Listening to the captain allowing Shang Cheng and Zhao Shishi to make meritorious contributions, the soldiers in the hall all breathed a sigh of relief, and at that moment someone let out the haystack where he was sitting, and another pro-soldier came to distribute hot water and dry food to the two, and a large scoop of steaming ginger soup was poured down, and the two of them suddenly felt a hot warmth extending from their stomachs to the top of their heads and feet, and their faces, which had become pale because of the frightening, gradually recovered some blood.

The lieutenant then asked about the experience of the two of them in the past few days.

"We are the soldiers of the Turbid Expedition that we met on March 21 in Yuliangchuan......"

Zhao Shishi's first sentence made the captain's eyebrows jump suddenly, and he asked, "Is it in Guangpingyi?" ”

"No, it was on the way to Ruqizhai, at the place where we rested at noon, that the soldiers of Tuqi suddenly appeared out of the woods, and then they killed all the twenty or thirty border soldiers stationed there, and also killed all the border soldiers guarding our caravan, and he and I finally escaped."

The lieutenant frowned and listened to him before asking, "What kind of place is the resting place you are talking about?" Where is it? ”

"That place is about thirty or forty miles into the Sichuan Road, and it is a small soldier's village, with three or four tents stationed in twenty or thirty soldiers, and the leader of the team is what kind of chief. There is also a large stove room outside the soldier's village, and there are also three or four soldiers; Around the stockade is a circle of thatched huts, and there is an open space for pack horses......" Zhao Shilian said with a gesture foaming at the mouth, but the captain was dizzy and didn't know what to say. Shang Cheng sat on the hay on the side, leaning half of his shoulders and asking people to medicate and wrap his wounds, and when he heard Zhao Shishi speak indistinctly, he interjected: "It is Ruqi's B-word military station, about forty miles away from Ruqi's village." ”

The lieutenant nodded, was silent for a while, raised his eyes and stared at Shang Cheng and asked, "What is the process of the Tuqi people?" ”

Shang Cheng had a wound on his face, the whitened skin on both sides of the wound was swollen about half a finger high, half of his face was so numb that he lost consciousness, and every time he spoke, he felt that there was a tendon torn at the back of his head, and from his scalp to his neck, it was sore, numb and painful, so he didn't talk much. At this time, when I heard the captain ask, I had to endure the pain and tell everything I saw. He had a good memory, a clear mind, and a quick speech, and the story of the seizure of the military station was explained in detail, and in the ears of the lieutenant and the officers and men next to him, the mind immediately sketched out all the things at that time.

"The Turgitz people at the military station are all wearing leather hats and brown leather armor?"

"Yes." Shang Cheng and Zhao Shishi nodded together.

"You read that right?"

Before Shang Cheng could speak, Zhao Shishi had already said, "It's impossible to be mistaken. We also met the soldiers of the Turbidians in this way at the Nitani River and Gongqian Pass, and I heard that these were the soldiers of the Great Tent of the Left King of the Tunis, and they were the most capable ......of fighting."

The lieutenant said "hmm" and stopped talking, just lowered his head and thought about things. The hall was silent for a moment, except for the breathing of the soldiers. Suddenly, a cough came from the corner, startling everyone. The captain pondered for a long time, then raised his head and looked at the two of them and said, "What happened to you after you met the Tuqi people from Liangchuan?" ”

Zhao Shishi told everything that happened later. How did he and Shang Cheng meet the border army that retreated from Ruqizhai, how did they follow the border army to attack Guangpingyi at night, how did they go to Beizheng after that, and how did Baitan be defeated by the Tuqi Horse Army...... Together with the series of battles in the later passes, they were all told one by one.

Seeing that he had not even scratched a piece of oily skin from head to toe, the soldiers who distributed the hot water and dry food had only given him half a piece of hard flour cake, but now when he heard him talk about his experience in the past ten days or so, he came and handed him another piece of bread, and did not say a word, but patted him twice on the shoulder.

The lieutenant asked some more about the loss of the fortress at the pass. Zhao Shishi and Shang Cheng knew some things, and some things they just hearsay, so they told what they knew and heard about it like pouring beans into a bamboo bucket, like Ruqizhai was deceived by a group of soldiers who pretended to be a caravan......

After listening to them help each other to finish, the lieutenant compared these words with the news he had heard, and finally showed a smile on his face, no longer as cold and gloomy as just now, and asked: "We are going to Yixian now, we are going to enter the county seat." How far is it from Yi County? What's next? ”

Shang Cheng shook his head and said he didn't know. Speaking of which, he is not as familiar with the county seat of Yixian as he is with Quzhou, which is hundreds of miles away. Last autumn, he followed the team of Liu Ji Warehouse in Quzhou for ten days, every day after eating and having nothing to do, he turned around the streets and alleys of Quzhou City, although he did not dare to say that he knew Quzhou City well, but where there is a temple, where there is a view, which street is lively, which lane is good to eat and drink, he can still point to a general direction and say that eight or nine are not far from ten. However, the county seat of Yixian is different. When he goes to the county seat, he either runs errands or picks up work, and everything he does is urgent, and he is tired from morning to night, where is there idle time to wander around in the city? Now except for the Yamen of Yixian County and Huo Liu's home and Liu Ji Warehouse, he can't say that he is ugly anywhere else.

