Soon after Wu Baihu led the team to leave that day, there was news that Wu Baihu was defeated and the team led by him was wiped out. Frightened, Ma Zhixian immediately ordered people to close the city gate, and ordered the officials and the young men in the city to go to the city to guard. But after waiting for a long time, he didn't see the thieves come to attack the city, and Wu Baihu's team didn't come back, Ma Zhixian was upset, if the thieves really came to attack the city, there were no available soldiers in the city, and if he lost the city and lost his land, he had the responsibility to guard the land as a county official and he would lose his head. Later, several Wu Baihu's soldiers fled back, saying that Wu Baihu was really defeated, the thieves were very powerful, and Wu Baihu had been wiped out. This made Wu Zhixian sit on pins and needles, and he could only order the officials to strengthen the defense of the city wall, and he sat in the county office and sighed. On the fourth day, the official reported that Wu Baihu had returned.

Wu Zhixian summoned Wu Baihu in the county government, it seems that Wu Baihu must have been working hard for the war in the past few days, and the whole person has lost a lot of weight.

"See Lord Prefectural." Wu Baihu hurriedly gave a salute.

"Tell me, how's the war going?" Wu Zhixian asked anxiously.

"Thanks to the blessing of the adults, our army has won a complete victory."

"But some of your soldiers came back and said that you were defeated and that your whole army was destroyed."

"At that time, the war was fierce, the thieves were very fierce, the two armies were strangled together, and some of the soldiers fled first, fortunately, I led the army to fight hard, turned defeat into victory, repelled the enemy, and then chased the thieves into the mountains, the thieves were frightened by this, and wrote a letter to the county lord begging for mercy and surrender, for those deserters, I must catch and severely punish the military discipline." Wu Baihu racked his brains for his life and property. After speaking, he handed over the letter written by Zhang Chu to Wu Zhixian.

Ma Zhixian received the letter and wrote it very humbly, expressing his admiration for Ma Zhixian, explaining that because of the rampant bandits in the disaster year, he gathered to establish a security team for self-protection, but he did not expect that there was a misunderstanding with the officials and soldiers, and the security team was deeply afraid of Tianwei, hoping to get the understanding of the county magistrate, and expressed his willingness to fight thieves and bandits for the government and manage tens of thousands of displaced people in the territory.

"Can this gang of thieves be completely wiped out?" Mazhi County asked 100 households.

"The thieves were so frightened that they hid in the mountains and did not dare to come out, and it was very difficult to completely eliminate them." Wu Baihu replied.

"They're really fighting with other bandits."

"I beat it, and I was particularly vicious, and I directly set fire to the bandit cottage in Yangshugou. If we can drive them to fight other bandits, we can save a lot of money and food. ”

Hearing that it can save money and food, Ma Zhixian was moved. Then suddenly he asked, "Where is your team stationed?" ”

"Stationed in a dangerous place five miles outside the city, in order to prevent thieves from sneaking up on the county seat."

Wu Baihu's team is still some distance away from the city, and it must not be able to sneak attack the county seat, it should not be that Wu Baihu and the thieves colluded to deceive the city.

"Well, then you can go down and rest." Mazhi County is ready to send off guests.

"When will the two months' salaries be paid?" Wu Baihu didn't want to come in vain.

"Go to Master Song to get a month's salary, and the county government is also short of money and food now." Ma Zhixian turned around and left after speaking.

Two months' salary became a month's, Wu Baihu secretly scolded the county's financial black, but fortunately, this month's salary was all his own.

Wu Baihu secretly ordered the pro-soldiers who followed to find the soldiers who had escaped and asked them to report to the barracks outside the city, so that they could not be blamed for escaping. These people must be in their own hands, and they must not be allowed to spoil their own affairs. Then Wu Baihu himself returned to the military camp outside the city. That thud was deeply imprinted in Wu Baihu's mind, and he knew that it was useless for him to escape.

The threat to lift the order of Mazhi County opened the city gates, but secretly strengthened the vigilance. People inside and outside the city have started their normal lives again. Except for the families of the soldiers of the hundred households who went out of the city to find their own families, the others seemed to have forgotten the battle that had just passed.

Zhang Chu and the others separated, and walked into Yanchang County with the flow of people. Zhang Chu dressed up as a rich son, and the family members who followed him were also brightly dressed. The cart behind pulled the goods, and after stuffing the officials guarding the city gate with a little bit of silver, they smoothly entered the county seat of Yanchang.

Zhang Chu had no intention of admiring the style of this ancient city, and soon found the person he was looking for on this trip: Zhou Jialin, the eldest son of Zhou Tai, the owner of the largest business in Yanchang County.

Zhou Tai can be regarded as a figure in Yanchang County, although the merchant was a cheap industry in the Ming Dynasty, but no one will have a relationship with money at any time, Zhou Boss has a business name in the south and the north, and the goods are circulated to the north and south. Everywhere you go, someone will face you. Boss Zhou gave birth to two sons and a daughter, the eldest son is Zhou Jialin, but Zhou Jialin was born to a concubine. And the second son, Zhou Jiaqi, was born in the main room. So Zhou Jialin was in a very awkward position. In order to improve the status of the family, Zhou Tai set up a private school and invited a teacher to teach Zhou Jialin to read and write, hoping that he could go to school and glorify his ancestors. But Zhou Jialin himself wanted to learn business from Zhou Tai so that he could inherit Zhou Tai's family business. But now it seems that there is little hope, and it is the second son Zhou Jiaqi who really wants to inherit the family business. Zhou Jialin is unsuccessful in studying, and he is hopeless, and he is not allowed to go through the business. Seeing that he is about to be twenty years old, he still has nothing to do, so he only drinks and has fun with the children of other merchants every day, drinks tea and chats, and his father can't scold, he can only use corrupt officials as targets and scold and scold every day.

