Five days passed, and the people from Wangjiazhai did not take the initiative to find them, but drove away Liu Cun's people in the caravan, and the caravan was completely separated.

Qin Zhi, the leader of the caravan guards and the veteran boxer invited by Lu Ping from Xuzhou with a high salary, also fell ill after the caravan split, and this reckless hero who had been wandering around the world for decades and licking blood was finally old.

Just when Qin Zhi and his apprentices didn't know where to go, Liu Cun personally went into the city to visit Qin Zhi, and then took him and a group of apprentices to the new village at the foot of Zhushan, and placed them in two connected wide courtyards on the edge of Mengxue in the village, and then sent the deed of the two courtyards to Qin Zhi.

Facing Liu Cun, who had come to lead the doctor to visit him again, Qin Zhi on the sickbed struggled and fell to the ground in tears.

Liu Cun was startled, stepped forward quickly, and helped the old man whose back was already bent up, carefully helped him onto the sickbed, and said something touching:

"Uncle Qin, in the past six months, you have led our caravan to guard batches of goods to go south and north, footprints all over more than 20 counties in Qingxu Erzhou, in exchange for a huge amount of money and goods, this is our home today, it can be said that everything in front of you embodies your old hard work and sweat, you have always paid enough for me Liu Cun and all the old folks, it's time to rest, if you still want to move your muscles and bones, you can take a walk around, and when the food is loose at the end of the year, I will personally brew a pot of good wine for you to send to the old, to ensure that you will never be able to put it down after drinking it for a long time. ”

Everyone in the hall was shocked and grateful, Qin Zhi on the couch couldn't help but burst into tears, took Liu Cun's hand, and pointed to the two senior disciples on the side:

"The two inferior apprentices have seen it before, the eldest apprentice Lu Jiu has just turned thirty years old, and the younger one is the old man's righteous son, called Qin Yi, who will be twenty-four years old in Layue, both of them are picked up and brought up by the old man since childhood, and the kung fu in his hands is still working, and most of the martial arts of the other dozen apprentices are taught by the two of them, if the lord can afford it, let them be loyal to the lord of the two generations!"

Lu Jiu and Qin Yi immediately knelt down, kowtowed respectfully to Liu Cun, and finished prostrate on the ground, anxiously waiting for Liu Cun to speak.

Liu Cun knew that the two men in front of him were good, especially the thirty-year-old Lu Jiu, who not only had a solid good kung fu, but also was shrewd and extremely affectionate. The young Qin Yi has a strong physique, is diligent and down-to-earth, and is also a rare loyal person, so Liu Cun naturally will not let it go.

Under the worried eyes of Qin Zhi and everyone, Liu Cun walked up to Lu Jiu and Qin Yi, held up the two of them very easily in one hand, nodded slightly and said to the two men who were shocked in their hearts: "Qin Yi, you stay by your father's side for the time being to do your filial piety, and other things will be said after your father recovers, and then return to the caravan or come to me to help as you please; Lu Jiu, you have done a good job in the past six months, you are brave and strategic, brave and loyal, and you have accumulated rich business experience, which is better than I expected, and you can take charge of it alone. Although the caravan is now separated, in the future, there will be more and more novelties made by our various workshops, and the business will become bigger and bigger, and our caravan will continue to expand, so I want to hand over the burden of reorganizing the caravan to you, I wonder if you are willing to bear this burden for me and all the fathers and villagers? ”

Everyone was amazed, what a trust and glory this is, as long as Lu Jiu and Qin Yi agreed, they would immediately become the henchmen of the Lord and enter the ranks of the elders who everyone respects and envies! Lu Jiu and Qin Yi were even more stunned, looking at Liu Cun with a calm face in disbelief.

"Criminal, don't kneel down and thank the Lord!" Qin Zhi, who was on the sickbed, yelled anxiously.

Lu Jiu and Qin Yi immediately knelt down and prostrate on the ground, kowtowing again and again, shouting to the Lord.

Liu Cun helped the two of them up again, sat down on the sickbed with relief, and talked to Qin Zhi for a long time before saying goodbye. Lu Jiu and Qin Yi's eyes were full of tears of gratitude, and they sent Liu Cun to the door of the house at the foot of the Phoenix Gang four miles to the north before respectfully saying goodbye and leaving.

