Li Bao swung his stick in the air, and Zhou Fei disappeared like air. Before he could react, he felt a sharp pain in his legs, making him unsteady and fell to his knees with a plop.
The moment he swung his stick, Zhou Fei passed under his crotch and pierced two crossbow arrows into the crook of his knees. Zhou Fei twisted around like a leopard, "Crack!" twice, and removed Li Bao's arm.
.
Li Bao dislocated his arms, screamed, and fell to the ground. Everyone around him was stunned. Li Bao, who had always been extremely strong, was knocked down with one move.
The bandits screamed in surprise and rushed over with weapons raised. Li Bao suddenly shouted: "Don't come over, everyone go back!"
The bandits stopped one after another, and then they realized that the other party had a knife at the leader's throat.
Zhou Fei dragged Li Bao to the mountain col and handed him over to his men to take care of him. He picked up the crossbow and shouted to the bandits: "Who else wants to come up and try, I will accompany you!"
A bandit leader shouted: "That man, let our leader go, let's go our separate ways."
Zhou Fei said loudly: "I will let him go, not now. Before we leave Fukouxing, if anyone dares to mess around, I will kill him with one knife."
Zhang Lei immediately understood, this Zhou Fei is so powerful! He captured the opponent's leader as a hostage instead of killing the opponent. This is a smart way, otherwise if the opponent dies, none of them will be able to survive.
Zhang Lei also regained his energy, stepped forward, picked up Li Bao's iron rod, kicked Li Bao, and said with a grin: "Boy, make a decision quickly! I guess your second village leader is waiting for news of your death."
...........
Li Bao finally compromised and ordered his confidants to lead his men back to the village first. He was forced to become a hostage and followed Zhang Lei and his party on the road.
Li Bao, with both arms dislocated, was riding on a horse. Two of Zhou Fei's men were guarding him, one on the left and one on the right. Zhou Fei was riding at the back, holding a crossbow and arrows, and was vigilantly observing the movements around him.
Zhang Lei was very interested in Zhou Fei, so he deliberately slowed down his horse and rode alongside Zhou Fei.
"Xiao Zhou, what do you do in the army?" Zhang Lei asked curiously.
"For the record, proprietor, I was originally a scout captain."
"I see!"
Zhang Lei suddenly realized that Zhou Fei was a scout captain, no wonder he was so powerful.
But he became even more curious, "Who did you offend so that you were forced to flee Wei with your wife and children?"
Zhou Fei hesitated for a moment and decided to tell the truth to Zhang Lei.
"To be honest with the proprietor, I offended Tian Xu. To be precise, Tian Xu wanted to kill me to silence me. All my men were poisoned by him, and I was the only one who escaped."
"Why should I kill you to silence you?"
Zhou Fei smiled bitterly and said: "Frankly speaking, I don't know either. I guess some things may be related to the Tian brothers' fight for position, but I am just a small person. I don't know anything about the situation, and I don't know why he wants to kill me."
?”
Zhang Lei nodded, "Thanks to your bravery this time, I am safe and sound."
Zhou Fei quickly bowed and said: "Since I am responsible for protecting the proprietor, this is my duty, and the proprietor does not need to take it to heart."
Zhang Lei knew that it was too early to say something. He glanced at the burly Li Bao and asked, "What should he do?"
Zhou Fei smiled slightly and said, "Does the proprietor know why I can knock him down with one blow?"
Zhang Lei was stunned for a moment and asked in confusion: "What do you mean?"
"What I mean is that I have already studied this Li Bao. He is actually a chess piece planted by Zhu Si in the north of Xiangzhou. I originally received the task of annihilating him. I studied what happened in August last year.
This person was there for two months, but later Tian Xu picked 300 people from the Hu Ben Guards to form the Flying Eagle Battalion, and I was among them, so the mission of annihilating Li Bao was abandoned."
"So you know his weakness?"
Zhou Fei nodded, "His biggest weakness is that he likes to challenge others to show off the power of his iron rod."
Speaking of this, Zhou Fei couldn't help but laugh, "Although his upper arms are very strong, his lower body is unstable."
"Then do you think we should kill this person?" Zhang Lei asked, staring at Li Bao's back.
Zhou Fei pondered for a moment and said: "It depends on the standpoint. I used to be a Wei army. From the Wei army's standpoint, of course I have to pull out this poisonous thorn. But from the Jin army's standpoint, this poisonous thorn should still be kept."
Better."
It was Zhou Fei's last words that saved Li Bao's life.
Two days later, Zhang Lei and everyone left Fukouxing first. Zhou Fei took Li Bao's arm and returned the iron rod to him. These two days were a great shame and humiliation for him, but he also felt deeply for Zhou Fei in his heart.
of fear.
Without saying a word, Li Bao strode away dragging the iron rod.
Zhou Fei watched Li Bao's back walking away, and he still felt a little strange in his heart. Li Bao's men were dressed in shabby clothes and had messy weapons. They didn't seem to have Zhu Si's support.
And isn’t Chiyanzhai always located in the south of Xiangzhou? Why did it come to the north near Fukouxing?
Zhou Fei really couldn't figure it out, and he was too lazy to think about it. He shook his head and turned his horse's head, chasing Zhang Lei and his party who had already walked away.
.........
Entering December, Chang'an's business becomes increasingly prosperous. As the New Year approaches, the trading of various bulk goods is extremely active.
Chang'an's commerce not only serves the locals, it is also a material distribution center for Guanzhong and even the entire Jin State. Dozens of bulk goods such as grain, oil, salt, cloth, cotton, wine, tea cakes, livestock, etc. are sent from all directions.
