Magical Water Margin: They all call me brother

Page 42

Iron ore is always better the more it is. Since it costs 100 coins per pound, let's set a price of 50,000 pounds of iron, or 5,000 strings of cash.

These two large transactions consumed one-seventh of Liangshan's national treasury. Yuncheng County did not have that much inventory, yet they were asking for tens of thousands of catties of goods at once. Kaifeng was indeed able to purchase them and directly provided thousands of catties of goods in stock.

The others will take a day. We also need to transfer some from other warehouses and logistics. At most, it will only take twelve hours to gather everything.

Afterwards, the group purchased a large amount of lead to make musket bullets, as well as some common medicinal herbs, miscellaneous pots, pans, cloth, clothing, and other items. After spending about 15,000 strings of cash, they stopped purchasing and prepared to slowly transport such a huge amount of supplies back to Liangshan.

The author says:

Author's Note: I'll add more chapters once we reach 1900 monthly votes!

Chapter 90: Encountering Collusion Between Underworld Officials and Businessmen

"Hey guys? You've bought so many medicinal herbs and ironware, where are you planning to sell them and make a fortune?"

Suddenly, a discordant sound interrupted the Liangshan brothers' carrying of their load. Li Hu turned around and saw a group of rather wealthy-looking merchants.

“We are from Jeju Island and we plan to transfer these goods to Jeju Island for sale.”

Li Hu smiled innocently and concealed the truth—"I can't possibly say all this because I'm going to Liangshan Marsh to build guns and cannons, can I?"

"So you're merchants from Jeju. Do you know me, Wang Er, and are you familiar with the rules of this capital city, Tokyo?!"

The leading merchant, Wang Er, suddenly became arrogant and looked down on everyone.

"If you come to Kaifeng to do business, even if it's just to buy goods, you must pay your respects to my husband. He is the head of the merchants' association on this street. You can only do business in Kaifeng after you have obtained my husband's permission."

The dozens of Liangshan soldiers were stunned. They had heard that large-scale business transactions required paying taxes and taking a cut from the government. This time, they had spent a total of 15,000 strings of cash. Therefore, they would have to pay one-tenth of the commercial tax to the government, which was 1,500 strings of cash, before they could take the goods and leave. It was already very painful.

But nobody told me about any chamber of commerce or anything like that.

Seeing the group of people looking at each other in a daze, the faces of the merchants darkened, and Wang Er, who was in charge, became even more arrogant and domineering.

"You stinking outsider, coming to Tokyo to beg for food?! Let me tell you, this entire commercial street was taken over by my husband! Do you think these shops can sell fireworks, sulfur, and other scarce resources? Isn't it because my husband has connections everywhere and has pulled strings at all levels?"

Without my husband's protection and approval, who would dare to do business on this street?!

"Gentlemen, how should we pay our respects to the head of the Chamber of Commerce? How do we obtain the master's consent?"

Li Hu frowned.

"Alright, you must have spent a lot of money buying so many goods. We'll give you 30% of the original price, which is 4,500 strings of cash."

Seeing that the other party had backed down, the merchants softened their attitude, but they still maintained a smug look of having the out-of-town merchants figured out.

Upon hearing this, Li Hu's anger flared up immediately. The government only charges 10% of the tax, and you, a lousy merchant guild leader, are asking me for three times the government's price?!

Do you fucking know who I am?

"What, you're not convinced?"

The merchants looked around at Li Hu and his group of guild members. There weren't many, just over fifty people. In order to operate covertly, they didn't carry any weapons, only some whistles that could be combined into broadswords and waist knives.

Local businessmen see him as an easy target.

"Then let you stinking outsiders learn some of the rules of Kaifeng! Go! Seize their goods! Let them go home and think carefully about whether they want to pay their respects to my husband!"

At the merchant's command, more than a hundred thugs wielding batons rushed out of the street, intending to seize Liangshan's goods and force them to submit.

Li Hu and his group were no pushovers either. All fifty of them were Liangshan bandits who had fought against government troops, and many were elite soldiers from the Daming Prefecture River Guard. These men had all received formal military training, and they too grabbed sticks and engaged the merchants in fierce combat!

"Form ranks! Second hand for cover, first hand for a full-scale attack!!!"

Li Hu roared, and the fifty men immediately split into two groups to coordinate their actions. One Liangshan clerk, leading twenty-five men, protected the left and right flanks and rear of Li Hu and his men, preventing the caravan's thugs from attacking their weak points and disrupting their formation.

Li Hu led another group of twenty-five men and launched a fierce attack on the front without any hesitation! The first row of ten men lay on the ground with their sticks on the ground and swept horizontally, targeting the ankles and shinbones. This was a dirty trick used by the Daming Prefecture Xiang Army to deal with bandits when they were suppressing bandits.

