At noon on this day, the ship finally arrived at Jining Banknote Pass.

This place is only forty or fifty miles away from Yanzhou City, where the Lu Wangfu is located, and it is also a large wharf where merchants gather on the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal.

According to Zheng Haizhu's plan, the new rice brought from Hangzhou was sold in Jining for money, because if you take the land route to Dengzhou and then the sea route to Liaodong, the burden of rice is heavier than that of brocade and tea.

"Besides, these rice are all good products in the Liangzhu area, and only those high-ranking officials and nobles in Beijing can afford the price, and they are easy to be robbed by hungry deserters in places like Liaodong, where there is a shortage of food and short salaries. They are not interested in Hangjin tea, which cannot eat and drink life-saving. This time, I will take you on a trip, and after you return to Hangzhou, you have to tell Mao Gongzi. All kinds of goods along the way, especially high-quality porcelain, furniture, yellow croaker fish maw and other precious goods that we have not yet handled, the prices are recorded and reported to Mao Gongzi. ”

During the process of the ship docking, Zheng Haizhu kept mentioning Xu San'er's orders.

In the end, he wiped his serious face and joked to him: "Do a good job, I'll go to Uncle Mao to be a matchmaker for you, maybe you will be the uncle of the Mao family next year." ”

Xu San pounded his head like garlic, and finally heard the teasing, and understood that Miss Zheng was mentioning the scene of competing to be Mao Wenlong's son-in-law by the Nanhui seaside, and couldn't help but smirk.

Along the way, Zheng Haizhu was quite satisfied with Xu San, who Mao Wenlong sent to his son to do business.

Xu San is literate, literate, has been a soldier, so his skills and acuity are good, he dares to speak when dealing with the public, he is not mean to the slender man and sailor hawker, and he is a second shopkeeper who can be cultivated for a long time.

"Now, you go ashore and go to the tooth man to take a look." Zheng Haizhu instructed Xu Sandao.

Mu Zaohua walked over and asked, "Miss Zheng, don't you unload the goods first?" Don't let those tooth people think that we only want to make a move in Jining, and we may help the rice bank to lower the price. ”

Zheng Haizhu stared at her and said with a smile: "Yes." ”

He said, "You speak Shandong, you go and talk to them." You intelligence officers, characters from all walks of life, you have to act like each other. ”

Not long after, Xu San returned to the ship with a tooth man with a white face and a neat robe.

The tooth man walked straight to Wu Bangde, raised the tooth card on his waist to appear, and said politely: "The boss is healthy, the surname of the contemptible person is Ding, and the single name is the Lu character of this Lu land." ”

Wu Bangde pointed to Mu Zaohua: "My cousin is in charge of business at home, and she talks to you." ”

Ding Yaren was stunned for a moment, and Mu Zaohua had already spoken: "There is Brother Lao, take me ashore, and ask for the price everywhere." ”

When the Dingya people heard that she had a local accent, they pursed their lips without smiling and said, "Girl, please."

Mu Zaohua and Xu San had just gotten on the dock with the toothed man, but a man with tattered pants rushed out of the oblique thorn and grabbed the back collar of the Dingya man.

"You son Wang Bali's third grandson in a dog day, steal my mother-in-law!"

The Dingya man was facing away from the man, but before he turned his head, his right elbow was already pushed out backwards and upwards, and it was hitting the man's jaw.

This seemed to be a very small sudden, but in an instant, the man retreated several steps, covered his chin, and the blood flowing from his mouth was quickly stained with the tiger's mouth.

The Dingya man turned around, looked at the man fixedly, and said angrily: "What are you talking about? I don't know you! In broad daylight, I will clear my name. ”

The man also recognized the face on the other side, realized that he had recognized the wrong person, confessed his guilt, and turned around and ran.

Ding Yaren shook his head and sighed, and said to Mu Zaohua and Xu San: "A little bad luck is not enough to worry about." Let's go to Mihang. ”

Mu Zaohua continued to walk expressionlessly, and Xu San asked Yaren a lot of questions about banknote tariffs, transaction turnover taxes, and fluctuations in the price of goods in the north and south along the way, and Ding Yaren answered politely and fluently.

……

Zheng Haizhu stood at the bow of the boat with his arms crossed, watching Wu Bangde negotiate with the guys who came over to carry the land transportation business.

was listening, but saw Mu Zaohua and Xu San coming back in a hurry, and the Dingya people were not together.

Zheng Haizhu was surprised: "So fast? ”

Wu Bangde also sent the land transport guys for the time being, walked back to the boat, and asked, "What?" Is the tooth man cheating? ”

Mu Zaohua looked at Wu Bangde and said, "Son, as soon as we came ashore, the tooth man was sought revenge. Although it was a misunderstanding, during the entanglement, I saw that the back of the tooth man's neck was exposed, and there were tattoos on it, which were foxes and lotus flowers. ”

Wu Bangde's eyes flashed: "Smell the incense and teach?" ”

Mu Zaohua's heart was happy.

