The room was steaming with steam, and dozens of temporarily recruited masters were busy and sweating, steaming cakes for people.
In a war-torn land, every ounce of food is precious. The farmland is abandoned, the people are dispersed, and the government urges classes, all of which will have a huge impact on agricultural production. The price of food in Huaizhou has reached more than 600 yuan per dou at this time, which is almost
It is twenty times that of Xia Sui, which is hard to imagine in Henan, which is known as a rich country.
But Datong Horse Store can get grain! It’s through formal channels. The government opens a warehouse to release grain and sells it to them. The price is very cheap, 400 yuan a dou. According to the current market situation in Huaizhou, a war horse can be exchanged for two bushels of dendrobium.
Lots of food.
This is still in Huaizhou, where from time to time prairie horses are resold through Hedong Town, and the price cannot go up. If it is in other places in Henan where the war is approaching, or in Huainan and Jiangnan areas that have always been short of horses, the price will still go up.
Big cut.
If there are a thousand cavalry on the battlefield, how big of an advantage is this? The generals will not be unaware of this.
"Sparse it." Pei Tong watched the cooks making dough one after another, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
The cook smiled honestly, but his dough-making hands did not change at all.
He knew that his employer only had good money and it was difficult to part with it, but he still had a kind heart. Apart from anything else, just getting rice and noodles from Li Hanzhi and preparing food for the households before leaving, without any obvious greed, was enough to make him
People respect it.
There are some women and children in the kitchen helping. You don’t have to pay them, they just take care of the food, it’s very cheap.
Seeing Pei Tong sitting there feeling distressed, a little girl who was lighting a fire behind the earthen stove smiled at him.
The corners of Pei Tong's mouth twitched and he smiled back, but it was uglier than crying.
It was a bit too much money! Although Li Hanzhi sold grain cheaply, he had also given him many horses as gifts before. Taking these into account, the cost was much higher.
But there is nothing I can do. It would be great if Li Hanzhi could sell you grain. Pei Tong vaguely heard someone say that this guy even ate human flesh when he was short of food. What can't he do? If he was an ordinary businessman, he would probably have done it earlier.
He robbed something like a war horse, which every warlord dreams of. After all, Li Hanzhi didn't dare to rob it forcefully.
It’s not like Datong Horse Racing Store hasn’t been robbed.
In the past, An Shiru, the envoy of Yicheng Jiedu, robbed more than a hundred of their horses, but he never went there to do business again. An Shiru had no use for horses, and the cavalry became infantry after a few battlefields. Everyone
It's all in sight.
Furthermore, horse racing shops in Henan generally don’t have many horses. If you want to buy, you have to send someone over to negotiate, and then Datong Horse Racing will allocate horses from Hezhong Prefecture. Wang Chongrong’s territory is stable and has a large inventory.
Basket after basket of bread was brought to the yard, soaked in vinegar, dried and collected.
Several children gathered around, drooling.
Pei Tong sighed and ordered his entourage to take some cakes and distribute them to the children.
"Thank you, General Office, for the reward." The children were young but still articulate, and they all came forward to express their thanks.
Pei Tong looked at their emaciated appearance and shook his head.
The warriors are beating you back and forth, it's really a crime, look at what you've done to the place! Everyone is almost dead, you know?
"General Office, it's time to set off." An attendant walked in and reported.
"Then let's go to Mengzhou. We must find out what happened. Whether it was Li Hanzhi's cavalry or Sun Ru's people who did it, we must get to the bottom of it." Pei Tong stood up and took it.
Horsewhip, said.
Three hundred horses were lost in Mengzhou last month. They were originally going to be taken to Heyang to be given to Sun Ru, but they were robbed on the way and twenty people died. No one knows who did it. Pei Tong sat in the river
Unable to hold on any longer, he took two hundred people with him and personally escorted six to seven hundred horses to Huaizhou to deliver the goods to Li Hanzhi. He then crossed the river to the three cities of Heyang to investigate what was going on.
To be honest, he didn't want to come. He was afraid of death, but he had no choice.
In Hezhong, Shaanxi and Guo where the Wang brothers are in power are relatively stable, and Hedong, where the Marshal's sworn brother is in control, is not bad either, but Henan is really in chaos, mainly because there are so many rebels!
