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On the inaccessible mountain trail, a group of people are leading mules and horses in the scorching sun. This is a group of strong and strong men, dressed in short brown clothes, with straw sandals on their feet and straw hats on their heads. Under the rolled up sleeves are strong arms.

As the group hurried, they looked left and right from time to time, their expressions full of vigilance. On the backs of mules and donkeys, in addition to straw bags, there are also hidden knives and guns.

"Shopkeeper Meng, let's take a rest, it's too hot this day, wait under the tree to avoid the noon sun before leaving." A big man with a full beard said to a strong man with a tiger's back in front of him. The strong man was more than seven feet tall, with a long tiger's back and a bear's waist, an ape-armed leopard head, but he was wearing a cyan silk round-necked robe, a leather belt tied around his waist, and a stiff-footed gauze head on his head.

The shopkeeper Meng looked up at the big fireball shining in the sky, reached out and wiped the sweat on his neck, and the slap like a big fan fluttered in front of his face.

"Then rest for half an hour, we have already made an appointment with Wang Ba to deliver the goods in Wudang Mountain tomorrow, but we can't lose our words."

Wang Ba, not the turtle Wang Ba, Wang Ba is not a curse. The eighth king mentioned by the shopkeeper Meng refers to a person surnamed Wang, the eighth in the family. This person and the shopkeeper Meng are also old acquaintances, Wang Ba's real name is Wang Jian, and he is a native of Xuzhou, Henan Zhongwu Army. When I was young. for scoundrels. Slaughtering cattle and donkeys. Sometimes they also do things like stealing chickens, touching dogs, and obeying donkeys, and the township hates it, because it ranks eighth in the family, so they call it "the eighth king of thieves". Later, the township couldn't get along, so he simply took a risk and joined the most profitable and dangerous smuggled salt business in the late Tang Dynasty.

Wang Jian, who is now 27 years old. He has left his hometown of Xuzhou for many years, and now he has become a salt gang leader in Junzhou, Shannan Province.

Meng shopkeeper is also a smuggling salt dealer, in the early years with Wang Jian sold smuggled salt, and later Wang Jian was caught by the government, at that time, according to the government's regulations, selling smuggled salt more than a bucket of cane back, no car and donkey, can catch a bucket of salt reward thousands of dollars; The observation of the degree of the degree makes the judge and the state record the record of the military to inspect the private salt, and the penalty for missing more than one stone; Those who have two pools of salt, the owners of the Fang City Mansion and the philistines all sit down; Stealing a bucket of soil. than a liter of salt. If you sell salt for one stone, you can be put to death!

At that time, when Wang Jian was arrested. Even people were arrested with illicit salt, and there were ten full truckloads of smuggled salt and more than a dozen stones of salt, which was enough to kill the line. It was Meng Kai who found an uncle who was on an errand in the yamen, and only after the last time did he spend money to buy a death row prisoner to die instead. After coming out, Wang Jian went away, and finally arrived in Junzhou.

"The shopkeeper, that Wang Jian's reputation is not very good, and they all call him the eighth thief. Many brothers on the road said that Wang Jian was not particular, and they were all brothers who knew each other well, but if they did business with him, they would suffer. Last time, the shopkeeper Zhang of Chenzhou made a deal with Wang Ba, and said that it was a good deal for Lu Mo, but all the things they received after the most Lu were short Mo. One hundred stone of private salt, said to be a stone of consistent money, a hundred pieces of payment, the most after the shopkeeper Zhang received only more than seventy yuan, and the money is not Kaiyuan Tongbao, it is all his mother's Lingnan side of the white coin, calculated, only folded to sixty Kaiyuan Tongbao, damn, Zhang shopkeeper was pitted to death. At that time, I wanted to turn my face, but the king took advantage of the large number of people, and injured a few of them by the shopkeeper. Such a person, let's not do business with him! The strong man next to him persuaded and told some of the bad things he had heard.

Shopkeeper Meng sighed, a little helpless, Wang Ba had a bad reputation, he had naturally heard of it. But right now, there's no way to trade with him. The profits from selling smuggled salt were indeed very high, but now there has been a great drought for several years, followed by a locust plague, and then the imperial court and local government have urged the two taxes, so that many people have become homeless and flee in all directions.

This time, he took dozens of brothers to Xie County, north of the Yellow River, and stole 100 stones of salt from the salt pond of Xie County.

Originally, they thought that now that the imperial court had raised the price of salt to 300 wen per bucket, they would always make a profit by selling it at half price of 150 wen per bucket. But who would have thought, drought and locusts one after another, thousands of miles of red land, no cooking smoke, hunger in the wild, and even illegal salt is not easy to sell!

They came all the way south, looking for opportunities to sell. Many villages are deserted, and the government, which cannot collect the two taxes, attaches more importance to salt profits and further strengthens the crackdown, which hurts them along the way, and the probability of encountering salt officials is higher than that of buying salt, and this business is really impossible to do!