She saw that when Miss Zheng heard what she said, her eyes were still ignorant, and Wu Gongzi had already realized it in an instant.

This made her feel that Gongzi was indeed closer to her, just like the master with his apprentice, while Miss Zheng was just a layman with a sense of distance.

I only heard that Wu Bangde had already opened his mouth and explained to Zheng Haizhu: "The Wenxiang Sect is a branch of the White Lotus Sect, and the earlier leader was called Wang Sen, saying that he saved a fox on the way to chop wood, and the fox bit off his tail and gave it to him in order to thank him, the tail is fragrant, and has the power to save the world, Wang Sen founded the Wenxiang Sect with this, and deceived the poor people into joining the religion and gathering. Later, he wanted to absorb some rich people, so he added the lotus picture. ”

Zheng Haizhu was speechless when she heard this.

Will a fox's tail still smell? Let's talk nonsense, who in modern times won't think that your nose is wrong?

But in ancient times, when the common people of the bottom society were so bitter that they were desperate, they would believe.

Zheng Haizhu said: "You said this, I remembered, I took the slender man back to Songjiang from Zhenjiang, Master Huang and Mrs. Gu Jia, they all reminded me to pay attention to the words and deeds of the family members on weekdays, Shandong has made a lot of trouble in the past two years, and there is a leader named Xu Hongru, Mo recruited the sect to Songjiang." Fortunately, I stared at it for a while, and there was nothing unusual about the people I recruited back. ”

Mu Zaohua said: "Yes, Miss Zheng, when I fled the famine, someone pulled me into the Wenxiang Sect, but I think it is a place where liars and fools gather together, so I would rather go to Jiangnan to sell coolies." ”

She was originally following Wu Bangde's disdain for the Wenxiang Sect, but Wu Bangde interrupted her: "Tell me about that tooth man, how he behaved later." There are also members of the Wenxiang Sect who usually do trading, brokerage, and even teach. ”

"Well, he took me and Xu San to a few rice shops, and said that the price was too low, so he came out and told me, let's hold the boat to the small wharf three miles away from the bank, where there are rice merchants from Beijing and Tianjin to collect rice, and the ship will be delivered, and the rice merchants have not taken taxes, land rents, and bribes to Jining officials, and we, the new rice of Hangjiahu, can be sold for more than two taels per stone."

Wu Bangde raised his eyebrows: "It sounds reasonable." ”

Mu Zaohua shook her head and said: "Childe, I fled last year, it was a cargo ship near Jining, and I still remember the surrounding waterways, and I went out three or four miles before and after the banknote pass, and it was all wild reeds." Could it be that within a year, it will turn into a lively black market? Besides, when I went to the thatched house, I avoided the tooth man and found a tea shop guy to inquire. Selling at the dock and selling on the black market, for us, if there is a difference of two hundred taels of silver, to this tooth man, it is only a difference of two taels of silver. He, a local who hung up a post in the government, took risks and led merchant ships to the black market for the sake of a small two taels of silver, which doesn't make much sense. ”

Mu Zaohua said this in a hurry, and Xu Sancai on the side added: "Miss Zheng, Wu Gongzi, I saw that when the tooth man was attacked from behind, he fought back quickly and ruthlessly, he should be a practitioner." Therefore, the jujube girl and I had a word, and we still rejected the tooth man. What if the Smelling Fragrance Sect really wants to trick us into the wilderness and rob and kill us? ”

Zheng Haizhu smiled happily.

first pointed to Mu Zaohua and said to Wu Bangde: "You are a good master, and the apprentice you brought with you has gone out of the mountain." ”

He said to Xu San: "You are not bad, we go to the rivers and lakes to do business, and profit-seeking is the first place, but when you encounter such a suspicious person, you should stay away from it, and would rather make less money." In the future, when our business becomes bigger, there will be adventurous partners, remember to remind them. ”

Xu San nodded yes.

Next, Wu Bangde personally went ashore to explore.

It didn't take long to see a man who was also wearing a tooth robe, with unkempt hair, leading two tolerances, coming towards him.

At a glance, this man actually looked a little like the tooth man who claimed to be surnamed Ding.

The tolerance shouted along the dock to remind: "Tooth man Ding Lu, the tooth card is robbed by the gangsters, so as to teach you, the shipowner and cargo owner, that if you encounter someone with this tooth card, you must detain it and report it to the official." ”

Wu Bangde listened, and said in his heart, he was really almost hit.

He decided not to look for the tooth man anymore.

Dressed as a famous Confucian merchant, Wu Bangde went directly to the public office that collected the commercial tax, found a tax collector, and asked him to introduce him to a familiar rice shop.

In terms of the price of rice alone, this rice shop is indeed not high, even a fool can see that it is the best new rice in Zhejiang, and the shopkeeper only gives one or two taels of silver per stone.

