Entering the territory of Dayi County, the road is still barren, and there are few people to see. Although the trail has been extending north along the plain area in front of the mountain after leaving the mountainous area, the road condition is much better, but the 140-mile road of this trip, the merchant team still walked for four days to reach Hengyuan Town. In addition to the heavy march, but also because this road is quite unsafe, in the territory of Dayi also encountered a few thieves who coveted property, although these small groups of thieves only dared to harass from a distance and did not dare to come to rob, but also made the trade team always tense their nerves, carefully prepared, which slowed down the speed of the march. The trip even happened to meet a small group of Mongolian rangers in a hurry, when the merchant team was wading around the city to avoid the county seat of Dayi. Hearing the sound of horses' hooves coming in the distance, Huang Dagen hurriedly ordered the whole team to form an emergency formation. When the galloping Mongol rangers approached, they saw that the defensive array had been formed, so they circled around their horses and fired arrows at the trading team, but these rounds of feathered arrows were blocked by the folding shields of the trading team. Huang Dagen ordered the grenadiers to throw a number of grenades at the Mongol rangers, although they did not kill or injure their men, but the explosion startled the horses to neigh. The Mongol rangers were in a panic, and when they saw that they could not bargain, they rode away on horseback.

When they returned to Yokohara Town, everyone was tired and tired, but the merchant team did not rest on the second day, and began to work separately again. Zhu Jiaozi led people to start sorting out and packing goods, preparing to transport them to the mountains, Dong Hu led people to the hidden trail to meet with the people waiting here, and asked them to go back to Liuliba to find someone to carry the goods, and Wang Youfu took people to Chongqing Mansion City to return the borrowed mules and horses.

On the fourth day of returning to Hengyuan Town, the merchant team that had recovered its strength was picked up by the people from Liuliba and embarked on the hidden path back to the village. After two days of arduous trekking, the group returned to Liuliba, and at this time it was half a month before the caravan set off.

Although it took a lot of time for the trade team to go out of the mountain, it was very fruitful. The goods brought back broke the dilemma of daily necessities, especially the lack of salt in the mountains. The salt brought back this time, if used sparingly, can be eaten by 10,000 people in the mountains for more than a year. In addition to obtaining much-needed salt, the trip also made a huge profit, and this first pot of gold not only provided the business force with the capital to operate, but also solved the urgent needs of the Thunderbolt army for the recent formation and training.

In addition, there are more than 30 young people from Hengyuan Village who accompanied them back to Liuliba. When they learned the news that Du Daquan was going to follow the trade team to Liuliba, the villagers of Hengyuan, who had suffered from the government's harsh taxes and bandits, found Ouyang Xuan through Du Fu one after another, and wanted to send their children and grandchildren to Liuliba in order to survive. Such a good thing made Ouyang Xuan happy in his heart, so he agreed with his mouth. Most of these young people in Hengyuan Village are blacksmiths, pottery, carpenters, and masons, which is exactly the skilled personnel urgently needed for the development of Liuliba, and there is no reason to refuse.

As soon as the trade team returned to Liuliba, Yu Zhu, Lu Dezhi, Cao Ergou, Yang Xiucai and others found Ouyang Xuan one after another. In addition to visiting Ouyang Xuan, they also reported to him the situation in the mountains in the past half month. The situation reported by everyone was good and bad, which made Ouyang Xuan mixed feelings. The good news is that during the time he was away, the industrial and mining industry developed extremely rapidly under the management of Yu Zhu, in addition to the new investment of a large number of labor reform personnel, but also because of the great power of firearms, everyone was more supportive of Ouyang Xuan's governance. At present, the mining team has opened more than 10 new iron, coal, nitrate, sulfur and lime mine caves and supporting selection and cleaning workshops, coking kilns and steelmaking blast furnaces in various villages in the mountains, which will be put into operation after a period of time. On the industrial team's side, on the basis of the original blacksmith shop and other workshops, a pottery workshop, a gunpowder workshop and three firearms manufacturing workshops were added, and a new cement workshop was built to prepare for trial production of cement according to the method taught by Ouyang Xuan. Unlike the distribution of mine caves in various villages, Yu Zhu built all the industrial workshops in Liuliba. Fortunately, Ouyang Xuan had foresight, and the planned industrial workshop area was far away from the residential area, so there was no disturbance to the people.

The worrying news comes from several sources. The first one came from Cao Ergou, who during this time was in charge of guarding in addition to training the Thunderbolt Army. Due to the tight defense of Liuliba, the bandits of Wanjiaping turned the direction of harassment to the newly attached cottage, in addition to sending spies to spy on the mining industry, they also attacked and destroyed everywhere, although they were caught by the Thunderbolt Army, and stopped a lot after being beaten once, but it still made Cao Ergou tired and unbearable.

Lu Dezhi's worries come from two things, his eldest son Lu Wen'an is the head of the engineering team, during this period due to the rapid expansion of the industrial and mining industry, the engineering team is very busy, and Lu Wen'an is also too busy to touch the ground. Occasionally, one day at dinner, Lu Wen'an mentioned to his father that his biggest headache was not that there were too many things, but that there were too few people who knew how to do it, and the heads of various mines and workshops in the industrial and mining industry also mentioned this problem many times. The second thing about Ruud's worries is because of his compassion. In order to maintain its arrogant and lascivious life, Xiong Ben not only did not change his oppressive behavior of knocking on the bone and sucking the marrow, but instead increased the squeezing of Yanfeng Village and two small villages. More than 20 people from these three villages have fled to Liuliba, and the remaining people who have not fled are living miserably under the oppression of Xiong Ben and the accomplice Zhong Hammer, the owner of Yanfeng Village. The people of the villages in this mountain have many in-laws with each other, and Lu Dezhi really can't bear to see the mountain people such as Yanfeng Village suffering.

Although Yang Xiucai's news seemed to be a casual complaint, it aroused Ouyang Xuan's high vigilance. Yang Xiucai complained that due to the rapid development of industry and mining and the launch of a large number of engineering projects, as well as the newly formed and trained Thunderbolt army, a lot of materials were consumed. Although the mountains are rich in wood, iron, and stone, they only need to be cut down and mined. However, these high-intensity labor has caused the consumption of food to rise sharply, and the food that Yang Xiucai can control can last for another month at most, and he is now ready to borrow grain from various cottages. Although a large number of industrial products such as iron ingots, sulfur, and nitrate are now produced, which can be sold for a large amount of money if they are transported outside the mountains, they can only be stored in warehouses except for artillery and grenades used to equip the Thunderbolt Army.

Regarding the problems reported by everyone, Ouyang Xuan had a plan in his heart after pondering for a while, but he did not say it on the spot. When it comes to big issues, he is convinced that only by brainstorming can the best decisions be made. He decided to convene a meeting tomorrow between the heads of each team and the heads of the Thunderbolt army company and above, and threw out his ideas and asked for everyone's consent. The policy policy is decided by the people through discussion, not only from a political point of view, but also for the sake of better implementation of the policy.