The day of departure was approaching day by day, and the Li family gradually became busy. The big blue and white mule that Li Xu usually rode to school could not run fast and could only be used to carry goods, not to ride people. Therefore, Li Mao specially assigned himself to this The strongest one was selected from the three thin Turkic horses that had been sold back to be fattened and made money, and equipped 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 that day 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 as a gift. The rest of his wife's money for running errands was forced into the hands of Mr. Li Zhang, "We are poor and rich, no matter how hard it is for us, 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. As soon as she turned around, she 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 comforted him in a low voice. Hearing that his nephew had abandoned school, he also I was very disappointed and 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 their children. My brother-in-law must have some long-term plans with this arrangement." Plan, or there is something wrong with it!" So Zhang Baosheng had to force himself to congratulate him, and take the opportunity to see if his brother-in-law had any urgent problems that he couldn't solve and needed his help.
"He writes well 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..." Ms. Li Zhang whispered, wiping away the tears from the corners of her eyes with her hands. Having no choice but to ruin her son's future, the mother cannot feel at ease no matter what. (Note 13)
"Alas! Everyone has his own destiny. Who can tell what the future will be like if it is bleak for a while! This kid, Xuguan, was born with a blessing. Don't worry, he will definitely have a chance to succeed in the future!" Zhang Baosheng pretended. He looked confident and explained mysteriously.
Mrs. Li Zhang stopped talking. Before her son left, he was most afraid of spoiling his speech by saying the wrong thing. Even though he knew that his brother was trying to comfort him, he could only listen to his words of comfort as hope. Besides, his son was still young, who knew what would happen in the future. There will be a better future waiting for him!
Thinking of this, I feel a little more relaxed. I put together the money I collected from my family, put it into a small string of one hundred cents, put it in my luggage, ate it with dry food, and put my thick shirt and coat into a pile. I was afraid of people on the road. Seeing the malicious intent, 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 protect themselves from the heat reminded each other, and they gathered more and more together. Until Li Xu "protested" from the side. He said that if he brought everything with him, it would be enough 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, and he is the easiest to talk to. Dad has been with him more than a dozen times, and we are considered old friends. If you have any difficulties along the way, just let him know. Call him Uncle Jiu. He will naturally take care of you, a junior like you!" Li Mao suddenly became nagging like a mother-in-law, giving instructions over and over again. His left hand had just cut out a pack of dried fruits for the road from the luggage roll, and his right hand stuffed a larger pack of bacon. Got in.
"Well, dad, don't worry, I got it!" Li Xu agreed without a word, half-believing his father's words. If Sun Jiu really had such a close relationship with his dad, why hadn't he come to his house to drink water in all these years?
?If it's just a business relationship, it's probably a waste of money. Everyone says that in business, you only care about money, not relatives and friends. They're just companions. Once you get out of trouble, you have to rely on yourself for everything.
"It's getting cold over there early. I've stuffed silk floss into your jacket. Remember to change it yourself, don't try to hold on. Once your legs get cold, it's a lifelong sin!" Mrs. Li Zhang shook off a thick jacket.
The new clothes were rolled into rolls again, hoping to reduce the size of the cold clothes. Old Li Mao looked tired and reached out to help. The couple spent a lot of effort to compress the package containing the clothes by one-third, thinking
After thinking about it, I took a leather jacket from the cabinet and put it on the outside of the package.
"I know, don't put that leather jacket. The smell is too strong and it makes you sick!" Li Xu ran over and prayed with a smile. "I will definitely remember to change into cold clothes and don't need the leather jacket. Otherwise, I will be a bad person."
You can’t think of me as 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 dripping water over there turned into ice, and if your ears froze off, you would be unhappy!"
"Hey, I'm such an adult!" Li Xu said smartly and confidently.
The parents remained silent and continued to work hard to make the package look smaller. Under the dim light of the oil lamp, Mrs. Li Zhang shook out all the clothes inside and outside, no matter whether they were new or old, and sewed them stitch by stitch along the original stitching.
All over the place. Old Li Maozi hunched his back and went through the valuables again and again, fearing that he would leave something behind and cause his son to suffer on the way.
