"Ah, it's snowing."

Early in the morning, when Jingnu pushed open the window, she saw snowflakes falling in the sky outside the house.

Out of childlike nature, she couldn't help but reach out and catch a snowflake and watch it gradually melt in the palm of her hand.

She turned around and wanted to tell Zhao Yu the news, but saw that Zhao Yu on the bed was wrapped in a quilt tightly, and she got rid of a bloated fat worm.

She couldn't help but smile and stepped forward to wake up Zhao Yu: "Young master, young master, the hour is not early, didn't the young master lead a caravan to Wancheng today?" ”

Zhao Yu muttered at first, and he didn't know what to say, until he heard the caravan, he opened one eye and asked in a daze, "Jingnu, what time is it?" ”

"It's almost a quarter of the hour." Shizune replied.

At two o'clock, it was not too early to say that it was early, nor was it too late to say that it was late, but considering today's task, Zhao Yu still endured sleepiness and sat up.

At this time, Jingnu also immediately closed the window to prevent her young master from catching a cold.

But Zhao Yu still noticed the snowflakes falling outside the window, and frowned slightly when he saw this: "It's snowing outside?" ”

"Hmm."

Jingnu nodded slightly.

In fact, she likes the white and flawless snow very much, but at this moment, she does not dare to reveal her thoughts in front of the young master, because she knows that this snow will affect the plan of the young master of her family.

Sure enough, after hearing her answer, Zhao Yu suddenly frowned, and didn't care about getting dressed, so he stayed and went to the window, pushed open the window to observe the snowfall outside.

It's okay, this snow should have started in the middle of the night last night, and it has accumulated about two knuckles outside the house so far, but it is a light snow, which should not affect their travel today.

After a while, with the help of Jingnu, Zhao Yu put on his clothes neatly, and immediately walked to the wooden building with Jingnu.

At this moment, the house where they live is the second floor of the wine shop in the west of Yecheng City, Wei Pu, a wine merchant from Ye County who met two days ago - after everyone dispersed in the county government that day, Wei Pu invited Zhao Yu and his party to his wine shop in the west of the city, and chatted with Zhao Yu about the 'Lu Ye Freemasonry', and chatted until late at night, then Wei Pu and Zhao Yu and his party simply stopped on the second floor of this wine shop, anyway, according to the meeting of everyone, today is to gather outside this wine shop, form a huge caravan, and go to Wancheng together.

The first floor of the wine shop, used to be used as a wine shop, but it was closed for the past two days, when Zhao Yu took Jing Nu downstairs, Zhang Ji and Ma Cheng were sitting on the bench in the house, watching the people on the street outside the wine shop loading and unloading goods.

On the side, Cao Ju, the chief steward of the Xianghou Mansion, was chatting with Wei Pu and more than a dozen businessmen from Ye County.

"Second son."

Noticing that Zhao Yu walked downstairs with Jingnu, Zhang Ji and Ma Cheng immediately got up and saluted, and Cao Ju, Wei Pu and a group of people also walked into the house at this moment to greet Zhao Yu.

"Ladies and gentlemen."

Zhao Yu returned the salute to these businessmen and family representatives of Weiye County, and asked with a smile: "How are you preparing?" ”

Hearing this, Cao Ju stepped forward and said: "Second son, in view of the rush of time, only the six families of Wei, Cheng, Chen, and Lu have prepared some goods today, mainly in the form of wine, in addition to some cured meat, animal skins and other things, which are about the appearance of twenty-three carriages. ”

A full load of twenty-three wagons of goods is actually quite a lot for a team of merchants, but if you look at the entire Ye County, this is really nothing.

It may be like what Cao Ju said, the trade time this time was too hasty, and in just two days, the merchants of Ye County had no time to move the goods in stock here; Of course, it is also possible that the vast majority of Yexian businessmen are still waiting, ready to test the waters with this transaction with the military market to see if it is as Zhao Yu said.

It is precisely for this reason that although the source of goods in this caravan is only six companies such as Wei, Cheng, Chen, and Lu, the number of 'unrelated personnel' who are ready to follow this caravan to Wancheng is several times that of these six families.

However, Zhao Yu didn't care about this, after all, prudence is the common practice of the vast majority of businessmen in the world, which is not difficult to understand.

"Duke Wei, Duke Cheng."

Zhao Yu greeted Wei Pu and the others with a smile.

Hearing his title, Wei Pu and the others waved their hands again and again, indicating that they did not dare to bear the title of 'Gong'.

Also, in contemporary times, the walking sellers are called 'merchants', and the shopkeepers are called 'Jia', collectively known as merchants, and because they are rich, some are called 'wealthy people', but in terms of social status, merchants are completely out of the stream, and they are inferior to farmers in the contemporary era of heavy agriculture and suppression of business.

Zhao Yu exalted them and honored them as duke, which made them sincerely afraid, lest a title that did not match their identity cause unnecessary trouble.

