After the western Sichuan merchant who sold the goods left, the next person to be brought into the camp was a merchant who collected scrap goods.

Now the merchants in western Sichuan only clasped their fists and bowed when they saw the Qing officers and officials - they did not bow to Deng Ming, and naturally they would not kowtow to the defeated generals of these western Sichuan army on the battlefield; And Gao Mingzhan and Wang Mingde can only turn a blind eye to this. The people of western Sichuan are not inferior to them, and they now understand it, and they are gradually adapting to it. The most important thing is that since they are powerless to resist on the battlefield, they can only tolerate each other's arrogance, and even comfort each other, at least the people of western Sichuan will bow to them.

Gao Mingzhan only glanced at it, and judged that the other party was a soldier, and he should still be a good soldier -- there are many strange things in western Sichuan, Gao Mingzhan heard that Deng Ming asked a large number of soldiers to leave the army to go to agriculture and business, and he felt that Deng Ming could do this kind of thing when the world was undecided. The damn thing is that although Deng Ming did this, he was still able to beat Gao Mingzhan to the ground.

Gao Mingzhan pinched the business card that the other party had just handed in, and read: "Chengdu Waste Recycling Company? ”

"It's despicable." Gao Mingzhan guessed correctly, this merchant was a combat soldier in the First Battle of Gaoyou Lake, but he was not a standing army. After killing Emperor Shunzhi, he begged his daughter-in-law and retired from the army, and received his land according to the rules. Not long ago, more than a dozen comrades-in-arms from Gaoyouhu sold their land, pooled money to start a commercial bank, and also borrowed a sum of money from Yu Youming's Industrial Bank. Because they are all veterans, the bank will also reduce a portion of the interest.

Liu Jinge suggested the establishment of this recycling shop, and when he found that the industry seemed to be profitable, he actively encouraged the people of Chengdu to join it, and helped them get loans - Liu Jinge thought that this would increase his reputation among the Chengdu peers and thus win a part of the Chengdu council from the Qingcheng faction.

"And who are the people in front of Chongqing now?" Gao Mingzhan was a little confused, he thought that those people who were shouting for scrap recycling under signs were Deng Ming's subordinates, not to mention that many of them looked like soldiers like the one in front of him.

"They are a waste recycler in Xuzhou." The merchant replied aloud. Some people in Xuzhou took advantage of the relatively close and well-informed opportunity to set up a waste recycling company first. They not only pay taxes to Xuzhou, creating more job opportunities for Xuzhou, but also give priority to selling the recycled materials to businessmen in Xuzhou; Chengdu was blushing after figuring out the profits, and also wanted to get a piece of the pie, and it was precisely because of this call that Liu Jinge specially helped Chengdu Waste Recycling Bank to get a loan.

"Aren't you Admiral Deng's men? Aren't they? Gao Mingzhan didn't understand why Deng Ming had to send two groups of people to do the same thing.

"We are all Admiral Deng's men......" replied the merchant in Chengdu. It took him a long time to explain that Gao Mingzhan and Wang Mingde understood that although there was an opportunity to buy scrap, Deng Ming did not assign this job to anyone, as long as it was a fellow Xiucai in western Sichuan, he had the right to compete fairly: "Since it is a waste recycling, of course the price cannot be very high." But with our participation, we will definitely be able to make the scrap metal a little more valuable, which will be beneficial to the generals and their subordinates. ”

The purchase price is too high, and the recycling houses in Chengdu are unprofitable, after all, they are farther than the distance from Xuzhou to Chongqing. But despite this, Chengdu businessmen can probably still raise the purchase price - this business belongs to the profiteering industry, if it were not for the profiteering, they would not have come all the way, why should they take the risk of selling land and borrowing money if they can't make a lot of money?

However, the Chengdu businessman did not tell Gao Mingzhan the truth, and he had no intention of engaging in a price war with the people of Xuzhou. If the two sides compete viciously, the result will be that neither of them can make money, Xuzhou businessmen will have more advantages, and Chengdu will suffer a greater loss. Therefore, before the Chengdu merchants came in to meet Gao Mingzhan, they had already discussed with the Xuzhou commercial houses, that is, the two sides would not engage in a price war that would hurt both sides, but would divide the scope of goods -- in order to prevent the Chengdu people from competing desperately, the Xuzhou commercial houses had to restrain their desire for monopoly, cede part of the market, and agree to sell some of the goods they had acquired to the Chengdu people at a low price. They also signed an agreement that any breach of contract could be brought to the magistrate for compensation.

Chengdu people said while handing over his scrap quotation, Gao Mingzhan swept around, and found that there was not much difference from Xuzhou's quotation, but there were several scraps that were placed in the front row by Chengdu people - they were all types of "waste" that Gao Mingzhan couldn't understand.

After Gao Mingzhan read out these things, Wang Mingde and Li Defu were also at a loss, they could understand these words separately, but they didn't know what they were together.

"Fresh horse meat, what is it?" Gao Mingzhan picked a "waste variety" that seemed to be the best to understand, at first glance it seemed that there was nothing difficult to understand about this thing, but after thinking about it carefully, he found that there was something strange everywhere - horse meat, it still needs to be fresh, does this kind of thing exist? And how can it be recognized as waste? Crucially, Gao Mingzhan also found that the price of this scrap product was very high.

