Economic and Trade Song Dynasty

Qin Juan and others walked for more than ten miles, but did not see any trace of the horse thief. After walking for three miles, they saw a cart left behind in one place, and there were signs of fighting around it.

"They should have been taken away by horse thieves." Qin Juan said, "Since there are no horse thieves in the direction we came, and Suzhou City is further north, then the horse thieves' den should be in the southwest."

After traveling southwest for about twenty miles, they saw a little desert.

At this time, some of the people who followed were afraid to go any further.

Qin Juan looked at the people behind him.

They said: "My lord, should we go there after dark, that should be their lair."

Qin Juan said instead: "I dare say that people have noticed us since we approached here. If we turn back now, we will definitely miss the opportunity at night."

"If Azaodong's people have already fought with them, we must go in now to prevent them from robbing goods and killing people, and we will not give them a chance to breathe at this time."

He is not a person who does things timidly, so when he said that, after a brief hesitation, the soldiers made up their minds to rush in after him.

A Zaodong compromised with the horse thieves in order not to kill the soldiers who followed him.

And Azaodong said that as long as the horse thieves don't move their goods, he can send someone to get money to redeem them.

The horse thieves opened some goods and found that they were just beans eaten by horses. If they wanted these things, they would rather take money, so they agreed.

Seeing that the horse thief agreed, Ah Zaodong asked the horse thief to send one of his men to report the news.

How could the horse thief agree? They asked Ah Zaodong where his friend lived, and the horse thief wanted to send someone to report the news.

Knowing that these people were afraid of letting them go, Ah Zaodong brought more people to wipe out their horse thief den.

A Zaodong casually mentioned an address, which was probably the address of a fellow villager in Suzhou City. In fact, that fellow villager was a businessman and would not live there for two or three years. He really just thought of it suddenly.

It was still several years ago that he passed by Suzhou to meet that fellow.

The horse thieves immediately sent people over after hearing this, and three people were sent to be cautious, because they were going directly to Suzhou City, and it was impossible to meet Qin Juan and the others.

There would not be too many horse thieves in Suzhou, because the merchant gangs here are very powerful. If the merchant gangs are very powerful in a place, the scale of the horse thief dens will not be too large, because the merchant gangs will suppress horse thieves in order to ensure their own safety.

Therefore, this group of horse thieves was not many in number, only a dozen or 20 people, and when they went out to plunder, they would only look for the caravan they looked at, so as to ensure that they would not rob people from the business gang in Suzhou.

Over time, the merchants in Suzhou knew that these horse thieves would not do anything to their goods, and they chose to turn a blind eye. After all, they let these horse thieves help suppress caravans from other places. , so that they can monopolize the commercial market here.

As a result, the power of the big horse thieves disappeared in the Suzhou area, and only the small horse thieves survived.

When Qin Juan and the others entered the forest, they were determined to fight with their backs. After all, there were a dozen of them in total, but when they entered the forest, they found that there were only a dozen or 20 horse thieves here, and their morale was high.

"Go and help Ah Zaodong and the others untie the rope."

"Whoever you dare to move, I will kill whoever!"

When those horse thieves saw someone coming in, they thought of killing A Zaodong and the cook camp first.

Qin Juan rode over and kicked over several horse thieves who drew their knives, pointing the tip of the knives at their necks: "I'll deal with you, dirty my knives, I tell you not to move."

Capture the thief first and capture the king first. Although Qin Juan didn't know if the person pointed at by the knife point was the leader of this group of horse thieves, it should not be an ordinary horse thief.

"Don't move yet!" The horse thief knew the current affairs and knew that they were no match for this person at all. They were officers and soldiers who could kill a few and then run away to change places. But this time they encountered no way for them do it.

Seeing that none of the horse thieves put down their knives, Qin Juan looked at him angrily, intending to hack him to death.

With a move of Qin Juan's knife, he said to the man: "Why, they don't listen to what you say, why should I keep you?"

"Brother, spare me!" The man was obviously not as old as Qin Juan, so he had to shout loudly at this moment, "Boss, tell me something, we can't beat them!"

Qin Juan looked over to find out where the boss was called by this man.

I saw a tall, disheveled man whose facial features could not be seen clearly, leading two men with machetes coming out from behind a Populus euphratica tree, and leading three horses.

It seemed that they wanted to run away depending on the situation, but because they were not sure what percentage of these brothers would survive, they didn't run away.

This is the usual operation of this group of horse thieves. If it is officers and soldiers who come today, make sure that their brothers can kill a few and retreat unscathed, the boss will not come forward, and take important people away first.

This is the second time that the horse thief's den has encountered such a situation today, and it has been six years since the first encounter.

At that time, it was a woman who brought people in to kill their brother.

