On the afternoon of March 29 in the fourth year of Chongzhen, at the Zhaojia ferry port of the Yellow River near Tongguan, it was the busiest season for business travel since the beginning of spring. The caravan from Henan did not cross the river into Shanxi from here, and then go north to Fengzhen and naturalize; It is to go north along Luoshui to Yan'an, Yulin, Hetao and even Mobei Mongolia; Or go west along Weishui, enter Gansu through Xi'an and Fengxiang, and cross the Hexi Corridor to the Western Regions.

Zhaojiadu, which was originally just an ordinary northwest town, began to prosper with these business travel teams that traveled to and from the northwest customs and foreign trade, and the newly opened inns, tea shops, warehouses, and intermediaries completely wrapped the original dilapidated town, which was almost twice as large as two years ago.

In the past few days, the main street has also changed from a potholed loess road to a concrete gravel road that does not accumulate water on rainy days and does not raise dust on sunny days. In addition to foreign merchants, there are also a large number of locals waiting to be recruited to work. As for the outsiders of unknown origin, they were placed in a camp outside the town, waiting for a caravan with few men to come and recruit them.

Basically, most of the people recruited by the caravans here were coolies and porters. Merchants from the south generally brought their own strong men, but if the caravan wanted to go out of the border pass, there were few southern foot forces to continue to go, in addition, it was necessary to have a guide who was familiar with the geography and customs outside the border, and hired a dart bureau approved by the government to carry weapons to guard the safety of the road.

And these personnel are actually the largest number in Tongguan, after all, those members of the dart bureau are mainly retired Shaanxi border soldiers, which can be regarded as a way out for retired soldiers from the imperial court. Unlike the guards in the hinterland, who have almost become civilians, the border army in Shaanxi has had to fight against mountain bandits, horse thieves, and Mongolian herdsmen who want to enter the customs and rob them, in addition to cultivating the land, and it can be said that they are still an army that has seen blood.

The imperial court dismantled the Shaanxi border army, and not all the soldiers who had retired were willing to honestly return to their hometowns to farm, and the management and resettlement of this part of the personnel was also a big problem, especially in the context of the successive disasters and famines in Shaanxi. The establishment of a dart bureau to allow these retired soldiers to share the dividends of foreign border trade has also appeared in response to the need.

With the endorsement and management of the imperial court, the reputation of these dart games is much better than that of the private dart boards. Moreover, the soldiers who have undergone long-term military training can also command those coolies in the art of war, which can also come in handy at critical moments. Not to mention, they can also get army-standard weapons and armor, but they don't have to worry about the trouble of the border army looking for caravans. Therefore, as soon as this kind of official dart game appeared, it was quickly welcomed by merchants who traded out of Cyprus.

However, these dart bureaus managed by the imperial court also have a bad point, that is, every time before leaving the jam, the caravan must first report the trade route and trading objects, and after the caravan leaves the reported trade route and adds temporary trading objects, these dart board members will report after returning, and the host and members of the caravan will be warned, punished or even banned from trading for several years.

For some ambitious businessmen who always want to make super profits, such a dart game is obviously a bit unpleasant. So someone came up with a way, for some caravans that wanted to go further, they would buy a license from the official dart bureau, and then go to Zhaojiadu, which was not managed by anyone, to recruit those outlaws, and go out to Saiwaibo to have a hand.

After experiencing a popular uprising that spread to almost half of Shaanxi, those wandering mutants, thieves, or border soldiers who fled on the battlefield have now almost been driven to the left of Zhaojiadu, a blank place specially set aside by the imperial court. Here, as long as they don't make trouble anymore, no officers and soldiers will come out to arrest them.

And these mutants, thieves and deserters, in addition to most of them are strong people, they are also veterans who have seen blood on the battlefield. After they had wandered around and seen the market, it was difficult for them to go back to the countryside and become honest farmers. Even if they are forced to return to the countryside, they will only become idle country scoundrels.

Although these people can no longer endure hardships and are no longer willing to be honest farmers who eat chaff and vegetables, they are not willing to be left behind by letting them take their lives to win money. In this situation, the caravan recruited them to open up trade routes, and they were a group of excellent candidates.

Therefore, after discovering the usefulness of these people, the merchant representatives of Shaanxi asked Chongzhen for an idea, and then there was a blank place in Zhaojiadu. At the same time, the regimental exercises held in various parts of Shaanxi had begun to bear fruit, and some of the leaders of the rebellion, thieves, and deserters who wanted to remain incognito soon found it difficult for them to stay anywhere except Zhao Jiadu.

There are five camps of different sizes outside Zhaojiadu Town, and the camp is the largest in the southwest near Weishui, and the facilities in the camp are relatively complete. There were a few wooden bungalows on the sunny slope to the northwest of the camp, and the best place in the camp was clearly not something that could be lived in by the battalion officer alone.

Under this sunny slope, one or twenty sturdy men were packing up the herds of pigs and sheep bare-chested, but the homeless people in the camp did not dare to come up to help, and begged for some water by the way. Because these scarred men are the most ferocious group of people in the camp, the camp head who originally lived here was driven away by these people, or more precisely, they were carried away, as long as no one was killed, the officers and soldiers would not interfere in the affairs of the camp.

The displaced people who occupied this sunny slope naturally became the new head of this big camp. Gao Jie burned several sheep's heads, then looked up and saw that several children in the camp were watching Lao Hui peel the sheepskins. After watching the old man's exquisite knife skills for a while, he felt bored, and couldn't help but get up and blast the onlookers away.

