After informing Qi Jiguang of the auction method, the meeting between Gao Pragmatic and Qi Jiguang came to an end, and Xue Cheng, the commander of the Kaiping Zhongtun Guard, who heard the news, held a banquet for the two of them in the yamen of the command envoy.

As mentioned above, Kaiping is located at the junction of Luanzhou, Yongping Prefecture, and Fengrun, Shuntian Prefecture, which are more than 400 miles east of Beijing. She leans on the remnants of Yanshan Mountain with lofty mountains and ravines in the north, borders on the vast tidal flats of Bohai Bay in the south, looks at the winding Great Wall in the east, and looks at the Shun and Yong Plains in the west. Historically, it has defended the lonely bamboo, protected the Youyan, strangled the Great Wall, and Shuluanzhou, and was a place where soldiers must fight, and its strategic position was very important, and the surrounding counties and counties were incapable of being the right.

Although Kaiping is only a small city because of the garrison, it is a traffic point after all, so it extends in all directions, merchants gather, chariots and horses diverge, and wealth and goods are abundant. It has a longer history than Daodi, Qiaocheng and Hazelnut Town, and is recognized as the first of the four ancient towns in Luanzhou.

Throughout the history of Kaiping, the history is intricate, and the jurisdiction is changeable: Tang, Yu, and Xia were Jizhou land, and Shang Dynasty was Guzhu country. Later, it successively belonged to Yan, Liaoxi, Beiping, Shicheng and Khitan, and was an important garrison for all dynasties. The Qin Dynasty belonged to the right Beiping County, and the Han Dynasty placed Shicheng County here, which was the seat of the county, and later renamed Haiyang County. After the Jin Dynasty, it belonged to Liaoxi County. During the Five Dynasties period, Emperor Gaozu Shi Jingjiao of the Later Jin Dynasty ceded land to the Khitan (Later Liao State), which belonged to Pingzhou, and "moved the captives of Dingzhou to this place and placed the Yong'an Army of Luanzhou". Here is a small plain formed by the alluvium of the Luanhe River water system of the Pingchuan River, which has Yifeng County, Macheng County and Shicheng County in the middle.

Historically, Kaiping spanned Shicheng and Yifeng counties. Until the first year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty, Kaiping Zhongtun Wei first moved to Zhending from Daning Shaling, and then moved north to Shicheng Waste County in Yongle three years, thus, because there are heavy troops stationed, the old governance of Shicheng Waste County was then a military town, because the garrison was Kaiping Zhongtun Guard, this place was called Kaiping Town. (No wind note: Yesterday, a reader left a message that mistook this Kaiping for Kaiping County, Guangdong, and I was really dumbfounded, so here is another introduction to the location and history of Kaiping.) )

Kaiping Zhongtun Wei set up two commanders, two commanders, five servants, five people, five people, eleven deputy thousand households, thirty-two people, one Wei Zhenfu, fourteen officials, five thousand soldiers, five thousand and seventy-seven soldiers, and it is an important military fortress within the Great Wall.

After Kaiping became an important border town in the north, Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, attached great importance to the defense here, and repeatedly sent important ministers to garrison Kaiping: "In the first year of Yongle, Jiaxu, Gaoyang King Gao Xu prepared for Kaiping"; In the eighth year of Yongle, in autumn and July, Ming Chengzu came to Kaiping Labor Army; "In February of the eleventh year, Yingcheng Bosun was strictly prepared for Kaiping"; "In September of the twelfth year, Guiwei, Cheng'an Hou Guo Liang, Xing'an Bo Xu Heng jointly prepared Kaiping"; "In the autumn and July of the eighteenth year, Ding Hai, Xing'an Bo Xu Heng guarded Kaiping and guarded Beijing"; "In July of the twenty-seventh year, the edict of the world, Wu'an Hou Zheng Heng took Xue Lu to prepare for Kaiping."

