Cen Chunlin, the largest grain merchant in Huaiyuan County and even in the entire northern part of Liuzhou, is rumored to be a Tusi family, but that was more than 100 years ago.

But even so, it still has a very close relationship with many Tusi families in Guangxi, and even has a relationship with the Tianzhou Cen family where Mrs. Washi is located, why, because one word can explain: Youjiang Cen family!

This surname has a lot of toast, otherwise, if you look at the list of Guangxi toasts in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, you will find almost all the Cen family.

Of course, they are not the same family, and their hereditary territories are different.

Moreover, these Tusi families are not really permanent hereditary, and like many traditional feudal dynasties, they will continue to change, and there will be wars between Tusi and Tusi, annexation, splitting, etc.

And the Huaiyuan Cen family is such a Tusi family that has lost its hereditary territory, well, they call themselves, as for whether their ancestors are really Tusi families, it is estimated that they themselves don't know.

But these are not important, the important thing is that the Huaiyuan Cen family is the largest grain merchant in the north of Liuzhou, and even in the entire northern part of Guangxi, it can be regarded as a famous grain merchant!

So when this person sent his descendants to find Mei Pingdong, the county commander of Huaiyuan County, and said that he was willing to provide a large amount of military rations for the Tang Dynasty, even Mei Pingdong, who had swelled in the past few days, put away his arrogance in treating the local gentry and merchants in the past.

Instead, he was kind and kind, and even showed great kindness to negotiate with him!

Of course, this kind of negotiation, which involves a large amount of military rations and even more extensive cooperation, is naturally not something that Mei Pingdong, a small county commander, can call the shots.

He reported the relevant situation to Ma Wei, the governor of Liuzhou Prefecture in Rong County, as quickly as possible!

At this time, Ma Wei had just personally led a group of soldiers from the robbery camp to completely exterminate a Tusi family in Rong County.

Why?

Because someone in this toast family has been involved in framing him!

When Ma Wei took refuge in Li Xuan, he had the firm goal of returning to Liuzhou to take revenge even if he rebelled, and Li Xuan also promised him that when the Tang Dynasty King entered Liuzhou, it was the time for him to take revenge.

Now, Li Xuan has fulfilled his promise and appointed Ma Wei as the prefect of Liuzhou!

After becoming the prefect of Liuzhou of the Tang Dynasty, Ma Wei already has enough strength to take revenge!

This revenge action has started since he entered Huaiyuan County, and Ma Wei has successively exterminated three big families, all of which are the families of the people who framed him back then.

His revenge is not just for one person, his revenge is to uproot the family of this person, leaving no chickens and dogs, and it is very bloody.

After killing another enemy family, Ma Wei, who was in a good mood, just returned to the county seat of Rongxian County, and got the news from Mei Pingdong, the county magistrate of Huaiyuan County.

Grain merchants? It is a good thing to supply military rations for the army, and not to collect food supplies from Liuzhou Mansion, but to transport grain from outside!

Nowadays, there is a shortage of everything in the jurisdiction of the Tang Dynasty, and there is naturally a shortage of food, and the gap is not small.

In the areas currently controlled by the Tang Dynasty, none of them are important grain producing areas, although there is also grain output, but they are all self-sufficient, and cannot have a large amount of excess grain shipped out like Jiangnan and other regions.

And this kind of self-sufficiency, it is still only barely enough to eat!

However, the food of the Tang Dynasty is much higher than that of ordinary people, and the same number of people needs to consume more food.

Now in the Tang Dynasty, there are more than 10,000 regular troops and more than 20,000 garrison troops, of which the food supply of the regular army is the standard supply, that is, three meals a day, as long as you can eat, and there is meat to eat every few days, the nutrition provided by such a food supply can support their high-intensity physical training, and form the corresponding combat effectiveness.

However, three meals a day resulted in a regular army of no more than 10,000 people, and the food consumed was more than that of a garrison of more than 20,000 people, not to mention meat!

Even the garrison consumes more rations than ordinary people, although the daily rations are mainly coarse grains, but they can barely eat enough, and they still eat three meals a day, but ordinary people actually only eat two meals a day, and many families even only have one meal is dry rice, and the other meal is just porridge.

In ancient times, the people lived very hard!

Even if modern people cross over to a family like a small landlord, it is estimated that they will starve to death, let alone a poor family!

Otherwise, why is the average age of ancient people only twenty or thirty years old, the low level of medical care is one thing, but the lack of food is the more important reason.

Because more than 99% of the ancient people were in a state of malnutrition for a long time!

So, don't envy the ancients, even if you are just a super bitter dick in modern times, but you are willing to work, even if you just go to the street to pick up a piece of garbage to sell, it is enough for you to eat, and it is white rice and white bread!

