Border Soldier: My fiancée snatched credit and broke off the engagement, so I promptly became a marq

The day after the flag was changed at Yanmaji, only half of the more than seventy shops were open.

The merchants are all waiting.

We'll wait for Han Wanshan to lead his troops to recapture Jizi, for Chen Mu to reveal his true colors just like Qian Shouyi, and for the first car that truly dares to do business under the Black Pot flag.

In the morning, the sound of bicycle bells finally rang out from the south road.

Twenty-eight grain carts traversed the snow-covered ground, each adorned with a green wheat flag. The leader was Xu Wandou, a grain merchant from Hexi, who used to come to Yanmaji twice a month, selling half of his grain to Bailangguan and exchanging the other half for horse hides from the north.

This time, he stopped outside the market gate.

Although Qian Shouyi's men were dead and the Han family's Black Mountain Banner had been burned, over a hundred black-armored cavalrymen with soot smeared on their chests stood at the gate. Xu Wandou dared not enter and first sent his assistant to ask Chen Mu how much he wanted to take.

"I don't smoke."

The man thought he had misheard.

"Not even a single carload left?"

Chen Mu pointed to the salt warehouse.

"Exchange grain for salt."

"How much you're willing to exchange is your business."

The man ran back to relay the message.

Xu Wandou was even more hesitant to enter. In his twenty years of traveling around the country, he had never seen anyone occupy a market without asking for tolls, and he was convinced that Chen Mu wanted to lure the cart in and then take it all.

The convoy began to turn around.

Su Wan did not stop her.

She had the widow who sold tea bring out ten bags of salt from the warehouse and opened them in front of all the merchants. The coarse salt was snow-white, without any sand or moisture. Then she led out two packhorses left by Qian Shouyi and placed the salt bags back on their backs as they were.

"This is a sample."

"Take it back and sell it. If you wish to come again, bring more grain."

Xu Wandou stared at the ten bags of salt.

It is worth at least fifty taels of silver.

He didn't get out of the carriage, but only had his servant take the horses. Just as the two packhorses reached the side of the caravan, a dozen or so scouts from the Han family suddenly rushed in from the north.

"White Wolf Pass is closed!"

"Anyone who dares to send a single grain of rice to the rebels will have their entire family executed!"

The lead scout shot an arrow through the green wheat banner, then swung his sword at the man leading the salt horses.

Xu Wandou's guards all huddled behind the grain carts.

They dared to fight bandits to the death in business, but they dared not touch Han's soldiers.

Before the arrow fell, Anato's lasso flew over first.

The scout leader was ensnared by a rope around his shoulder and pulled off his horse. The Black Pot Heavy Cavalry then charged out of the market gate, and half of the dozen or so scouts were knocked down before they could even fire a single volley of arrows.

The remaining people wanted to run away.

Chen Mu sat on the iron-clad light carriage, firing three arrows in quick succession with his left-hand crossbow. The first arrow struck the horse, the second its back, and the third pinned down the last Black Mountain flag.

The flag and the rider fell into the snow together.

Xu Wandou finally got off the bus.

He looked at the Han family corpses on the ground, then at the two salt horses.

"Twenty-eight cartloads of grain were exchanged for salt."

That's how the first deal was made.

When it came to actually exchanging the goods, Xu Wandou encountered another problem.

Qian Shouyi used to use a small measuring cup, paying one cup as one and a half cups when buying grain, but he switched to a large weight when distributing salt. All the merchants in the market knew this, but no one dared to say it.

The old scales still hang at the entrance of the salt warehouse.

Xu Wandou's men saw this and started cursing, believing that Chen Mu, despite saying he wouldn't smoke, was still hiding a knife in the scale. Su Wan didn't explain, and simply carried the old scale to the middle of the long street.

"Anyone who's been cheated by this scale should come and smash it themselves."

The tea-selling widow was the first to raise her axe.

With one swing of the axe, the steelyard beam split in two. The second to act was the old man from the north who sold horses; he smashed the weight with an iron hammer. In no time, Qian Shouyi's ten-year-old steelyard was shattered into pieces on the ground.

The furnace worker brought over two new iron scales.

