All the heavens begin with the love in the courtyard.

At the start of spring, countless people lost their crops for spring planting and had to sell their land. Some impoverished families had no choice but to sell their children at low prices in order to find another way to survive.

These farmers, like the seeds they planted, sprouted and grew with the spring breeze, only to be harvested again like chives.

Last winter's heavy snow did indeed foreshadow a bountiful harvest. This year, the wheat seedlings are growing very well, and as the wheat grains gradually become fuller in the heading stage, the gloom in everyone's hearts has finally dissipated somewhat.

But besides the farmers, the old men in the county also coveted their grain.

Just as Bai Jiaxuan had predicted, Tian Fuxian appeared on Bailu Plain shortly after April, when the chill had just dissipated.

After riding his pony around the plain, Tian Fuxian saw that the crops were growing well this year and couldn't help but feel gratified. It seemed that there was hope for this year's grain tax.

After arriving at Bailuyuan, Tian Fuxian originally intended to see Bai Jiaxuan, but after wandering around without finding him, he ran into Lu Zilin instead. Tian Fuxian reasoned that Lu Zilin, this little official-obsessed fellow, might be easier to control, so he took Lu Zilin and returned to the county.

It's a good thing Bai Jiaxuan wasn't home. If he were, he would definitely know that those two grandsons were up to no good.

Sure enough, in mid-April, Lu Zilin returned to the plain from the county, dressed in a black Zhongshan suit and wearing a top hat, with a smile on his face. Along with him, he also brought back a plaque.

"The First Security Office!"

The first thing Lu Zilin did upon returning was to gather everyone in the ancestral hall and announce the county's appointment letter to him.

The county has decided to establish a new office at the township level below the county level, named the Security Office, which will oversee ten villages.

At the same time, the official position of the management and security office was called the village covenant, and Lu Zilin was the village covenant of the first security office, which governed ten villages, one of which was Bailuyuan.

Lu Zilin returned to Bailuyuan in high spirits, carrying the plaque. He announced that the first security post would be established in Bailuyuan Village, and that a week later would be the opening day of the first security post, when a grand banquet would be held for the guests.

Lu Zilin's move quickly won over a group of idle men in the village once again. With their help, Lu Zilin's first social security office was indeed successfully established.

However, the establishment of this first security post on Bailu Plain did not elicit the enthusiastic response that Lu Zilin had imagined.

Everyone was rather indifferent to this matter. Apart from the group of idlers running around, the rest of the villagers watched it all with a cold eye, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Lu Zilin didn't enjoy being the village head either. He naturally knew what was going on. The person in charge of Bailu Plain now wasn't him, Lu Zilin, but Bai Jiaxuan, who was rarely home but whose prestige remained undiminished.

Bai Jiaxuan has indeed been away from home frequently these past few months. He has hired five long-term workers, four of whom, apart from Lu San, are busy working in the fields all day long.

He didn't need to manage the fields; for the past six months, he and Lu San had been building the Wuzhishan base.

Everything is difficult at the beginning. In the past six months, Wuzhishan has grown to a certain size and has become somewhat like a bandit's den.

Currently, the base has 63 reserve members, both men and women, aged between five and fifteen. In addition, there are four women who came up the mountain with their children and are responsible for meals. Most of these people came up the mountain last winter.

Last year, the county's grain requisition caused a surge in beggars in the county town. Families of all ages crowded together in the county to beg, forming a dense, dark mass. During the two weeks of snowfall, every morning the county's corpse collection team could haul a cartload of corpses to the mass burial ground.

During that period, Zheng Mang recruited a lot of people to go up the mountain. This was a decision made after carefully selecting each child. If he had just recruited people randomly, he could have easily recruited three to five thousand people in the surrounding counties last winter.

The county officials in the surrounding counties were all cut from the same cloth, and their three-year grain tax and poll tax forced countless families to become homeless.

Why were there so many bandits and warlords during the Republic of China era? With so many high-quality soldiers, anyone with even a little ambition could cause some trouble.

Although more than sixty people were brought up the mountain, there are only three to five people in Wuzhi Mountain who are capable of fighting. Zheng Mang's marksmanship is already perfect, and Lu San, under Bai Jiaxuan's training, can keep three to five people at bay.

There were also a few teenagers who, after a few months of training, had decent marksmanship, but they were still complete novices who had never seen blood and needed to grow slowly.

As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning. In the past six months, countless problems have come our way, and we even encountered the accidental death of two kids in training. But despite all the ups and downs, we finally made it through the most difficult months.

