Seeing that Shi Jianqiao and Cao Fan were also coming, she hesitated, but Ye Luo waved his hand: "It doesn't matter, they are my bodyguards. I can't be alone in a room with anyone. They can't understand French."

"That's good." Virgil reluctantly let the two Chinese people enter the office, and then ran to make a cup of coffee for Ye Luo.

Cao Fan knew very well how much these foreigners looked down on the Chinese. Not to mention ordinary Chinese like them, even the tycoons in the concession could not catch the eyes of the foreigners. But now he saw this blond girl making coffee for the second young master and moving chairs, and he was stunned. .

Shi Jianqiao was not surprised. He sat down and asked, "Second Young Master, what happened? Why is she so panicked?"

"The French Consul General Verdy and his wife were kidnapped by water bandits in Taihu Lake." Ye Luo took a sip of coffee and said calmly.

He had known about this for a long time, but he just didn't remember when it would happen.

Unexpectedly, by coincidence, Ye Luo was planning to come to the Consulate General to talk to someone about Chen's gauze factory, when he happened to come across the case of the Verdi couple being kidnapped.

"Taihu Water Bandits!" Cao Fan was stunned for a moment and said quickly, "The Taihu Water Bandits are just those groups, Lao Wei San, Liu Ershuizi, Pan Stutterer, and Wu Shikui who came out of the army a few years ago. I don't know. Which force captured the ghost guy?"

"Virgil, tell me the specifics." Ye Luo smiled at the blonde.

Virgil handed the information and telegram to Ye Luo: "The Consulate General received the message last night. Someone left a letter at the door during the night. At first we thought it was someone joking. We have encountered similar things before. They said they kidnapped the consulate staff’s relatives and wanted a huge ransom.”

"But this morning, we received new news. That channel is more reliable. The Consul General was indeed kidnapped by water bandits in Taihu Lake!" Virgil was unclear, but his expression was very nervous. "The specific matters are in the documents. Mr. Ye, please take a look."

Ye Luo estimated that the French had a secret spy organization in China just like the Japanese invaders, but they were not as arrogant as the Japanese invaders.

Since the matter is brought upon themselves, it can be seen that they have used all available methods, but still cannot solve the problem.

He opened the file and looked at it carefully.

The bandit leader who kidnapped the Verdi couple was named Wu Shikui, and he was one of the people Cao Fan mentioned.

Three days ago, the Verdi couple arrived at Taihu Lake and were taking a boat trip in the vast expanse of smoke. Suddenly, a wave of water bandits armed with guns and knives appeared. They roared over, hijacked the boat, and tied the two of them deep into the mountains.

Fortunately, Fan Erdi is a blond and blue-eyed foreigner. Even a murderous water bandit would not dare to offend a foreigner easily.

After all, no one knows who this foreigner is. If he kills a high-ranking official, the foreign army and the national army will kill them all without risking their lives.

Man dies for money and bird dies for food. Wu Shikui didn't want to make things worse. Seeing that the two of them were dressed luxuriously and carrying hundreds of thousands of belongings, he asked Fan Juli and learned that this ghost guy turned out to be the Consul General of France in Shanghai. , Wu Shikui proposed to redeem the two people with a ransom of 50,000 oceans.

Fifty thousand oceans is just a small amount of money, and Virgil is worried that Wu Shikui and other water bandits will harm the Verdi couple, or they will directly quarrel after taking the money.

She couldn't bear the huge responsibility of the accidental death of the Consul General.

After thinking about it, she decided to settle the matter with Ye Luo first and try to minimize the impact of the matter.

After all, it would be bad for the consulate, Verdy, and the National Government to spread this kind of thing. The fewer people know about it, the better.

If Ye Luo can't solve it, then she can only ask the city government to ask Zhang Dingyao to send troops to encircle and suppress the Taihu water bandits.

In that case, the Verdi couple would probably be in even worse danger.

"I understand, I will take action on this matter, don't worry." Ye Luo nodded, then looked at Cao Fan, "The kidnapper's name is Wu Shikui, do you know him?"

"We know each other!" Cao Fan couldn't help but nodded, "He is from the 11th Army, and he has a deep friendship with Brother Hengsan. Wu Shikui's group of water bandits are from the army, and like us, they can only do this kind of work if they can't survive. , usually does not harass ordinary people, but only targets rich people, high-ranking officials and foreigners."

"Is his background clean?" Ye Luo asked again.

Cao Fan shook his head: "I have to ask Brother Hengsan."

"Okay, I understand. Let's go find Hengsan immediately." Ye Luo nodded, then looked at Virgil, "Ms. Virgil, don't worry, I have found clues and promise to bring the Consul General and his wife back to Shanghai as soon as possible. "

"Great, Mr. Ye! I hope to rescue them as soon as possible. I can only hide it here for a week at most." Virgil breathed a sigh of relief. She had heard about Ye Luo for a long time. He was a Chinese tycoon that was praised highly by the consuls general of various countries. She I'm still very relieved about him.

"Okay, just leave it to me." Ye Luo stood up and without further ado, after saying goodbye to Virgil, he took the two of them into the car and went straight to the industrial park on the outskirts of the county.

On the way, Ye Luo asked some more questions about the banditry in Taihu Lake.

Most of these water bandits do all kinds of evil, but no warlord is willing to exterminate them. After all, that group of people bully the weak and fear the strong, and dare not deal with the warlords. They only dare to rob the surrounding fishing villages and merchants' merchant ships. Because there has been no one to govern them, this group of people has crossed He became more and more arrogant, and his actions became more and more outrageous.

Wu Shikui was an outlier among them. He and his men had military backgrounds and were relatively restrained in their work. Unlike Old Wei San, who once had a disagreement and bloodbathed a small fishing village, killing more than a hundred people in the village until only three or four households were left.

Ye Luo thought for a moment. He didn't expect to be able to reason with such desperadoes. The top priority was to rescue the Verdi couple first.

Hearing that these water bandits were so arrogant and inhumane, Shi Jianqiao clenched his fists and looked at Ye Luo.

Ye Luo nodded slightly to her: "These people won't be able to dance for long."