Taiping Inn

The winter outside the pass is particularly cold. No matter how old or young, they wear big fur clothes early, with heavy leather boots on their feet, and a leather hat that can cover their ears on their heads. Only one face is exposed on their body. It is cold. The wind was frozen red.

The more you go north, the colder the weather becomes. The so-called "snowflakes are as big as fists" are not exaggerated words. Logically speaking, this kind of weather should be that few people go out, but in Kuyang Town, it is a lively scene with people coming and going.

This town is not on the map of the Great Wei, nor on the map of the Jin Horde, because it was originally a wasteland, because it was on the only way from Liaodong to the Jin Horde, and there are often brigades of merchants. This camp attracted many small vendors to come here to sell food products. Over time, this place became a town.

Now Liaozhou is fighting, but the trade between Liaodong and Jinguan has not stopped, even if the war is everywhere, even if horse thieves are rampant, even if heavy snow is blocked. There is a saying that goes: Some people do beheading business, but no one does lose money. As long as it is profitable, there will inevitably be someone who will take risks. As long as you make enough profits, you can take life and death lightly. There are cattle and sheep and horses on the grassland, and there is a lack of iron, tea and salt. Although the imperial court strictly prohibits the private sale of salt and iron tea, there are countless smuggling merchants who have traveled to and from the border since the two countries closed down their trade.

Zhao Zheng was aware of this, but he could only turn a blind eye. Not to mention that a considerable number of these smuggling merchants are under the names of the major Liaodong tyrants. Even if he really banned smuggling, The inability to see results in a short period of time will make the Jin Horde more and more aggressively attack Liaodong. Now that Liaodong has a tense relationship with the imperial court, it is actually using the power of one place to fight against the Jin Ting and one country. If it is caught in a full-scale war In the situation, it is very unfavorable.

In short, under various "difficulties", this Kuyang Town survived and became an extremely special existence. However, although Zhao Zheng did not eradicate Kuyang Town, he did not allow Kuyang Town. He sent people to station heavy troops here, which not only maintained order, but also strictly investigated merchants. If you want to do business, you can, but you have to find out your identity and origin. , which is equivalent to Zhao Zheng completely taking this place into his own hands. The reason is also very simple. Instead of letting these businessmen scattered everywhere, it is better to concentrate them for easy management. Whether it is tax collection or banning in the future, it will be much simpler. For businessmen, since Zhao Zheng did not do anything, they were willing to make a step back and agreed to Zhao Zheng's jurisdiction over this place.

Li Xuandu, wearing a marten cloak, stood outside the town and pulled out a road guide from his sleeve. This is an identity that Mr. Yan specifically forged for him. All kinds of information are available. Except for Li Xuan, they are all fake, and the others are all real. Even Qingluanwei cannot find any flaws, and the person who knows this identity is , no more than two-handed numbers, including Zhao Zheng, Mr. Yan, Jing Xiu, Qin Daoyuan, Qin Su and others. Of course, Qin Su disagreed with Li Xuandu's risk, but since Li Xuandu had agreed, she would not mess around. She could only ask Li Xuandu to be careful in everything and carefully prepare clothes for him for going out.

The identity of Zhang Luyin, named Qin, was named Qin Xuance. He was born in a side house of the Qin family. His parents died early and were raised by his uncle. Recently, his uncle also died of illness, so he went out alone.

Is this identity high or not? Although I am a relative of the Qin family, I have no elders to rely on. I am not much worse than Miss Qin. It can be said that it is not low either. After all, it is from the Qin family. Without direct conflicts of interests, others are still willing to sell the Qin family to a bit of respect.

At the same time, Li Xuandu also carried 10,000 taels of gold with him. After all, when he arrived at the gold account, the money was too conspicuous, and silver notes were not universal. Most of the transactions there were for goods to be exchanged for goods, such as a sheep could be exchanged for Half a pack of tea, so the necessary gold, silver and copper coins are very necessary. Sixteen taels per kilogram, and ten thousand taels is 625 kilograms. Even if Li Xuan has the "Eighteenth Floor", it is stuffed with half of them. .

Gold has no color, and white jade has a slight flaw. There is no red gold in the world, but human power can barely create red gold. Taiping Sect specializes in this business and extracts red gold from ordinary gold. Its quality is 100% or 99% or 90% of it is still available. Therefore, the price of red gold is about three times that of ordinary gold. Now one or two red gold is available on the market. Exchange about thirty taels of silver, while ordinary one tael of gold can be exchanged for nine taels of silver. Ten thousand taels of gold is one hundred thousand taels of silver.

