At the end of the seventh year of the Apocalypse, the Taihang Mountains in the middle of winter are particularly cold. However, due to the approaching end of the year, there are occasional vehicles or pedestrians passing on the post road in the mountains.

It's not a peaceful season, and most of the dangerous places are rarely walked alone. Including more than 30 family members and more than a dozen people, escorting a group of people who migrated from Shanxi to walk on the road between the mountains.

Around the procession, there were at least hundreds of fellow travelers who marched together to make a strong noise. This made the team of one hundred and forty or fifty people, twelve carriages and dozens of horses quite large, and ordinary scattered bandits of unknown origin would not easily provoke such a team.

Unexpectedly, not long after setting off on the afternoon of the 21st day of the lunar month, when it was still far from dark, three blatant horse thieves blocked the way, which immediately caused a lot of commotion in the team.

"The bandits are coming! Don't run! One of the leaders of the household shouted, but the shouting was useless. Many ordinary people feel that the target of the bandits is not very likely to be on someone like themselves who only has a small amount of money. Almost all of them were scattered. The dozen or so people who marked the line felt that something was wrong with the situation, and except for the leader one, the rest of them also hid. After all, there is a general experience of marking, and there are three people who come out on the surface, but in fact, how many are still in the shadows, no one knows.

There was only one person who didn't seem to be so alarmed, it was Zhang Lixin, the guerrilla general of the Jinzhou Wei Zhendong Battalion who had once shocked the Liaodong captives.

However, at this time, Zhang Lixin was no longer a guerrilla general of the Weiyuan Battalion who was good at firearms, and after more than a year of begging "beggar" and "vagrant" life, relying on the martial arts accumulated in the barracks in the past few years in the army, he could barely make a living.

"Ladies and gentlemen! The brothers were now desperate and had come to ask for a few rewards. I see you're planning to go to Baoding, right? It shouldn't be too far. The extra entanglement may wish to borrow one or two from the next brothers, and he will be rewarded in the future! ”

One of the "bandits" who came, with a felt hat on his head and a blue cloth cloak that seemed to be lined with leather clothes, was about twenty-four or five years old, but he did not have much ferocity, like a person of high status in the army, but by no means like a thief. The words have a politeness that ordinary scattered bandits hardly have, and the accent seems to be a dialect closer to Mandarin in Liaodong and even Chengde.

In this way, many of the people who escorted the Wang family and the people who were in charge of the line breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hehe, I'm lucky, not only scattered thieves, but also a chick!" Many people laughed and talked beside Zhang Lixin.

The leader of the family in his forties, who seemed to be much more confident at this time: he threw out a string of copper plates on a horse like a messenger for food, and said with a smile: "Take it first!" If you want more, you can't do it without showing your hands! ”

If it is an experienced or hard-hearted scattered rout bandit, it is estimated that at this time they will take the opportunity to open the bow and arrows, even if they can't kill or injure a person, they must also stand up: let the other party understand that they also have certain martial arts and dare to fight, if they don't give enough tolls, even if they can break through the pass with the strength of the crowd, they will inevitably have the price of death and injury.

However, at this time, one of the bandits took off his bow and arrow and aimed at a tree fifteen paces away from the roadside, and the other two did the same.

At this time, the head of the Wang Dahu family made a look, took out the bow and arrow, took the opportunity to sneak attack, and shouted at the same time: "Kill the thief!" Meritorious service is rewarded! ”

At this time, it was not the Qing Dynasty when the standard line (later the silver ticket was popular as a dart game) and the unspoken rules of the green forest were relatively mature, and some of the standard lines did not understand the truth of making money in harmony. In other words, there is no similar demand brought about by the stable national trade network in the Qing Dynasty.

The behavior of Wang Dahu's family made the two subordinates around the "thief" at the head really unbearable, and they no longer showed mercy, and after dodging the arrows that attacked, they also began to shoot in the distance, and the two sides also entered a state of battle.

