Everyone was celebrating the New Year, except for Zhou Qingfeng. While every family in the western part of the city was celebrating, he was watching from the window of the office. The cooks of the Lin Family Inn had all gone home for a reunion. There was no one to cook for him.
"You're the only one who's here with me." Zhou Qingfeng turned his head to look at the corner of the wall. 'Dog Meat' looked up at him, whimpered twice, and then continued to lie down.
The office door creaked. Chun Ni peeked through the crack before opening the door. The girl walked in with a bowl of noodles and placed it on the table. She said coldly, "Sister Xu asked me to make this. She said you might not have eaten yet. I didn't want to make it for you. "
There was meat and egg in the noodles, and it was cooked fragrantly. Zhou Qingfeng was slightly surprised. He asked, "You're a young lady from a rich family. You know how to cook noodles?"
"I'm not a young lady from a rich family. Don't talk nonsense." Chun Ni turned and left.
"A child from a poor family can write, calculate, and write silk flower small regular script?" Zhou Qingfeng pointed at a copy of paper on his desk. "Even Sister Xu doesn't have this ability."
"Why can't a child from a poor family be able to write and calculate? Besides, Sister Xu is much more capable than you. You're just a young master who only knows how to bully people. "Chun Ni retorted.
"What is Sister Xu doing?"
"She's still busy. Unlike you? She's still free. "
"What about the bodyguards and guards?"
"They all have food. You don't have to worry about them. Especially your two good-for-nothings. They eat more than anyone else. "
"I'm thinking, are you a concubine's daughter who escaped from a rich family? She was sold to a brothel by a human trafficker and escaped from the brothel to hide in my place. I bet you're not called Chun Ni. What's your name? "
Bang … The girl didn't respond at all. She even slammed the door shut.
Zhou Qingfeng curled his lips. He didn't want to continue. The more Chun Ni wanted to hide her identity, the more he wanted to know. However, he had already sent people to investigate all of Fu Shun, and he had not heard of any family that had lost a child. This girl was smart and capable. It was obvious that she had received a good education since she was a child. But she was actually trafficked. It was really strange.
Wait a minute … Selling? This girl was not easy to appease.
Investigating Chun Ni's identity was something Zhou Qingfeng did to kill time when he was bored. After a while, Xu Bing personally pushed the door open and happily placed a large stack of thread-bound documents on his desk. He even looked at the cold noodles and said, "What's wrong? I asked Chunni to make it. You don't like it? "
Zhou Qingfeng almost forgot about the bowl of noodles. He grabbed the chopsticks, scooped up a few strands, and put them into his mouth. Then, with a few slurps, he finished the whole bowl. "That girl's culinary skills are pretty good. She must have specially trained. I'm guessing she's good at the palace, good at the kitchen, and good at the four arts. "
Regarding Zhou Qingfeng's guess, Xu Bing nodded slightly. "This girl clearly has a belly full of bitterness, but you insist on exposing her scars. It's no wonder she doesn't like you."
"I'm also curious about which family can cultivate such an outstanding girl. I can't wait for them to send a few more over." Zhou Qingfeng looked at the various documents that Chun Ni had copied. This girl had now started to learn to write simplified Chinese characters. They were neat and beautiful. In comparison, Zhou Qingfeng could only write dog crawling, and Jin Ge beside him could only write stiff corpses.
Xu Bing smiled and patted the documents that she had sent over. "Your craftsman recruitment plan was very successful. We have accepted a total of more than 300 skilled people. There should be more in the future. This is their name list and the development plan of the handicraft industry. I want to remind you that it's not safe to buy property in Fu Shun. It's better to go to Shenyang. "
Zhou Qingfeng and Xu Bing had discussed this matter many times.
It was common knowledge that Fu Shun was not safe. Zhou Qingfeng wanted to recruit skilled people here to prevent them from being used by Kennu in the future. Carpenters, blacksmiths, stonemasons, masons, and so on, even if they were killed by him, they could not be left behind.
Zhou Qingfeng was now expanding the recruitment of skilled people, such as tailors, cooks, boatmen, shoemakers, brewers, tofu makers, and almost everyone was recruited. Among them, brewers were mentioned by Xu Bing to be on the same level as carpenters and blacksmiths — alcohol was too important.
As long as money was spent, it was not difficult to recruit people. But how to make them useful was not easy. At the very least, they had to settle down their lives and jobs. This involved where Zhou Qingfeng would set up his base.
Fu Shun was definitely out of the question. Zhou Qingfeng only planned to train and train the skilled people here and would not make a large investment. What about Shenyang? It was only 70-80 li away from Fu Shun. It was also the front line.
But if it was too far away, it would be extremely difficult. In ancient times, a large number of people migrating long distances was an extremely difficult task. Not to mention the ancient times, even a few hundred years later, it was not easy — during the Republic of China, a group of Sichuan soldiers went out to fight against the Japanese, but before the battle, they almost starved to death on the way.
"We can go to Shenyang first, then Liaoyang, all the way south …" Zhou Qingfeng had a map of Liaodong in his hand. He spread it out and looked carefully. Finally, he decided: "Dalian."
Dalian was now called Lu Shun, located at the southernmost tip of the Liaodong Peninsula. It was surrounded by the sea on three sides, and one side was connected to the peninsula through the Jinzhou Isthmus, giving it an advantage in defense. Lu Shun had good port conditions, and shipping was very convenient.
