The situation has been clear, and the merchants are very clear that the lion tribe is not safe and must leave as soon as possible and go to other tribes.

Only by intercepting the messenger can you ensure safety. Of course, if there is no movement in the direction of Pingqiu City for a long time, Donglin City will definitely send someone to inquire. At that time, it will not be a team of two people, or at least a patrol team of more than five hundred people.

In the past few days, the Shattered Gold City has become more crowded than usual. Most merchants choose to leave here and go to the dragon clan in the north.

This did not attract the attention of the Lord of the Broken Gold. Similar situations were also the same before. Generally speaking, winter is a good time to buy and sell grain. The lion tribes are rich in corn and potatoes. The cattle tribes, deer tribes, and pig tribes in the north will exchange their own specialties with gold and silver... I almost forgot that they are no longer the cattle tribe, they are called the dragon tribe.

As long as you pay the tax honestly, Shajin City is a free city.

The Lion King's order was blocked outside Donglin City. According to normal circumstances, it would take at least one day before the Lord of Donglin City would notice something was wrong and sent a large group of troops to Pingqiu City.

From Pingqiu to Shujincheng, the two places are still far away, and the merchants have enough time to escape.

On the northern wasteland, a half-new city gradually appeared on the horizon. As the distance continued to get closer, it became more real and clearer.

This is the reconstruction of Fang City.

Shi Lie led the guards to the square located in the south of the city.

Under normal circumstances, Shi Lie would not pay special attention to "caravan transit". There have been checkpoints outside Fang City, and caravans of the Dragon Clan and Lion Clan must pay taxes when entering and leaving. Shi Lie is Shi Rui's clan brother. He is very clear that this clan brother has always supported the merchants, so he never makes things difficult for business issues. As long as the merchants pay taxes honestly and do not cover up the rumors, Shi Lie will not treat them as enemies.

As the highest commander of Fang City, Shi Lie is naturally equipped with some clear-minded and quite eye-catching people. Especially his adjutant, he paid special attention to the Liuyun City official incident and kept thinking about the current attitude of the Lion King towards the use of money. Although he did not receive the order sent from Roaring City, he subconsciously felt that the large-scale caravan transit was a bit strange. The adjutant did not think that the merchants were cheating, but just stood at the interests of the lion clan and believed that so many merchants should not be left at this time.

Today it happened to be the adjutant on duty. He randomly checked the goods of several merchants and found that most of them were food.

For a long time, grain has been an important project of the lion's foreign trade. But that was the past. Since the cattle clan was named the Dragon clan, the grain output of the dragon clan has remained high. It is not clear what extent it has reached. However, based on the information collected from all aspects, we can indeed draw a general conclusion--the dragon clan's people do not lack food.

The army on the border was particularly sensitive to this kind of thing. He sorted out his guess: merchants bought and sold goods in order to pursue profits, and sold food in an area that was not short of food. What is this for?

The merchants have their own statement: We signed a long-term contract with His Highness the Regent of the Dragon Clan, and the noble Highness allowed us to exchange food for peat.

After all, the adjutant was not a true businessman. Faced with the unanimous remarks of hundreds of merchants, he felt that he could not make any judgment. He had no choice but to report it to Shi Lie and make a decision.

According to the order of the adjutant, all the merchants stood in two rows in the square. Behind them were as many as tens of thousands of carts and a huge group of followers.

Family, errands, bodyguards... Among them, there are the largest number of errands and bodyguards, with more than 24,000.

This was the first time Shi Lie encountered this situation. He frowned, took turns walking past the merchants and interrogated them carefully.

"What's your name? Where do you live?"

"What goods did you bring?"

"It's so cold, why do you have to bring your wife and children when you go out to do business?"

The merchants formed a group. They had already discussed various possible situations on the way and formulated a complete set of detailed response plans.

Nodding and bowing, smiling, flattering... Everyone had a smile on their faces, and they would take out animal skin purs from hidden places and hand them over quietly. Shi Lie is not unfamiliar with this kind of thing. He was interested in unbuttoning the tether to seal the purses and found that there were shining scattered gold and silver inside.

