Legend of the Knight

Chapter 44
Huang Xiaoshi spent some time in this idle state, and at the end of March, when the weather started to heat up, on this day, Huang Xiaoshi received a message from Gong Guangjie from the door.

Gong Guangjie still doesn't know how to write, so he can only ask someone to bring a message.

In order to make it easier for others to remember, the oral message is not long, and there are three contents, in order from heavy to light.

The first one is that the price of medicinal materials and elixirs may increase for a while, and Huang Xiaoshi is asked to pay attention to the quantity of goods on weekdays, at least six out of four;

Second, Gong Guangjie brought good news to Huang Xiaoshi, he is getting married this year, and the new couple is the daughter of Yao Nong from Shennong Baicaomen;

The third is that Gong Guangjie asked Huang Xiaoshi tactfully if he could get away and go to southern Sichuan for a while.

Southern Sichuan is a good place to grow medicines. With the expansion of Shennong Baicaomen's influence, its demand for medicinal materials is also increasing.

Now Shennong Baicaomen is a trust that will only appear in the future, and the instinct of expansion is in every pore of it.

The Shennong Baicaomen, which expanded to the south, clashed with another sect on the line of southern Sichuan and northern Yunnan, and both sides suffered casualties.

Gong Guangjie hoped that Huang Xiaoshi could go to southern Sichuan to sit in the battle.

After Huang Xiaoshi received Gong Guangjie's message, he thought for a while, and asked the person who sent the message to reply to Gong Guangjie as follows.

The first rule is definitely nothing to say, just follow orders.

Second, Huang Xiaoshi took out 2000 taels of silver from the savings he had accumulated in the past few years as a gift for Gong Guangjie's wedding.

As the head of the Luoyang sect, Huang Xiaoshi's income is very high, and besides his daily food and drink, he doesn't have much to spend.

It's a pity that there are no financial institutions in this world, and Huang Xiaoshi doesn't care about increasing his personal wealth, so the money just sits in vain.

Regarding Gong Guangjie's wedding, in Huang Xiaoshi's impression, Boss Gong seemed to have no hobbies other than money, so he took out part of his savings and gave Gong Guangjie a big gift.

Of course, Huang Xiaoshi didn't get the 800 taels of silver he won from the Black Fist Casino.

This plucking wool can't be plucked to the owner.

The third point, regarding the guarding in southern Sichuan, Huang Xiaoshi only asked the person with the message to respond to Gong Guangjie with a simple sentence "there is an errand for the higher-ups", and no further explanation was needed.

For Huang Xiaoshi, staying in Luoyang is his core task, he can't squat in the dense forest of southern Sichuan for a few years in vain for a poisonous dragon sect.

It is a matter of time before Shennong Baicaomen and Dulongjiao clash, and it is a zero-sum game with irreconcilable contradictions.

In Huang Xiaoshi's perception, the easiest way is for the old bachelor Gong Guangjie to marry Lan Ting, the beautiful leader of the Dulong Sect.

However, in reality, the problem cannot be solved so simply.

The two gates of Shennongmen and Baicaomen are combined into one, which is originally divided into two, so there is not much resistance from two to one.

Shennong Baicaomen and Dulongjiao not only have huge differences in business models and business philosophy, but also have huge differences in crowd structure. To put it bluntly, it involves the struggle between Han and Miao, and may even fight south with the imperial court. There are relationships.

For this kind of headache, Huang Xiaoshi couldn't come up with a proposal of "peace is the most important, for parents of Han and Miao". In his opinion, it's easier to just use the knife directly.

Although force cannot solve the problem, as long as it can solve the person who caused the problem, the effect is still the same.

Gong Guangjie's wedding was an important turning point for Huang Xiaoshi. Once Gong Guangjie had a son, Huang Xiaoshi's internal title of "the next sect master" would be a problem.

The trouble with some bad things is that it's not that you don't care, others don't.

Huang Xiaoshi didn't want to have a conflict with Gong Guangjie, let alone have a dirty mind with him, but what he didn't want, and more importantly, he wanted others to believe that he didn't want to.

This requires Huang Xiaoshi to have a better, convincing, "he really doesn't want to" evidence.

