An official in a light cyan robe led his horse into the Shule gate, followed by two soldiers with ruddy faces and thin scales. The official's temples had grown frost, and the bitter cold of the plateau had covered his skin with red patches, and he no longer had the image of a weak scholar in the past.

No matter how much the city became rich, it could not change the harsh environment of the local area, he had already become accustomed to that kind of life in the perennial wind and frost, and he planned to continue to stick to it.

They led their horses through the streets and alleys, passing by the walls of the loess, where some old lazy men crouched on the city walls and chattered.

"I heard that no, the town guard made General Li get married the day before yesterday, and invited the Tang army and the famous people in the city to go, and made boiled mutton, mutton fat noodle soup, and golden Hu cakes, I heard that thousands of sheep were slaughtered alone, and the wine jars that were drunk were piled higher than the mountains."

"Hey, you just blow it, people invited you to go? Did you see that? ”

"Alas, there is another thing, it is absolutely true, I heard that General Zhao of the Shule Army, the lady of the family hooked up with his subordinates. It just so happened that General Zhao was in Tuntian on the bank of the Chihe River, and last night he suddenly killed a horse pistol and caught the dog man and woman in bed. ”

"yes, what's going on with that?"

"What else can I do, General Zhao is leading the troops, he doesn't blink an eye when he goes to the battlefield to kill people, and it's not like having fun killing half of the dogs and men!"

"Really?"

Yu Gou was reminded when he heard these gossipes, and even stopped his steps. The lazy men saw that there were officials of the imperial court below, and hurriedly dispersed.

"General Lee is married? Unfortunately, we didn't have time to prepare the congratulatory gift. “

Yu Gou turned around and said indifferently: "Why do you need a congratulatory gift, we will keep the green ridge well and manage it, it is the biggest congratulatory gift, go, go directly to the town envoy's mansion." ”

……

Yu Gou and the other three stood at the bottom of the main hall, Li Siye sat in front of the screen, raised his hand and ordered: "Go and get sheep felt, please sit down with the three of them." ”

The two maidservants brought the felt and quietly withdrew.

They bowed down and thanked General Lee, and sat in turn on the sheep felt from the left.

Yu Gou forked his hands and apologized: "Yu Gou didn't expect that it was the general's wedding a few days ago, so he couldn't come in time to celebrate, and I ask the general to forgive me." ”

"It's bitter cold in the green mountains, and it's not easy to travel back and forth, so you don't have to worry about it."

Li Siye said with a smile: "I am very pleased to take good care of your stalls guarding the city." Calling you here is mainly about your joint caravan with the Hidden Ministry. The Mi shops in Chang'an City are in short supply, and the goods you send over once a year have been sold out within half a year, which is a good thing, which shows that the goods in the Western Regions are not yet saturated in Chang'an. Why don't you find a way to form two caravans and transport goods to Chang'an alternately, and the harvest should be quite expensive. ”

Michagan and Sha Li's shops in Chang'an have indeed made a lot of money, if they can make up the remaining window period, the income will be even more considerable, this kind of perfect cooperation between merchants and merchants, whether it is a small country like the Ministry of Knowledge, or the shops in Chang'an is a win-win situation.

Yu Gou smiled bitterly and spread his hands and said: "Of course we are willing, but it is too easy to satisfy the hidden people, once their living standards are restored, they are not willing to increase their output, let alone go to the merchant to transport goods." So the subordinates mean, can we make more padded jackets and quilts, and we will guard the green ridge and expand a caravan to send to Chang'an. ”

Li Siye hurriedly waved his hand: "That's what I'm going to say, the advantage of cotton is that the price is low, and the only outstanding advantage is the low cost." Chang'an West City is full of a variety of warm fillings, from expensive to cheap silk, goose down, mink down, duck down, goose down, wool. Once the cotton jacket quilt with cotton as the filling is shipped to Chang'an at a high cost, its cheap advantage will be lost. If sheepskin jackets are cheaper than yours, why should they buy you this novelty? ”

Yu Gou sat down and pleaded: "Since the general said that it is a new thing, the people of Chang'an should be rare, such as Persian carpets, Tibetan horns, and antelope horns on the grassland are in short supply in Chang'an City, aren't these new things?" ”

