Chapter 1 The day of departure in the prosperous age (six chapters) is approaching day by day, and the people of the Li family are gradually getting busier Li Mao specially selected the strongest of the three thin Turkic horses that he had sold back to be fattened and made money, and equipped it with a new chewing saddle to serve as a mount for his son.
Uncle Zhang Baosheng sent all the money he received from selling fur goods back to the Li family on the pretext of helping his nephew to pay for the expenses. Li Zhang pushed hard, but Zhang Baosheng finally only agreed to accept thirty pieces of meat so that he could give it to his wife. The rest of the money for running errands was forced into the hands of Mrs. Li Zhang, "We are poor and rich, no matter how hard it is, we will not be unable to expose the blame. When Xu Guan is away from home, an extra penny will give him more courage!"
"That's fine, when our Xu Guan makes money, let him sell you wine!" Mrs. Li Zhang took the sweaty purse and said with a forced smile. She turned around and immediately rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
"What are you doing? It's a good thing that he can go out to help the family. How can you keep him under your arm and protect him for the rest of his life?" Zhang Baosheng couldn't bear to see his sister sad and whispered to comfort him. He was also very disappointed when he heard that his nephew had abandoned school. , I wanted to come and have a fight with Li Mao to stop him from this short-sighted idea, but the mother-in-law at home said: No parent will harm his children. My brother-in-law must have some long-term plan for making such an arrangement, or... There was something wrong with this, so Zhang Baosheng had to force himself to congratulate him and see if his brother-in-law had any urgent problems that he couldn't solve and needed his help.
"His articles are well written and his words are neat. When the old man was still alive, he once said that Xuzi was a ridge of mugwort on the Li family's ancestral grave..." Mrs. Li Zhang whispered, wiping away the tears from the corner of her eyes with her hands. If the future of her son is affected, the mother cannot feel at ease no matter what (Note 1) "Alas! Everyone has their own life that is bleak for a while, who can tell whether it will be short or long in the future! This child Xu Guan was born with a blessing. "Don't worry, he will definitely have a chance to succeed in the future!" Zhang Baosheng pretended to be confident and explained mysteriously.
Mrs. Li Zhang stopped talking. Before her son left, he was most afraid of saying the wrong thing and spoiling his reputation. He knew that his brother was trying to comfort him, so he could only listen to his words of comfort as hope. Besides, his son was still young, who knew if there would be more. A good future is waiting for him!
Thinking of this, I felt a little more generous, so I put together the money I had collected from all my family fortune, put it into a small string of one hundred coins, put it in my luggage, ate it with dry food, and put my thick shirt and coat into a pile, so as not to be seen by people on the street. To show his evil intentions, he specially sewed a burlap bag outside the bag containing the copper coins. It was dirty, as if it was filled with rags.
When Li Mao came home in the evening, the couple had to go through everything again under the lamp. The winter clothes they wore to keep out the cold and the silk skirts they wore to prevent heatstroke reminded each other, and they gathered more and more until Li Xu "protested" from the side, saying, If they brought all the things with them, they would be able to overwhelm two mules. The couple smiled bitterly at each other and tried to think of ways to streamline their son's luggage.
"The man surnamed Sun is the ninth in the family. He is the easiest to talk to. But my father has been with him more than a dozen times. It is considered an old friendship. If you have any difficulties along the way, just tell him and tell him to call him Uncle Jiu. He will naturally understand. Look after you, a junior like you!" Li Mao suddenly became nagging like a mother-in-law, telling her over and over again. She had just cut out a pack of dried fruits for the road with her left hand from the luggage roll, and stuffed a larger pack of bacon into it with her right hand.
"Well, dad, don't worry, I got it!" Li Xu agreed every word, half believing his father's words. If Sun Jiu really had such a close relationship with his dad, why hadn't he seen him come home to drink water in all these years?
If it's just a business relationship, it's probably all for nothing. Everyone says that in business, you only care about money, not relatives, friends, or companions. Once things get out of hand, you have to rely on yourself for everything.
"It gets cold over there early. I've stuffed silk floss for you in your jacket. Remember to change it yourself. Don't try to hold on. Once your legs catch the cold, it will be a lifelong sin!" Mrs. Li Zhang shook out a thick new coat.