Tianlongjiao is a good place, Huang Xiaoshi thought silently.

As long as Huang Xiaoshi can climb the high branch of the Tianlong Sect, others will naturally think that he will not miss the chicken coop anymore.

However, Tianlongjiao is an extremely large, well-organized, and highly hierarchical cross-regional social group. In a word, the promotion of newcomers in Tianlongjiao is more gradual, and it is difficult to soar to the sky.

Huang Xiaoshi didn't have enough time and patience to work at the bottom for three to five years.

Always stay with me.

To win in the future battle for the Holy Church, Huang Xiaoshi needs to rely on the power of the Heavenly Dragon Cult.

It means that before the war, Huang Xiaoshi's status in Tianlongjiao must at least reach the level of being able to "take advantage of the situation", that is to say, if he enters the decision-making level, otherwise he will be a "worker" who works for Tianlongjiao.

Huang Xiaoshi thought hard, apart from the beauty and ugliness of men and women, the high-level figures of Tianlong Cult must have three major elements: meritorious service, martial arts, and status.

These three are what Huang Xiaoshi urgently needs, but the relationship between the three is dynamic.

The promotion path of ordinary believers is through accumulating meritorious deeds, gaining a promotion in status, and finally learning stronger martial arts. The rules of this routine are: meritorious service-status-martial arts.

There are some special followers of the Heavenly Dragon Sect, such as those who brought their skills to defect, such as the Central Plains martial arts people who defected in the past.

This kind of believers belonged to a special recruitment mode. They gained status through high-strength martial arts, and finally proved their strength with meritorious deeds.The rules of this routine are: martial arts - status - meritorious service.

Huang Xiaoshi doesn't have martial arts now; he doesn't have the patience to accumulate meritorious deeds, so if he changes his way of thinking, can there be such a routine, starting with status?

For example, status-martial arts-merit, or status-merit-martial arts.

Huang Xiaoshi has always thought of a headache but never thought of any good way. To gain status, the easiest way is to be born with blood relationship, which is destined by heaven.

Just like in the previous life, I was born a rich second generation, it only has something to do with the family I was born in.

Alas, Huang Xiaoshi let out a long sigh.

He is an orphan who doesn't even have the memory of his first birth, so there is no blood relationship with a super high status.

Suddenly, another flash of inspiration flashed in Huang Xiaoshi's mind. A certain guy with a super hidden blood relationship happened to be about the same age as him, and this blood relationship was not only useless to that guy, but even restrained and hindered.

Well, at least Huang Xiaoshi knows that in the future, this guy will not die well because of this inseparable blood relationship. No matter what the ending is, the best thing is to die in depression.

One man's poison is another man's medicine.

If you don't want it, you can give it to me!I need it!

Thinking of this, Huang Xiaoshi's whole body suddenly became energetic. He rolled over and sat up on the bed, striding back and forth excitedly in the small room, while thinking excitedly and nervously.

This move is extremely dangerous, but the rewards are extremely huge, the most important thing is not to make any mistakes, any carelessness is life-threatening.

After thinking about it for a long time, Huang Xiaoshi murmured to himself: "It seems that when Boss Gong gets married, he must go back to Sichuan."

……

Gong Guangjie's big wedding is a few months later, and Huang Xiaoshi's plan to steal the sky and replace the sun is also chosen to be carried out a few months later.

It's not that he is not in a hurry, but that this matter has too much to do with it, too many actions will inevitably leave a loophole, and if there is a loophole, he will die.

Chance and opportunity are extremely important in this plan.

Having figured out the plan, Huang Xiaoshi lay back on the bed in a good mood, and slept peacefully until the next day.

I don't know if it's Gong Guangjie's keen sense of business or he knew some news in advance. After the beginning of April, the prices of medicinal materials have really increased, and the finished pills are even more sought-after. Many foreign traders have come to Luoyang City to search for various medicinal materials, and they are crazy. The degree to which you accept the medicine as soon as you see it.

If you have money, you don't make a bastard. In line with the basic principle of doing business, various businesses in Luoyang have raised the price of medicines, and the prices of medicines on the market are soaring.

