"Xiaozhi, are you free?" Li Zhi walked to the carriage that Zhiwen was driving and asked sideways.

"Something? Lao Li. Zhiwen asked casually as he drove the car.

"It's a bit of a thing, I'm afraid I'll have to tell you."

"So..., why don't you get in the car?"

Li Zhi shook his head, "I'm not very convenient, Xiao Zhi, let's find a secluded place to talk." ”

This is the third day after crossing the Yellow River in the east, since chatting with Baqian, Zhiwen called Xiaoying Niang and Nannan and the three girls to the car, and asked them to learn to knit sweaters with Baqian.

Li Zhi has read books and is very eye-catching, and now there are women in this car, although they are young, but there is also a little young lady, who is considered a female dependent, and he needs to avoid suspicion.

Besides, what he plans to talk about with Zhiwen should not be known to too many people.

Zhiwen looked at Li Zhi suspiciously, although he didn't know what kind of medicine he was selling in his gourd, he still turned around and shouted: "Eight thousand, come out and catch the car for a while." ”

"Xiao Zhi, the hearts of these two thousand people are a little unstable." The two of them left the official road far away, Li Zhi said as he walked.

"Huh? How so? Zhiwen was a little puzzled.

"Well, this..., everyone hasn't had a job for a few days, so..., I haven't received food rations for a few days." Li Zhi himself had nothing to do, and he was idle for several days.

"Smack!" Zhiwen patted his forehead in annoyance, his mind was on the sweater for the past two days, focusing on how to make it everyone's livelihood, but he completely forgot the current truth.

Since crossing the Yellow River, the number of people fleeing has dropped dramatically, the epidemic has not spread, and the dead bodies on the road are almost nowhere to be seen.

Thanks to the large amount of work in Hexi, almost every family had some food in stock, so they survived quietly for a few days.

Today, seeing that winter is coming, although the drought in Hedong is light, it is no longer easy to find food in the wild, and there are several families whose food has bottomed out, and they really can't hold on, so they came to Li Zhi to ask if there is any work to do.

Li Zhi was idle for a few days, and he felt comfortable at first, but he felt bored after a day, and after sending these families away, he knew that these families who had finally been brought together would leave because of lack of food if they had no more work to do.

Although Li Zhi didn't know what Zhiwen's purpose was for gathering this group of people in addition to burying corpses in Hexi, he never wanted to see this team fall apart because of lack of food, in that case, not only would Zhiwen and them have to bear the consequences of being counterattacked, but there would also be a team of rogues in Jinxi who had undergone preliminary rectification, which was much more powerful than those homeless people in northern Shaanxi.

Realizing the seriousness of the matter, Li Zhi hurriedly came to tell Zhiwen.

"Let's recruit some people to spin and knit sweaters first!" Zhiwen pondered for a while, this doesn't take many people, it's really the work of him and Eight Thousand in those days, there is not much wool that has been degreased, not to mention the two of them, and the medicine is not enough, and there are a lot of lime in his portable warehouse that survives, but the manganese is only the ones brought by Eight Thousand.

They were tired and tired, so they made a hundred pounds of wool, and eight thousand spun ten pounds of thread by themselves.

Sweater? What's that? Li Zhi over there was stunned for a moment, and he didn't understand what Zhiwen said.

"Let the rest of them come and get the felt and sell it." Zhiwen continued, but it suddenly occurred to him that with a sweater, sheepskin can still be used as leather armor, and sheepskin felt is not of much use, so many sheep's felt, it is better to let these people take it to a low price, find something for them to do, and recover some money and food.

"And how much is this sheep felt worth? How are the refugees' rations calculated? Li Zhi asked, "By the way, I don't know what this sweater is, how to calculate the rations after weaving?" ”

"This sheep felt, let them take it and sell it themselves, they only need to hand over half of the market price to us, no, forty percent, and the extra part will be their remuneration." These people who followed them had some credibility, and Zhiwen was not afraid that they would disappear after taking the sheep felt, if there were such people, then they would never think of receiving work and food, and I believe that the refugees could settle this account.

"As for the sweater, you'll see it in a moment." Zhiwen said with a smile, "Lao Li, with a sweater, I believe you won't be able to look at this sheepskin jacket." ”

Li Zhi will suspiciously touch the leather jacket on his body, it is better than a sheepskin jacket, is it a cotton coat?

"Let's count the rations for knitting sweaters, let's count them by weight, how many catties of sweaters we hand back, and how many catties of food we will distribute."

"That..., this wool...?" Most of the sheepskins and sheep felt were placed on the carriage, and Li Zhi really didn't see the wool.

"Oh, let people come to this carriage and get it." Zhiwen thought that the wool took up the space, so he put it away, and the bags of wool that had been defatted were in the carriage at the moment, and the eight thousand taught the little Yingniang to spin and weave clothes.

"By the way, the sweater handed back cannot weigh less than one percent compared with the wool sent out, otherwise, the food will be deducted."

In fact, after the wool yarn is woven into a sweater, there is not much loss of weight, but when the water is clear, there is no fish, and Zhiwen allows them to get some benefits from it, but not too much.

Li Zhi said goodbye and went to do things on his own.

Zhiwen walked quickly to the carriage, "Okay, no, Baqian, I'm going to let Aunt Song teach the others." ”

Yachi smiled shyly and replied in a low voice, "One more finish, my father's sweater will be fine." ”

Although Zhiwen told Baqian that day, except for the most critical step, everything else had to be taught to others, but Baqian felt that as a man, he really couldn't pull his face to teach people to spin and weave clothes in public, Xiao Yingniang and Nan Nan They had learned from him in the carriage canopy for the past few days.

"Then Aunt Song, how are they learning?"

"Aunt Song will be able to spin the thread at a glance, and knitting clothes, in addition to the finishing, Aunt Song will also be able to do it."

"Okay, okay, I'll take credit for you, I'll catch the car, you go in and finish the tail." Zhiwen jumped into the carriage and took the whip, "Actually, teach them, you won't need to weave anymore in the future." ”

"That's it." Eight thousand got into the canopy and said, "Aunt Song, you are all better than me now." ”

There was a burst of giggling laughter from the canopy.

In the next few days, because of the need to peddle sheep felt in the village along the way, the rapid march slowed down after crossing the river.

There is also a big drought here in western Shanxi, although the drought is lighter than that in northern Shaanxi, and this place is close to the Yellow River, and there are water conservancy facilities available, but there are many mountains, and there are not many fields that can produce grain, but the villages encountered on the way, life seems to be passable.

Everywhere they went, the refugees were like wandering gypsies, selling sheep felt, and they were able to complete their tasks quickly. Of course, in order to prevent them from vicious competition, Li Zhi arranged different groups of people to sell in batches according to the size of the village according to Zhiwen's opinion.

Perhaps thanks to the hygiene habits that Zhiwen forced them to develop in Hexi, although the clothes were torn, they were still clean, and they naturally gave a much better impression than the dirty ones.

Perhaps thanks to the cheap price of sheep felt, these refugees have never bought or traded, are not greedy, and often only add two or three percent to the price given to them by Zhiwen, which is much cheaper and of good quality than the market price.

However, Zhiwen always felt that the above two points were not the main reasons, the things exchanged for sheep felt were more silver and less grain, which showed that it was consistent with what he saw, there was not much grain in this land, and of course it could be that the villagers were reluctant to give up food.

But if you are really poor, how can you have so many taels of silver on hand? This is Jinxi, Zhiwen couldn't help but think, what are the mineral deposits nearby?