Up to now, a hundred stone of calced salt has not been sold much, otherwise, he would not have thought of going to Junzhou to make a deal with Wang Ba.

In fact, he was reluctant to do business with Wang Ba in his heart, or Wang Ba sent someone to contact him a few days ago, saying that he was willing to eat his batch of salt, but he had to discount the current price. One hundred stones of salt, Wang Ba is only willing to excel eighty yuan. Shopkeeper Meng thought about it a few times, but there was no other good way, this salt could not be eaten or worn in his hands, and it would be very risky, so he had to decide to sell it to Wang Ba.

Although he stopped to rest for a while, the shopkeeper Meng was also an old Jianghu, and ordered two men to go to investigate and sentry to prevent Yanding from suddenly appearing.

Now not only has the imperial court made the price of this salt extremely high, but even the history of feudal towns and prefectures in various places has also strengthened the collection of private interests. The Jiedu envoy specially sent a judge to be responsible for inspecting the smuggling of salt, and the state and county also sent the state recorder to participate in the military county to be the official in charge of the private salt. All localities set up head card salt ding, and there are salt ding inspections from time to time. Because they often fought with the salt sellers, these salt ladies were even stronger than the official soldiers of Namu Domain.

As soon as the salt seller and the salt ding meet, it will be a situation of non-death.

There are fifty people around the shopkeeper Meng, although they are all outlaws who lick the blood from the knife edge, but he is also unwilling to run into those even more desperate salts.

The mule and donkey were led to the woods, the men untied the salt bags on the donkeys, some men led the donkeys and mules to drink water and feed the forage, and the shopkeeper Meng and others also leaned on the tree to take water and drink, and took out the baked biscuits and food to fill their stomachs.

"This trip is even if I sell the salt to Wang Ba. We're also losing money. Meng Yang, the assistant of the shopkeeper Meng, chewed the cake in his mouth. He muttered. "Shopkeeper's. Last time, I heard the shopkeeper Zhang in Chenzhou say that the batch of salt produced in Dengzhou is said to be not boiled like Huai salt and other sea salt, but dried. And the salt was white and large, and dry. It is said that it is much better than Huai salt, but this solution salt and well salt are not as good as it, and it is even comparable to the green salt in the northwest. And I heard that the salt production is very large. Each bucket of salt in Dengzhou only sells for 50 wen, even if a salt seller from other places buys it, it only costs 80 wen a bucket. ”

Shopkeeper Meng smiled, "I also know about this, it is said that they are digging salt fields to dry salt, and the details are not clear." However, the salt production is indeed large, and it is said that it was all made by the recently popular Zhendong County Duke, Dengzhou Thorn Shi Li Jing. I heard that Du has sent more than 300,000 stone salt to the Son of Heaven in Chang'an. That eunuch Tian Lingzi sold for a high price of 500 wen per bucket of salt. It's a bargain price higher than the green salt, but I've heard that the salt is really good. No worse than green salt. Now the dignitaries and nobles in the capital all use Dengzhou salt. ”

Meng Yang's eyes lit up, "Shopkeeper, then let's sell this batch of salt, and go to Dengzhou to sell that Dengzhou salt, this salt will definitely be more profitable than us going to Jiechi to steal salt and sell it." Eighty wen for fighting salt, one stone of salt is only 800 wen, and Tian Lingzi can sell 500 wen for douyan, so let's make a lot of money by selling 200 wen. ”

"Dengzhou salt bucket salt eighty Wen, that is a small bucket, one stone has twenty-one small buckets, calculated, a stone of salt at least half a dollar. However, if you can really buy it, you can still make money. But you may not have heard that as early as when Dengzhou was just producing salt, Shang Junchang of the Puzhou Salt Gang went to Dengzhou to find that Li Jing to buy salt, but he was directly tied up by Li Jing and sent to the government. This Li Jing doesn't seem to be an ordinary official, but I'm afraid that this business will not be easy to do. ”

As he was talking, he saw a man who had gone to guard the post come back, followed by a person.

As soon as the man saw the shopkeeper Meng, he immediately said loudly: "Sure enough, it's the shopkeeper Meng, come with me, I'm afraid it's too late." ”

"Ah, who are you?" Shopkeeper Meng and Meng Yang were both vigilant, and their hands had already copied the hilt of the knife.

"Oh, I forgot to report myself, in Xia Lin Yan, the nephew of Mr. Huang Liu of Caozhou."

