Today's sun is good, and the small store hall of Yantai's "Sun Ji South Store" is crowded with residents who come to shop. As the only shop in the whole of Yantai that sells southern goods, it's no surprise that this newly opened shop pù is doing well. The shop was opened by the descendants of Sun Chunyang, a wealthy businessman from Ningbo, and specializes in selling tea, silk cloth, cotton cloth, dried bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, Tsubaki buds, melon seeds and secret Sun Chunyang tea legs and other special goods produced in Ningbo in the south.

Sun Chunyang was a Confucian student in Ningbo, and after repeatedly failing to take the exam during the Wanli years, he abandoned Confucianism and engaged in business, and went to Suzhou to open a South Shop, whose name was Sun Chunyang South Shop, which was known for its good quality and low price, honesty and trustworthiness. After the Qing army moved south, the Sun family, who was in charge of the shop at that time, sent some of their sons and nephews back to their hometown in Ningbo to avoid the risk of military disasters. But who knew that within a few years, this Ningbo fell into the hands of the yellow-clothed thieves again, and looking at its style, it seemed that it was going to be entrenched, which made the Sun family, who was quite speculative, see some possibility. So, seven months after the "trapping" in Ningbo, the Sun family saw the opportunity and decisively took refuge in Wei Boqiu, who was presiding over the economic construction work in Ningbo, not only donated a large sum of silver to pay respect, but also asked to open shops in Shandong and Heishui to prosper local commerce, which was praised by Wei Boqiu.

Now that he has the approval of Deputy Commander Wei, things are much easier. In mid-March, several descendants sent by the Sun family arrived in Yantai on a ship transporting migrants on the east coast, and opened their first store in the Yantai area, "Sun Ji Nan Cargo Store". The reason why the old signboard of "Sun Chunyang South Shop" was not used was mainly because he was afraid of bringing trouble to the clansmen who were still in the Qing court's ruled area, in case he was framed as a thief?

After the preparation of the south store in Yantai was completed, at the end of April. The Sun family's own Fu ship, laden with goods, set sail from Dinghai Port. After a long voyage, we arrived at Yantai Port. So far. Tea, silk, homespun cloth, bamboo, rattan chairs, and some specialty foods from the south entered the Shandong market, and the trade ties between the two places, which had been interrupted for a decade since the end of Chongzhen, were reconnected.

The government of Sun Ji South Stores Heishui Pioneer Team accounts for 40% of the shares and is the largest shareholder; Shao Shude, Wei Boqiu and other officials with heads and faces in Heishui account for a total of 20% of the shares, and the Sun family themselves account for 40% of the shares. At present, the operation is still the method of Suzhou Sun Chunyang South Goods Store, that is, the sub-cabinet operation method - the shop is divided into six rooms: South Cargo Room, Sea Cargo Room, Pickling Room, Sauce Warehouse, Candied Fruit Room and Candle Room. After the customer chooses the product and looks at the marked price, he will go to the unified checkout cabinet to pay the money, and then the cashier will give the customer a ticket, and the customer can pick up the goods at each warehouse with this ticket.

This method of separating the silver goods greatly reduces the number of salespeople. Reduced costs, improved sales efficiency, reduced staff corruption, and enhanced financial security. In addition, Sun Chunyang South Store adopts "a pen" financial management, a small summary a day, a large settlement a year, clear accounts, standardized settlement, corporate profits and losses, the day can be seen at a glance. There is already a prototype of modern supermarket management.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were many merchants in Jiangnan who were shoddy and cheated, and their business ethics were extremely bad. But the Sun family has always been known for their honesty and trustworthiness. The goods sold in the store are all specially selected and custom-made, and for decades they have insisted on selecting professionals (sometimes even patrolling in person) to ensure the quality of the goods, and this is the secret of the store's continued prosperity.

Zamparini, with a 41-year-old steel bayonet pinned to his waist and a faded military uniform, was looking at it with a jar of tea. Tea is produced by Fenghua, the price of four cents and five cents a catty, this big pot is a catty. Although Zamparini is not very good at drinking tea, as a senior non-commissioned officer of the East Coast Army, he may be promoted to a second lieutenant "decent person" after returning home, and he feels that he should also do something decent, such as drinking tea.

Which decent person in the country today - or the middle class - is not a tea addict? It doesn't matter if you really like it or fake it, anyway, those who have a little spare money are eager to do it. Zamparini felt that he was also entitled to be called "sir" when he returned to his hometown—the 1,300-odd yuan Northwest Reclamation Bank deposit certificate in his pocket was his confidence—so he needed to buy some tea that was very popular among decent people to take home, not to mention the surprisingly low price of these teas.

"Give me five ...... of each tea No, ten cans! Yes, this, this, and this, all ten cans! Zamparini stood in the south warehouse, pointing to the tea leaves on the counter.

