Chapter 45: The Beginning of Everything Is Difficult

I thought that such a benevolent and righteous army that could fight well would be stationed in Xiangtan, and the people who had suffered from the war would definitely be welcomed in a queue, and maybe a few respected figures in Xiangtan would be sent to work the army.

I didn't expect the city gates to be closed and the soldiers to stand in order, but it was not like greeting them and more like a demonstration. The locals seemed to be very unwelcome and even resistant to the arrival of this Great Song army.

Seeing that the people of Xiangtan were so ignorant, he led his troops to garrison them, he was desperate for them, but they looked like this, Zhao Gang immediately wanted to forcibly attack and open the city gate.

Knowing Zhao Gang's temper, Li Chao immediately smiled and said: "Brother Zhao is too aggressive, this Xiangtan has been through ups and downs for a long time, and the people are brave and martial, how can they easily trust others and accept outsiders?" If the Yuan soldiers make up a surprise attack, the people in the city will suffer. The Yuan soldiers slaughtered the city, but all the old and young women and children were killed, a group of brutes! ”

After thinking about Li Chao's words, Zhao Gang smiled embarrassedly and said: "Brother is right, it's me Zhao Gang who didn't think about it and almost ruined the big brother's big thing, if there is anything inappropriate in the future, please remind my brother more." ”

Looking at Zhao Gang, a man with a simple brain but a sincere personality, Li Chao said: "Brother Zhao, the two of us are brothers in life and death, so you don't need to be so polite. I want to be as sincere as Brother Zhao. Alright, let's talk about how to get them to open the city. ”

According to Li Chao's opinion, it is estimated that the Yuan people spies deliberately ruined their reputation, so as to provoke conflicts between them and local forces.

In addition, their equipment is very different from the standard equipment of the official army. The people are mainly spears, broadswords, bows and arrows, while they are mainly muskets, wooden-handled thunderbolts, tiger squat cannons, crossbows, and the least equipped are spears. The people of Xiangtan also recognize the tiger squat cannon and crossbow, and this musket can probably guess the point. In this way, no one would easily let this strange and strange army into the city.

Standing under the city, they couldn't advance, they couldn't retreat, they were very embarrassed, and the two of them had no idea for a while.

Zhao Gang frowned, and Li Chao secretly thought, do you want to ask the county commander in the city to send someone to Changsha to verify his identity? This inevitably makes Shi Bin and others feel that they and Zhao Gang are too incompetent, right?

At this time, Li Chao's guard said: "Commander, there is a way to open the city." ”

After hearing this, Li Chao immediately came to his senses and motioned for the guard to come quickly.

"My subordinates are from Xiangtan and know some local dialects of Xiangtan. It should make them trust us. Even if we don't open the city gates, we won't be so vigilant, it's too embarrassing for us. ”

"Okay, go and say, I won't do this, if you let them open the city, I will be rewarded."

The guard smiled and walked away, looking full of confidence, as if the reward was already in the bag. Seeing that he was so confident, Li Chao and Zhao Gang also relaxed. Li Chao knew that most of this city could be opened, but seeing that it was so difficult to enter a city, I am afraid that things after that would not be as easy as he thought.

Walking along the moat, a warning sounded from the city, signaling that if he dared to take another step, he would be shot into a hedgehog immediately. The guard took a few steps back and began to talk in dialect.

The whole Hunan can be described as "ten miles of different sounds", and the soldiers in the city cannot all be Xiangtan people, and the guards use Changsha local dialect, Xiangtan local dialect, Xiangtan County local dialect, Ningtian native dialect, Shaoshan local dialect, and Hunan local dialect to chat with the soldiers guarding the city.

As a result, the more they chatted, the more energetic they became, and several people even sang mountain songs. Finally believing that this guard was authentic, the Xiangtan people pulled him up with a bamboo basket.

