After harassing the Tartar cavalry for a few days, Wang Meng and Lei Xiaoqing, who had seen more and more Tartars appear around them, guessed that the Tartars had descended from Bailong Lake, and knew that the task of their support had been completed.

After leading the horse team around the southwest direction and raiding a small Tartar tribe that had just returned, the two commanded the sergeants to return to the gorge with hundreds of healthy horses, more than fifty pack horses, and full of captured skins.

With the telescope in hand, it was basically impossible for the Tartars to surround them, but it was a pity that the large herd of cattle and sheep was helplessly slaughtered and lost.

On a drizzly night, the horse team rumbled through the canyon, and Duan Damin also contacted Liu Tianguo above the canyon; By the time they arrived at the stone pass, Xiao Ye had already taken his personal guards and waited for the return of the sergeants on the rocky beach.

After counting the seizures and registering the rewards, the brigade returned to the stone castle from the edge of the quarry, and although the king and Lei wondered why they were willing to go far, they did not dare to say more.

The large open space behind the mill in the stone fort became a captive place for war horses and pack horses, and the sergeants arranged to go back to the military house to rest, Wang Meng and Lei Xiaoqing followed the hundred households and went to the hundred households.

Xiao Liuzi took his personal guards and handed over the leather goods carried by pack horses to Uncle Kun for inventory and put them into storage.

In the hundred households, Wang Meng and Lei Xiaoqing finished telling about the various circumstances of the trip, Xiao Ye took the map and traced it on it for a while according to their words, and then carefully dried the ink and picked up the teacup.

"At the entrance of the Bailong Lake Valley, the Tartars will definitely not let go, the soldiers are impermanent, you two have found another way, and it is also a great achievement," Xiao Yexiao looked at the two flag officers, "In the future, I will contact Huang Hanxiang and them, fortunately, I have a whistle, and I don't have to climb the stone wall,"

Bailonghu attracted the attention of the Tartars, but the main owner of Shiguantun was ignored, Xiao Ye was fortunate and set his eyes on Shiguankou; As long as another stone wall is built there, no matter how many Tartars there are, they will suffocate in the canyon.

But in that case, the movement is too great, and without the permission of the Thousand Households, he is unwilling to be a substitute for the dead; What's more, it costs a lot of money, and if you go out by yourself, won't there be no three hundred taels of silver here, and those who provoke the red will become a scourge.

In the past few days, he took out two more individual tents from the stone mill, six boxes of earth-shaking thunder, and sent them all to the monitoring point of Qin Shi.

Balsborough sent a thousand-man team back to Tashuanghu, especially in anger, and sent another thousand-man team to Qingfeng Valley, under the pretext of revenge, attacked the vicinity of Wuguan Town, but was firmly blocked in Qingfeng Valley by the already vigilant Ming border army, and the harvest was very small.

And the Suzhou guard, who was preparing to investigate whether there was an unordered action by the army, the officers up and down were angered by the arrogance of the Tartars, and they didn't bother to inquire about their subordinates while taking strict precautions; You Tartar can come if you want, grab if you want, why shout injustice, ahh

Jiang Qianhu, who learned of the situation, was overjoyed and was about to report to his superiors, but he received a letter from Huang Changzu, which was sent by Lao Wu, the family guard.

In the letter, Huang Changzu warned Jiang Jie, don't embarrass Ximen Baihu anymore, he is one of his trading partners, even if you report to the guard, there are officers of his Huang family there, and it is okay to withhold a document from you.

Of course, you Jiang Jie can report to the next level, or report anonymously, but as soon as you hug the thigh of the Huang family, and then want to change the court, hmph, you try.

"Slap, slap," In the study of the Thousand Households, Jiang Jie dropped several teacups one after another, and then he forced down the grievances in his heart, and finally did not issue the documents that had been written.

The angry Jiang Jie didn't know that this time Xiao Ye suddenly sent someone out of the grassland at night, which really startled Huang Changzu, if he really forced Xiao Ye to run away from the grassland with his family, he would lose a lot.

Shiguantun is too close to the grassland, so close that the climate is almost the same, and when you go to the grassland, you can say that the people live faster.

Not to mention the vanity mirror, even the yellow plaster has become a unique door in the Huang family's business, not to mention that he has now imitated the self-defense weapon of the revolver, cultivating a good relationship and holding a big fish in the long line is the greatest guarantee for profits.

As for the repeating crossbow, with the revolver, Young Master Huang can't look down on it anymore.

Jiang Jie and Huang Changzu, who were a little flustered, wrote several letters, and finally came to their hearts, and now he has also reached the critical moment of running for office, retreating does not mean that he will not settle accounts in the future, so let's be patient for a while.

The Huang family and the Tian family have tied interests with Xiao Ye, and they will not shout at Shiguantun's movements all over the world. All the news of the source has been compressed to a minimum.