Qin Zongquan coerced young men at every turn and formed an army of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. However, it is conceivable that the morale of this kind of troops was very low and there were many escapees. However, these escapees often brought weapons with them and fled to various places.
A big disaster, very dangerous.
In addition, there were some deserters in Zhu Quanzhong's army. They were not forcibly recruited and would not have escaped. However, Zhu Quanzhong implemented a harsh system of killing the entire team. When the leading officer died, the entire team was killed, so there were many deserters.
There are sergeants who do not dare to return to the camp after losing their officers and are on the run.
This is a disaster!
Now the situation in Henan has reached a critical point.
The northwest area was roughly controlled by Li Hanzhi and Zhang Quanyi (Zhang Yan).
This pair of brothers in distress had been forced by Qin Zongquan to have no way to go to heaven and no way to go to earth.
In Dongdu, they were beaten and ran away, and when they arrived in Heyang, they were killed and defeated. But they were also tenacious and fought repeatedly. Qin Zongquan's people didn't have much sense of managing the territory. Anyway, even if they were robbing, they wouldn't do it.
They lived in the same place for a long time. After they left, the two of them picked up the place like garbage. They tried to get back and the two of them ran away again.
In the second half of last year, Li Hanzhi fled to Heyang Town, which was abandoned by Qin Zongquan's people. Zhang Quanyi went to Luoyang in fear at the beginning of this year. As a result, not long ago, Qin Zongquan's general Sun Ru returned to Heyang with thousands of people.
Li Hanzhi was defeated and five counties in Mengzhou were occupied, so he fled to Huaizhou again.
Fortunately, Sun Ru didn't have any great ambitions. After occupying Mengzhou, he was too lazy to move. This gave Li and Zhang a place to stay. But even so, the two were like frightened birds, ready to escape at any time.
Prepare.
Otherwise, do you think Henan Prefecture will ignore Datong Ma's recruitment in Heyang Town? Li Hanzhi said that this person is not much different from Sun Ru in essence, but Zhang Quanyi still has the idea of managing the territory. But now
The military is the most important thing, but the armaments are not good enough. No matter how well the territory is managed, isn't it all prepared for others?
Datong Horse Racing has rare war horses in war-torn areas, which is destined to make them guests of various forces, including Sun Ru.
Pei Tong actually met Sun Ru once. He looked quite elegant, but if you understand what he did, you would never dare to say this. It is common for people to slaughter prefectures and counties and eat human flesh.
, the level of cruelty is no different from that of Qin Zongquan.
Sun Ru is a warrior, so he naturally likes war horses. But in their current situation, neither Li Keyong nor Hebei horse dealers can sell horses to them openly. They can only sell them privately, but the quantity is small and the price is high. The only option is
At Datong Horse Racing, the price was not too outrageous, and they were willing to trade with others, which made Sun Ru very happy.
Pei Tong led two hundred people, all party members recruited from Hengshan and Yuzhou grasslands, to serve as guards.
At noon on the 23rd, he arrived to the north of Heyang County in Mengzhou and met a group of people who were hurriedly retreating north. A closer look revealed that they were from Heyang Datong Horse.
"Li Huiban, why did you leave?" Pei Tong was startled, stepped forward and asked.
He had a vague guess, but now he still needed to confirm it.
"It turns out to be General Manager Pei." Li Fa looked shocked. He took Pei Tong's arm and was about to put him on the horse. He said hurriedly: "General Manager, let's go quickly. There are like-minded military officers in Sun Ru's army.
Tell someone that Qin Zongquan was defeated by the troops of the four towns at the gate of Bianzhou City, and he wants to summon the scattered generals to join him. Sun Ru wants to massacre the city and leave, and he has probably started to take action now."
"What!" Although he vaguely guessed it, Pei Tong was still very surprised and said: "More than 100,000 soldiers and horses, how come they were defeated?"
"Qin Zongquan attacked Bianzhou with 150,000 men. At the critical moment, more than 60,000 soldiers from the three towns of Yicheng, Tianping and Taining arrived and killed them. They cooperated internally and externally, defeated Cai's soldiers and beheaded more than 20,000 people. Qin Zongquan returned to Zhengzhou and wanted to run south.
Call on soldiers and horses from all over the country to follow him southward," Li Fa said.
