That Lu Yunhuan suffered heavy losses in this rebellion of the Holy Spirit Society. Because Lu Yunhuan is in the salt business, he must mainly do private salt. Although Lu Yunhuan has also opened up all the joints in the officialdom, after all, he can't sell illicit salt under the nose of the government.

Therefore, Lu Yunhuan placed the place where the salt goods were placed in one of his villages outside the county seat. Moreover, he arranged most of his Zhuang Ding to guard in the Zhuangzi.

However, after the Holy Spirit Society rebelled and the people came, Lu Yunhuan had no way to evacuate the heavy salt goods to the county seat, so he could only take his family and soft to enter the county seat for refuge.

But in this way, his Zhuangzi where salt goods were placed was broken by the Holy Spirit Society. Not to mention the loss of salt goods, even the Zhuang Ding who guarded the transportation of salt goods under his command lost most of them.

To add insult to injury, the counties north of Runing Province, the birthplace of the Holy Spirit Society's rebellion, were the places where Lu Yunhuan's salt goods were sold. Lu Yunhuan's lower-level sellers in those counties died and fled, and the sales network of Lu Yunhuan's salt goods was broken at once.

In comparison, the problem faced by Yangzhou salt merchant Lu Jianchen is even greater. We already know that the sales area of Lu Yunhuan's salt goods accounts for more than half of the total annual salt sales volume of the Lu family, where Lu Jianchen is located. Therefore, this sales area is quite important to the Lu family.

In addition to the fact that the Lu family has maintained a close relationship with Lu Yunhuan's Lu family for several generations, the main reason is that this sales area is relatively remote for Yangzhou salt merchants.

Speaking of which, we may be a little strange, from the point of view of the straight line, Guide should be one of the closest areas to Yangzhou among the provinces in Henan Province, how can it be more remote?

This is mainly due to the fact that salt cargo is transported by boat. To reach the town of Wu Shigong from Yangzhou, you need to go through the Grand Canal, enter the Yellow River, and then bend into the river in front of the town, which is a big circle. It can be said that Kaifeng City, which is much farther away than the town in a straight line, is much more convenient than the town of Wu Shigong for transporting salt goods.

But no matter how you say it, no matter how small the mosquito legs are, they still have meat. If the Lu family gave up this sales area, the other Yangzhou salt merchants would definitely not mind entering this area.

Due to the rebellion of the Holy Spirit Society, the Lu family's salt sales have been greatly affected. What's even more troublesome is that the sales of Yangzhou salt merchants are determined by the amount of salt in their hands. Except for some of the salt introductions that can be inherited by the family, most of them are received by salt merchants of all sizes to Yangzhou salt transportation envoys to the yamen once a year.

Every salt merchant completes the sale of salt according to the quantity of salt, and cannot sell too much or too little. Of course, if a salt merchant can sell more salt in the newly developed area without affecting the salt sales of other salt merchants, that is also your ability, and other salt merchants will not care about you.

But if a salt merchant sells less of the amount, he will receive a certain share of the salt next year, and that share will be divided among the other salt merchants.

In the group of salt merchants in Yangzhou, once a salt merchant reduces the share of salt introduction, there will basically be a vicious circle in the future. The salt merchant's share of salt will also decrease year by year, so that he will eventually be excluded from the salt merchant's circle.

And Lu Jianchen's Lu family is now facing this problem. This time, he came to Guide Mansion again, and it was to discuss with Lu Yunhuan to solve this problem. And the two of them discussed Zuihou and thought that the solution to the problem was to reopen the salt market in those counties of Runing Province as soon as possible.

Lu Yunhuan had already sent someone to contact the sellers in those counties, and now those counties did need salt because they had not been supplied with salt for several months. However, because on the way from the town to those counties, they had to pass through a mountainous area, and the mountains were now crowded with bandits, so there was no way to transport salt to those counties.

And because of the loss of Zhuang Ding under his subordinates, Lu Yunhuan could not arrange enough force to transport these salt goods. In this way, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen remembered Wu Shigong.

Wu Shigong has strong force in his hands, and some time ago, he escorted the caravan to Jining Prefecture, so he is a very suitable candidate. Therefore, this time, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen invited Wu Shigong to explore Wu Shigong's tone at the banquet. If Wu Shigong's request was not excessive, they wanted Wu Shigong to send troops to escort them to transport the salt goods.

Don't say that Wu Shigong has a pretty good reputation in the eyes of the local gentry. Although some gentry are not accustomed to the behavior of Wu Shigong's martial artists, up to now, Wu Shigong is still very reputable. He never broke his promise. In addition, in the negotiations between Wu Shigong and the local gentry, he was generally very reasonable. did not use the force in his hands to run amok.

