The snow stopped in the middle of the night on the day of the six-man plan. In the early morning of the next day, the roosters crowed, and Sun Zhongshan quietly left with the two squires. At the end of the day, the east turned white, and the border army of Liangshi Xiazhai came out of the barracks with wooden stalls and fences, and began to sweep the snow on the streets. The head of the Lizheng household in Xiazhai each took two officials to patrol the street to see if any houses had collapsed or were in danger in the heavy snow. This is a common scene in winter, and the people who get up early in the village are not surprised, and they have taken their belongings to help the border army. At three o'clock, with a long ring of a bronze bell echoing in the air, the north and south gates were opened at the same time. This ordinary market town on the northern border ushered in the same ordinary day as ever.

In the next two days, the dog did not bite the donkey or bark in the village, and it was calm and quiet. The third day is the 70th birthday of the head of the Fang family on West Street, as soon as the day dawns, the relatives of the Fang family in the nearby village have come to congratulate, and the neighbors have also come to bow and kowtow, trying to be lively and festive, and the small courtyard of the old Fang family is full of people for a while. In this year, the seventieth birthday is a great joy, there are rules in the government, the two household branch offices of the Beizheng County Ya arrived at the next village one day in advance, and it is half a day in the day, and a person holds a mahogany plate in front of the Fang family to announce the good news. Two mahogany plates, both covered with red silk, were unveiled in front of the old birthday star, one containing the congratulatory documents filled out by the government, and the other neatly placed with 500 new Dongyuan Tongbao. Since the two bookstores appeared on the street, people were dumbfounded. This is the famous "ancient rare with the congratulator", the system set up by the Taizu of the dynasty, the place under the village is small, people have only heard of this number of rites, and no one has ever seen it with their own eyes, now the two yamen clerks respectfully carry out the younger generation ceremony, the etiquette is meticulous, the whole Xiazhai was fried at that time, and the people who came to Fang's house to see the excitement crowded half the street. The old Fang family had such a glory on their big day, everyone was smiling with joy, twenty or thirty children and grandchildren were in and out with their women, busy arranging tables, chairs, and stools, and the flowing water was placed from the courtyard to the street.

The happy event of the old Fang family did not affect the military camp, which was only half a stone's throw away. At the entrance of the camp, the two soldiers stood upright with spears, both expressionless and did not squint, as if two slaughtering door gods firmly blocked the bustle of the street outside the gate. The spacious exercise ground in the camp was cleaned, and there was no figure to see or hear. A tall flagpole was erected on the low parade platform, and the red flags hung on it occasionally fluttered silently in the wind.

When the red sun head walked to the middle of the sky, in the surprised eyes of the people, the two border soldiers roared all the way, and rushed back to the barracks with one person. The man's head was covered with blood, his cotton robe was dusty and dirty, and the shoulder of one sleeve was torn off, revealing a yellow-brown cotton ball, and his feet could barely step on the ground, and he was completely dragged by the soldiers.

There was still some way to go from the barracks, and a soldier could no longer care about the people watching the excitement next to him, and shouted loudly: "Go and shout to your lord!" There is a very urgent matter when the Guan family is coming! Fast! ”

A sentry ran into the barracks.

When the crowd of onlookers was still stunned by this incident, they heard the rapid ringing of the brass bell in the barracks, and dozens of heavily armed border soldiers and men emerged from the silent barracks for a moment, forming a line on the exercise ground and standing by. Immediately afterwards, people saw Jin Xier, the commander of the border army, and Qian Laosan, the commander of the border army, accompanying an officer to the parade platform. Because of the distance, I couldn't hear what the officer said, but I saw Jin Xi gesticulating, holding his sword, and leading the gathered soldiers to the rear camp in formation. Immediately, a long whistle of the horn swept over the ground, and the people who looked at each other woke up in shock—this is the alarm bell for gathering troops and sending trombones! There's a war on the border? The Turks are calling?

There was a panic on the street, and the women called the dolls to cry, and the officials in several places shouted to disperse the crowd. In the blink of an eye, the streets were empty. The people who couldn't hide temporarily shrank and hid on the side of the street, and they heard the sound of horses' hooves rolling from the barracks, Jin Xi was in front, Qian Laosan followed by an officer with a strange face and a hideous appearance, and dozens of sergeants whistled past and went straight out of the north gate. Something big is happening in the north! The thought flashed through everyone's minds. It must have been the Turpents! There are only three or four hundred border troops in each village of West Malaysia, and they can't hold it! To run for your life or not to run? This choice was immediately in front of everyone. When he looked at the Beizhai Gate again in hesitation, he had already closed the door and locked it, and put the side knife of the door out of the sheath and wound the bow, staring at him with all his attention. There was a faint cry from the direction of the South Zhai Gate, and it seemed that the Zhai Gate over there was the same as here. Now it's too late to leave even if you're scared, and the entire village has been completely under martial law......

The border army horse team galloped north for five miles, turned from a river bay to the west fork, and walked less than three miles to the foot of the mountain. Shang Cheng turned over and fell off his horse and ordered: "Walk forward!" Be quick! "This is an arrangement that has been arranged in advance, and in fact, he does not need to give orders. A group of border troops were already lined up on the roadside, and with the urgent orders of the officers, more than 80 people lined up in a single line. He stood on the side of the road and raised his hand to casually pointed to a military commander: "You take two people to stay, make a handover with the people in the village over there, let them take care of the horses, and you will follow." "I took Zhao Shi into the team.

