The return journey to the west, the old scenery, the old world, little gossip.

The caravan stayed overnight, crossed the river to the west, passed through Shouchun, and then went north to Huaishui.

In a Tucheng inn about fifty miles away from Huaishui Biyundu, the caravan stayed in the dark at dusk.

"Master, Lao Suo asked you about something!"

There weren't many overnight guests in the shop, so it was a bit deserted.

After sitting cross-legged on the rough oak tables in the store, Grandpa beckoned to the innkeeper.

There were so many customers at once, and although the shopkeepers were in a hurry for a while, their faces were happy.

After hearing his grandfather's greeting, the middle-aged and short shopkeeper hurriedly ran forward, wiping his hands with his sleeves.

"What do you have to say? Let it be sent! ”

"When we came in early spring, bandits were rampant in the area of Huaishan Biyundu, and I don't know if it can be alleviated now? Can the shopkeeper tell me one or two, Lao Suo is ready to go west to find other ferries! ”

Grandpa asked with a smile at the shopkeeper.

"If the master wants to ask about this, it's a long story!" After listening to his grandfather's inquiry, the shopkeeper sat down on the opposite side and whispered mysteriously.

"What's the change, Lao Suo listens!" Grandpa laughed and waved me to pour wine for the store.

The sake brought by Jiankang is our own brewing in Longxi Manor, and before the caravan left, Uncle Che specially prepared more than a dozen jars for his grandfather to drink on the way.

"What wine! Hehe, the guest officer is refreshing! The shopkeeper took a sip of sake and continued.

"Listening to the guest officials who went south to stay in the hotel, the bandits who were entrenched in Huai Mountain two months ago disappeared out of thin air overnight! Guest officer, you say it's not strange! ”

The shopkeeper took two more sips of the sake bowl and took two sips, and it seemed that the sake we brought was much more refreshing than his cloudy sake.

"Strange indeed! Was it exterminated by the government? Or is it moving somewhere else? There are so many people and horses, there will not be no trace left! Grandpa pretended to be puzzled.

"There was no trace, it just disappeared out of thin air! The dozen or so ferries at Biyun Ferry are all still there, and the Laojun Palace on the top of Huai Mountain and the barracks of the thieves on the mountainside are all intact, but all the people are gone! "The shopkeeper said.

"And then? That area has been settled down ever since? Uncle Su next to me asked, and I picked up the wine jar and filled the store's wine bowl with sake.

"The guest officer listened to me slowly, hehe! Weirder things are yet to come. A month ago, a group of Han refugees from the north came to flee the famine, more than 2,000 people! The leader is a member with the surname Fu, and all the displaced people are his people! This is not a big deal before, the ancestors of the three generations of the residents of our area are all from the Northland! But I haven't seen such a scene of the tribe going south for some years. At this point, the shopkeeper's voice was lowered, as if he was afraid of being heard.

"I heard that the Later Qin in the north and the Wei state of Tuoba Xianbei are now tense in the border area, and a war is inevitable, and these refugees may have fled from those places." Grandpa raised a glass of wine to the store.

"What the guest official said is reasonable, but the world says that these homeless people are the gang of thieves on the original Huai Mountain!" The shopkeeper craned his neck and whispered in his grandfather's ear.

"Why do you have to change in such a disguise with those thieves! Hehe! Uncle Su disagreed.

"What's the basis for such a guess?"

"I've heard the guest officer say that this group of people doesn't seem to have a trace of hunger, and they went directly to Huaishan after crossing the river from Biyun!" The shopkeeper sighed.

"What happened? Is it still like the bandits in the past, occupying the mountains and endangering the Quartet? ”

Grandpa asked with a smile, and I finally understood what had happened.

I secretly laughed in my heart that this Fu Qian Wang Ye is really a simple-minded person, even if he pretends to be a homeless person, at least he has to dress up a little!

"That's not it, these homeless people claim to be from Anyi in the north, and now they have been annexed to the local Nanliang County under the leadership of that Fu Yuanwai, and have purchased tens of thousands of hectares of borderless land on both sides of the Huaishui River from the government at a low price, and recruited displaced people from all over the world to come and attach them! The thief's den on Huai Mountain has now become an Anyi Fu Village. I heard that the imperial court has issued a document to rely on Anyi Fuzhai to govern Anyi County in the Biyundu area! Ay! In a few years, that Fu Yuan will definitely become one of the top gate lords in the Huaishui area! Guest officer, you said how strange this world is, hehe! ”

The shopkeeper finally finished telling the strange things about the changes in the world in the past three months, and he would never have dreamed that we, the foreign guest officials in front of him, were the initiators of this great change.