Liu Cun was calm on the outside, but he was quite sour in his heart, thinking of the divided caravan and the villagers of Wangjiazhai who still had no explanation, he couldn't help but sigh.

Before, Liu Cun didn't expect to leave Wangjiazhai so soon, all along, he has instructed the housekeeper Lu An to build the villagers' houses first, so until now, the villagers' houses are basically completed, Liu Cun's new home is only half built, he and Wang Qi's family can only live in the backyard wing of the temporary work, which makes the villagers who have already moved into the new home feel guilty, and the craftsmen are working hard one by one, and take out the best craftsmanship to build a house for Liu Cun.

Located in the west of the new village, the remaining veins of Dazhu Mountain have beautiful scenery, and the natural extension of the mountain is like a phoenix spreading its wings, so it is called Phoenix Ridge by the villagers who settle down, implying that the new village is located under the protection of the winged phoenix.

Liu Cun liked the auspicious name of Phoenix Ridge very much, and it happened that the place where he liked to build the house was in front of the Phoenix Mouth facing the sea, just under the small stone hill that stood on a flat land.

The small stone hill is about 30 zhang long and wide, nine zhang high, the shape is tall and lush, and it is about four miles away from the center of the new village residence in the south, so Liu Cun also gave the stone gang an auspicious name - Phoenix Gang.

At the foot of the big mountain on the back of the Phoenix Gang, there is a small valley that is slightly oval, there is a small lake about two hundred acres wide in the valley, the clear lake water meanders out from the mouth of the valley, bypasses the three towering ancient elms on the side of the Phoenix Gang and the one hundred meters in front, passes through the arbor forest that has not yet been cultivated and thousands of acres of barren grassland, and goes straight to the sea in front, Liu Cun's new house and the courtyard built for Wang Qi's family are between the mountains and rivers full of spiritual energy and the mountains and seas.

For several days, Liu Cun and Wang Qi did not care about their own house, and the two began to inspect the lime kiln and cement kiln that had already been put into operation in the southernmost part of the new village, and watched for three days before they saw the brick and tile workshop, iron workshop, carpentry workshop, and ceramic workshop under construction along the foot of Zhushan Mountain in the south.

It wasn't until he had walked a long way that Wang Qi finally knew that the miraculous cement powder was only made by calcining limestone, clay and a small amount of crushed pottery powder with gypsum, but he still couldn't figure out why it was so strong after condensation.

After listening to Liu Cun's introduction in the direction of Liu Cun's finger, Wang Qi realized how huge the reservoir project planned to start after the autumn harvest was, and what a significant impact it would have on the entire iron, ceramics, agricultural tools, and shipbuilding.

Although Wang Qi knew nothing about industry, from Liu Cun's conversations with five highly skilled craftsmen, he seemed to see a long waterwheel erected next to the aqueduct, a huge hammer driven by the water flow difference, and a series of ingenious devices for blowing air in the smelting furnace.

Early the next morning, before Wang Qi had yet to calm down from the impact of many unbelievable knowledge, Liu Cun pulled him to the beach again, and the three-mile-long coast was full of large and small stones, bricks and trees, and nearly a thousand people were building wharves and breakwaters.

"The high and low along the southern shore is the salt pan you said?" Wang Qi grabbed Liu Cun and pointed to more than a dozen large and small salt pans and asked.

Liu Cungang had finished discussing with the two craftsmen who were in charge of the construction of the harbor breakwater, and just wanted to see the formation of salt brine after being exposed to the sun for several days, so he took the curious Wang Qi to the junction of the two largest salt pans in the south.

Liu Cun used a multi-toothed wooden rake to stir the salt pan repeatedly, observed for a moment to break a branch from the shore and put it on the liquid surface of the salt pan, saw that the branch floated on it and no longer sank, turned to a group of salt workers behind him and ordered loudly: "You can introduce the salt brine from these two fields into the brine pond on the side, and after filtering the brine from the two fields today, you can get at least 10,000 catties of refined salt tomorrow afternoon." ”

The salt workers immediately moved excitedly, some spread grass and mats to add salt mud to the regular brine pond below, some dredged the salt pan outlet, and some took the trouble to inspect the salt drying field below the brine pond, obviously not the first time they had done so.

