Time has arrived in March in the blink of an eye, and it is the time when the flowers are red and the willows are green. Ouyang Xuan has been in a good mood during this period, because everything goes well both internally and externally. From an external point of view, after the Mongolian army suffered a lot in Sandushui, they turned their looting and harassment operations in the direction of Jiading. Although Cao Zhizhou still made small moves, he had restrained and kept a low profile. From an internal point of view, Perak's military, industrial, agricultural, and commercial industries are prosperous. In particular, the production capacity of military factories has been greatly improved. The military training after the expansion of the army has also been vigorous. The research institute is engaged in new gunpowder, penicillin, gun machine tools, microscopes, and There were also advances in primitive steam engines.
On this day, Ouyang Xuanhe and the staff of the institute finished a chemical experiment, stretched for a long time, and then turned to look out the window. They saw the sparkling river water in the sun and the peach trees blooming on the river embankment outside Fucheng. After being filled with flowers, I suddenly had the idea of going to Wugen Mountain with Yang Yan. There is a hazardous chemical explosion testing site in Wugen Mountain, and Ouyang Xuan often goes there to conduct experiments. He knew that the sunny Wugen Mountain was a good place for an outing. At that moment, he headed from Hexin Island to the headquarters of Nanyang Company in Fucheng, preparing to find Yang Yan and ride there together. After arriving, Ouyang Xuan walked directly into Yang Yan's room without waiting for notification, but saw a sad look on her face. Seeing Ouyang Xuan coming, Yang Yan threw herself into his arms regardless of the people around her and said, "Brother Xuan is here just in time. I just wanted to go home and talk to you."
According to the agreement, the Pili Army and the Bozhou Yang Family each held 50% of the shares of the Nanyang Company. After Ouyang Xuan and Yang Yan got married, Yang Wen was worried that his baby daughter would have a hard life, so he gave half of Yang's shares as Yang Yan's dowry and entrusted the other half of the shares to be managed on his behalf. Although Yang Yan only holds 25% of the shares in Nanyang Company, she controls half of the shares. In addition, as Ouyang Xuan's wife, she shares weal and woe with the interests of the Perak Army, so the Military and Political Joint Conference authorized her to take charge. The specific operations of Nanyang Company.
Ouyang Xuan had some hesitations about Yang Yan being in charge of Nanyang Company, but in the end he had no objection, because Yang Yan was the best candidate for both public and private purposes. In Ouyang Xuan's vision for the future, Liuqiu Company is responsible for the development of North and South America, what the Perak Army officially calls the Bison Continent and the Alpaca Continent, while Nanyang Company will be responsible for the development of the vast area from Southeast Asia to Australia. Australia is officially called Kangaroo Land by the Perak Army. Nanyang Company is in its infancy, and its current business area is limited to Banzhou and the surrounding Miao territory. Yang Yan's appointment as the person in charge will obviously be of great benefit to Nanyang Company's business development.
Although Ouyang Xuan and Yang Yan are in love, due to extremely complicated affairs, they don't spend much time together on weekdays. Sometimes they only see each other once every two or three days, so Yang Bangxian joked that his brother-in-law and sister treat their home as a guest house. Because they get together less and stay apart more often, Ouyang Xuan and Yang Yan seldom talk about official matters when they are together, but more about exchanging feelings or discussing matters to continue the next generation. It is said that Ouyang Xuan has no plans to have children yet. This is mainly because there are too many things to do, and he is afraid that having children will hinder the anti-Mongolian cause. Yang Yan doesn't have much objection to this, because she is often too busy to keep her feet on the ground.
After listening to Yang Yan's words, Ouyang Xuan knew that the outing in Wugen Mountain would not be possible. It turned out that what made Yang Yan frown was Nanyang Company's troubles. According to Zhu Tiaozi's letter, one of the company's caravans was robbed by a group of unknown bandits at the junction of Miao and Dali. In addition to a large amount of salt, porcelain, and farm tools being robbed, more than ten people were killed and injured. According to the tripartite agreement, the Miao tribe has the obligation to protect the caravan within the territory, but the leader of the Dong tribe in the place where the incident occurred ignored the matter. Instead, he claimed that the caravan was treacherous and cunning, which aroused the anger of the defrauded mountain people and demanded justice. After receiving such a response, Zhu Tiaozi was angry but had no choice but to discuss with Manager Bozhoutian and send someone to investigate secretly.