The fifteen men behind them spun around and leaped up, raining blows from their batons at the heads of these hooligans, leaving them bloodied and routed.

These thugs from the merchant guild, who usually only bullied and oppressed people in Kaifeng, had never seen such a combined force of soldiers and bandits. The men in the front row were knocked down by the sweeping sticks, and before they could get up, their wrists were broken by the blows. The people in the middle were beaten by the rain of sticks on the corridor and ran away with their heads in their hands. One of them who tried to escape stumbled and fell to the ground, and his body was instantly trampled into a pulp by the other fleeing thugs.

Wang Er, who had been causing trouble, changed his expression drastically. Just as he was about to retreat, Li Hu's whistle pierced through his crotch like a venomous dragon. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the burly man, weighing over 180 pounds, flying onto the roof of the restaurant. He then crashed heavily to the ground, his yellow urine seeping into the earth.

"You son of a bitch! You're robbing us! Fine, fine, you want to pay your respects to us? Well, your grandpas will teach you a lesson with this stick!!!"

Li Hu cursed and hit Wang Er a few more times with a stick, kicking him like a football. Most of these thugs from the merchant guild were unemployed level zero militiamen, while the hundred Liangshan men selected by Liu Hong and brought to Tokyo were all level three Xiangjun (military garrison). They beat the other side to a pulp in one go.

Seeing how valiant Li Hu and his fifty men were, the guild's thugs dared not launch a direct attack and retreated in disarray. Several quickly slipped away as if fleeing, seemingly to report the news.

Li Hu's expression was grave. He ordered his men to capture the merchants who appeared to be leaders and take them hostage. One group was to be taken hostage to continue the assault, while the other group was to be taken hostage with their goods and leave. The situation had escalated, and they could not linger here.

But to their surprise, just as they had loaded about 20% of the goods onto the ship, a deafening sound of horses' hooves echoed through the street, and while the blood foam was still swirling in the cracks of the stone slabs, a golden wave of iron suddenly rose up on the east side of the street.

Li Hu looked up and saw a large troop of people rushing towards him! Two hundred Imperial Guards from Tokyo were clad in gleaming armor, and two hundred Western Xia warhorses were clad in silver-inlaid iron armor. The horseshoes as big as bowls struck the bluestone slabs, exploding into a series of dark blue sparks, which resounded in everyone's hearts like muffled thunder or war drums!

The leader, Wang Dutou, was clad in golden chainmail and wore a phoenix-winged purple-gold crown. He was as majestic as a god, holding aloft a golden spear and roaring loudly.

"By order of the Kaifeng Prefecture! Everyone, lay down your weapons! Cease fighting!!!"

Seeing that the government's imperial guards had arrived, Li Hu dared not make any rash moves. He slowly lowered his stick. Wang Er, who had escaped with his life from the blow, immediately knelt down on the ground, sticking his buttocks up high, begging and pleading like a villain who had to file a complaint first!

"Commander Wang! You must stand up for me! These merchants from Jeju are breaking the rules! They tried to steal our goods, and when we refused, they beat us mercilessly! They injured many of our brothers and stole a lot of our goods!!!"

"Bullshit! These goods were bought with my own money! The paperwork is all signed and sealed, and I was even preparing to use it to pay taxes. Now you're saying I stole them?!"

Seeing this man spreading rumors and distorting the truth, Li Hu was enraged and kicked him in the butt, sending him flying. But the next second, he himself was also sent flying by Wang Dutou of Mabei Mountain with a halberd! The other party's movements were so fast that he couldn't even see them!

"Stop! You thief! Not only did you steal people's goods, but you also injured innocent civilians right in front of me! Arrest all of them and throw them in jail! Confiscate all the goods!!!"

With a furious shout from the head of the capital, two hundred fully armed heavy armored imperial guards, like two hundred steel behemoths, charged forward in a dark mass, only targeting Li Hu's men and ignoring the members of the Chamber of Commerce. This biased attack left Liang Shan dumbfounded.

Li Hu was struck by the iron hammer at the end of the halberd, and he collapsed to the ground, unable to get up for a long time. He was easily captured by two government soldiers.

Wang Er, who had been beaten and kicked in the buttocks, was now clutching his wounds, grimacing as he got up from the ground. He hid behind Wang Dutou and gave Li Hu a sneer of arrogance.

"Fine, fine, I'll remember you! I told you, no one can do business on this street without my master's permission! What good is being a fighter! Just wait and see how I beat you to a pulp!!!"

Chapter 91: Lin Daiyu, whose beauty rivals the moon and shames the flowers

On the other side, when Liu Hong heard that the person who bought his goods had been arrested and that all the money for the goods had been confiscated by Kaifeng, everyone was shocked.

