After returning to Anxin, Li Yi talked with Mr. Zhang and asked him to mobilize a sum of funds to Denglai to prepare for shipbuilding and the establishment of a maritime caravan.

Since Zhang Qianyi woke up from the factional disputes, Anxin's management has become much more stable during this period. Zhang Qianyi did not hesitate. After he wrote a document and reported it to the rural nursing home, he mobilized 100,000 taels and went to Denglai.

Ocean Shipyard asked the local Anxin chief to repair the shipyard as soon as possible and prepare to produce ships.

As for the maritime trade, the nobles have already withdrawn and handed over more than ten flat-bottomed sea-going ships to An Xin. In the early stage, only personnel and funds are needed to carry out trade according to the original route. However, the leader of the team has changed.

, it also takes some time to become familiar with the environment.

No matter what, Anxin's shipping and maritime trade have not been affected by this incident. All that is needed now is to provide enough personnel and funds. Rome was not built in a day.

After handling this matter, Li Yi planned to go to the northwest.

Although he sent Yongying to pretend to be horse thieves and rescued Hongyan, Momen and others, they did not return to Anxin because of this, but continued to stay in the northwest to relieve the victims and relocate the refugees.

Li Yi also understood this. The purpose of Momen is "Where righteousness lies, death will not turn around."

The famine in the northwest is so serious this time, with refugees everywhere and people dying of hunger all over the place, it is impossible for Momen and others to just stand by and watch.

However, Momen and others were wanted by the court, and war broke out in the northwest. Li Yi could not rest assured, so he planned to go to the northwest to visit Hongyan.

Going to the Gaoyang Guild Hall, some members saw Li Yi along the way and stopped to greet him.

Li Yi also nodded. Occasionally he could call two familiar members by name, but he didn't recognize some of the new members who had joined the Fuguo Society at all.

Entering the room, Xiaoyu was sorting out paperwork.

Now Ma Hewen is dealing with the Mongolian victims in Dongyang Town, and Sun Ce is staying in the capital as an official, so the current affairs of the Fuguo Society are all handled by Xiaoyu.

Xiaoyu was holding a stack of heavy documents. When she saw Li Yi walking in, she couldn't help but said in surprise: "Why are you here?"

Li Yi stepped forward, took the document from Xiaoyu's arms, and said with a smile: "I haven't been to Fuguoshe for a long time, so I came to take a look."

Xiaoyu let go of the document in her hand and looked at Li Yi with sly eyes. Her bright eyes were so clear that Li Yi felt that there was nowhere to hide the little thoughts in his heart.

Putting the documents on the shelf, Li Yi smiled, took Xiaoyu's hand and asked her to sit down.

Xiaoyu's cheeks were slightly red and she took her little hand out of Li Yi's palm, pouted slightly and said, "Do you have anything to discuss with me?"

Li Yi smiled and said: "Xiaoyu, you are so absorbed in everything right now. I do have one thing I want to discuss with you."

Seeing Li Yi's flattering face, Xiaoyu couldn't help but give him a suspicious look and said, "If you have anything to say, please tell me."

Li Yi reached out and grabbed Xiaoyu's little hand, with a smile on his face, "I want to rush to the northwest, firstly to investigate the relief situation of the victims, and secondly to visit Momen and others. You know, they..."

"I'm afraid you want to see Sister Hongyan?" Xiaoyu mercilessly revealed Li Yi's little thoughts.

Li Yi smiled awkwardly, "That's by the way, by the way."

"What, you think I'm a jealous woman?" Xiaoyu looked unhappy.

"I didn't say that..." Li Yi said quickly and affirmatively, with a high desire to survive.

Seeing Li Yi's nervous look, Xiaoyu snorted coldly, "You want to go see Sister Hongyan, and I agree."

Hearing Xiaoyu's agreement, Li Yi showed a smile on his face, "Then I'll set off tomorrow."

"Slow down." Xiaoyu said slowly.

Li Yi was so eaten up by this little girl that he could only wait for the good news.

