After drinking a few mouthfuls of hot soup, Chang Wei's body finally stopped shivering, and his face, which was a little red and purple from the cold, also regained a lot of color.
Zhao Ming sat aside and listened quietly to what the other party said.
They have obviously been through a lot, and at this time it is best to let the other person talk on their own and be a listener.
After listening to it for a full hour, Chang Wei's words were a little erroneous at first, and they were reversed. Later, when his body warmed up and he calmed down from the frightened state of mind, he felt much better, and it became less strenuous to listen.
Zhao Ming summarized the information described by the other party.
Roughly more than a month ago, Chang Wei took a hundred Fengjiazhuang elderly people northward. It was okay in Shaanxi Province and there were no accidents.
But after passing Zhangjiakou and gradually entering the grassland, the situation took a turn for the worse.
The team of a hundred people was quite large, enough that many robbers would not dare to provoke them easily.
But they thought that their uncle Zhao would not be able to eat well or sleep well in the grassland, so they purchased a large amount of supplies from Shaanxi Province when they were in Xi'an.
All kinds of rice, flour, grain and oil, various fabrics, and things brought by the lady, all added up, only ten carriages can fit.
With so many carriages packed to the brim, there must be a lot of good stuff. Naturally, it has attracted countless people to covet it.
So from the moment they entered the grassland, they encountered no less than twenty waves of robbers.
Half of them were scared off after they took out their spears, and the remaining half were hard-hitting.
After passing through Chazhong, there were only about forty people around Lao Chang. The key was that almost all the goods had been robbed.
Needless to say, all the food was stolen.
Later, when they arrived at Chazhong, they were tested by the Outer Mongols.
Fortunately, when passing through Chazhong, they were entertained by a large local tribe, who enthusiastically sent ten tribesmen to escort them north.
"You mean people from the Shangdu Department?"
Hearing this, Zhao Ming couldn't help but be suspicious.
"Yes! That's what the other party said. Their chief shepherd is still one-eyed and blind, but he seems to have a cheerful personality."
Chang Wei nodded, but he quickly realized something was wrong and hurriedly asked, "Master Zhao, is there something wrong with this person?"
"It's no problem. It's just that they had a little conflict with me before. It seems they want to ask you to give me a favor. You should have told me about your relationship with me, right?" Zhao Ming asked with a smile.
He doesn't reject the favor sent by the other party. If it is other more direct favor, he will not pay attention to it.
But the people in Fengjiazhuang and Lao Chang had different meanings to him.
“Well, they asked me what I was doing going north, and I said I was going north to visit relatives.
But the other party seemed to be a favor, and asked me again that the north is full of grasslands. What kind of relationship do you, a Guanzhong native, want to ask for?
But I didn’t say anything later, so the other party should have guessed a little bit.
I said, why is this person so passionate? His emotions have offended you, Mr. Zhao! "
Chang Wei felt a little regretful. If he had known earlier, he would rather suffer more losses than accept the favor of the other party.
"Haha! It's okay, I'll accept the favor!"
Zhao Ming waved his hand indifferently.
It can be said that Chang Wei is lucky to get help from the Shangdu Department.
In today's grassland, without local people who are familiar with the grassland to lead the way, it is easy to encounter Outer Mongolians on the way north.
It’s hard to say whether we can see Lao Chang by then.
"By the way, Mr. Zhao, before we left the Shangdu Department, we saw troops stationed nearby. I heard that it seemed that the garrison from the south came here. It seemed that they were stationed on the front line of Chazhong in the Shangdu Department.
I reckon you'll be safe soon. "
Lao Chang had always been concerned about Zhao Ming's safety. Before he came, he was told by his wife not to come back in a hurry and to protect his uncle's safety.
If my uncle needs help with anything, there is no rush to come back after finishing his work there.
But who knew, when he arrived in Chahar, he learned that the Outer Mongolians who had not moved for many years had accidentally moved south.
This made Lao Chang feel quite anxious.
Fortunately, I asked the Ministry of Commerce and Industry about the situation of the director of Chahar before and got a satisfactory answer. Otherwise, Lao Chang would probably have to go north in fear all the way.
"You said there are troops stationed in Chazhong?"
Zhao Ming noticed this information.
"Yes! It seems to be a regiment. The commander's surname is Li. He received orders from his superiors to set up a defense line in the Chazhong area. It's unclear whether they will go north." Chang Wei shook his head.
Hearing this, Zhao Ming somewhat guessed what Officer Zhang was thinking.
"Quite shrewd!"
After muttering, Zhao Ming didn't think too much and asked everyone to continue eating and drinking.
But at this time Ah Fu trotted over and whispered a few words. After hearing this, Zhao Ming nodded to everyone and stood up to attend.
"Uncle, the batch of supplies sent has been counted."
"explain!"
Seeing that they had reached a relatively quiet place, Zhao Ming asked.
"Uncle, there isn't much food left, just less than fifty dan. In addition, there are some clothes, family letters, etc. that Madam told you, as well as gold and silver.
This is quite a lot of money. I calculated that there are one hundred large yellow croakers and three hundred small yellow croakers, which is enough for us to spend a long time. "
There are nearly 40,000 to 50,000 large yellow croakers in the ocean, which is indeed a huge sum of money.
"How can the family still afford so much money?" Zhao Ming was a little confused about this.
"Uncle, I don't know about this. Maybe you can read the letter my wife wrote to you." Ah Fu took out several unopened letters from his arms.
Seeing this, Zhao Ming didn't ask any more questions. He took the letter and waved his hand. He went back to the room alone and sat cross-legged on the table to read it carefully.
When I opened the letter, there was some content about longing and suffering. During the conversation, I occasionally described some trivial daily things in Fengjiazhuang, and Feng Yunyun complained about the incompetence of his subordinates.
"It looks like we have to take her over once things calm down here."
I just thought that Feng Yunyun was pregnant now and couldn't bear to travel long distances, which made me feel depressed.
After putting down the first letter, Zhao Ming immediately picked up the second one. This letter talked about the current business status of Fengjiazhuang.
On the one hand, it is dealing with the business of reselling grain, although Lao Song has issued a decree that grain cannot be sold at a price higher than the average market price.
However, the low-priced grain purchased from Sichuan, Chongqing and Guangdong and Guangxi still made Fengjiazhuang a huge profit.
Fengjiazhuang now has its own rice store in Xi'an Prefecture, and there are retired Zhensong Army brothers serving as guards in Fengjiazhuang. In addition, the banditry in Guanzhong is not as bad as it was at the beginning of the year, so there is no problem in terms of safety.
In addition, Fengjiazhuang started to operate the cotton textile industry, and the cotton in Guanzhong was a good thing. Although it was a disaster year, there was a lot of cotton in Guanzhong for many years.
Now everyone wants to abandon their assets just for a bite to eat, so Feng Yunyun used the small yellow croaker that Zhao Ming initially gave him plus Feng Jiazhuang's previous savings to buy cotton.
Now nearly 50% of the cotton in the entire Guanzhong land has been purchased by Fengjiazhuang, and the rest has been purchased by other large foreign companies.
Why are there no big local players acquiring it together?
It's just because all the big local households were in chaos during the famine years, and most of their money was busy purchasing grain.
