The exception was the He Lingchuan brothers, He Chunhua did not give it to them.
Wu Shaoyi picked up the bamboo tube and shook it. There was something rustling and solid inside, quite a few but not large in size. "This is it?"
"Can you tell if you open it and take a look?"
Everyone pulled the plug, and a strong smell of tobacco overflowed.
Wu Shaoyi said in surprise: "Chewing tobacco?"
He took out a piece, put it into his mouth and chewed it slowly, while nodding: "Okay, okay, it's really top quality! Thank you, sir."
He Yue could only watch helplessly: "Father, where did this come from?"
"This is a specialty of the Bejia Kingdom. It has been sent here from the north." He Chunhua took a piece without chewing it and just played with it in his hand. "Dayuan has an agreement with the Bejia Kingdom and purchases a lot from there every year."
Things, chewing tobacco is just one of them. Now that the border line has reached Xiazhou, the task of sending people to the border depot to pick up the goods will fall on me. In addition, I just found out today that the official post in Xiazhou is also
It must be provided to Bega merchants first; if the Bega caravan is robbed, local officials must investigate and get to the bottom of it."
The main function of the official post is to serve the messengers. If they don't provide drinking water, food, accommodation and horse exchange, how can X Baili be expedited? However, the Yuan Kingdom actually has an agreement with Bejia, and the official post cannot refuse the Bejia caravan to stay.
This kind of privilege is not available to the citizens of this country.
Zeng Feixiong, who did not smoke cigarettes, frowned: "What's so difficult about chewing tobacco? Why not produce it yourself?" Transporting it all the way here is time-consuming, labor-intensive and expensive.
"The things produced in Bega are of the best quality and are the most popular. You see, this bamboo tube is made of the jade bamboo unique to the south of Bega. It is as bright as jade and can be struck like gold. Some people even use it to make musical instruments.
The outer skin is only a thin layer and is light in weight." He casually weighed the jade bamboo tube and said, "Look at the chewing tobacco produced in Yuan Kingdom, what kind of packaging they are in, and what kind of quality they are, huh?"
Zeng Feixiong was speechless.
"I've been in Shihuan these days and I've seen nobles using Bega's chewing tobacco in their social interactions, which shows how popular it is. The bamboo tubes they use are even painted with gold for fun. Rich private businessmen also use Bega's chewing tobacco.
To entertain guests, to show financial strength." He Chunhua weighed the bamboo tube and said, "Such a small tube costs one tael of silver, and the further south you go, the more expensive it becomes. If it is chewing tobacco with gold tubes, the quality is higher and the price is higher.
times."
"This tobacco leaf has no impurities. It is first smoked and then roasted, and soaked in honey. It tastes really good!" Wu Shaoyi was very intoxicated. "I used to chew all the shitty stuff!"
He used to be a mud-legged person, so what kind of good tobacco can he chew?
He Lingchuan's heart moved when he saw it.
This kind of sapphire bamboo tube looks familiar. When he received the military merit reward in Panlong Dreamland, wasn't this the thing he got?
In Panlong City, there are people who collect this kind of bamboo tubes, process them and sell them for money.
Yes, the chewing tobacco distributed by Panlongcheng Pengcheng Bureau is only slightly different in color and shape from what everyone has in hand, but it was a product more than a hundred years ago, and it is normal for the technology to have improved over such a long time.
In other words, the chewing tobacco distributed to the soldiers in Panlong City was also produced by Bejia!
Hey, he seems to have heard Hu Min say that Panlong City also does business with the Bejia Kingdom, and the annual trade volume is quite large.
This country's foreign trade is really very developed.
He Chunhua sighed again: "Of course the most important reason is that the Yuan Kingdom has to buy. How much to buy every year and at what price are all written in the agreement. As natural and man-made disasters have continued in recent years, we buy from the Bejia Kingdom
There were less things, and the payment was not timely, and the Bega Kingdom was very dissatisfied."
If it were the real Mr. He here, he might directly ask "Why do I have to buy it?"
So He Lingchuan did the same thing.
He Chunhua did not answer directly. He was silent for a few breaths before saying: "It accepts Xunzhou's Year of Shepherd's Praise just to give us eye drops."
He coughed again: "We will face a more complex new situation after arriving in Xiazhou, and this is one of the troubles. I say this so that you can have a sense of security. No matter how we fight with Nian Zanli, Bejia and we are
You can’t be offended easily. Okay, let’s get down to business now.”
He nodded to Lao Mo, the housekeeper beside him, who immediately went out and led someone in after a while: "Master, steward Qian is here."
Then Lao Mo closed the window and went out to guard the door for everyone. After all, this is a post house, so be careful that the partition wall has ears.
He Chunhua pointed at the newcomer dressed as a businessman and said: "This is the steward sent by the Zhu family to Dunyu to take care of business. He has been in Dunyu for twenty years and is more familiar with the capital of Xiazhou than the locals."
"Mr. He is so flattering." Manager Qian bowed to everyone around him and smiled kindly, "I have met all of you, sir."
"At my request, Mr. Zhu specially ordered him to come from Dunyu to explain to us the situation in the city. This will prevent you from being unfamiliar with the place after I enter the city and have no way to proceed."
After he returned Zhu Xiuer to Zhu Xiyan, he established a pure friendship with the Zhu family. The Zhu family also had business in Xiazhou, and they also pointed out that the new general manager could help him, so they naturally tried their best to meet his reasonable requirements.
