Dayao, a certain inconspicuous small town with a population of only tens of thousands, which is neither located in a major traffic route nor has any special products.
"The salt team is here! The salt team is here!" As a convoy entered the city, the city suddenly boiled.
Many people ran to somewhere in the city with their bags, and when they got there, they found that there were already dense crowds of people standing there.
A thick-eyed young man stood in the crowd and felt the crowd behind him. He turned his head and glanced behind him, and then shouted loudly: "What's the crowd? This time, the convoy is just that big. How many people out of ten will be there?" It’s good for one to buy salt, but for the latter, it’s better to go out of the city and pick up stones to lick, if it’s too late, even the stones will be gone!”
The so-called picking stones and licking refers to a kind of marble outside the city, which is bitter, salty, and slightly poisonous. But these days there is a lack of salt, and many people have no salt and have to go outside the city to pick up this kind of stone and come back, lick a bite and then eat a bite of meat.
If Ren Baqian was here, he knew it was a carbonate rock.
Following the young man's words, there was an angry curse from behind, and it didn't take long for a chaotic battle to break out in the crowd. The old man in his seventies and eighties jumped two or three meters high, and kicked out with a strong wind... My aunt smashed countless people's eyes black with her fists, and even a ten-year-old child slid around in the crowd and kicked his legs from time to time.
Fighting is the nature of the ancient people, even for the simple-looking residents of this small town.
Therefore, it is commonplace to fight over trivial matters.
The basic process is generally: "What are you looking at?" "What are you looking at?" "I will slap you!"
Then there was some punching. Just massive chaos like today, only lately every time a salt team comes along.
Because of the lack of salt, many people feel that they have become less and less energetic recently.
When the newly formed militia group stopped the chaos in the field, many people were injured and glared at each other, but they laughed again after a while.
Not long after, the militia group transported several carts of salt bags to the open space in front of everyone, and began selling them at a low price under the auspices of the city order, and each person could only buy three taels.
"The price is so low! It's a pity that there are too few. Otherwise, you can buy more and keep them at home, so you will always have no salt." Someone in front whispered.
"Go ahead and dream! Thanks to the early arrival today, otherwise I wouldn't be able to buy these."
The people in the back were immediately disappointed when they saw the salt in front of them. As the boy said just now, it would be good if one out of ten people could buy it.
"When will the salt come again?"
"Yeah! I don't have any strength without salt!"
"Everyone, now Izumo, Chen, and Daxia have cut off our salt roads, and it has been two and a half months without a bag of salt coming in!" The city's magistrate, who is also one of the few masters in the city, stood in front and said loudly .
"Kill them! Take back the salt!"
"Kill them! Kill them!"
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
The crowd below suddenly shouted, and the originally simple people suddenly overflowed with murderous aura, and a fierce look appeared on their faces.
If people from other countries saw this scene, they would be able to understand why the ancient people had such a small population, but they were able to compete against other countries that were far superior in terms of population, financial resources, supplies, and equipment, and even won the battle.
Even though they have lived on this plain for seventy years, the bones of these people are still full of wildness.
Even if he didn't grow up fighting wild beasts on the mountain, his blood is still full of the desire to fight.
"Everyone, I, Dayao, no longer need to transport salt from the outside world. I, Dayao, have my own salt farm." Cheng Ling said.
As soon as these words were said, everyone below was taken aback.
Dayao's salt is completely shipped from several other countries. This is something even children know. When did Dayao have its own salt farm
"First of all, I would like to thank Master Ren, the head of Zizhu Academy. He is the one who figured out how to make salt from the brine in the mountains."
Everyone below pondered, where is this Zizhu Academy? Who is Master Ren? I don't remember such a person in the court.
It took a long time for someone to think of it, could this be the little boy His Majesty was looking for
"Chengling, which of His Majesty's scumbags is Lord Ren you are talking about?" someone asked.