Shang Cheng can't say it, but Zhao Shishi can say it. Stone is Zhao Jiren, since he was a child, there was no father and no mother, at the age of twelve, he began to do odd jobs in various places near and far, except for the deep mountains and dense forests, there is almost no place in Yi County that he does not know and has not been, seeing the school captain asked, he immediately pointed out a road along the foot of Yanshan Mountain leading to the county seat Nanguan Daying.

As soon as the lieutenant heard his words, his face was full of joy, and he immediately asked people to find charcoal from the backyard stove room, Zhao Shishi said all the way, he sketched all the way on the map, and all the villages, rivers and bridges along the way were marked one by one, and when he met the words that could not be written, he smeared a black spot indiscriminately, and finally put a stack of yellow paper, and still wrapped it in an oilcloth and wrapped it and wrapped it again, and beckoned two soldiers to call them to hide the map close to them, and immediately return along the same road, and be sure to hand over the map to the reinforcements of the brigade behind.

Seeing that the two soldiers came out of the mountain temple with swords and torches, and the hazy firelight flashed outside the temple a few times before disappearing, Shang Cheng and Zhao Shishi knew that the team of soldiers in front of them was actually a guard from Yanzhou.

In fact, these soldiers in front of them were the guards who came out of Yanzhou to reinforce the Nanguan camp in Yixian County, but because all the roads after crossing Duanzhou were occupied by the Tuduan people, they had to take the mountain road, but the two guides they temporarily found fell ill on the way, and when the cold rain was dense with military disasters, the people in the villages everywhere fled all the people who could escape, and the people who stayed behind were either old and weak or sick and disabled, and they couldn't find a good guide in a hurry. The two sentinels didn't know the way, only aimed at the direction of Yixian County, and crashed into the mountains and wilderness, and finally rushed to this mountain temple, but coincidentally met Zhao Shishi, a local expert, here......

An hour passed in a blink of an eye, but the rain outside became heavier and denser, and the rain down the eaves crackled and crackled, and then I couldn't even hear the whispers facing each other clearly. The wind and rain blew the mountain woods howling like ghosts, and faintly you could hear the rumbling thunder rolling across the sky one after another......

The captain with the troops stood in front of the hall, frowning and looking at the stormy night sky, and there was no way to be in a hurry, even if he walked the official road in broad daylight, it was impossible to march in this situation, not to mention that it was still a night when he couldn't see his fingers. He sighed and asked the soldiers under the rain eaves of the main hall to go into the hall to rest, and then told people to go to the backyard and allow the men there to go to the front yard to take shelter from the rain.

"Let the brothers under the porch squeeze in and give them some space. We must explain to those farmers that it is okay to shelter from the rain, and we are not allowed to harass our brothers, and those who disobey will be thrown out with twenty lashes. After he finished explaining, he stepped into the main hall, paused and turned back, and then commanded, "Let the brothers all rummage through the packages of dry food to see if there are any extra bread and wheat buns, and if so, send them to the women and dolls over there one by one......

It wasn't until dawn that the rain showed signs of slowing down.

The guards under the corridor had already eaten in the morning, and they were all wearing leather armor and rain gear and holding knives and guns to sit together one after another, and everyone stretched their necks to look at the door of the main hall, as if they were expecting some good news. They rested under the corridor that could not shelter the wind and could not block much rain, and everyone's jackets, trousers, leggings, and leather boots were soaked by the rain, wrapped in wet and sticky uncomfortable, and then blown by the mountain wind, the cold of early spring was penetrating to the bones, so everyone looked forward to being able to go on the road as soon as possible, and the body was naturally warmer, although the body was tired and tired, but it was better than sitting here and being frozen.

Finally saw more than a dozen officers running out of the hall with their waist knives, and then the soldiers in the hall also poured out, and the soldiers under the corridor did not need their own officers to greet them, and followed the soldiers out of the temple gate, and began to line up in the small open space in front of the temple.

The captain came out with a few officers and personal soldiers, glanced at the team and didn't say much, waved his hand and only said "go", six healthy soldiers sandwiched Zhao Shishi and Shang Cheng who acted as guides, and set off along the mountain road, and the soldiers behind lined up in two columns to follow, more than two hundred pairs of leather boots were lifted and fell, and the road full of water and mud gurgled and gurgled.

The team first walked up the mountain, made a turn on a fork in the road, went around the mountain two times or three times, and when they looked up again, they had reached the foot of the mountain. Zhao Shishi did not follow this road path straight towards the county seat, walked out of three miles and saw a small settlement with only a few thatched houses in the distance, so he led the team along the path of a wide ditch to the north, walked out of a certain way, and was embarrassed to return to the mountains, and suddenly followed the ridge to the east, passed through two empty small villages one after another, and led the team diagonally to the southwest......