Entrepreneurship in the Late Tang Dynasty

Chapter 20 Difficult to overcome
Heading north from Tongshan Pass and crossing the sparsely populated wilderness, Zhao Huaian's team entered the territory of Dangma. From here, they would see the Great Snow Mountain, which was the sphere of influence of the Tibetans.

So, at a river mouth in Dangma, everyone turned east and traveled along this unknown wild river.

The most difficult part of this journey was that Erlang Mountain blocked the passage to the east. They could only go around here to the north along the southern foothills of Erlang Mountain, and then go back to the river valley.

Zhao Huaian was also combining the geography of later generations along the way. He guessed that the so-called Dangma he had arrived at before was probably the Luding of later generations. The Dadu River passed through this canyon and then turned to Hanyuan.

As for the Erlang Mountain where they took a detour, a tunnel should have been built in later generations, but at this time, people could only go around it on foot.

Zhao Huaian was indeed a little exhausted along the way. It was not because he lacked physical strength, but because the long journey through the mountains, forests and snowfields made him extremely irritable.

On the other hand, the skinny mountain huts and the Tang people's liberated slaves who looked like zombies didn't look tired at all. They carried fifty or sixty kilograms of resources and trekked along with Zhao Huaian. The wind and frost cracked their skin, but they remained indifferent.

Perhaps compared to the hardships of life, these are nothing.

According to the original plan, they would reach Hechuan Town, northwest of Yazhou, in about five or six days. Hechuan Town is one of the four major towns in Yazhou, and it controls the passage between Tang and Tubo.

But now it took them almost the same amount of time just to get around Erlang Mountain, because Zhao Huaian's team had too many people and too many supplies.

There are twelve people on Zhao Huaian and Xian Yuyue's side, twenty-six liberated Tang slaves, plus sixty-three people recruited from the mountain shed, and twelve young men bought by Zhao Huaian from the market, making a total of one hundred and eleven people in the team.

Among these 111 people, excluding Zhao Huaian and his group, how much supplies are the others responsible for carrying?
Among them were 41 sets of iron armor, 98 sets of leather armor, one Mo Dao, 26 horizontal swords, 130 Tibetan swords, 32 ox horn bows, 30 pots of arrows, and 20 shields.

In addition to these military supplies, there were also some furs brought by the Tibetans, including 28 yak skins, 300 wool skins, and 46 skins of various colors: fox, sable, ermine, and antelope. This was a huge fortune.

In addition, there were some gold and silver medals, agate, amber, and turquoise seized from the Tibetans, all packed in a small bag and kept by Zhao Liu personally.

In addition to these spoils, some were sold by Zhao Huaian in the market. He sold the three yaks and more than ten tents in the camp in exchange for the twelve young slaves.

It was also from here that Zhao Huaian realized that the fighting among the various mountain strongholds in this area of ​​mountains and snow was no less intense than outside, and was even more brutal.

The twelve young men came from different tribes. Because their own village had been destroyed and these people were surplus population, they were dragged to the market to be sold.

Zhao Huaian must have paid too much for the twelve little slaves by exchanging three yaks, but he just wanted to sell them quickly.

He originally wanted to exchange the cattle for silver ingots, but unfortunately these were not used in the mountains, and the only things of some value in the entire market were these slaves.

The sheep captured from the camp were either eaten by Zhao Huaian and his men or given to the mountain sheds. The only livestock left were six horses, which were carrying the most expensive armor.

Unlike those cattle and sheep, what Zhao Huaian values ​​most are these six horses.

Zhao Hu was good at judging horses, and he told Zhao Huaian that these six horses could all be used as war horses, and one of them was a good horse from the Western Regions. If he met a suitable buyer, he would be able to sell it for a hundred thousand strings of cash.

From this we can see that Zhao Huaian has made a fortune this time.

If Zhao Huaian just wanted to be a rich man, selling the supplies and weapons he had would be enough to live on for the rest of his life.

But Zhao Huaian was very clear-headed. If one only had money but no influence, he would be seen as a fat pig by others! Although these things looked abundant, they were far from enough to start a group.

At this moment, Zhao Huaian finally understood. No wonder Tutuan was called Tutuan. It was not because of its "Tutuan" name, but because only the rich dared to play with it.

So along the way, Zhao Huaian was also thinking about this matter, thinking about how to proceed in the future.

……

After passing Erlang Mountain, the team continued to march eastward for three days and finally arrived at a pass, which was Hechuan Town.

This is a fortress built on a mountain road, which is truly a place where one man can block the passage of ten thousand.

Zhao Huaian could see its glorious history from the smoke and fire on the wall, but now, it has been abandoned in the mountains and forests, and many places are covered with vines.

When everyone entered the pass, they were shocked because there was a group of tapirs living inside. When Yang Mao and others tried to hunt and kill them, they were stopped by Zhao Huaian.

Isn’t this the giant panda, the national treasure of later generations?

Seeing the "honest" giant pandas, Zhao Huaian felt a little sad. After all, the last time he saw them was at the Wolong Base.

Since Guandu was occupied by giant pandas, Zhao Huaian decided not to intrude into their home and moved on.

After that, they walked for another two days and finally saw a big river.

Xianyu Yue told them that this was the confluence of the Futu River and the Luodai River. From here, if they followed the Luodai River all the way, they would enter Maozhou, and then turn south to reach Qiongzhou.

