"At the beginning, Emperor Yang of Sui dug the Grand Canal, but God did not look at the color of the faint king, a hail knocked down all the Qionghua, Emperor Yang was furious, ordered someone to cut off the Qionghua, and then the world smoked together, the eighteenth road against the king and the heroes chased the deer, after the death of Sui Yang, Qionghua sent out new branches in the dead wood, and soon it was as lush as before, this is exactly 'see the end of the Qionghua happy Sui, the martyrdom festival incense is fierce'."

"If you have to look at it, how can Mr. Gong Shi praise it as 'the Oriental Ten Thousand Trees are competing for flowers, and there is no one in the world for this flower'. The flower of this festival is also ......"

The officers of the naval division are all civil and military all-rounders, you say, I say, the voice of the discussion is very warm, the front ship is clearly audible, its quotations from the classics, profound gossip, Zhao Huan and the two palace maids can listen attentively, the palace maid Peony turned her head more sideways and asked: "Master Hou, is Yangzhou Qionghua so magical?" "Along the way, they get along with Zhao Xingde day and night, and they are not as fearful of him as Hou Fuzhong.

"Huh? The affairs of the Sui Dynasty cannot be investigated, but there is also a legend in this dynasty......"

Peony was even more curious, and hurriedly said, "Tell me quickly, what legend?" Zhao Huan also turned his head sideways and listened with interest.

"If you want to talk about the real Qionghua, in fact, there is only this flower tree in Yangzhou Wushuang Pavilion. It is said that during the Ruizong Dynasty, the emperor once transplanted this flower to Bianliang, but the Qionghua tree gradually withered, and the emperor saw this and sent the flower tree back to Yangzhou, and soon flourished again. Zhao Xingde looked at Zhao Huan and added, "The words of the wild elders outside have nothing to do with truth or falsehood, which shows that Emperor Ruizong is open-minded, and he is not comparable to Emperor Yang of Sui." Have you ever heard of this? ”

"I haven't heard of it," Zhao Huan's beautiful eyes lit up, and he asked the palace maid, "Have you heard of it?" ”

"The slave doesn't know," Peony shook her head, "the slave hasn't even been to Bianliang." ”

The other palace maid also shook her head. After the fall of Bianliang, the palace maids were all taken away by the Liao, so the palace maids in Ezhou were all new to the palace, and even the northerners were few, thinking about this, Zhao Huan's eyes were slightly dark, and at this time, the captain on the deck shouted, "Yangzhou has arrived!" The river was foggy, and everyone craned their necks to look at the shore, vying to see what Yangzhou was like in March with fireworks. Because Zhao Xingde was not good at publicity, the building ship did not plant a festival flag, and the wharf only served as a passing sailor official ship to greet and introduce the building ship to the ordinary berth.

"It's ,...... This is actually Yangzhou? Ma Yuan lost his voice, "How is it possible?" ”

"How is that possible?" This is the voice of most officers at this moment.

Yangzhou in March, shouldn't the mountains be warm and soft, the warblers sing and the swallows dance, and the talented and beautiful women come in pairs? How could it be this scorched earth ruin in front of you? The tragic situation in Henan is still vivid, and I didn't think that the military disaster in Huainan was so serious. The city wall was demolished, the height was uneven, the highest was only five feet, Zhao Xingde looked at it, there was not a complete house in the city, and between the broken walls, there were only some simple sheds.

There are more than a dozen large boats moored at the pier and several painting boats. The shore was devastated, and beside the trestle, there were groups of beggars with unclothed and thin yellow faces, and the shore was full of children with dirty faces, begging from the passing boats. On a painting boat not far from Zhao Xingdelou's boat, the singer maid waited for several brocade-robed men, pointing to the shore, and one of them threw the copper coin into the river, attracting the beggars on the shore to jump in and salvage. At this time, the weather in early spring, the river had just thawed, and it was cold to the bone, and the beggars who entered the water to make money were so cold that their lips were blue and white, but the men on the boat pointed and pointed, making several singers laugh.

"Too bullying." Ma Yuan said loudly. Liu Wengu and Feng Shu were also indignant.

They were all men of strong flesh and blood, and when they saw this scene, they could hold it down, and they scolded loudly one by one. When the people in the boat heard this, they not only did not restrain themselves, but intensified them. The man kept throwing copper coins into the water, luring the beggars to jump into the river, and looked towards him defiantly.

"His grandmother's," Ding Ban scolded, "If it's in Ezhou, I'll beat him up!" ”

"The scum of the scum!" Ma Yuan frowned and said, "Does the Yangzhou government also care about this matter?" ”

"Can the government manage it for a while, can it manage it for a lifetime?" Xu Xiaoyun shook his head and said, "These beggars are guarding here, and they may be able to make ends meet every day, if the government really offends the 'good people' who pass by, and no one gives them to death, then they will starve to death." Do you say this is a good deed, or an evil deed? He sighed. Traveling in the same boat all the way, Xu Xiaoyun is also familiar with Liu Wengu, Ma Yuan and others, and his words and deeds are not as impersonal as the "Iron Mask Imperial History" originally thought. Ma Yuan was silent, turned his gaze back to the shore, and couldn't help but curse: "Damn beast!" Xu Xiaoyun also looked at him and couldn't help frowning.

