Chapter 147 Mostly Mostly
In the middle of the night, we drove along the road to Weinan.

The moonlight dyed the earth with frost, and more than 2,000 people followed more than 300 vehicles on the highway moving westward.

The visibility is good tonight, so the torches are sparse.

However, on the north bank, a team was cruising with torches in hand, while on the south bank of the Weishui River a group of Hu cavalry were galloping back and forth, making it difficult for boats to dock, making it difficult for the unfamiliar army on the north bank to cross the river.

As the sky gradually brightened, Wang Yi's troops set up camp in a circle, and smoke rose between the North Camp of Mount Li and Xinfeng County.

With the Qingzhou soldiers at their side, under the golden sunlight of the rising sun, many people in Wang Yi's team were tired after the meal and took the time to rest.

As usual, the Qingzhou soldiers had the chief priest Guo Tai shave the heads of the twenty most devout men who had repented the night before during the regular morning meeting every morning.

Each team of 100 men had only one quota per day; but with the establishment of the Northern Camp of Mount Li, Guo Tai reduced the quota and only selected two-thirds of the people to have their heads shaved.

By now, Guo Tai's skill in shaving hair had become extremely proficient.

Holding a sharp razor in his hand, he sat on the beard bed. In front of him was a kneeling Qingzhou soldier, and he cut from the hair's crown.

The blade was close to the scalp, shaving and cutting off the cleaned hair from the roots, revealing a large area of ​​pale scalp.

Some soldiers had abscesses, scabies and the like on their scalps, which inevitably scratched their scalps during shaving, making the shaving ceremony bloody.

After each shaving, Guo Tai would change a razor and wash his hands.

If some soldiers had heavy bleeding on their scalp during shaving, Guo Tai would give them a peach. After eating it, the wound would often scab over and stop bleeding immediately.

After a few days, the blood clots dried and fell off, revealing a clean, healthy head.

Perhaps because his shaving skills were becoming more and more sophisticated, Guo Tai did not use any extra peaches today, thus saving the trouble of reporting them.

Only after the shaving ceremony was over did the camp begin to be filled with smoke.

Guo Tai changed out of the solemn robe he wore when he shaved his head, and wore only his inner clothes in the barracks, kneeling in front of the table and writing with a pen.

Now two-thirds of the soldiers in the army have completed shaving their heads. The hair of those soldiers who had their heads shaved in Jingzhou at the beginning has grown out. The hair of some younger soldiers grows fast and is almost covering their ears.

If Qu Shuai does not take any action, Guo Tai can only reduce the number of people to be shaved every day to reduce the overall progress of shaving.

After all members have completed shaving their heads, they always have to find a new target for the Qingzhou soldiers.

We can't turn back and ask the soldier with longer hair to repent deeply again.

There is also the subsequent development plan for the Qingzhou soldiers. Guo Tai did not pursue the expansion of the Qingzhou soldiers, but felt that they should be reformed.

Separate the older Qingzhou soldiers and let them set up altars and preach in various counties; leave vacancies to recruit young people with greater potential to join.

Only in this way can the confession and shaving ceremonies continue to operate and the Taiping Dao organization can grow healthily.

Dispersing the Qingzhou soldiers is the fastest way to exert influence.

County officials have influence on the people, and the Qingzhou soldiers who preach the gospel also have influence.

Sometimes the influence of the two offset each other, and Zhong Yao's Sili Xiaowei's office became an empty shell.

Guo Tai took up his pen and wrote down his thoughts and plans on bamboo slips. After sealing them with mud, he sent them to Lantian.

Lantian, today the soldiers in each battalion are resting and entering a state of readiness for war.

Only civilians and craftsmen continued to work and build houses and walls for the Lantian camp.

The officials also became busy. Li Feng also came early to line up with a plate of bamboo slips, and soon it was his turn to enter.

A plate of bamboo slips was placed in front of the Black Bear table by the personal soldiers. The light in the side hall, which was drafty on three sides, was excellent.

Black Bear flipped through three scrolls of bamboo slips, which recorded rough information about the collection, purchase, and stockpiling of various medicinal materials by military medical institutions during this period.

Nowadays, most of the medicinal materials are purchased from the four counties of Shangluo, Lantian, Baling and Duling. Li Feng also sent young Taoist priests to set up direct strongholds, recruited mountain people to hire manpower to collect herbs, or bypassed the counties to purchase medicinal materials directly from the mountain people.