At this time, Huang Xiaoshi asked the disciples to speak out. After maintaining the ratio of food and goods, half of the [-]% of the goods he released were sold at double the price, and the remaining half were retailed at the original price to the common people in Luoyang City. , but a personal purchase limit has been imposed.

Huang Xiaoshi's move became an alternative in the tide of rising prices. He was cursed by the buyers and praised by the people of Luoyang at the same time, but Huang Xiaoshi's heart became more and more uneasy day by day.

The market does not lie.

Food prices rise in famine years, and the price rise of medicinal materials can only show where severe diseases appear.

Now that there is no news, it doesn't mean that the epidemic is not serious, but it means that the epidemic is extremely serious, so the government blocked the news.

The government blocked the news, but naturally there were still well-informed people who took advantage of the information gap and made a lot of money.

Sure enough, in mid-April, news came out one after another, the great epidemic in Jiangbei.

Jiangbei, as opposed to Jiangnan, mainly refers to the area north of the Yangtze River.

The Jiangbei area includes Yangzhou, Huai'an, Taizhou, and Hefei. This area is located in the north and south of the Yangtze River, close to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. It is an important transportation hub connecting the north, south, west, and east, and it is also one of the economic centers in the southeast.

At the beginning of spring and February of that year, the epidemic in Jiangbei spread, and eventually became a major epidemic, and countless people died of the disease.

As the news of the great epidemic in Jiangbei spread, it was followed by an imperial decree from the emperor that spread throughout the world.

The imperial decree said that there is a saying that "seeing is believing, and hearing is false." Anyone who made false comments about the great epidemic in Jiangbei, the whole family moved to Jiangbei to witness with their own eyes; cure.

As soon as this imperial decree was issued, thousands of weeping family members followed the upright Confucian scholars to move to Jiangbei from other places. As for whether they can live or die after arriving in Jiangbei, it depends on God's will.

As soon as the news of the great epidemic in Jiangbei came out, the price of medicine in Luoyang City rose even more. Jiangbei was not far from Luoyang, and no one knew whether the epidemic would spread.

Under such circumstances, Huang Xiaoshi still asks his disciples to save three times and release seven times, wholesale at half high price and retail at half price. The disciples under him are a little puzzled. some goods?
Not to mention saving seven and releasing three, at least it must be half stored and half released.

Everyone can see that the price of this drug is definitely getting more expensive every day.

Speaking of this, Huang Xiaoshi said with a sad face: It is great to be able to make money, but as a medicine man, the first thing we do is our conscience.

These righteous words blocked the mouths of all the disciples.

Shennong Baicaomen originally went against the market and had low prices, but there were always people who couldn't understand them yelling that "there is no good product for each other".

But as soon as Huang Xiaoshi's words came out, even many scholars who never used to sell goods on the ground (in ancient times, they were able to read, either rich or expensive), went to the booth of Shennong Baicaomen to buy a pack of Shennong Baicaomen. Affordable medicine for the door.

"This is conscience."

Now that Luoyang City mentions Shennong Baicaomen, who doesn't praise "benevolence and righteousness".

Of course, if someone else dared to do this, they might be labeled as deceiving people and buying people's hearts, and they might even be imprisoned or even lose their lives.

However, Shennong Baicaomen has done this, and dare to keep doing it.

Because Shennong Baicaomen is different from those who sell talisman water to cheat money, their medicine is really effective.

Shennong Baicaomen no longer sells medicine today. Tomorrow someone may die of illness, and the day after tomorrow the common people will riot.

The country belongs to the emperor, and the most important thing is to be a stable official.

In fact, Huang Xiaoshi didn't tell anyone the truth. Of course, with the wisdom of others, he probably wouldn't be able to understand it.

Hoarding food in a famine year and hoarding medicine in a plague year seem to be clever ways, but there must be a premise that the government will not treat you as a fat pig and slaughter you.

Looking at those merchants who are still desperately buying medicinal materials at high prices, Huang Xiaoshi smiled mockingly, he really looks like a group of stupid pigs who are still gobbling up food at the end of the year.

Within a few days, there were rumors that the imperial court would send troops to conquer the northern nomads again.

