Chapter 191 Wrong Place
Zhao Yulin has been staying in the yard since he returned to Cuiping Mountain and has not gone out yet. Now he is much less likely to go out, so he calls the captain of the guard and asks him to go out for a walk. The head woman in the courtyard wants to go with him.
He waved his hand and said, "Let's go. The sun will be high soon and we will be sweating all over."
A group of people walked along the street towards the East Gate Pier.
The streets of Cuiping Mountain have become more and more beautiful after years of renovation. The summer orchids in the small flower beds on both sides of the street are releasing their endless fragrance, attracting the headwoman and Bai Ling to search for them along the way.
Zhao Yulin went out of the east gate and down to the pier, then took a boat across the river to visit his parents. After serving tea, his father still looked unhappy, saying that he had become more and more unruly as he became a high-ranking official, but he was already a father to a group of children.
Zhao Yulin knew that his father was complaining that he had not entered the Zhao family for such a long time since he came back.
His mother looked concerned and said he didn't look well. What's wrong? Is he sick?
When his mother heard her grandchildren telling her the story of Zhao Yulin's battle on the grassland, and thought about the fact that he never came home, she naturally worried that something had happened.
Zhao Yulin didn't dare say that he was injured. He just kept saying no, no, he was just tired from the long journey.
His father said, "You can't lie. You haven't recovered after so many days. If you are sick, you should go see a doctor. Don't delay."
Haha, the old scholar was thinking about the fact that he was sick, so even though his words were cold, they were full of concern.
Zhao Yulin said goodbye to his parents and went to Jiuzhouba. The headmaster's daughter had already stayed at the Litchi Green Tavern. When she saw him coming, she asked him to sit down and taste the tribute wine.
Wang Dehui saw him from afar, and walked up to him with a smile and said, "Brother Yulin, you've come back a long time ago. Why are you here to see me today?"
He chuckled and sat opposite the headmistress, ordering the dishes to be served, especially the best green lychees.
While Wang Dehui was calling the waiter to serve the dishes, he walked over to Zhao Yulin and stared at the head girl and asked, "Brother Yulin has married a new wife? What do you call her?"
Zhao Yulin was drinking tea from a tea bowl when he suddenly spat out a mouthful of bloody tea. The head girl and the guard immediately stood up in panic to help him clean up the blood. Bai Ling shot a swift look at Wang Dehui and took out her handkerchief to wipe the table clean.
He recovered his breath and said with a smile, "She is the head of Emei, what nonsense are you talking about? Bring me some wine."
When Wang Dehui saw Zhao Yulin vomiting blood, he was stunned and stood there.
Bai Ling shouted unhappily: "Boss, bring some wine."
The female shopkeeper then woke up and asked the waiter to serve the litchi green tribute wine.
The head woman stretched out her hand openly, took Zhao Yulin's pulse and said with a smile that she didn't care, so what was there for Brother Yulin to care about?
Haha, Zhao Yulin was so anxious that he choked on a mouthful of blood, and he still took the blame.
Seeing that the tavern had been cleared, he asked Geng Feihu and his brothers to take turns eating something and try the litchi Qinggong wine.
The head girl felt Zhao Yulin's pulse and found that it was abnormal. She watched Zhao Yulin drink three cups before stopping. Qu Tao, who was standing next to him, also stood up and said with a cold face that the military doctor had instructed that the young master was not allowed to drink.
Zhao Yulin suddenly felt that life was boring, and he became a little decadent in his thoughts. Looking at the bustling streets, he felt no passion at all. He looked down and said hello and went back.
Wang Dehui saw that the crowd had gone away, but he was still standing foolishly at the door of the pub.
When the captain of the guard paid the bill, he quietly sealed her mouth and told everyone in the tavern not to tell anyone that the third young master was unwell.
What's going on? Is Brother Yulin really in trouble?
Wang Dehui lived a peaceful life for a while, and she also accumulated a lot of money from running the tavern. After redeeming her family's exquisite courtyard at the South Gate, she lived a leisurely life. Every time when it was late at night, she felt that the courtyard and the house were empty, and she began to think about the romantic Zhao Yulin again.
The newspaper reported a rebellion in Hongyuan a few days ago, and Zhao Yulin happened to come back. Could it be that Brother Yulin was injured in the rebellion?
It doesn't look like it. She saw Brother Yulin walking normally and he didn't have any missing limbs. What happened?
Wang Dehui was awakened from his daze when someone in the bar shouted for the bill. He didn't even know how long he had been standing at the door.
Zhao Yulin returned to Cuiping Mountain and ordered the captain of the guard to invite the town manager back for tea and discussion.
After a short while, everyone was together.
Qu Tao saw more than thirty shopkeepers, young and old, sitting together in the hall. After serving tea to Zhao Yulin, he started to get busy with the maid.
Zhao Yulin bowed and apologized to everyone, saying that he was not feeling well and had called everyone together for the meeting today. Then he asked everyone to speak freely and tell their stories.
Si Niang first reported the financial situation of the Shenwei Army. Miss Wang in Gongzhou found her family's hidden silver of 800,000 taels, and various places raised 1 million taels of silver for emergency relief, which had solved the problem of insufficient military pay. However, in order to raise funds, she sold half of the shares of the Yibin and California street-building companies at a premium, and it was estimated that the income from the two street-building companies would be greatly reduced.
Zhao Yulin nodded and said that Si Niang had troubled him and that this was the only thing they could do. They had to get through this hurdle first.
