In the next few days, the people of Liuliba went their separate ways to carry out the action. Integrate the forces of various villages in Jiguan Mountain and establish a joint defense consultation meeting to jointly defend against mountain bandits, led by Ouyang Xuan and specifically organized by Lu Dezhi. Ouyang Xuan ordered Yang Xiucai to write a letter in the name of Chongqing Mansion to inspect along the mountain, asking each village to go to Liuliba to discuss matters, and a total of 14 village owners arrived as promised. In this Cockscomb Mountain, in addition to the Wanjiaping occupied by Liuliba and Xiongben bandits, there are 17 cottages of all sizes such as Goujiaping. This time, no one was sent to Liuliba to participate in the meeting, and there were Yanfeng Village and two small villages nearby that did not send anyone to participate. This rock peak village is located in the extremely deep mountains, 80 miles away from Wanjiaping, and 50 miles away from Liuliba. According to common sense, the farther away from Wanjiaping, the more fearless the mountain bandits, and the higher the enthusiasm to participate in the joint defense, but according to the Liuli villagers who were sent to deliver the letter, Zhong Hammer, the owner of Yanfeng Village, not only tore up the letter in front of him, but also threatened the small villages near him not to go to Liuli Village to attend the meeting. Although most of the stockades ignored the threat of the bell hammer, there were still two small stockades who did not dare to come because they were afraid. Ouyang Xuan learned from Lu De's mouth that this Zhong Hammer was originally a scoundrel, and the bandits of Wanjiaping Mountain robbed and raped the adulterous women everywhere, and the mountain people avoided it, so he gave his daughter to Xiong Ben as a concubine. Although Xiong Ben did not look down on Zhong Hammer's daughter and gave it to his subordinates with his backhand, he felt that his loyalty was available, and after looking for an opportunity to kill the original owner of Yanfeng Village, he let Zhong Hammer be the owner of the village and controlled several small cottages nearby, so that he could help collect "taxes". Zhong Hammer himself looks powerful and powerful, and he has Xiong Ben as a backer, and his actions are becoming more and more rampant and domineering, and he has really done a lot of bad things.

At this joint defense meeting, the owners of the villages complained about the evil deeds of the Xiong Ben bandits and Zhong Hammer, and demanded that the Thunderbolt army should eliminate the evil and do everything possible to relieve the suffering of the people. When Ouyang Xuan heard these words, he understood the thoughts of these village owners, on the one hand, they had been oppressed for many years, hoping to get rid of Xiong Ben's oppression; On the other hand, there are also people like the Liuliba official army and the Wanjiapingshan bandits, who are both defeated, and they can be powerful and blessed inside the cottage, and it is better to live a free life. In the eyes of these village owners, there is no difference between the official army and the mountain bandits. After the owners of the villages finished speaking, Ouyang Xuan threw out the main purpose of the meeting - joint defense, that is, if one village is attacked by mountain bandits, the rest of the villages must send troops to help, which is actually the establishment of a military alliance. As for the issue of slack armament raised by each village, the Liulizhai Capture Team can send instructors for military training, and if the weapons are not enough, they can also be purchased from Liuliba at a preferential price - there are still a lot of swords, guns and shields left by Xiong Ben, the captain of the transportation brigade, after the last defeat, and now after the blacksmith shop expands, it can also produce a part.

It is said that there are many villages in the villages participating in the meeting, but the scale is too small, and the level of smelting and refining is much worse than that of Liuliba, which is barely enough to make farm tools, but it is too unsatisfactory to make weapons, which is also an important reason why the villages were suppressed by the Xiongben bandits. As for the proposal of the owner of the village who participated in the meeting to gather people and horses now and attack Wanjiaping in one fell swoop, Ouyang Xuan responded to the proposal of slowly trying to figure it out. On the one hand, with the existing strength of the Thunderbolt army, the defense is more than enough, and the offense is insufficient. Only after the trial production of light artillery is successful, will Ouyang Xuan consider attacking Wanjiaping. On the other hand, he still has to borrow the threat of Xiong Ben's bandits to complete the integration of the forces of various villages. The owners of the villages proposed to Ouyang Xuan not to collect grain from the villages, and if they needed to use grain and materials, they would buy and sell them publicly, but they felt that it was justified. In the minds of the mountain people, Xiong Ben forcibly taxed so he was a bandit, could it be that the officials and soldiers also became bandits? Accepting instructors to carry out military training is something that everyone cannot ask for. It's just that the weapons needed need to be purchased, although it is already a preferential price, it still makes the owners of the village feel that Ouyang Xuan is stingy, and he is quite unhappy in his heart. But after thinking about it again, each village still set an arms order, after all, in this troubled era, only by being armed can the cottage be safe and its own power position.

