"Are you sure this is what the Lord meant?"
Daxia Kingdom, northwest of Liangzhou, Xiao Family Ranch.
Xiao Mingyuan, the current head of the Xiao family, looked at his third son, Xiao Sanlang, with a serious face and asked, "Sanlang, you are the only official in the Xiao family, so you can't say anything careless."
Xiao Sanlang looked at his already elderly father and thought that the old man was good in every way except that he attached too much importance to wealth. This time the king wanted to requisition all the livestock in their family, oh no, all the livestock now and for the next four years. He was shocked when he saw it, let alone his father.
You have to know that even if you go back just thirty years, the Xiao family was just an unknown pastoral family in the northwest. Not to mention owning tens of thousands of horses, cattle and sheep like they do now, even being able to eat a bite of mutton during festivals was a life that the Xiao family could only dream of.
Ten generations of accumulation plus unparalleled good luck only allowed the Xiao family to transform from other people's herdsmen to herders with a small flock of sheep. Even at the end of the year, the family members were reluctant to kill a sheep for food. After all, ordinary herdsmen had no pasture, and the Xiao family was just grazing on other people's pasture, so half of the sheep had to be rented to others.
By the time of Xiao Mingyuan's generation, the old man of the Xiao family had used up all his luck in his life and actually met a lost caravan in the Gobi Desert. When he painstakingly brought the caravan with southwestern accents to the outskirts of Liangzhou City, the grateful caravan leader gave him a crystal sheep as a thank you gift.
By presenting the crystal sheep to the governor of Liangzhou, the Xiao family officially entered the fast lane of development. Especially after the governor sent people to confiscate the property of the largest grassland owner in the Gobi Desert on charges of "smuggling and collaborating with the enemy", no one could stop the development momentum of the Xiao family who inherited this grassland.
Of course, there are always people who can't understand why the prefect would do so much for the Xiao family just for a crystal sheep.
Xiao Mingyuan never told anyone that every once in a while, the caravan from the southwest would depart from the southwest, make a large circle, and then enter Liangzhou through the Xiao family's pasture...
Xiao Mingyuan never told anyone that just a month before the current ruler launched a coup, a team from the southwest passed through his pasture and headed towards Zhongxing Prefecture. He only vaguely heard something about "Zhang Yuan, a grand wedding, the crown prince..."
Of course, none of this has anything to do with him.
The only thing that had something to do with him was that after these people left, crystal crafts would always grow inexplicably in the grass. Sometimes it was a sheep, sometimes it was a cow, and sometimes it was simply a clean and transparent crystal plate that could be installed on the window.
So Xiao Mingyuan felt that he was the chosen one.
Otherwise, how do we explain how the first caravan got lost and ended up with him?
Why not someone else, right?
Since he had such a fate, Xiao Mingyuan decided to have more children so that he could pass on this good luck.
After becoming rich, Xiao Mingyuan's two biggest hobbies were, first, buying more pastures to raise more sheep, and second, marrying more wives and having more sons.
Now his grassland is so vast that you can't see the end of it at a glance. If he doesn't take out the deed and count it, Xiao Mingyuan himself would almost forget how much grassland he has. In short, he can just point his finger and from the feet to the horizon, it's all his grassland.
As for his sons, it was even better. He had eleven sons and seven daughters, from Xiao Yilang to Xiao Shiyilang, from Xiao Yiyi to Xiao Qiqi. He alone, well, not just him, he alone and the ten women he bought, gave birth to an entire Xiao family within a generation.
It was not until Xiao Sanlang passed the imperial examination and, with his help, successfully entered the government office in Liangzhou City and became a left-wing official under the prefect (an official title in the Xia Dynasty, in charge of investigating and questioning cases, and hearing and deciding minor disputes) that Xiao Mingyuan felt that the Xiao family should be considered a family at this time.
Everything is fine except for one thing that makes people unhappy. That is, since the current ruler ascended the throne, those lost caravans have never appeared again.
At first, he was worried that the caravan had changed guides and was really lost in the Gobi Desert. So Xiao Mingyuan searched the Gobi Desert for a long time with only some dry food, but found nothing.
Later, he saw crystal products in the shops of local merchants. Although they were still expensive, they were not as valuable as they were in the past.
In the end, Xiao Mingyuan, who didn't believe in evil, went to the border in person. At the border checkpoint, he saw with his own eyes that the caravan from Qinghe registered and paid taxes openly, and then passed through the layers of checkpoints of the border army and entered the heartland of Xia State.
No matter who is behind these caravans, they no longer need Xiao Mingyuan.
After confirming this, Xiao Mingyuan stood on the side of the street and spat fiercely at the Qinghe caravan that had just entered the pass.
"Pooh."
These ungrateful bastards, if it weren't for me, would they be where they are today? How could they do business honestly? Wouldn't it be better to just smuggle honestly?
He had clearly set his eyes on the pasture of the Jiang family in the neighboring county. He had his son's support, and the Jiang family, whose ancestors had barbarian blood, did not dare to refuse. They only said that they would sell the pasture to him for some silver.
The Xiao family has plenty of money, but Xiao Mingyuan doesn't want to spend it.
After all, once money is spent, it is gone. Even if you earn it again, it will be earned later.
The money earned tomorrow cannot make up for today’s losses. This is Xiao Mingyuan’s principle of doing things.
His original plan was to pick up some "naturally grown" crystal products in the Gobi Desert and give them to the Jiang family in exchange for the grassland.
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