The layout and appearance of the Shiwu tribe are mostly the same.
The difference is only in size and location.
The salt seller was still young when he first came to Shiwu as a merchant. He paid a lot of money to become a "master" and the first business he did was with the Tata Fungus tribe. As a tribe adjacent to Yonggu Pass, the Tata Fungus tribe
The scale and strength are both above average.
Being close, the news is keen, and spring hunting is convenient.
You can often eat the first wave of "fat meat".
Caravans from the customs also like to come here.
Many young people from Shiwu who have no fixed assets will seek refuge because of these advantages. Over time, they will become stronger.
only--
After the battle at Yonggu Pass, life began to become difficult for the Shiwu people, including the Tatamu'er tribe. Passing through Yonggu Pass is the most convenient and smooth trade route for smuggling, but now that Yonggu Pass is closed, 90% of the goods in the pass cannot come through.
.
10% left?
It was brought by smugglers using other remote and dangerous trade routes, bypassing the Yonggu Pass. Since the wool comes from the sheep, labor costs have increased sharply, and the cost of goods has also increased accordingly. A tribe of their size cannot grab those pieces even if they want to buy them.
Big tribe.
The tribal leader was very worried.
They even sent young men to look for unguarded city walls near the border to see if they could drill a hole and sneak across.
result--
Before he even got close, he was discovered by the Yongguguan garrison.
He abandoned the corpses of two unlucky ghosts and fled back in embarrassment.
On this day, I heard my boy shouting outside the tent.
"Daddy, daddy, the caravan is coming!"
The tribal leader immediately became energetic.
"What? Are you really here?"
When I got out of the tent, I saw that it was really a caravan.
The leader of the caravan is still a familiar fat man.
He instantly put on a smile: "Good brother!"
The salt seller also smiled flatteringly, stepped forward, opened his arms, and gave the bearded tribe leader a big bear hug.
The palms of his hands were slapped on the back, making a muffled sound.
Tribal leader: "It's been a long time since I saw you here."
The salt seller said with a smile: "Of course it's because there is a happy event at home, and it takes a lot of effort to take care of the mother-in-law and the children. Recently, I have been lucky and got a batch of good goods. I don't care about my brother's previous kindness. I immediately
Will it be delivered to you?"
The tribal leader is not stupid either.
He put his arm around the salt seller's shoulders and whispered to the side.
"Don't they all say that the man named Shen has cut off your financial resources and will not allow you to do this business anymore? How did you get here?"
The salt seller also lowered his voice: "My son has made a fortune and got a job in a government office... It's good for him to take care of his biological father."
The tribal leader was shocked: "Aren't you afraid of being discovered?"
The salt seller looked like "You don't understand now" and chuckled: "There is a saying in Guanzhong that 'money can make ghosts grind'. There are many things that are not allowed by the higher authorities. Who would use money to open up connections?
Are you stupid enough to report it to the police and cut off your own financial path?"
The tribal leader was right after thinking about it.
Asked again what good stuff was available this time.
The salt seller showed him one of the cars.
Open it, and you will find regular pieces of salt wrapped in waxy oil paper and tied in a beautiful knot. The salt seller carefully took out a piece, opened it, and twisted a handful for the tribal leader to taste. The tribal leader had seen good products and tasted more.
It's a bright spot.
He asked hurriedly: "How much will it cost?"
The salt seller stretched out a hand with his fingers spread wide.
The tribal leader hesitated: "It's a bit expensive..."
"These are all good things! Do you know that refined salt costs the same amount even if it is stored in the customs?" The salt seller compared the big numbers with one hand and patiently persuaded him, "You also know that the goods can't come in now. I'm selling it.
This number is already for my brother’s sake.”
Tribal leader: "Is there anything else?"
The salt seller said, "Yes, yes, yes."
Although he is a salt seller, he does not only sell salt.
This time the volume of goods was too large, so he left most of it in a relatively safe place. He took some goods and manpower to the Tata Fungus Tribe for trading. He opened a few more boxes, which contained other goods.
Daily necessities.
The tribal leader was moved, but he couldn't bear it down.
The salt seller learns with emotion and moves with reason.
"Big brother, after all, you are not the only tribe that needs this, why don't you join forces and eat this batch of goods together? You also know that the wind is too tight now, and that Lord Shen is mean and violent. If he is caught once, he will
Why haven't I been stripped of my human skin and lit up as sky lanterns? This trip is really not easy. Even with my protection, we still have to feed those jackals in Yonggu Guan."
The tribal leader hesitated.
There is so much shortage now.
Although the price offered by the salt seller is high, it is not too shady and is quite friendly compared to the sky-high prices smuggled in from other trade routes.
If you miss this time, you don’t know when it will be next time, but the balance in your heart will already have a result.
"OK!"
He gritted his teeth and agreed.
I just looked at the salt seller with a bit of cruelty in his peripheral vision.
The salt seller looked shy and pretended he didn't see it.
If it were in the past, smugglers like them would not dare to speak loudly and follow the market conditions, otherwise it would easily lead to death and loss of both people and goods - Shiwu does not know how to talk about credibility in the business world, let alone the integrity of business.
reason.
Kill, just kill.
But now, the caravan can't get in.
These tribes, which cannot compete with the big tribes, still hope to get the goods themselves, and they will not kill them no matter how unhappy they feel.
Tribal leader: "But brother, it takes time to raise money."
"It doesn't matter, I can wait."