Come to Chang'an.
At the same time, merchants from all over the Jin Kingdom purchased goods here and shipped them to various states and counties.
The West Market in Chang'an is particularly lively. Every day there is a bustle of people, people and carts are flowing continuously, and large bags of goods are loaded on mules or donkeys and leave Chang'an in a mighty manner.
Dongshi has also started to improve in the past few months. The main reason is that the Department of Household Affairs decided to move various machines, stationery, musical instruments, porcelain, pottery, lacquerware, woodware, jade, cloth, silk and other goods to Dongshi.
Especially cloth, which is the first major category related to people's livelihood in food, clothing, housing and transportation. There are many types, including coarse cloth, fine cloth, colorful silk, silk and satin, embroidery, Sichuan brocade, carpets, carpets, tents, boots, shoes and hats, and kapok.
, cotton, wool, sheepskin, leather, etc.
There are also auxiliary workshops such as clothing appraisal workshop, garment making workshop, quilt workshop, shoemaking workshop, tanning workshop, cotton ginning workshop, cotton tire workshop, etc., which were also moved to Dongshi.
This is also the inevitable transformation of the East Market. In the past, the East Market mainly sold high-end luxury goods. When the luxury goods failed to sell, the East Market and the West Market no longer focused on the difference in grade, but made adjustments in categories.
, transfer daily necessities that have nothing to do with food to Dongshi.
Although this kind of category transfer has caused the West Market to lose many shops, the benefits are also obvious. Not only has the East Market become active again, but there are more empty shops in the West Market, and the scale of many shops has also expanded. It is difficult to find just one shop in the West Market.
The demand situation has also been alleviated.
The shops on Xi'anmen Street mainly focus on retail, not wholesale. They are basically retail sub-stores of the West Market Stores, selling high-quality and specialty products. Their customers are mainly locals in Chang'an.
This gradually formed a pattern of wholesale in the East and West markets and retail in Xi'anmen Street.
As the New Year approaches, almost all the senior officials of the Counselor Hall have gone to inspect various markets. This is also Guo Song's request. All decisions cannot be divorced from reality. If you don't see many things in person and understand them on the spot, the decisions you make will be inevitable.
It will also be divorced from reality.
Guo Song took several of his entourage to inspect Dongshi. Adjusting the product categories was a major decision made by Guo Song in order to save Dongshi. The property rights of Dongshi and West Market were owned by the Department of Household Affairs. Only renting but not selling was the responsibility of the imperial court.
It has always been a tradition that as the landlord of Dongshi and the actual manager of Chang'an, the Jin Palace has the obligation to revitalize Dongshi.
Compared with the deserted situation a few months ago, the East Market is now very lively. Cloth shops, silk shops, silk shops, and cotton shops are all crowded with merchants who come to wholesale goods.
Guo Song came to the Cotton Shop. The Cotton Shop is also a long street with hundreds of shops, mainly selling cotton, kapok, cashmere, wool, duck and goose down and other goods. There are more than 20 shops in cotton alone, mainly selling stuffing.
Cotton, selling cotton tires.
In recent years, Anxi has begun to plant cotton and wheat on a large scale, and recently Beiting has begun to introduce Persian sugar beet. Once the planting is successful, sugar will appear in large quantities, which will greatly improve the lives of the people in the Central Plains.
Cotton cultivation is very common. The military has already popularized it. Now it is widely used by civilians. The price of cotton has also dropped from the original price per catty to a hundred cents per catty. Even the lower class families in Chang'an can give it to everyone in the family.
Make a cotton-padded jacket.
Quilts and pillows have long been popular among middle-class families. As for wealthy and powerful families, they mainly use kapok and down. In the final analysis, the emergence of cotton is mainly to meet the needs of middle and lower-class people. Before the emergence of cotton, kapok and down have always been winter clothes.
The fillings for bedding and bedding are expensive and are only used by the upper class, but the middle and lower class people cannot afford them.
After the emergence of cotton, high-quality and low-cost winter supplies finally became available, which greatly improved the quality of life of middle- and low-income people.
However, cotton cloth cannot compete with linen cloth. The main reason is that cotton production has not yet fully increased. Now the middle and low-income people in some big cities such as Chang'an and Taiyuan use cotton, but there are also various small counties and vast rural areas.
Central Plains, the wider area in the south.
Therefore, as a filling for winter clothes and quilts, cotton is still in short supply, and we have not yet considered using it for large-scale weaving.
It was rare for Guo Song to be so leisurely, strolling among the bustling crowds and watching bales of cotton being shipped out of the store.
At this time, he saw a group of people surrounding a shop, discussing something in low voices. Guo Song stepped forward and discovered that it was a cotton gin shop with eight pedal cotton gins operating at the same time.
Guo Song was surprised to find that the cotton gin was a little different from the cotton gin he originally designed in Gaochang. The principle was the same, but the workmanship was more exquisite and ingenious. Originally, a log was used to rotate to squeeze out the cotton seeds. Now the log has become
It is a copper rod as thick as a calf. After the copper rod squeezes out the cotton seeds, the cotton seeds will roll out along a chute next to it, and a basin will soon be filled.
One worker was spreading lint cotton evenly on three copper rods, and another worker was stepping on the wheel, which rotated with the copper rods. This cotton gin was very efficient and could finish ginning ten kilograms of cotton very quickly.
At this time, someone behind him suddenly slapped Guo Song heavily on the shoulder.