In the early morning of the next day, when Wang Meng and Lei Xiaoqing led the team to assemble at the training ground, they found that outside the stone mountain wall, the stone platform was crawling down with staggered vines and grasses, which had covered the north side of the entire mountain; Even the road down the mountain built with yellow plaster also needs to be cleaned up in time.

If you are not careful when going up and down the mountain, you will be scratched by countless sharp vines and grasses on the branches.

The training ground was surrounded by thin branches of Coptis chinensis trees to avoid being flooded by crazy vine grass; The continuous drizzle of spring, coupled with two heavy rains, has spread the vine grass at a rapid rate, and is constantly eroding the northern and southern mountains and hills.

The only thing that made Wang Dali dissatisfied was that several of the sergeants who were drawing water in the north of the mountain had accidentally fallen under the sharp thorns of the vine grass, and although it was fine after two hours, the craftsman sergeant who shrank back and was hanging with a big rope every day had been constantly complaining.

The appearance of the water umbrella made Wang Dali see the hope of the water source, but Xiao Ye had no choice but to take out so much, so he could only wait and see again.

The number of old people who are responsible for clearing several roads on the stone mountain has also increased to twenty, and the manpower is almost the maximum in the tunli.

Li Langzhong, who advocated planting more trees, began to walk out of the tun wall, took two pharmacists around to check the saplings of Coptis chinensis, and laughed all day long; He was quite satisfied with the fact that he could owe five jars of ale wine on credit every month in the two shops, ten times of commercial goods, and a guarantee from hundreds of households.

This spring, it seems to have rained a little more, but as soon as the weather clears up, the temperature warms up quickly, and the leather jacket on my body is hot at noon.

The flourishing flowers of various colors on the branches of the vine grass made Xiao Ye inadvertently see the strangeness, the earthy yellow petals were the largest, mixed with some dark yellow; Near the coal pit, there were black flowers one after another, and at the foot of the mountain there were some sparse silver-white flowers.

The night before yesterday, he poured the kernels purchased by Xiao Liuzi, the earthy yellow metal kernels, and more than 300 catties in two large baskets, all of which were poured into the stone grinding to grind his eyes; The result made Xiao Ye ecstatic.

The stone mill that no longer rotates the lower plate, and the crystal pattern at the button of the grinding disc has changed slightly; In each transformed pattern, there was no longer a word for him to guess, and the names of those raw materials still gave him a headache.

In the pattern that lights up, the lower right corner shows the text of one and two to pick up, as long as he presses the button on the pattern, the revolver pattern marked with the text of one is darkened without the raw text.

In the box under the stone platform, what was sent out was a heavy revolver with 120 rounds of projectiles, packed in a large flat iron box.

In the lower right corner of the silk cotton coat pattern, there is a text marked with pickup, and when the button is pressed, it is a silk cotton short coat; Press twice to send out two pieces.

Without raw materials, the pattern will not light up, without charcoal, the blue light on the button will not flash, and the pattern will not appear; Xiao Ye, who had room to choose, couldn't be unhappy and silly for a long time.

Of course, a large amount of coal was put into the grinding eyes, and after the iron ore was invested, the yellow plaster gushing out along the gaps between the upper and lower stone pans was still endless; Everything runs on coal.

For the black kernel and the fierce fire oil, Xiao Ye only wants it at present.

At present, he can barely supply the coal and iron ore needed for the stone mill, and as for copper, sulfur saltpeter, tin, mercury, and even gold and silver, it is enough for him to empty his family.

At the end of March, Gansu Town, one of the nine towns of the border army, was rewarded by the imperial court for its meritorious service in fighting against the Mongol Tatars on the Suzhou Road.

For a time, some people were promoted and some people fell behind, and the Suzhou officialdom, which was half happy and worried, was disturbed; And Jiang Jie, who handed in a total of more than 50 Tartar heads twice, was also among the awards.

Jiang Jie and Jiang Qianhu, who jumped up and down, took advantage of the opportunity of a commander to return to his hometown, spilled a lot of money, and then swore allegiance by holding the thigh of the young master of the Huang family.

And Zhu Houzhao, the Zhengde Emperor who was martial and meritorious, happily took up the pen and circled the recital of the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies and promoted some meritorious personnel.

With a confidant deputy Qianhu left, Jiang Jie went to Suzhou Wei, happy, a little depressed, he reported to the Wei Institute of the proposed candidate, not by the Wei commander Huang Guanglu approved, but sent a new Qianhu to the Gravel Fort, the former experience of the department of Wang Chongli.

As for what kind of deal the Huang family made, no one knows; And a deputy Chitoda Guanglin who followed Wang Chongli to take office made the newly appointed Wang Chongli a little depressed.

