Chapter 77 Different Tolls

It started to rain early in the morning on July 2, but the rain stopped after only a short while.

When the Guangxian merchant group entered the rocky beach area, they found that there were many horse teams watching them from a distance.

In this way, everyone slowed down their pace and reduced the distance between the caravans. Now when they encountered danger, because the caravan had more people and horses, it would take a long time to organize a defensive car formation, so all the caravans were extremely careful, especially the Hua family.

After walking on the rocky beach for three days, they encountered more and more horse bandit scouting teams on the road. Hua Kai estimated that if he wanted to enter the Linhu grassland, he would have to fight. This was the area with the most horse bandits in the entire grassland.

On July 6, the Guangxian merchant group had no trouble along the way and was about to walk out of the rocky beach. At this time, they found that there was a merchant group blocking the way ahead.

The other party belonged to the merchant group of Le'an County of Qi State. Le'an County was located in the north of Qi State. It had a population of more than 200,000 and was the second largest county in Qi State. Their merchant group had a total of 26 merchant groups, which were much larger than the Guangxian merchant group and carried a lot of goods.

In the evening, the head of the Han family asked all the caravans to go to the Han family's main account for a meeting. When Hua Kai arrived, he found that the heads of the caravans had basically arrived.

"The news from the front has been clearly investigated. There are about a dozen horse bandits blocking the valley entrance in front. Le'an County has been blocked for two days. The other side has not launched an attack and has sent people to negotiate with the caravan. They said that all caravans must leave a part of the goods before passing." The head of the Han family said these words. Everyone had expected it, but everyone was still worried about the situation.

"Master Han, I don't know how many troops the horse bandits have and what the Le'an Caravan plans to do." The head of the Ren family asked.

"The horse bandits have more than 20,000 troops. The Le'an Caravan is also discussing countermeasures. Now most of their caravans agree to talk to the horse bandits first." The head of the Han family said.

Hearing that the Le'an Caravan was going to deliver the goods, the caravans in Guang County were also discussing the possibility of this method. After discussing for a long time, most people still preferred to discuss it with the Le'an Caravan tomorrow.

The next morning, someone from the Han family asked the Hua family to send a representative to negotiate with the horse bandit representatives together with the Le'an Merchant Corps.

Because this negotiation determines how much goods the two merchant corps will leave behind, the Han family means that all the merchant corps' Qi training realm personnel must be present, and the Qi dynamic realm must also try to go.

Hua Xing firmly disagreed with Hua Kai's going. The Hua family's Hua Fu Qi training realm has not been made public in the merchant corps. Hua Xing took Hua Zichen, Yu Jun and five family members of the Qi dynamic realm to negotiate together.

On the first day of the negotiation, because the merchant corps had a clear advantage in the number of Qi dynamic realms, the merchant corps meant that each caravan would leave two horses, and the horse bandit group would definitely not agree.

Although the horse bandits did not have many Qi training realm masters, they were numerous!

The Guangxian merchant corps and the number of slaves were only about 2,000, and the Le'an merchant corps had a maximum of 7,000 people. At least half of them were unable to fight, and the merchant corps finally compromised.

The Le'an Merchant Corps needs to leave a total of 150 fine horses and 300 strong horses, while the Guangxian Merchant Corps needs to leave 60 fine horses and 100 strong horses. The reason why the Guangxian Merchant Corps is so much less than the Le'an Merchant Corps is that on the one hand, the Guangxian Merchant Corps is small in scale, and on the other hand, it is because the Guangxian Merchant Corps has more Qi training masters than the Le'an Merchant Corps.

Guangxian is a county directly under the Qi State, and its strength is much stronger than those counties that are not directly under the county. The population of some remote small counties is not even as large as Guangxian.

The reason why the horse bandit group can easily negotiate the result with the two merchant groups is mainly because they are afraid that if they wait any longer, there will be more merchant groups coming, and it will be more difficult for them to deal with.

