The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 161 Handover and Sale

A battle to defend food security.

Three thousand one hundred and seven bandits and one hundred and thirty-five villagers died.

The Northwest Frontier Army suffered 627 dead and 384 seriously wounded!

The guerrilla general from Yuyang City watched as his subordinates finished counting the corpses.

After repeatedly confirming that the people in the border town did not use highly lethal firearms such as thunderclaps, but only muskets and knives.

He remained silent for a long while.

One against three, a complete victory?
The difference in strength between the border troops can be so great!

The opponent's combat strength was truly beyond his comprehension!

However, this does not delay what they need to do immediately.

The first to be affected was the Haijin Town post station, which was under the jurisdiction of Youzhou. Everyone from the postmaster to the stable boy was dismissed.

Meanwhile, all the able-bodied men from Beicang Village who helped the bandits of Longpanzhai load and transport grain were arrested immediately.

According to the guerrilla general, he would be sent to Linlu Pass to serve three years of hard labor.

Whether these villagers were coerced by bandits or bribed with money and then reluctantly complied, it doesn't matter.

Their involvement in the grain theft is an indisputable fact.

The entire arrest operation was announced to all residents of Haijin Town and the surrounding area, serving as a powerful warning to others.

For a time, all parties were as quiet as chickens, behaving with impeccable discipline.

Those who had targeted the Beicang Village granary and managed to do so were filled with lingering fear.

While intimidating the people, the guerrilla general from Yuyang City sent another thousand cavalrymen to Longpan Village.

Unexpectedly, Longpan Village was deserted by bandits.

Only the bodies of more than a hundred children and several elderly people remained in two prison cells.

Overnight, they lost more than three thousand disciples, including many key figures and elites.

The next day, after receiving the news, the leaders immediately turned their anger on the hostages, young and old.

After killing the hostages, they burned the supplies they couldn't take with them, and finally escaped with valuables and gold and silver.

The bandit suppression efforts were fruitless.

After dealing with these matters, the guerrilla general and others took over the granary in Beicang Village.

He formally handed over the duties to the commander who remained in charge.

Three days later.

Six hundred thousand shi of grain were loaded onto the grain transport ships without missing a single shi.

More than 300 large cargo ships slowly returned to port.
On the dock.

The border soldiers who came to see them off kept waving goodbye to everyone on the boat.

Someone breathed a sigh of relief and muttered:

"Phew, the mission is finally complete. I wonder if General Tian and the others' plans went smoothly!"

"Be confident, drop the word 'can return'! I refuse to believe that any general would dislike the thunderclap bombs made by the Huaiqing Prefecture Armory!"

"Tsk tsk, who knows, maybe 600,000 shi of grain will be transported back to the border town from Pianguan!"

"Hehe, I can't even imagine how much of a commotion it will cause if so much grain is brought back to the border town! That's enough to eat for half a year."

"."

You can't just pack up and leave after the handover is complete.

The doctor said that the dozen or so most seriously injured would need at least another six or seven days of rest.

The wound looks much better, but the internal healing will be much slower.

In addition, there are many other things to deal with.

The more than 600 bodies of the border soldiers could not be transported away directly.

We also had to ask the people at the mortuary for help to put their ashes in urns and take them back.
During their busy days, the She family and others discovered that although Haijin Town was not large, it had some shops worth visiting.

As a transit town for grain transport, it not only stored grain but also had abundant supplies of other daily necessities. Large merchants dealing in silk, cotton cloth, and porcelain were devastated.

At the end of last year, people focused their attention on grain, charcoal, cotton for winter warmth, and fur.

Furthermore, all the important checkpoints in the northern and southern provincial administrations had been occupied by displaced people.

Their goods, like those of the grain merchants of Wu and Yue, were all piling up in warehouses.

People cannot live without eating.

Who doesn't use porcelain for decades?

Even fabric doesn't necessarily need to be bought new every year.

Merchants who had been stuck with their warehouses full of stock for six months without selling much were getting anxious.

Those who sell silk tend to be more reserved.

But the shop owners selling affordable cotton fabrics all personally went out into the streets and enthusiastically hawked their wares.

"Don't miss out! Plain cotton cloth (standard cotton) is only 120 coins a bolt! The price is negotiable for purchases of 100 bolts or more!"

"Come, come, come! Our cloth shop sells the exquisite and soft brocade, each bolt is no more than three hundred cash! Bulk purchases of fifty bolts or more are negotiable."

"."

Not only are there plain cotton and printed fabrics, but there are also many brightly colored foreign cloths.

Those brocade fabrics with unique weaving techniques and patterns are quite expensive.

In short, the main feature of the cloth merchants in Haijin Town is that they offer a wide variety of cloth products to suit all budgets.

When talking about the textile industry of the State of Bei, we must mention Emperor Taizu of Bei once again.

However, his landlord background instilled in him a deep love for land and food.

In any case, after he came to power, the imperial court strictly controlled the area of ​​mulberry fields in Jiangnan and cotton planting in Guangdong and Guangxi.

If raw materials are not readily available, the development of handicrafts will be limited.

This also led to the fact that for more than two hundred years since the founding of the State of Bei, silk brocade has always been the exclusive property of the wealthy and powerful, often costing tens or even hundreds of taels of silver per bolt.

Even the most ordinary cotton cloth costs several times more than kudzu cloth.

Only ordinary people with slightly better financial conditions would be willing to buy these items to make undergarments for their family members or clothes for their children.

The She family and others, who were so eager to split a copper coin in two, could hardly contain themselves when they heard about this clearance sale that was up to 30% lower than the market price.
I rushed into the shop that was shouting the loudest, and once inside, I couldn't get out.

After a long business trip, they finally earned money with their own hands.

Cleaning up the battlefield isn't something you do for nothing.

The bodies of the more than three thousand dead bandits were all searched.

In the end, the thousand or so people who remained, including those who had died, each received five taels of silver.

Thinking that they might live in the border town for the rest of their lives, the women wanted to buy all the cotton cloth their families would need within the next ten years.

Gan Minglan found the commander who was left behind and asked him, "Would you like to come along and make some money?"

The centurion pointed to the large pile of cotton cloth outside:

"Is this what the scholar's wife is talking about? We have no shortage of cotton cloth in the Northwest! Foreign merchants sell it to Jinzhou Pass every year, and a bolt doesn't even cost two hundred coins!"

Do you think the imperial court will allow foreign merchants to trade with us this year?

"I'm afraid, I'm afraid it's not possible!"

"Cotton cloth from various Western Regions countries cannot enter the Northwest market. If the refugees do not resume production during the spring planting season, the planting of grain and cotton this year will likely be affected."

If these cotton fabrics can be stockpiled until the summer when people wear light clothing, it's normal to sell them for several times the market price.

At worst, just thinking about it, the silver obtained from searching the bandits is still free money; you can exchange it for cloth to use yourself, it wouldn't be a loss.”

The commander of the remaining troops widened his eyes as he listened.

What are we waiting for!

If you don't eat even when food is right in front of your mouth, are you stupid?

(End of this chapter)