Xu Wandou personally weighed the first bag of grain, also known as the first bag of salt. Even though the weights were the same on both sides, he was still uneasy and deliberately grabbed a handful from the salt bag.

Su Wan saw it but didn't stop them.

Xu Wandou finally smiled.

"You're not going to chase it down now that you've missed this one round?"

"Next time you bring twenty-eight cartloads, what's this handful of salt compared to that?"

"What if I don't come?"

Chen Mu said, "Then you'll only get the benefit once."

The merchants around them all laughed.

Xu Wandou laughed too. He had someone pour the salt back into the bag, and then took two jars of good wine from his cart and brought them to the large pot.

"Next time I'll bring fifty cars."

Upon hearing this, the stables, cloth shops, and ironware shops, which had been closed all night, simultaneously began removing their door panels.

Twenty-eight carts of rice and wheat entered Tiemabao, and Xu Wandou took away twelve carts of salt. He used the price difference from the remaining sixteen carts of salt to exchange for six sets of black-toothed armor and twenty short crossbows.

The news spread throughout the collection in less than half a day.

In the afternoon, nine more cartloads of cloth, seven cartloads of medicinal herbs, and more than forty mules arrived. The merchants who had previously closed their shops all unloaded their wooden planks, and the street was filled with shouts again.

A herdsman with thirty sheepskins had no silver and only wanted to exchange them for two bags of rice. The cloth merchant, annoyed by the cuts on the hides, tried to bargain down to half a bag. The herdsman was furious and about to leave, but the forge worker from Tiemabao had his eye on the hides.

"Three pieces of leather for one vest lining."

"Ten pieces can be exchanged for a new knife."

The herdsman immediately gave all the sheepskins to the furnace worker in exchange for three knives and a small bag of salt. The cloth merchant, watching with envy, offered five bolts of thick cloth in exchange for the remaining sheepskin edges.

In the past, all transactions had to go through Qian Shouyi first, and merchants and herdsmen could not see each other's goods. Now, salt warehouses, armories, and grain carts are set up on the same street, and if the goods are good, people will immediately snatch them up.

Er Gou couldn't understand the prices, but he could see that more and more things were coming in.

He had the open space around the pot leveled out, and then erected three wooden poles. Those who wanted to sell their horses tied themselves to the first pole, those who wanted to sell grain stopped at the second pole, and those who brought their women and children to seek refuge went directly to the third pole to collect their porridge.

There wasn't a single word on the wooden pole.

Outsiders can tell where to go after just one look.

Er Gou pushed the large pot to the center of the market gate.

Today we won't cook horse meat, just plain rice porridge. Everyone who comes in will have a bowl first, then we'll talk about goods. Some people drink the porridge but don't buy anything, and no one chases after them for money.

In the evening, the line in front of the pot was longer than the line in front of the shop.

Su Wan moved the 18,000 taels of silver left by Qian Shouyi downstairs in the teahouse.

The silver chests were all opened.

Chapter 100: Eighty-nine people died in the battle to seize the city. The Black Pot Riders, White Spring Riders, the Door-Opening Girl, and the merchant's guards were among them. The families of each corpse received thirty taels of silver, and then a horse was chosen from the spoils. Those without families received silver and a horse from those who carried the corpses side-by-side.

An old woman from Baiquan came to collect her son's silver.

She only took ten taels and pushed the remaining twenty taels back.

"I can't eat that much by myself."

Anado put the silver back into her arms.

"Take this and buy two ewes."

"Four babies will be born next year, and a whole litter the year after."

The old woman then accepted it.

She did not leave immediately.

The old woman led away the gray horse she had been assigned, circled around outside the market gate, and then led it back. She didn't know how to raise warhorses, nor did she have the strength to cut grass, so she found a surrendered soldier whose wife had died.

"You'll take care of my horses."

"Each person will have one foal born after the horse."

The surrendered soldier had two children and was short of an animal to pull his cart. He didn't take advantage of the old woman; instead, he immediately gave her five taels of his ten taels reward.

The two families moved into the same empty courtyard that day.

One lost his son, the other lost his wife, yet four more pairs of chopsticks appeared in the pot.

On the other side, two family members of a fallen Black Pot Rider came to collect their silver.

