??“ Brothers, when I come back in a few days, I'll come back to you for a drink. Lei Wei laughed and waved to a group of border patrol soldiers of the Ming Army, "Is there anything I need to get you back from Qingtian?" ”

The patrols of the Ming army burst into laughter: "Boss Lei, there's a fart over there in Qingzhou?" You talk about face, and you still ask us for a drink, you kid comes to us every time you calculate the time we have to rest, but I haven't seen you pay for it. ”

Lei Wei's old face turned red, and he said: "Brothers, you don't know about this, haven't I been saving my wife's book before, let me tell you, this time brother, I have already built a house in Kaiping County, and in the future, brothers will go to the county town, and it will be your nest." ”

"Boss Lei, you are amazing, the housing prices in Kaiping County have been rubbing for a long time in the past two years, where can you actually buy a house, well, if you have the opportunity to go to the county town, you must be poor." By the way, has the daughter-in-law been left behind? ”

"Our Daming women are expensive, and we really can't afford to find them. I'm going to Qingzhou this time, where are I going to kidnap a woman and come back to be a wife, brothers, do you want me to kidnap a few more and prepare for you? Boss Lei raised his eyebrows: "Let me tell you, as long as you give the woman's in-laws ten taels of silver, you can find a woman to come back as a wife." ”

A group of patrolmen exclaimed.

"Mother, at the beginning of spring, my father and mother told me a family, no one has seen it, and it has already taken in hundreds of taels of silver, and if you want to marry into the door, you have to have at least five hundred taels, and my annual military salary is only more than 100 taels of silver, and now there is no war, and I can't get the reward, so I rely on my father and mother to help. I knew that it was so easy to find a wife in Qingzhou, so I went there. The captain who led the team snorted coldly.

"Come on, Captain Huo, you find a woman from the Ming Kingdom to enter the door, it costs a lot, but the woman still carries the land with her. Besides, the dowry will not be less. I can't afford this money, I can only retreat to the second, I heard that the women of the Qin State are the most hard-working, I am an orphan family, without my father and mother to help, so I have to rely on my own Luo! Lei Wei said angrily: "Don't be good and sell well, okay brothers, the owner is already waiting for me, I can't delay other people's trips, when I come back, I will have a treat, I must please, because this is my brother's happy wine!" ”

A group of patrolmen laughed again: "Then you must come and drink." Boss Lei, I don't give red envelopes! ”

Boss Lei's eyes widened, "If you don't give red envelopes, you can only drink cold water, let's go!" ”

"Boss Lei, be careful, there are many bandits in Qingzhou, and we won't be able to help you if you cross the border!"

"Don't worry, little thieves, I can take care of it." Boss Lei raised his hand, turned on his horse, and chased after the convoy in front of him.

Lei Wei, a veteran of the Jusen Battalion. Because he was an orphan, after retiring, he had nowhere to go, so he stayed in Kaiping County, and at this time, the trade between Ming and Qingzhou suddenly flourished. Lu must have entrenched in Qingzhou and ignored the orders of the imperial court, and the imperial court naturally cut off the supply to Qingzhou, and tens of thousands of troops could only fend for themselves, which greatly promoted trade on the border.

Qingzhou is now lacking in everything, as long as the goods can be transported over, you can make money properly, of course, the risk is also very great, in order to raise military spending, Lu must be in Qingzhou can be described as scraping the ground, the way to exhaust. Even did not hesitate to send troops to pretend to be horse thieves, bandits to rob the neighboring counties, of course, Kaiping County he did not dare to come and could not come, now, most of his food and other materials, are from Kaiping County in the past, if you rob Kaiping County, the Ming people's revenge not to mention, cut off this trade route, I am afraid that Qingzhou County really can't last a few days.

However, Lu must not rob it, it does not mean that these caravans are safe, Qingzhou County, where the people are not happy, there are many large and small bandits, and if you are not careful, you will fall into their way. And what they are targeting is not only to oversell, but also to kill people. In the face of such a thing, even the Ming army was helpless, because these people disappeared directly, they couldn't see anyone alive, they couldn't see their bodies dead, they wanted to make trouble, and they couldn't find it, and there was no real evidence, so Qingzhou would naturally not recognize it.

It is in such an environment that the caravan has risen to hire guards, and at this time, the first round of retirement of the Ming army was officially launched, a large number of veterans retired from the army, these people have been fighting for many years, after suddenly retreating, even if they have money and land in their hands, but they are still not used to such a comfortable life, so this kind of high-paid guards has become their first choice, and even many big businessmen with a way to do so are waving Ming coins and waiting at the gate of the barracks, and the retired soldiers have just gone out. They'll block it up and invite them to join.

Figures like Lei Wei, who have served as junior officers such as sentry officers in the army, are even more popular candidates.

