Seeing that it was Wen Mu, Zhong Shan's face couldn't help but show a little smile. Probably because both of them have or have had meritorious service in the imperial examination and can find a common language, or maybe because their family backgrounds and experiences when they were young are very similar, so since they met in Beizheng the year before last, his personal relationship with Wen Mu has always been very good. Even if something happened later, Zhong Shan's good brother Zhao Shi was quite smiling about Wen Mu, but Zhongshan himself was not estranged from Wen Mu because of this, whether Wen Mu went to stay in the town or he returned to Yanzhou, as long as there was time, they would always get together for a meal and talk.

Wen Mu led the horse over and said with a smile: "I saw you from afar." He carried a bulging leather coat on his shoulder, and as he walked through it, three large bulging sacks of linen were stacked on top of each other, and two rolls of silk were hung on one side of the saddle, and a leg of mutton was tied on the other. Probably because he was in a hurry, he spoke with a little panting, "I shouted several times, but you didn't agree." As he spoke, he wiped his forehead and wiped it on his coat.

Zhongshan first pulled the horse aside to make way out of the city, and then said, "As soon as I came back, I went to the Wei Mansion to look for you, and they said that you went to Bohai Wei to get out of tolerance." ”

"I went to Jizhou and only came back yesterday." Wen Mu said. He looked at Zhongshan and looked at the things on the horse's back, and said, "This is an exceptional festival distributed by the Health Department to various yamen. Looking at a lot of things, it's not worth much, and even the money and things are less than a thousand dollars. Others have already taken it home, but I haven't received it yet, and today I will urge the secretary of the Yamen to ......"

"Your mother-in-law...... Why didn't the mother-in-law get it? "Nakayama is a little weird.

Wen Mu grinned: "She is a countryman, she doesn't dare to go to the yamen, and she is afraid of seeing people in the official......"

Zhongshan was immediately happy, and teased: "Then she still marries an official family?" As he spoke, he glanced at the cyan Rong Chang on Wen Mu's body. From the time he met Wen Mu the year before last to the present, Wen Mu's rank has not changed much, and he is still an eight-rank Huaihua lieutenant. However, although Wen Mu's military rank has not changed, his position has been changed from a very ordinary chief secretary of the Governor's Department of the Wei Mansion to the former deputy Zhan Shi of the Mansion. Speaking of which, the former deputy Zhan Shi of the Wei Mansion is only an eight-rank officer, which is exactly in line with Wen Mu's title, but this is a very important position in the Wei Mansion, and he can have access to many secrets in military affairs, and some things that are not clear to a brigade commander like Zhong Shan, the deputy Zhan Shi can know and participate. In addition, after the former Zhan Shi was transferred to the Right Army as Sima Supervisor, the post of Zhan Shi has been vacant for a long time, and now Wen Mu suddenly became a deputy Zhan Shi, which inevitably makes people speculate that Zhang Shao is paving the way for Wen Mu to take over Zhan Shi next......

He asked casually, "What are you doing in Jizhou?" ”

Wen Mu didn't answer, but asked him rhetorically: "Where are you going now?" ”

"Go home."

Wen Mu asked confusedly: "Isn't your home in the city, how can you go out of the city?" "He went to Bohaiwei for a few months before and after, and he didn't know about Zhongshan's purchase of land in Yanyan Town. After hearing what Nakayama said, he nodded and said, "I know that place." Then he asked, "Are you going back?" ”

Nakayama looked up at the sky. It was getting darker. Boundless dark clouds completely invaded the sky, and the darkness pressed down on the city walls. A lone jackdaw flew overhead, croaking and flapping its wings desperately towards the distant stupa with blurred outlines. The wind has stopped; The cold rain carried the tail-finger-sized snowflakes and fell silently. He cursed in his stomach for the weather!

"Go to my place to take shelter from the rain and snow before leaving." Wen Mu said.

Nakayama happily agreed. He was also trying to find someone to talk to.