Otherwise, even if Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen wanted to open the channel for the sale of salt goods, they would not dare to deal with a martial artist like Wu Shigong who held a strong shili. Otherwise, they merchants would be afraid, and Wu Shigong would swallow them even the bones of the belt into their stomachs.

At the beginning of the banquet, after three rounds of wine, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen told Wu Shigong about their idea of asking Wu Shigong to escort the salt goods.

Wu Shigong didn't immediately agree to them, he first asked, "Then what benefits can this official get for this escort?" Wu Shigong wanted to know how much benefit he could get, and then weigh how he should do it.

Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen had actually discussed it a long time ago. Lu Yunhuan replied: "My lord, this time we have to transport more than 700 stone of salt, and the first time we buy and sell, we will give the adults 500 taels of hard work. In the future, every time we deliver, we will pay the adults five cents of silver per stone. What do you think, sir? ”

Now, due to the shortage of salt in those counties, the price of local salt has risen to about 25 yuan of silver. Even if Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen sent the salt freight over, which led to the drop in the price of salt, the escort fee they gave to Wu Shigong was just wool on the sheep. Therefore, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen were not distressed about giving Wu Shigong so much silver.

Wu Shigong listened to Lu Yunhuan's words, and he was overjoyed. However, he still pretended to frown on the surface, and then said: "But the place where you want this official to escort has already left the Guide Mansion and arrived at Runing Mansion, that is, out of the defense area of this official. It's a little inconvenient to do that. Wu Shigong also wanted to take the opportunity to get more benefits.

Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen glanced at each other, and Lu Jianchen said with a smile: "My lord, although the two of us are responsible for the sales of salt goods in those counties, we have not entered the salt goods in the northern mountainous areas of those counties. If the adult has a way to break in in the future, the villain will be in charge here, and the price of one or two dollars per stone will be given to the adult. ”

Then Lu Jianchen and Lu Yunhuan told Wu Shigong about the situation in the mountainous areas in the northern part of the county: In those mountainous areas, there are old habitual bandits, and shili is intricate, so basically no businessman dares to enter that area to do business.

Of course, if someone is brave enough to gamble with his own life, as long as he brings salt into those mountainous areas to sell, he can even sell it for a high price of four or five taels of silver per stone. Therefore, these habitual bandits in the mountains can still get salt.

Wu Shigong understood in his heart, and thought, "It turned out that he wrote me a blank check." ”

However, seeing that what he got was almost the same, and Wu Shigong still wanted to make friends with Lu Jianchen, a Yangzhou salt merchant, so when he arrived in Zuihou, Wu Shigong still agreed to Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen's request.

The atmosphere of the banquet was also relaxed. Then, Wu Shigong asked Lu Jianchen and Lu Yunhuan curiously: Weishenme In the Ming Dynasty, the demand for salt and profits were so large?

Lu Jianchen briefly introduced to Wu Shigong: In the Ming Dynasty, salt played another important role in addition to being used as a condiment. That's how food preserves.

During the Ming Dynasty, there were no refrigerators, so when the food was not finished, the excess food was often pickled to prevent the food from rotting and spoiling.

In addition, salt also has the effect of cleaning teeth, that is, it plays the role of modern toothpaste. In addition, livestock also need a lot of salt.

If people don't eat salt, they will be weak, but especially poor people can still boil coarse tea and light rice. But if there is no salt to eat, the livestock will not have the strength to do farm work. Therefore, the families who raise livestock will also do everything possible to ensure that their livestock have enough salt to eat. Therefore, the demand for salt is relatively large.

As for the high price of salt, in addition to the monopoly of the imperial court, the main reason is the cost of transportation. The transportation conditions of the Ming Dynasty were quite primitive in modern terms. Even in the Jiangnan area and the capital at both ends of the Grand Canal, the prices of some commodities are more than doubled, and the prices of some scarce commodities are even three or four times different.

And the price of such a heavy commodity as salt, even in the same area, varies depending on the convenience of transportation. Especially in mountainous areas where transportation is difficult, the price is even more expensive.

Wu Shigong was popularized by Lu Jianchen about the knowledge of salt selling in ancient times. He thought to himself: "No wonder modern travelers are crowded to the coastal areas of Shandong, Fujian and Hainan!" It turns out that they are all attracted by salt! ”

After agreeing at the banquet, Wu Shigong went back to the fortress of Qianhusu to arrange the candidates for the guards. Zuihou decided to send one squadron of one hundred infantry and three squadrons of one hundred and fifty cavalry to escort.

Originally, Xue Yongli would be the leader of the escort this time. However, due to Wu Shigong's reputation, Lu Yunhuan and Lu Jianchen asked Wu Shigong to lead the team. The customer is God! Wu Shigong also decided to lead the team himself. This made Wu Shigong a little excited, he finally walked out of the shadow of Xue Yongli and flew solo for the first time!