It is not an easy task to transport 16 million salt taxes into Beijing, and the Jianghuai Transshipment Division has mobilized 800 large tankers, each of which can carry more than 1,000 stone of goods, plus 200 tankers of grain also followed into Beijing, a total of 1,000 large ships, stretching for more than 20 miles, and the local army of Yangzhou poured troops out, and all 2,000 soldiers boarded the ship, responsible for escorting the fleet north.

The fiber optic man recruited more than 700 people, although the scale is huge, but this can only be regarded as general in the Sui and Tang dynasties when Cao Yun was extremely developed, and the Tang Dynasty can maintain more than 100 years after the Anshi Rebellion, the key is to benefit from Cao Yun, Jianghuai, Jiangnan region of various material wealth continue to be transported to Chang'an.

In fact, the famous Kaiyuan prosperous era in history is also because of the development of Caoyun, so that the Jiangnan and Jianghuai materials can be transported to the north, and the huge material wealth is transferred in Yangzhou, which has made Yangzhou, the world's first commercial city.

The Grand Canal dug by Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty still plays a huge role today.

Guo Song accepted Liu Yan's commission to become the actual guardian of the salt tax to the north, and at the same time, the Tibetan Sword Pavilion sent more than forty warriors south to protect the salt tax into Beijing, and Yu Chaoen also sent hundreds of warriors to try to fish in troubled waters under the leadership of Yang Wanhua.

Hearing the news, Li Zhongchen and Tian Shenyu also moved, but neither of them dared to openly rob the imperial court salt tax, but sent their right-hand men to secretly intercept part of the salt tax.

For a time, around this batch of salt taxes, all forces were ready to move, and they all wanted to get a piece of the pie.

The large trough ship is a bit like today's cement ship, the ship is very high, with a wooden cover on it, and a bamboo shed behind it, as a shelter for the ship's personnel, and the large wooden box containing the tax money is placed in the bilge under the wooden cover, because the wooden box is very heavy, it is impossible to steal money, and the whole ship can only be stolen.

Guo Song also sat on the boat, he carried ten pots of arrows, not only him, Guo Song also required every soldier to carry a bow and crossbow, once someone deliberately approached the Cao transport boat, immediately shot with arrows.

A thousand trough boats sailed on the canal, each boat had a red pennant flag, and all the ships on the canal had to avoid the official flag, which was not only a rule, but also a warning, if you did not obey the warning, you wanted to deliberately get close to the official ship, and it would be in vain to be shot.

This is the rule of blood that countless boatmen have built at the cost of their lives.

During the day, everyone is very vigilant, and the sight is also very good, generally there will be no accidents during the day, the key is that at night, all kinds of dangers are haunted at night.

Early that morning, the boats began to enter the Huai River, and after a night of vigilance, the soldiers were a little tired, and many of them went into the bamboo huts to sleep.

Guo Song was in the middle of the fleet, and he asked Sun Xiaozhen to take a dozen warriors to guard the stern of the ship, while Liu Yan was at the bow of the ship, and there were dozens of warriors from the Hidden Sword Pavilion on both sides of the river.

"Guo Gongzi!"

Guo Song heard someone calling him, and as soon as he turned around, he saw Du Wei Luo Ziyu standing not far behind him.

"It turned out to be General Luo, if this is going to the stern?"

Luo Ziyu nodded, "I'll go around and see what happened last night." ”

"General Luo might as well sit down!"

Luo Ziyu sat down beside Guo Song and asked with a smile: "I heard Liu Yuanjun say that this time the prince will return to the capital, and he will not come to Yangzhou again?" ”

Guo Song nodded, "My task has been completed, and the follow-up will have to rely on Liu Yuanjun and General Luo." ”

Luo Ziyu was silent for a moment and asked, "I heard that a salt army may be formed?" ”

"Perhaps! But it shouldn't be in the near future, if General Luo is interested, I can help you mention it to the Son of Heaven! ”

"Thank you, Guo Gongzi!"

Guo Song smiled and asked casually, "I heard that General Luo originally followed General Chen Xuanli?" ”

"Yes! A change in Tennoji Temple, how many people were implicated. ”

"What's going on with Dou Xianlai?"

Guo Song simply went straight to the topic, including Gongsun Auntie, he was a little secretive about this person, Guo Song was not curious, he was likely to face this person after returning to Beijing, he had to figure out the cause and effect, this Luo Ziyu also participated in the change of Tianwang Temple, he should also know the inside story.

Luo Ziyu was silent for a while, and only said after a while: "There are many reasons for the failure of the Tianwang Temple, at that time, the throne of the Son of Heaven was unstable, and all the generals of the Wei Dynasty adopted a neutral attitude, and Yu Chaoen's power was exactly as the sun was in the sky, in short, it was not enough to overthrow Yu Chaoen's strength, but the direct reason for the failure of the Tianwang Temple was that Dou Xianlai betrayed the Son of Heaven, but why did he betray the Son of Heaven?" ”

"That's what I want to know!" Guo Song said lightly.

"This may involve infighting between the nobles of Guanlong, and I can only briefly talk about it."

"General Luo, please speak!"