"My Lord Commander, I have no choice! The peat supply contract signed by His Highness the Regent of the Dragon Clan is about to expire. Look, this one is it. It stipulates that you must renew your contract in Panshi City before March next year, and it cannot be replaced by others, so I can only go there myself."

"Yes! Otherwise, who would have been willing to take this detour in this cold weather?"

"Actually, we all have the same idea. It's winter now. You can go back and forth in half a month when the snow is not heavy. On the one hand, you can renew the contract, and on the other hand, you can also exchange grain for peat. You can actually make money by transporting grain from us, but the peat in Panshi City is really cheap. If you exchange grain for peat, change to two trucks, and bring some salt and dried fish, you can also make a good return."

These answers are reasonable and largely dispelled the suspicion of Shi Lie and the adjutant. After walking around like this, I checked most of the goods. Just when the merchants felt that there was no problem, Shi Lie suddenly smiled and asked, "Since you are going to do business, why do you have to bring your family with you?"

Shi Lie had never studied psychology, but he knew that suddenly asking questions without warning often resulted in special effects. To be fair, he had doubts about these businessmen, and although the other party's answer was unreliable, he still felt uneasy.

The headed merchant said calmly: "This is because of the invitation of His Highness the Regent."

"Invitation?" Shi Lie was not very convinced of this explanation.

"Yes." The merchant nodded: "We have been working with the Dragon Clan all year round to exchange their peat for food. This started when he did not change his clan name or the cattle Clan. We are all agents of the "Shengxinglong" business. We have been running to the Dragon Clan a lot over the years, and we are responsible for distributing almost all the peat in Panshi City. This fall, the manager of "Shengxinglong" specially sent someone to notify us that His Highness the Regent would like to thank us for our long-term cooperation and invite our family to go to Panshi City to attend the celebration hosted by His Highness the Princess."

Shi Lie and the adjutant looked at each other and saw curiosity in each other's eyes.

This explanation makes sense, and there seems to be no flaws.

But for some reason, Shi Lie still had an indescribable concern in his heart.

There are too many caravans to the North Dragon Clan. Both the goods and the number of people exceeded the estimate. What is even more suspicious is that all these merchants are taking care of their families, and the elderly and children have exceeded the normal ratio.

The strong foundation of the Lion Clan is that it has carried out currency reforms in advance. Shi Lie has read the clay templates collected by the royal archives. Although he is not an economist, he has a rough concept of the value relationship between gold, tokens and commodities. Commercial circulation means more taxes, and no one dares to disobey His Majesty the orders of His Majesty the Lion Clan. It is no exaggeration to say that in the Lion Clan, the status of merchants is much higher than that of civilians. Although this is a special period, Shi Lie does not dare to detain all caravans based on his own suspicion and prohibit them from going to the Dragon Clan.

What's more, the reason for "the dragon clan's regent invites to attend the celebration" is logical, and there is no problem.

"You guys wait first!" Shi Lie made a decision quickly: "Wait first, after a week, if everything is normal, I will let you leave Fangya City."

Although this place is a newly built border fortress, it is not far from the main city of the Lion Clan in the rear. Shi Lie plans to send a messenger there to find out the situation. If everything in the rear city is as normal, it means that these merchants have not lie. Anyway, it will only take a week to go back and forth, and it will not take too long.

...

At night.

Fangya City was burned into ruins by a fire. Although the fire was large, it could not destroy the building foundation. Shi Lie led the army of 200,000 Lion tribes to rebuild the city defense here, and the parts that were mainly repaired and reinforced were city walls. The barracks were built on the basis of indigenous houses, with roofs covered with wood and mud. The structure was simple, so on the premise of satisfying the stacking of military supplies, some empty houses can be freed for temporary rest for merchants to visit and visit.

The temporary rest area of ​​the caravan was designated by Shi Lie. This is a large area of ​​newly built houses located on the east side of Fangya City. After escaping from Roaring City, the scale of this team continued to expand. In order to leave the Lion Territory as soon as possible, the merchants prepared enough food and fuel in advance. It is dinner time, and looking around, there are sparks of fire everywhere inside and outside the house.

