Nanming Engineer

Chapter 80
Ma Chongming was sweating profusely, and said in a loud voice: "When these refugees first arrived in March, there were only a few thousand people. I hesitated. I wanted to drive them out of the country and let them go to other states and counties for food. But Qin Xuan comforted the plight of the refugees, and couldn't bear to see them wandering, so he asked me to set aside this earthen fortress to take them in and provide them with food every day. Who would have thought that only three months had passed, and the number of refugees would gather more and more, and now they were too big to lose. Is that good?"

Wang Huan frowned and said, "As the saying goes, a strong dragon can't overwhelm a local snake, and the horse-headed man is the landlord here. Can't he deal with tens of thousands of refugees?"

Ma Chongming wiped the sweat off his fat face, and said in a hoarse voice, "Counselor Wang didn't know something. Thousands of armored soldiers can be gathered, and with a wave of spears, Qin Xuanwei makes the flag point, invincible, and the posture is bright, those refugees dare not even fart. It is a pity that the imperial court recruits soldiers every year, exhausting my stone pillars. Now my tribe doesn’t even have a hundred armored soldiers, how can I deal with tens of thousands of refugees, let alone a local snake, I’m even worse than an earthworm!”

Only then did Wang Huan understand why this man was so flustered, but after thinking about it, Wang Huan asked again: "Although there are tens of thousands of refugees, they are all refugees. The headman can ask for troops from the Xuanwei Envoy, as long as there are only one or two hundred officers and soldiers, order can be maintained and this dilemma can be resolved."

Ma Chongming's face changed color and said: "Counselor, the refugees are no better than ordinary people. They are all hungry and crazy dogs. As long as there is no food, they dare to raise the flag to rebel. If they are forced to rebel, the court will The blame is still light, how can we end up."

Wang Huan glanced at him, sighed softly, and said slowly, "Then let me ask the chief, how much grain is there in the granary?"

Ma Chongming's face immediately became paler, and he said in a long-winded manner: "There are [-] dou left, and this is still brought from Tusi City. If you eat it up, it will be gone."

Wang Huan pointed to the crowded wall and said loudly: "Headman, look outside, there are more than 2 people, even if each of them eats half a liter of grain every day, they need [-] dou of grain every day." , How many days can you eat the [-] buckets of grain stored in the headman's warehouse? If it's all eaten up, what will your people eat?"

Ma Chongming said with a bitter face: "After eating all, we can only ask the Xuanwei Envoy to send us food."

Wang Huan shook his head and said: "There is no surplus grain in the chieftain city. It is not a long-term solution to sit and eat. If you don't buy grain from outside, the refugees outside will make trouble sooner or later. It is better to open mines to get food while there is grain in the warehouse and it can be restrained." Yin, buying grain from other places is fundamental. I heard that Matou people are grain merchants, so there must be many channels for buying grain, right?"

He inquired very clearly that Ma Chongming, as the leader, was also a wealthy grain merchant. Qin Liangyu assigned the refugees to his territory at the beginning because he considered that the fat man had enough food. Who would have expected that there would be more and more refugees? Ma Chongming couldn't take it anymore, he said so much at this moment, just wanted to get rid of Wang Huan, the counselor sent by Qin Liangyu, and put all the responsibility on Qin Liangyu.

When it came to buying and selling grain, Ma Chongming's eyes lit up, and he straightened his chest and said, "That's right, Counselor Wang, you don't tell lies in front of real people. If you want to say that in the territory of Shizhu, there is no one who is better at buying food than me, Ma." There is food, Jiangnan Huguang, my relationship is everywhere, as long as I go out, there is no food that cannot be bought back."

After a pause, he smiled again and said: "But the money for buying grain, Counselor Wang, can you really find a silver mine and dig out the silver? I heard that the Xuanwei Envoy doesn't have much silver in the treasury. I paid for it in the past two months." The relief food for the refugees has not been settled yet. If I can’t dig out the money, even if I have supernatural skills, I can’t buy the food back.”

Wang Huan glanced at him, thinking that the folk customs of this stone pillar are so simple, why did such a profiteer come out, it seems that this guy is determined not to take food for relief, but justice is not enough, Ma Chongming's reaction is normal .

Wang Huan said in a deep voice: "Don't worry about this, as long as the mine can be opened, I will definitely be able to dig out silver!"

Ma Chongming curled his lips and fell silent, with a few words clearly written on his face: Just blow it!

Shizhu was in the Ming Dynasty, and there were many mine supervisors coming and going. I have never seen anyone who dug out a silver mine. You, a boy with no hair at all, can dig out the mine?Who would believe it!

Seeing that he was not moving, Wang Huan frowned, turned around and said to the leader of the soldiers who followed him: "Leader Ma, please gather your people together, I have something to say!"

This leader of the soldiers is the general manager of Qin Liangyu's standard battalion. Although the official position is the general manager, there are only 200 people under him, all of whom are here to protect Wang Huan's safety.The surname of Shizhu Ma is the common surname, most people have the surname Ma, and the general manager is named Ma Xintian. He is about 24 to [-] years old. He is tall and strong, with a bee waist and ape arms, and a Chinese character face with thick eyebrows. He looks like a Tujia man. Standing next to Wang Huan in a leather armor with a sabre, he listened to Wang Huan's order, answered loudly, and turned to find someone.

Wang Huan said to Ma Chongming again: "Ma Touren, please also gather all your subordinates, I have something to say."

Ma Chongming became worried: "Counsellor Wang, are you going to use force? Will there be any problems?"

Wang Huan said in a deep voice: "It doesn't matter. If something goes wrong, I will bear the responsibility. Just call someone over."

Ma Chongming's face was uncertain, obviously he didn't believe Wang Huan's words very much, and after a long time of preparation, he went out to call someone from the back door.

After the two left, Chen Ergou and Xu Goudan came up together, and asked puzzledly: "Wang Huan, oh no, Brother Huan, why do you have to use refugees to mine? Those refugees don't want to forget it, You can use Stone Pillar natives."

Wang Huan jumped off the wall, looked at the two of them and shook his head and said, "You have also heard that there are not many young and middle-aged men left in Shizhu. Mine, it’s too wasteful, those refugees waste food every day, what can they do without a little effort, just use it as a miner.”

Xu Goudan thought for a while and said, "But we only have 300 people on hand, and there are 2 people outside. Can we overwhelm them?"

Wang Huan laughed. In later generations, he has seen street riots and crowd riots in countless countries. Even if there are hundreds of thousands of people rioting, as long as there are no behemoth-like forces quietly instigating and supporting them, it only takes hundreds of police forces to suppress them. The key is to see whether the officials in charge dare to make up their minds at the risk of losing their black hats, while the refugees outside have nothing to rely on, just relying on more people and wanting more food. Throwing a piece of candy will calm you down immediately, but in the end you have to work obediently according to your own wishes.

He patted the shoulders of the two of them, and said forcefully: "So many people came out of Yangzhou, only the three of us survived in the end, the world is scorching cold, life and death, we have all seen it, so what is there to be afraid of? You will follow me later." Left and right, go out together, do you two dare?"

Chen Ergou and Xu Goudan both had white faces, and the deafening yelling and scolding outside was almost beside them. The restlessness of tens of thousands of people said that they were not afraid that it was fake, but the two of them nodded at the same time without any hesitation. Xu Goudan pursed his lips tightly, while Chen Ergou yelled, "Why don't you dare to follow you, I'm not afraid of anything!"

(End of this chapter)