Although this guard is from Xiangtan, he may not be a traitor, and the city commander told him that he could open the city, but he would not trust the city's armament until he met his conditions after completing the inspection.

After the guards returned, they asked Li Chao to hand over his and Zhao Gang's waist cards to him, and asked him to bring them to the city commander for inspection. And also look at the weapons of this army.

I knew that this was a routine inspection, but most of them deliberately stumbled and disarmed them, warning themselves not to be too rampant.

For the sake of the overall situation, Li Chao and Zhao Gang suppressed the anger in their hearts, and still selected a few of the various weapons in the army for the guards to bring over.

And when he had done so, the guard entered the city again, and soon the gates were opened. Li Chao immediately brought the guard over and rewarded him with five taels of silver.

The county commander and the officer guarding the city took a few elders who seemed to have a lot of status out of the city to greet them. and apologized to Li Chao and Zhao Gang, and repeatedly hugged his fists and said that it was rude.

Knowing that this is just an official article, this kind of behavior is not only without fault but meritorious, and Li Chao also said very "sincerely" that he wants to learn from him. The county guard commander Wang was even happier after hearing this, and the two became "brothers".

Zhao Gang saw that Li Chao and Na Wang had become "brothers", and he immediately came over to chat, and several people agreed to go to the restaurant to drink at night, and they would not return if they were not drunk.

The soldiers are relatively straightforward, there are not so many ghost eyes, for the person who has just offended and took the initiative to show goodwill, Commander Liu is naturally not easy to refuse, not to mention that he will have to work under the same roof in the future, and he can't be embarrassed.

A few people drank happily at night, and Commander Wang collected some money and told them some unspoken rules for entering Xiangtan.

It is precisely in this way that Li Chao and Zhao Gang can be regarded as using this banquet to open a door to Xiangtan from Commander Liu. and decided not to care about the unpleasantness before entering Xiangtan.

Back at the station, Li Chao immediately decided that the next day would be to visit the local snakes everywhere.

He packed up his belongings, and first went to the county commander's house, but only gave the county commander a silver ticket of five hundred taels, and then drank two sips of tea and left.

Then I went to the house of the president of the Xiangtan County Chamber of Commerce. The boy who guarded the door was very well-behaved, and he gave him a few copper plates and went to report it.

Knowing that Commander Li had come to visit the house, President Deng immediately greeted him and said that Commander Li's presence had made the hut flourish.

Looking at the president's conversational performance, he knew that he was a classy and shrewd businessman, Li Chao thought to himself that he should not be so unenlightened to block everyone's financial routes, but it just depends on how big his heart is.

Time is money, in order to gain a firm foothold here as soon as possible, Li Chao came to a "less nonsense, straight to the point", unabashedly said that Shi Bin, the commander of Tanzhou, wanted to develop in Xiangtan, and hoped that President Deng would show a clear way.

Of course, the president understands this, but as a businessman who has been in the mall for a long time, he must also understand his comrades-in-arms like a battlefield general, after all, he is not afraid of enemies like wolves, but he is afraid of teammates like pigs.

Chairman Deng and Li Chao drank green tea and chatted about business, but they were very harmonious. After a lot of communication and testing, both of them expressed their belief that the other party could cooperate and hoped for a long-term cooperation.

There are only two things that Li Chaowan did not expect, the first is that he can give the sailors flat-bottomed cargo ships for them to train and do business; The second is to provide them with a store for free as a point of sale.

Li Chao was very happy to learn the news, he needed to tell Shi Bin the good news immediately, so he had to sue again and again that he had something to do, and he would come back to visit another day after it was done.

Of course, President Deng understood and welcomed the visit of him and Shi Bin, the commander of Tanzhou.

When everything is ready, the shop is opened, and almost everything is sold except grain and rice. Business is getting better day by day, Li Chao and Zhao Gang are so happy that they can't sleep, and they also discuss whether to get two more shops to expand the business after a while, so as to help Shi Bin raise more soldiers.