Based on different caravans, the cattle, horses and livestock were centrally managed by pulling carts. Shi Lie sent two thousand soldiers outside the camp, and the number of patrol teams doubled compared to usual. A large number of archers were stationed at places far from the camp, surrounding the place tightly. Temporary checkpoints were also set up at each intersection. No matter who thought, they needed to report and get permission to leave.

Yaohui is the supervisor of "Sheng Xinglong" in the branch of the Wu Xiaocheng. In his forties, he is young and strong, with a manly look. He has a smile on his rough face at any time. He feels very comfortable and easy to get along with regardless of appearance or behavior.

A strong man in a black cotton robe sat at the door of the big house. He held a large piece of bread in his left hand and tried to chew it. The cake was broken from the middle, with a sauce-red bacon inside. He held a bowl of thick corn batter in his right hand. It was probably because it was just cooked too hot. The strong man was blowing the batter while turning the big bowl and sucking it, and he was sweating all over his head.

A battle knife was slanted on his back, and a round shield was placed beside the wall. A pot full of feather arrows hung on the pillar beside the door, and a bow with rough workmanship but not underestimated power.

With the big house as the core, there are as many as hundreds of strong men with similar equipment scattered around. They gathered large trucks loaded with goods to form irregular walls. There were three or five people wandering at the entrance at any time. They seemed to be chatting and bragging, but their vigilant eyes were always staring at the periphery of the "car wall".

Yaohui walked over with several guards. The strong man looked up and glanced at him, making a faint "hmm" sound from his nostrils. He tilted his head slightly and signaled him to go in.

This is a large room with a large, two small and three fires. Two small fires are close to the wall, and women and children gather around them. They use simple kitchen utensils to bake cakes on the fire, and the cured meat cut into thin slices keeps turning over in the pot, emitting a rich aroma, while also releasing a pleasant "sizzling" sound under the action of boiling oil beads. Stew the soup in the pot hanging on the fire with an iron tripod. Standing at Yaohui's position, you can see the soup with radishes cut into thin strips, and the meat and bones that continue to disappear with the boiling soup.

The children were not idle either. They pulled out baked potatoes from the still-warming ash, quickly scraped off the charred portion of the surface with wooden chips, put the scraped potatoes into the bowl prepared in advance, then cut them from the middle with a knife or spoon, and scoop out bright red chili sauce from the iron can with a knife or spoon, and carefully and slowly apply them with expectations for food and a yearning for good food.

Yaohui walked directly to the fire in the middle of the house and sat cross-legged. The light was not bright, and the swaying fire shone a shadow on everyone sitting nearby. There were more than 30 people, all rich lion merchants.

Among the many businessmen, Yude seems very young and quite alternative. It is mainly because of his age and wealth. He became the highest leader of a family at the age of 32. It is even more rare that in the past ten years or so, he has increased the wealth of the entire family several times and became the most dazzling star in the entire lion business world.

He was very visionary and was the first to propose to cooperate with "Shengxinglong" and became the spokesperson for the largest sales of Dragon Peat in the Lion Territory.

He had not shaved for several days, and Yude's cheeks were covered with beards. He turned his body and gave the woman sitting in the distance a sign of a gesture. The latter nodded understandingly, picked up a few food from the large plate in front of the fire, and then served a large bowl of broth. He took it to Yaohui with fine steps.

The meat noodles tastes very good, mainly because they have a soft texture, which is not comparable to the dry and hard noodles that the guards outside are eating. In cold environments, the dough is difficult to ferment. Women must first ignite in the house and use the temperature of peat to burn the dough to heat up. The amount of fresh noodles is not large and can only be provided for people with status. The food quality of the guards is worse, but at least it can be guaranteed to be hot, not cold.

The stewed radish tasted very good, and Yaohui was very satisfied with it. Between the meat patties and the soup bowl, he found that Yu De was looking at him with complicated eyes. In fact, everyone knew each other well, but no one said it for a while.

Yude was very patient and waited until Yaohui had enough food and drinks and felt comfortable and satisfied on his face. Then he asked in a depressed manner: "What should we do next? Are we just waiting like this?"
Chapter completed!