, rolled it into a roll again, hoping to reduce the size of the cold clothes. Old Li Mao looked tired from the sidelines, and reached out to help. The couple spent a lot of effort to compress the package containing the clothes by one-third of its volume, and thought for a while.
, and he took a leather jacket from the cabinet, which was commonly worn by Khitan people, and put it on the outside of the package.
"I know, don't put that leather jacket away. The smell is too strong and it makes me sick!" Li Xu ran over and prayed with a smile, "I will definitely remember to change into cold clothes and don't want the leather jacket. Otherwise, people will kill me."
Don’t think it’s a fool! Besides, this thing weighs twenty kilograms and can even weigh a horse down!”
"You are smart!" Mrs. Li Zhang gave her son a hard tap on the forehead. "The water dripping there turned into ice. If your ears froze off, you would be unhappy!"
"Hey, I'm such an adult!" Li Xu said smartly and confidently
Her parents remained silent and continued to work hard to make the package look smaller. Under the dim oil lamp, Mrs. Li Zhang shook out all the clothes inside and outside, no matter whether they were new or old, and sewed them all over stitch by stitch along the original stitching.
Old Li Maoze hunched his back and went through the valuable things again and again, fearing that he would leave something behind and cause his son to suffer on the way.
"You can't carry too many of these copper coins. A hundred or ten are enough, heavy and troublesome, and the sparse Hu tribe may not recognize them!" Li Mao pulled out the nearly a thousand copper coins that his wife had neatly numbered, and threw them aside.
"Then what does Xuzi spend? When you go out to do groceries, you always have to look good?" Ms. Li Zhang was stunned. The needle lost its accuracy and pierced deeply into her finger.
"Look at how panicked you are!" Lao Li Mao ignored his son by his side, grabbed his wife's injured finger, put it into his mouth, sucked hard for a few times, spit out the blood on the ground, and scolded: "What are you doing in such a hurry, hurry up and use it"
Rinse with salt water!"
"Then Xuzi's money..."
"Tomorrow I will go to the county to exchange all the copper coins for twill jacquard brocade. It is fine and bright in color. Women in the Hu people like it. When Xuzi goes to the grassland, he can directly exchange the brocade for their cattle and horses. As for daily expenses,
Just rely on those baskets of crude tea and exchange them with the barbarians for dried meat, milk tofu, mushrooms, and yellow flowers. One pound can be exchanged for a hundred pounds! Go and wash your hands quickly. Don't catch a cold on a hot day!"
Old Li Mao was a master of things. He knew how to barter with barbarians. Before setting off, he taught his son step by step how to memorize it. According to his estimation, the caravan left Shanggu on the ninth day of the lunar month. One and a half months later
But if you can get some fur goods in exchange for it when you reach the depths of the grassland, ask Sun Jiu and others to bring the Li family's goods and the blue and white mules back. As for Li Xu, he will use the excuse of waiting for the shipment next spring to find a friendly tribe.
Stay here first
In this way, after the busy spring next year, Li Mao drove his animals to look for his son outside the fortress. Whether it was the government recruiting soldiers or a raf, the father and son were nearly fifty years old and the other could not receive military orders. No one could do anything about them.
"Don't worry, I've heard that licorice is very cheap over there. When one of us collects it outside the Great Wall, and the other sells it in Shanggu, I'm sure we can make a lot of money! Then I'll lend some copies to my uncle, and my mother won't have to.
Smiling all day long!" Li Xu is full of illusions about life in Saishan. It doesn't matter if he loses the opportunity to take the imperial examination. The key is to find a way to revive his family. When the family is prosperous, there will be much less trouble.
As he thought about it, the smile on his face became brighter. He cultivated his moral integrity, managed his family, governed his country, and brought peace to the world. He didn't have the opportunity to govern his country and bring peace to the world. How could he still have the ability to make his family's life better?
"You make your own decision!" Lao Li Mao reached out and touched the back of his son's head, and said with a forced smile.
When Li Mao and his wife were packing their luggage for the twentieth time, Sun Jiu's caravan finally entered Yi County to ask for help. Naturally, Li Mao did not dare to neglect and booked the entire ground floor of 'Youjian Inn'.