Of course, this is all the information he got from Sun Ru's army, and it may not be accurate. But how to put it, he thinks that the details may need to be discussed, but it is generally correct. Qin Zongquan lost more than 20,000 troops, retreated to Zhengzhou in a hurry, and lost
Confidence, I don't want to fight with Zhu Quanzhong anymore, and plan to find weak persimmons elsewhere.
"Why are the Zhu brothers so unwise? What benefits can they get from helping Zhu Quanzhong? Didn't they almost fight over the battle for Huazhou?" Pei Tong was very puzzled. The territory of the Tianping Army and the Taining Army
To the east, Xuanwu Town was separated from the states where Qin Zongquan was based. He helped Zhu Quanzhong defeat Qin Zongquan, but he couldn't get this territory, so it was of no benefit at all.
"Zhu Quanzhong is cunning and capable of bending and stretching. He humbled himself in front of the Zhu brothers and flattered them, which earned them tens of thousands of troops to come to their aid." Li Fada said: "In any case, the matter has come true. General Manager, I'm afraid this Mengzhou is going to
If it’s destroyed, it’s better to withdraw as soon as possible, otherwise things may change later.”
Pei Tong heard that this was indeed the case. Sun Ru was about to massacre the city. At this time, would it make sense to investigate who had robbed the horses?
However, just as he got on his horse, he hesitated again.
If you just go back like this, what will the commander say if you find out?
"General Office..." Li Fa urged.
Pei Tong stretched out his hand to stop him and stood silently. After a while, he forced out a smile and said: "Li Huibao, it seems you still have to go back to Mengzhou."
Li Fa's eyes widened and he said in a trembling voice: "General Office, Sun Ru wants to massacre the city, why... why do you want to go back?"
Pei Tong looked a little ashamed, but he still said: "There are tens of thousands of people in the five counties of Heyang. Sun Ru massacred them just to prevent them from being left to Zhu Quanzhong. This will harm the peace of the world. Even if we don't encounter them,
If we encounter it and do nothing, what will the commander-in-chief think of us if he finds out?"
Then why don't you go? Li Fa cursed in his heart, but it was difficult to say it out loud, so he could only say with a bitter face: "General Office, why bother? Although the commander-in-chief will definitely be happy to get more people back, maybe
There will be a heavy reward. But this is Sun Ru. Doesn’t the General Office know about his virtue? He kills people frequently and is extremely cruel..."
"Just tell Sun Ru and ask him to let the people go, and we will send people to collect them. After the incident is completed, we will give him 1,500 horses. Well, let's give him 500 first. If the people are successfully taken away by us, there will also be
Thousands of horses are offered. He is leaving anyway and this horse is for free, so he must be willing." Pei Tong said.
"General Office, how can we get rid of tens of thousands of people in the five counties?"
"Sun Ru massacred the city, why didn't the people leave?" Pei Tong said: "Furthermore, Li Hanzhi fled from Guangzhou to Henan Prefecture, and then fled to Heyang. He suffered repeated defeats. Now he is trapped in Huaizhou and the situation is embarrassing.
Many of my subordinates are discouraged. I happen to know a few of them and ask them to help. We can go back to Xiazhou together afterwards. In addition, we have about 300 people in the horse shop, which is enough."
"General Office..." Li Fa was stunned.
He was not from the Yamen Army and had never fought in a war. It was natural for him to panic when this happened. But looking at Pei Tong's resolute look, his heart dropped.
"Li will take care of it. This matter should not be delayed. Don't worry, Sun Ru treats our Datong horse shop quite well. Let's go now."
Li Fa was stunned for a long time and had no choice but to bite the bullet and said: "In this case, I have nothing to say, so I will go back to Mengzhou. If something unexpected happens, please ask the general office to help take care of the whole family.
"
After that, he ordered a few people, got on his horse and headed towards Heyang.
Pei Tong looked at it steadily for a long time, then stamped his feet, turned around and left.
This time, he took the plunge. He had better information than others. He knew that the commander-in-chief was fighting smoothly and that a large number of people from Guandong were urgently needed after the war. If he could help him solve his urgent problem, the Pei family's status in the town would be greatly affected.
It is bound to rise sharply.
As for the food needed for immigration, it is indeed troublesome, but there are actually ways.