Wen Mu's home is in a narrow alley close to the city wall. The alley is not deep, less than 100 steps before and after, except that every household has a small gatehouse with cornices, the mud courtyard on both sides is not much different from other places, the houses are half mud and half tile, except for the yards of two or three households can see the traces of the newly renovated, many of the tiles have decayed artemisia and black and swarthy frost, and the wall is also covered with new mud and a corner of gray and yellow, which seems to be a little down. But every courtyard is very clean, the firewood is neatly stacked next to the stove, and some families also have small tents for the firewood to shelter from the wind and rain, which is very different from ordinary people. It is also such a very ordinary alley with a little strangeness, but the road is well repaired, although it is not a stone road, and the dirt road that may pass two cars does not know how many layers of cinder have been tamped under the bottom, and the light rain and snow for several days have not made the road surface turn up much mud, and there are no deep ditches left behind after a few ox carts and carriages run over on the road, and there is a sense of hardness when stepping on it.

Wen Mu saw him bow his head and step to test the road, and then looked up and looked around, so he explained to him with a smile: "These houses and courtyards are all the official property of the various yamen of the Health Department, and they are all inhabited by people with some positions in the various yamen of the Health Department. The road was built in the fall. When the official road in Sanzhou was repaired this year, the money and grain allocation was renovated by the king of Wei Mushi, otherwise this road would be so rotten that people could not leave, and when it rained, the mud could not reach the ankle bones, and the carriage could not pass. He pointed to the front, "That's the house, where the king lives......"

Zhong Shan looked in the direction he pointed, and even the appearance of the courtyard door of several families was almost the same, and he didn't know which family Wen Mu was talking about, so he nodded indiscriminately and continued to listen to Wen Mu.

“…… Originally, I wanted to build a stone road, but the stones were pulled, and the craftsmen were invited, and they were about to start, and I don't know which guy was talkative, but the matter was known by the inspection department, but the road was not repaired, and the king was also reprimanded for this matter. Later, I heard that some of the officials who lived in public housing elsewhere were jealous of this road, so they went to the inspection department to falsely accuse the king of manipulating money and food......"

"Did he do anything about it?"

"If he had done anything, would he still be able to live here? Patrol envoy Di Xu, you don't know, donkey temper with mad dog temperament, nothing to find someone to bite a few bites, the king really has to have unclean hands and feet, can there be a good one in his hands? Wen Mu said a little meanly. Last year, when he fled back to Yanshan, he was inspected twice and suffered a lot, so he didn't have a good impression of the people in the inspection department.

Nakayama's mood, which had just improved a little, became heavy again. He absolutely agreed with Wen Mu's words. It took his friend Guan Xuan more than half a year to escape back to Yanshan, but because he was a prisoner for a few days when the Alegu River was defeated, he was forced to die in the prison number of the Yamen of the Fangzhou Patrol Division! Guan Xuan's resignation to death made him extremely angry at this yamen with two stone carved beasts outside the gate!

Wen Mu's home soon arrived.

Wen Mu's wife, Xue Sanniang, heard the movement and walked out to greet them. She knew Zhong Shan, and saw him staggering towards the side house with two heavy sacks of linen, and he didn't dare to stretch out his hand when she wanted to stop him, so she quickly said, "Uncle, hurry up and put it down!" You're a general, let me do this stupid job! "Zhongshan and Wen Mu are the same age, but they are younger, so they call Sanniang their sister-in-law. He didn't stop, and said with a smile: "Look at what my sister-in-law said, what a big general is not a big general!" Two years back, I was also a rough border soldier guarding the beacon. Besides, this little little gadget can still crush people to death? "Entered the side room and put the sack bag in the corner of the wall next to the rice cabinet, Wen Mu tied the horse and led the hand of the earth baby. He shoved the leather jacket and two rolls of silk cloth into Sanniang's hand and said, "Don't be wordy." If there is any good tea at home, if there is, hurry to the kettle to make good tea. The Zhongshan brothers don't like to drink bitter tea, only tea soup! ”

Sanniang agreed and led the Tuwa to go.

Wen Mu beckoned Zhong Shan to come to the hall to talk.

Zhongshan sat down in the hall and was about to ask Wen Mu about his trip to Bohai, when out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a woman with a pale face and a disheveled hair sitting on the small wooden bench in the corner of the door. He lowered his head, and took the opportunity to straighten his clothes and quickly glanced at the woman, who was in her twenties and twenties, her face was a little frighteningly pale, as if it had been coated with a layer of white ash and bloodless, especially those eyes, lifeless and not the slightest bit of anger, staring straight at the curtain of the door without blinking. However, looking at the eyebrows and eyes, it seems that they have seen it somewhere......