This gold was not paid out of his own pocket, but was proposed from the Qin family's warehouse, nor was it asked Li Xuandu to do business. Instead, if necessary, you can use this money to buy some of the powerful people in the royal court. After all, it is bitter and cold, which is not as rich as the Central Plains. It costs 200,000 taels of silver to respect the elders of the imperial court. In the royal court, half of the gold tent should be enough, or even less.

In addition, it is just a weapon with you. The more money the business makes, the more it can attract the desperate. Therefore, on the way from Liaodong to the Jinzhang Wangting, horse thieves were rampant, including people from Central Plains and grasslands, but many caravans were not cattle and sheep that could be slaughtered. , they all organize their own escorts, and the so-called "Step Sword" is probably the case. Sometimes, the caravan's military power is too strong and they will do something bad and eat bad things, which is similar to the maritime merchants of Qingwei Sect. In this case, naturally everyone carries weapons with them, and even has bows, crossbows, armors and other items strictly prohibited by the government. Only those with empty hands are aliens.

Li Xuan would never hang the "human world" around his waist, which is even more alien than not carrying weapons. So he slightly decorated Hu Liang's "grandmaster" and hung it around his waist, just like a single person. A swordsman who travels around the world.

The town was surrounded by wooden fences, with two entrances and exits, one in the south and one in the north. At these two entrances and exits, soldiers in armor were stationed for inspection. All the caravans that wanted to enter the town lined up on the dirt road outside the town and waited quietly.

The long queue of people waiting in line moved slowly but in an orderly manner. There was no scramble, and no one cut in line, because these soldiers from Liaodong Iron Cavalry were crossbows. Anyone who dared to make trouble here would become a hedgehog in an instant. Moreover, there was a cavalry unit patrolling not far away, and they could kill immediately with just a charge.

Soon they arrived at Li Xuandu. When the local commander saw the pass shown by Li Xuandu, he smiled a lot. After all, in Liaodong, everyone knew that the Zhao family and the Qin family would prosper together and suffer together. They were soldiers of the Zhao family, but they ate the food of the Qin family. To be honest, this young master Qin from the Qin family was also a family.

Since they were a family, they couldn't help but chat a little more. Li Xuandu asked about the customs and practices of the Golden Tent. Perhaps because the general had finally met someone with whom he could chat, he took Li Xuandu to the tent to rest nearby, poured him a cup of hot tea, and started to chat slowly.

Holding the teacup, the captain said with a smile: "Master Qin, have you seen this tea? It's not the best tea, but it costs two coins and one tael of silver. It was given to the brothers by the passing merchants. The brothers below are all rough people and can't tell whether it's good or bad, so they gave it to me."

Li Xuandu took a sip: "The tea is good, and your job is not bad."

The captain smiled and said: "Of course it is good, much better than those brothers who followed Marshal Qin to kill the enemy. But then again, if I hadn't been shot in the knee and had a limp, I wouldn't be dealing with these merchants here, and I would have followed Marshal Qin to kill the enemy long ago. By the way, I forgot to ask just now, which Qin is Master Qin?"

Li Xuandu smiled and said: "It's the Qin family of Chaoyang Prefecture."

The captain said: "The Qin family's caravan is the most generous, but it only comes once a month."

Li Xuandu said: "After all, the Qin family The bulk of the business is still on the sea. "

The captain said with envy: "That's right, I heard that the eldest daughter of the old Qin family has finally been promised to someone, and her husband is from the Li family that controls the East China Sea. His family is also rich, not inferior to the old Qin family. Now the old Qin family has the North Sea, and the old Li family has the East China Sea. If the two families marry, the business will be bigger than the sky. In addition, our Qin master is going to marry Mrs. Bai from the South China Sea, so he is really rich. "

Li Xuandu coughed lightly: "Yes, when several families marry, they will naturally be rich enough to rival a country."

The two chatted for a long time, and the captain told Li Xuandu many precautions on the grassland, such as how to avoid horse thieves and how to pay attention to the black-eating-black of the caravan. Li Xuandu was not afraid of these, but there was an important news that still aroused his interest. According to the merchants who came and went, the demand for silk and porcelain in the royal court has increased greatly recently. This made Li Xuandu immediately think that according to the news from the Governor's Office, the birthday of the old Khan's princess was approaching.