At that time, the largest horse thief den was hit hard, and in order to survive, they reached an agreement with the merchant gang that they would not plunder the caravans in Suzhou, so in Suzhou, where the horse thieves disappeared, only they survived.

But this time, it seems to reappear six years ago

The disheveled leader of the horse thief said in unfluent Mongolian: "I'm sorry, I didn't know that you were members of the Shang Gang. I released all the people and goods. Please don't kill my brother."

Hearing this man's voice, Qin Juan was a little touched, because from this man's voice, he knew that the horse thief leader should be very young, maybe the same age as him, maybe younger...

Qin Juan felt that it was not all because of this, but that all the horse thieves standing here either wanted to kill him or were afraid of him. Only this person showed no emotional ups and downs at all.

Qin Juan had already made up his mind to kill all these horse thieves. After all, the matter of their food and grass might have been leaked, but this time he changed his mind after frowning deeply.

He didn't create killing karma, but chose to treat the captives in the same way as Boyawu.

"Confiscate all the knives and take them all away. Whoever dares to resist will be killed without mercy." Qin Juan withdrew the knife that was on the man. When he finished speaking, a horse thief stabbed him from behind with a knife.

Almost in the blink of an eye, Qin Juan didn't even turn his head. After dodging the stab, he snatched the horse thief's knife with his backhand and stabbed it into the man's stomach. He only used [-]% of his strength. People also see blood quickly...

"Whoever dares to resist, his end will be yours!" Qin Juan used his speed and ability to make these people fear and surrender, and they put down their knives in a hurry.

The young man seemed to be smiling, and the corners of his lips curled up in satisfaction, but he also ordered at the next moment: "Help him stop the bleeding, save him if he can survive."

When the horse thieves were tied up, several of them were frozen, unable to recover for a long time.

The horse thieves were covered with cloth bags, so they couldn't see where Qin Juan was taking them.

Back to camp, there are still twenty or thirty miles to go.

The person who assassinated Qin Juan also suffered a lot. He stopped the bleeding and bleeds all the way, repeated the cycle, his face was pale, and he passed out several times.

Qin Juan only said that if he could survive, he would save him. If he couldn't make it through, it would be his own fault.

Qin Juan's indifferent eyes swept over the crowd until they fell on the leader of the horse thief.

He was sure that the person who stabbed him should be one of the two "guards" of the horse thief leader, because now there is only one person who follows the horse thief leader inseparably.

Qin Juan can be sure that the leader of the horse thief has no internal strength at all. How did such a person get mixed up with the leader of the horse thief?

Anyone else risk their lives to protect him?

He had already begun to wonder if these horse thieves were really horse thieves.

It was dusk when they returned to their stronghold. After tying nineteen horse thieves to a tree stump in the forest, they took off the cloth bags covering their heads.

The horse thieves first saw that it was getting dark, then they saw the bonfire, and then they saw the people sitting by the bonfire, wearing armor and helmets... They all understood immediately.

Offend people who can't be offended.

They are all soldiers.

Qin Juan said to them: "I will give you a chance. No matter how many people you have killed and set fires before, I can let you join the army now. You are not slave soldiers, but soldiers. If you want to, you can stay. of."

Of course he killed him, but he didn't say anything.

"I would like to!"

cried a voice.

Qin Juan looked at him and curled his lips: "Tell me why you want to."

The man replied: "If I can eat enough and have a bed to sleep, I'm willing. Anyway, if I want to kill people, it's better to follow someone as prestigious as you to kill people."

Listening to this person's words, one can guess that he should be someone who hasn't been in the den of horse thieves for too long.

Three of the 19 people became bandits in the past two years, so the three agreed without any hesitation. At the beginning, they avoided conscription because their status was not good enough, and they could only enter the slave camp if they were arrested, so they chose For horse thieves, it is better for them to be soldiers than horse thieves. Moreover, this person in front of him is so powerful, and he must have food to follow, and that is enough.

Originally, Ah Zaodong thought that these people would all agree, but he didn't expect that there would be five or six people who would not be willing.

Naturally, the leaders of the horse thieves were unwilling.

A Zaodong took the first step and said: "You all want to die." Give them a wink to let them know the seriousness of the matter, it doesn't matter if they robbed him, but now it is a matter of death.

He also wouldn't act on his will, now that there were five or six lives, maybe nineteen, he was afraid that Qin Juan would get angry and order them all to be killed.

For those six people, the reason why they did not agree to join the army was that they became horse thieves a long time ago in order to escape the raging slave soldiers of the Mongolian people.

At that time, it was the most rampant time for arresting people and entering the camp.

But all the conditions are only temporary. When there is no one to catch, the period of forced recuperation will come. Now the barracks are much better.

The author has something to say:

Even the leader of the horse thief is also very important. Although it appeared for the first time today... in fact, at least three lines are related to him.