Wen Mu sat down and stood up immediately, walked to the door and said, "Sister, why don't you recuperate in the house again?" ”

This is Wen Mu's sister? Nakayama was so surprised that he almost couldn't close his mouth. He immediately reacted, this is Xue Sanniang's sister; No wonder he thought this woman was kind-faced. However, isn't Xue Erniang in Yanyan Town, why did she come to Wen Mu's house, and she still looks so scary?

He had a belly of questions, but he didn't want to ask, so he only pretended not to pay attention to the corners of the robe, cuffs, and belts slowly sorted out, and finally even the folds on his pants were straight and edged, and he was about to find something to scrape the mud spots splashed on the boots, Xue Sanniang finally came in with the boiled tea soup.

Sanniang's arrival not only saved Zhongshan, but also saved her man. Wen Mu simply snatched the wooden tray in her hand, and said to Zhongshan with an embarrassed expression: "...... Let's go to the study. ”

Nakayama was also embarrassed. If he had known that he would bump into someone else's housework, he would not have made this trip anyway. He immediately nodded and said, "Good! He didn't wait for Wen Mu to make an invitation, he immediately stood up and ran out of the hall.

In the study, Wen Mu sighed and talked about Xue Erniang.

We remember that in March and April of this year, this woman was already a few months pregnant. In July, she gave birth to a fat boy who weighed nine pounds. Needless to say, Erniang of course loves the doll so much, and her man, that is, the Mao cook in the Yanyan grain warehouse, likes it even more, because he was born with nine catties, and now the son born by Erniang is also nine catties, so the second boy will definitely inherit his mantle and become a good cook! But happy and sad, last month Erniang breastfeeding accidentally hit the baby's forehead on the edge of the kang, although at that time spit and wiped the crying two things are fine, who knows that in the middle of the night the doll suddenly had a fever, the whole body burned hot, to the end of the cry can not cry, half a day did not pass and quietly left...... Erniang, who lost her beloved child, cried and fainted several times, coupled with the beating and scolding of men and the ridicule of the eldest woman, people went crazy all of a sudden......

After listening to Erniang's story, Zhongshan was silent for a long time. One of his aunts in his own family was also in a similar situation, because she gave birth to two sons and couldn't support them, she was driven crazy by her in-laws; When he was a child, he saw his aunt walking around the village with a piece of wood in her arms every day, muttering a sentence over and over again:

"Son, my mother is here; Son, mother is in the mile ......"

He swallowed his saliva, struggled to get the image out of his mind, and asked, "Have you come back and seen it?" ”

Wen Mu nodded and said, "I've seen it." It used to be ...... than that," he sighed and shook his head, and let out a long breath, and added, "It took a few days to get better." But the doctor can't help it. It's a nightmare...... I have also done the rituals, but there is still no improvement. ”

Nakayama was silent again. After a while, he asked, "What about her husband's family......" and he slammed his mouth in the middle of his sentence. He remembered that Xue Erniang was not the wife of the cook, but a concubine with a humble status, and she couldn't talk about her husband's family at all.

Wen Mu smiled bitterly and shook his head: "She was kicked out by the eldest woman." Chef Mao has already torn up her contract of sale......"

Nakayama was a little surprised. That cook is so bold that he doesn't look at Wen Mu's face when he does things?

"Even if Chef Mao is afraid of me, but there are big women around him who keep provoking and provoking, and they are angry, will they pay attention to me, an eight-grade sesame official? I'm afraid it's because of me and Sanniang that the eldest woman sees Erniang as a thorn in the flesh, for fear that Cook Mao will take her off one day and then Erniang straighten out. What's more, Erniang also gave birth to a fat boy of nine pounds, this is not a son born and raised by an eldest woman to snatch the family property, what else can it be? ”

Now it's Nakayama's turn to smile bitterly.

"Forget it, don't talk about these things, the more you talk about it, the more uncomfortable it will be!" Wen Mu refilled his bowl with hot tea soup and said, "Just now you asked me what I was doing in Jizhou." There are a lot of people there, I can't have more, and it doesn't hurt to tell you now, I went to Jizhou one by one, and I went to see General Wu of Bohaiwei. He paused, as if to weigh what he could and couldn't say. In the end, he decided to tell Nakayama part of the truth. "In the New Year, we're going to do something to the Turks. I am going this time to inform General Wu of our strategy of action on the order of the Admiral's Palace, and at that time, I will let Bohai cooperate, make some large-scale feints on the border to attract the attention of the Turks, and if necessary, I will also ask them to send troops......"