However, Xianyu Yue also reminded Zhao Huaian that from here onwards was the rear of the Nanzhao people, and they might encounter Nanzhao troops at any time, so he reminded Zhao Huaian to be careful.

Zhao Huaian did not dare to be careless at all. He personally chose a secluded valley to set up camp and decided to rest here for two days.

Although Xian Yu Yue wanted to return to Chengdu as soon as possible, he also knew that the team had been walking for ten days and would definitely get into trouble if they didn't rest.

However, he still decided to go to the nearby area to investigate and see the situation in Yazhou.

……

After Xian Yuyue left, Zhao Huaian called Sun Tai over.

Sun Tai had been watching over the supplies in the team before. Seeing Zhao Huaian waving at him from the front, he told a young man beside him to keep an eye on things and quickly ran towards Zhao Huaian. Zhao Huaian was quite satisfied with Sun Tai's sturdy figure and brisk steps.

It was worth it for him to have plenty of food and wine during this period and to train constantly. He finally learned something that was useful.

When Sun Tai ran to his side, Zhao Huaian asked him what he was most concerned about at the moment:

"What's the situation in the team now?"

Sun Tai quickly replied:
"We are in good health. The He, Li, Fei, and Zhang camps are all behaving well. When they heard that you would stay here for two days, they all cheered."

Zhao Huaian nodded. He had a strategy during this period.

In order to prevent the mountain huts in the team from having bad intentions, he walked a lot every day to drain their physical strength, so every night, these people fell asleep immediately.

On the contrary, people like Zhao Huaian, who only walk every day and have plenty of energy, naturally become a deterrent when compared to others.

But they couldn't keep traveling like this for long. He had clearly sensed complaints among the team in the past few days. Now that they had finally reached a waterway, it would be unreasonable not to take a break.

Then Zhao Huaian asked another question:

"How many of these people are willing to join us?"

Yes, Zhao Huaian did not want to let these mountain tents go. He now had armor and weapons, as well as the money and food promised by Xianyu Yue. Now he just needed manpower.

These mountain huts are definitely not good people, but they are just right for Zhao Huaian, as they can quickly form combat effectiveness in the mountainous areas.

But Sun Tai's answer was not good. He shook his head and said:

"Master, the situation is not good. These farmers are very stubborn and want to go back to farming as soon as possible. I have asked a few people privately, and only a few are willing to learn from us, but the rest are not willing."

In order to "seduce" more people to learn from him, Zhao Huaian basically taught a few disciples during this period, but he didn't expect that only a few were willing to learn.

This is strange. Could it be that my martial arts skills are no longer so good?
Zhao Huaian, who wanted to be the succubus of the Tang Dynasty, began to doubt himself.

Unable to figure it out, Zhao Huaian shook his head:
"Never mind, let's just leave it at that. We'll find another opportunity to recruit people later. I don't believe we won't be able to recruit people even though we have armor and swords."

Sun Tai nodded seriously, obviously very confident about the future of Yishe.

"By the way, go and call over those who are willing to learn the skills, and I'll ask them all."

Sun Tai bowed and then ran back to the team.

At this time, Zhao Liu, who was counting the supplies, also came over. After hearing that the recruitment was not going well, he looked regretful:
"Zhao Da, we lost this trip."

It turns out that the reason why Zhao Huaian and his men were so generous in giving out food was to establish an image of local tycoons in front of these mountain huts, but they didn't know that these people would not buy it?
Now we have recruited a few people, which is a huge loss!

Zhao Huaian was also a little embarrassed, but he refused to admit defeat and said stubbornly:

"We can't take all that food with us anyway, so giving it to those mountain huts and having them use it to carry goods is already a good deal. Okay, okay, things will get better."

But Zhao Liu was still sighing, like a rich landlord who had lost money.

A little later, Sun Tai came running back, this time with five young men. Zhao Huaian recognized one of them. Wasn't he Uncle He's nephew? What was his name?
Sun Tai pulled the five people together and said to them:

"The Lord wants to see you, so you have to grasp the situation."

So the five people including He Wenqin knelt down in front of Zhao Huaian and called him "Master".

Zhao Huaian was also looking at these five people. Except for He Bo's nephew who was taller, the others were less than six feet tall. They were really a group of dwarfs.

But even a short person can become a general, as long as they are willing to follow him. He is not picky about this.

So he asked about the details of these five people.

Except He Wenqin, who had a family, the other four were all orphans from the four villages, with no relatives or friends. Seeing that Zhao Huaian had built such a big business, they also wanted to join him in the venture.

As for He Wenqin himself, he was deeply fascinated by Zhao Huaian's swordsmanship after seeing him teach him, and he insisted on learning the skills.

After hearing about these people's situation, Zhao Huaian also realized that it would be impossible for him to recruit those people in the mountain sheds as soldiers, because these people have families and children in the mountains, and their hearts are not outside at all.

It seems that I am doomed to be a sucker. Never mind, let it be. I will just consider it as the money for continuing my incense offerings.

Zhao Huaian was comforting himself when he suddenly saw Xian Yu Yue running towards him with Ren Tong and Song Yuan.

Without waiting for a breath, Xian Yuyue uttered a sentence:

"Second brother, the Nanzhao people...are...coming..."

After hearing this, Zhao Huaian jumped up.

(End of this chapter)