As soon as he heard that it was Mr. Huang Liu's nephew, Shopkeeper Meng immediately relaxed his vigilance. Mr. Huang Liu, like Wang Ba, is also a salt seller on the road. Wang Ba is the boss of the Salt Gang in Junzhou, and the shopkeeper Meng is now the boss of the Salt Gang in Xuzhou, and the Shang Junchang and Wang Xianzhi mentioned earlier are the leaders of the Salt Gang in Puzhou. And this Mr. Huang Liu is the boss of the salt gang in Caozhou. Because he is ranked sixth in the family and has participated in the imperial examination, he is called Mr. Huang Liu on the road, referring to Caozhou Huangchao.

Although they are both leaders of the salt gang, Wang Xianzhi and Mr. Huang Liu are the largest salt sellers in Shandong, and they have many brothers, which are far from being comparable to Meng Shopkeeper and Wang Ba.

"It turned out to be Mr. Huang Liu's nephew, I don't know what happened here?"

Although it was his own people on the road, the shopkeeper Meng was still a little wary of Lin Yan, firstly, he had never seen Lin Yan, and secondly, he had heard on the road that Mr. Huang Liu and Wang Xianzhi had already rebelled against the Tang Dynasty, and they both captured Changyuan County and Yiju County successively, and now they have captured Caozhou City. Although his sale of smuggled salt is also a brainless business, it is still better than rebellion. Rebellion is a great crime to destroy the Nine Clans.

"Doesn't Shopkeeper Meng still know what to do? Wang Ba turned against the water, and took his gang to join the government, and now he has become an officer in the loyal army, and is arresting other brothers who sell salt as the leader! ”

"What's going on?" Shopkeeper Meng was shocked.

Listening to Lin Yan's explanation, he understood what had happened. It turned out that Wang Ba had a conflict with a salt gang in Junzhou and Fangzhou, and the two sides fought for territory, as a result, Wang Ba won a few games first, and as a result, he was proudly invited by the people of Fangzhou to help him sneak attack Wang Ba. Wang Ba was defeated, and with the remnants of his brothers in desperation, he fled all the way back to Xuzhou, and after the most reluctance, he simply gritted his teeth and threw himself into the loyal army of Xuzhou, wrapped in a yellow turban, and now he has become a team leader of the Yellow Head Army. In order to be promoted, he is now taking people around to catch the Yan Gang brothers on the road to make a vote.

"The shopkeeper Meng still doesn't know how to do it, and the first thing Wang Ba did when he joined the Zhongwu Army was to arrest all the brothers on Xuzhou Road. The family members and clansmen of the shopkeeper Meng were also arrested by him. Fortunately, after my uncle heard about it, he immediately sent me to Xuzhou, spent some money, and secretly rescued Mrs. Meng and several Meng Xiaoniang, and the rest of the brothers were supposed to be rescued, but Wang Ba found out that the rest of the people were killed by Wang Ba. Lin Yan said in a low voice.

After hearing this, Shopkeeper Meng was already angry, drew his knife and cut off an arm-thick branch, and said hatefully: "This damn thief king eight!" When he was on death row in the government after the incident in Xuzhou, it was a distant uncle of mine who rescued him and secretly released him. It's okay for him to change his career to eat official dinner today, but he actually pulled me Meng Kai as a stepping stone, it's really unrighteous! Lao Tzu swore to him that he would cut off his dog's head and avenge my people and brothers. ”

"That's it, it's not against the king of thieves!" Meng Kai's brothers also shouted with red eyes and gritted their teeth. They already knew that except for Meng Kai's wife and child, the rest of the people's families were estimated to be gone.

"That's it," Huang Chao's nephew Lin Yan echoed, "now that the salt is not easy to sell, let's make a different living." The Wang Da gang leader in Puzhou and my uncle are pulling up the pole and doing it with the government! ”

"This, I've heard others say it, it's not impossible, but ......"

"Didn't Shopkeeper Meng hear that folk proverb?" Lin Yan suddenly looked mysterious and lowered his voice.

"What?"

"The golden toad fights for his eyes, but the world in Caozhou is opposed!"

Things have come to this point, and Xuzhou no longer has his territory. Moreover, now that the family is already in the hands of Huang Chao, Meng Kai knows that he has no other choice now.

"It's the other way around!" Meng Kai gritted his teeth and made a difficult decision. Since the government forced the people to rebel, they had to rebel. If he doesn't join the grass army, how can he fight with the thief king who has joined the official army.

"It's the other way around! It's the other way around! It's the other way around! Dozens of other salt dealers also shouted. was originally a group of outlaws, and now that the family is gone, who in the world can stop this group of violent people.

PS: At the end of the month, I was supposed to save some manuscripts, but after the autumn, my body will not adapt to it every year, and people will always have no energy. Come to think of it, I still plan to update it as much as possible, and I won't save up for the end of the month, so I'll have more now. Muzi will do its best to update, but I also implore everyone to vote for the monthly pass and recommendation votes for Muzi, and don't save until the end of the month, if there is, vote for Muzi, so that it can also give Muzi more motivation Ah, attract more readers, this is really important to the full-time codeword author, please! (To be continued......)