As soon as Huang Xiaoshi heard the news, a sentence popped into his mind: This emperor is probably going crazy.

……

The northern nomads have always been a serious problem for the Central Plains court, but when sending troops to conquer the nomads, the timing is very important.

In the spring, troops were dispatched to settle the payment. At this time, after a hard winter, the cattle were thin and the horses were weak. At this time, the imperial court could not give the nomads a chance to recuperate and greatly weaken their combat effectiveness.

Send troops to pay in summer, when the northern grasslands are rich in water and grass, which can reduce the difficulty of supplying the expeditionary army, and make it easier for the expeditionary army to chase the nomads far away.

Sending troops to pay in autumn is the time when cattle and sheep need to store fat for the winter. At this time, the imperial court can disrupt the migration of winter and summer grasslands of the nomadic department, resulting in insufficient fat of cattle and sheep, and the death rate increases during winter, weakening their basic strength.

Sending out troops to clear the land in winter, and using cavalry to drive out and kill cattle and sheep can completely destroy the viability of the nomadic tribe, and maybe it can achieve the effect of destroying the tribe in World War I.

So here comes the question, when should the imperial court send troops to clear the nomadic department?
The answer is: when the imperial court was able to beat the Nomadic Ministry.

As long as the imperial court can beat the Nomadic Ministry, spring, summer, autumn and winter will not be a problem, okay?

And is now a good time to send troops?
Although Huang Xiaoshi doesn't know much about politics and economics, he also knows that now is not a good opportunity to send troops abroad.

First, when the new emperor came to the throne, because some new policies were announced and some dignitaries were dealt with, so the emperor Shan Gao was far away from Jiaozhi, and a group of local kings incited the people to raise their flags to rebel.

This is the "officials force the people to rebel" that many speech officials have written.

For these speech officials, the emperor directly sent them to Jiaozhi to appease the people, and the whole family went together.

From Huang Xiaoshi's point of view, putting the blame on Jiaozhi on the head of the new emperor was originally a result of those speech officials trying to use their strength to fight cattle across the mountain. The real twists and turns have nothing to do with Jiaozhi.

Originally, the problem of cochin has not been a day or two.

First of all, the big reason is that because the birds don’t shit in that place, the mountains are high and the emperor is far away, the officials are regarded as the emperors of the earth.

These guys expropriated and extorted money in the Cochin area, causing the situation in Cochin to gradually erode.

Of course, the new emperor will take the blame of the previous emperor.

The emperor is going to help wipe the shit from all the virtuous officials.

Therefore, at the beginning of the new year, the imperial court has sent a large army south to Jiaozhi to suppress the rebellion.

Jiaozhi is a place full of epidemics, and most of the officers and soldiers are from the north. After going there, they get sick again and again.

At this time, Gong Guangjie hooked up with the Tang Sect for some reason, and sold his elixir to the army by using the Tang Sect's military supply line.

It has to be said that Shennong Baicaomen's medicine is cheap, but it is extremely symptomatic, especially good at detoxification.

After the officers and soldiers who went south solved the historic problem of non-combat attrition, successive news came out.

However, the officers and soldiers continued to attack Lianke and smashed the enemy's stronghold, but they did not stop. Later, news came out that the house of a certain court official was ransacked by the officers and soldiers, and all 87 members of the family died.

Others said that those were not officers and soldiers, but rogues pretending to be officers and soldiers.

What the truth is, I'm afraid it will never be found out.

Now the emperor's intentions are very clear, since the knives have been pulled out, he didn't just swipe the knife lightly to finish the calculation.

The emperor wanted to borrow a sword to plow the weedy and thorny land of Jiaozhi again.

There is a word called "slash-and-burn farming".

But this pair of southern troops was not over yet, and they began to conquer the north again.

Huang Xiaoshi didn't understand. Even if you have been planning for a long time, and the arrow has to be launched, can't we wait until the Jiangbei epidemic is over?

Don't pick this time.

Regardless of whether the emperor is wise or martial, what Huang Xiaoshi can be sure of is that this emperor is definitely not a benevolent emperor.

(End of this chapter)