According to intelligence from Lu Zhisheng's gang of hooligans, Li Hu and his men were just arrested and sentenced before they were even interrogated!

"boom!!!"

Suddenly, the copper bells on the beams of the tavern rang out. Lu Zhisheng's bulging arm muscles erupted like the roots of an old tree, and when his huge, fan-like hand slammed down, the entire elm wood tavern table shattered into pieces like a flaky pastry! Three tin wine jugs filled with wine shot into the air, the amber liquid still drawing shimmering arcs in mid-air, before being caught by Wu Song and Liu Hong with lightning speed.

"Damn it! Which street vendor did this? Has he got some nerve?! Daring to steal Liu Hong's goods?! Fine, fine, since he has such a good appetite, then I'll let him taste my fists!!!"

Lu Zhisheng's thunderous roar shook the roof tiles, causing dust to fall. The patrons glanced at him frequently. The burly nun ripped open her robe, revealing a mandala tattoo on her chest that trembled and writhed with the rise and fall of her fair flesh. When she raised her hundred-pound iron staff with a clang, the copper rings at the tip of the staff collided with each other, producing a deafening hum like a Buddhist bell.

"Come, come, watch me uproot and rip up that entire street of Master Wang's!"

"Sister! Calm down."

With lightning speed, Wu Song grabbed Lu Zhisheng and pulled her back to the ruins of the wine table, his beautiful face extremely serious.

"Sister, you must not be so reckless! We are completely in the dark right now and know nothing about the enemy. Li Hu and his men were just captured and convicted, which means that the other party is deeply involved with the government. Although the Imperial Guards in Kaifeng are not as powerful as they were during the reign of Emperor Taizu, they are not to be trifled with."

"At this moment, we should first send someone to gather information about this commercial street before considering any further actions."

Lu Zhisheng was still angry, but she also felt that Wu Song was right. She swallowed her anger and gasped for breath, causing her breasts to tremble and her breasts to shake. Liu Hong was so angry that he felt dizzy from looking at her.

“What my sister says makes sense. In that case, I do know someone who can help.”

Lu Zhisheng spoke in a muffled voice, then got up again and hurriedly walked out.

"She is also Master's disciple. She was taken in by Master after he retired from the Guanzhong battlefield and returned to Kaifeng to retire. Now she is the instructor of the 800,000 Imperial Guards in Tokyo, nicknamed Leopard Head. Lin Chong, let's go! I'll go find her right now."

Upon hearing of Lin Chong's fame, Liu Hong's eyes lit up. After donning a black cloak for disguise, he immediately followed Lu Zhisheng to Lin Chong's residence to pay his respects. His black boots had barely crossed the third cracked-scale patterned paving stone at the alley entrance when he was greeted by a whiff of sandalwood incense. Looking up, he saw two stone lion statues from Qingzhou perched atop the three-tiered red steps, imposingly guarding the two large red-lacquered doors. The gatekeeper recognized Lu Zhisheng and quickly opened the door to lead the way.

The gilded canopies carried by military officers on both sides illuminated the palace candles, casting a chilling glow on the sandalwood weapon racks in the east courtyard, where eighteen kinds of weapons, including swords, spears, and halberds, gleamed. At the very center stood a ten-foot-long serpent spear, the legendary weapon of Zhang Fei, a fierce general from the Three Kingdoms period. In the west wing's covered corridor, maids, taking advantage of the clear weather, aired various books and manuscripts from ancient times to the present, including even genuine works by Yan Zhenqing of the Tang Dynasty and Zhong Kui by Wu Daozi.

A whole piece of Laizhou mica stone lies across the terrace in front of the main hall, its natural patterns outlining the posture of a crouching tiger and a coiled dragon. Inside the hall, maids pluck the strings of their zithers, and the breeze carrying through the hall brings half a fragment of the score of "Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe," mingling with the snorting of fine horses and steeds from the stables at the side gate, like the spirits of both the literary and martial worlds lingering among the beams and pillars of the Lin mansion.

"Junior sister! Junior sister, come quickly! I need to see you, it's urgent!"

Lu Zhisheng rushed through the corridor and bumped into Lin Chong's personal maid.

"So it's Master Lu! My husband is still getting ready... Oh? Master!"

Before the maid could stop him, Lu Zhisheng had already pushed open the door, revealing a room full of spring-like scenes.

Liu Hong looked on curiously and saw the beauty leaning against the mirror with the bronze sparrow holding a branch suddenly unfurl her long, black hair. Lin Chong, who was combing his hair at the time, was startled by Lu Zhisheng's sudden intrusion. A colorful white tiger robe from Western Shu slipped down her fair shoulders, revealing an ice silk gauze garment made of Suzhou tribute underneath.