The uncles Zhang Baosheng and Jinjin Zhang Liu who entertained Sun Jiu and Li Xu's future companions also used all their methods to stir-fry the hard vegetables until they crackled in the pot, and put more than a dozen dishes on the table, and then served Zhang Baosheng's secret dishes.
The water-shrinking old wine made Sun Jiu and others reach a state of dazzling familiarity in less than half an hour.
"Brother Damu, don't worry. If Xu Zi is wrapped around me and I, Sun Jiu, are with me, he will not be without a hair. If I, Sun Jiu, can drop a copper coin in my hand this time, your Li family will not only get half a cent!"
Pulling open the hood, Sun Jiu slapped his chest with his big hands.
"I don't expect to make much money. It's my first time to go out to do business. It's mainly an exercise for my weak legs and feet. I can't climb on a horse when it gets cold. If I weren't afraid of delaying everyone's business, I would go there by myself!" Li
With a smile on his face, Mao greeted everyone to eat. In a flash, he called Li Xu out and asked him to pour the wine for Uncle Jiu.
"Uncle Ninth!" Li Xu shouted politely, poured a bowl of wine, and raised his eyebrows. It was too unsightly for this group of guests to eat today, which shattered all his previous illusions about the caravan. No one in the room was wearing gold.
On the contrary, the elegant and elegant Lu Buwei, who wears silver, silk clothes and gauze hats, looks like a newly reformed bandit wearing shorts and long arms. The only one with a more elegant appearance is sitting at the window, looking like he has read some books.
, but his figure stood out in the caravan, not only conspicuous, but also with a sense of loneliness.
As Li Mao said, Sun Jiu from Hejian was a very cheerful man. He took the wine bowl raised above Li Xu's eyebrows. He was so bored every time that there was not even a drop left in the three bowls. He pointed at Li Xu and then at himself.
He said loudly: "My surname is Sun. I am the ninth in the ranking. Call me Uncle Jiu or Brother Ninth. I will follow you. But when you enter the caravan, you must abide by the rules of the caravan. We are responsible for our profits and losses when doing business. If we encounter trouble on the way,
Do you want to live or die? Can you do this?"
"Uncle Danyi Jiu!" Li Xu bowed down after hearing this and promised loudly
"Get up, this is not an official government, and we don't pay attention to this tone." Sun Jiu quickly stood up and pulled Li Xu, who was eager to do so, with force: "To be honest, everyone has gathered from all over the country. This time, Uncle Jiu is recommended to lead the team.
, I don’t know who to push next time, so no one is half shorter than the other. This time you worship me, and next time I choose you to be the leader, will I, the old sun, kowtow to you and return it?"
"Haha! Haha!" Everyone in the room laughed at Sun Jiu's words, and some people began to shout: "Don't listen to this old boy. He is afraid that you will worship him because he has a higher rank and he will not have any money to give you."
As a greeting gift!"
"Go, go, is my old grandson that stingy person?" Sun Jiu blushed because of the squeeze. He groped for a long time from his waist, took out a silver bean the size of a bullet and stuffed it into Li Xu's hand, "I can't let you scream in vain.
I’ve got Uncle Jiu, I’ll use this little bean to get my wife in the future!”
"That's impossible!" Li Mao jumped forward, snatched the silver beans, and forced them back into Sun Jiu's hands. "I've already caused you trouble. How can Xuzi take your money again? Besides, you, Sun, are nothing."
Rich boss, why are you so polite to your children?"
Even though the world is peaceful and the price of silver has dropped, one tael of silver on the market is still worth two cents. The thing is heavy, and a small bean is more than two cents. I asked someone to do something for me, but I didn't give him a gift, but I extorted four hundred cents from him first.
, even the county governor’s family has no reason to do this
"Brother Damu, you've got to know me. I'm older and he's younger. They're all running this business. It's not necessarily who will look after whom in the future!" Sun Jiu reluctantly stuffed the silver beans into Li Xu's arms. "
Take it, don't make Uncle Jiu angry!"
