"For the Jiaozhou Shi family, we can be regarded as a good relationship, but what if something happens within the Shi family? Now they are doing business with us, but if Shi Xie dies suddenly, and his successor chooses to cut off the mutual trade with us, won't we lose a piece of land where we can make a lot of money and strategic goods? ”

Lu Ren's words made Liu Ye shake his head silently. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 The trade volume of the Jiaozhou area is worse than the northern trade road on Lao Cao's side and the Jiangdong trade road on Sun Quan's side, but some special products in Jiaozhou and Nanzhong are not satisfied by the northern trade road and the Jiangdong trade road. To give a simple example, the silver production in the Nanzhong region at that time was good, and many of it flowed into Yizhou as commodities, and then it was converted into a currency that was one level higher than copper coins.

By the way, Yizhou's commerce and trade are very developed, and the relatively bulky copper coins have long been difficult to meet the needs of easy circulation, so Lu Ren even had plans to issue banknotes. However, after a short period of trial implementation, Lu Ren felt that the official issuance of banknotes during this period was still too early, and it was easy to cause chaos, so some banknotes currently circulating in Yizhou were not so much currency as a kind of supporting document, and still lacked the liquidity they deserved.

At this time, the value of precious metals such as gold and silver came out, and for this reason, Lu Ren also specially learned about the circulation history of silver coins in history. Historically, silver became the official unit of currency in the Ming Dynasty, but its role and value are absolutely immeasurable. At this point, Lu Ren's trade here has become bigger and bigger, and there is an urgent need for a large amount of silver to replace the stupid copper coins for transaction payments.

Okay, let's not talk about these, anyway, Lu Ren has a corresponding emphasis on the transactions in the Nanzhong region, otherwise he wouldn't have pitted Meng Huo and his wife again and again. In addition, there is another very important reason why Lu Ren is ready to attack Nanzhong, a reason why he can't say it to Liu Ye.

Looking at Lu Ren on the map a few times, he turned to Shirley and asked, "Is this the line?" ”

Shirley nodded: "That's right, it's this line." ”

What line? This is the line that Lu Ren can't say to Liu Ye, but if someone who knows more sees this line, he may say directly:

"Sichuan-Burma Highway Line?"

――――――――――――――――――――

Somewhere in a hilly area in Yunnan, the territory where the Meng Huo clan now lives.

A team of about 1,000 people stopped at the foot of the mountain, Deng Ai let the more than 1,000 people rest in place first, and he only brought a dozen or so guards to go up the mountain first with Meng Shu and Zhu Rong. The three of them jumped off the horse together in front of the gate of Dezhai, and the first thing Deng Ai did after getting off the horse was to raise his sleeves to wipe his sweat, and muttered: "Oh my God, it's the middle of autumn now, why is it still so hot here?" Compared to Yiquan states, it is all over it! ”

Zhu Rong said with a smile: "Brother Deng, the climate in the Nanban area is mostly like this. In contrast, we have more trees and water sources here, and if you go further south, it's hotter than here. The winter in your Central Plains population seems to have never appeared in the Nanban area, and as for 'snow', I have never seen it. ”

Deng Ai snorted, and before the people entered the village, they had already begun to look around the surrounding terrain. He himself has a high military talent, coupled with the fact that he has followed Lu Ren for many years in civil affairs, and soon has some understanding of the surrounding terrain environment. For example, where is it suitable to go down to the village, where is it suitable to build a warehouse, where is it suitable to plant crops, and where should some corresponding water conservancy facilities be built.

At this moment, cheers came from the cottage of the Meng Huo clan, and many clansmen led by several elders went out of the village to welcome the return of Meng Huo and his wife. Not to mention how they cheered when they saw a large amount of grain and rice and ploughing cattle, I saw an elder walk up to Meng Huo and his wife and whisper a few words, and the originally smiling faces of Meng Huo and his wife suddenly became gloomy.

Zhu Rong asked coldly, "How long have they been here?" ”

"It's been five days. The clan had already packed up a batch of food and property according to the usual practice of previous years and wanted to send them away, but they said that the patriarch would definitely bring back a large amount of property when he went to the Guangzhou mutual market, and asked the patriarch to hand over fifty percent of the property returned from the mutual market before they would give up, so they had been eating and drinking in the village for the past few days and waiting for the patriarch to come back. That's not all, there were a few times when they wanted to do something to the young women in the clan, but they didn't dare to mess around because there were few people, but they were very unwilling to look at them. ”

Meng was furious, and he stretched out his hand to draw the waist knife, but was held down by Zhu Rong. Zhu Rong locked his eyebrows and silently shook his head at Meng Xu. Deng Ai saw all this, rolled his eyes a few times, and decided to pretend that he didn't see anything first...... Now is not the time to emerge.

Pretending to talk to some curious Meng Huo people, Deng Ai saw more than a dozen people walking out of Meng Huo's walled gate. Compared with Meng Huo's clansmen, the clothes and costumes of these dozen or so people are a little different, and relatively speaking, the clothes are more gorgeous, but the yin and yang smiling faces on their faces are really a little underbeaten, and Deng Ai wants to go over and beat them up. Needless to say, these dozen or so people must be the people sent here to collect "protection money" by the big clan that oppressed the Meng Huo clan.

