Early the next morning, seven or eight improvised cars appeared outside the camp. The cars looked different. They were all old cars, and they looked like they had been used for a while.
Most of the cars were filled with scattered groceries, such as iron pots, shovels, kitchen knives, aluminum basins, etc. There was also a car filled with dry food for a group of people to eat on the road.
But the last car was very mysterious and covered tightly.
Qi Zihao asked: "What is on this car?"
"Salt!" Yan Sanye said.
"Aren't you afraid of being exposed when you get so much salt? How will you explain the origin then?"
"You don't understand, this is not ordinary salt." Yan Sanye opened a bag and took out a piece to show to Qi Zihao, "Look!"
The contents of the bag were more like bags of stones than salt.
Qi Zihao picked up a piece and licked it. It was really salty.
"This is mineral salt. Although it looks like a stone, it is actually a salt block mixed with impurities. By boiling the mineral salt into brine, filtering it and then boiling it dry, you can get table salt with very high purity."
The Juzhou area is located inland, with mostly plateaus and mountains. It does not produce salt, and there are no official roads. They are all mountain roads, making it difficult to communicate with the outside world, and there are few caravans.
The salt in Daqi is under the control of the imperial court. It is official salt and does not allow private trading. It is much stricter than the control of grain.
It can be said that in the desolate inland areas around Daqi, far from the sea, salt is definitely a hard currency that can be used instead of money.
The Xie family is able to rule Juzhou all year round because they restrain the barbarians and prevent them from causing trouble on the border in exchange for the right to purchase a certain amount of salt from Daqi every year.
If they control the salt, they have power and wealth.
Now that the cargo problem has been solved, the rest will be easy to handle.
Qi Zihao temporarily handed over the military talisman and general seal to the deputy general Wang Zhan, returned to the camp, changed his clothes, and tidied himself up.
When he came out of the tent again, Mr. Yan who was waiting at the door was startled.
"Your beard--" Mr. Yan pointed at his face, with a look of surprise on his face.
"Shaving it off, it will be easier to hide your identity." Qi Zihao said very calmly.
But Mr. Yan couldn't help but circle around him several times, touching his chin with his hand and making tut-tsk sounds from his mouth.
"No wonder you always keep a beard, but after shaving it looks really... so damn awkward!"
When Qi Zihao had a beard, coupled with his muscular body, he looked like a big northern man with big arms and round waist.
But as soon as the beard was shaved off, all his originally handsome facial features were revealed, and his aura suddenly disappeared, and he looked more like a pretty boy who was going to seduce a wealthy lady in some back garden.
"Haha, that's great. Even I almost didn't recognize you, and others certainly won't recognize you either!" Mr. Yan couldn't stop laughing, and almost fell down while holding his belly in his hands.
Now that everything was ready and neither of them were lazy people, they quickly led the team towards Juzhou.
Along the way, I saw many refugees, dragging their families with them and heading towards Huguang.
However, after asking one by one, no Xie clan members were found, and these ordinary people had no idea what happened in Juzhou City at that time.
All the way to the west, the mountain road was bumpy and difficult. Qi Zihao and Yan Sanye occasionally chatted for a few days in the first two days. Later, they talked about almost all the topics they could talk about. They were so bored that they could only squint their eyes and fall asleep.
Suddenly, the carriage stopped suddenly, and the roar of the horses echoed through the sky.
Qi Zihao and Yan Sanye opened their eyes at the same time. One stretched out his hand to hold down the saber beside him, and the other pulled out the dagger from his sleeve. Then they remained motionless, holding their breath and listening to the movement outside.
Then I heard a rough voice with a somewhat unstandardized Mandarin voice outside: "If you don't want to die, just leave the goods and carriage behind, and I will spare your life!"
Since leaving Daqi territory, they have encountered several groups of bandits one after another.
It's just that the surrounding area is sparsely populated and there are few vehicles, so it's almost impossible to rob anyone or anything. When I suddenly saw such a large caravan, I naturally became jealous and rushed forward without thinking about my head or feet.
The people of Juzhou are still much tougher than Daqi, and they don't control weapons like Daqi, so the bandits usually have sharp blades in their hands. If ordinary people and caravans encounter this kind of thing, it is estimated that only
Surrender obediently or face death.
But for Qi Zihao and Yan Sanye, these people are just here to relieve their boredom.
Qi Zihao opened the car curtain and took a look. There were almost twenty people blocking the road. He didn't know if there was any ambush in the woods on the roadside.
This scale is much larger than those encountered before, and it looks quite organized. Maybe they are not rogue bandits, but bandits who have been here for many years.
The leader was a man in his forties, with a beard, colorful clothes, holding a machete in his hand, sitting on a horse, looking arrogant.
He should have been the one who shouted just now.
Third Master Yan chewed his teeth and said: "What kind of dress is this? It looks like a country bumpkin. Tsk, tsk, tsk, you are embarrassed to come out to rob someone dressed like this!"
Qi Zihao sneered when he heard this, then lifted up his robe and jumped out of the carriage.
As Qi Zihao got out of the car, the soldiers pretending to be the driver and his entourage were also on full alert, ready to take action at any time.
The bandit leader felt a little nervous when he saw that these people were a little different from the caravans he had robbed before.
Qi Zihao walked to the front of the convoy with a long knife in his hand. Looking at the jagged people on the opposite side, he felt a little unmotivated. He simply said: "If you want to go up, go up together. Let's fight quickly. Don't delay Grandpa while I'm on my way."
The bandits looked at each other in confusion. After having been on this road for so long, this was the first time they encountered such a rogue one.
It's not like I haven't encountered people making arrogant statements before, but most of them were just bluffs.
But the young man in front of me, who looked like a pretty boy, stood in front of him, and he had an aura around him that made people unable to help but fear him.
"Boss, it seems to me that these people came well prepared. Could it be that they came to Juzhou to take advantage of the chaos? Otherwise, we should withdraw!" A timid and cautious person persuaded in a low voice.
The bandit leader naturally understood the concerns of his men, and his intuition also told him that these people were not ordinary caravans, and they did not seem to be easy to mess with.
However, it was a rare trip down the mountain, and the information he had found out before made him unwilling to leave empty-handed.
The bandit leader said solemnly: "There is salt in their car."
With just one word, the eyes of the twenty or so men behind him suddenly glowed green.
Salt! This thing in Juzhou is a hard currency that can replace gold and silver as currency.
"Whether he came prepared or not, boss, let's go! I don't believe that there are so many of us, but we can't defeat a few of their little chickens that haven't even grown their hair yet?"
"Yes, yes, boss, let's go. That's salt! Real hard goods! Even if you don't exchange it for something, it's still good for us to keep it for ourselves. If we eat things that don't taste salty every day, it will take a long time."
You can’t even use your strength to chop people!”
Listening to the cheers of the brothers behind him, the bandit leader finally raised his long knife and shouted: "Brothers, come on! Rob them, and I will share the salt with everyone!"
"Come on!" The bandits' eyes were narrowed by the salt, and they rushed forward as if they were desperate.