"Well, Governor Gao ...... see it" The people of Chengdu patiently explained that since the people of Xuzhou came to Chongqing to collect scraps, the mortality rate of the Qing army's war horses and horses in Chongqing has increased suddenly, and this is of course for a reason.

In the past, when they were in Shaanxi, the soldiers of the Qing army could embezzle the forage silver of the horses, but after arriving in Chongqing, they did not distribute the horse feed silver but directly distributed beans and wheat. Now, with the scrap recycling, the soldiers can sell the harnesses and horseshoes when the horses die, and they can also sell the leather and tails of the dead horses.

The direct sale of war horses is too conspicuous, and Xuzhou does not have its own horse dealership, so there is not much demand for this; But there were horse shops in Chengdu, and the merchants in Chengdu found that as time went by, the Qing army in Chongqing became more and more emboldened, so the merchants in Chengdu hoped that Gao Mingzhan would sell the horses that were still alive to him as scrap. However, of course, this cannot be written on the contract, lest Governor Gao be caught by others, so Chengdu people invented the term "fresh horse meat".

"A live horse, yes, of course the meat is fresh." finally understood what the other party wanted to do, Gao Mingzhan muttered.

But those present admitted that it was a tempting proposition. They pondered that they would not be able to defeat the Ming army in western Sichuan anyway, and when the time came, they would have to spend money to ransom the mounts, and if they didn't pay the ransom, they would give it to Deng Ming for nothing, so it would be better to sell it to the scrap collector now, and they could get some money -- once a person falls into the quagmire of crime, he will always fall deeper and deeper, and the speed of the degeneration of this gang of people in Chongqing is beyond Li Guoying's imagination.

"The Governor must be taking us back to Boryeong, are you afraid that there will be no horses when you return to Boryeong?" Wang Mingde directly discussed with Gao Mingzhan in front of a businessman in Chengdu: "There will definitely be horses dying on the way back, so it is better to sell them as fresh horse meat now, and no one will buy the horse meat that died on the road." ”

"Even if our horses don't die, if the horses of the Eight Banners die, the Governor will give them our horses." Li Defu also began to express his opinions, as if he would start to retreat back to Boryeong tomorrow: "It's better to sell scrap products, so that people can take them away in vain." Anyway, you won't die if you take such two steps. ”

Gao Mingzhan and Wang Mingde both nodded yes. The subordinates have to walk anyway, so it is better to sell the mount in advance, as for the general's mount, Eight Banners must be embarrassed to come and get it.

Chongqing could not defeat the Western Sichuan Army now, but it could not retreat, and the Qing army was completely hopeless about victory from top to bottom, so it was only left to figure out how to make their lives better - there seemed to be nothing else to do except process jewelry and sell scrap.

Merchants in Chengdu were willing to spend money to buy "fresh horse meat" from these generals, and hoped that in the future, Jintangmen would pretend to be invisible to soldiers selling fresh horse meat or dying horses.

"If you buy the dead horse, you can buy it, and I won't interfere." Wang Mingde, who guarded Jintangmen, and Li Defu, who was in charge of Futu Pass, both gave the same assurance, and the two of them were already planning to sell all the horses in their hands, as long as they sent Jiading to watch their mounts. The horses that the soldiers sold privately to the merchants of western Sichuan could only have been stolen from other camps, so what harm did it do them?

After discussing this kind of goods, Gao Mingzhan pointed to the next item and asked, "What is this 'moldy firewood'?" ”

……

On 20 November, Huang Fei and his companions boarded the ship and leaned on the side of the ship to look out over the mountains of Sichuan. Where there is a plain here, it is obviously a lofty mountain. Fortunately, people from Chengdu and Xuzhou continued to encourage the migrants, assuring them that they were not far from their destination and that they would be able to see large tracts of arable land when the time came.

Because the roads are difficult and the migrants have been trekking for months, the men now take turns to get on the boat to rest so that they are healthy and do not fall ill before they reach the finish line.

"Chongqing in front!" The Xuzhou guide on the same boat said to Huang Feigang and others: "This place is still in the hands of the Qing army for the time being. ”

Are there still tartars here? Huang Feigang and the others were extremely surprised.

The guide, Geng Yunlin, repeatedly assured that there was only less than a tenth of the way to Deng Ming's base. It's been a long time since I've seen a Qing army, and I can't imagine that there is another Qing army so close to the destination. Moreover, the immigrants found that the people of western Sichuan seemed to be accustomed to referring to their opponents by referring to the Qing army, whether they were soldiers or officials.

In Chongqing, thousands of Qing soldiers were working hard to process jadeite, some running back and forth with bamboo baskets, transporting rough stones and rough roughs, while the chiefs' families patrolled around to make sure no one was cheating.

When the unusual noise came from the direction of Causeway Gorge, many of the family members urged the soldiers who had pricked up their ears to continue their work, and not to take advantage of the opportunity to be lazy - until the movement became louder and louder, and the commotion of the crowd could no longer be stopped.