This exquisite silk, as thin as a cicada's wing, was originally a gift from the Emperor Zhao to the instructors of the 800,000 Imperial Guards, but now it wrapped around two trembling mounds of snow-white flesh, shimmering with the captivating glow of ripe peaches.

"My sister is always like this when she comes, rushing around like this. Is something urgent?"

Lin Chong shook his head helplessly, picked up the white tiger brocade with his slender hands, wrapped it back around his breathtakingly hot body, and stood up gracefully and calmly. He was as tall as Lu Zhisheng, Wu Song, and Liu Hong, all of them supermen who were 2.4 meters tall.

When Lin Chong turned around, Liu Hong couldn't help but gasp, seeing his slender, swan-like neck supporting his stunningly beautiful face.

Her eyebrows, like wisps of smoke, arched gently, yet seemed to furrow; her eyes, seemingly joyful yet not joyful, held a captivating charm. Her elegant demeanor radiated grace, while her martial arts prowess was evident in her delicate features.

In stillness, she is like a beautiful flower reflected in water; in motion, she is like a leopard swooping through the forest. Graceful as a startled swan, elegant as a swimming dragon, radiant as an autumn chrysanthemum.

Hua Mao Chun Song.

The ink flows from the green bamboo slips, as astonishing as the goddess of the Luo River in Cao Zhi's poem.

The cinnabar pierces the white silk; it is originally a celestial being in Zhou Fang's painting.

Liu Hong gazed at the stunningly beautiful woman, who looked like Lin Daiyu from a painting, and was momentarily captivated, murmuring to himself.

“I’ve seen this younger sister before.”

At the same time, Liu Hong's eyes once again saw the pinnacle of combat power in this world: the heaven-defying attributes of a level 12 character.

However, Lin Chong has not yet awakened and ascended to the level of a demon prince like Lu Zhisheng; she is still barely at the level of a mortal.

Lin Chong (the devil)

Level 12 (Level 7 Cavalry General + Level 5 Imperial Guard Cavalry)

Life 180, Psychic 0

Strength 24, Agility 32, Constitution 24

Intelligence 16, Perception 16, Charisma 16

[Luxury Belt]: All attributes +6.

【Demon Messenger - ? ? ?】

A cavalry general is a basic profession, similar to a warrior. However, they are not as versatile as warriors; their skills lie entirely in mounted combat and charging into battle.

The Imperial Guard Cavalry is the most perfect advancement for cavalry generals, bar none. There are only five levels in total, and each level of Imperial Guard Cavalry can bring a great boost to the cavalry general.

Lin Chong's attributes are also very impressive. The attributes of the Earthly Fiends are relatively normal, but the attributes of these Heavenly Demons are more and more terrifying. Lin Chong has not yet ascended to the Demon realm, but his agility has already reached an astonishing 32!

This means that her dynamic vision and nerve reaction speed are astonishingly fast; she might even be able to dodge arrows fired from a crossbow. Her strength and physique, though slightly inferior, are still at the peak level of ordinary people.

Chapter 92: Leopard Head's Loyalty and Righteousness (Bonus Chapter for 1900 Monthly Tickets)

"Hey? What's gotten into you, kid? You've gone mad."

Lu Zhisheng shook Liu Hong hard before he was finally brought back to his senses by Lin Chong's stunning beauty—this was very unusual. The last time Liu Hong was so captivated by beauty was when that little girl Pan Jinlian used her nine-tailed fox powers to bewitch him.

After Liu Hong was completely free, he found that Lu Zhisheng, who was in a great hurry, had already explained the whole story clearly.

"I thought it was something serious, but it turns out that my junior brother's goods were intercepted by Wang Cai on the commercial street, and his men were captured by the Imperial Guards of Kaifeng."

Lin Chong spoke the wealthy man's real name with a calm and collected demeanor. His exquisite and elegant face revealed no trace of human joy or sorrow, like a fairy high above, untouched by worldly affairs, giving people a sense of unapproachable distance.

However, this sense of estrangement, which had just begun to arise in Liu Hong's heart, was broken by Lin Chong's heartwarming smile.

"Since you're my junior brother, then we're family. Come on, I'll stand up for you."

-------------------------------------

At this moment, the Wang Family Chamber of Commerce was filled with jubilation.

"These merchants from Jeju are truly innocent victims! They could have simply paid the officials 30% of the silver and conducted their business properly, but they refused! Now they've been arrested as bandits and thrown into jail, losing both their money and goods—serves them right!!!"

Wang Er, who had been severely injured by Li Hu, covered his wounds and cursed gloatingly before shamelessly approaching a refined-looking scholar.

"Now, the money of those innocent victims is in our hands, and the goods have been taken by the government. Sir, how much did we make on this deal?"

"I didn't make much money."

Wang Cai was typing away on his abacus with a loud clattering sound.