Ordinary scattered bandits did not say that they would be able to shake this kind of hard stubble with a lot of guards, and even if they wanted to find fault, they would not be as stingy as the two armies in front of the formation.

However, the three bandits obviously regarded this robbery as a contest between the two armies, and on average, each person actually prepared three quivers, and slowly moved and released arrows at a distance of more than forty paces or about sixty or seventy meters away. And there are few who have experience in cavalry rifle. Within a second or two of the arrow's flight, it often landed a foot behind the rider's tail, and not many people had the courage to charge.

Under the courage of the three bandits, who were not lacking in courage and were quite skilled in arching horses, some people soon began to be wounded, and the whole group began to retreat. After all, this is not a military formation, there is no ruthless military law, and there is no own cavalry that oppresses the formation.

It's just that at this moment, Zhang Lixin doesn't care about the dispute in front of him, and it seems to outsiders to be like a dumbfounded, but he is caught in memories and thoughts. The original scenes seemed to appear in front of Zhang Lixin's eyes.

Two years ago, a decree changed his fate: "Fengtian carrier, the emperor edict said, Chadeng Prefecture guard Zhang Lixin is quite talented in leading troops." Transferred to Liaodong Fuzhou Wei, Weiyuan Battalion was replaced by Li Wencai, the general manager of Qian. . . ”

Li Wencai's eyes full of unkind smiles, and under the escort of some officers in the army who were quite dissatisfied with Zhang Lixin's original approach, Zhang Lixin had a feeling of waking up from a dream at that time: excluding some valuable knowledge possessed by the traverser, he was not good at recognizing people and leaders, and he did not have the help of the clan network that the ancients had at this time. To be able to get to that point, it's already good luck, what can you blame?

On the Liaodong front, the Houjin army seemed to have made a wise decision never to allow a second Weiyuan battalion to appear. In the third month after Zhang Lixin took office, he launched a large-scale offensive with the cooperation of Neiying, and Li Wencai's Weiyuan battalion, which obviously had the combat strength to rescue Fuzhou, only used a camp in the field not far away to resist the enemy, and symbolically carried out some artillery support.

If Zhang Lixin hadn't started to prepare when he first came to Fuzhou, I am afraid that it would have been impossible to escape from Fuzhou at this time.

In the following year or so, Zhang Lixin was almost killed several times, and he suffered from the eyes of many people.

"Hehe, dignified young man, why can't you be honest? Also learn from others to beg? A former merchant laughed.

Even in this Wang Dahu family, what I see more is not the generosity of the protagonist meeting the nobles in many overhead novels, but the indifference and ruthlessness of the outsiders with foreign surnames in the old era

"Hey! Long eyes no! Do you have a bit of eyesight? Stuff has to be put over there! Let you remember it a little longer! A former member of the Wang family scolded.

has experienced great ups and downs, and has experienced the warmth and coldness of the world in this old era, which undoubtedly makes Zhang Lixin think more: If the end of such a dynasty is really as described in some overhead novels, it is easy to display his talents and show his ambitions with the help of the Ming Dynasty and the Ming Army or any wealthy nobles, especially if it is a foundationless traverser like himself, how can it perish?

I used to be an ordinary person in modern times, if I really have my own emotional intelligence, how can I be mediocre in modern society...

However, at this moment, an arrow with the sound of whistling wind swept not far in front of Zhang Lixin's eyes, and the horses that sat down were also alarmed, and only then did they realize the battle situation around them.

Don't look at the fact that although there are many people in this Wang Dahu group, and there are at least ten or more people who practice martial arts, at least five or six people were injured under the fire of a hundred or dozens of arrows in front of the three stunned bandits who were hardly worth the capital and were not afraid of risks, and one was killed after falling to the ground.

"Humph! Look at these misers! It's really a toast without eating and drinking! Now even the people and the goods are all owned by our brothers! One of the bandits laughed.