Among these military leaders who garrisoned Kaiping, there were kings, marquises, and uncles, and their titles were very high in the history of town guards at the county and town level at that time, which showed the importance of the imperial court to Kaiping, and also highlighted the importance of the military status of Kaiping Town.

At present, there are no two commanders in Kaiping, but only Xue Cheng. This Xue Cheng Xue commander is very coincidental, it is Xue Gan's compatriot and younger brother who is currently in charge of Yang Wuhou Yin, that is, the uncle of Xue Gong who participated in Gao Shishi's Xinzhai Spring Festival last time.

At the table, Xue Cheng was particularly affectionate to Gao Pragmatic, and even in front of Qi Jiguang, his top boss, he had to invite Gao Pragmatic to take a seat, which made Gao Pragmatic quite embarrassed.

Originally, Qi Jiguang was not a vain person, and he had always respected literati, and this time he benefited a lot from Gao Pragmatic, and he was willing to let Gao Pragmatic sit on the table, but Xue Cheng's obvious stammering Gao Pragmatic still surprised him. After all, although Gao Pragmatic has an extraordinary background, and now he has become a close minister of the prince, but Gao Gong is only Gao Pragmatic's third uncle after all, and he is not his biological father, and although the prince is a prince, he is still young at the moment, Xue Cheng's performance is a bit excessive.

When it was time to toast during the banquet, Xue Cheng mentioned that "the lower officials heard that the high waiter read and made that soap, which was simply a move to turn stones into gold, and now the Jingshi has only been on sale for a few days, and the five shops are busy and overcrowded every day, which can be described as making money every day", Qi Jiguang suddenly realized.

Linked to the news that the night did not receive to Jizhou, said that on the day of the spring of the heart of the fast, several nobles of the Beijing division gathered in the Chengguo Mansion, but a few days, the Beijing division "Jinghua soap" opened five stores at the same time, and the soap sold in limited quantities on the first day was directly bought out by several nobles...... Qi Jiguang understood, there must be something related here.

Next, Xue Cheng's words were even more explicit: "Gao Shiyu reads you, although our Kaiping is small, but the east is Yongping-Shanhaiguan, which is the main road to Liao, if Gao Shiyu has the intention to sell the soap to Liaodong, our Kaiping can be used as a place to change hands......"

Qi Jiguang is naturally a rare genius and famous general when it comes to military affairs, but he is not good at business, and when he heard this, he couldn't help but think: Think about how expensive that soap is, how many yuan can you sell for in a small city like Kaiping? As for changing hands...... What is the use of changing hands?

But Gao Pragmatic didn't seem to look down on Xue Cheng at all, looked at him with a smile, and asked: "Commander Xue, we don't talk darkly, do you want the agency of soap in Liaodong?" ”

"Proxy?" Xue Cheng was stunned: "Dare to ask Gao Shiyu, what is agency?" ”

Gao pragmatic said with a smile: "The so-called agency, simply put, is that if a businessman in Liaodong wants to operate soap, my Jinghua Soap Factory will not ship it to him, and he can only take it from you if he wants to take the goods." ”

Xue Cheng was taken aback: "There is such a good thing? ”

"How?" Gao Pragmatic was like a devil who tempted people to give their souls, and said in an unfathomable tone: "As long as Commander Xue can agree to Gao's conditions, he can win the exclusive agency of Liaodong soap supply, and in the future, Liaodong merchants can only take the goods from you if they want soap." ”

Xue Cheng's throat moved and moved, and he said in his heart: Isn't Lao Tzu going to be developed? That Guoshi soap is a piece of goods that sells for one or two silver, if I win the agent of the entire Liaodong, I am afraid that I will be richer than the Yangwu Marquis Mansion every year!

"No...... I don't know the high ...... What is the ...... of Gao Shiyu? Condition? "In the end, it is the wealth that touches people's hearts, and Commander Xue, who is living in a small town in Kaiping, is so excited that he almost stutters when he speaks in the face of such a good thing.