Now, Zheng Mang has selected many promising young children to serve as team leaders and management, and things on the mountain are gradually becoming more organized.

Bai Jiaxuan did not hide his identity, but stepped to the forefront. In the past six months, he has been in charge of all matters, both inside and outside the village. He even served as the enlightenment teacher for these kids and set up a literacy class on the mountain.

Although Wuzhishan is not large in scale now, it is small but complete. Bai Jiaxuan does not intend to teach these children to become bandits, but to cultivate them as elites.

Bai Jiaxuan had no intention of restricting their thoughts. If these people truly aspired to be kings or nobles in the future, Bai Jiaxuan would not stop them. In fact, he had no ambition for this world, nor much attachment to it.

During that dark period, he knew very well what he needed: he needed to get out of the darkness and see his real family and his true self, not the world of Bailuyuan.

This base will not be expanded in the future; its maximum capacity is one hundred people. However, if one person leaves, another person will be recruited in the future until the chaos ends and they fulfill their true mission.

The true mission of this base is simply to guard Bailu Plain.

Wuzhishan has just been established and there are too many things to do. Bai Jiaxuan has rarely been able to come down the mountain once a month. Xiangcao became pregnant again at the beginning of the year, and it is estimated that her second child will be born by the end of this year.

Lu San returns to Bailuyuan every week or two. He only recently learned that Lu Zilin has become the village head, but Bai Jiaxuan doesn't care much. The wheat hasn't ripened yet, and Tian Fuxian's lackeys haven't collected taxes. He'll deal with them later when he has the chance.

When the autumn harvest season arrives, it will be time for Wuzhishan to make its true debut. Let Zheng Mang lead a few little devils to the front lines first, and then let them shed blood.

Blocking someone's path to wealth is like killing their parents. Once those officials in the county can no longer collect taxes in Bailuyuan, there will definitely be bandit-suppressing teams coming up the mountain.

The real test will only be beginning then!

Chapter 41

Today's business was indeed a bit beyond Han Chunming's expectations. The flow of people never decreased, and just after noon, the three large earthenware pots of soup were gradually emptied.

That's three hundred bowls! This sales volume caught Han Chunming off guard, so he quickly turned up the heat and kept stirring the soup in the earthenware pot.

The soup is still simmering and won't be ready until at least 2:30 PM. There's nothing Han Chunming can do but close the door to visitors.

Have Meng Xiaoxing and Meng Xiaozao stand at the door and explain to customers entering the store that the soup will only be available after 2 PM, and that the soup is sold out now.

While waiting, Han Chunming asked Taozi to go to a nearby restaurant to get some fast food. Since there were no lunchboxes, Taozi carried a few dishes and a large bowl of rice back to the store on a plate.

The group quickly made do with a meal, which was eaten intermittently. Every now and then, someone would come into the shop to ask about the nourishing soup, and Meng Xiaoxing kept explaining the same thing to them without even drinking any water.

Han Chunming hurriedly finished his meal and then went to stir the soup.

Everyone was busy working hard, and Taozi rarely had a smile on his face. Although he had made a bet with Han Chunming that whoever lost would have to work from dawn till dusk every day, he was willing to lose.

At that moment, he only had one thought on his mind: if only business could be this good every day!

Yes, if business could be this good every day, we'd be rich!

Selling 300 bowls in the morning and 300 bowls in the afternoon, that's 600 yuan a day. Half of that is profit, which is 300 yuan. You can become a 10,000-yuan household in a month. Just thinking about it is exciting.

Yes, back in 1982, the term "ten-thousand-yuan household" had just been coined and was a symbol of true wealth. If a store could earn ten thousand yuan a month, the owner could also receive 20%, earning two thousand yuan a month.

Two thousand yuan was something he never dared to dream of before.

Taozi was thinking about his bright future as he washed the dishes with incredible speed, feeling that all the fatigue of the day was no longer important!

Soon it was past two o'clock in the afternoon. Han Chunming wiped the sweat from his forehead and asked Meng Xiaoxing to invite the customers into the shop, as the soup would be ready soon!

Some customers had been waiting since 1:30, and they were overjoyed when they heard that the nourishing soup was finally ready.

Today is Sunday, and most of the families came out together. Many were old customers bringing new customers. The topic of conversation among everyone was still the effects of this nourishing soup. The store was bustling with excitement.

Soon the store was full of customers again. Han Chunming felt exhausted. He hadn't slept for 36 hours and had been working at high intensity for the past two days. He was feeling really weak.