The undercover agent sent by Zhang Chu to the city to do business had already reported the situation to the mountain, and Zhang Chu asked people to pay close attention to the situation of Zhou Tai's family, so it was still easy to find Zhou Jialin.

When he found Zhou Jialin, he was drinking alone in a brothel in the city, and he was tired of playing with those fox friends and dogs, and he was almost twenty years old and still had no fame. Zhou Jialin decided to be a gentleman by himself, indulge himself and have fun in time, anyway, he will not be short of money if he does not inherit the family business. But when I really got to the brothel, I couldn't put the shelves of the scholars, so I could only watch singing and dancing in the hall alone and drink alcohol at the same time.

Zhang Chu approached his table and said, "This brother, can you allow me to drink with you at the same table and talk about the world." ”

Zhou Jialin saw that Zhang Chu was also a young man, and he looked quite sven, so he motioned for him to sit down, thinking that he was also bored and wanted to find someone to talk to.

Seeing Zhang Chu sitting still, Zhou Jialin asked: "Brother Tai shouldn't be a local, I know almost all the young people in this city." ”

"I am Zhang Chu, a native of Yan'an Prefecture, and I came here to do business because I saw that Yanchang County had suffered a disaster." Zhang Chu replied.

"Businessmen also have to be moral." Zhou Jialin said unhappily.

Seeing that he had misunderstood, Zhang Chu hurriedly explained: "I neither buy and sell people, nor do I hoard people. I'm not here to hurt people, I'm here to save people. ”

"Don't you want to make a profit?" Zhou Jialin asked strangely

"In disaster years, there is more business to do, and saving people can be more profitable." Zhang Chu replied.

"Tell me more." Zhou Jialin is still interested in doing business.

"If I work for the homeless who can't eat, and then give them food and rice so that they don't starve to death, is it considered a good deed to save people?"

"Count, count! Definitely. But how do you make a profit? ”

"Now that there are people everywhere, the cost of hiring people can be reduced to a minimum, and you say that I will not make a profit."

"It's a good idea, but how can there be so many jobs for the homeless to do."

"This is also the purpose of my trip, and I have now bought a field in the countryside outside the city, which is enough to take in a large number of displaced people, among whom I plan to let them learn to spin and weave, buy cotton from the south, and then weave cloth and sell it to the nine sides. The man is going to mine and dig coal in the mountains, and I have already communicated with the government, and the government will not take care of it, of course, this cannot be publicized. ”

"But the cloth you weave may not be as good as the cloth of the South?" Zhou Jialin's business acumen worked and analyzed.

"I have a new weaving method that saves costs and weaves better quality cloth, which is of course a trade secret. If you want to make a profit in business, you have to make full use of your own resources and advantages. For example, Brother Tai is now rich in resources, and it is easy to make a profit. Zhang Chu gave him the bait.

Hearing that he could make a profit, Zhou Jialin was also interested and asked, "What resources do I have?" ”

"When I first came to Guidi, I heard that your Zhou family has stores in the north and south, and if you use it, you can easily make a lot of money, and it will definitely make Ling Zun look up to you." Zhang Chu said.

"You know me?" Zhou Jialin asked.

"I don't know anyone who is the eldest son of Zhou."

"But it's all my father's business, and it has nothing to do with me." Zhou Jialin said dejectedly.

"I have a way to make a lot of money without your father's shop, and make you richer than your father." Zhang Chu took the bait.

"Richer than my father, and you don't need his shop, you're kidding." Zhou Jialin became interested.

"We met here, and we talked about speculation, this is also fate, I will show you a way to make a fortune, you think, I want to open a weaving yard, I need a lot of cotton, if you take my silver to Jiangnan to hire someone to buy cotton, and then use your father's channel to transport it back, get paid from it, do you make money without your father's shop. This profit is hard money. And the other is lucrative but risky, and you don't necessarily dare to do it. "Zhang Chu wants to be captured.

"If you can make a profit, it's worth the risk." Zhou Jialin's dream of wealth surpassing his father made him emboldened.

"This is also simple, I need a lot of iron tools to mine coal in the mountains, and I need a lot of sulfur and saltpeter for gunpowder mining, if these are transported in a cotton vehicle, it should be a million profits, of course, this is not a business that ordinary people dare to do, I told you all my trade secrets, you must keep it secret for me." Zhang Chu admonished.

"It's natural, but can it really be done?" Zhou Jialin asked uneasily.

"Ah, wealth is in danger, and you don't have to pay a penny, if you don't succeed, you will travel to Jiangnan and have a long experience, the beauties in Jiangnan are much stronger than here." Zhang Chu said with a smile.

"I'm just here to drink, Brother Zhang, can you let me think about it and see if I can cooperate with you."

"Okay, I'll live in the inn next to me, can you cooperate, Brother Zhou will give me a letter of approval tomorrow, and then I will go to the countryside to summon the homeless. Brother Zhou said goodbye. Zhang Chu said goodbye and left the brothel.

When Zhou Jialin returned home, he couldn't fall asleep after tossing and turning, and it was a question of whether to do it or not.