"It's spring? Not summer? Zhongshan hurriedly asked. He and everyone thought that it was summer to start, because only after spring ploughing, only when the Central Plains soldiers came over, would they have the strength to compete with the Tuqi people again, and it would be difficult to get any benefits from the grassland with the strength of Yanshan Yiwei alone! Moreover, there is a big problem with the war in the spring, where to levy the people from during the busy agricultural season?

This issue was raised and discussed repeatedly when the strategy was formulated, so Wen Mu explained to him very calmly: "You can recruit some of the village warriors." The middle road will probably use 12,000 people, and the east road will use 20,000 to 25,000 people. ”

As soon as Zhongshan heard these two numbers, he immediately understood that what Wen Mu wanted to tell him was not just something as simple as Minling. He heard a lot of extraneous meanings from Wen Mu's words. First of all, the war was divided into two fronts, east and west, rather than concentrating forces to attack one point; Secondly, even if the middle road is as the name suggests, it means that even if the large warehouse of the middle route army is located in Liuzhen, 12,000 soldiers are also a bit thin, and there are not many troops that can support it. However, the Turks are likely to attack Yandong on a large scale next year, relying on the more than 20,000 horses of Li Shen in Yandong, it would be good to be able to hold it, what kind of attack do you talk about?

Wen Mu's fingers dipped in tea and drew two arrows on several cases, one pointed to the word "black water" from afar, and one arrow extended out and went around in a circle, wrapping the words "Shanzuo", looking at his friend who was frowning and contemplating, he smiled slightly, stretched out his hand and wrote eight words on the table:

"Surprise; Catch somebody off his guard. ”

Zhong Shan's eyebrows furrowed, and his eyes suddenly lit up.

Good planning! Good calculation!

He wiped the water-stained handwriting on the case, raised his eyes and stared at Wen Mu:

Whose plan is this?

Wen Mu looked at him with a smile:

One by one, what do you say?

"Then, the general sits on the east road, who will command the middle road? Is it Li Shen or Ximen Sheng, or Zhang Shao? Nakayama asked. In his mind, Shang Cheng would naturally personally command the operations on the Eastern Road, which was as ironclad as the fact that the Eastern Route Army would inevitably defeat the Fourth Left Division of the Turbid Mountain. The key now is who will command the Middle Route Army? Although he longed to join the Eastern Route Army to make a contribution, he himself knew that this was completely impossible; However, Zhang Shao was sloppy, Li Shen was stubborn, and Ximen Sheng was more than steady and enterprising, and he was not a good commander. He couldn't figure out who Shang Cheng would appoint to be the commander of the Middle Route Army. It can't be Sun Huan, right? Where are Li Shen and Ximen Sheng's faces facing?

"Li Shen is in the east, and the general in the middle is in command......"

"But......" Zhongshan looked at Wen Mu with an incredulous expression. He really couldn't understand what Shang Cheng was thinking! The war in the east is as simple as standing under the tree and reaching out to pick the fruit......

Wen Mu lowered his eyelids, stared at the messy water stains and the lack of pen and drawing on several cases, and said slowly: "It was because the war in the east was simple that Zida handed over this matter to Li Shen. No matter how rigid Li Shen is, he can always do it according to the strategy, right? Besides, there are also benefits of being greedy for merit, at least they will not hesitate to let go of the opportunity to make meritorious contributions to beating the water dogs. But the situation after the middle route army entered the grassland was more complicated than that in the east, and many times it was necessary to make a decision on the spot, whether it was Li Shen or Simonke, they were not competent, and only Zida could become a ......"

As soon as he said this, Zhongshan finally understood Shang Cheng's good intentions. But even if he understood the truth, he still felt unfair for Shang Cheng. worked hard for a long time, but in the end he made a wedding dress for someone else; Especially this wedding dress is still made for his opponent, which ...... It's a loss!

Wen Mu was silent for a long time before he said faintly: "Someone has to suffer, right?" ”