However, because it was a shop opened by the tax collector's brother-in-law, the transaction tax, a local tax that was not included in the banknote customs system, the tax collector only calculated two taels of silver.

When it was over, the tax collector did not forget to remind Wu Bangde: "This son, three or four hundred stone of rice, is not less in the grain ship of the imperial court. Remind Childe that if you still have to take the remaining brocade tea by land, even if you arrive the next day, you can hire some dart masters. ”

Wu Bangde thought about it for a while, and then simply said: "Let's introduce it next, let's go to Yanzhou City." ”

The tax collector happily agreed. Hey, I can earn a lot of filial piety silver for a dart game.

……

The heavy rice was turned into a few thin silver tickets, and the burden of land transportation was reduced all at once.

Everyone hired mule carts and dart masters, loaded with hangjin hangluo, tea and lanterns, and walked east in a relaxed mood.

However, out of Jining Prefecture, the scene in front of him pulled Zheng Haizhu into a heavy reality.

The wind had risen, but both sides of the road were lined with thin-clothed, skinny deserters.

Some are still helping the veteran to walk hard, while others have fallen on the grass, and the little strength they have left is only enough to open their mouths to breathe.

When Zheng Haizhu walked in the south, it was not uncommon to see the miserable scenes, but on both sides of the official road from Fujian to the south of the Yangtze River, it was not as starving as in the north.

"Female Bodhisattva, female Bodhisattva, give me something to eat, beg, beg Female Bodhisattva."

Someone in the back of the car called for help.

Zheng Haizhu turned her head suddenly, only to see a young woman with unkempt hair, holding a baby in her arms, chasing the mule cart.

Zheng Haizhu remembered Dong Erya and her daughter in an instant, and was about to beckon the driver to stop.

Wu Bangde stopped her: "The dart master said that whenever you see women and children asking for help on the road, you will ignore them." Among the homeless people, young and strong people lay in ambush nearby, releasing weak women or old people as bait, just to rob goods and money. ”

Zheng Haizhu waved Wu Bangde's hand: "It's so pitiful, I can't be ruthless." ”

Wu Bangde restrained her shoulders and said in a solemn tone: "Dozens of millions of hungry people, can you save them?" ”

Before he finished speaking, Mu Zaohua, who was sitting in front of the car, had already crawled past the two, grabbed the bag of dry food at Zheng Haizhu's feet, and jumped out of the car directly.

Mules are not as fast as horses, after all, they also have speed, Mu Zaohua is brute force, but she has not yet practiced skillful kung fu, and she fell on the ground and fell on her heels.

Fortunately, she got up quickly, hurried to meet the woman with the child in her arms, took out a cake and stuffed it into her mouth.

Seven or eight men came around, both young and old, to grab Mu Zaohua's dry food baggage.

Mu Zaohua was outnumbered, and he only had time to grab two cakes, and the burden of dry food was taken off.

The hungry people, like wild dogs tearing at the bones of a dead man, wrestled over the bread that had fallen into the dust.

Mu Zaohua pulled the frightened young mother, picked up the child in her hand, and while stuffing the child's mouth with cakes, she urged the mother: "Swallow quickly, otherwise someone will pull it out and snatch it away." ”

Sure enough, there were men who couldn't beat men immediately, and they jumped over to find a way to survive from women.

Mu Zaohua hugged the strange child tightly and kicked it.

The mother also pounced, dragged the man, and shouted to Mu Zaohua: "Female Bodhisattva, please take my baby away." ”

More homeless people ran over to grab food, and Mu Zaohua fell to the ground.

The child rolled to the side, his head in his two dirty little hands, dodging the trampling of the adults, but still holding the cake in his mouth.

"Boom, boom", a few whips sounded.

Wu Bangde arrived on the mule of the dart master and waved his horsewhip to drive away the homeless.

Mu Zaohua struggled to get up, and Wu Bangde dragged her on the back of the mule.

Only the angry scolding of the displaced people and the wailing of the miserable mother were left behind: "Female Bodhisattva, take my baby away, take it away." ”

Back in the van, Wu Bangde's face was gloomy.

The other male intelligence officer who accompanied him was a partner with Mu Zaohua to check the insurance fraud, and when he saw the female partner's face and depressed, he couldn't bear it, so he took the water bladder and handed it over.

Mu Zaohua shook her head, her eyes drooping and she was stunned.

Wu Bangde said coldly: "Today I am in front of Miss Zheng to save you." Only this time. Next time, even if Miss Zheng begs me for help, I won't save it. My team doesn't need bodhisattvas, especially mud bodhisattvas who can't protect themselves and have to cross the river. ”

Zheng Haizhu sighed, took out a handkerchief, wiped the blood on Mu Zaohua's face, and said warmly: "Wu Gongzi is right. ”

"Subordinates remember." Mu Zaohua choked.

Through the curtain of tears, the figures of the displaced people in the distance became more and more molded.