The two merchant groups only left 510 horses, which is not a lot for the 20,000 horse bandit groups, but as long as they can scrape a layer of oil and water from all the merchant groups passing by here, the income from more caravans is not small.

The strength of the Guangxian and Le'an merchant groups should not be underestimated. If they forcefully attack, they will inevitably suffer a lot of losses in the end.

In the evening, Hua Kai was called to the Han family's main account, and all the caravans discussed how to distribute the 60 fine horses and 100 strong horses.

Although it was discussed, it was actually up to the Han family to arrange it. The Hua family was allocated 8 fine horses and 14 strong horses, which was already very little according to the total amount of goods in each caravan.

Hua Kai simply agreed and sent someone to deliver the horses when he returned to the caravan.

These horses that could not be upgraded were not valued by Hua Kai, and paying this little was nothing to Hua Kai.

At noon the next day, everyone in the Hua family was still practicing mental skills and martial arts. In the past few days, more and more new members of the Hua family [Quiet Heart Sutra] and [Split Sky Spear] were introduced. Their qualifications were all above B-, which was much better than most of the old team members. They were also much faster in learning martial arts and mental skills. Now was the time for them to make rapid progress.

Hua Kai promoted all 6 reserve servants who had mastered the [Calming Art] and [Sky-Splitting Spear] to formal servants, and appointed 31 slaves whose loyalty reached 60 points or more as reserve servants. The strength of the entire Hua family caravan was increasing every day.

Han Jinsheng came back from the front of the caravan and told Hua Kai that the Le'an Caravan had begun to sort out the carriage goods and planned to pass through the valley entrance. The Han family asked each caravan to send more people to the valley entrance to gather in case the horse bandit group bit the caravan's tail!

Hua Kai asked his fifth uncle to personally bring a team of slaves and 20 formal members to support. At this time, they could contribute a little more to the caravan and show more of the family's strength. The goal of the Hua family was to be promoted to a noble family, so they had to show the strength that a noble family should have.

It was not until the afternoon that the flag of the Han family caravan began to move. The Hua family followed closely behind the Jia family and slowly moved to the valley entrance, and the Guangxian caravans also followed closely behind.

Hua Kai rode on his horse and watched the Hua family caravan leave the valley little by little. This was one of the most dangerous places marked by Wei Baotou. The entire valley entrance was only about 20 meters wide, with huge rocks on both sides. Hundreds of members of the Guangxian merchant group were standing on horseback in the distance, staring at the horse bandit group in the distance.

Hua Kai had experienced the scene of a cavalry battle involving tens of thousands of people, and he was still a little shocked to see the horse bandit group in the distance. Countless horse bandits were staring at them a thousand meters away. At this time, as long as there was a charge, the Hua family caravan would be submerged in the sea of ​​cavalry.

Hua Xing and Wei Baotou urged the caravan to pass quickly. These horse bandits would not absolutely abide by their promises. As long as a caravan exposed obvious weaknesses, they would definitely rush up and divide the Hua family up. They were like prairie wolves.

Leaving the valley, the Guangxian merchant group began to speed up. It would not be long before they entered the Linhu grassland, where large horse bandit groups would be reduced, and the merchant group would be relatively safe.

But just after walking for more than an hour, the Han family flag stopped again. Uncle Wu came back to tell Hua Kai that the Le'an Merchant Corps stopped again, and there was another horse bandit group of more than 10,000 in front.

The rocky beach area is a paradise for horse bandits. They come here to hunt at this time like a group of lions on the grassland. The weaker horse bandits will cooperate with others, and they will discuss how to distribute the prey after capturing it.

This time, the Le'an Merchant Corps did not seem to intend to surrender to the horse bandit group. They discussed with the Han family and planned to give the other party a good look. If they continued like this, I don't know how much profit the merchant group would have left when they returned.