His mother said that the retail outlets of Shenwei Army have already covered all counties and prefectures, and they cannot do more. She and Si Niang discussed streamlining the accounting staff and sending out those who can to urge localities to practice strict economy and increase the number of marketing staff.
Zhao Yulin said yes, he looked at Chen Xian and asked how the production and sales of the new carts were going? We can slowly sell the low-profit restaurants such as rice noodles to the people to run them by themselves, and concentrate on the production of workshops.
Chen Xian told him that large trucks were in short supply and that buyers were placing orders from all over. If the price was lowered a little more, more buyers would come to buy the trucks.
This was the issue Zhao Yulin wanted to talk about. He glanced at Shopkeeper Xiaoju and said that not only the prices of carts, but also our wine, porcelain, glassware and soap should be lowered so that more people can consume and use them.
The price of large trucks will remain stable for a while and will be adjusted based on marketing conditions. First, the prices of glass, wine and ceramic products that have already been produced on a large scale will be lowered step by step.
Everyone started discussing it immediately.
Lu Youpeng on his left hesitated and said that the eldest master was doing something wrong. The eldest master made Yibin burning noodles under the name of our Shenwei Army, but the silver he paid every year was very little. Recently, people in Jiazhou said that the burning noodles seemed to be mixed with lamp oil, and the smell was weird. After eating, people would have diarrhea, which damaged the reputation of our Shenwei Army.
He asked Si Niang, didn't Chen Chen care?
Si Niang stammered and said that the eldest young master was very busy and that Chen Chen had reminded him twice but he just wouldn't listen, so she asked Manager Lu to talk to him.
Zhao Yulin understood that it was his elder brother who disobeyed orders and stubbornly smashed the signboard of Yibin Yanmian.
He asked the accounting office not to charge Zhao Yuqing for the management fee of yanmian, and asked Mr. Zhang Xiangyang from the academy to help him publish a statement in the newspaper, saying that the Shenwei Army would no longer make yanmian in the future. Yibin yanmian is a folk specialty noodle food, and everyone can make their own favorite Yibin yanmian to taste.
Everyone thought this was a good idea. Nowadays, many people in the county town also opened shops to make noodles, so they could make money by relying on their skills, quality and service. It also saved Zhao Yuqing from complaining to the police for not taking action and allowing people to open shops to infringe on the exclusive rights of the Shenwei Army to make noodles.
The essence here is to make profits for Zhao Yuqing himself.
Zhao Yulin knocked on the table and said, we are making money for the Shenwei Army, we cannot cheat the common people, especially the imported food, which is related to everyone's health, how can we treat it as a joke?
Others are supervised by the government, so we should also be conscious and not destroy the golden signboard of the Shenwei Army. He told Lu Youpeng to immediately send a letter to all the places with favorable winds, asking him to remove all the Yibin noodles with the Shenwei Army signboard. The atmosphere in the meeting hall suddenly became serious.
It was late at night, Zhao Yulin felt his blood boiling and couldn't help coughing.
Qu Tao felt distressed and quickly took out a handkerchief and gave it to Zhao Yulin. Zhao Yulin covered his mouth with it, wiped it clean, and put it in his pocket. The maid immediately handed him a tea bowl.
Lao Lu was afraid that everyone would notice that he was unwell, so he asked Chen Xian to continue speaking.
Chen Xian said that Renhuai had built a gold mine and two silver mines, and the output was OK. But he felt that if they worked hard to produce more gold and silver, it would not benefit the society.
He said, no matter how much gold you have, can it be eaten?
Everyone laughed immediately, saying that gold and silver certainly cannot be eaten.
Zhao Yulin's fourth mother added that the price of grain has risen a bit this year, and the grain production is likely to decrease.
Chen Xian pointed to an old man sitting nearby and introduced Mr. Chen Fu, a new member of Guiguzi. Mr. Chen was a hermit who had been studying farming for a long time. He was very knowledgeable about farming and had written three volumes of "Agricultural Book" to encourage farming.
Zhao Yulin was surprised that there were such strange people among the people.
The old man cleared his throat and said that there is only so much arable land at the moment. On the one hand, we should continue to reclaim wasteland and expand planting, but more should be done to discover those grain varieties with high grain yield per mu and promote their planting. Intensive farming to increase grain yield per unit area is equivalent to increasing the land and saving labor.
Zhao Yulin gave the old man a thumbs up and applauded.
He said that we should be cautious about seeds, first select the best seeds from various places for trial planting, and then promote them step by step. As the saying goes, the weather is different every ten miles, and the climate on the mountain is different, so planting cannot be generalized.
The old man agreed with his opinion very much.
Chen Xian said that in order to do this well, support from local governments is needed.
Lu Youpeng said that this was easy to do. We could start by doing it at the Shenwei Army’s base and ask Cuiping Morning News to publicize it in the newspaper.
Zhang Xiangyang immediately agreed happily and also planned to publish Chen Fu's "Agricultural Book" for agricultural reference in various places.
Chen Fu said happily, "How can I get it? It's impossible."
This meeting lasted a bit too long. The cocks had already crowed three times, and everyone was still exchanging information. Zhao Yulin was already tired, and everyone was yawning.
He told everyone to disperse and take a rest before discussing the weapons manufacturing with Chen Xian and the others.
Zhao Yulin had just returned to his room and laid down when Lu Youpeng came to him and handed him a secret letter saying that the Mongolian army was marching south in large numbers. He opened the letter and saw that the Mongolian army's central commander was Tachaer, and his vanguard had already approached Tangzhou.