"Sister Hongyan is obviously helping the victims, but she is wanted by the court. She must be in a bad situation. I have prepared a caravan a long time ago, and Ma Siyuan from the Anxinyong Camp will be responsible for escorting it. Since you want to go, just take the caravan there.

, and we can also take care of each other.”

Hearing that this was the case, Li Yi of course agreed.

Because the food prepared by the team was still insufficient, Li Yi waited for two more days.

On the third day, Li Yi bid farewell to Xiaoyu and took the caravan to Shanxi.

Riding on a strong horse, Ma Siyuan directed the convoy on its way.

At first, his corps commander broke the law and Ma Siyuan was also implicated. However, he learned his shame and became brave and made meritorious service many times. Now he is the captain of the sentry.

Li Yi patted his horse and walked in. Looking at the brave men following on both sides of the convoy, he saw that their morale was high and they were marching in unison. They were even more powerful than the Guan Ning army they had seen in Liaodong.

Of course, this is also because Anxin's business is prosperous and the iron brigade brave men are given preferential treatment. Not only can they eat enough every day, but they can also eat meat every three days, so they must be much stronger physically.

Ma Siyuan and Li Yi walked in and said with a smile: "Commander of the brigade, everyone in Momen is now rescuing the victims in Yan'an. The disaster there is the most obvious. Countless people starve to death. I went there once. It's so miserable. I can't bear to look at it."

."

Ma Siyuan rambled on about the scenes he saw when he delivered money and food many times.

Li Yi certainly knew about this situation. You must know that Wang is from Yan'an. It was because of the drought that his family was destroyed and he and tens of thousands of fellow villagers became refugees, so he went to Baoding Prefecture.

In fact, since the first year of Chongzhen, natural disasters have continued in the north. In Shaanxi, the sky is as red as blood, and droughts occur every year. After the drought, there is a plague of locusts. The locusts cover the sun and there is no autumn crops. The people compete for food on the grass on the mountains.

After eating the grass, they would peel off the bark of the tree and eat it. After the bark was eaten, they could only eat Guanyin soil, and eventually they would die of abdominal distension. Sometimes half of the people in a county could starve to death, which shows the seriousness of natural disasters and the negligence of the government.

Nowadays, civil unrest and wars are raging in the northwest, which is partly caused by the government's inability to provide disaster relief.

After walking for a day, the caravan arrived at Zijing Pass.

Zijingguan is a pass from Shanxi to Zhili. Due to its age and disrepair, the city walls are severely weathered and the battlements are full of pits. If it were not for the two soldiers wearing tattered short armor and turbans guarding Li, Li

Yi thought it had been abandoned.

The motorcade arrived at the city gate and stopped slowly.

The flag of the Anxin Chamber of Commerce was fluttering in the wind. A hundred generals guarding the city gate pretended to look at it, and then stood aside with their hands behind their backs without saying a word.

Ma Siyuan naturally understood, got off his horse, took out a money bag from his arms, and stuffed it into Mr. Bai's hand.

Mr. Bai weighed the weight and when he heard the sound of the coins inside, a satisfied smile suddenly appeared on his face.

But he didn't let it go immediately. Instead, he thought about it and said, "It's not enough."

Ma Siyuan was stunned for a moment and said, "It's not enough. Isn't it always this price?"

Mr. Bai smiled and said: "Back then, your backer Li Yi was the censor of Qiandu, so naturally he received one hundred and fifty copper coins. Now that he is no longer there, then two hundred copper coins are needed."

Ma Siyuan was furious when he heard this, but Li Yi stopped him and stepped forward: "So, does this Zijingguan collect tolls based on the official position?"

Mr. Bai looked Li Yi up and down and saw that he was wearing a blue round-collar Confucian shirt and was elegant. He frowned and said, "You look like a scholar at first glance. These are not tolls, but filial piety money."

"Be filial to money? I've heard of filial piety to parents and teachers, but I've never heard of being filial to officers and soldiers at the pass." Li Yi said with a smile.

Mr. Bai laughed when he heard this and said: "Whether you are going east to Zhili or west to Shanxi, you have to pass through our Zijin Pass. If we don't let them go, they can't transport goods there; if we let them go, they can exchange what they have. What do you think?