These eighty-six people are stepping on the feet of the newly issued cowhide soft-soled boots, walking on the mountain road is fast and light, because there is a military order not to make noise on the way, so all of them are strained face buried in the road, occasionally someone slips and falls, the person next to him neither stops nor helps, jumps up and runs a few steps to catch up with the team and continue walking.

Even if the border army is well-trained on weekdays, it can go less than five miles, and everyone is already sweating all over their faces. After all, the mountain road is not a flat official road, not to mention the rugged and winding, and some places are not even considered roads, but just a light-colored mud ridge stepped out by a person, and it is difficult to distinguish them in a hurry; Occasionally, there is a fork in the road that does not know where it leads, and it is faintly hidden in the bare mountains and forests. Fortunately, Shang Cheng had already expected such a situation, and had already hired two guides when he went down to the village, so he didn't get lost.

After walking a few more miles, Jin Xi followed a guide and stood on a black rock, waited for Shang Cheng to come over, and hurriedly followed: "My lord, this is still five miles away from Dujiadian. ”

Shang Cheng stopped, stared at the guide with dark eyes, and asked, "Are you sure?" ”

The guide didn't know what beast had scratched on his face, and the three scars were pulled from the right eyebrow bone to the left cheekbone, listening to Shang Cheng's question, he said: "Back to the general's words, this is the black pine top, and when you go down the black pine top and turn a ditch, you can see the Dujia shop." Up to five miles up the mountain and through the ditch. ”

Shang Cheng didn't say a word, glanced at the old pine tree on the top of the mountain that had been burned like charcoal by the thunder fire, bit his lower lip and thought about it for a while, and had already given an order: "Pass my order forward and backward: rest on the spot, and solve it quickly if there is and urine." Let Qian Laosan come over. Then he turned to the guide and asked, "You said before that the Dujiadian bandits had buried a hidden stake on the top of this black pine, why didn't they see it all the way?" ”

The guide was a well-known hunter from far and near, well-informed and good-tempered, a character like hob meat, but he was not timid to look at Shang Cheng, and said with a nonchalant smile: "I met here once, and I didn't alarm him when I saw a figure squatting in the barley from a distance, and I don't know if he was or a sentry. But there must be a hidden pile in the ditch ahead, we have all seen it and talked to it. The guy himself said that he was a veteran fox hunter before he went to the cottage. ”

Shang Cheng had heard the guide say these words twice before, so he was not surprised, and turned his face to Qian Laosan, who had just arrived, and said, "You take two people to the front with him and touch the hidden pile." Be careful, don't kill people, I'm going to ask questions. His eyes touched Qian Laosan's face, and then he swept over the guide's face, and then said, "By the way, call that Tu Duzi man, I have something to ask him." ”

The guide saw the eye exchange between the two clearly, opened his mouth, bared his mouth with a mouth full of yellow and black distorted teeth, and said with a smile: "The general can't trust me." If you put 100,000 hearts one by one, no matter how muddy I am, I don't dare to use my head to get along with you, let alone get along with ten taels of white silver. Okay, I'll take General Qian and bring him to you. Don't forget, general, you personally promised me, and one of the live mouths on the road is five taels of silver! ”

Shang Cheng knew that he had already peeked into his thoughts, and he didn't hide it, and said with a smile: "It's good that you understand." I have said that I will count the rewards, but I have to catch them to live eloquence. ”

What else did the guide want to say, but Qian Laosan slapped the guy next to him and scolded in a low voice, "There is a lot of!" Damn it, why didn't the tiger slap you to death? The guide said with a hippie smile, "Your General Qian is jumping around happily, why am I willing to take the first step?" Saying that, he was pushed all the way by Qian Laosan.

Jin Xi said next to him: "This guy loves money and loves money, and he never lies when he speaks." After a while, he said, "My lord, now we are only half an hour away from Dujiadian, the key is that we don't know what the situation is in the bandits' den at the moment, and the top priority is to contact Sun Whistle and them." He paused, glanced at Shang Cheng, who was looking up at the sky, and made up his mind and said in a low voice and anxiously, "If Sun Whistle and they don't succeed, it won't be possible to break the village with our idea!" Dujiadian used to be a border army village, although it was a small village, and dozens of soldiers had not been stationed, but the wall of the village was also more than two people high, we could only fold the ladder if we wanted to come hard, so the action was too slow, and the bandits calmly dealt with the casualties of the brothers! ”

Shang Cheng didn't seem to hear Jin Xi's words, just stared at the old black pine on the top of the mountain without squeaking.

Three days ago, he had already planned in the temporary meeting, on the day when the You family team entered the mountain, he led people to set off from the Xiazhai to copy the path, and secretly lurked to the left of Dujiadian, Sun Zhongshan started at the gate of the village, and at the same time, he led the troops to take advantage of the chaos to cover up and kill, and strive to take advantage of the moment when the bandits panicked suddenly in the incident, and take down the bandits' cottage in one go. But plans can never keep up with change. The bandits actually changed their minds and asked the You family to send things into the mountains today, because their big boss was going to get married, and tomorrow would be an auspicious day for marriage. The incident happened suddenly, Sun Zhongshan was afraid that the bandits would be suspicious and did not dare to forcibly resign, so he could only let Guan Xuan's third brother come to the village to deliver the letter, and let Shang Cheng hurry up; He would try to delay as much time as possible on the way to create a chance for Shang Cheng to arrive in time. It stands to reason that Sun Zhongshan's idea did not deviate from their original plan, but the horse of the third child of the Guan family broke his leg in the middle of the road, and even Guan Laosan was in a coma for a long time, and finally rushed to the lower village with a rolling crawl......