Han Zuo Gaomen

Chapter 1072
In winter in Jiangdong, although it is not as vast and magnificent as Jiangbei's snow-covered sky and thousands of miles of ice, but the severe cold is not much inferior. The sky is full of lead clouds, and the freezing rain that condenses into ice slag falls on the head and face, and the chill directly seeps into the clothes. Up to the bone.

In this bad weather, people sit around the stove at home, and if the fire is not strong, the cold will inevitably invade. If they have to travel, it will be a hard torture.

But ordinary people are forced by their livelihoods, so how can they be completely exempted from such hard work.And it is precisely because of the difficult conditions that the harvest in this season is often much higher than that in the spring and autumn, so some people regard it as the focus of a year's livelihood.

Now there is such a team in the countryside of Jurong. The team is neither too big nor too small. There are about a hundred people. Most of these people are in their prime of life. Goods truck.

The leader of the team is named Meng Zhi, who is between 36 and [-] years old. He has accumulated a wealth of life experience and has not shown any obvious exhaustion in physical fitness and energy.

Meng Zhi is from the Great Wall of Wuxing. He was originally a pottery craftsman raised by the Hao family in the county township. He was gradually valued by the master because of his superb skills. Steward.The operation of the workshop is on the right track, and because of these contributions, Meng Zhi is regarded as a citizen and becomes a free agent.

Even though he became a registered citizen, Meng Zhi did not leave his master's house, and changed from being a master and servant to being employed, and accumulated a considerable amount of floating wealth over the past few years.

This year, the main family closed the workshop in Dunan, and withdrew many people, property and goods back to the village.

After thinking about it for a long time, Meng Zhi decided not to go back to his hometown with his master's team. Instead, he stayed in Jiankang for a while, contacted some villagers with similar backgrounds to him, and organized such a small-scale merchant group. The team first started to familiarize themselves with business and trade around Jiankang, and finally bought a batch of in-demand goods at the end of the year and decided to return home.

Small people have their own way of survival, Meng Zhi's wealth is naturally not as good as some township tyrants who have been passed down for generations, but the accumulation of several years plus this year's business income can also save seventy to eighty thousand yuan.

Except for the tens of thousands of money he kept for personal storage as an emergency, he bought the rest of the money and turned it into goods.

Jiankang City is now booming in commerce and trade, and all kinds of goods from the north and the south are flooded here. For example, the high-quality fur and medicinal materials in the north, including some metal utensils, are extremely in short supply in the Wuzhong countryside, and there is no need to worry about no market.

Especially the cattle, horses and animal power in the team, although the price is not low in Jiankang, but if they are transported to the village, the profit can be several times higher.Of course, the risk of such a long-distance trafficking of living things is extremely high.That's why Meng Zhi was cautious, he only bought five cows and two poor horses, which already cost him nearly half of his savings.But if the venture is successful, his savings will multiply!

"In the past few years, there have been many exemptions in the village, and the villagers have been naturalized to reclaim wasteland. The power of cattle is scarce. The price of a good farm cattle is as much as [-] yuan..."

While driving the ox cart, Meng Zhi calculated in his mind that the five cows he selected were all fat, thick and long-haired, able to withstand long-distance travel.The price of such cattle around Jiankang is only four to five thousand yuan. On the one hand, because of the prosperity of industry and commerce around Gyeonggi, farming and weaving are relatively inferior; .

In recent years, Wuzhong has also been thriving in business. Compared with it, the output of farmland has been gradually surpassed. Therefore, many village clans are no longer willing to spend a lot of rice to support a large number of shady households. Exemption has become a trend.

And if these exempted shady households have no other skills, there is no doubt that farming and weaving is the most reliable and stable means of making a living, so the demand for farm tools and livestock is also greatly increased.

Although the government does not advocate the private trading of farming cattle, it cannot be prohibited, and can only be controlled by issuing rewards.If such farm cattle are registered with the county government, they can get a subsidy of about a thousand dollars, and if they are expropriated by the government, they will have a monthly feed subsidy ranging from several hundred dollars.Or participate in the land reclamation organized by the county government with cattle and labor, and you can get several years of tax exemption for different acres.

Therefore, if Mengzhi's five cattle can be successfully transported back to the hometown, whether they keep them for their own use or sell them directly, the income will be extremely rich.Even if they died on the way back to their hometown, cowhide, horns, including beef and other materials, can barely recover more than half of the cost, but the feed consumed on the way will have to be compensated.

Compared with these five oxen, those two naive horses were not a good deal in Meng Zhi's opinion.The price of horses in Jiangdong has always been extremely high. Even though the two horses are not impressive in terms of coat color or physique, they still cost Meng Zhi more than 5000 yuan.

And once they set foot on the return journey, the two horses were in frequent condition. If it weren't for the veterinarians in the team to take care of them along the way, they would have died of exhaustion and illness.But even so, just to take care of the two horses, Meng Zhi calculated in his heart that there would be a cost of more than 5000 yuan along the way, and the cost of one horse in the village would be as high as [-] yuan. case.

"It's still too rash..."

Thinking of this, Meng Zhi rubbed his brows with melancholy. He was also tempted by the extremely high price of horses in Wuxiang. You must know that in Wuzhong, all horses cost at least [-] to [-] yuan.Originally, he thought it was worth taking the risk, but he still underestimated the delicateness of the horses and the difficulty of transportation. Now it seems that it is difficult to recover the cost of nearly [-] yuan.

