In the next few days, everyone in Liuliba took action separately. Integrate the forces of various villages in Jiguan Mountain and establish a joint defense consultation meeting to prevent bandits. Ouyang Xuan takes the lead and Lu Dezhi handles the details. Ouyang Xuan ordered Yang Xiucai to write a letter in the name of Chongqing Prefecture's inspection along the mountain, inviting each village to come to Liuliba for discussion. A total of fourteen village owners came as scheduled. In this Jiguan Mountain, in addition to Wanjiaping occupied by Liuliba and Xiongben gangs, there are also seventeen small and large cottages such as Goujiaping. No one was sent to Liuliba to attend the meeting this time, and no one was sent to Yanfeng Village and two nearby small villages. This Yanfeng Village is located in the deep mountains, eighty miles away from Wanjiaping and fifty miles away from Liuliba. According to common sense, the further away from Wanjiaping, the less afraid of bandits and the more motivated to participate in joint defense. However, according to the people of Liuli Village who were sent to deliver the letter, the leader of Yanfeng Village, Zhong Chui, not only tore up the letter in person, but also Threaten nearby small villages not to go to Liuli Village for the meeting. Although most of the villages ignored Zhongchui's threat, there were still two small villages that did not dare to come because of fear. Ouyang Xuan learned from Lu De that Zhong Zhui was originally a rogue. Bandits in Wanjiaping went everywhere to rape and rape village girls, and the villagers shunned him. Instead, he gave his daughter to Xiong Ben as a concubine. Although Xiong Ben did not fall in love with Zhong Chui's daughter and gave her to his subordinates, he felt that her loyalty could be used. After looking for an opportunity to kill the original leader of Yanfeng Village, he made Zhong Chui the leader of the village and controlled the surrounding area. Several small cottages help collect "taxes". Zhong Chui himself was strong and powerful, and with Xiong Ben as his backer, he acted more and more domineeringly and did a lot of bad things.
At this joint defense meeting, the village owners accused the Xiong Ben gang and Zhong Zhui of their evil deeds, and demanded that the Pili Army eliminate all evil in order to relieve the suffering of the people. When Ouyang Xuan heard these words, he understood the thoughts of these village owners. On the one hand, they had been oppressed for many years and hoped to get rid of Xiong Ben's oppression; on the other hand, like the Liuliba official army and the Wanjiaping bandits, both sides were harmed and they could create their own village. It's better to be domineering and arrogant internally than to live a free life. In the eyes of these village owners, there is no difference between the official army and the bandits. After the village leaders finished speaking, Ouyang Xuan brought up the main purpose of the meeting - joint defense. That is, if one village is attacked by bandits, the other villages will send troops to help. This is actually the establishment of a military alliance. As for the issue of lax armaments raised by each village, the Liulichai capture team can send instructors to conduct military training. If the weapons are not enough, they can also buy them at a preferential price from Liuliba - the sword, gun and shield left by Xiong Ben, the captain of the transportation brigade, after his last defeat. There is a lot left, and now that the blacksmith shop has expanded, it can also produce some of it.
It is said that there are many villages in the participating villages that have iron ore, but the scale is too small, and the smelting and forging level is much worse than Liuliba. It is barely enough for making farm tools, but it is too unsatisfactory for making weapons. , which is also an important reason why each village was suppressed by the Xiong Ben gang. As for the proposal of some of the village leaders who attended the meeting to gather their troops now and attack Wanjiaping in one fell swoop, Ouyang Xuan responded that he wanted to take action slowly. On the one hand, with the current strength of the Perak Army, they have enough defense but not enough offense. Only after the light artillery trial production was successful, Ouyang Xuan would consider attacking Wanjiaping. On the other hand, he had to use the threat of the Xiong Ben gang to complete the integration of the forces of each village. The village owners felt that Ouyang Xuan's suggestion not to requisition grain from each village, but to buy and sell it to the public if necessary, seemed to be a natural fit. In the minds of the mountain people, Xiong Ben is a bandit because he imposes taxes. Is it possible that the officers and soldiers will also become bandits? Receiving military training from instructors is something every village dreams of. Only the required weapons needed to be purchased. Although it was at a discounted price, the village owners still felt that Ouyang Xuan was stingy and felt quite unhappy. However, after careful consideration, each village still placed arms orders one after another. After all, in these troubled times, only those with arms can protect the safety of the village and their own power status.
