"What? Someone from Hutou Village found you." Fan Yongdou looked at Li Weiming.
Li Weiming said: "Not yet, but the best iron in Lingqiu comes from the iron yard in Hutou Village, and the price is only the price of ordinary Jin iron. Our Fan family's caravan can buy refined iron from them, and we can get more iron in one hand. 30% profit from selling.”
Fan Yongdou pondered for a moment and said: "Since the Xu family can't move Hutou Village, we might as well try to cooperate with Hutou Village, but the Xu family can't give up. Beibei has suffered serious disasters in the past two years and the food shortage is severe. Xu Our family owns most of the fertile land in Lingqiu, and we still need the Xu family to provide food."
"I was about to talk about this." Li Weiming said, "A village outside Xujia City was occupied by Hutou Village. This village occupies nearly one-third of Xujia's fields, and they are all good farmland."
"It's a bit interesting." Fan Yongdou pinched the beard on his chin and said, "The big boss of Hutou Village is interesting. As a bandit, he neither steals nor robs. He first opened an iron yard and then occupied Xujiazhuang. What does he want to do? If you have a chance, I really want to get to know this person."
"If my boss wants to see Liu Heng from Hutou Village, I will arrange it." Li Weiming said.
Fan Yongdou waved his hand and said, "No need, wait and see when he gets rid of the Xu family. Now he is not qualified to see me."
"Yes." Li Weiming responded respectfully.
He thought the same as Fan Yongdou. Liu Heng was just a bandit leader. Even if he became a powerful man in the future, he would only be an insignificant force in Lingqiu. Compared with the Fan family, even the Xu family in Lingqiu only had Xu. Tong Neng is looked upon seriously by the Fan family.
"Don't target Hutou Village in the future. Maybe there will be greater opportunities for cooperation in the future." Fan Yongdou warned, and then said, "Go down first."
Li Weiming respectfully exited the study.
Fan Yongdou took a sip of tea from the tureen and said to the steward next to him: "Did Wang Qifu go outside the customs?"
Butler Fan, who was standing beside him, said: "Not yet. He will not go to Beilu with the caravan until spring after the new year. Master, do you want to see him?"
"Tell him that there is no need to go outside the customs." Fan Yongdou said, "Arrange for him to go to Lingqiu. From now on, he will be responsible for buying iron from Lingqiu, and he will also contact Hutou Village."
Butler Fan nodded and said, "Yes, I will go and talk to Wang Qifu about this in person later."
Fan Yongdou nodded.
………………
Yang Yuan rushed back to Lingqiu from Tianjin Wei. He walked this way for more than half a month.
After settling down and bringing them back, Hou Dafu and others ignored the rest and rode straight to Hutou Village.
Arriving at the Hutuzhai Mountain Temple, Yang Yuan saw Liu Heng and saluted hurriedly and said: "Master, my subordinates have brought a cannon-casting master and four gunners from Tianjin Wei."
"It's been a hard journey." Liu Heng helped Yang Yuan sit down, personally brought a big tea vat and poured a cup of hot water for Yang Yuan.
Yang Yuan took the teapot and said: "My subordinate did not do his job well. He went to Tianjin Guard for such a long time and only brought back one cannon-casting master."
"Very good." Liu Heng said, "We don't have the ability to build cannons on a large scale now. One cannon-making master is enough, especially the gunners you brought back. These people are of great use. They have cannons but are not qualified." Not even the gunners, these gunners are no less useful than the cannon-casting masters you brought back."
Yang Yuan secretly rejoiced that he listened to Hou Dafu and brought Zheng Chao and the others back.
If Hou Dafu hadn't insisted on bringing Zheng Chao and the others to Datong, he wouldn't have brought these gunners back.
Now that I heard the boss's words, I realized that the gunner held a very important position in the boss's heart.
Liu Heng said with a smile: "Stay in the mountain and have a good rest today, and take me to meet the people you brought back tomorrow."
"Yes." Yang Yuan nodded.
In order to return to Lingqiu before the end of the year, I had to travel a lot and my body was indeed a little tired.
The next day, Yang Yuan took Liu Heng to the Zhaojiayu weapons field.
As the owner of the weapons field, Huang Chongzuo stood by.
"Master Hou, Brother Zheng, our boss is here to see you." Huang Zhong stood in the yard and shouted towards a room to the north.
Not long after, the door was opened, and four capable men walked out of it.
After a while, Hou Dafu came out of the house.
Compared to Zheng Chao and others, Hou Dafu was trembling and his face was pale.
Seeing Hou Dafu like this, Yang Yuan thought he was sick and asked worriedly: "Master Hou, what's wrong with you? Do you need me to ask a doctor to take a look?"
"Yang, shopkeeper Yang, didn't you say that your boss wants to build cannons? How did it become..." Before he could finish his words, Hou Dafu carefully glanced at Liu Heng who was standing in front of him.
Hearing this, Liu Heng said with a smile: "How come you turned into making cannons for bandits, right?"
Hou Dafu's face turned even paler and he lowered his head in fear.
"Master Hou." Liu Heng said, "I have an iron yard in Dongshan. It's not wrong to call me boss, so he didn't lie to you, he just concealed some facts. And Master Hou, don't worry, even though I, Liu Heng, am a bandit, But he never kills innocent people indiscriminately."
After speaking, his eyes fell on the four people next to Hou Dafu.
Compared with Hou Dafu's frightened appearance, these four people always looked normal. Even if they knew that they had arrived at a bandit's den, their expressions remained unchanged.
At this time, Zheng Chao took a step forward and said: "Liu Da is in charge, I am Zheng Chao."
"Hu Guangyi."
"Chen Siping."
"Li Dadao."
The other three people also clasped their fists at the same time and announced their names.
"These must be the gunners who came with us!" Liu Heng said with a smile. He could feel that these four people were very different from Hou Dafu, and they should have some origins.
Zheng Chao said: "To be honest, the four of us brothers have spent some time at sea and learned some gunnery skills."
"At sea?" Liu Heng's eyes lit up.
He once thought about escaping to the sea, but unfortunately he failed due to various reasons. Now, four people from the sea have defected to him.
No wonder these four people didn't panic at all when they saw him, a master bandit. They must have been pirates at sea.
Yang Yuan suddenly said: "Master, this time my subordinates saw a sea ship in Tianjin Wei. The head is as big as a fort, and the hull is as high as the side wall."
Zheng Chao interjected: "What Shopkeeper Yang saw was just our Ming Dynasty's Fortune Ship. It's not that big. Red Ghost's Galen Ship is the bigger one. The cannons on it alone are worth seventy or eighty. Even if it's the Red Ghost, The merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty all have twenty or thirty cannons, which are incomparable to the Ming Dynasty's lucky ships."
Liu Heng nodded.
I was filled with envy in my heart. If I had a fleet of galenic ships, whoever stayed in Lingqiu to be a bandit leader would have gone to sea to live freely. It would still be as hard as it is now. If you want to increase your strength, you need to be careful. Be prepared for the Ming Dynasty to send troops to suppress it, and at the same time, it is necessary to increase its strength to cope with the second Jurchen invasion and plunder in the seventh year of Chongzhen.
In the seventh year of Chongzhen, the Jurchens invaded several prefectures and counties in Datong, Xuanfu.
