Past events in the ancient city----Hua Hui

This is not the flower viewing in the garden or the flower expo you imagined, and it is certainly not the temple fair or incense fair. Huahui, this seemingly beautiful word, actually refers to the popular gambling project in ancient times (pre-Qing Dynasty) - Huahui Gambling.

Du Niang explained its meaning: The Flower Press Club is a popular gambling game among the people in the former Qing Dynasty. The names of the bets were the names of thirty-four people. Each name is given a mythical color and personality, as if it were a character in a folk song or novel, and stipulates the seat, conflict, and defeat of each character. For example: Lin Taiping, famous place, Feilongjing, Zhao Kuangyin reincarnated, became emperor, to Yuangui, sit upright and obey the sky, sit in peace, rush to auspicious rank, lose only virtue. The owner of the altar chooses a god's name, hides it in the tube, and hangs it high in the meeting hall, which is called Hanging Flower Meeting. The gamblers identify themselves as one and put the money into the cabinet. If they win, they will get thirty times the profit.

The elders on the island said that the real betting method of the Flower Betting Club they knew when they were children is very simple. The banker (the flower betting head) sets out thirty-six possibilities, which is divided into thirty-six doors. , also known as "Thirty-Six Flower Branches". Each time the dealer predetermines one of the flower branches as the winning number, gamblers place bets on the flower branch of their choice in advance, with no limit on the amount of money they can place. If the bet is successful, the bet will be equal to thirty times the bet during the flower party. If the bet is not successful, all bets will belong to the banker who set up the flower party.

Regarding the anecdotes of "Hua Hui Gambling" in the early days, there were several legends in the old days of the island.

Legend has it that one year (before New Year's Eve), a man from Tongshan who was an official abroad (there is also another story that it is the story of Prime Minister Cai) returned to his hometown to visit relatives, and relatives of the same clan came to visit him one after another. , inviting him to participate in the flower club and have fun.

The gentleman who came to the Huahui Casino actually didn’t know how to bet. He happened to see the flower branch code written "Taiping" (actually Lin Taiping) in the gambling equipment. The master thought that it would benefit the officials, and the common people prayed for good weather, luck, and peace, and secretly praised the "words" of the branches! So he casually placed a bet on "peace". The family members who followed him heard the "good news" from the master, and they also followed suit and raised their bets.

When the flower fair opened for betting, it happened that the flower branch that the master and his relatives bet on that day happened to be "Taiping". According to the rules of Huahui Gambling, one loses 30 times, and everyone wins a lot, which suddenly "overturns" the "payment" of Huahui Gambling (referring to the wealth of the gambling banker), and the gambler of Huahui Banker immediately Lost all the family fortune. Since then, flower club gambling on the island has disappeared, and people live and work in peace and contentment.

Legend 2: At that time, there was a local neighbor named "Black-faced Tunzi" who was obsessed with participating in flower fairs and gambling. Unfortunately, he often had "bad luck" and would lose every time he gambled, so he worked hard and devoted himself to it. Study the patterns of flower branches and branches. One day, there was a gambling day for the flower club, but something happened unexpectedly. He couldn't rush to the flower club casino in time. Unexpectedly, it was a coincidence that the flower club that happened to be opened was exactly the "branch number" he had "calculated" to bet on. He was so anxious that He immediately lost his mind and went crazy at the Huahui gambling site. He ran down the street and shouted: "Three-eight two thousand, three-eight two thousand"...

"Black-faced Tunzai, three-eight" Two thousand five”. Since then, it has become a mocking saying among people on the island, targeting someone's wishful thinking or whimsical behavior.

There is also a familiar jingle circulating among the people on the island that mocks flower club gambling:

It means that in those days, the thrifty housewives who were addicted to flower club gambling " He tried every means to save money for "housework money" (daily household expenses) and used it to participate in flower clubs and gambling; he even ignored his own dignity and couldn't even afford ordinary hair care cosmetics, so he just used aloe vera mucilage to deal with it.

The jingle is a jingle that uses vivid images and humorous sentences, which is full of satire on Huahui gambling. But from another perspective, it does prove that the people on the island were enthusiastic about participating in flower clubs and gambling, which was a relatively common social phenomenon.

"Gambling is the root of all evil." According to the older generation, when flower club gambling was popular, the gamblers were so obsessed with money that they gathered together all day long to "study and analyze" as if possessed by a demon, and feudal superstitions naturally became prevalent. With the rise of people, the superstitious belief in gods and ghosts has also arisen. In order to bet on winning numbers, gambling people gather in small groups and do not think about their real work. They spend all day praying to gods in their dreams, praying to Buddha for divination, reading fortune tellers, and doing everything possible to find a way to win the winning numbers. Some go to sleep next to tombs or in temples and ancestral halls to entrust their dreams, and then connect what they see in their dreams with the made-up "huama crooked poems" to draw fortunes and realize their dreams, hoping that if they win the lottery, they will become rich.

Legend has it that gambling on flower gambling has been popular on the island for 30 to 40 years, and it slowly faded out of people’s sight before liberation.

The smoke-like past of the ancient city has been scattered over many springs, summers, autumns and winters. Nowadays, some criminals in society use this form of gambling, which is similar to Huahui, to defraud other people's money as the peripheral black bookmakers of the Hong Kong Mark Six Lottery.

According to reports, in Hong Kong, in the early days of Hong Kong, in order to crack down on flower club gambling, the colonial government began to hold the Mark Six Lottery in 1975. The purpose was to regulate illegal activities among the people, and the proceeds gained It is allocated for charitable purposes, so Mark Six Lottery is legal in Hong Kong. The underground Mark Six Lottery in Mainland China, to put it bluntly, is purely a gambling activity pretending to be the Hong Kong Mark Six Lottery, allowing illegal elements to take advantage of it, defrauding gamblers who follow the rules, and making huge profits!

From this point of view, Huahui Gambling should be the predecessor of the "Mark Six Lottery".

But whether it is flower club gambling or illegal Mark Six lottery peripheral gambling, gambling is inseparable from greed. The word gambling comes first and greed is the basis. The bad gambling habit of flower club gambling has now evolved into folk "Mark Six Lottery" gambling. Over the years, people have often heard of so-called "successful" examples of how someone "made a fortune overnight" by participating in gambling; many more are indeed tragic cases of gamblers suffering the consequences.

Regarding the bad habit of underground gambling, the people on the island also have "fighting sentences" (rhyming) to warn and ridicule:

"The word gambling has a knife on the head"! I hope those who gamble will avoid it and those who see it will avoid it.