Now that the Zheng family is at a critical juncture of life and death, Li Wenxiao is a Confucian scribe, and he does not bargain, and directly reports the amount of money he wants.

This gesture made Liu Ximing quite satisfied, but there was still a gap between the bottom line in Liu Ximing's heart.

"Mr. Li is really a cheerful person, but the price is still a little too little, now our army is prosperous, the Zheng family is in danger, only spend 320,000 taels of silver to keep the country from losing, maybe it's a little too cheap."

Li Wenxiao frowned and straightened up and said: "General Rongyu, my lord has been in charge of the government for a long time, with millions of people in the territory under his jurisdiction, and tens of thousands of soldiers with armor. ”

"Besides, from the north of Nghe An, everyone is devoted to my lord, and the more the general leads his troops north, the more likely it is to be resisted by our subjects, and it is about to enter the summer, and my Annam is rainy and humid, which is even more unfavorable to the general."

"The general is only here for money, why bother to consume his own children for the Ruan family, please think twice."

This person's eloquence is really good, Liu Ximing sighed in his heart.

He circled around the main table in the tent, raised his head and looked at Li Wenxiao and said:

"That's it, I won't say anything, your family will take out 400,000 taels of silver, and I will go to the Ruan family to discuss the withdrawal of the army, and all the more than 10,000 captives will be returned to your family, what do you think?"

Li Wenxiao nodded without hesitation and said, "Okay, just do what the general says." ”

"Oh, by the way, there's one more thing," Liu Ximing said with a wicked smile on his face.

"Do you need to buy cotton?"

What?

Li Wenxiao had a blank expression on his face.

Liu Ximing followed with a smile: "This time I came to sell cotton cloth, only because the Ruan family did business with me and bought my 150,000 taels of cloth, so I promised him to attack Zheng together, this has a cooperative relationship is different, next time......

Li Wenxiao was speechless for a while, maybe he scolded Liu Ximing's ancestors for eighteen generations.

Just to sell some bullshit cotton, you will lead someone to beat my family's head and bleed, is there such a heartbreaking thing in the world?

Before Liu Ximing finished speaking, the corners of Li Wenxiao's eyes twitched violently and immediately asked:

"I don't know how to sell the cotton cloth of the general's family, if it can, it's not that my Zheng family can't buy some."

"Hehe, it's easy to say, Degao, let Shen Huai bring some samples over."

After some bargaining, Li Wenxiao finally left the Liu family's camp and went home to report his lord's decision.

After half an hour, Zheng Jie also confirmed the content of the transaction, and the Liu and Zheng families reached an agreement.

The Zheng family paid the Liu family 400,000 taels of military discharge and ransom fees at one time, and bought another 300,000 taels of silver cotton cloth for the Liu family, on the condition that the Liu family could no longer help the Ruan family in the future.

Liu Ximing naturally nodded and agreed, this is a matter of mercenaries fighting a war, it is good to come once, not only will the price drop if it comes too much, but it will also easily cause an imbalance between regions, and some gains outweigh the losses.

At dawn the next day, the envoy of the Liu family found the Ruan army and directly sent Liu Ximing the decision to retreat.

Unexpectedly, the Ruan monarch was not only not surprised, but also felt a sense of relief.

In fact, on the battlefield yesterday, not only the Zheng family saw Liu Ximing's deliberate preservation of strength, but the Ruan family, as an ally, was even more clear.

That night, Tao Weici proposed to Ruan Fulan that the Liu family might have other ideas, not only to guard against his family's desire to withdraw from the army, but also to guard against his family's counterattack.

In the evening, the Ruan spies, who had been guarding the Liu family's camp, discovered Li Wenxiao and his party, and confirmed the speculation of the Ruan family's monarchs.

Therefore, throughout the night, the Ruan family's army was all waiting for him, for fear that the Liu family would suddenly turn his face and hit him off guard.

Now hearing the news that Liu Ximing directly announced the withdrawal of the army, and hearing the envoy clearly say that the Liu family was unwilling to accept the Zheng family's suggestion to rebel, only considering the loss of personnel, did he think of retiring from the army, Ruan Fulan felt that Liu Ximing was indeed an honest gentleman.

In front of the envoy and his own courtiers, Ruan Fulan kept boasting that Liu Xi's words were trustworthy and had the style of an ancient gentleman, so that he would be a brother with Liu Xi's order.

In fact, the Ruan family also wanted to stop the truce at this time, after all, the Ruan family was not as good as the Zheng family, the Northern Expedition was relatively hasty, and the occupation of Quang Binh and Ha Tinh provinces alone had already made the Ruan family satisfied.