Luo Ziyu thought for a while and said: "To put it simply, it is actually the contradiction between the Dou family, the Yuan family and the Dugu family, the contradiction between these three families has been very deep since the founding of the country, in the change of Emperor Taishang, the Yuan family and the Dugu family have adopted a neutral attitude, but the right guard general Dou Yi played an important role in the change of the door, but Dou Yi was pulled up by Emperor Suzong, he betrayed Emperor Suzong, which led to some dissatisfaction with the Dou family today, so the Yuan family won the position of Xiangguo, and Dugu Guifei became the de facto queen, The Dou family got nothing, and Dou Yi was removed from his post as a general because of his drunken gaffe. ”

Guo Song nodded, "So Dou Xianlai's betrayal is actually the betrayal of the Dou family, is that what it means?" ”

"Of course the Dou family will not admit it, and they insist that this is Dou Xianlai's own problem, although Dou Xianlai's personality is a little withdrawn and cold, but the Son of Heaven treats him well, but he betrayed the Son of Heaven at a critical moment, there must be the influence of the Dou family."

"How did he betray the Son of Heaven?" Guo Song asked again.

Luo Ziyu sneered, "Yu Chaoen is going to Tianwang Temple to accompany the Son of Heaven to incense, Tianwang Temple has been heavily armed, but when Yu Chaoen was about to arrive at Tianwang Temple, Dou Xianlai suddenly jumped out to assassinate, and was captured, and suddenly exposed the plan to capture and kill Yu Chaoen in Tianwang Temple. ”

At this moment, there was a sudden shout in the distance, Guo Song stood up and looked, only to see that a few miles behind, a large ship of at least two thousand stones had approached the fleet, and a black panther flag was hanging on the mast of the big ship.

Luo Ziyu's face changed, "It's the water thief Zhang Yan!" ”

Guo Song shook his head, "It may not be a water thief!" ”

He said decisively to Luo Ziyu: "General Luo quickly go to the bow of the ship to prevent the other party from attacking the west, and I will deal with it at the stern!" ”

Luo Ziyu nodded, turned around and ran towards the bow of the boat, while Guo Song carried two pots of arrows on his back and rushed towards the stern of the boat with a strong bow in his hand.

The other side was two large ships, apparently ambushed near the entrance of the Huai River, and when the fleet entered the Huai River, the two boats were killed.

Both ships were men in black, about 100 people, all of them were strong and hideous-looking, and their goal was very clear, to cut the chains of the fortieth ship at the stern and rob the last forty troughs, in fact, the next two hundred troughs were transporting grain, not money.

The men in black seemed to be very organized, they were divided into three groups, one team rushed to the front to block the escort soldiers coming to support, the other team rushed to the back to block the officers and soldiers at the stern, and the middle team jumped onto the target tank, and the two soldiers on the boat were cut down and fell into the water by them.

A very burly man slashed at the chain with a sharp axe in his hand, "Dang! There was a loud thud, and fire flickered, and the chain and the axe blade were cracked at the same time.

The big man raised his sharp axe high, and at that moment, an arrow whizzed in, powerful and hit the big man in the forehead, 'Poof! The arrow pierced the man's head, and the man was killed instantly, turning over and falling into the river.

Another big man rushed over and picked up the axe and continued to slash at the chain, but before he could raise the axe, another arrow shot through the big man's forehead, and the big man fell into the water.

Only then did everyone notice that a young man was standing on a bamboo hut with a bow and arrows in his hand, and where the bow was drawn, there was no missing arrow, and one of them must have been hit by an arrow.

The person on the bamboo shed is Guo Song, he killed in time, at the critical moment, an arrow shot down the axe-wielding man, and then he fired five arrows in a row, shooting five very powerful water thieves, so that the situation of the fierce battle between the two ends began to reverse.

"You stupid pigs, hold up with your shield and cut the ropes for me!"

Guo Song turned his eyes and saw that the person who shouted was a young man of twenty-five or sixteen years old, he had just come out of the cabin and commanded the soldiers to seize the ship, this should be the main general of the other party.

Guo Song immediately decided, drew an arrow, wound his bow, drew a full bow, and shot an arrow, this arrow slightly to the left, he expected that the other party would immediately get into the cabin.

Sure enough, after the other master finished shouting, he was about to drill into the cabin, this arrow was shot instantly, the other master was defenseless, and was shot through the back of the neck by an arrow, the tip of the arrow penetrated from the throat, and the other master choked the neck and plunged into the cabin.

At this time, dozens of Tang soldiers arrived, and they raised their crossbows and arrows together, and the black-clothed water thieves on the other party's big ship fell one after another.

Several water thieves used shields to cover, trying to continue to cut the chains, but this protection is not of great significance, Guo Song fired two arrows in a row, the first arrow hit the ankle of the shielder, the shield bearer screamed and fell, lost the shield guard, the big man with an axe was shot through the head by an arrow, and fell into the Huai River with an axe.

There were more and more reinforcements, the men in black were constantly killed, and the main general was dead, and the remaining thirty or so men in black had no intention of taking the salt tax again, they opened their sails and tried to escape, but they were shot by Guo Song with an arrow and broke the rope, several soldiers shot rockets, ignited the sails, and the fire burned the ship and drifted towards the shore.

The sneak attack ended in less than an hour, with seven casualties among the escort soldiers and more than seventy casualties.

Guo Song threw the two black-clothed men captured alive in front of Liu Yan, and said coldly: "It's not Zhang Yan, it's Li Zhongchen, who pretended to be a water thief to rob us of our tax money, and the person who led the army was his nephew Li Yuanjiang, who was killed by me with an arrow." ”