"Yes! Get out of here! ”

Compared with the more kind thief leader before, these two subordinates are more direct. At this time, the cries of many women who couldn't contain their panic came from the canopy of the carriage.

Zhang Lixin already had his own plans at this moment, and he said tentatively in the distance: "I don't think it's as good as this: anyway, it's not far from Baoding Mansion, so let's take out the gold and silver." However, if you plan to search your body, or even kill your mouth, I don't think it is appropriate. I'm going to organize you to do the same with my life, how about it? ”

Zhang Lixin has a calculation in his heart: if this person is still kind and not particularly hard-hearted, then he can take refuge or rely on someone who can be transformed or used for himself. And if there is not much difference from ordinary bandits or characters in the rivers and lakes, if there is a ruthless person among all living beings, I am afraid that I will have to find another opportunity.

"That's fine! But the brothers are waiting for dinner this month, and I see that you passers-by, the remaining coils on your body should not be less than thirty taels of silver. ”

To Zhang Lixin's surprise, the twenty-four-five-year-old "thief" led by him actually agreed to his seemingly "unreasonable" request under the condition of complete victory. shows a rare benevolence in this era, unlike the Chinese people at this time, maybe there are more honest people like this in the Weiyuan Camp that he was in charge of back then.

"Huh?" The "thief" who was the leader seemed to recall something: "The brother's accent is not only from the Chengde area of Liaodong, but also seems to be very familiar?" ”

In order to prove his guess, Zhang Lixin sang tentatively: "After robbing the Nine-Fold City Pass, I sat down and was drunk, looking at the light and fluttering hem, and lifted my skirt while I was rubbing my shoulders... At the same time, he rode his horse a little closer to the three of them, and raised his forehead.

Of course, Zhang Lixin understands: in this world, this is also a gamble. People are unpredictable, who knows if they will be invited to merit? But no one can succeed casually without taking the slightest risk, so how can someone like himself have the opportunity to achieve great things? And he should have only been separated back then, not a thief wanted by the imperial court.

"Yes ... Is it a general? Under Wang Wei... The blue-clothed young man at the head said

"Under Li Yi," said the man beside him, who was quite capable

"In the lower sea!" Another subordinate with a relatively large body and a cool person said.

Zhang Lixin also thought about it: it was some of his cronies who he personally screened out in the three months before the Battle of Fuzhou. Because of the lessons of the Weiyuan Battalion, he did not put the martial arts or character of these people in the first place, but put their character in the first place to test. Otherwise, when he had just escaped from the tunnels of Fuzhou, I was afraid that he would have become a prisoner of Houjin.

"What are the general's plans for the future? In a walled fort in the Taihang Mountains, there were thirty-one brothers gathered under the three of us. If you want to join the army again... Wang Wei said solemnly.

Zhang Lixin shook his head secretly in his heart, he has experienced a lot of things, and Zhang Lixin's view of the problem is far from being as idealistic as before.

In the last days of a dynasty that has lasted for more than 200 years, even if it can succeed in the Ming court, it is at best nothing more than a Wu Sangui, Zuo Liangyu and the like. I'm afraid it's hard to do some of the things I really expect, and I can't do what a traverser should achieve.

Under the old framework, the pattern has been largely confined. I'm afraid that from Hao Shaoqidao and Hao Yongzhong's road, it can be regarded as the lesser of two evils. Because only a blank sheet of paper that is not limited by all aspects can make your own paintings...

"I'll go and see the cottage and your brothers... At this time, Zhang Lixin had already made up his mind in his heart.

In this way, four people and four horses packed up the arrows scattered near the Wang family's convoy, as well as more than forty taels of silver from the "looted", and set foot on the road to the cottage in the depths of the Taihang Mountains.

Zhang Lixin understands that this may be a difficult and tortuous road, but it is a road full of hope and infinite possibilities.