The Han family also hit it off and stopped here for a night. The three Qi training realms of the Hua family led more than 200 people to fight, half of whom were slaves whose loyalty was less than 60.

The final distribution of the spoils of the merchant group's battle was based on the merits of each merchant team. In addition to the number of enemies killed and the spoils seized in the battle, the merits depended on which family had the stronger strength.

Hua Kai stayed in the caravan. The entire Guangxian caravan had now gathered together. He was the safest in the center of the caravan.

The 10,000 horse bandits on the opposite side were small horse bandit groups gathered together. Many horse bandits even rode poor horses. The two caravans and more than 2,000 soldiers launched a charge on the other side. This horse bandit group was not strong enough and was dispersed by a charge.

Most of the horse bandits were desperate. They saw that the caravan coalition had defeated the entire horse bandit group with a charge. Some horse bandit groups turned around and killed the caravan.

Hua Kai saw this and hurriedly organized all the personnel to organize defense.

The caravan had a carriage array more than one person high (the height of the carriage plus the cargo). The horse bandits rushed outside the carriage array and jumped into the carriage array regardless of everything. The caravan members held weapons and waited for the other side to come in.

A scream came from the carriage array. Most of the horse bandits were stabbed by various weapons before they landed, and fell from the air onto the carriage array. However, some subsequent horse bandits looked for opportunities to break into the car formation, because the main force of the caravan was not there!

The Guangxian caravan was in chaos, and some slaves took the opportunity to run around. Although there were many slaves in the Hua family caravan, there was no chaos.

Most of the slaves of the Hua family had experienced many battles with the Hua family caravan, and they still believed in the strength of the Hua family.

Hua Fu led several caravan members to block the horse bandits who jumped into the car formation and broke into the Hua family's defense circle. With Hua Fu, a master of Qi training, the other party could not break in for a while.

At this time, the caravan coalition saw that there was danger behind them and began to turn around and rush back. Those horse bandits also knew that it was difficult for them to really rush into the caravan car formation. Seeing the main force of the caravan rushing back, they all fled.

This time, the horse bandit group launched a desperate counterattack. Although it did not cause any major casualties to the two caravans, it scared everyone into a cold sweat.

If there were more horse bandits counterattacking the car formation of the caravan at that time, perhaps the car formation of the caravan would be broken. At that time, all the horse bandits might fight to the death with the merchant group when they see the benefits in front of them, which is what everyone wants to see the most.

After solving this group of horse bandits, the two merchant groups stopped to discuss the post-war seizure. The merchant group coalition killed more than a thousand horse bandits in total, but only seized more than 700 horses and some captives.

The Hua family caravan was allocated a total of 62 horses, of which there were only 4 fine horses, 43 strong horses, and 15 naive horses. The Hua family used the reason that there were too many slaves in the caravan and exchanged the required military merits for horses.

These naive horses are short and have poor endurance, and they can't run at all when riding. But the Hua family is not short of horses now, and the naive horses only need to eat grass, and keeping them will not affect the caravan's journey.

In the following days, the Guangxian merchant group could only travel about 30 miles a day. When they met two merchant groups of more than 10,000 people on the road, they used money to buy their way through safely. After the last lesson, everyone is now unwilling to easily attack the horse bandits even if they suffer a little more loss.

The entire rocky beach was only 300 miles long, and the Guangxian merchant group took 12 days to get out.

The caravan began to speed up after entering the territory of Linhu. They walked hundreds of miles in the morning and more than 60 miles in the afternoon.

There were no large horse bandit groups in the territory of Linhu, but there were many small horse bandit groups. They were only a few hundred people at most, and they watched all the caravans pass by from a distance without getting involved.

These horse bandit groups knew that the caravan had to go back quickly. It was already July, and if the caravan didn't go back, it might not be able to go back this year. Therefore, the caravan had to speed up, so that the distance between each two teams was very large. As long as they saw a caravan showing a flaw, they would bite off a piece of meat from the caravan like foxes on the grassland.