In fact, our urgent demand for medicinal materials is the lowest, but we have a high demand for medicinal materials for recuperation, warming and nourishing.

Black Bear looked at the lists of medicinal herb names listed above, then picked up a quill pen and wrote the names of the herbs in simplified Chinese characters. He copied down common herbs that he saw in his daily life, such as bupleurum, wolfberry, licorice, astragalus, chrysanthemum, hawthorn, and honey.

He said to Li Feng: "I hope that in the spring of next year, you can open up mountain fields, plant wolfberries, and transplant hawthorns; and plant more licorice, astragalus, and chrysanthemums on flat land. Stock up more bupleurum from the mountain people, and it would be best if you can master the technology of raising bees."

Li Feng frowned when he heard this and said, "General, the southern mountains are mostly barren, but we have no shortage of mountain fields or plains; what I lack is manpower."

"After I clear out the bandits in Weibei, I will let you select a thousand people to engage in the cultivation of medicinal herbs and the production of medicines."

Black Bear handed a bamboo slip to Li Feng: "Except for hawthorn and honey used to make pills, the rest should be brewed with boiling water. Just like I drink tea, I hope that the soldiers and civilians under my rule will no longer drink raw water in the future, but drink this kind of medicinal tea on a daily basis."

Li Feng took the bamboo slips with both hands, looked at the common medicinal herbs on them, and frowned slightly: "Does Commander Qu mean to run a medicinal farm and make medicinal tea for sale?"

"You can sell it. My goal is to improve the drinking habits of soldiers and civilians and let them drink clean water in the same way as medicinal tea, so the price should not be too high. If merchants from outside the Great Wall come to buy it, I will allow you to refine the medicinal materials and sell them at a high price."

Black Bear pondered and continued, "The construction of the medicinal fields will begin in the spring of next year. I will allow you to select ten places in the valleys of Nanshan that are suitable for planting to set up medicine shops. You will also mobilize doctors to study the medicinal properties of these herbs. The combination of herbs must conform to the changes of the four seasons."

"After the tea house's output stabilizes, I will study the medicinal properties of herbs combined with tea. I hope to have seasonal medicinal teas all year round."

"Also, when you preach in the future, you can set up a big pot on the roadside to cook and boil medicinal tea to serve to ordinary men and women. If you do this well, I will give you a mountain and allow you to practice the way of Xinglin."

Black Bear couldn't help but smile as he spoke. The fame and increased life span brought by the Xinglin Way seemed to have significantly reduced its appeal to Li Feng.

Unexpectedly, Li Feng nodded seriously: "Yes, I will do my best."

Then Li Feng asked again: "Do you want to build tea mountains in various places in Nanshan?"

"When you are looking for a medicine shop, you should also select it. I will go to Jingzhou in winter to search for high-quality tea varieties. Compared with gold mines and silver mines, these medicine shops and tea houses are no worse. They are also the foundation of future preaching." Black Bear said this, but Li Feng still seemed unmoved.

After Li Feng left, Black Bear took a pen and wrote "Collect tea seeds and medicinal seeds in winter" on the bamboo paper, folded the paper and put it into the rattan box.

After the incident at Xia Pi Tao Zhuang, Black Bear concluded that if the longevity blood peach in the Peach Garden wanted to be upgraded, he should build a larger peach farm and peach mountain and collect as many different types of peach trees as possible.

This is true for peach trees, and it should be the same for tea trees as well.

The exotic tea trees that had survived on the cliffs for thousands of years were meaningless to him. Only artificially cultivated tea trees in tea houses and tea mountains with large-scale tea trees could allow him to extract the essence and create a magical tea that could take root in the paradise.

Presumably, it is similar for other medicinal materials. First, you need to have large-scale, intensively planted medicinal fields before you can obtain spiritual plants with extraordinary effects.

At present, the only real spiritual plant is the Longevity Blood Peach. Its branches cannot be plucked, and it cannot be summoned again. Probably in the future, I can only get one Longevity Blood Peach every year.

Then use the peach pit to grow an ordinary blood peach tree. The peaches produced by this blood peach tree can move very far away from the tree and will not dissolve or become ineffective.

However, the effective range of the magic berry is small.

As he pondered, Black Bear frowned, wanting to try to extract the essence of grains and transform them into a cluster of seedlings that could grow in the Peach Blossom Land.

