After it got dark, the fence blocking the road was moved to the forest at the foot of Hutou Village, and Jia Liu led the people back to the mountain.
In more than half a month, Jia Liu received the first safe payment from the village. As soon as he returned to the village, he went to the mountain temple to meet Liu Heng.
Liu Heng and several leaders attached great importance to the first payment of peace money received by the village. Everyone came to the main hall of the mountain temple to listen to Jia Liu's report in person.
When he learned that the money came from the Fan family in Zhangjiakou, Liu Heng was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect that the first Ping An silver he received came from the Fan family, one of the eight famous imperial merchants of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in history.
Chen Xunping said: "The Fan family is really rich. If they transport tens of thousands of taels of silver at a time, they are not afraid of being robbed by bandits along the way."
Zhao Yutu, who was sitting next to him, said: "The Fan family's assets are no less than one million taels. After the decline of the Zhang family in Puzhou, the Fan family can be said to be the leader of Shanxi merchants. A mere ten thousand taels of silver will not break the Fan family's muscles and bones. "
"One million taels!" Chen Xunping opened his mouth in surprise. He didn't expect the Fan family to be so rich.
"A hundred is more than a hundred." Liu Heng suddenly answered.
"The boss also knows about the Fan family?" Zhao Yutu looked at Liu Heng curiously. He knew that Liu Heng, like Li Shuheng and others, were from Liaodong and were not familiar with the Fan family in Zhangjiakou.
Liu Heng said: "I heard that among Shanxi merchants, the Fan family has the largest business, and Zhangjiakou is the largest cattle and horse market. Most Shanxi merchants travel between the Ming Dynasty and Beilu to earn money."
"I didn't expect that the great master would know this." Zhao Yutu said with a smile, "Shanxi merchants have been doing business with Beilu for a long time. When Zhang Jiafeng was an official in Beijing, the guards at the border forts all gave face to the Zhang family, and Shanxi merchants bribed the border guards. They will smuggle northern captives through the border, and now that the Zhang family is gone, the Fan family is doing the same thing as the Zhang family back then."
Jia Liu, who was standing aside, suddenly said: "Master, there is one more thing that my subordinates find a little strange."
"What's the matter?" Liu Heng looked at Jia Liu.
Jia Liu said: "My subordinates checked the manifest documents of the Fan family's caravan. They all contained iron items such as iron pots, with only a small number of iron ingots. However, when my team leader went to check the goods, he discovered that the Fan family's caravan was There are many swords and guns inside, as well as many iron arrowheads, many of which do not match the goods on the manifest."
Liaodong Jurchen...Liu Heng suddenly thought of these four words.
Shanxi merchants had been colluding with the Northern Barbarians, and later these Shanxi merchants even colluded with the Liaodong Jurchens, selling information about the Ming Dynasty to the Jurchens, and giving them food and cloth to help the Liaodong Jurchens survive the worst years of natural disasters.
To the Ming Dynasty, these Shanxi merchants were betraying their country, and to the Han people, these Shanxi merchants were betraying their ancestors, dyeing the tops of Shanxi merchants red with the blood of Han people.
The most prominent among them are the eight Shanxi merchants headed by the Fan family, and later the eight imperial merchants, Fan Yongdou, Wang Dengku, Wang Dayu, Liang Jiabin, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Tang, Huang Yunfa, and Jin Liangyu.
As soon as the idea arose, Liu Heng rejected this possibility.
Today's Jurchens have just defeated the Ming army in Saarhu and have not yet captured the entire Liaozhong. Even if the Fan family wants to collude with the Liaodong Jurchens, they cannot do it, so this batch of goods is most likely to be sold to the Northern Lu.
Although the Ming Dynasty had mutual trade with Beilu, it had very strict restrictions on things such as ironware, which made Beilu ironware expensive. The Fan family's nearly 10,000 taels of goods were transported to the grassland, and the profit was less than 10,000 taels.
Liu Heng pursed his lips. He had only collected more than three hundred taels of Ping An silver, but the Fan family had tens of thousands of taels of profit, which made him even think about buying several carts of iron and selling them on the grassland.