"Disrespectful!" Cheng Ling's face darkened first, and then he thought about it. Although his words were a bit disrespectful to His Majesty, there seemed to be nothing wrong with them. He knows a little more than the common people, and he has heard about some things in the previous battle with Daxia in the north, but he still regards him as a little boy in his heart, let alone other people.
"Baby face is because of pale face!" Cheng Ling added.
"I didn't say anything else!" The voice in the crowd made everyone laugh, and it was better not to say what Cheng Ling said.
"Anyway, thanks to Mr. Ren, we have salt to eat. It's just that the salt has just been produced for a few months, and it has to be distributed to various cities, so it's a little less now. But in the future, there will be more and more salt, everyone There will be, so you don’t have to worry.”
Although everyone below had a playful smile on their faces, the tension caused by the lack of salt was relieved a lot, and they had a good impression of Ren Baqian in their hearts.
Ren Baqian's reputation among the people has improved a lot during this time.
…
Ren Baqian and the Empress stayed in Tianjing Land for more than three months, and many things happened outside.
There are three things that attract everyone's attention. The first is the war between the Tohoku Protectorate and the Izumo Kingdom.
Before the empress entered the land of Tianjing, Zhu Wuzhen dispersed the coalition forces of the city lords into Dayao's interior, destroying villages and villages, which was exactly the same tactic as Daxia's at that time.
In the early days, some border villages were destroyed a lot, but those villagers also taught the city lord coalition army of Yunguo how to behave.
The number of troops was less than 2,000, and they were even deflated in front of a village of hundreds of people, which greatly embarrassed the coalition forces of the city lords.
The reason is that the unsuspecting village had no time to move, so there was no way out, even if the last person in the battle would not die.
But the young soldiers of the allied forces of the city lords will retreat as long as their casualties exceed 15%, and they will collapse if their casualties exceed 20%.
In addition, most of the adult ancient tribes have the strength of human warriors.
In this way, the advancement of Yun Kingdom in the early stage was extremely slow.
When they learned from the pain and formed a large army, the newly trained new army arrived...
The result can be imagined...
When Ren Baqian and the others returned to Gucheng, Zi Donglai had already conquered the four cities of Izumo Kingdom.
The second thing is that Chen Guo sent troops to declare war.
The fighting in the southeast was not intense. Zhuo Liang and Chen Guo didn't seem to have much interest in fighting. The two sides stood at the border and stared at each other every day. Occasionally, they had a small fight, which was more like an exhibition match than a war.
Dayao is happy to hear about this incident, but he doesn't know how long this situation can last.
The third thing, and the most important one, is that the routes from Daxia, Izumo, and Chen Guo to Dayao to transport salt have been cut off. Since Chen Guo sent troops, no grain of salt has been transported into Dayao, which makes many people very nervous.
Fortunately, recently, the imperial court released a batch of salt, which was 100,000 shi, or 1.2 million catties, enough for more than 3 million people to eat for a month. With further restrictions, it can barely feed 7 million people.
And the imperial court is still vigorously promoting the fact that Ren Baqian has researched how to make salt in the mountains.
The people of Dayao still have a high degree of trust in the imperial court. Just like what happened in that small town, it happened everywhere, which also eased the tension everywhere.
But only a few people know that the salt is accumulated for half a year.
Although the speed of salt production in these three months has been greatly increased compared with the previous three months as salt wells have been dug out one after another and salt fields have been expanded, the salt produced each month is only 30,000 shi, which is barely enough for 1 million people to eat.
Next, the most important thing is to rely on Zi Donglai to grab it in Yunguo.
Therefore, the Empress's first order was to give Zi Donglai to occupy Yunguo as quickly as possible, and send all the salt found in each city back to Dayao.
Following the Empress' order, Zi Donglai completely let go of his hands and feet, and the offensive was in full swing.
After another half month, Ren Baqian and the Empress finally returned to Lancheng.