This is what he can imagine at the moment, and it is also the fastest way to improve grain varieties.

Winter wheat.

He took another piece of bamboo paper, wrote the four words "winter wheat, spiritual plant" and a comma on it, folded it and put it in the rattan box.

Without a full-time secretary, I can only use this stupid method.

He did not trust the scholars or his own troops, and Zhen Mi also had specific matters to deal with.

After the bamboo paper was put into the rattan box, a personal soldier came in holding a visiting card: "General Qu, the envoy of Wang Yi, Jia Kui, wants to see you."

"it is good."

Black Bear took the visiting card and glanced at it with lowered brows. It was the Hedong Jia Kui again. Soon, he saw Jia Kui approaching with slightly trembling legs, bowing deeply and saying, "Foreign minister Jia Kui greets the general."

"What are you here for this time?"

Black Bear examined him with a smile, and Jia Kui also smiled: "I have a great gift for you, Commander Qu."

Jia Kui raised the silk book in his hand and said, "This is a letter from the prince. I am willing to offer most of my family property and troops to seek the general's protection."

Seeing Black Bear's surprise, Jia Kui pointed to the northeast and said, "My brother-in-law works for Lord Cui of Hedong. When I was escorting the prince across the river, I heard that Li Kan of Linjin was afraid of the general's power and intended to lead his people to join Lord Cui, hoping that Lord Cui would send troops to support him."

At this time, Black Bear opened Wang Yi's handwritten letter and saw that Wang Yi accused Zhong Yao of sinister intentions in the letter and begged Black Bear for help.

Looking at Wang Yi's guess, Black Bear couldn't help but smile, then stopped smiling.

How could Li Kan be so cooperative?

I guess Zhong Yao wanted to do it himself, and Li Kan was just taking the blame.

In order to support Wang Yi in continuing to control Hedong, Zhong Yao exhausted all his strength to mobilize 8,000 troops and station them in Weibei, intending to pry open the four generals of Weibei.

As a result, Weinan and Wugu Pass were left empty, so he marched straight in, put a knife to Zhong Yao's heart, and blocked him outside Tongguan.

Although Zhong Yao reacted quickly and spread rumors to create public opinion for an alliance with him, Wang Yi surrendered too quickly, and Wang Yi's knife stabbed Zhong Yao through.

With a smile on his face, Black Bear tilted his head and asked a soldier beside him, "How much is this half?"

The guard stared with his clear and stupid eyes as if thinking seriously, but still shook his head.

Black Bear turned his head and looked at another soldier, who was tactful enough to lower his head and wipe his armor.

Jia Kui also smiled when he saw this. He didn't think that Black Bear didn't know how much half of it was.

Then Black Bear stopped laughing and said seriously, "Actually, I am not interested in Wang Yi's wealth. I allowed Wang Yi to go to Jingzhou via Weinan before, but this Li Kan actually tried to plunder. If he doesn't give me an explanation, how can I still lead the officials and soldiers?"

As he spoke, Black Bear looked at the personal soldier who was wiping his armor and said, "Stop wiping it. Go get the chief secretary."

"Here."

The personal guard took a few steps back, turned around and walked away quickly. For such a matter of sending an envoy abroad, it would be most appropriate to find Chen Zhen.

Chen Zhen has so many people from Hebei who can act as envoys.

Black Bear didn't feel any pain even after being chopped by Li Kan.

Seeing that Black Bear seemed to have no interest in "most of it", Jia Kui was somewhat unbelievable, so he said: "If the prince knew that the general was so righteous, in my opinion, there would be more than half after this most of it."

Black Bear carefully observed Jia Kui's ordinary face and frowned: "You were Wang Yi's envoy twice, why don't you seem to like him taking so many troops and wealth to Jingzhou?"

"General, this is a chaotic world."

Jia Kui said sincerely: "I am concerned about the long-term future of the prince, so I shouldn't be so ostentatious."

Then Jia Kui said: "If the people of the world knew that the general was fighting Li Kan for the sake of the prince, then most of them and then most of them would be enough to protect the prince for the rest of his life."

"Your proposal makes sense. Go talk to Wang Yi. If he accepts, I will give him Li Kan's head. If he doesn't accept, I will stick to my original attitude and allow him to pass through Weinan and Wuguan Road."

Black Bear looked him up and down and said, "After you finish this, if you have nowhere else to go, come and be my county magistrate."

(End of this chapter)