Shanxi was an important military town in the Ming Dynasty and an important base for weapons manufacturing in the Ming Dynasty. The famous Jin merchants in later generations relied on the salt industry of the Ming Dynasty border pass "Kaizhong Law" to develop.

Regarding the "Kaizhong Law", which has a huge impact in the history of the development of the salt industry, this is not the focus of this article, so here is a brief introduction: that is, the merchants provided the Ming army grain and grass at the border in exchange for salt as a reward.

At first glance, this seems to be a good way to win a win-win situation, but exploiting loopholes is the strength of merchants in any period, and by the end of the Ming Dynasty, a group of big salt merchants who attracted wealth through salt eventually appeared. And the group of Yangzhou salt merchants that Wu Shigong dealt with, many of them are also from Shanxi and Huizhou.

At that time, the Hui merchants and the Jin merchants were the two richest business groups in the Ming Dynasty, the Hui merchants mainly relied on themselves to be in the land of fish and rice, and the Jin merchants relied on border trade.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty's ban on the border was already a virtual reality, and a large number of Jin merchants sold salt grain, armor and weapons and other materials to the Mongols outside the Guan, and even directly sold them to the hands of the Houjin, while the Houjin got a large number of military and strategic materials from the Mongolian tribes that were related to them, but what they paid were the property looted by the Houjin from the Guannei and the specialties outside the Guan. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the history of the development of the Jin merchants is the history of blood and tears of the Chinese nation at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, at this time, the Jin merchants were so bold that they sold salt, grain, armor and weapons to the Tartars outside the Guan, so what was the big deal about selling some weapons to the bandits in the Guan?

Of course, the price of these weapons is quite expensive, basically seven or eight times the market price. But even such expensive weapons are often out of stock, because when Houjin purchases weapons in large quantities, Jin merchants can sell these weapons for more than ten times the profit.

Therefore, when these Henan bandits learned that they could buy knives, guns, and weapons at about five times the price, they immediately enthusiastically purchased them. You know, those bandits are not in harmony with each other. It can be said that there are large and small battles between them every day for various interests.

And modern people who are deeply influenced by modern martial arts novels may not know that as long as it is a cold weapon, no matter what kind of magic weapon, as long as there are a few fierce battles, the weapon will be scrapped after hitting and smashing, so the weapon gap in Henan is particularly large, after all, it is really time to fight, and it is always impossible to use those farm tools.

In a short period of time, the Runing Army sold a large number of previously seized second-hand weapons. These captured weapons were not used by the Runing Army themselves. It's rusty in the warehouse, but those bandits just use it, and the price is high, and Yamakawa Tsukasa is really doing a good business.

However, Yamakawa Tsukasa also has principles in doing this kind of weapons business. Sell only to bandits who have formed a village to protect themselves. Because those bandits basically do not move, and there is not much threat to the Runing army. And in case those bandits turn their faces, it will be convenient for the Runing Army to retaliate. After all, they can't run away if they have a family and a job.

Other than that. The armor and firearms of the Runing Army are not sold, bows and arrows are only sold hunting bows, powerful longbows are not sold, and military standard arrows are also in limited supply. And in order to conceal it, Ru Ningjun was willing to make more money for the middleman, and did not come forward himself. It is to prevent the government from detecting this weapons business as much as possible.

This business was so prosperous, and in a short period of time, Ru Ningjun earned more than 10,000 taels of silver. Even the shopkeeper Zheng, who had just arrived in Runing, took a tailwind, and the 100 swords he brought for trial marketing this time were also swept away.

Through the intermediary of the Four Seas Commercial Bank, Zheng's Minhai Commercial Bank also received a large number of orders for Nanyang goods in large cities such as Kaifeng and Luoyang. This simply made Shopkeeper Zheng smile from ear to ear. Don't look at the chaos in the mainland, the consumption power level of the official eunuchs and gentry in the mainland is not low at all!

The silver earned from this arms exchange was immediately stored by the Runing Army as a reserve fund. No one thought of using the windfall. For Wu Shigong and them, the hard life that Runing Army has lived is a little fed up!

There was also good news from the capital, and Xue Yufei gave birth to another son. Wu Shigong looked at the good news written by his father-in-law Xue Lian, but the ecstasy of the strokes and tone could not be concealed. Wu Shigong couldn't help but sneer in his heart: "What is there to be happy about? Isn't it just a double insurance? Reinsurance, isn't that still my son? ”

Of course, Wu Shigong himself was very happy, and this time his father-in-law Xue Lian returned the naming right of his son to Wu Shigong. Wu Shigong thought about it for a long time, and finally chose the word "ping". I hope that my son is safe and sound, and I hope that the world is peaceful.

can be good with the name "Xue Chengping", but they were immediately besieged and criticized by the ladies of the inner house, they all thought that the name was too bland, and then attacked Wu Shigong as usual.

That night, Wu Shigong, who was seriously injured, only sought comfort from Xiuzhu, who had the lowest level of education. After some wind and rain, Wu Shigong stroked the embroidered bamboo hair and sighed: "A woman is virtuous if she is not talented!" ”

Unexpectedly, Xiuzhu twisted the tender meat on Wu Shigong's waist fiercely, and said coquettishly: "No matter how talented these old ladies are in the inner house, they don't make the young master idle trouble!" ”

Wu Shigong, who was choked by these words for a long time, finally looked up and sighed: "I really can't live this day!" ”

At this time, the peasant rebels who were tightly encircled and suppressed by Chen Qiyu, the governor of the five provinces, walked to the Hanzhong plank road. Under the pressure of the official army, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, Scorpion Block, Zhang Miaoshou and other units of the peasant rebel army strayed into the Chezhou Gorge south of Xing'an.

Che Trunk Gorge, just think about the name of this canyon, it is surrounded by cliffs and cliffs, which cannot be climbed. And the exit was tightly guarded by the Ming army, and then it rained for more than 70 days, "the crossbow is eroded, the clothes and armor are soaked, and the horse's hooves are worn, and they can't eat for a few days." ”

Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other tens of thousands of people are almost facing a desperate situation. In order to get out of this difficult situation, the leaders of the peasant rebels decided to resort to the scheme of surrender again.

It was still the old way, Li Zicheng and these leaders ordered to gather the gold and silver property seized in the army, and after entering Chen Qiyu's camp, they bribed him all over the place, and then in front of Chen Qiyu, tears and snot flew everywhere, and they almost dug out their fierce loyalty.

And after suffering so many losses, many civil and military officials of the Ming army also opposed appeasement. However, Chen Qiyu was surprised to discover a situation, those civil and military officials opposed it, but none of them were willing to lead troops to completely exterminate this peasant rebel army.

Everyone understands the truth of this trapped beast, who is responsible for taking the risk to fight to the death against the troubled peasant rebels? So Chen Qiyu found himself in a situation where he had to be appeased.

In addition, Chen Qiyu had quite little experience in dealing with the peasant rebels, he probably thought that the peasant rebels were really afraid of being subdued, and he was a little worried that the peasant rebels would jump over the wall in a hurry, so Chen Qiyu finally agreed to appease the peasant rebels. (To be continued......)