Sun Chengren, a descendant of the Sun family who acted as a clerk, was slightly taken aback when he saw this, thinking that these Qiu Ba people were really rich, and the total of forty cans of these four kinds of tea would add up to thirteen or fourteen silver dollars, and he actually bought them without blinking. However, he was only slightly taken aback, there were too many Qiu Ba who had come to his store to shop in the past two days, many of them were dozens of yuan, and their purchasing power was much stronger than that of those ordinary people.

"Isn't this yellow-clothed army scraping the ground in Shandong, and Qiu Ba, who is not even a handful, also has a lot of money?" Sun Chengren secretly scolded himself as he took out the tea leaves one by one and put them aside, and then motioned to Zamparini to go to the cash box to pay the money.

"The silver bread made by the people of the East Coast is very beautiful." Sun Chengren's cousin, Sun Chengyi, who also harvested in the south warehouse, stood aside, took out a silver coin with a denomination of five dimes from his pocket, and said in a tone of admiration: "The fineness is good, the weight is sufficient, and the value of each piece is clear at a glance, which is very convenient for business." ”

Sun Chengren glanced at his cousin and nodded, but he was thinking in his heart that the yellow-clothed army on the east coast must not be defeated, otherwise their business would not be easy to do anymore, after all, they were too deeply involved with the dignitaries and nobles on the east coast, and it was difficult to get out. I heard that at this time, the main force of the Qing army had entered Qingzhou Mansion, and the Jiaozhou Fort (2,000 people from the Fourth Brigade of the Standing Force, in addition to some artillery and 2,000 soldiers) stationed by the people on the east bank also appeared outside the Tartar zero cavalry, and the shape was extremely critical, I don't know what will happen later, I hope the Tartars can know the difficulties and retreat. The road from Qingzhou to Denglai has been ruined, and there are no people in the countryside, let alone any supplies.

Moreover, Sun Chengren had also read one or two military books, and knew that if the Tartar army entered Dengzhou, the supply line would be unbearable. And the Yellow Coats have thousands of horses. If there is a large landing in the rear. Cut off the grain route. Wouldn't the Tartars want the whole army to collapse when they were in a difficult situation? In this green and yellow season, the grain road is cut off, and there is nothing to plunder, what else can you do but wait for death? Therefore, he thought that the possibility of the Tartar army attacking Dengzhou was not very high, and he sent the vanguard horse team into Laizhou to show off his might, and there was no other drama to sing.

The biggest possibility of the Tartar is that the main force is in Qingzhou Mansion. Then overhaul the fortress and organize a large-scale regimental training to prevent the yellow-clothed army from advancing westward by land, and there was no other way. Maybe some men and horses will be sent to besiege Jiaozhou Fort, but after a long time of attack, they should be able to retreat. However, in this way, the more than 100,000 elite men and horses of the Tartars will definitely be dragged here to do nothing, but this is the trouble of the Tartar court, and he Sun Chengren is too lazy to pay attention to this matter.

Rather than bothering with this idleness, he might as well go to the sea store to help, where some fine sable skins, green fox skins, squirrel skins, bear skins, deer skins and other leather goods have been brought in, and one of the uncles in charge of the purchase has a smile on his lips. I haven't even seen leather goods in such good condition for many years. Since the rise of Jiannu in Liaodong, this leather business has been monopolized by Jin merchants. It is rare to see such a high-quality thing in the south, but I didn't expect that there would be such a good leather goods for sale in Dabo County. When the time comes, bring it back to Ningbo, contact some old relationships a little, and it will almost be sold out.

In addition, the sea vegetables, crab meat, oysters, sea cucumbers, salted dried fish, etc. are rare in the south, if they are shipped back to Ningbo, Shaoxing, Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Taizhou, Songjiang and other neighboring provinces to sell, the profit is definitely a lot. Alas, it seems that we have to open another store in Yinxian County, specializing in selling northern goods, and at the same time buying rice to sell to the north, it must be very profitable!

Just as Sun Chengren was in reverie, Zamparini came to pick up the goods after paying the money. Sun Chengren carefully checked the tickets, and then handed the bundled tea to Zamparini. Zamparini didn't say much, nodded to Sun Chengren, and then walked towards the pier outside the city with the tea leaves, preparing to send the tea back to his hometown through the Guò Yantai Post Office.

The all-steam-powered ship "Tahiti", which arrived at Yantai Port for many days, was about to carry a group of immigrants and silver (600,000 taels, most of the spoils of war captured by Ningbo last year) to the south, and according to the regulations, every ship on the east coast that returned to the mainland had to undertake a certain postal task, so many soldiers chose to send some of their luggage back to China through the Guò "Tahiti", and the tea sent by Zamparini was like this, but it was only forty catties, and it was not overrun!