Although he was happy, Li Chao was still a little uneasy, it was too abnormal to go so smoothly. You must know that it is difficult to enter Xiangtan City, and doing business is to share other people's cakes, and things should not be like this.

Sure enough, bad news came a few days later, and hooligans appeared at the door of the store, only saying that the goods sold were rotten goods to be compensated, and if they did not compensate, they would sit at the door for a day.

Losing some money is nothing, but losing money is admitting that there is a problem with the goods, which is bad reputation. In ancient times, reputation came first, and if the reputation was broken, don't want to do business in the local area.

Zhao Gang was not impulsive this time, and only looked at Li Chao waiting for his plan.

Soon Li Chao called the Xiangtan guards over and asked him to find out who was making trouble and why, after all, the locals must have a way to find out something that outsiders can't find.

In less than two days, the guard found out the news, and it was Vice President Liu of the Chamber of Commerce who was making trouble. And said that this person is a thorn in the pan and is difficult to get along with.

Li Chao was very strange and asked, "How can a small vice president of the Chamber of Commerce be so rampant?" The county commander and the commander of the city have already treated me with courtesy, and we have an agreement with President Deng, so he is not afraid of causing trouble? ”

The guard smiled bitterly and said, "My lord, I don't know, this person is clearly the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, but secretly he is a bandit leader, and he often drinks with Commander Wang." He has a deep relationship with everywhere, especially the outlaws. ”

"I see, it's a big snake. It seems that if we don't get rid of him, we won't be able to gain a foothold in Xiangtan City, so we have to give him some color to see. Li Chao said, thanking the guard, he thought of this question alone.

He couldn't get around the idea of strangling the vice president, so he had no choice, so he called Zhao Gang's reckless man to the staff officer. Unexpectedly, he thought of a good way - to join.

It turned out that there were often horse bandits in the north where Zhao Gang grew up, and it was impossible for all villages to have strong protection, so they had to find a way to "live in harmony" with the horse bandits. So the village also joined the gang, but if they had a harvest from the grass valley, they had to get a little less, as a protection fee for them.

At first, Li Chao didn't agree, thinking that he was a dignified officer and army, and his subordinates also commanded two battalions of men, how could he bow to those bandits and pay protection money? And in this way, won't he also become a bandit?

Zhao Gang smiled and said, "Brother Li still doesn't understand what I said. We are not bowing our heads, but absorbing, and letting them join us. They are just mischievous because they are afraid that we will rob them of their advantage. Absorb them, so that they will no longer plague the people, but they can harm the soldiers. ”

After hearing this, Li Chao was immediately overjoyed, patted Zhao Gang on the shoulder and said, "I didn't expect you to be so powerful, brother, I really underestimate you." Turning his head, he said again: "Brother, what you said about absorption has given me a new idea, if they know each other, we will really accept them, if they don't know each other, why don't we borrow a knife to kill someone?" ”

Zhao Gang also nodded in praise immediately.

After saying that, the two immediately went to visit Vice President Liu of the Chamber of Commerce. They discussed carefully how to cooperate to attack the Yuan soldiers and divide the interests.

After some negotiations, it was decided that this attack was under the banner of the Great Song Dynasty official army, and they also disguised themselves as officials and soldiers to attack the Yuan soldiers together, and the main thing was to intercept the Yuan soldiers' baggage and transport it back by water. However, this benefit has to be divided into 28 shares, after all, the main force is the official army, and the bandits are only assisting.

Don't look at it as only two percent, but it is also a lot, the weight of grain and grass is a few hundred stones in a casual round, and one attack is worth half a year's income. And even if they find out, they can not admit it, but they can accept it with confidence if they get benefits.

After the negotiation, both parties were happy, and Li Chao immediately asked Shi Bin to decide. Knowing that Zhao Gang had such a good idea, he praised him greatly, and thanked Li Chao for his peaceful opening of the city.