A toddler of five or six years of age avoided it and fell to the ground, crying for a moment, and another girl, a little older, ran back and stopped before the fallen toddler. Gao Jie, who was originally seeing the interesting, couldn't help but be bored when he looked at the horror and persistence in the girl's eyes.

He found a few sheep's hooves and two pairs of sheep from the side and went into the water, squatted down and handed them to the girl: "Let your brother not cry, let you take these home." ”

The young child behind the girl suddenly stopped crying, got up with a bone, looked at the sheep's hooves in Gao Jie's hands and the sheep in the water, and said, "Meat, I want to eat meat." The girl looked at her younger brother and then at Gao Jie, who didn't have a straight face, but Gao Jie still looked very energetic. She trembled and stepped forward to take the sheep's hooves and sheep into the water from Gao Jie's hands, and as soon as Gao Jie let go, the girl couldn't bear the strength and almost fell to the ground.

The girl was also ruthless, so she took the sheep's hooves and the sheep's water in her arms, and walked back little by little. Gao Jie couldn't help but stop her and said, "I took something, didn't you even say thank you?" ”

Only then did the girl be sure that Gao Jie was not playing with him, and happily bowed to Gao Jie and thanked him, and then strode away with her younger brother. The old man, who had already skinned the sheepskin, said slowly: "The sheep's hooves and the sheep's water are also good meat, so give them this, isn't it a waste?" We don't have much money in stock. ”

Gao Jie stood up and turned his head and said, "The eldest husband was born in the world, so he should eat meat in large pieces and drink wine in large bowls. Why be so petty? Without the silver, it's a big deal to go back to the mountain. I don't know what Commander Li and Mrs. Gao are doing, so they don't decide where we should go, but let everyone be porters. ”

Lao Hui was silent, and turned his head to look at the few wooden houses on the slope, as a newcomer who had just joined the group, and a Tianfang Cultist who was wary of Hermes-Epitek, he always maintained a cautious style of words and deeds in the group. At the critical moment when the group is moving towards the future, only Li Zicheng and Gao Guiying, who are negotiating in the wooden house, can make the final decision.

In a wooden house with open windows and doors, Li Zicheng and Gao Guiying were sitting on opposite sides of a wooden table and talking fiercely, and the guards outside the door were also hiding far away at this time, for fear of being angered by the two leaders in the room.

In the past few months, Li Zicheng and Gao Guiying have fled with everyone else, only to find that they actually have nowhere to go. The provinces of Sichuan, Henan, and Shanxi, which are adjacent to Shaanxi, were all worried that the rebellious people in Shaanxi would flee into their homes and cause turmoil, so they all guarded the main roads of the provincial border as if they were facing a great enemy, and the displaced people were not allowed to enter without the roads issued by the local government of Shaanxi and the destination for relocation.

The regimental exercises that have been set up in various parts of Shaanxi are now becoming more and more powerful, and their control over the local area can be said to be pervasive. Li and others, who could not prove their identities and could not settle down, finally had to take hundreds of people from their hometown to Zhaojiadu, scattered in several homeless camps.

The gold and silver they had carried before were almost exhausted by this time, so they had to ask the young men in the group to do some work as porters and intermediaries to supplement their daily expenses. The people who fled with the two to the present, in addition to their own clansmen, are those elite soldiers who really survived the battlefield battles, and let them do the work of these subordinates, and naturally people's hearts will float.

In order to ensure that this group would not break up, Li Zicheng had to propose to Gao Guiying that he should divide the old and weak and the strong into two teams, the old and weak stayed here, and the strong and strong took refuge in a caravan to try their luck.

But Gao Guiying is unwilling, in such an environment, even if it is a blood line, it may not be able to be relied on, let alone a man who has abandoned himself and married another wife. Li Zicheng took his strength to try his luck outside the plug, even if he didn't have luck, he could always survive. But the old and weak who stayed here, with the little money they were about to run out, God knows if they could wait until they returned.

After arguing with Li Zicheng many times and failing to convince the other party, Gao Guiying couldn't help but slap the table and said: "If you have to do this, then everyone will break up here, and the people from Gaojiazhai will follow me, I don't believe that I can't find a way for them to live." ”

Gao Guiying was angry, and Li Zicheng's attitude softened a little. Looking at the woman opposite, he couldn't help but regret it. Originally, for the unity of Li and Gao's two groups, he already planned to marry Gao Guiying. But after arriving in Zhaojiadu, he met a Xing girl who planned to sell herself to bury her mother.

This beautiful seventeen-year-old lady was born in a squire family in Yan'an, and because she encountered an uprising of displaced people, she could only flee with her family. When she arrived at Zhaojiadu, even her mother died, and she had to sell herself alone.

Because of her good family background, she not only has excellent appearance, but also is very knowledgeable in conversation. Therefore, some scoundrels in the camp wanted to sell her to Fengyue Field, but Miss Xing was unwilling, and finally Li Zicheng took action, drove away the scoundrels, helped bury her mother, and then married her.

Li Zicheng was a little satisfied when he married a young Xing, but the Li and Gao groups, which were gradually merging, quickly split. If it weren't for Gao Guiying's enduring humiliation, this group would have broken up long ago.

It's just that now it seems that the fate of this group has also come to an end. Li Zicheng estimated that the points would definitely be divided, but it was best not to completely break up, at least to leave a chance to reunite in the future.