In the barracks next to the dock, 240 officers and men of the new Army's 2nd Company are undergoing routine training, replacing Zamparini's old unit, the Army's 104th Company, who has been asked by his superiors to serve for two more years to help some of the servant army units that have just completed their "slimming" training.

Looking at these main forces wearing dark blue military uniforms, Zamparini, who could only wear khaki reserve uniforms, could only be deeply envious. He vaguely heard that this elite company was about to go south with the newly arrived Fourth Infantry Battalion of the Black Eight Banners, temporarily join the battle sequence of the Southern Theater, and capture Ninghai County, Xiangshan County, Changguowei and other places that were still in the Qing court-controlled area, and then establish a stability maintenance committee in the local area, so that it would be controlled by the people on the east coast.

In addition, they will also decide whether to support the Shaoxing battlefield depending on the situation. At present, Commander Liu of the navy has fought well in Shaoxing Mansion, and has repeatedly defeated more than 10,000 soldiers and horses under the command of Tian Xiong, the governor of Zhejiang Province of the Qing Dynasty, and occupied Yuyao, Shangyu, Shanyin, Shengxian, Xinchang, Linshanwei and other places, and the remnants of the Qing army have been defeated and retreated to Xiaoshan County; And more than 20,000 people led by Zhang Mingzhen also made a big fuss at the junction of Songjiang Mansion and Jiaxing Mansion, and Zhang Cunren, who was trapped in Hangzhou, was so anxious that he could only urgently transfer Chen Tai's soldiers and horses from Fujian to the north, otherwise Hangzhou would be in danger.

The people on the east coast made such a fuss in the southern theater of operations, which once again completely disrupted the strategic deployment of the Qing court. Originally, the 15,000 elites led by Chen Tai had already moved south from Fujian and invaded the Chaoshan region in northeastern Guangdong, where the Ming army, which had already surrendered under the pressure of the Qing army. Now, with the northward transfer of Chen Tai's soldiers and horses, Li Chengdong can be regarded as picking up a life and can continue to survive.

The situation in Guangdong is like this, and Jiangxi is also very different. More than 10,000 Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners led by Jierharang fought hard in Jiangxi for many days, although there were not as many cannon fodder green battalions available as in history, but they still wiped out Jin Shenghuan, who was defending Nanchang, after spending some effort. The remnants of Jin retreated to the south-central region of Jiangxi and merged with Wang Deren's troops who defended Ganzhou, but after the confluence of the two families, more than 100,000 soldiers and horses were still not the opponents of Ji'er Harang's troops, and they were beaten to the ground, and many prefectures and counties also rebelled under the surrender of the Qing army, and the shape was extremely critical.

However, since the end of last year, the yellow-clothed thieves made a big fuss in northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu, and entrenched in Ningbo Mansion for a long time, the Qing court weighed the pros and cons and ordered Jierharang to lead the Manchurian Eight Banners to retreat north, and then support the Zhejiang battlefield. As for the Jiangxi battlefield, it was maintained by the newly incorporated traitor green battalion, and Geng Zhongming and Shen Zhixiang were old people from Liaodong, which was quite a battle. With them in Jiangxi, if they take a defensive position, the local situation should not completely collapse in a short period of time, but the area that the Qing court can control may only be half of Jiangxi, which is also a matter of no choice.

In this way, the people on the east coast made such a fuss in Zhejiang and the southern Zhili Prefectures, which actually affected the situation in several southern provinces, and made the Qing army feel helpless to press the gourd and lift the scoop and ignore the head. At the same time, the Southern Theater stationed in Ningbo Prefecture also maintained close ties with the Shandong side, and the troops between the two places frequently and rapidly maneuvered -- sail transport ships sailed north from Ningbo to Shandong, and it might only take more than a week to travel by sea, which was not enough time for the Qing army to travel from Qingzhou to Laizhou.

Under such a linkage between the two theaters of war in the north and south, a large number of elite troops of the Qing army were pinned down, unable to free up their hands to exterminate the anti-Qing forces such as rebellion and rebellion that are now resurrected, and this is undoubtedly an extremely bad thing, and if it drags on for a long time, it will inevitably have a great impact on the prestige of the Qing court. Don't you see that the rebel brigade has already attacked Xiangyang in the north again, if Xiangyang is breached, the Henan Plain, which has no soldiers, will be completely exposed in front of them; Zhang Xianzhong's department in Sichuan was also trying to capture the prefectures and counties of the Qing court in northern Sichuan, and the local magistrates were in a hurry, but at this time, Shaanxi's "banditry" was also very strict, and he really couldn't draw troops to the south to reinforce him, so he could only let it go.

At this time, how to choose and how to make trade-offs is really a matter that tests the wisdom of the rulers of the Qing court. (To be continued......)