"How dare my nephew ask for a reward from Uncle Jiu!" Li Xu quickly returned the silver beans with body temperature to Sun Jiu. When Sun Jiu packed his bag last night, his mother told him that there were also a few silver beans sewn on the corners of his clothes, which were almost
All the savings of the Li family are common to all nationalities. No matter whether they are Hu or Han, if they are sent to any official in the family, he will take care of them for the sake of Marshal Zhao Gong (Note 2) "Brother Damu, just let me
Xu Guan took it. When have you ever seen Lao Sun give a gift and then take it back?" Seeing that the two sides could not stop fighting, someone at another table tried to help him.
This man was slightly younger than Sun Jiu, had a sparse beard, and his clothes were relatively clean. He seemed to be a well-spoken person in the caravan. However, Sun Jiu refused to accept his favor. He widened his eyes and feigned anger:
"Well, you little man Zhang, I was planning to take the money back after a few refusals, but you insist on causing me to lose money, so I can't just let it go. The silver beans are a meeting gift from me to my eldest nephew. You are both elders.
, I have to give out a lottery as well!”
"Brother Ninth, Brother Ninth, aren't you scolding me! Brothers, please don't do this, otherwise I, Li Damu, will have no shame in running this way anymore!" Old Li Mao was so frightened that he bowed. Although hosting a banquet is expensive,
Yes, but it was to maintain a good reputation for his son. After Sun Jiu interfered like this, the cost of food and drinks must have been returned, but his son's favor also weakened.
He refused to accept it, but everyone refused to agree, so they just drained the meat. Some people were unwilling and cursed Sun Jiu's ancestors in their stomachs, and had to take out two pieces of white money from their waists and give it to Sun Jiu.
Looking at Li Xu, he introduced the caravan partners to him one by one. Every time he introduced one, Li Xu poured a bowl of wine for the other person. The man became bored after a gulp, and then put the money for the meeting gift into Li Xu's hand.
After pouring a round of wine, Li Xu was so tired that his arms were sore. He collected nearly a hundred white money miscellaneously, and he almost recognized a familiar face to Sun Jiu. The man's surname was Zhang, and he was Sun Jiu's old partner.
, the temporary deputy leader of this group of caravans only gave a piece of free money. The scarred-faced man was named Du. He was a distant relative of the Du family in Hejian. The sinister-looking man was named Wang. The businessman wearing open-toe cloth boots was named Li.
, the big-eyed young man who is regarded as Li Xu’s family member and sits far away by the window. He is incompatible with everyone. His surname is Xu. His family is a wealthy man in Jun County. He owns land and countless shops but he does not know what terrible mistake he has made.
His parents were cruelly sent to the caravan by his father to gain experience.
Everyone gave Li Xu a meeting gift, and he became more open-minded when it came to eating and drinking. Some of them were narrow-minded, thinking about how to get the gift money back into their stomachs. They opened their cheeks and chewed hard for a while. There were loud orders in the inn, and they actually recovered to what they had been before.
In the lively scene, Li Xu was so noisy that his head was as big as a fight, and he couldn't leave the table. He could only drink a glass of wine slowly and think about it. In the next three years, he would have to be with these rough people, and he felt sad.
"Are you really going to go outside the Great Wall to deliver goods?" A low voice asked from behind.
Li Xu turned around when he heard the sound, saw the clear big eyes of the Xu family boy and smiled helplessly, and said: "My father is old, and it's very cold outside the Great Wall. If I don't go and work for him, what else can I do? Where's Brother Xu? There's so much at home.
There are many shops, you have to understand the affairs of the world, there is no place to stay, why did you run outside the Great Wall?"
"Oh, forget it! My father has newly married the seventh aunt. She is younger than me and I can't stand it, so I came out to relax." Xu Dayan smiled and explained the reason why he joined the caravan, "Besides, this season is said to be able to harvest
Good leather goods are very expensive in Central China right now? What do you think?"
Li Xu's heart suddenly jumped when he bit the word "fur goods", as if all his secrets were instantly seen through those big eyes. Thinking about it, the other party was only fifteen or six years old. There was no way he could have Old Master Yang.
With such knowledge, he managed to calm down and replied with a smile: "Just for the leather goods, the price of raw hides in Shanggu County has almost doubled recently. Let's go back quickly, maybe we can make a lot of money!"
"I don't want to go back so early!" Xu Dayan's eyes flashed, always with a fierceness that was not consistent with his age. "It's rare to come out once."