Lu Shun's area was also large enough, and the land and water resources could meet the needs of medium-term development. Because it was close to the sea, fishing and salt industries could create great wealth. The only problem was that there was no coal and iron there, especially coal. This was far from comparable to Fu Shun.
Zhou Qingfeng and Xu Bing had already unofficially discussed many times about where they should stay in the future. Now it seemed to be officially confirmed. This location could not be too far from Fu Shun, nor could it be too remote. It could not have too strong local forces, but it also needed to have enough population and resources. After excluding Jiangnan, Korea, and the capital, the only place they could go was Lu Shun.
Xu Bing also nodded, and her finger even crossed Lu Shun to the south across the sea, "Lu Shun is a good place. As long as we can stand there, we can use Lu Shun as a springboard to Shandong. "
The conditions in Shandong were better than Lu Shun, but Daming's forces were also much stronger there, and there were several vassals. It was better not to provoke them before they were strong enough.
"Lu Shun, let's go to Lu Shun." Zhou Qingfeng tapped the place on the map with his finger, "I'll let Tan Feng's inspection team go and figure out the road situation along the way, the supply point settings, and local forces. Before figuring it out, I'll temporarily train people in Fu Shun and prepare funds and supplies. "
"How's Tan Feng's inspection team?" Xu Bing asked.
"Tan Feng is from the old system, and it's difficult for him to change his mind. He's not used to my management style. Without financial and personnel power to motivate him, I think he has no motivation to do things, far less than the enthusiasm he had when he first came. "Zhou Qingfeng snorted coldly," If he's not trained by himself, he's unreliable. "
As Zhou Qingfeng's power expanded, his system became more and more bloated. For example, people like Sun Ren, who came from a slave background, were completely trained by Zhou Qingfeng himself, and he still maintained high efficiency. But people like Sang Carpenter and Tan Feng more or less had some ideological obstacles. Sang Carpenter's status and power were not enough to compete with Zhou Qingfeng, so he could only obey whether he was happy or not.
But Tan Feng was different.
"You recently sent Tan Feng to Shenyang, didn't you?" Xu Bing asked, "According to the time, he should be back yesterday."
Zhou Qingfeng frowned and said to himself, "Yes."
The west of the city had recently been developing business. Zhou Qingfeng and Xu Bing had spent a lot of effort to recruit a group of accountants to set up a financial institution called 'Casual Loan'. The emergence of this financial institution had greatly curbed the rampant usury in Fu Shun, and it had even affected Li Yongfang's lending business. Zhou Qingfeng had to control the lending targets, limiting them to the residents of the west of the city and the people in his system.
But it was the low interest rate lending in a small area that allowed Zhou Qingfeng to quickly control the economy of the west of the city. The poorer the people, the more they needed financial support. When all the debts in the west of the city began to gather in the hands of Zhou Qingfeng, the thousands of people living here were unconsciously controlled by Zhou Qingfeng.
The production and consumer markets of thousands of people were unified, which was a very powerful force. For example, Zhou Qingfeng integrated more than a dozen large and small grain stores in the west of the city to carry out unified procurement and supply, which increased their bargaining power several times. Similarly, there were also cloth, fur, medicinal materials, wood, and so on. These scattered commercial stores had to be gathered in Zhou Qingfeng's system.
And Zhou Qingfeng didn't need to spend much money at all. He attracted deposits at high interest rates and loaned at low interest rates. Naturally, he could do things that others couldn't do. This idea came from Xu Bing. As a criminal police officer, she also had a good understanding of commercial crimes.
And when a large number of sales and purchasing needs were generated, a prototype of a commercial alliance appeared. Zhou Qingfeng needed a caravan to transport commercial goods between Fu Shun and Shenyang. So, Tan Feng's patrol inspector took on the role of security for the caravan. Fu Shun and Shenyang weren't far, but now the caravan didn't come back on time.
If something happened to Tan Feng, who had just been appointed patrol inspector, it would be a big blow to Zhou Qingfeng who had just started. Xu Bing's reminder made him annoyed. He paced back and forth by the window, but he couldn't find anyone to investigate. It was the New Year, and most people were on vacation.
"At most, I'll do it myself …" Zhou Qingfeng was about to say that he would go to Shenyang to see what was going on, but suddenly he heard messy sounds of horse hooves coming from the street outside the Lin's Inn. He poked his head out and saw a messy group of people stopping outside. The leader had a headscarf wrapped around his head. His armor was crooked, and he looked very embarrassed.
"Tan Feng is back." Zhou Qingfeng was relieved at first, but then he was furious. He quickly walked out of the office on the third floor and walked out of the inn with a cold face. He glanced at the team and found that it was the caravan he had arranged to transport goods to Shenyang. But now there were a few people in the caravan, and there were less than half of the horses and mules.
"What's going on?" Zhou Qingfeng said angrily.
Tan Feng fell from his horse and knelt on one knee, crying: "Boss, I'm sorry. I was robbed on the way. "
"You're the f * cking Fu Shun's Patrol Inspector. You led a team of a few dozen people, yet you were robbed?" Zhou Qingfeng was furious. "Who the f * ck has such guts?"
Tan Feng raised a frowning face and said with grief and indignation: "I don't know who it was, I was careless and lost."
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