Chapter 5: A small profit for the whole world

Yun Ye was deep in thought, and the men around him were waiting for his decision, after all, this was a major matter. Think about it, who wouldn’t treat the secret recipe for making salt out of thin air like their life, and how could they easily tell others?

After waiting for a long time, Yun Ye still could not make a decision. Zhang Cheng’s face showed disappointment, and he knew that his request was too much to ask. With a gritted teeth, he was about to say that the matter was over, and that Yun Ye could not let his ancestors down.

Before he could open his mouth, Yun Ye looked up and saw the eager eyes of the men around him. He smiled and said, “Yun Ye never thought that salt was so important to you and to the Tang Dynasty. I used to think that it was just a kind of seasoning, and that it didn’t matter much whether you had it or not. It only affected your desire to eat. Now I realize that the profit and loss of salt is actually related to life and death. The rise and fall of the Tang Dynasty, and the benefit of the world by pulling out one hair, why would I not do it with pleasure?

“Young master, you’ve agreed?” Zhang Cheng was full of surprise, and he bowed to him. For a moment, only Yun Ye stood in the hall, and the rest of the people all bowed.

“Uncle Zhang, what are you doing? You want to learn, I’ll teach you. It’s not that difficult. Uncle Zhang, I still like you to call me a brat. Yun Ge’er, don’t call me a young master. It’s disgusting to everyone, and I’m not comfortable either. It was my good fortune to meet you uncles and brothers at the worst time. Otherwise, I would have been eaten by wolves long ago, and I wouldn’t be a young master.”

Once the ice was broken, the atmosphere became lively. One by one, they touched Yun Ye’s head and pinched his face. The faces of the smiling faces were full of respect. Yun Ye’s mood also brightened up in an instant.

After receiving the definitive promise, Zhang Cheng could not wait to urge Yun Ye to write down the various tools and materials needed to make salt. Without paper and pen, he was in a panic, the two women were also full of panic, and the soldiers were all pounding their chests and kicking their feet, complaining about how they didn’t bring ink and paper.

Yun Ye quickly stopped Zhang Cheng, who was about to bleed himself, took his dagger, and ordered the auxiliary soldiers to find two planks of wood and use the dagger to carve words on the two planks. Although the characters were all twisted and crooked, Zhang Cheng held them in his arms like a treasure and carefully wrapped them in a loincloth, no, hemp cloth. The two fully armed auxiliary soldiers rode their horses with the planks on their backs and sped toward Lanzhou City. Of course, they also took half of the salt as evidence.

“Uncle Zhang, it’s too dangerous to ride at night. This is not urgent. Anyway, I’ve already agreed to it. It’s not too late to deliver it tomorrow.” Yun Ye didn’t understand Zhang Cheng’s urgency.

“You know what? The sooner we make salt, the more powerful our army will be. The Turks have entered the pass again. We can’t just stand by and watch these bastards act so arrogantly. One day, we’ll wipe out these Turks. We can’t live like this anymore, eating food made with vinegar cloth.”

“Vinegar cloth, what is this? Can you eat it?”

The auxiliary soldier next to him quickly pulled out a strip of vinegar cloth and handed it to Yun Ye. The four-finger-wide strip of cloth was hard and stiff, like dried kelp, and it exuded a sour smell that was dark and rancid.

Oh my god, Yun Ye let out a miserable cry. How coarse-mouthed can this person be to eat food cooked with this stuff? No wonder Zhang Cheng was so angry when he saw me putting salt in the meat. He would cry happily when he heard that I promised to teach them how to make salt. A tough guy crying like a baby in the postpartum period, and he can’t be persuaded. Whoever tries to persuade him will be beaten. Never mind, making salt is making salt. It’s always a good thing to be able to help them.

Yun Ye yawned for a long time. The exhaustion of the past month seemed to have suddenly come out of the bones. He was lying on a thick blanket, leaning against the fire, listening to the two women chattering and laughing as they changed his clothes. A sense of security that had been long lost filled his body, and he fell asleep with Wangcai.

When the sun was about to peek out, he woke up as usual. A good night’s sleep completely chased away the tiredness. He stretched out and heard the bones crackling, which seemed to indicate that he could grow taller. Otherwise, his height of 1.6 meters would make Yun Ye depressed to death.

Zhang Cheng seemed to have not slept all night, standing by the side of the road staring in the direction of Lanzhou like a stone. The two women were making porridge. When they saw Yun Ye wake up, they were laughing around the loincloth, covering their mouths and laughing. Yun Ye then realized that he seemed to have gone out of his clothes, and quickly covered his lower body, laughing awkwardly.

