The stream flowing from the mountain to the bottom of the valley was specially directed outside the camp. A ditch surrounded the camp for half a circle, then gurgled down and gathered into the river ditch in the valley. This design can prevent fires and also facilitate soldiers to bathe.

Just like at this moment, beside the ditch surrounding the entire camp, there were naked soldiers standing there, scooping up a bucket from the ditch, pouring it on from head to toe, and rubbing it with each other. The cow horn soap picked in the forest was a bit painful when rubbed on the body, but it was definitely a good thing to remove dirt and dirt.

This kind of long strips of natural stain removal on the tree has been the favorite of ordinary people for a long period of history.

After taking a shower, the naked soldiers swayed their long legs and ran back to the house, put on their clothes, and then headed straight to the kitchen. It was not that they liked to be clean, but that there was a relevant regulations on personal hygiene in the rituals. If they were not completed, they would not be able to eat. On the way to the kitchen, there were officers on duty wherever they were on duty. Anyone who did not complete the requirements would be driven back. When you finished cleaning yourself again and then went to the kitchen, there would basically be only a little leftover soup left.

Anyway, there are only men in the military camp, and these big-headed soldiers have no sense of shyness. Some even deliberately spread their legs and deliberately show some of their parts in front of others, while others either block them with buckets or cover them with water scoops and hurried away.

Of course, they are not shy.

But he is a little inferior.

Men's happiness sometimes seems very simple, and just such an ordinary thing is enough to make them laugh at it for a long time.

Although Xiang Zhen lived almost the same as everyone else and ate the same thing, the cost of some inconspicuous people is still very different from that of ordinary soldiers.

Just like a good bath, the soldiers used soaps from the woods, and he used something called soap from the north.

In this way, a soap that is the size of a child’s palm is only 200 cents. There is also a soap called soap, which is cheaper, only 100 cents. Generally speaking, soap is used for bathing, and soap is used for bathing clothes.

Very cheap, you can afford it if you have a little money at home.

But the south cannot be made.

Don’t underestimate these small things. When their sales volume reaches a certain level, the profits you make will be quite considerable.

Many of the things used in daily life like this are made in the north.

Before Li Ke fled to Guangzhou, the business roads between the two sides were extremely smooth, and a large number of northern products poured into the south. With their cheaper prices and better performance, many southern industries were easily defeated. Things like soaps that could not be made in the south were better, but other things were fatal.

Just like rouge powder, the cheaper ones in the north are of better quality.

In the sugar industry, the price of snowflake candies in the north is the same as the price of granulated sugar in the south.

As a specialty salt industry, the quality of salt produced in the north is simply like a sky and an underground one. It once almost collapsed the salt industry in the south. In the end, the government took action and directly restricted the influx of salt from the north into the south, which was considered to have stopped the bleeding. However, the salt from the north still poured into the south through private channels. It was fighting with the government for profits in this area. Even if it was caught, it was beheaded, and it did not stop the smuggling wave.

The profit here is too great. Many people are willing to take risks for this.

Moreover, there is no shortage of the intervention of the Northern Tang government. A large number of such smuggled goods come from the sea. However, the sea is the world of the Northern Tang Navy. The ships of the Southern Alliance do not go too far to the sea. Once these smuggled ships are escorted by the Northern Tang Navy, they can easily dock somewhere and then quietly pour into the underground market in the south.

While making a lot of profits, these smugglers avoided the taxes of the court. What they did not expect was that in such repeated commodity transactions, the money from the Southern Confederate was flowing to the north like flowing.

Xiang Zhen once talked specifically about this matter with officials of the Ministry of Revenue, and also formally gave a note to his father. He said that if this continues, the Southern Alliance will not only fall into a serious shortage of money, but what is more terrifying is that many industries in the South will be destroyed, and those engaged in these industries will be unemployed, lose their income, and create a large number of refugees. Because of these, more social problems will inevitably arise.

After the armistice, the north reopened the commercial transactions between the two sides and strongly supported smuggling. This was not because they were kind-hearted, but because while plundering the wealth of the south, it created more social problems in the south. He asked to completely cut off all commercial exchanges in the north, block the edge mirror, and vigorously crack down on smuggling activities.

But since his memorial was handed over, it was like a rock sinking into the sea and received no response.

This made Xiang Zhen feel very desperate. He knew very well that if this continues, the people in the south will only become poorer, and the government in Guangzhou will only become poorer. When those people who pay taxes to you are no longer able to pay to you, how should the government survive?

