Republican Era: Identifying Ginseng in Manchuria, I Dig Up Every Divine Root in Changbai Mountain

Qu Shaoyang opened his eyes to find himself a hotheaded young man from Shandong, heading northeast to seek his fortune. He felled trees in the mountains amid snow and ice, then rode timber rafts through treacherous rapids and out to sea. It was dangerous work, with his life always on the line.

Then, deep in the old forests of Changbai Mountain, he rescued a badly wounded veteran ginseng hunter. With his dying breath, the old man pressed a yellowed ginseng manual into his hands. It recorded everything from identifying and digging up ginseng to cultivating it, along with several wild ginseng patches deep in Changbai Mountain that no one had ever discovered. From then on, the mountain and river trades were merely covers. Whenever the rafting crews came ashore to rest, he would slip alone into the old forest and follow the markings in the manual, bringing century-old ginseng roots out of the mountains one by one.

At the Andong ginseng market, Japanese merchants used their shops to force down prices, and the old ginseng farmers dared not speak up despite their anger. Carrying his first five-tael wild ginseng root, Qu Shaoyang walked into one of their shops. After examining it, the Japanese merchant looked up at him. "Which mountain did this root come from?" Qu Shaoyang turned to the next page of the manual, where dozens more ginseng patches were marked. There was enough for him to dig for twenty years.

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This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.