Da Wei Chun

Chapter 67 The Huns Are Not Lack of Iron

Does Li Chengzhi really want Hu Baozong to pay back the money?

Just an excuse.

All he wanted was a layer of fig leaf with an official name.

With Hu Baozong coming forward, even if the court later found out that the Li family had so many armors and so many horses, the Li family also had a reason to argue: to help the Jingzhou government to pacify the civil unrest.

It's not really looking for a reason.

Li Chengzhi has never forgotten that when he and Hu Baozong met for the first time, what Hu Baozong came to do: Under the order of the prefect Hu Shichang, he ordered the gentry and clans to raise troops to relieve the siege of Jingzhou!

If the imperial court were still chasing after him, Li Chengzhi would not be unable to return the Jia and Ma a little.

Of course, for the four thousand catties of colored copper that was spent, the imperial court would definitely have to pay it back...

Hu Baozong's brain speed is not so fast, he didn't expect it to be so deep for the time being, he just thought that Li Chengzhi was forced to be helpless and had to consider the dilemma he was about to face: lack of food and soldiers!
He also had to admire Li Chengzhi's courage: if it was him, to use such a large amount of financial resources to do something that might not be of much benefit to the clan, he must think about it and then think about it...

With the Li family's wealth, so much money would have to be accumulated for ten years without food or drink, so was Li Chengzhi a disaster?
"Ten thousand catties of gold?" Hu Baozong was a little worried, "I wonder if Duke Huaide (Li Shixian) will be able to let go after learning about it?"

"Isn't this the court's bottom line?" Li Chengzhi said half-jokingly.

"Can you forgive me?"

Look at Li Song's emotion when he knew that he could really forge [-] sets of Zhajia in one day: God bless the Li family...

Not only did he want to arm the more than 300 soldiers of the Li family from the beginning to the end, he even wanted to fight the idea of ​​the [-] soldiers of the Song family.

Li Chengzhi didn't dare to ask any further questions, but he could roughly guess: Since Li Qi and Li Shixian were convicted of defeat and were demoted to common people, the Li family has been waiting for this day, and I'm afraid it has been almost ten years.

Otherwise, how could Li Song, a retainer, have the courage to talk about "Lee's be prosperous" every day?
What's more, this money is like falling from the world, what can't Li Shixian let go of?
Hu Baozong couldn't imagine that Li Chengzhi was so bold that he dared to melt all the Buddha statues in Zhaoxuan Temple.

Hearing Li Chengzhi's talk about letting the court know the truth, he nodded solemnly: "Don't worry, Shi Jun is not a foolish person, and naturally he won't treat your family badly..."

"I hope!" Li Chengzhi answered noncommittally, and asked again, "It's already agreed, then you should think about it, where should the grain, horses, and iron materials be exchanged, and I'll be early too Let Li Song prepare the car for you, prepare the people... just don't know if you can survive this injury?"

"Actually, I'm fine, even riding a horse will not hinder you..." After a while, Hu Baozong paused again, "Forget it, let's prepare a car and go to Gaoping Town, it's not too far to the left and right..."

Li Chengzhi breathed a sigh of relief.

Li Song was right, as Hu Baozong chose Gaoping Town.

Just because it's the closest to Jingzhou...

The current Gaoping Town is Guyuan, Ningxia in later generations, only two hundred miles away from Jingzhou.

It was also one of the six towns uprisings that led to the decline of the Northern Wei Dynasty more than ten years later.

The deputy general is called Lu Gong, who is from Bu Liugu, one of the eight great nobles in Xianbei.

Although he is a deputy, the main general Yan Ti is only from a small tribe of Xianbei, so he is very close to him, and the two have long been on the same page.

As for whether these two dare to sell so much iron and horses to Hu Baozong?

Li Chengzhi said hehehe...

Let alone horses and iron materials worth tens of thousands of catties of copper, do you try pulling [-] catties of copper?

The border towns of Dawei have long been devastated, and there is nothing they dare not traffic, and the target of business is the mortal enemy that these border towns need to guard against: the Xiongnu, that is, the Rouran people.

And these border town generals are so bold, a large part of the reason is the pot of the Yuan and Wei courts: the Wei Dynasty has been established for more than 120 years, and in the first 100 years, officials from top to bottom have no salary?
Who can believe it?
Li Song told him that in the beginning it was robbing, robbing the enemy, and robbing the common people.

Later, if you don't allow it to be robbed, you can only be greedy, but you can squeeze it hard.In contrast, these self-organized caravans and Rouran, and those who traded with the Southern Dynasties, were simply the most honest officials.

It was not until the first emperor, that is, Emperor Xiaowen, came to power, Xianbei implemented the Sinicization reform and began to distribute salaries to officials, that this kind of commercial activity, which was no different from the capitalist enemy, ceased a little.

But when Zi ascended the throne today and fought several defeats with the Southern Dynasty, especially after the Zhongli War, which had almost exhausted the accumulation of Yuan and Wei generations, the court was unable to make any money.

The localities can still make peace, the big deal is to make the tax revenue a bit heavier and let the officials at all levels withhold some, but the army in the border towns can’t do anything about it.

If the town generals and officers were a little bit greedy, the lower sergeants would not even be able to maintain food and clothing, not to mention life.

This is the origin of the Six Towns Uprising.

Like Yan Ti and Lu Gong, who have restored old habits, organized soldiers to traffic in scarce supplies to pay for military expenses, and at the same time made money for their own people, they can be regarded as clean and honest, loyal to the monarch and the country.

And what they usually traffic north is the grain, silk, linen, pottery and other items that the Rouran people are in desperate need of, and then they exchange iron materials, horses, cattle and sheep from the Rouran people.

If the iron material is transported to the Southern Dynasty, it will be at least [-] to [-] times as beneficial.

The reason why the ironware of Dawei was cheap was because the northern border towns exchanged too much iron from the Xiongnu.

At that time, when Li Chengzhi heard the phrase "iron materials are transported to the Southern Dynasty", he felt like he was listening to a joke.

In the Han Dynasty in the Central Plains, a large part of the iron materials used to make weapons and agricultural tools were made by nomads?

He felt that he was wearing the wrong time and space...

It wasn't until Li Song talked about that Ashina, who opened iron mines and wrought iron for the Rouran people, was the Qianghu who escaped from Jingzhou during the Taiwu Emperor's conquest of Longxi, and Li Chengzhi suddenly remembered: Ashina should be the ancestor of the Turks...

In another hundred years, the Turks who destroyed Rouran and forced Li Shimin to form the Weishui Alliance should be opening iron mines and burning iron materials for the Rouran people...

It is precisely because of the Five Hus and Chaos period that the armored cavalry of the Hu people ravaged the Central Plains and was irresistible, so the Central Plains Dynasty was forced to completely abandon the outdated tactical equipment such as "chariots".

And the methods of these Hu people to build heavy cavalry were learned from the Xiongnu.

Li Chengzhi only reacted: At this stage, the grassland people seem to be really not lacking in iron...

Therefore, he is not worried at all, whether Hu Baozong will return without success.

Thinking about it in his heart, Li Chengzhi didn't show anything on his face: "Since it's Gaoping Town, it's better. It's only two hundred miles away from here. If something happens, send a fast horse to deliver the letter and it will be there in a day. It's not too late to get in touch...then I'll make arrangements now, and you'll leave tomorrow morning!"

Hu Baozong hesitated for a while, and finally said only one word: "Okay!"

(End of this chapter)