Kai Fu Han

Chapter 59
At dawn the next day, everyone got up and started busy.

Liu Xingang was left to take people from the Su and Zhang families to load coal on four ships.This time, we plan to transport two thousand stones of coal back to Dengzhou first, and the remaining nearly two thousand stones are planned to be bought and shipped back.

After seeing the loading of coal, Liu Xinqi and Liu Xinbao went to the port and various grain stores in Ye County to buy grains. They spent nearly a day buying coarse grains at five stores for the price of three cents per pound. Two thousand dan basically bought all the food that could be bought in the city.

A total of 430 taels of silver was spent, which is estimated to be enough for 1000 taels of people in the current clan to feed for two months.

Next time he comes to Laizhou to buy grain, the price will definitely rise. It is not a long-term solution to keep buying grain on Jingdong East Road. Liu Xinqi plans to return to Dengzhou and start to open up shipping routes to North Korea or Jiangnan, and buy grain in large quantities from there. .

It took one day to load the grain onto the ship. The fleet did not stop, but left the port overnight and sailed to Qinglinpu before resting.

After arriving at Qinglinpu again, Liu Xinqi got off the boat and took away the two teams of Liu Xingang and Liu Xinbao, leaving only Li Cang and his team members on the boat.

Liu Xinqi no longer plans to return to Penglai with the ship. After the fleet returns to Penglai to unload, it will come to Laizhou again to transport coal. It will not stop until the coal transported is enough for Dengzhou to use this winter.

It makes no sense for Liu Xinqi to follow the fleet back and forth. He plans to go to the refugee camp outside Laizhou City to see if it is possible to increase the population of Liujiabao, thereby increasing Liu Xinqi's "power" value.

……

On November [-]th, Liu Xinqi unloaded ten horses and some grain and grass from the ship. After sending the fleet away, he took nine soldiers on horseback and headed for the county seat of Guofu County-Ye County in Laizhou again by land.
Yesterday when I was buying food in the city, I heard some news. Some of the refugees outside Ye County have been diverted by the government to the southern prefectures and counties. There are not many left. The rest are some plans. Wait and see. See what happens next. Can you go back to your home in the north, or are you a refugee who just came here?

Arriving outside the city wall on the east side of Ye County, there was a large refugee camp here, which was made up of shacks. Most of the people inside were starving and skinny. When they saw Liu Xinqi's horse team approaching, they just numbly moved out of the way of the horses.

Passing through the shack camp, Liu Xinqi could occasionally see some cleanly dressed people picking out refugees, and some children had grass on their heads on the side of the road, waiting to be bought.

Not far from the city gate, there were three or four larger sheds. There was cooked rice porridge under the sheds, but no one went to drink it.

Liu Xinqi stepped forward and asked the man guarding the rice porridge shed, "Is this porridge for relief?"

The man looked Liu Xinqi up and down and replied, "No, this is life-saving porridge."

It was said to be life-saving, but no refugees came to ask for it.

"What kind of life-saving method?" Liu Xinqi asked again.

The man did not continue to answer Liu Xinqi's question, but took off the knife from his waist, held it against his chest, and looked at Liu Xinqi with a "don't meddle" in his eyes.

"If you drink this porridge, you will have to dig in the mines. Although you won't starve to death, it is equivalent to selling your life to the master's family." An older refugee next to him answered Liu Xinqi's question.

"Where's the government's relief?" Seeing the refugee's answer, Liu Xinqi asked him again.

"Once in the morning and once in the evening. It's very thin porridge, so I can only hang on for my life. The morning ones have been distributed," the refugee replied.

"It's difficult!" Liu Xinqi sighed. The refugees staying here obviously don't believe these gentry and mine owners. As an outsider, Liu Xinqi will also not be believed. This will make it difficult for Liu Xinqi to recruit these refugees to join Liujiapu. .After walking around the refugee camp again, he found that there were still two to three thousand refugees in the camp. Liu Xinqi called Liu Xiang and said to him: "Take someone to the bank in the city and bring them money to exchange for 100 taels." .”

