In the next few days, everyone in Liuliba took action separately. They integrated the forces of all the villages in Jiguan Mountain and established a joint defense consultation meeting to jointly prevent bandits. Ouyang Xuan took the lead and Lu Dezhi organized it. Ouyang Xuan ordered Yang Xiucai to Chongqing In the name of inspection along the mountain, the government wrote letters inviting all villages to come to Liuliba for discussion. A total of fourteen village owners came as promised. In Jiguan Mountain, in addition to Liuliba and Wanjiaping occupied by the Xiongben gang, there are also Goujiaping and other seventeen small villages. No one was sent to Liuliba to participate in the meeting this time. Yanfeng Village and two nearby small villages did not send anyone to attend. This Yanfeng Village is located in the deep mountains, eighty meters away from Wanjiaping. It is 50 miles away from Liuliba. According to common sense, the further away from Wanjiaping, the less afraid of bandits and the more motivated to participate in joint defense. However, according to the people of Liuli Village who were sent to deliver the letter, the leader of Yanfeng Village, Zhong Not only did Zhui tear up the letter in person, he also threatened the nearby small villages not to go to Liulizhai for the meeting. Although most of the villages ignored Zhong Zhui's threats, there were still two small villages that did not dare to come because of fear. Ouyang Xuan followed Lu De He learned from his mouth that Zhong Zhui was originally a scoundrel. Bandits from Wanjiaping went everywhere to rape and rape village girls. The villagers shunned them. Instead, he gave his daughter to Xiong Ben as a concubine. Although Xiong Ben didn't look at it. He went to Zhongchui's daughter and gave her to his subordinates. However, he felt that her loyalty could be used. After looking for an opportunity to kill the original leader of Yanfeng Village, he made Zhongchui the leader of the village and controlled several nearby small villages. He helped collect "taxes". Zhong Chui himself was very powerful and had Xiong Ben as his backer, so he acted more and more domineeringly and did a lot of bad things.

At this joint defense meeting, the village leaders accused the Xiong Ben gang and Zhong Zhui of their evil deeds, and demanded that the Pili Army eliminate all evil deeds in order to relieve the suffering of the people. After hearing these words, Ouyang Xuan understood the thoughts of these village owners. On the one hand, they have been oppressed for many years and hope to get rid of Xiong Ben's oppression; on the other hand, like the Liuliba army and the Wanjiaping bandits, they can dominate the village and live a happy life. In the eyes of these village owners, There is no difference between the official army and bandits. After the village leaders finished speaking, Ouyang Xuan brought up the main purpose of the meeting - joint defense. That is, if one village is attacked by bandits, the other villages will send troops to help. , this is actually the establishment of a military alliance. As for the issue of lax armaments raised by each village, the Liuli Village capture team can send instructors to conduct military training. If the weapons are not enough, they can also buy them at a preferential price from Liuliba - Transport Brigade Captain Xiong Ben There are still a lot of swords, guns and shields left behind after the last defeat. Now that the blacksmith shop has expanded, it can also produce some of them.

It is said that there are many villages in the participating villages that have iron ore, but the scale is too small, and the smelting and forging level is much worse than Liuliba. It is barely enough for making farm tools, but it is too unsatisfactory for making weapons. , this is also an important reason why each village was suppressed by the Xiong Ben gang. As for the village leaders who participated in the meeting, they asked to gather troops now and attack Wanjiaping in one fell swoop. Ouyang Xuan responded that he would plan for it slowly. On the one hand, based on the existing strength of the Perak Army, The strength of the army is sufficient for defense but insufficient for offense. Only after the trial production of light artillery is successful, Ouyang Xuan will consider attacking Wanjiaping. On the other hand, he will also need to borrow the threat of the Xiong Ben gang to complete the strength of each village. Integration. The village owners suggested to Ouyang Xuan not to collect grain from each village, but to buy and sell grain to the public if necessary. In the minds of the mountain people, Xiong Ben imposed taxes, so he was a bandit. Is it possible that the officers and soldiers also want to become bandits? It is a dream for every village to receive military training from instructors. Only the necessary weapons need to be purchased. Although it is a preferential price, the village owners still feel that Ouyang Xuan is stingy and feel quite unhappy. .However, after careful consideration, each village still placed arms orders one after another. After all, in these troubled times, only those with arms can protect the safety of the village and their own power status.