He held a soup bowl, drinking the nourishing soup he had prepared for himself, and stood at the door looking out.

He suddenly remembered that he had told Su Meng yesterday that when she delivered lunch to her father, she could stop by his shop and he would prepare a nourishing soup for her.

It's already 3:30, and Su Meng still hasn't arrived. Judging from the situation, she's not coming.

Han Chunming simply shook his head helplessly and didn't think about it any further.

Ultimately, his relationship with Su Meng was just that of neighbors.

Everyone has their own thoughts, and I am just an ordinary person.

Although I sometimes think, why don't I start a harem in this world?

If you could get your hands on Su Meng and Guan Xiaoguan, you could have a stable home life while having affairs on the side. How wonderful that would be!

But this is just wishful thinking. In modern society, no woman would willingly serve a man unless she is a tool for money and has no thoughts of her own.

Whether it's Su Meng or Guan Xiaoguan, they are both independent women with their own thoughts. She might believe a man's lies for a while, but she would never share a man with someone else.

While some women are indeed willing to share a man's wealth, they are even more willing to share that man's money.

The women mentioned here definitely do not include Su Meng and Guan Xiaoguan.

Besides, do you really think that a man will be happy just because a few beautiful women are with him?

Hehe, you'll see after you get married!

Unless you only want to sleep with them and never think about spending your life with them, the idea of ​​having two women on your left and right and sleeping together harmoniously only exists in fantasy novels.

In modern society, once ideas are liberated, it's wishful thinking to try to imprison women again, unless one goes back to ancient times.

There is another possibility: she truly, truly loves you, doesn't care about worldly gossip, doesn't care about the future, and doesn't care about tomorrow; she just wants to be with you!

Han Chunming hasn't met a woman that foolish yet, and even if he did, he probably wouldn't want her. She's too stupid and would affect the intelligence of his offspring!

After finishing the soup, Han Chunming felt a bit better, so he went back to the kitchen and started washing the dishes, taking over Taozi's work. Taozi had gone to deliver takeout orders; the customer had come to say hello at noon and left some money.

This takeout order requires me to come in person, which is really inconvenient. While washing the dishes, Han Chunming thought that once he made some money, he would have to install a phone, otherwise it would be inconvenient in the future!

Judging from the foot traffic outside the shops, Han Chunming estimated that he could get off work around five or six o'clock today. Business was sure to get better and better, but making soup was just too tiring.

It seems we still need to hire more people. Han Chunming is also thinking that he needs to improve his soup-making method. He was worried about business before, but now he is basically confident. If he's going to do it, he should do it big. Opening a soup shop can make him rich!

Han Chunming already had an idea in mind. He planned to rent a large warehouse nearby to build a central kitchen. The kitchen would hire people to cook soup, and once the soup was cooked, it would be bottled and transported directly to the shop by tricycle for reheating.

This will not only save Han Chunming time and reduce his workload, but most importantly, with a central kitchen as the supply chain, he can open more branches in Yanjing City in the future.

Of course, this is just a thought for now. We'll talk about it again once the store makes money. Doing it this way now, even though it's tough and tiring, is a life experience, which is pretty good.

While she was busy working, Meng Xiaoxing rushed into the kitchen and shouted loudly.

"Brother Wu, come out quickly, we have guests!"

Han Chunming was bewildered and scolded him.

"Just greet the guests, what are you yelling about!"

Meng Xiaoxing quickly shook her head and continued.

"Brother Wu, this customer wants to order our most expensive nourishing soup!"

The bowl in Han Chunming's hand fell into the bucket with a thud. He stood up with some confusion. The most expensive nourishing soup in his shop cost eighty-eight yuan.

The soup was so expensive, it was just a gimmick, and he never thought anyone would buy it. But to his surprise, customers came in on the very first day of opening, which made him take it seriously.

He followed Meng Xiaoxing into the store. Looking inside, he saw a middle-aged man in a suit standing at the door, carrying a briefcase. A black car was parked outside. Goodness, a big customer had arrived.

Han Chunming quickly walked towards the middle-aged man with a big smile on his face.

When the middle-aged man saw Han Chunming arrive, he nodded slightly, but there was no smile on his face. He reached out and shook hands with Han Chunming.

The man was broad and round, but he stood ramrod straight. Han Chunming could tell at a glance that he was from a military background. But who cared? As long as he was willing to pay, even the King of Heaven would be a guest!

Han Chunming quickly asked with a smile.

"Sir, would you like to order our most expensive nourishing soup?"