So in the end, Zhao Yu could only choose a more popular name: Lao Jia.

Take the wine merchant Wei Pu as an example, Wei Laojia is finally a little more polite than Wei Jia.

On the same day, after a simple meal in Weipu's wine shop, Zhao Yu led the caravan to leave Ye County.

Don't look at the carriages loaded by this caravan with only twenty-three carriages, but the merchants who accompanied them, the carriages they rode in could also reach this number, which made the scale of this caravan particularly large, so that when they left Ye County, the people of Ye County rushed to watch, secretly guessing where these people organized this caravan to go.

In the weather of late October, the temperature quickly became cold, and even sitting in the carriage of the carriage, Zhao Yu felt a cool breeze pouring in.

Although Jing Nu kindly covered Zhao Yu with a blanket in the carriage, touching Jing Nu's cold hands, Zhao Yu finally let her cover herself.

"This should be the first and last trade with General Wang's military market this year."

Looking at the snowflakes falling outside the window, Zhao Yu said with some regret.

In late October, it was a little late after all, if two months in advance, he was confident that through several trades with the military market, he would gradually start the Luye Freemasonry, and gradually twist the merchants of Luyang and Yexian counties into a rope, so that after the spring of the next year, when the merchants of Rushui counties learned of Wang Shangde's military market, they would take the caravan through Luyang and Yexian, it would be interesting.

But unfortunately, this matter is afraid to wait until next year.

The caravan's journey to Wancheng was not worth talking about on the way, the only thing worth mentioning was that their caravan was stopped by the soldiers under Wang Shangde.

The purpose of those soldiers can be seen by everyone at a glance, it is nothing more than seeing the huge scale of their caravan and wanting to take advantage of the opportunity.

In all fairness, this kind of thing is not uncommon, especially for some military ruffians in the military strokes, they may not be innocent of the local villagers, and when they encounter caravans, they may not give up the plan to make a fortune, anyway, ordinary people do not dare to provoke them.

It's a pity that those soldiers never expected that they hit the iron plate this time.

When Zhao Yu showed the certificate given by Wang Shangde in front of those soldiers, those soldiers were so frightened that they didn't dare to say more, not only did they obediently let him go, but also privately begged Zhao Yu not to inform General Wang of this matter - I don't know if these people mistook Zhao Yu for Wang Shangde's nephew.

Witnessing this scene with their own eyes, Wei Pu and other Ye County businessmen were emotional.

You must know that in previous years, when they were doing business, they were beaten by garrisons and county officials from all over the country, which was commonplace, and most of the time, they could only let those people blackmail, plug in benefits, and build a good relationship in line with the consideration that more things are better than less things.

And today, Zhao Yu just showed the certificate given by Wang Shangde, which scared the soldiers under his command not to offend, in terms of interests, this is really saving a lot of money - after all, in the past, it was not just a group of people who blackmailed them by virtue of their identity.

By the time Zhao Yu's caravan arrived in Wancheng, they had encountered a total of three groups of soldiers who were deliberately embarrassed, but after Zhao Yu showed that certificate, none of the three groups of soldiers dared to make a mistake.

When the convoy arrived in Wancheng, the snow on the road had accumulated to more than two inches, according to this situation, just like Zhao Yu's judgment, it should not be possible to organize a second decent business this year.

Of course, if you don't mind the freezing weather and the snow and ice blocking the roads, then say another thing.

Coming to the city gate, Zhao Yu showed the certificate issued by Wang Shangde, in fact, the soldiers on duty at the city gate may not be able to understand the words on the certificate, but they can at least understand the general seal on the certificate, and without saying a word, Zhao Yu's caravan entered the city.

Because they have been to Wancheng twice, Zhao Yu and his party naturally will not have the initial curiosity about Wancheng, but Wei Pu and other businessmen from Ye County can't help but take a closer look at the city.

When they saw the depression in the city, these Ye County businessmen were a little incredulous.

After all, this is Wancheng, which used to be the most prosperous county in their Nanyang County, and it was even more prosperous than their Ye County, but they never thought that they would fall to such a state today.

After all, everyone knows that Wancheng and even the entire Wanbei have fallen to the point where they are today, Wang Shangde is 'indispensable', and now, they are in the place where Wang Shangde is stationed, if they say something that is not heard, it will reach Wang Shangde's ears, and they may even lose their lives.

So, they followed Zhao Yu honestly and didn't dare to leave the team without permission.

Upon learning of the arrival of Zhao Yu's caravan, the official in charge of the military market immediately came to contact Zhao Yu and others, and this person was Kong Jian and Kong Wenju, the former guards of Nanyang County.

But right now, this Kong Jian is just a master book in charge of the military market, to put it bluntly, he is a bookkeeper of Wang Shangde, and he is no longer as proud as he once was.