The [-] yuan is already Meng Zhi's income after working hard in Dunan for a whole year after deducting all expenses, how could he not feel heartbroken.

But despite the shadow of these two horses, the overall prospect of this trip home is still good.

Not to mention the cattle that can get high returns, other goods worth more than 4 yuan can basically get nearly double the profit after returning to the village.In this way, the floating wealth in his hands was far more than one hundred thousand yuan, and part of this sum of money, Meng Zhi planned to redeem his wife and children from the master's family, so that he had a foundation for self-reliance.

As a family member, Meng Zhi has a good relationship with the master's family. The master's family, Alang, told him before he left the capital that as long as he handed over [-] yuan, the whole family could be exempted.

This amount of money is not unscrupulous exploitation by the master's family. Meng Zhi himself is a skilled potter. His wife and daughter are weavers in Zhuangshang, and the eldest son works in the paper workshop.Except for a youngest son who is about to turn ten years old in a family of five, the rest all have skills, which all depend on the cultivation of the master, not to mention that without the help of the master, Meng Zhi would not even be able to marry a wife and have children by himself.

So the [-] yuan is not so much a ransom money, but a symbol of the master's care. Of course, this is also because Meng Zhi has worked hard for the master's family all these years.

"Twenty thousand yuan is redeemed for the buyer, and thirty thousand yuan is reserved for Dalang to marry a wife. Two cows must be kept, and it is impossible to live on their own without an acre in the future. Another fifty thousand yuan will be used to jointly operate a porcelain kiln with the owner's family. After that, I will avoid traveling outside..."

Thinking of all the things of returning home this time, Meng Zhi couldn't help showing a deep smile on his face, but the cold wind made his face freeze, which made the smile look a bit awkward: "I haven't been home for a few years, I don't know if Xiao Lang still knows his grandpa? When I left home, that kid couldn't walk very well. Without Grandpa's discipline, I don't know what kind of stubbornness he has become... Remember to ask the master to come forward and ask One question, can I send Xiao Lang to study in the Longxi Art School of the Shen family? If this can be done, the whole family will have no worries in the future..."

There are many people in the team, and there are a lot of goods, so the speed of travel is not fast.The days are short in winter, and you can only travel 20 to [-] miles a day. When you enter Maoshan, the road becomes rough and the journey will be more difficult. If there is another storm blocking the way, you will not be able to return to Changcheng Township for more than [-] days.

Therefore, during the trip, there were many curses, and the people who cursed were high-ranking officials in Taichung that they had never seen before.

In fact, the Jurong and Yixing commercial roads are usually seldom used by people, because the Maoshan Mountains lie across them, the roads are rugged, and the wilderness is desolate in winter. Not only is it difficult to supply supplies, but you may even encounter tigers and wolves looking for food in winter. Ferocious beasts and even bandits may be encountered.

In the past, Wu people’s small and large merchants mainly left the capital along Pogangdu, and then went all the way south along the canal through Wujun. Even if they didn’t take the waterway, the road was smooth and smooth, so they would suffer less danger and hardship.

This business route was mostly managed by Wu officials in the past, but in fact it was also opened up by Wu people, and the villagers will definitely take care of it.However, with the turbulent situation in Gyeonggi, a large number of Wu officials were expelled, and the overseas Chinese took over these trade routes. The convenience in the past was no longer there, and then the commercial tax ratio was increased on a large scale.

Merchants such as Meng Zhi are themselves the bottom of the society. If they are exploited along the way, most of the gains from business will be exploited. If they encounter any risks, they may even lose all their money.So even if there is danger, but for the sake of his own property, he can only take the trail of Maoshan.

Most of their wealth is concentrated in these goods, and it is naturally impossible for them to spend a huge amount of money to hire strong escorts.In the face of unknown risks, the only guarantee is a bamboo stick and wooden stick inlaid with iron blocks and a few simple longbows made of Zhe wood and bamboo strips.

On this day, the team walked through a low-lying dry reed pond, and the low-lying mountains of Maoshan in the distance were already faintly visible.Although it was still early, but there was no suitable shelter from the wind on the way ahead, Meng Zhi checked the terrain a little, and decided to stay here today.

After several months of running-in, the team has gradually become organized. Some of them gathered together to pile up goods, while others dug the ground and started a fire. Meng Zhi distributed the bows and sticks, and brought a dozen people who still had enough energy. Ding Zhuang searched around, on the one hand to confirm whether the environment is safe or not, on the other hand, he also wanted to see if he could hunt some wild game for dinner.

However, not long after they had walked, they suddenly saw a large number of birds startling and circling at low altitude on the opposite side of the reed pond. In this case, either wild beasts wandered out, or there was a large team wandering around.In either case, there is no doubt that it is extremely dangerous.

Therefore, on the one hand, Meng Zhi restrained the team to prepare for the emergency, and on the other hand, he sent people back to report the news, hoping that the team would not make any noise, so as to hide through the messy reeds.

However, soon, there was a piercing bamboo whistle not far from the front left, and then a figure flashed past Meng Zhi and the others' vision, quickly retreated and disappeared into the reeds.

It was discovered!

Seeing this scene, Meng Zhi's mood was heavy, and he said hurriedly: "Quickly retreat, quickly retreat! Return to the dorm!"

(End of this chapter)