Just when the joint defense and anti-bandit matters were about to be discussed, Ouyang Xuan asked people to invite Yu Zhu and the leaders of the mining team and the trading team to meet with the village owners. Since Yu Zhu had been ill for a long time, his body had caused irreversible damage and was temporarily unfit for marching and fighting, so Ouyang Xuan made him responsible for economic affairs such as industry, mining, commerce and trade. In fact, the economic affairs that Yu Zhu is responsible for may not seem as heavy as military affairs, but they are actually very heavy. In addition to mining, the focus is on industrial product manufacturing and commerce. When Yu Zhu proposed the relevant terms of jointly mining and selling mountain goods with various villages, it immediately aroused great interest among the village owners participating in the meeting. Ouyang Xuan walked out of the venue as he watched Yu Zhu, Liu Zhong from the mining team, Wang Youfu and Zhu Tiaozi from the trading team, and the village owners having heated discussions. As he walked, he sighed in his heart: "It seems that no one in this world can live with money."
Yu Zhu occupies the absolute leading position in the commercial negotiations for mining cooperation with various Shanzhai, and also holds the absolute controlling interest in the negotiated cooperation agreement. Because in addition to technology, the key core links required for blasting mines such as explosives, professional excavation tools, and refining technicians are provided by Liuliba. Each village only needs to provide the land and labor required for mining, and negotiate the distribution of the income. Roughly divided into 28 points. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, there is a village called Daping. Because there are rich saltpeter resources and a large number of laborers in the village, the output is divided into 30% and 70%. Of course, even with this distribution model, each copycat actually does not suffer a loss. Even if only 20% of the mines in the agreement are put into production, the income will be extremely impressive compared to the previous slash-and-burn production method.
According to Ouyang Xuan's plan, the initial development of industry and mining is mainly to serve the construction of a firearms army, to achieve the mass production of grenades and artillery and the trial production of muskets as soon as possible, and to build some cold weapons. These military products require a large amount of high-quality steel. and other minerals. This requires not only increasing the mining of iron, coal, sulfur, and fire salt, but also building additional steel-making furnaces, coke kilns, blacksmith shops, and water-powered mills... All of the above construction requires the investment of a large amount of resources. Of course, the establishment and training of the Thunderbolt Army planned by Ouyang Xuan would also be a huge expense. How to raise these military expenditures made his head hurt during this period. This inspection in the mountains was an empty job. The Chongqing Prefecture did not provide any funds, and Ouyang Xuan promised to all villages in the mountains not to collect grain. The funds could only be obtained by carrying out industrial, mining and commercial activities.
In fact, if the road is open, people can organize people to transport mountain goods and iron products to Chongqing Prefecture, Yongkang County and other places for sale, and then transport them back to sell daily necessities, and the profits will be quite generous, such as to Qiongzhou, Chengdu Prefecture, and other places further away. If Jiading Prefecture carries out trade, the profits will be even greater. It's just that the Wanjiaping bandits were severely injured after being beaten hard, and they no longer dared to come out to disturb the villages. However, due to its location blocking the access to and from the mountain, the caravan was still unable to pass, so Xiong Ben threatened to cut off the villages. The clamor for salt will trap every village in the mountain. It is said that bandits in the Wanjiaping Mountains have blocked roads for a long time, making daily necessities in the mountains extremely expensive. In particular, the price of salt is more than 10 times higher than that of Qiongzhou, the nearest salt-producing area. In order to solve the problem of lack of salt, Ouyang Xuan and Yu Zhu decided to choose those with strong physical strength to go to Qiongzhou to exchange for salt and to Chongqing Mansion to exchange for cloth, linen and other daily necessities through the trails explored by Dong Hu and others. .