Wang Qi couldn't help but ask: "How many acres are there in these twelve salt pans?" If it's all done, how many catties of salt can you get? ”

"This is only the first batch of salt pans, adding up to almost 80 acres, if this time goes well, a stubble can produce about 30,000 catties of salt. For more than half a month, our 200 salt workers have repeatedly made it for a month according to the method I said, although they have obtained thousands of catties of salt, but in general they have failed, but despite this, when they got thousands of catties of snow-white sea salt, the 200 salt workers who had been tired and tired for half their lives cried, so they are now working more and more energetically. ”

Speaking of this, Liu Cun grabbed a handful of salt mud and slowly rubbed it open: "Later, I took the time to stay with the salt workers for a few days, and after repeated trial production, I found that the problem was in the salt mud. Just put it in the sun for half a day, and you can see the snow-white salt crystals condensed on it. ”

Wang Qi pinched the salt mud, looked around again, and returned to Liu Cun's side and sighed: "I didn't expect sea salt to be made like this, no wonder you dare to make a promise to the county officials, if these more than ten miles of coast are all built with salt pans, I'm afraid you can get hundreds of thousands of catties of sea salt every month!" ”

Liu Cun said with a smile: "Now you know why I wanted to get the position of salt official at all costs, right?" I roughly estimate that from next year, we will get no less than 30 gold of net profit from sea salt every month, and we can also grow with the continuous increase of salt pans, and when the wharf and breakwater are built, we will start to build large sea ships, seize the time to train 1,000 boatmen, and strive to form an offshore fishing team before the beginning of spring next year, and have ten large sea ships to do business before next autumn, and sell the things made by our smelting workshop, ceramic workshop, silk workshop, and salt factory in a steady stream, and make money to accept displaced people to open up wasteland and farm. Expand our strength and territory step by step. ”

Wang Qi knew Liu Cun's ambition very well, so he was not shocked, but asked slightly excitedly: "How many more homeless people do you plan to accept?" ”

"Before the autumn harvest next year, at least 20,000 will be accepted." Liu Cun replied casually.

Wang Qi was taken aback: "Twenty thousand? Oh, my God! Is it possible? ”

Liu Cun nodded solemnly: "It can be done, last night Lu Ping sent a fast horse to deliver the letter, and the Mi family made a clear request to underwrite our diamond pottery and painted pottery, the price is quite fair, and it is as much as there is, promising to have grain, iron to iron, even if it is to Shudi's brocade and red copper, as long as the Han has something, they can get it for us." ”

Wang Qi was slightly relieved: "In this way, we can ask the Mi family to exchange the grain from Xuzhou and Yangzhou, and there will be a guarantee for accepting batches of displaced people, at least before the winter, we can accept 5,000 young people, the only worry is that it is too chaotic outside now, if the grain can't be transported in time, nearly 10,000 mouths are not easy to do!" ”

Liu Cun pointed to the sea in front of him: "Big brother, in fact, this is our biggest granary!" ”

"You mean fishing?" Wang Qi reacted quickly.

Liu Cun nodded: "In addition to fish, there are hundreds of things to eat in the sea, big brother, you have lived by the sea for so many years, and you also know that if you go to the beach after the tide, you don't have to worry about meals all day, haha!" Why don't we try it now? ”

Wang Qi thought for a while: "Okay! ”

More than 800 strong laborers were repairing six small fishing boats about four zhang long at the edge of the wharf, and dozens of fishermen selected from the homeless people were mending their nets in front of a row of pillars on the shore.

Liu Cun walked to a big man on the side who was seven feet tall with a tiger's back and an ape's waist, and his whole body was black and shiny, and his muscles were bulging: "Old Bao, can you go out for a spin?" ”

Lao Bao, who is over thirty years old, grinned, revealing a mouth full of white teeth, and said with a sly smile: "Today is twenty-three, the tide is the smallest and the most stable to go to sea, but it is not okay to go far, in case there is a good one, the villagers are afraid that they will tear me apart, and please bear with me." ”

Liu Cun asked unhappily: "Lao Tzu is so incompetent in your eyes?" ”