Just when the matter of joint defense and anti-bandit was about to be discussed, Ouyang Xuan asked someone to invite Yu Zhu and the heads of the mining team and the trading team to meet with the owners of the village. Because Yu Zhu had been ill for a long time and his body had caused irreversible damage, he was temporarily unsuitable for marching and fighting, so Ouyang Xuan put him in charge of economic affairs such as industry, mining, commerce and trade. In fact, Yu Zhu's economic affairs seem to be less onerous than military affairs, but in fact they are very heavy, in addition to mining, the focus is on industrial manufacturing and commerce. When Yu Zhu put forward the relevant terms of the partnership with the villages for mining and the sale of mountain goods, it immediately aroused great interest from the owners of the villages. Seeing that Yu Zhu and Liu Zhong of the mining team, Wang Youfu and Zhu Zhuozi of the trading team were discussing with the owners of the village, Ouyang Xuan walked out of the venue. As he walked, he sighed in his heart: "It seems that no one in this world can get along with money."

Yu Zhu occupies an absolute dominant position in the business negotiations for cooperative mining with various cottages, and also occupies an absolute controlling stake in the negotiated cooperation agreements. Because in addition to technology, the key core links such as explosives, professional excavation tools and refining technicians required for blasting mines are provided by Liuliba, and each cottage only needs to provide the land and labor required for mining, and the output of the negotiation is roughly divided into 28. Of course, there are exceptions, for example, there is a cottage called Daping, because of the abundant saltpeter resources and the labor force in the village, the output is divided into three or seven. Of course, even with this distribution model, the cottages actually do not suffer. Even if the mines in the agreement only get 20% of the production after they are put into operation, the income is extremely staggering compared to the previous slash-and-burn production method.

According to Ouyang Xuan's plan, the initial development of industry and mining is mainly to serve the construction of a firearms army, to achieve mass production of grenades and artillery and trial production of muskets as soon as possible, and to build some cold weapons, which require a large number of high-quality steel and other minerals. This necessitated the construction of steel-making furnaces, coke kilns, blacksmith shops, and water-powered mills, in addition to increasing the mining of iron, coal, sulphur, and fire-salting..... All of the above requires the investment of a lot of resources. Of course, the formation and training of the Thunderbolt Army planned by Ouyang Xuan was also a huge expense, and how to raise these military funds made his mind ache during this time. This mountain inspection was originally an empty position, and the Chongqing Mansion did not give any funds, and Ouyang Xuan promised not to levy grain to the villages in the mountains, so this fund could only be obtained by carrying out industrial and mining and commercial activities.

In fact, if the road is smooth, the organization personnel will transport mountain goods and iron products to Chongqing Mansion and Yongkang County and other places to sell, and then transport back to daily necessities for sale, the profits will be quite huge, such as to carry out trade in Qiongzhou, Chengdu and Jiading Prefecture, the profits will be even greater. It's just that the bandits of Wanjiaping Mountain were greatly injured after being beaten, and they no longer dared to come out to disturb the villages, but because their location blocked the passage in and out of the mountains, the caravan still could not pass, so that Xiong Ben shouted that he wanted to cut off the salt of each village and trap the villages in the mountains. It is said that these 10,000 Pingshan bandits have blocked the road for a long time, resulting in the extremely expensive daily necessities in this mountain, and the price of special salt is more than 10 times different from that of Qiongzhou, the nearest salt-producing area nearby. In order to solve the dilemma of salt shortage, after Ouyang Xuan and Yu Zhu discussed, they decided to choose a strong person, and through the path explored by Dong Hu and others, they went to Qiongzhou to exchange salt, and went to Chongqing Mansion to exchange cloth, hemp and other daily necessities.