The Ming soldiers retired, and the emperor allowed them to bring their armor and weapons home, so they hired these personnel as guards, and they didn't even need to prepare weapons for them.

Lei Wei is now the head of the guard of a grain merchant in Kaiping County. Every month, they will go to Qingzhou County to sell grain, and grain merchants are now the most profitable in Qingzhou, and the price of shipping from Kaiping County to Qingzhou can increase several times. As far as Lei Wei knows, the grain he works for can only be regarded as medium-scale, and he only transports two or three thousand stone of grain to Qingzhou every month. The biggest thing I heard is that there is an official background, and the grain is only sold to Lu Ding, which is tens of thousands of stones every month. Naturally, such grain merchants do not need the protection of people like them, because in the territory of the Ming Kingdom, they are absolutely safe, and once they enter Qingzhou, the security is the responsibility of Lu Ding's army.

After Lei Wei retired, he took this road, and in a year, more than a dozen escort missions were almost all safe, and a small number of bandits, every time they saw their dozens of heavily armed escort guards, they basically avoided them. Heavily armed guards like them could deal with hundreds of robbers with rudimentary weapons.

Lei Wei is not from cavalry, but the owner has equipped them with good war horses, these war horses are all from Qingzhou, they are Qingzhou's specialty, and the reason why Lu must be able to buy a lot of grain from Kaiping County now is because he has war horses to exchange. Now Lei Wei likes the feeling of charging on a horse, most of the so-called robbers are actually the people of Qin who are hungry and anxious, and when they rush with their war horses, they will scatter with a bang, but there is no need to kill more, sometimes Lei Wei feels that they are really pitiful.

Being a Ming person is really a happy thing! Sometimes he thinks he's been lucky to catch up with the good times. He used to be a member of the former Vietnamese border army, at that time the general was still Chen Ci, that is, the father of the current general Chen Zhihua, speaking of which he also fought with the army of His Majesty the Emperor now, but he lost, and then later, he became a member of the Taiping Army, and then later, the Ming Dynasty was established, and he became a Ming ** person.

At that time, he didn't have any feelings about the change of this banner, anyway, he was a soldier and ate food, just feed his stomach. But after becoming a Ming ** person, he really felt the changes, first of all, the substantial increase in military salaries, and the monthly military salaries he received were something he didn't dare to think about before.

With money, there are naturally other ideas.

Seeing that the days are getting better and better, Lei Wei really has the intention of defending this country. After several years of fighting, now Daming has finally gained a firm foothold, he is also over thirty-five years old, and when he learned that he was going to be retired, he cried sadly.

Recalling the past, Lei Wei couldn't help but feel a little sad, although he is no longer a Ming ** person, he is still a Ming country! The general said that allowing them to go home with their weapons is to let them remember that they will always be one of the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, and when the country needs it, they will enthusiastically return to the army as soon as they are called.

Lei Wei clenched the ring head knife in his waist, and said in his heart, of course I want to come back.

Looking at the desolate and dilapidated scene of Qingzhou County, Lei Wei only shook his head. Qingzhou has not suffered from war, compared to Kaiping County, their conditions are much better, when the Qin army retreated, but the disaster of Kaiping County was not light, when Lei Wei regained Kaiping County with the army, as far as the eye could see, the ruins and ruins everywhere, the situation was really miserable.

But two years have passed, Kaiping County stubbornly crawled out of the ruins, new towns were established, a large number of immigrants entered Kaiping County, injecting new vitality into here, roads were built, ditches with gurgling water, irrigating countless farmland, countless officials braved the scorching sun, faced the cold wind, rolled up their sleeves, rolled up their trouser legs, and vigorously carried out the reconstruction work with the people.

With one heart, Kaiping County has regained its vitality at a speed unimaginable to ordinary people. In this process, His Majesty the Emperor's wise decision-making naturally plays the most important guiding role, and I heard that those officials are all graduates of the Beijing Normal University opened by His Majesty himself, and those officials in the past are completely different from those in the past. Anyway, in order to help Kaiping County recover, the imperial court came up with a lot of policies that he had never heard of, and a lot of new terms were poured into his ears unconsciously. It seems that the counterpart who helped Kaiping County was Yongping County. The county keeper was a very good person, and he gave Kaiping County a lot of silver.

"Boss, something is wrong!" Lei Wei was thinking to himself, when a guard rushed to him: "Someone is watching us around, and as soon as we hurry, we leave, but after a while, they come again, and it is the same group." It's very different from the past, I'm afraid it's beating our mind. ”

Hearing this, Lei Wei immediately became vigilant, put away his thoughts, and said: "Send a few brothers out to find out, and those who dare to fight our ideas will definitely not be less." ”

"Okay, I'll find out for myself."

"Be careful, it's not early, I'll go to the owner and find a place with good terrain to set up camp first." Lei Wei said. "Find out the details, and then hurry."