The first person was a young man who was the same age as Meng Huo, and when he walked in front of Meng Huo and his wife, he casually made a brute salute, and said with a smile: "Brave Meng Huo patriarch, I haven't seen you for a long time!" I, Abubei, have come to your rich territory again this year to collect the offerings that the nobles should give to my clan this year. Now that the patriarch of Meng Huo has come back from trading in the city of the Han people, as the head of the clan, please hand over half of the food and belongings as an offering, so that we can go home as soon as possible. ”

Zhu Rong said: "What did you say?" Half of our people's food and belongings? Last year it was only 40%, why is it half this year? ”

Abubei smiled and said, "Because you refuse to hand over the women in the clan, you will receive an extra percent from this year." The offerings in your village have been packed up three days ago, just wait for you to come back to collect the food and property you have brought back from the market, please give us half of it now. ”

"You guys!"

Ah Bubei glanced at the things that Meng Huo and his wife came back from the Guangzhou market, his eyes lit up, and he smiled: "A lot of food!" And I didn't expect that in addition to so much grain, there were so many cattle! Ha ha...... Divide half and let us take it away. ”

Meng was so angry that he wanted to draw the knife again, but Zhu Rong held him down again.

Ah Bubei gave Meng Huo a mocking look, took off the horn on his waist and blew it. As soon as the trumpet sounded, about five or six hundred strong men poured out from the corner of the mountain, each with a sharp sword in his hand. No wonder Ah Bubei has no fear, it turns out that he has brought so many clan soldiers. Think about it, you have to move a lot of food and property, and if you don't have some people at hand, let these dozen or so people move back?

The Meng people dared to be angry but did not dare to speak, so they could only watch as those clan soldiers came to the front, led by Abubei to prepare to "collect" half of the food and property. And when Ah Bubei laughed wildly and passed in front of a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl from the Meng Huo clan, he reached out to touch the girl's face, but the girl waved his arm away.

Abubei's face was gloomy, and he turned to the clan soldiers and ordered, "Collect the offerings!" Half of the grain is harvested, and the cattle only give me sixty percent! ”

"You guys!"

This time, not only Meng Shu, but even Zhu Rong wanted to draw the knife. It's just that the other party has five or six hundred pure combative strong men, and Zhu Rong has to endure it when he thinks about it. In desperation, he turned his head, which meant that he was allowed to collect it by Abubei.

A Bubei glanced at the Meng Huo clan with a mocking eye, and was about to take the clan soldiers to grab the cattle, when a pheasant was still angry but quite old-fashioned voice came out: "Wait a minute! You can take 50% of the grain and rice from the market, but you are not allowed to move a single cow! ”

Abubei didn't meet a woman in the Menghu clan this time, and he had already had a fire in his heart, and now when he heard such a voice, he just took advantage of the topic to think of anger, and immediately pulled out his knife and shouted menacingly: "Who is it?" Who would dare to say such a thing! Do you dare not to pay the offerings that should be paid? ”

Deng Ai, who had been hiding behind the crowd just now, walked out slowly, stood in front of Meng Huo and his wife, and said, "I said that." I don't care about you when you collect the offerings set between your two clans, but these cattle are not the property of the Meng clan and his family, but I specially transferred them to facilitate the Meng clan to transport grain, so you can't take one! ”

A Bubei stopped, and after hanging Deng Ai up and down, he said: "You are Han!?" ”

Deng Ai said: "Not bad. I am the Great Han Yizhou Pastoral Tent under the trial guard Zhonglang, Deng Ai Deng Shizai. Because the 20 elephants that were transported by the Meng patriarch when he went to Guangzhou to carry the goods were bought by my master, considering that the grain and rice purchased by the Meng patriarch were quite large and difficult to transport, I specially transferred these 200 cattle to the Meng patriarch to temporarily lend them to the Meng patriarch to carry the grain and rice. In other words, these cattle are my property and have nothing to do with the Meng clan, so you can't take any of them. ”

After hearing Deng Ai's words, the eldest elder Meng Yu hurriedly said: "Brother Deng, that cow is obviously ...... Ouch! ”

Zhu Rong on the side hit Meng Shu's lower abdomen with a hard elbow, and followed Deng Ai's words: "Yes, these cattle are indeed temporarily lent to us by Lu Yizhou to transport grain and rice, not our clan's property, Ah Bubei, you can't take one." ”

General Abubei looked at Deng Ai suspiciously for a long time, and then glanced at the only dozen or so Han soldiers around Deng Ai, and suddenly laughed loudly: "Temporarily lent you for transporting grain and rice?" Who believes! Even if it's true, the Han people snatched it! Deng Ai, you are still a child, and there are only about a dozen people around you, what if I rob your cow? Originally, if it was the herd of the Meng patriarch, I would only take half of it as an offering...... Oh, it's sixty percent. Now since it's not the cow of the Meng patriarch, but you, a Han child, I will snatch them all. Hahaha! (To be continued.) )