Moreover, the Ruan family's troops were seriously insufficient due to the elongation of the battle line, and at this time, if they went north, the Ruan family was also more than willing to do so.

On 17 February, the Zheng and Ruan families, who had fought for more than a month, formally negotiated peace under the witness of the Liu family's army.

In this battle, the Zheng family lost face and lizi, the army lost nearly 30,000 people, and lost the capital of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Nghe An provinces, but they retained most of their strength and will definitely make a comeback in the future.

The Ruan family made a lot of money, and the territory increased by two provinces, and even hit the old rival Zheng family hard, and pushed the front from Lingjiang to the Lanjiang line, which can be said to have achieved a bumper harvest.

But the Ruan family also lost more than 7,000 troops, which was not necessarily a good thing for his family, which was already a small number of soldiers.

In a battle, only the Liu family won a complete victory.

In a period of more than a month, Liu Ximing first obtained 450,000 taels of silver through the sale of cotton cloth, and about 380,000 taels were recorded in the accounts for the Ruan family's military expenses and the seizures of Ha Tinh Province.

Coupled with the 400,000 taels of retirement expenses paid by the Zheng family, Liu Ximing received a total of 1.23 million taels of silver, which was really full of oil.

But in the end, Liu Ximing couldn't put all the silver in his pocket and take it away.

It was rare to come to Annan, and his pocket was full of silver, so he naturally had to make a big purchase.

Compared with the price of rice in the Central Plains, which is more than one or two pieces of silver and one stone, Annan only sells for two dollars and five cents of silver and one stone, and this change of hands is four times the difference.

For this reason, Liu Ximing forcibly asked Zheng Ruan and his family to sell him 4 million stone rice at a parity price, as well as various gems, spices, bird's nest and sea cucumber and other specialties.

These purchases basically cost him more than one million taels of silver, and he even paid hundreds of thousands of taels more.

Zheng Ruan's two families wished that Liu Ximing agreed to settle the account with goods, so it can be said that it is a combination of two benefits, these two families are simply using the power of the whole country to draw goods, and a few days of hard work will be prepared according to Liu Ximing's requirements, but he still needs to go to various ports to pick up the goods himself.

In addition to this, the Fubo Division was also further trained in the Annan War, and the Liu family gained first-hand information about a lot of geographical information in the Annan area.

However, there are pros and cons, after the transaction with Zheng Ruan, Liu Ximing once again realized the disadvantages of his previous strategy.

Liujiacun has no problem making the cotton industry its main financial pillar, but it is a bit fanciful to expect overseas trade to sell all the cotton cloth.

There are less than three million people in the entire country of Annan, and the three million pieces of cotton cloth that Liu Ximing sold to Zheng Ruan's family alone can be used for at least a year or two.

Now that the Zheng family controls the Taiwan Strait, trade with Japan and Korea has been virtually cut off.

These two countries now have a population of more than 20 million people, and the market is huge, especially Japan is still a producer of gold and silver.

Therefore, during the five days from February 17 to February 22, Liu Ximing waited in Yi'an for the Zheng family to deliver the money, and at the same time had to wonder where to find the next home for the other more than 20 million cotton cloths in his space.

Liu Ximing thought about it to no avail, so he could only call You Degao, Zhao Jingyong, Liu Dehui and other officers over to discuss.

Seeing Liu Ximing sighing continuously, Liu Dehui simply suggested:

"Second brother, if you want me to say that we might as well have a fight with the Zheng family first, just like Annan, if you don't let them know that our family is powerful, this business on the sea will always be controlled by them."

Zhao Jingyong even thought about this topic seriously, and he kept rubbing his chin, as if talking to himself and as if he was making specific suggestions.

"Well, second brother, it's not that this thing can't be done, we don't have a specific base, let's find some merchant ships of the Zheng family first, and eat away at his family's sea power little by little, and in the long run, it may not be impossible to grind their family to death."

Liu Ximing shook his head with a smile, "The Zheng family has a big business, and it is difficult to find out the movements of the Zheng family's ships on the sea, I don't know how many years it will take to achieve my wish by relying on this method alone, this method is not feasible." ”

"Then why don't you continue south along the Southeast Peninsula?" , You Degao picked his head, "Didn't the second brother say that the Cham and Siam or something are downstream, we can go there." ”

"Hey, these countries are only about 100,000 people, and the market is also very limited, Siam can be regarded as a big country, but it is not as good as North Korea, but if it really doesn't work, you can only go to Siam first." , Liu Ximing sighed.