He nodded to Manager Qian: "Tell me, how is the war on the northern front and how is it in Dunyu City?"
Manager Qian spoke eloquently.
He Lingchuan knew that the war on the northern front of the Yuan Kingdom was not going well, but he did not expect such troubles.
Nian Zanli, who was the former general who conquered the north, took the entire Xunzhou to defect to the Northern Demon Kingdom, so the northern front line suddenly moved from the south of Xunzhou to the east of Haozhou. You must know that Xunzhou has been the border line for many years, and Haozhou's
However, the soldiers did not have much experience in fighting the enemy. As a result, the resistance here was weak and they were defeated by Nian Zanli in less than a month.
With the Nian Zan ceremony gaining momentum, the battlefield unsurprisingly reached the southern part of Haozhou.
It is already close to the border between Haozhou and Xiazhou. As long as Nian Zanli captures the last three cities in the south of Haozhou, he can bring the war to Xiazhou, which is He Chunhua's territory.
Nian Zanli should also know the news about He Chunhua being transferred to the northern border. This former border general was probably eager to avenge the murder of his son and launched wave after wave of offensives in the southern part of Haozhou.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Currently, the one holding the southern part of Haozhou is Zhao Pan, the general stationed by Wang Ting. I heard that he and Nian Zanli have their own victories and defeats, so they can temporarily hold back the latter's southern invasion.
footsteps.
There is no doubt that Zhao Pan needs the full support from the rear.
There is no doubt that he encountered the same troubles as Ke Jihai:
Logistics is weak and supplies are in short supply.
Xiazhou was at the rear of the battlefield and had the unshirkable responsibility to bear a large part of the military supply. Wang Ting repeatedly ordered Xiazhou to fully cooperate.
"My family is in the fabric business in Dunyu. Originally, we mainly dealt in silks, satins and furs. After the war started in the north, Dunyu had to cooperate with the whole city to transport cotton cloth and rush to make cotton clothes. My family did the same." Manager Qian sighed, "General Zhao before the winter.
We urged for 30,000 winter coats, but now the spring snow is almost melting, and only more than 7,000 cotton-padded coats have been raised for the front line, less than 40%."
He Yue frowned: "Can't all the materials for the war be raised by Xiazhou?"
"Xiazhou is the closest to the front line, and the tasks assigned to it are also the heaviest. More than 3,000 pieces of cotton-padded clothes alone were assigned. We spent a lot of effort to complete the task, and we still paid for the goods and labor money out of our own pockets. The officials have not yet
Reimbursement." Manager Qian continued, "It's just the lack of clothes, the gap in food is bigger. I heard that a camp was bombed on the front line, and some soldiers were so hungry that they defected to the other side's camp at night."
If the morale of the army is unstable, the battle cannot be fought well.
Mo Zhe Jingxuan asked him: "Didn't Xiazhou have good weather and good harvest in the past two years?"
"Yes, so Wang Ting asked Xiazhou to send food to the front line nearby to meet the urgent need. But after sending food three times, Dunyu's largest granary suddenly caught fire."
"I heard about it in Shihuan. Hundreds of thousands of stones of food were burned down." He Chunhua said expressionlessly, "After the king received the news, he was so angry that he smashed two cups and couldn't sleep all night."
Who can not feel heartbroken if the food that can feed the front line for a year and a half is destroyed by a fire?
There were a few frozen autumn pears soaked in the basin on the side. He Lingchuan took one casually and heard Manager Qian smile: "How can there be hundreds of thousands of stones? 90% of them are empty. The villain has reliable information. Originally,
There is only 20,000 shi at most inside."
"At most!" He raised two fingers. "No one knows the exact amount, not even the people in charge of food. After this fire, it calmed down."
Zeng Feixiong couldn't help but ask: "Where did the food go?"
"The grain in Dunyu Granary has been rarely used in recent years, so every year after the autumn grain is harvested, it is only left empty in the granary, and then smuggled out, and even the old grain is used to replace the new grain that has just entered the warehouse." Manager Qian said, "
Last year, we didn't know that General Nian would commit treason, nor did we know that Xiazhou suddenly turned around and became a front line. A lot of grain was sold to Xunzhou, and the warehouse was severely short of money."
Several generals were very angry: "In other words, the other side will eat our rice and kill our people?"
"Who is the leader?" He Lingchuan gnawed on a pear, "There must be someone in charge. He has been working for more than a year or two, once or twice, right?"
"Dunyu is the ancestral home of Mr. Li Dushan, Minister of the Ministry of War. All his family members are here and make a big living. The government does not dare to provoke them at will." Manager Qian swallowed, "Baoxiang, the largest grain company in Xiazhou,
The owner’s surname is Liu, but the actual controller is the Li family.”
"They didn't dare to make a big fuss at first, and it was just a small matter to exchange accounts for food. But after doing this for several years, everything went smoothly. Others were jealous and imitated others. Everyone came to change, and the accounts became more and more chaotic.
, the inventory in the warehouse is getting less and less."
"This grain official should be killed." Wu Shaoyi said in a serious tone, "Hey, it's still a familiar trick and a familiar taste."
He used to be under Hong Xiangqian's command. Didn't the rebel army rise up to resist because of several years of floods and droughts in the south, and the royal court's exorbitant levies? They had seen these chaos, these tricks, and these tactics many times in the south.
Now that he has become an official and a soldier, the corruption in reality remains the same.
He Chunhua nodded.
As the saying goes, you can only tell when you see a small thing, not to mention that Dunyu's old bad debts have turned into a big hole.