The government has no money and cannot pay the salaries of officials, cannot afford the salaries of soldiers, and cannot provide pensions or relief to disasters when natural disasters occur.

He found a lot of people, but few people supported him.

What made him even more desperate was that through some private information, he found that the smuggling people were the senior officials and nobles of the Guangzhou court, and the most powerful one was his younger brother Xiang Jun.

On this point, Zhu Youzhen, the King of Liang who was entrenched in Yizhou, knew much more clearly. He directly cut off his business relations with the Northern Tang Dynasty. Now Yizhou is basically taking the path of self-sufficiency. Although life is hard, this ensures their own interests.

Zhu Youzhen's mind is very clear.

Sheng Zhonghuai, who was in charge of government affairs, had a clearer mind.

In terms of military affairs, the Liang army is now stationed heavily in Hanzhong, with Xiangyang in hand. Once things go wrong, even if they give up these two places, they will completely retract back to Yizhou and can still fight with natural dangers.

In terms of economy, Yizhou is known as the country of Tianfu. If you burn three hundred miles of plank road, Shu will naturally become a family, and it is not a casual talk.

Xiang Zhen is in pain now because he knows the Northern Tang too much, but the more he understands the Northern Tang, the more he feels a little desperate. In his opinion, now, including his father, he cannot truly understand and understand what happened in the Northern Tang Dynasty. Although he knows it, he cannot change all this.

The Confederacy is a consortium, and if there is something, it needs to be discussed. Everything is a compromise between each other after a fight for various interests. It is almost impossible to develop a strategy to strengthen the country and raise troops.

Every force has its own interests. In such negotiations, they try their best to take advantage of more and less losses. In such a general environment, no matter how good the strategy is, after rounds of negotiation and modification, by the end, it has long been beyond recognition, and some have even gone in the opposite direction to their original purpose.

After the cleaning, the personal soldiers had already brought food from the kitchen. The reason why Xiang Zhen was respected by the soldiers here was because in these aspects he did have the same effect as the soldiers. Living in the same house and eating the same meal, these were visible. However, they could not see the places that Xiang Zhen was different from them.

The food was good. Although it was brown rice, it was cleaned very well. It was poured with a layer of meat, and a large spoon of green vegetables, a few slices of pickles, and another bowl contained a bowl of fish soup. The soup was thick and white, and it was obvious that there was a lot of dry goods when making the soup, and it took a long time to boil it. There were a few slices of wild onions floating on the soup, which was steamed by hot steam, making it ginger.

Just as he picked up the bowl and took a few sips, a sudden sound of horse hooves came from outside. Xiang Zhen walked out of the room with the soup bowl and saw a team of cavalry with about a hundred people coming from the campus. The leader was one of them, and he was striking in the direction where he was.

That was his cavalry commander Wang You.

Wang You's cavalry camp was outside the mountain and happened to be blocked at the exit of the Lianhua Mountain Camp. First, it was because cavalry training needed a flat place, and second, it also meant to guard the gateway for the Lianhua Mountain Camp.

It is impossible to fight against the Northern Tang Dynasty without a strong cavalry, because the Northern Tang Dynasty has many cavalry. Therefore, the three thousand cavalry commanded by the king were almost all veterans they had collected before. These people had experienced war and were much more mature than the new recruits in the Lianhua Mountain Camp.

The three thousand cavalrymen spent half of the money raised by Xiang Zhen in the early stage. Fortunately, more than a thousand Qingtang horses were provided by his father Xiang Xun to show his support, and the rest was all up to him. The south has always lacked horse sources, but Xiang Zhen tried his best to collect five thousand horses for his three thousand cavalrymen, including Qingtang horses, Dian horses, and some local horses. Although the quality is mixed, he can still fight on the battlefield.

Every ten days, Wang would go into the mountain specifically, first to report the cavalry training situation, and secondly to bring some situations outside to Xiang Zhen.

In order to train troops, Xiang Zhen almost blocked himself from the outside world. The sources of information were brought in by Wang again.

"General!" Seeing Xiang Zhen standing at the door with a bowl in his hand, Wang, carrying a bag of skin, bowed again and said with a smile: "I entered the mountain early in the morning and haven't eaten yet. Can the general be a reward for his meal?"

Xiang Zhen laughed loudly, waved his hand and asked his personal soldiers to prepare meals for Wang You, and arranged more than a hundred cavalrymen who followed him, but he welcomed Wang You into the house again.
Chapter completed!