"You can't bring too many copper coins with you. A hundred or ten are enough. It's heavy and troublesome, and the sparse Hu tribe may not recognize it!" Li Mao pulled out the nearly a thousand copper coins that his wife had neatly numbered and threw them aside.
superior.
"Then what does Xuzi spend? When you go out to do groceries, you have to look good, right?" Ms. Li Zhang was stunned, and her stitches lost their accuracy and pierced deeply into her fingers.
"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, and the women of the Hu people like it. When Xuzi arrives on the grassland, he can directly exchange the brocade for their cattle and horses. As for daily flowers,
To sell, I just rely on those baskets of crude tea. I trade dried meat, milk tofu, mushrooms, and yellow flowers with the Hu people. 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, and how to barter with the barbarians. Before setting off, he taught his son step by step how to memorize it. According to his estimate, it took one and a half months for the caravan to leave Shanggu on the ninth day of the Lunar New Year.
Then we can reach the depths of the grassland. If we can get some fur goods in exchange, we can ask Sun Jiu and others to bring the Li family's goods back together with the blue and white mules. As for Li Xu, he used the excuse of waiting for the delivery of goods next spring to find a place to treat others.
The friendly tribe stayed 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 to them.
"Don't worry, I've heard that licorice is very cheap over there. When the time comes, one of us will collect it outside the Great Wall, and the other will sell it in Shanggu. I'm sure we can make a lot of money! Then I'll lend some copies to my uncle, Mom.
You don’t have to have a sad face all day!" 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 have 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 himself, managed his family, governed the country, and brought peace to the world. He didn't have the opportunity to govern the country and bring peace to the world. How could he still have the ability to make his family's life better?
"You make up your own mind!" 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 the city of Yi County. Li Mao naturally did not dare to neglect when he asked for help, and booked the entire ground floor of 'Youjian Inn'
, entertained Sun Jiu and Li Xu’s future companions. Uncles Zhang Baosheng and Jinjin Zhang Liu also used all their methods to stir-fry hard vegetables until they crackled in the pot. More than a dozen dishes were placed on the table and served.
Zhang Baosheng's secret method of 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, Xuzi is on my side. As long as I, Sun Jiu, are here, he will be a loser. This time, if I, Sun Jiu, can drop a coin in my hand, your Li family will not only get half a cent."
!" Pulling open his short coat, Sun Jiu slapped his chest with his big hands.
"I don't expect to make much money. It's the first time for my children to go out to do business. It's mainly for exercise. My legs and feet are weak and I can't climb on the horse when it's cold. If I weren't afraid of delaying everyone's business, I would go by myself!"
"Li Mao greeted everyone with a smile and asked them to eat. In a flash, he called Li Xu out and asked him to pour the wine for Uncle Jiu.
"Uncle Ninth!" Li Xu called out politely. He poured a bowl of wine and raised it above his eyebrows. Today's table of guests was really unsightly, and all his previous illusions about the caravan were shattered. The house was not full.
There is a romantic and delicate figure like Lu Buwei in gold and silver, silk shirt and gauze hat. On the contrary, all of them are dressed in shorts and long, full of flesh, and they look like newly reformed bandits. The only person with a more elegant appearance is sitting at the window, looking like
I had read some books, but his figure stood out in the caravan, not only conspicuous, but also full of loneliness.
As Li Mao said, Sun Jiu from Hejian was a very straightforward man. He took the wine bowl from Li Xu and raised it above his eyebrows. Every time, he was so stuffy that not a drop was left. After three bowls were stuffed, he pointed at Li Xu and then pointed at him.
He said loudly: "My surname is Sun, ranked ninth. Whether you call me Uncle Jiu or Brother Ninth, I will follow you. But when you enter a caravan, you must abide by the rules of the caravan. We are businessmen who pay attention to profits and losses.
You are conceited, but you must persist in life and death when encountering trouble on the road. 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 bow down, with force: "To be honest, everyone has gathered from all over the country. This time, Uncle Jiu is recommended to lead
Team, I don’t know who to push next time. So no one is half shorter than the other. You worship me this time. If I choose you to be the leader next time, will I, Sun, kowtow to you and return the favor?"
"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 as a senior and he will not have money to give you a meeting gift.
Son!"
"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.
Uncle Jiu, this little bean will be used to marry a wife in the future!" (To be continued)