The older woman came over with a few clothes in her hand and smiled, “You’re still shy. If my first child grows up, he’ll be a little older than you. Young master, try on the clothes. If they don’t fit, I’ll change them.”

“Thank you, sisters, for your hard work.”

“What are you thanking us for? Women are useless, we can only sew and mend. This is my duty.”

Yun Ye was struggling with a pile of clothes. He knew the pants, but what was this whole piece of cloth? Why was there a skirt? Where were the buttons? There were ribbons everywhere. What, should I wear socks first? This pile of clothes is the famous Tang suit. The clothes are tied from left to right, which is a characteristic of Han civilization. If Yun Ye just tied it from right to left, it was purely a sign of a barbarian, with his hair hanging to the left.

Seeing this, Yun Ye couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The entire 1.3 billion people of the Republic of China in later generations are all uncivilized savages. If, in the early years of the Tang Dynasty, you caught a wild man without an owner, that is, a foreigner, congratulations, he is your personal property, no different from catching a wild boar.

“You are so blessed that you don’t even know how to wear clothes. You’ve become a sinner for being so blessed.” Zhang Cheng, that bastard, probably has a hatred of the rich. He saw the two women dressing Yun Ye and was very dissatisfied with this lazy person who was not diligent in his limbs and could not distinguish between grains.

The two women pushed Zhang Cheng away, looked at him up and down, clapped their hands and said, “Oh, what a handsome young man. I wonder how the children of wealthy families are born, are they all so handsome?”

Yun Ye thought to himself, “I don’t know. I’ve seen a total of thirty-some people in the Tang Dynasty, and they’re all here.”

At this time, a whistle sounded, and the sentry shouted, “There are cavalry coming, about twenty riders!” Just as he shouted, the thunderous sound of hooves sounded.

Zhang Cheng jumped down from the dead tree by the road, grabbed Yun Ye and threw him to the two women, and shouted, “Form a formation!”

I saw thirty or so men quickly using the grain cart as a barrier, with the gunmen in front and the knife men behind. Zhang Cheng stood in the middle of the team, and two men stood outside the circle. There were already a dozen arrows stuck in the ground in front of them, ready for attack. The two women dragged Yun Ye into the woods, and Zhang Cheng turned around and shouted, “Hide well, don’t come out, even if you die, don’t come out.”

“Brothers, let’s not talk nonsense. If it’s the Qiang people, we’ll drag it out for as long as we can. It’s only right to save Yun’s brother. The brothers are still waiting for him to make salt. Don’t take the grain cart. Drag it to the school captain. We’ll win.”

Hearing this, blood rushed to his head. Yun Ye took a shovel and rushed out. The two women held him tightly behind the tree and wouldn’t let him go. The dusty road was only dimly visible, with dark shadows rolling in like a storm. Is this the power of cavalry? Yun Ye’s heart was pounding, and he couldn’t hear anything in his ears. It was all the sound of hooves. His hand holding the shovel was sweaty.

At the bend of the road, a chestnut horse dashed out like lightning. A helmeted and armored man on the horse held a spear and charged straight into the front of the formation, holding the reins in his hands. The horse whinnied, lifted its front hooves in the air, and suddenly stopped. I heard a shout: “Where is Zhang Cheng?”

“It’s the school captain!” The woman let go of her hands. Yun Ye shook his arms, and they were all blue and painful. He was so embarrassed that he lost his shoes. Yun Ye’s chest was suddenly filled with anger at the school captain.

When he came out of the woods, he saw Zhang Cheng very servilely whispering something to the school captain, and pointing at himself, very lewd.

Straightening his clothes, Yun Ye consciously and very elegantly held his fists in front of the school captain and said, “I, Yun Ye, have seen the school captain.”

The school captain looked at him with his eyes fixed, making Yun Ye feel uncomfortable. He thought that he was not dressed properly and was hesitating whether to have his clothes re-examined. He had made a mistake in the rush. But then he saw the school captain pointing at him and asking Zhang Cheng, “Is this the person you were talking about?”

Zhang Cheng nodded eagerly. But the captain was furious, kicked Zhang Cheng to the ground, and punched him like a tiger descending from the mountain and kicked him like a dragon in the sea. While Zhang Cheng was begging for mercy, he was being beaten and cursed: “You dog, how many people have no way out, and you use a doll to deceive me. It’s better for me to beat you to death than to punish you for lying about military intelligence.”