However, he just thought in his mind that if he wanted to sell the goods to the grassland, at least the generals in the border towns and border forts must be bribed, otherwise the goods would be detained before they leave the customs. There must also be familiar Mongolian nobles on the other side of the grassland. Otherwise, when the goods arrive on the grassland, Beilu will not buy them but directly grab them.
No matter which one of these two items, Liu Heng knew that he had no such relationship. Forget about the business of smuggling Beilu. It was most practical to collect Ping An's money honestly.
After Jia Liu exited the temple hall, Liu Heng handed the money to Li Shuheng and asked Zhao Yutu to register it.
There are special account books for the money collected and the money spent, which are handed over to Zhao Yutu for accounting, but the money is managed by Li Shuheng. One person manages the accounts and the other manages the money. Accounting does not care about the money, and money does not care about the accounting. Accounts and money are separated.
"How are the adobe bricks going?" Liu Heng asked Li Shuheng.
Since Li Shuheng led the last men of the camp to Hutou Village, all logistics matters have been left to him to manage.
Li Shuheng said: "The first batch of adobe bricks are almost ready for use. In two days we can build the first batch of adobe houses. I have already selected people who can build houses and have started laying foundations."
"We must seize the time, it will get cooler in another month." Liu Heng said, "The house should be built according to what we discussed before. The house should have a large earthen kang. You can light a fire to keep warm in winter, otherwise people will We’re all freezing inside.”
Li Shuheng nodded.
There were originally some houses on Hutou Village Mountain, but they were too few to accommodate more than a thousand people.
The winters of the Little Ice Age were unbearably cold. If you didn’t build a house before winter came, Liu Heng knew that many people would freeze to death on the mountain.
Now there is no shortage of food in the village. The former Dwarf Tiger had enough food to feed thousands of people for three months.
Although I don’t know where Dwarf Tiger got so much food, it is enough for more than a thousand people to eat until the end of the year, which can be regarded as solving the problem of insufficient food in the bandit camp.
………………
The amount of Ping An silver that was drawn at thirty-one was half less than when Dwarf Tiger was there, and there were no more incidents of bandits snatching goods from Hutou Village. Some caravans who originally preferred to go far away rather than go to Hutou Village slowly began to return. The official road at the foot of Hutou Village.
In one month, just by guarding this official line, Liu Heng received thousands of taels of Ping'an silver.
Now he has money and food. Adobe houses have been built up around the mountain temple. Each of the three brigades has a firecrackers team, and the number of firecrackers is still increasing.
The former Hutou Village bandits who were originally captured were trained as sword and shield wielders, and the iron armor and cotton armor captured by Hutou Village were distributed to them.
The spearmen of the three brigades were replaced with real iron spearheads instead of hardened wooden spears, and each piece of mail armor was transported to the stronghold through Yang Yuan.
The blacksmith who made the mail armor was a blacksmith from Zhaojiayu at the foot of Hutou Village. He was so good at his job that he could make one suit of mail armor by himself in three days. Together with his apprentice, he could make three pieces of mail armor in two days.
Yang Yuan bought iron ingots from Dongshan Iron Works, transported them to Zhaojiayu, and gave them to the blacksmith in Zhaojiayu to make the mail armor.
In the blink of an eye, the weather cooled down, and the adobe houses were ready for people to live in. Each room was divided according to the team, and twelve people lived in each room.
There is only a large Kang and a wooden shelf in the house. The large Kang is used for sleeping, and the wooden shelf is placed with a large teapot for eating and drinking.
Because porcelain bowls were easily broken and there was no shortage of money in the imitation village, Liu Heng drew the pictures himself and found a blacksmith in Lingqiu to build more than a thousand large tea jars.
It was not difficult to build this thing. It took several blacksmith shops in Lingqiu a month to build a large tea vat for everyone on Hutou Village.
This kind of large tea vat is very convenient for eating and drinking. It spread out from the blacksmith shop unintentionally and actually caused a craze in Lingqiu City. Many people and the miners in Dongshan who ate changed to this kind of large tea vat.
Everything is developing for the better in Hutou Village.
