Chapter 1862
The Late Northern Song Dynasty
With several major bandit strongholds in Qingzhou City raided, Liu Dong can now focus on developing the entire city.
Qingzhou is located by the sea, but the lives of fishermen are not easy.
In ancient times, without methods of preservation, seafood was difficult to transport inland.
Fishermen can only dry salted fish to pay off their debts.
But this salted fish is really worthless.
Liu Tong revealed the recipe for shrimp paste and seafood sauce, opened a factory, collected seafood caught by fishermen, made it into sauce, and then transported it inland to sell at a high price.
Liu Dong also taught fishermen how to artificially cultivate sea mussels in nearshore waters to obtain pearls for money.
The lives of fishermen have improved significantly.
As for the other villagers, Professor Liu taught them scientific farming methods, which increased farmland yields by 30% to 40%.
After paying their taxes, the people had enough grain left over to sustain them for a year.
Although it wasn't enough to fill one's stomach, no one would starve to death.
The people were already very content, and no one wanted to become an outlaw anymore.
Liu also set up some workshops to provide opportunities for those who had lost their land to work and earn money.
Of course, these workshops could not be under Liu Dong's name, otherwise he would be impeached by those censors in the court who always wanted to stir up trouble.
Liu Tong summoned Li Ying, who brought two young men with him.
They are Zhu Biao and Hu Cheng.
Zhujiazhuang, Hujiazhuang, and Lijiazhuang are the three major local strongholds in Dulonggang. They help each other and form an alliance.
Li Ying joined Liu Qiu's cause, and over the years, Li Family Village has developed better and better. The other two families are very envious and approached Li Ying, hoping he could act as a go-between. They also wanted to get on Liu Qiu's good side.
For them, isn't the prefect of a prefecture a powerful figure?
Liu Dong received the two and accepted their offer of refuge.
Liu Tong didn't have much ill will towards these two companies; on the contrary, she felt that they were both being taken advantage of.
They were attacked by Liangshan because they blocked Liangshan's path.
Li Kui killed almost everyone in Hujiazhuang.
Poor Hu Sanniang couldn't avenge her father and brothers, and was even forced to marry a lecherous man.
Now that Wang Ying is dead, Hu Sanniang no longer has to marry such a disgusting bastard.
Liu Dong assigned work to all three families.
Liu Tong gave the Hu family the method for making textile machines, so that they could start a textile factory.
He taught the Zhu family the firing methods for enamel porcelain and blue-and-white porcelain.
Although blue and white porcelain appeared in the Tang Dynasty, the technology matured in the Yuan Dynasty.
Although there are blue and white porcelains on the market today, the quantity is not large, and the finest pieces are even rarer.
Needless to say, the price of high-quality items is exorbitant.
Enamel porcelain appeared during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty; such enamel porcelain did not exist during the Song Dynasty.
If the Zhu family produces both of these items, they will definitely make a fortune.
As for the Li family, Liu Dong gave Li Ying several blueprints, which were blueprints for making skateboards, bicycles, and tricycles.
Skateboards are a popular form of recreation, and many people would likely enjoy them.
Liu Tong had two samples made beforehand, and Wu Song, Hua Rong, and a few others went crazy with them.
In fact, Liu Dong secretly assigned another task to his trusted confidant, Li Ying.
He instructed Li Ying to establish a salt field on a remote, deserted beach, where salt would be produced and sold.
This is the most profitable business. Of course, if the imperial court finds out, it will cost you your head.
Li Ying is a born capitalist, perfectly embodying Marx's words in *Capital*: "With a 10% profit, capital will be used everywhere; with a 20% profit, capital becomes active; with a 50% profit, capital will take risks; for a 100% profit, capital will trample on all human laws; with a 300% profit, capital will commit any crime, even risking the gallows..."
He knew exactly how much profit he would make after the salt was dried, and he simply couldn't refuse it.
Even though it was a job that risked his life, he did it.
At this moment, news came from Mengzhou.
After listening to Liu Dong's words, the prefect of Mengzhou sent people to investigate Shizipo.
When Zhang Tuanlian received this task, he didn't take it seriously, thinking that there was nothing to investigate in a rural wine shop.
Since he had nothing to do, he took his men and personally went to Shilipo.
He thought it would be a relaxing trip, a chance to go out and have some fun, drink and eat meat—but the prefect didn't tell him that Shili Slope was a place where human flesh was sold, mainly because the prefect was so disgusted that he didn't want to disgust himself by saying it.
As a result, they were taken advantage of by Sun Erniang and Zhang Qing, who then drugged them with sleeping potion...
When the prefect of Mengzhou learned that Zhang Tuanlian had personally gone to investigate Shili Slope and never returned, he was certain that Liu Tong's words were most likely true.
He immediately mustered his troops and ordered them to surround Shilipo.
Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang were only of average skill, enough to defeat Jiang Menshen, but they couldn't fight off hundreds of soldiers like Li Kui and break through the encirclement.
The couple was captured by the soldiers, and their waiters were all killed by the soldiers.
The soldiers found Zhang Tuanlian's human skin in the kitchen, and steamers filled with buns made from Zhang Tuanlian's flesh. Zhang Tuanlian's bones were found in a corner...
Most of the officers and soldiers who saw this vomited.
But this was only a very small part. The soldiers found more human skin and skeletons in the house behind the wine shop. Almost all the land under Shilipo was buried with human bones. After digging them out, there were at least a hundred skeletons.
This matter has blown up so much that the people of Mengzhou are terrified.
The people near Shilipo were so frightened that they vomited and had diarrhea, and several more died from the stress.
Many of the victims' relatives came to claim the remains, but none of them could tell which set of remains belonged to their own family members.
Zhang Tuanlian was relatively fortunate; at least his bones, flesh, and skin were all buried together in the coffin.
The people all rushed to the entrance of the government office, demanding that the two villains be severely punished.
The news reached the capital, and Emperor Huizong (Zhao Ji) vomited upon hearing it. He then issued an edict to immediately deal with Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang.
Before autumn even arrived, the two were sent to the execution ground.
Instead of a swift beheading, they were subjected to the torture of being sliced into a thousand pieces, forced to watch their flesh being cut off piece by piece, and made to feel the pain of those they had killed.
The people of Qingzhou learned the whole story, but Wu Song and Lu Zhishen were still somewhat dazed.
Wu Song had heard of Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang and assumed they were heroes of the martial arts world.
Lu Zhishen even drank with the couple.
After learning what was added to the wine at Shili Slope, Lu Zhishen also vomited.
It took the two of them several days to recover.
After that, they stopped believing the rumors circulating in the martial arts world.
They no longer fully trusted the so-called heroes of the martial arts world.
Rumors are not as good as meeting in person. In the future, we need to be careful when making friends and make sure we know the person's character before deciding whether to get to know them.
Shi Qian poured a glass of wine for each of them: "Don't worry, this wine is brewed by the Hu family's shop, it's absolutely clean."
Both Wu Song and Lu Zhishen were fond of wine, but because of the incident at Shizipo, they had stopped drinking.
Upon hearing Shi Qian's words, he immediately picked up his wine glass. (End of Chapter)