It turned out that after the beggar jumped into the river, the man on the boat was still not happy, and threw the copper coins into the water one by one, inducing the beggars to continue to plunge into the water to fish, and the place where the money was lost gradually moved from the river to the center of the river, although the canal is not wider than the Yangtze River, but it takes a lot of time for the beggar to swim back and forth, but the people on the painting boat clapped their hands and laughed, shouting: "Look at the fish, look at the fish!" ”

"Bastard!" Ma Yuan scolded loudly, "Brute! ”

Everyone was indignant, and two palace maids came down from the ship's floor, each carrying a basket full of pastries, and four or five servants followed behind the palace maids, each holding a large pile of clothes, and came ashore to the dock together. "Here you go." "Here you go." "Here you go." The voice of the peony is crisp and pleasant, and the things are distributed one by one. Most people take the pastry and wrap it carefully rather than stuffing it in their mouths right away.

Some of the beggars shouted: "Great good people live a long life!" Some bowed down to the boat. No one paid any attention to the people in the other boat.

Ma Yuan looked back at the ship's upstairs. Liu Wengu said in a low voice: "I should be rewarded by Her Royal Highness the Eldest Princess of Wu." He knew very well that when Zhao Xingde was escorted south, his luggage was only books, and this time, just the various things given to the eldest princess by the official family were filled with more than a hundred boxes. Zhao Huan has a plain temperament and does not like extravagance, so these things are piled up in the cabin at the bottom of the ship, and by the way, they are used as ballast. In addition to gold, silver and copper coins, there are not a few clothes and cakes, if not made by Ouchi, they are tributes from all over the world. Any one of them will be exchanged for money at the pawnshop more than all the silver coins thrown in the water.

The painting boat was not an ordinary rich gentry, but Jin Sai, a general in the Huaixi Army, and when he saw this situation, he thought that the people in the boat were deliberately fighting for wealth with themselves. The military discipline of the Huaixi Army is the worst among all armies, and after Han Shizhong was ordered to transfer north, the Huaixi Army became the head snake of Yangzhou. Jin Sai was so angry that he couldn't help but feel evil to the side of his guts, snorted coldly, and ordered: "No matter who it is, bet on Ben General first!" A moment later, a man rushed down from the painting boat, and soon summoned a group of forbidden troops. The people on the dock shouted: "General Jin has lost something, hurry up and take someone." The forbidden army had already received the order, and shouted: "Stop, don't go!" He went straight to the palace maids and servants who were distributing clothes and cakes to the beggars. Several big men rushed over, and the palace maids and servants were also a little panicked.

"Stop!" Peony said loudly: "Her Royal Highness the Eldest Princess of the Kingdom of Wu is here, you must not be presumptuous!" ”

"Princess?!" The officer sneered, "Then we have to go to General Jin on the boat to talk about it." ”

On the boat, Ma Yuan and the others all saw it in their eyes and shouted loudly: "How can this be reasonable?!" "How dare you do that!" "Do it with them!" Ding Ban didn't wait to ask for help, and shouted loudly: "The tooth soldiers are all lined up!" "Gather your subordinates and prepare to go ashore to rob people. Xu Xiaoyun's face was cloudy. The shape of the building ship is very different from that of ordinary merchant ships, since the other party can mobilize the forbidden army, it is naturally recognizable at a glance, but it still acts like this, obviously relying on it. In a moment, the palace maid and the servant have been caught by the other party, the servant does not dare to resist, the palace maid is still struggling desperately, provoking the other party to be rough, and the scene is like robbing the people's daughter.

"My lord," Liu Wengu turned back to the shipbuilding, saw Zhao Xingde, and said loudly, "What should I do?" ”

Zhao Xingde's face sank, he stood on the front deck of the ship, and saw everything clearly. Zhao Huan asked the palace maid to distribute clothes and pastries, and he was also optimistic, but he didn't expect the other party to be so unscrupulous. Yangzhou is the garrison of the Huaixi Army, and since the other party can mobilize the forbidden army, it has a lot to do with the Huaixi Army. The South China Sea Naval Division was stationed in Yangzhou, and it would have to deal with the Huaixi Army in the future.

"Don't let them take people away!" Zhao Xingde ordered, "Raise my flag!" His face was slightly gloomy, "The gunner is in place!" ”

The "Zhao" tooth flag was raised in the shipyard, at this time, Ding Ban also led people to rush off the boat, nearly 100 forbidden troops with guns surrounded the other party, the other party obviously did not expect the ship to react so fiercely, must not leave, someone trotted to the painting boat to ask for instructions, but still did not release people for a while. Jin Sai's face was terrified, he only recognized that the honor guard erected on the ship opposite was not inferior to Liu Guangshi, the marshal of Huaixi, but he hadn't remembered who this surname "Zhao" was. He stared at the general flag opposite, and said viciously: "If it's not my family's handsome, he can't control my head." The subordinates rushed to report: "Zhao Jieshuai asked General Jin to cross the boat to confess!" ”

"Zhao Jieshuai," Jin Sai was stunned for a moment and asked, "Which Zhao Jieshuai?" Suddenly remembering someone, cold sweat broke out on my back.

"Lord Bing," his subordinates said tremblingly, "Marquis Zhao Jieshuai of Wuchang." ”

"Huh?" Jin Sai's face turned pale, he was stunned for a while, shook his head and said, "The passing year is not good, I will go to Zhao Jieshuai's boat to ask for guilt." After speaking, he turned back to the cabin, borrowed the basin and mirror of the painting boat, cleaned the fat powder on his face, and straightened his clothes, before respectfully crossing the boat to ask Zhao Xingde for his guilt. At this time, another general who followed Jin Sai to paint the boat muttered: "Who is the Marquis of Wuchang, who actually made General Jin afraid of being like this?" Liu Dashuai is just like that on the other side. "Are you looking for death?" One person said in a low voice: "Marquis Wuchang is Zhao Jieshuai who restored the Central Plains. "Huh?" There was silence on the boat, and no one dared to speak anymore.