A few days later, the hunters brought in a lot of nitrate, and also sent a few young men from the Orion family to serve as apprentices.

Chen Xian randomly selected a part of the nitrate for boiling, and found that most of the nitrate sent by the other party was high-quality nitrate, and then accepted the nitrate at the agreed price.

When this group of hunters returned to the mountain with more than a dozen knives, it immediately caused a sensation, the quality of Chen Xian's treasure knife, through the eight knives they brought back last time, the hunters have seen it, such a treasure knife, a stone of soil can be exchanged, many hunters are like crazy to find nitrate.

More and more hunters are getting involved in this trade.

Some hunters tried to send their children to the Chen family shop as apprentices, and if nothing else, the skill of making the sword alone was enough to make the hunters flock to it.

In the past six months, Chen Xian has successively recruited more than 30 hunters' children, and the nitrate trade fully meets Chen Xian's production of nitrate production and there is still a surplus, but Chen Xian did not reduce the purchase of nitrate, he built a warehouse, which is specially used to stack nitrate.

Just when Chen Xian's arquebus and gunpowder production were on the right track, Yang Xiaoyi, who was arranged by him to lurk in Yang's shop, sent new news.

……

After Yang Yuanwai got the secret of the katana, he immediately arranged his own workshop to produce it with all his might, but because the output could not go up for a while, he still bought as many katanas as he wanted from Chen Xian.

In Yang Yuanwai's thoughts, it won't be long before he can refuse to buy Chen Xian's katana, and without a source of income, relying on the more than 100 acres of poor land, he can't support fifty or sixty apprentices at all, so he can only disperse, and then he will recruit those apprentices.

The idea is very beautiful, but the reality is often very cruel, in the first month, the Chen family shop produced five qualified Tang knives, the second month six, and the third month is still six.

Although I already know the secret of Tang knife forging, because I don't know how to strictly follow the process, the failure rate of the blacksmith of the Yang family shop to build the Tang knife is very high, except for Yang Xiaoyi's father and a few other old craftsmen who have been pondering the production of Tang knife The success rate is higher, and the success rate of others is low, even Yang Xiaoyi and a few other undercover apprentices in the Chen family shop The success rate is not high, because they are only responsible for the molding process in Chen Xian's shop, and they don't understand anything else.

Because they don't know how to divide labor and cooperate, and they don't know how to summarize, the old craftsmen want to pass on their experience to other craftsmen, which is very inefficient, and in addition to their own children and nephews, these old craftsmen always have to hide a hand when teaching others, which leads to other young craftsmen learning more slowly.

Although Yang Yuanwai and these craftsmen knew about the division of labor and cooperation of the Chen family shop, they only thought that this was a means taken by Chen Xian in order to keep the secret of the Tang knife.

In their view, this division of labor and cooperation is a trouble to delay the right thing.

Four or five months later, Yang Yuanwai was desperate to find that it was a fantasy to let his shop produce Tang knives like Chen Xian's shop.

Naturally, Yang Yuanwai thought that he was tricked by Chen Xian......

And the same situation is also playing out in the Bai family......

Yang Yuanwai, who felt that his dignity had been hurt again and again, took the initiative to send someone to contact Bai Yuanwai, and the two had another negotiation through an agent.

The two originally planned to stop buying Tang Dao together and cut off the source of the Chen family's Zhuangzi, but when they checked, they found that since last year, when Chen Xian sold Tang Dao to them, he mainly used grain to settle the settlement, supplemented by copper coins.

The two sides calculated that the grain that Chen Xian exchanged for in the past six months was enough for the more than 100 mouthfuls in Chenjiazhuang to eat for another year.

Whether it is Yang Yuanwai or Bai Yuanwai, they can't bear to wait for a year, not to mention this year, who knows what kind of moth Chen Xian will play, just stop Tang Dao trading for a year, and they can't bear the economic losses brought by it.

After worrying about Chen Xian's rich wings day and night, looking at the foundation of the two families, the two members discussed it back and forth for more than half a month, and finally made up their minds that they must take down Chenjiazhuang!

As long as Chenjiazhuang is won, more than 60 apprentices, and two families will be divided, won't the output of Tang Dao be there?

Unified opinions on the use of force, how to move, need to be carefully considered, after all, the other party's power, they couldn't be clearer.

The Yang and Bai families have 600 Zhuang Ding, and more than 70 generals on horseback and armor, so it stands to reason that it will not be a problem to take down Chen Xian's small Zhuangzi.

But these 600 Zhuangding, more than 70 generals, is the old capital of the two families, but it can't be broken, once it is folded too much, this East Zhuangzi may not be able to keep it.

As soon as the two of them remembered Chen Er's Lei Fa who killed people at every turn, they dispelled the idea of using Zhuang Ding.

In the past, when Chen Xian was still in the Chen family shop in East Zhuangzi, the two of them did not dare to do it because they were afraid of Chen Xian's treasures, but now that Chen Xian has his own well-defended Zhuangzi, the two of them dare not shoot their children to die.

The two sides tried to instigate the other to use Zhuang Ding to fight the new Zhuangzi, but they soon found that the other party was as resolute as they were.

Since he wants to use force again, and he doesn't dare to use his own Zhuang Ding, the only choice is to resort to external forces.

The Yang family and the Bai family agreed on the approximate number of reinforcements and the time of arrival, and sent messengers separately.

……

After receiving Yang Xiaoyi's news, Chen Xian has been waiting for the news of Steward Yang.

But what disappointed him was that not only did he not wait for the news of Steward Yang, but instead waited for the news that Steward Yang and the big butler of the Bai family were eating wine at the largest restaurant in East Zhuangzi.

In this era, people's sense of secrecy is very weak, and the contact between the Yang and Bai families is semi-open at all, maybe the Yang and Bai families did not expect that Chen Xian would leave a detailed work in Dongzhuangzi, but in fact, Chen Xian left a fully functional intelligence team in Dongzhuangzi, each performing its own duties.

This is a one-line contact intelligence team, including Yang Xiaoyi, who has a public identity, and there are also children and nephews of the Yang family, who specialize in inquiring about the news in the Yang family's compound, and there are also important people such as Yang Butler and Bai Family Butler, as well as two traffic officers, who specialize in collecting information collected by intelligence officers in a fixed place.

The homes of the two traffic officers are in the north of Zhuangzi, close to the new Zhuangzi, tenant a piece of land of the Yang family, and he will take the collected information every few days to the agreed place next to his field to hide it, and there is a special person in the new Zhuangzi who goes to the agreed place every night to check.

Hearing that Steward Yang and the Bai family's chief butler had met, but did not send any news to him, Chen Xian immediately knew that he was afraid that Steward Yang was not going to take his boat anymore, so he immediately recalled the apprentice who stayed in Dongzhuangzi and was specifically responsible for liaising with Steward Yang.