"Hey! The world is strife, and his life experience is like duckweed! For thieves and the people, they often can't help themselves, no matter whether they are thieves or outcasts, as long as they can change their evil and follow good, they are good! Grandpa sighed.

At this time, the shopkeeper had already brought the rotten corn meat, and the shopkeeper hurriedly got up.

"The meal has been prepared, all the guest officers and lords use it slowly! Hehe! Slow to use! The shopkeeper and grandfather gave up their hands and went about their own business.

On the afternoon of the second day, our caravan finally came to the shore of Huaishui.

On the originally barren Qianmo field on both sides of the strait, countless farmers are working hard.

Crops such as millet and beans planted before and after the Qingming Dynasty have grown by a finger, and the whole field is green.

"I didn't expect that the gift of a thousand daughters could cross thousands of people to be good and save thousands of families from fire and water, good! Wonderful! Lao Su, we did a good job in this transaction! ”

Grandpa rode on his horse and folded his hands in pious worship to the river.

"The old man is benevolent, and he will be blessed for a long time, and he will be used by future generations!" Uncle Su on the side praised sincerely.

"Don't take Biyundu, there is a wild crossing twenty miles southeast, we cross the river from there!" Grandpa turned his horse's head and brushed his beard and smiled, and while beating the horse to lead the way.

"Grandpa, Biyundu is close in front of us, why do we have to go far?" I asked as soon as I caught up.

I had just galloped for more than 50 miles in one go, and everyone was tired, and my grandfather's decision puzzled me.

"People who have reformed themselves are most afraid of meeting old people, so let's do good things to the end and don't bother others anymore!" Grandpa laughed.

"Master Wei and Young Master Wuwei must have crossed the river from here!" Liu Zhen'er on the side interjected.

"Then we will not be able to cross the river again!"

Grandpa replied with a whip, and without looking back, he led the caravan back to the official road and galloped towards the depths of Qianmo in the southeast direction.

In fact, I also understand what grandpa means, don't ask for retribution for kindness, don't regret with others, and the way of a gentleman in the world.

After crossing the Huaishui, the caravan traveled non-stop along the road when it came, and people did not fall asleep, day and night.

Finally, half a month before the arrival of the rainy season in the Central Plains, we arrived in Luoyang smoothly and turned to the masonry road to Chang'an in the west.

Qin Chong told me that one year because he didn't know that there was a rainy season at the turn of spring and summer in this Huaishui land.

Therefore, after the caravan crossed the Huaishui, it still walked and rested according to the original rhythm, not knowing that the danger was slowly approaching.

As a result, after several days and nights of heavy rain, the Huaishui swelled, the rushing river overflowed the embankment, and the thousands of miles of fertile fields on the north bank became a country.

The original yellow mud horse road sewage flowed sideways, soft as silk, the river overflowed the wheels, and the entire caravan was stuck in the road, and there was no way to advance or retreat.

Grandpa had to reluctantly abandon the goods on the cart and lead the group to move the horses to the nearby pine mountain.

In this way, after stagnation and bitterness in the bitter wind and rain for about half a month, the river slowly receded, and after a few days of scorching sun, the caravan barely stumbled out of the bitter sea of yellow mud.

When I arrived in Luoyang to count the goods, I found that the sheepskin bag had been soaked in water for a long time, and it quickly became mildew and rotted in the sudden hot weather.

The silk cloth in the bag was even more lost, and almost two out of ten remained.

Grandpa's caravan traveled so many times to and from the Western Regions and Middle-earth, and that year may have been the only time it was a huge loss.

Fortunately, there was no loss of men and horses, and the entanglement on the way home was not washed away by the flood, so the entire caravan was able to return to the Western Regions safely.

Grandpa never mentioned the fiasco to us as a family, and perhaps he was a little embarrassed to talk about it.

The enemy he faced was not an official bandit, but an unpredictable continuous rain.

In this way, in addition to the favorable location, people, the time is also too important.

In the spring and winter of the Western Desert, I don't take the Yellow Dragon Sand Sea, and I have already seen the power of the Yellow Dragon Fury Big Stone Flying into the sky.

Although I have not personally experienced the embarrassing scenes of the muddy soup and Huangmei days on both sides of the Huaishui River depicted by Qin Chong in summer, the obscene rain, the unbearable humidity and heat, and the inability to advance or retreat.

But I can still empathize with the suffering that such a ghost weather has brought to the merchants.

After resting for two days at the Yique Inn at the foot of Longmen Mountain, we were finally able to calmly drive the carriage and head in the direction of Chang'an, the western capital.