Just when the joint defense and anti-bandit matters were about to be discussed, Ouyang Xuan asked people to invite Yu Zhu and the mining team, and the head of the trading team met with the village owners. Due to Yu Zhu's long-term illness, his body has caused irreversible damage.

Because of the damage, he was not suitable for marching and fighting for the time being, so Ouyang Xuan asked him to be responsible for economic affairs such as industry, mining, commerce and trade. In fact, the economic affairs that Yu Zhu was responsible for seemed not as heavy as military affairs, but it was actually very heavy. In addition to mining, the focus was on industrial products

Manufacturing and trading industry. When Yu Zhu proposed the relevant terms of jointly developing mining and buying and selling mountain goods with various villages, it immediately aroused great interest from the owners of the participating villages. Looking at Yu Zhu and Liu Zhong of the mining team, the trading team

Wang Youfu, Zhu Tiaozi and the village owners were having a heated discussion, and Ouyang Xuan walked out of the venue. As he walked, he sighed in his heart: "It seems that no one in this world can live with money."

Yu Zhu took the absolute leading position in the commercial negotiations with various mountain villages to cooperate in mining, and also took the absolute controlling interest in the negotiated cooperation agreement. Because in addition to technology, the explosives and professional excavation tools required for blasting the mines

Liuliba provides key links such as production and refining technicians. Each village only needs to provide the land and labor required for mining, and the negotiated distribution output is roughly divided into 28%. Of course, there are exceptions, such as one called Daping.

Because the village has rich saltpeter resources and a large number of laborers, the output is divided into 30% and 70%. Of course, even with this distribution model, each village will not suffer a loss. Even if these mines in the agreement are put into production, even if they only get 20%, relatively

In the old slash-and-burn production method, the income was extremely impressive.

According to Ouyang Xuan's plan, the initial development of industry and mining is mainly to serve the construction of a firearms army, to achieve mass production of grenades, artillery and trial production of muskets as soon as possible, and to build some cold weapons. These military products require a large amount of high-quality steel.

and other minerals. This requires not only increasing the mining of iron, coal, sulfur, and fire salt, but also building additional steel-making furnaces, coke kilns, blacksmith shops, water-powered mills... and the above construction requires a lot of resources.

Investment. Of course, the establishment and training of the Thunderbolt Army planned by Ouyang Xuan is also a huge expense. How to raise these military expenses has made his head hurt during this period. This mountain inspection is an empty job, and the Chongqing Prefecture has not given any

Funds, and Ouyang Xuan promised not to requisition grain from the villages in the mountains, so the funds could only be obtained by carrying out industrial, mining and commercial activities.

In fact, if the roads are open, people can organize people to transport mountain goods and iron products to Chongqing Prefecture, Yongkang County and other places for sale, and then transport them back to sell daily necessities, and the profits will be quite generous. For example, to distant places such as Qiongzhou and Chengdu Prefecture,

When Jiading Prefecture carried out trade, the profits were even greater. However, the Wanjiaping bandits were severely injured after being severely beaten, and they no longer dared to come out to disturb the villages. However, due to its location blocking the access to and from the mountain, the caravan was still unable to pass.

, so much so that Xiong Ben made a clamor to cut off the salt in each village, and to trap all villages in the mountain. It is said that the Wanjiaping bandits have blocked the road for a long time, making the necessities of life in the mountain extremely expensive, especially the price of salt is incompatible with the nearest salt-producing land nearby.

The difference between Qiongzhou and Qiongzhou is more than 10 times. In order to solve the problem of salt shortage, Ouyang Xuan and Yu Zhu decided to choose those with strong physical strength to go to Qiongzhou to exchange for salt through the trail explored by Dong Hu and others, and to Chongqing Mansion to exchange for salt.
Chapter completed!