Say, we are in charge of how they make a fortune and survive, isn't that more intimate than their own mother?"

The soldiers nearby laughed loudly after hearing this.

“Still very knowledgeable.”

"That's right, I am your biological mother. If you want to pass the test, use money to honor your biological mother."

"…………"

The soldiers were vulgar and booed one after another.

Li Yi nodded and said: "This is somewhat interesting. Your duty is to guard the pass and prevent thieves, but now you rely on the pass to block business travel and obtain filial money. It is rare to use power for personal gain, but after using power for personal gain, you can still

It is very rare to state a reason for using power for personal gain in a conceptual and grand manner."

When President Bai saw the scholar in front of him talking about himself like this, he couldn't help showing his fierce look, and said viciously: "Scholar, if you are sensible, you should obediently pay the filial piety money, otherwise you will be punished. Don't blame the officials for not giving you a chance."

"What other tricks do you have?" Li Yi asked curiously.

Mr. Bai had never seen such a scholar before. Not only was he not afraid of himself, but he also asked himself curiously. Could it be that the scholar in front of him was a lunatic?

After thinking wildly, Mr. Bai said with a cold face: "What else can you do? Grandpas just won't let you pass, and then they will search the carriage according to the rules and destroy everything on your carriage. If you still don't understand, I will ask you to be a bandit."

For the crime, I will take him down immediately and kill your heads."

When he said the last sentence, Mr. Bai had a ferocious look on his face.

But Li Yi looked at him calmly, not only without a trace of fear, but as if he was watching a monkey show.

Just when Mr. Bai was about to get angry, Li Yi said coldly: "You can do a lot of things. Get your city guards out."

"Guard?" Mr. Bai didn't expect that the other party would go directly to the highest military attaché of the pass. He was slightly stunned and sneered: "Who do you think you are? You still want to see our guard..."

Mr. Bai stared blankly at the badge in Li Yi's hand. He immediately knelt on the ground and begged with horror on his face: "Sir, please forgive me, please forgive me."

Li Yi looked down at Mr. Bai and said coldly: "Do you think I should spare your life?"

Mr. Bai didn't dare to raise his head and hesitated to say a word, for fear that he might cause trouble if he didn't answer well.

"Prepare a place for us, we will stay in the pass for one night." Li Yi said in a cold voice.

But it was these words that made Mr. Bai immediately say as if he was listening to a fairy voice: "Young man, let's do it. Let's do it."

After saying that, he stood up and ordered the soldiers to bring the antlers to the passage.

Looking at the extremely attentive Mr. Bai, Li Yi felt no ripples in his heart.

I remember when I killed the black panther and went to the treasury to collect the reward, I was angry that the officials had embezzled the reward, so I fought hard and severely punished the rats. Now I am more powerful than before, but I no longer hate evil as much as I did in the past.

Just because I understand that even if I severely punish this President, there will still be thousands of people like this President. If we don’t deal with the system and the root cause, corruption will never disappear.

We spent the night in Zijingguan that day and continued our journey the next day.

An Xin's carriage has four wheels and two horses. With complete iron-inlaid wheels and bearing technology, it can travel very fast. It can reach more than 20 kilometers an hour and can travel more than 200 kilometers a day. This speed is already very fast.

It's fast.

The convoy drove towards Yan'an. As it gradually approached Yan'an, the population became sparse and sparse, and there were more and more bones on both sides of the road. From time to time, plump crows would crow on the branches, their sounds harsh, like ghosts.

The people in the convoy were not as energetic as before, and they all looked around with wary expressions.

Ma Siyuan patted his horse and approached, and said with some worry: "Commander of the Brigade, last year, there were frequent bandits and robberies around Yan'an. The most active one was Zhao Si'er, a scholar from Qingjian. Because he studied at the Youshi Temple, he wrote and read day and night.

The villagers called him "the lamplighter." After his rebellion last year, he often led troops to attack Yan'an, Hancheng, Yijun, Luochuan and the prefectures and counties along the Yellow River in Shanxi."

Li Yi nodded and said: "You lead the cavalry to disperse left and right to explore the enemy's situation."
Chapter completed!