After Liu Xinang set off, he said to Liu Xinbao again: "Take money and go to the city to buy some cooking cakes. Buy as much as you can."

When Liu Xinqi was transiting in the refugee camp just now, he found that most of these refugees still had some family background, so he dared to stay here and wait, otherwise he would have sold himself to the mine, so Liu Xinqi understood that recruiting them was not just a matter of spending money. Yes, one thing you need to do is gain their trust.

Thinking of this, Liu Xinqi thought of an allusion he had learned before, "moving trees to establish trust".Qin Xiaogong appointed Wei Yang to implement reforms to strengthen the country. After Wei Yang prepared the decree, he was worried that the people would not trust him, so he did not announce it immediately. He set up a three-foot-long wooden pole at the south gate of the capital market to recruit people who could move to it. The one who moved the pole to the north gate was rewarded ten gold pieces. At first, the people didn't believe it and no one moved it. Wei Yang raised the reward to fifty gold pieces. Finally, someone moved the pole to the north gate. Wei Yangma immediately rewarded him fifty gold pieces. After establishing prestige, the decree was issued.

Liu Xinqi intends to imitate Wei Yang today and come to "Tu Mu Li Xin".

After Liu Xinang and Liu Xingang brought back the money and cooking cakes, Liu Xinqi asked people to pile the cooking cakes on the cloth on the ground in the open space in the middle of the refugee camp. The white cooking cakes were piled half as high as a person. Among these hungry people, The extremely shocked people looked in their eyes, and most of the refugees gathered around.

Liu Xinqi arranged for the soldiers to draw their weapons and form a circle to protect the cooking cakes. He stood in the middle and shouted to the refugees around him: "I have ten horses here. If anyone can come up and wipe the sweat of these horses, I will Give him a cake."

There were ten burly men, fully armed, guarding the pair of pancakes. The refugees made no move to rob them, they just stood around and watched.After hearing Liu Xinqi's shouting, no one came forward.

"The first one to come forward, I will give him two cooking cakes, just come up and wipe your sweat and you can get it." Liu Xinqi picked up a cooking cake with one hand, raised it high, and shouted again.

Finally, a half-year-old child couldn't help it, rushed forward and asked, "Can I just wipe it off?"

"Yes, just one moment!" Liu Xinqi looked at him and said seriously.

The child didn't have anything to wipe sweat with, so he took off his tattered shirt, walked up to a horse, carefully wiped it on the horse's leg, then immediately moved away and looked at Liu Xinqi timidly.

Liu Xinqi smiled and handed him the two biscuits in his hand. The child looked at Liu Xinqi, quickly put his coat on his body, then stepped forward carefully to take the biscuits, and walked backwards towards the crowd, until he reached the edge of the crowd , turned around and ran away quickly.

Seeing that the child successfully received the cooking cake, the crowd around him suddenly became commotion, the discussion started loudly, and everyone was a little moved.

"You can only come one by one, no chaos, and line up in front of me. If anyone comes here randomly, don't blame us for being blind." Liu Xinqi saw something was wrong and shouted loudly.The surrounding soldiers also shouted: "Quiet! Quiet!"

After all, there was only a small pile of cooking cakes, and it was not desperate. The clever man immediately ran to stand in front of Liu Xinqi. The others saw it and crowded over.

Liu Xinqi quickly asked two soldiers to organize the queue. It took him a quarter of an hour to knock down a few disobedient ones, and finally managed to line up.But that is, the soldiers can only worry about the formation of a team fifty steps away. If it is further away, it will be a mess.

But Liu Xinqi was already satisfied. After all, there were not many cakes.

He started to ask those people in line to come forward and wipe the sweat of the horses, and then Liu Xinqi distributed cooking cakes to those who had wiped the sweat. The progress was very fast. After a quarter of an hour of queuing, the cakes were distributed in less than half a quarter of an hour.

Some of the people who had received the cooking cakes left, some stayed where they were, and most of the people who had not received the cooking cakes also stayed where they were, waiting to see what Liu Xinqi wanted to do.

(End of this chapter)