The starry night passes, Taibai comes out of the east, at the end of Yin and the beginning of Mao, there is a stone tower station.
At this time, a hint of fish belly white had just appeared on the horizon. Three groups of business travelers who were traveling at night to avoid the scorching sun rushed to the vicinity of the post station with their camels and horses. Following the direction pointed by the arrow on the tall guide pole, they entered the yard through the gate of the post station.
This newly built inn covers an area of nearly seven acres. It is surrounded by earthen walls and the gate is built in the style of a city gate. The courtyard, which was so quiet and uninviting a moment ago, has now become a noisy mess.
There were the jingling of camel bells, the scolding of the team leader by scolding the crew, and the greetings of old acquaintances. The postmen in the post station ran out and shouted hoarsely to maintain order.
"Who is that! Your team, take the camels to the stables on the east side! No need to unload! Don't you have to be on your way tonight?"
"Isn't there a warehouse in the west? Can you let me store the goods in the warehouse? I will pay you, and there is a batch of goods over there in Yangguan waiting for us to go back and pick it up!"
"No, the warehouse is already full! Our boss only has half of the goods!"
The leader of the caravan sighed, regretting that he had not caught up with the good time for the merchants to repair the inn. By the time he got the news, it was already too late. I heard that the imperial court had given the permanent use rights of the desert warehouse to the merchants. People who have been traveling all year round knew that
It is not easy to have such a warehouse in the middle of the Khotan Road. Two caravans can be used to transport the goods separately to improve safety, and the prices of seasonal goods can also be adjusted.
Order will always be restored after the noise. These vendors, wearing leather felts and plain silk, squeezed into the hall of the flat-roofed house, sitting huddled next to the mound table. The room was so crowded that there was no room to put their feet.
The postmen passed the strange-smelling camellia soup over people's heads in trays.
Occasionally, someone would take out two or three Tong Bao from the bag in his arms and pass them over, shouting loudly: "Give me a bowl too!"
"okay!"
The temperature difference between day and night in the desert is huge, and the merchants traveling at night are shivering from the cold. At this moment, there is a bowl of hot oil tea in front of their faces. The rising white air warms their faces, and also warms their hearts. No matter how many things happen during the journey,
No matter how hard you are, you are still happy at this moment.
Even the voices of the village party members became much warmer when they spoke, and they began to chatter all over the place, mixed with some dirty words, which aroused everyone's understanding laughter, and even the air became much more relaxed.
Someone mentioned the inn thing and sighed: "This time the Governor's Office is engaged in commercial repairs of the inn, it will bring convenience to us business travelers."
"Yes, yes." A group of people with Guanzhong accents echoed there.
"Not only does it give us convenience, I heard that the merchants who built the inn will also make a lot of money in the future. Not to mention getting a permanent warehouse, how much money will we earn from our businessmen running the business in the past ten years? Let's not talk about anything else.
The bowl of oil tea in front of you is just fried noodles with mutton oil. It only costs less than 30 yuan per kilogram, so you can make 20 to 30 bowls of it. We charge us 5 yuan for a bowl. Then you calculate the profit inside and outside.
How much money do we have? How many merchants travel on the Khotan Road every year, and your boss will make a fortune just selling camellia!"
"Yes, yes."
The peasant took a nice lick and asked the postman who was running back and forth: "Do you think so, buddy?"
The postman raised his chin arrogantly, as if he was proud of his boss's foresight. He also had the energy of being a good guy after getting a bargain, and said calmly: "Why don't you tell us how much our boss spent to build this post station?"
Money, how many people have been used, and two yaks alone have been exhausted, so this business will not be a loss."
The village party began to argue: "We all know very well how much money can be spent to repair the inn. Your boss will not be able to make back the profit in two years. If I cut off my head and serve as a night pot for you, the remaining eight years will be pure oil and water."
"
The business travelers around started to echo: "Yes, yes."
The postmaster, who was lying on the counter settling accounts, took his time and poked his head out to join the debate: "Don't just talk about us, aren't you also making a lot of money? All the merchants who have been doing business on the Khotan Road in the past three months, who are these few?
It’s not a full month. In the past years, eight out of ten times you transported goods to Qixi were delivered to the sand bandits. On the remaining two trips, you encountered a few morally minded gangsters and left half of them for you.