Lao Bao hurriedly bowed: "Lord forgive sins, this sea is different from the shore!" Hey! Belch...... The small one has no other meaning, please don't see the small one in general! ”

Liu Cun was annoyed, and kicked over the strong old Bao: "Bao Laosan, Lao Tzu originally wanted to wait for the big ship to be built and let you be the head of the fleet, but I didn't expect your grandson to be so eggless!" Don't think that your water and underwater skills are good, no one dares to offend you, your martial arts skills can't enter Lao Tzu's eyes, if you are not convinced, you can try Lao Tzu at any time. ”

After Liu Cun finished speaking, he quickly took off his clothes and pants, revealing his toned body, and the thing under his crotch shook around with the twisting of his body, seeing Wang Qi and the surrounding men stunned, and the thousands of young people on and off the dock also stopped what they were doing and looked over, and saw Liu Cun's images one by one stunned on the spot, like a sculpture.

Liu Cun, who was defenseless, walked down the beach without any scruples, jumped to a waist-deep place in the sea, and swam quickly into the depths of the sea in a dazzling and strange posture, like a dolphin.

Bao Laosan on the shore gasped, surprised by Liu Cun's extraordinary courage and water nature, and was even more shocked by Liu Cun's strong explosiveness and staying power in the water, originally he also wanted to fight with Liu Cun in the sea even if he lost, and took this opportunity to show his courage and skills, but at this moment he no longer had any arrogant thoughts to prove himself, his heart was pounding, and he stared intently at Liu Cun who was getting farther and farther away in the waves.

Wang Qi was frightened, and rushed to a group of fishermen and roared: "What are you doing stupidly? Why don't you go to the boat? If you want to die, you brutes, if there is a bad pool on the master, Lao Tzu will kill your whole family! ”

There was no one on the beach in a blink of an eye, dozens of fishermen rushed down the beach, pushing the boat forward in the shallow sea, the worried Wang Qi didn't bother to take off his clothes, rushed into the sea and jumped onto a wooden boat, grabbed the rickety side of the boat in embarrassment, and nervously looked at the direction of Liu Cun's departure.

Everyone on the shore stretched their necks and put their hands on the pergola to look at the deep sea where Liu Cun's shadow had been lost.

The wooden boat rowed out for more than three miles, and finally caught up with Liu Cun, who stopped moving forward and floated on the surface of the sea to breathe, Bao Laosan couldn't care to wipe off the flowing sea water and sweat on his face, grabbed the long pole on the boat and stretched it to Liu Cun.

Liu Cun slapped the pole away, swam twice and climbed onto another boat cleanly, stood up and threw back the long hair that covered his face, turned to Bao Laosan on the other boat and asked, "Where are the fishing nets?" ”

Bao Laosan hurriedly jumped to the back of the boat, uncovered the deck and took out a bundle of newly woven nets, looked pitifully at Liu Cun on the opposite boat, and knelt on the deck with a "bang": "Please don't scare the little ones anymore, there are sharks in this sea, it doesn't matter if 10,000 Bao Laosan die, if there are three long and two short on the master, how can the five thousand men, women and children in the whole village live?" Lord, the little ones don't dare to play with their hearts anymore, the little ones don't dare anymore, the Lord ......"

After listening to Bao Laosan's crying, all the people on the boat knelt down and kowtowed, and Wang Qi also knelt down straight, staring at Liu Cun with a face full of blame.

Liu Cun thought that he would make such a fuss on a whim, so he hurriedly helped up the two guys in the same boat, and comforted the brothers around him.

Only then did the kneeling brothers stand up, and they took out the fishing nets from their respective boats and skillfully manipulated them, and soon joined them into three large nets about ten zhang long and one zhang wide, and rowed the boats onto the small circulation in groups of two and began to pull the nets.

More than an hour passed, six wooden boats full of large and small sea fish slowly docked, and there were already people standing by the water holding the clothes and pants that Liu Cun threw down.

Wang Qi, who went to sea for the first time when he was so big, stood on the beach wet, looking at the vast sea with light waves, and then looking at the six boats that were fully loaded, and finally his eyes fell on Liu Cun, who was full of vigor and spirit, and finally believed what Liu Cun said before - the sea is the biggest granary!

With this blessed sea of abundance, countless people will surely live.