"Wrong, these are not new objects, Persian carpets from the Northern and Southern Dynasties Sui and Tang Dynasties have come to the Central Plains, it took two hundred years to accumulate word of mouth, and now the Persian Sassanid Dynasty has long been extinct, but Persian carpets are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Since the time of Taizong Zhenguan, Tubo was transported from Luoqi City to Chang'an, and it has also accumulated a reputation for a hundred years, not to mention the antelope horns all over the grassland. These padded jackets and quilts of yours are not irreplaceable, and in the past hundred years, the winter temperature has become warmer and warmer, and Chang'an has not had snow for seven years. ”

Yu Gou no longer insisted on his opinion, knelt down from the sheep felt and sat up with his hands crossed: "Lord, so Yu Gou came to Shule to ask, what should we do?" ”

Li Siye pondered for a moment, nodded and said: "Since the Hidden Country is not enough to supply the shops in Chang'an, then find another one to cooperate with the Asuka Prefecture to protect the secret country, transport their goods to the Central Plains, and then you can also transport the goods of Chang'an." You should train your ability to transport between the countries west of the Green Ridge, and when you take Little Bolu in the future, I have more important business for you to do. ”

Yu Gou noticed that Li Siye used the word please, he had never said it so politely as he did today, the lord must have been imagining a bigger business plan, the despicable word business had always been positive in his mouth and sounded enthusiastic.

"In the future, Green Ridge will be a good transit station, we have to go south to do business with Indian countries, and form a long-term stable line, of course, not for the time being, until the future to take the small Bolu country, the official road can be considered to be completely opened."

Li Siye stretched out his hand and pressed a few sides and said: "This matter is talked about here, settle down in Shule City today, rest for a few more days and then go on the road."

The three of them stood up from the sheep felt and saluted Li Siye together.

Yu Gou gave Shi Jiang and Song Heng a look behind them, and they quietly retreated outside the door.

He looked around vigilantly again, and made sure that there were no outsiders, so he shook off the right side of his clothes, and with great difficulty removed the blanket from his shoulders, he threw it on the floor, and made a loud noise.

Among them were two pieces of golden-colored foot gold, which fell to the ground naked, and Yu Gou picked them up and stacked them on the table.

"These are the gold gifts given by the lord and the nobles who have eaten in the grass hall, and now they have become the envoys of Shule Town, so they naturally need capital to operate. Because of the long distance, I only brought forty pounds, and how much more I needed to ask the lord to order, I will personally deliver it and never leak the news. ”

"No, I don't have to." Li Siye was reluctant to use these yellow goods, but Yu Gou made a decision for him.

Forty catties of gold is equivalent to more than 5,000 treasures, which is enough to accomplish some things.

After Yu Gou sent the gold, he said goodbye to Li Siye and slowly withdrew from the main hall.

……

In the late autumn and winter of the first year of Tianbao, less than a month before Li Siye got married, he left the town envoy's mansion and went to Chihe to reclaim the tuntian.

Since the autumn grass has not yet withered and yellowed, the Tang army in almost all state cities in this season went out to harvest the grass and prepare forage for the war horses to spend the winter. Such a major event was personally supervised by Pei Guoliang, the governor of Shule, and thousands of ox carts from the people and the army were mobilized, and they came and went one after another, and the open space in Shule City and the surrounding three state cities had been piled up with forage.

In addition to the Tang Army, local herders are also stockpiling forage, due to the increase in livestock, and the destruction of pastures this year is worse than in previous years; The herders swept almost every few dozen miles of pasture in the surrounding area, and some even dug up the roots of the grass in the soil to barely accumulate enough forage for the winter.

Standing on the top of one of the rolling hills, Governor Pei Guoliang looked out at the bare land around him, which had been lush a few days before, but had been as clean as if they had been eaten by migrating antelopes a few days later.

The native descendant of the Shule royal family was full of sadness, and muttered to himself: "It seems that more lambs will be slaughtered this winter, they will plow all the grass roots, what will the cattle and sheep eat next year?" ”