.Unlike this year, dozens of camels can transport all the goods to Khotan, exchange them for gold, ivory, spices, carpets, transport them back to Chang'an and resell them, and you can make a lot of money."
The village party member narrowed his smile and said in a long tone: "Well, I won't refute what you said. This is a great benefit that has not been seen in ten years. This also deprives us of the kindness of our Guanzhong fellow, General Li Siye. He is riding a black horse and holding a hand in his hand.
Mo Dao, with only hundreds of Tang troops from the Anxi Army, killed seven people on the Khotan Road, killing those bandits who had been stabbed a thousand times until they were pissed off, and their corpses were scattered all over the field. It is said that the number of bandits who died under his hands was as high as
Thousands."
"That's right. The Anxi Protectorate has not cared about the life and death of us on the trade road for many years. Since the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, when the Du Siam Governor built the Khotan Road Station and took action to clean up the sand bandits once, in the following ten years, the Gobi
Bandits were rampant in Shangsha, and all the envoys in Khotan Town despised the trade routes and valued military exploits. They would rather attack the cavalry than clean up the trade routes. Now, thanks to General Li, he personally led more than a hundred Anxi troops.
The elite soldiers have carried out a large-scale purge of the sand bandits in the Gobi desert, and we traders can have some hope of survival."
"Yes, yes, thanks to General Li's intervention, we can make money."
A businessman sitting cross-legged in the corner, wearing a felt hat, with his hands in his sleeves and squinting his eyes, was sitting steadily. He had not interrupted just now, but now he suddenly asked: "I heard you guys boasting so evilly, have you ever seen this person before?"
General Lee."
"Hehe," the township party laughed dryly: "Of course I haven't seen it, but I have a cousin who has. He led a caravan and was almost robbed by sand bandits. Fortunately, General Li led the Tang army from halfway.
By fighting out, their caravan can have both people and goods."
He turned around proudly with a glance at the corner of his eyes and asked the businessman huddled in the corner: "Your Majesty just asked this question. Do you think you have met General Li?"
The merchant plucked his sleeves and raised his neck and said loudly: "Of course I have seen him in person, and he was not far away. I have seen him all."
"Hey! Bragging."
Most people don't believe this. General Li comes and goes in a hurry like wind and lightning, like a dragon that sees its head but never its tail. Those who have seen him can only take a rough look at him from a distance. It is not easy to see him so close. But no
It would be a relief to prevent them from listening with curiosity.
"I've really seen it." The merchant squinted his eyes and said calmly.
"You said you've seen him before, so tell me, what does General Li look like?" Xiang Dang asked, raising his goatee and chin, as if trying to find a flaw in his words.
All the business travelers also pricked up their ears and leaned sideways to listen.
"General Li, he is eight feet tall, with broad shoulders and a broad body. He rides a black horse, a black horse. What he wears is not the bright light armor or golden mountain armor you talk about, but the silver-green mountain armor.
Wen Jia, wearing a phoenix-winged pouch on his head, carrying a nine-foot Mo Dao, and a horn bow hanging on the saddle. The leader is not the Mo Dao team, but the most elite Qiuci Tiaodang Camp in Anxi."
Everyone was unanimous and surprisingly did not refute, because the man spoke in a decent manner and did not sound like he was bragging.
The merchants and travelers all sighed: "General Li is the patron saint of our merchants on the Khotan Road. If he cleans up the desert bandits, the business roads in Qixi will be prosperous for a while."
"That is, if I go back to burn incense during the Chinese New Year this year, I should not just offer it to the Taijun and the God of Wealth, but also burn one to the protector of our Silk Road."
A postman couldn't bear it anymore and said to himself: "What does this mean? Even the major matter of repairing the post station was personally promoted by General Li."
"Really?" Everyone stretched their necks towards the postman again.
"Of course! General Li took action to clean up the bandits, not just to protect the trade routes, but also to protect the post station under construction from being attacked by bandits. Our boss was present at the time."
At this time, there was a sudden knock on the door. The postmaster who was lying on the counter felt that the guy was talking nonsense. He frowned and ordered: "Qiu Liu, go outside and take a look. Is it right?"