One was his first wife, and the other was a shepherdess he had rescued from Wild Dog Gully. The two fought over the captured black horse in the street, first hurling insults and then physically assaulting each other, even tearing out a handful of hair.

Su Wan did not make a judgment for them.

She divided the thirty taels of silver into two portions and had a dwarf horse brought over.

"The dark horse can take the stage, for those willing to avenge him."

The first wife grabbed the reins of the black horse.

The shepherdess led away the ponies, sneering that she would wait for her on horseback. Neither woman cried anymore, and that afternoon they went together to find Lu Shuangyi to learn to ride.

The dead receive no silver, only tears.

They also brought in two new riders.

On the other side, of the seven girls who opened the door with Su Wan, only five returned. Two of them had died and had no relatives, so Su Wan put sixty taels of silver and two horses into the backyard of the new teahouse.

"Their houses are not distinguished."

"If there are homeless women in the future, they can move in."

Chen Mu saw this and did not object.

The gold armor that Qian Shouyi had been given to him had been melted down by the furnace workers, and the gold edges were made into twelve small gold rings, which were then placed on the wrists of the twelve children of the heavy cavalry who had died in battle.

The children raised their hands to compare with each other, and their laughter echoed across half the street.

Xu Wandou stood by and watched for a long time.

He initially thought Chen Mu was only distributing the silver to bribe people. But the silver quickly went into sheep shops, cloth shops, and grain carts, eventually circling back to the market. The deceased's family bought winter supplies, merchants sold their goods, and even more people gathered around Chen Mu's cooking pot.

Xu Wandou returned to the cart and secretly unloaded the two carts of grain that he had originally planned to hide.

Replace all the salt.

The man was puzzled.

"Master, are you really not going to keep me?"

"If we stay on the road, the Han family will rob us."

Xu Wandou pointed at the black pot flag.

"Leave it here; at least you can get something in return."

Lin Qinghe couldn't laugh.

She treated more than sixty wounded soldiers in the medical tent, and used up half of the medicine that had just arrived from Yanmaji. Chen Mu's right shoulder was bleeding again from firing a crossbow, so she dragged him into the tent to change his bandages.

"I said you can't move for three days."

"It has been three days."

"I'm talking about counting from the last time you split open."

"That will never be finished."

Lin Qinghe inserted a needle into the edge of his wound.

Chen Mu finally stopped talking.

Lu Shuangyi sat on the wooden couch next door, her left side wrapped in thick cloth, and sneered when she heard the noise.

"Serves you right."

She had barely finished speaking when she got up and had to lean against the wall in pain.

Lin Qinghe raised the other needle.

"You sit down too."

Lu Shuangyi immediately sat back down.

When Anado lifted the curtain and came in, she saw that both of them were being held down by Lin Qinghe, and she laughed so hard her shoulders were shaking. Just as she was about to move closer to Chen Mu, Lin Qinghe placed the third needle on the table.

Anato stopped three steps away.

"I'm not hurt."

"There's blood under your shoulder armor."

"Other people's."

"Remove armor".

Anato looked at Chen Mu.

Chen Mu turned his face away.

Suddenly, the sound of rapid hoofbeats echoed outside the medical tent.

A scout from the south rushed into the market gate, his warhorse covered in white foam.

"Han Wanshan has sealed off the southern route of Bailang Pass!"

"He's occupied both Qingluoquan and Duanqiyi!"

Qingluoquan is the only continuously flowing water source south of Yanmaji, while Duanqiyi blocks the exit for merchant carts. Without water, the grain carts that come in today will not be able to leave tomorrow; if the trade route is cut off, newly opened shops will have to close again.

Xu Wandou had already packed the salt, but his face turned pale upon hearing the news.

"What should I do about my fleet?"

Chen Mu took his coat back from Lin Qinghe.

"Drink water tonight."

"We'll take the south route tomorrow morning."

Xu Wandou asked, "The Han family occupies the spring, what guarantee do you have?"

Chen Mu got dressed.

"Take the head of the spring keeper."

The car bell rang again outside the market gate. The twenty-eight grain carts did not leave, all waiting for him to return and clear the way. The headlights of the three carts remained on.