Gu Zhenying, the ambassador of the Wei Institute, went to Shiguantun, which aroused the idea of the big businessman Wang Dengku's family. And the Wang family, who is good at dealing in grain, skin, goods and intelligence, how can they let the Huangtian family eat alone.

The changes in the business of the Huang family and the Tian family, the other four major families in Shanxi also thought about it, and the Wang Dengku family quickly got the position of a thousand households in the gravel fort in this border army adjustment, but it was also stuffed into a nephew by the Tian family.

The first thing he did when he came to the gravel fort, the king of a thousand households invited a few hundred households, small flag officials, and officials in the fort, if it weren't for Jiang Jie's face, his invitations were all sent to Shiguantun; At the banquet, not only Wang Chongli was approachable, but even Tian Guanglin had no shelf, and everyone had a light meal amicably.

The congratulatory gifts sent by several shops in the fort also smiled faintly.

The low-level officers led by Luo Yufei had to take out the silver money and give red envelopes to the two adults, and at the same time, they started another round of refuge; In the officialdom, isn't it that you rely on me and I rely on him, and everyone has a response.

Of course, these happy money will fall on those tuntian, and this year's military salary provided by tuntian, no matter how good the rain is, it will have to be covered with an extra layer of skin.

Shiguantun, Xiao Ye received the notice of Tian Fangjun, the shopkeeper of the Tian family, and immediately regretted it secretly, Jiang Jie was promoted to the commander of the capital, it can be said that he single-handedly facilitated, those Tartar heads, it is a trivial matter to exchange them for silver money, once Jiang Jie enters the side wall, then the matter of revenge in the future will be delayed.

Xiao Ye, who didn't have the opportunity to send someone to intercept and kill him halfway, finally paid attention to the lag in intelligence, but he didn't have any extra funds in his hand now, so he just kept it in mind.

In the drizzly March, the cool air is pressing, and the weather is easy to clear, and in the tunli centered on the land temple on the stone mountain, everyone is still busy step by step; No one paid attention to the vines and grasses that spread everywhere at the foot of the mountain, and they continued to expand outward at a rate of one step a day.

Even the old craftsmen who were in charge of cleaning the passage only praised the vigorous vegetation, and the rest of their minds were that their grandchildren and boys would be able to exchange more copper coins for picking up the kernels this autumn.

Ten days later, after Xiao Ye used the goods produced by the stone mill to exchange raw materials such as sulfur saltpeter with the two shops, he saw Shang Baochang hurriedly entering the hundred households with the support of Shang Wen.

Originally, there was no special courtyard for the hundred households, but after Wang Dali discussed with a few craftsmen, he still built a small courtyard outside, a simple wooden fence, a stone table and a stone bench.

Tian Xiuxiu had already returned to Wuguan Town a few days earlier, and she left Xiao Ye an iron cage with two pigeons in it; Originally, Xiuxiu, who wanted to keep a message with her lover, didn't expect that the pigeon letter would become a tool for Xiao Ye to find out Jiang Jie's whereabouts.

Xiao Ye picked out about fifty war horses and pack horses brought back from the grassland, and gave the rest to Tian Xiuxiu, so that the Tian family would not look down on her role.

The war horse trade has always been an important business in Gansu Town, and the ordinary people are not qualified to do it.

Now as long as the charcoal is sufficient, he doesn't have to stay up all night to guard the stone mill, the stone handed over by Wang Meng is placed on the stone table, he looks at it a few times, and does not see anything abnormal; "Lord Hundred Households, Lord Hundred Households," before the person entered the small courtyard, Shang Baochang's anxious voice came into Xiao Ye's ears.

Shang Shetian's personal guards recognized it and did not stop it; Shang Shetian walked into the courtyard, pushed away the worried Shang Wen, sighed even loudly, and his waist collapsed a lot.

"Chief Shang Bao, come and sit down, why is it so urgent?" Xiao Ye got up and put the old man on the stone bench, "Little Liuzi, go get a pot of hot tea,"

"No need, Lord Ximen Baihu, the coal pit, the coal pit," even Shang Shetian, who was paused for a while, burst into tears of urgency; His words made Xiao Ye's face froze, and he looked at Shang Wen with doubts in his eyes.

"Lord Ximen, the coal in the coal pit is about to be exhausted, and it has been dug to the end," Shang Wen said helplessly; The old and young in Jiming Village all rely on the coal pit to eat and live, and he didn't expect that the coal would be dug up so quickly.

"What?" When Xiao Ye heard the sound, his body shook suddenly, and his face changed greatly; Without charcoal, not to mention how to spend the days this winter, now the charcoal used for cooking and boiling water in Tunli, not to mention their own stone mill, which needs a lot of charcoal support.

Ignoring the gray-faced chief of the body, Xiao Ye jumped up and ran towards the charcoal pit with his guards.