Of course, if you lie down every day and don't want to move and starve to death, then there is no way, it is not poor to death, it is lazy to death!

In ancient times, nothing was more important than food!

The Tang Dynasty was established in the barren land of the southwest, and has always attached great importance to grain, in the Huangzhushan period, in order to expand the source of food and keep the grain production area, the ancient sage Li Xuan led the army and the people to fight many battles!

The battles of the country have been fought countless times, such as the Battle of Shuilongzhai and the Battle of Fengjiazhuang twice, these are all battles fought for survival, which are of great strategic significance for the Tang Dynasty!

Even now, the Tang Dynasty is still for survival, located in the remote eastern part of Guizhou, what if it can't raise so many troops, and what if it can't support so many people?

Expand to the outside world!

Fight for war!

In the three detachments of the Tang Dynasty's division to the north, west, and south, they did not bring much food to the expedition, and their sources of military food were basically eaten by the enemy, not only because the grain transportation was difficult because of the distance, but because the Tang Dynasty simply did not have so much food to supply the front-line army.

So you can only rely on the front-line troops to figure it out on their own!

Ma Wei, who knew the importance of food supply to the Tang Dynasty, especially the southward army on the front line, immediately sent an envoy to Huaiyuan with his handwritten letter to Huaiyuan to make preliminary contact with the Cen family in Huaiyuan County.

At the same time, the military's military newspaper transmission channel was also borrowed to carry out an expedited express report, and the two waves of messengers going south and north reported the relevant situation to Li Xuan, who was still far away in Xingquan Mansion, and Hao Bonian, who commanded the army in Xiangzhou, south of Liuzhou, at a speed of 500 miles a day!

Hao Bonian, who was on the front line, immediately ordered one of the main persons in charge of the baggage supply of the southbound detachment, that is, the deputy commander of the second baggage regiment, to personally go north to Huaiyuan County to participate in relevant negotiations on behalf of the southbound troops.

And put forward the requirements of the southbound troops, two words: fast, more!

The more food the better, and the faster it arrives, the better!

As for how to transport, how to trade, and how much to price, it is not the business of the southbound troops, it is the business of the Ministry of Taxation and the Privy Council Ordnance Division.

These two agencies, one is responsible for paying for bargaining, or the other is the financier, and the other is the specific procurement department, and all the munitions used by the military are all in charge of the ordnance department to draw up the procurement list.

The military supply in the Tang Dynasty is more responsible, to put it simply, the troops themselves have no power to procure, they can only make requests, saying that they still lack any equipment or materials, and then the Ordnance Department will approve or reject the troops' requests according to the various circumstances of the troops, of course, sometimes the Ordnance Department will also take the initiative to provide some equipment to the troops.

Depending on the needs of the troops, the Ordnance Division draws up a long, long list and then begins external procurement.

This type of procurement is mainly in-house, and in a few cases, it is also purchased externally.

Internal purchase, in fact, should be said to be internal supply, because the military does not give money, and all kinds of weapons and military weapons on the Ministry of Industry are directly supplied to the troops free of charge, at most it is just to keep an account in the accounts. The Department of Commerce, which specializes in external procurement and sales, also provides all kinds of military supplies to the army free of charge.

As far as external procurement is concerned, this situation is relatively rare, and the main thing is to purchase meat and other daily necessities for troops fighting or stationed abroad.

But no matter how it works, it can't get around the Department of Commerce of the Ministry of Taxation, because in the end, the money has to be paid by the Department of Commerce of the Ministry of Tax.

Large-scale transactions with external businessmen have always been the responsibility of the Department of Commerce of the Ministry of Taxation, including transactions with Old Man Sun.

This time, Huaiyuan Cen's family came to the door to cooperate in the supply of military rations, and as soon as he opened his mouth, it was a figure that Hao Bonian had to be moved, and this kind of large-scale transaction was not something that could be decided by the southbound troops or even the Privy Council itself, and it had to be led by the Department of Commerce of the Ministry of Taxation.

Because of such a huge scale of food supply, the money involved is also a huge number!

And the Huaiyuan Cen family is not a good person, who is this grain sold to is not for sale, why should they take such a big risk to sell to the Tang Dynasty, and they also said that they would take the initiative to help transport it to Liuzhou, and it is not only the profit of the grain trade itself.

Mei Pingdong also tried to ask them what they wanted, but they only said that they had other purposes, but they could only talk to people who could call the shots.

And this is also the reason why Mei Pingdong and even Ma Wei can't decide on their own, and they must report it to Li Xuan of Xingquan Mansion.

The letters delivered by the military's fast horses arrived in Xingquan Mansion faster than ordinary official documents, and only three days later, Li Xuan received a report from Liuzhou!