The tribal leader asked people to collect the payment, and he returned to his previous laughing and cheerful appearance, and even enthusiastically allowed the salt seller to look around.
In the distance, you pass a stable.
The salt seller saw a female horse-washing slave kneeling on the ground, her face covered with dirt showed a bit of peace and tranquility, and she was praying with her eyes closed devoutly. The tribal leader followed his line of sight and looked over, smiling evilly: "Why, is this slave girl tall?"
Very beautiful?"
Salt seller: "..."
Logo?
I can't say these two words without conscience.
The female slave had unkempt hair and a brown face, and was almost unrecognizable. As an old Jianghu, he naturally knew some customs of Shiwu, and could see through the identity of the woman at a glance - because in every tribe there were more men than women, and women were extremely
There is a shortage of women, and "shared wives" is popular in middle- and low-scale tribes. One woman serves her father and son or several brothers. In this way, there are not enough women, which causes the extra men to become hidden dangers. In order to appease these hidden dangers, the tribes will spend money to buy them.
A few cheap slave girls.
This kind of female slave has a low status. She is either infertile, or she is old and loses her luster... common to single men belonging to this tribe.
Their lifespans are short. From the time they are bought into the tribe, some live for a year and a half, and some live for three to five years...
The horse-washing slave girl in front of me is obviously one of them.
The salt seller felt sympathy but could do nothing.
"I'm just curious about what she's doing..."
The tribal leader spat with an unhappy look on his face: "I don't know when it started, but these slaves began to talk about their ancestors at all times." Especially when a man came to find this slave girl, the slave girl always scolded her with a look of pain on her face.
For example, the ancestor saved the earth, was selfless and benevolent, fair and honest, and loved his people. He himself was a member of the Golden Crow family and had a noble bloodline. To treat her like this is to take an evil path and betray the ancestor. These unscrupulous descendants will definitely be punished or something.
The tribal leader looked disdainful: "Other slaves were also led astray by her, and they are no longer as active in their work as before."
Haha, if it weren't for the short supply of suitable ones, this horse-washing slave girl would have been beaten to death with a horse whip.
The salt seller was startled for a moment, then remembered something.
Unnaturally echoing two sentences.
"Bringing someone astray? Wouldn't that be troublesome?"
Why do these slave girl's words sound familiar to you?
He remembered that these seemed to be the contents on the Heavenly Stone Tablet in the Shiwu Refugee Valley. Out of curiosity, he memorized a few paragraphs. Unexpectedly, after the Shiwu ancestors appeared, the contents of the inscriptions would be transmitted to Tata Mu'er so far away.
The tribal leader wrote lightly: "What's the trouble? Slaves are slaves. If they don't obey, just beat them to death."
The salt seller responded with a smile on his face, but trembled in his heart.
As soon as he received the payment and the inventory was correct, he left without stopping, fearing that he would be slapped by the tribal leader if he left late.
The tribal leader didn't know what he was thinking, but waved goodbye: "Good brother, if you have something good to remember, please remember us."
The salt seller agreed happily.
"Easy to say, easy to say!"
Seeing his back that was on fire as he ran away in a panic, Yu Zi curled her lips and said, "You are a timid person, but the master you just arranged was very smooth, and you just opened your mouth."
The salt seller wiped away his sweat with a guilty conscience.
He smiled and said: "The common people are just trying to deceive that person. They don't really slander Lord Shen. Even if they have the courage to give 10,000 people, they would not dare to do it! Moreover, the Shiwu Foreign Race is the most capricious. If he regrets it midway... this, this common people
Just this life, if you lose it, you can't get it back...You just saw the appearance of the slave girl, can the common people not panic?"
"snort!"
When talking about female slaves, Yu Zi's mood darkened. She thought of the time when her mother-in-law was abducted and sold to the first family. She became a shared wife with her father and brother, was trampled and humiliated, and could not survive or die - how different was she from that female slave?
resemblance?
Yu Zi took the salt seller to meet Lu Jue, who was guarding the goods. The latter was sitting in the truck, with a military book rolled up in his left hand and reading it with gusto. He raised his head when he heard the movement and asked with a smile: "Why? Look at Wei Heng's interest.
If it’s not high, is it because the business didn’t work?”
Yu Zi: "I got all the money."
"Why is that?"
Yu Zi talked about the horse-washing slave girl and wondered: "There is such a shortage of women, why don't you treat them well?"
Lu Jue himself had been a slave and understood very well.
"Who told you that you will cherish whatever you lack? They don't lack women, they lack young women who can give birth to children. They want the children born from that body, and they don't just want to be a 'woman'. Moreover, no matter how well a woman lives,
Well, if the child can be born, why should we bother to treat him well? Women who are old or unable to give birth are even more of a burden and waste food rations."
Yu Zi pursed her lips stubbornly.
Lu Jue murmured softly: "Men are actually the same."
Yu Zi looked at him.
Lu Jue took out an exquisite small drum with a golden handle from a pile of goods. The drum head was made of a special material.
"Weak people are regardless of gender. As long as they are weak, they will be trampled on. Either they become a literal meal, or they are skinned and boned to make a human skin drum like the striker. It is considered a kindness of the master to die from labor.
." Lu Jue threw the human skin drum back, suddenly thought of a detail, and asked, "You just said that the female slave 'led' many slaves?"
Yu Zi nodded: "Yes."
Lu Jue thought for a while with a calm expression.
"Let's go to the next place. Pay attention to the slaves of that tribe and see if they are like this..."