This investigation did not matter, it turned out that the robbers were not Dong mountain people but barbarian soldiers of the tribe, and the man behind the scenes was none other than their leader Luo Ru. Generally, the Miao tribes do not have a standing army due to the poor land and poor people. Instead, they integrate farming and warfare, and they work as soldiers during the weekdays. It's just that this Dong tribe borders the Dali Kingdom, and they often conflict with the Wuman tribe of Dali Kingdom over the competition for mountains, forests and pastures. In addition, the tribe has tens of thousands of people, so they can barely afford to support more than 200 full-time barbarian soldiers. Luo Ru used these barbarian soldiers to suppress the opponents in the tribe, and over time he became the tribal emperor, and these barbarian soldiers also became his private soldiers.
Although these minions are the best in the tribe, they also bring troubles to Luo Ru - where does the money come from? Although there are tens of thousands of people in the Dong tribe, due to the slash-and-burn cultivation stage, the fields and forests only produce so much every year. It is really difficult to feed these more than 200 people with good food and drink. To make matters worse, Luo Ru married another wife this year. His previous five wives had given birth to more than a dozen children for him, and this year he added a son and a daughter. Naturally, the new family members cannot be treated poorly, and the barbarian soldiers under his command have to be fed, and it is impossible to exploit the various cottages - last year, there was a armed confrontation between two cottages due to taxation. After much thought, he came up with the idea of robbing the Nanyang Company's caravan. But this idea was like a small flame in the wind, floating in and out of his mind.
Robbery is risky, especially robbing the Perak Army and the Bozhou Army. None of them are easy to mess with. Needless to say, the Bozhou Army was ferocious, and the Pili weapons were even more powerful. Luo Ru was frightened when she thought of what she saw in Hailongtun. It was two people who finally made Luo Ru decide to take action. The first person was an envoy from the Dali Kingdom. He came to appease him on the orders of Wu Liang Hetai who was stationed in the Dali Kingdom. After Yang Wen used Ouyang Xuan and Yang Yan's wedding to form an alliance with various tribes in Miao territory, the Mongolian army did not sit idly by and ignored it. Instead, they frequently sent people to appease various tribes in an attempt to undermine the achievements of the Bozhou alliance. It's just that all tribes knew the Mongolian army's ambitions and ignored the Mongols' attempts to win over them.
Unlike the Perak Army, who "teach a man to fish, it is better to teach him how to fish", focusing on long-term interests and benefiting ordinary people, the Mongols' conditions are much simpler and cruder - directly giving gold and silver to the leader, which makes Luo Ru very Heartbeat. With the property provided by the Mongols, he could marry more wives and have more sons. However, the money of the Mongols is not free. The prerequisite is to have a certificate of investment - attack and kill the Bozhou Army or the Perak Army. If he really wanted to attack the two armies, he wouldn't dare to borrow a hundred courages from Luo Ru, but Luo Ru still thought it was feasible to attack the caravan secretly.
The second person is the wizard of the tribe. In Miao territory, the shaman's duty is to communicate with heaven, ghosts and gods, and to exorcise evil spirits, subjugate demons and cure diseases. He is the second most powerful person in the tribe after the leader. This wizard also joined Luo Ru in the Banzhou Alliance. What frightened him most was not the firearms, but the technological knowledge of the Thunderbolt Army. He understands that as long as the contents of the tripartite agreement regarding education, science, culture and health are implemented, and once the people's wisdom is awakened and the people are no longer ignorant, his trick of deceiving people will definitely not be able to continue. When the time comes that you don’t believe what you say, no one will be willing to worship you.
