When Li Ruoxue's eyes fell on the wolf corpse next to the horse, she couldn't help but exclaim.

Zhao Xingdeqi said: "Do you know what this is? He thought that Li Ruoxue would think it was just a dead dog.

"It's a wolf." Li Ruoxue replied with palpitations, "When I was a child, my father was belittled, and my family lived in the middle of nowhere, and several wolves called outside the door for a night, and I could see it clearly in the crack of the door. A look of fear appeared on her pretty face, and it was clear that she had been deeply impressed by her father's demotion to an official position.

Zhao Xingde couldn't help feeling pity, gently hugged her slightly trembling shoulder, and said in a deep voice: "I'm by my side, no matter how vicious the wolf is, I can't hurt you." ”

"Hmm." Li Ruoxue muttered, leaned her head on Zhao Xingde's chest, suddenly remembered, and asked, "You were all guarding outside the tent last night?" ”

"Not really, I was woken up in the middle of the night by this damn wolf." Zhao Xingde kicked the wolf corpse and took out a knife, the arrow that pierced the wolf's skull could no longer be taken out, so he dug out a few arrows that hit the horse corpse when driving the two wolves yesterday, washed the arrows with clean water, and could be used again. Li Ruoxue frowned and looked at him with a blur of flesh and blood on his hands, and Zhao Xingde was also a little embarrassed, explaining: "The habit of the Hebei border army, arrows are enough to save lives, and after every battle, arrows must be collected if they can be used." ”

Li Ruoxue sighed in a low voice: "Du Gongbu Shiyun's 40,000 righteous soldiers died on the same day. The group of Hu returned to wash the arrows in blood, and still sang Hu songs and drank the city. So it was. In the name of poetry history. It turned out that she flipped through Du Fu's poetry collection and read about the chaos of Anshi, and she thought it was an exaggeration, but now she really believes it.

Zhao Xingde was silent for a moment, and then sighed: "If you are born in troubled times and morality is not good, you have to follow the way of the weak and the strong to repay your grievances." ”

The two packed up the clothes on the carriage, in order to avoid trouble, Li Ruoxue changed into Zhao Xingde's old clothes, and mixed the black charcoal ash in the face fat, she was reluctant to do it herself, so she closed her eyes and asked Zhao Xingde to wipe it. Zhao Xingde raised his hand high, "It's started." The back of her fingers slid lightly over her blown skin, and she watched her face turn crimson, then smeared it with black ash, and after a moment, she smiled, "It's okay." At this time, Li Ruoxue already looked like a dark and thin teenager.

Li Ruoxue's eyes widened, and she sighed: "I really want to see what kind of ugly things you painted, but unfortunately there is no mirror." ”

"Who said no." Zhao Xingde said with a smile, pulled out the saber, the spine of the sword was erected, Li Ruoxue came to the front, stroked his cheek with his hand, and shone a blurry shadow, and said with a smile: "It seems to be Zhong Kui painted by Wu Daozi." "Zhong Kui was supposed to be a Jinshi in the Tang Dynasty, but he was deposed because of his black face and touched the pillar and died. She didn't feel embarrassed to compare herself with this.

After laughing for a while, Zhao Xingde carried his burden and looked for the ferry with Li Ruoxue, and after walking for about half an hour, Li Ruoxue's legs and feet were sore, and the two sat on a cliff on the shore to rest, and under the cliff was the Yellow River rushing and roaring, and even the ground trembled slightly. At this time, the water volume of the Yellow River is far larger than that of later generations, the river channel in this area is narrow and canyony, the terrain is undulating like a ladder, the waves are turbulent and turbid, with the momentum of a thousand miles, trillions of times violently collide with everything that binds it, how many walls stand thousands of miles in this year after year under the impact and washing, eroded, hollowed out, and finally like a fragile wall, it collapses, and the whole becomes the sediment that has been submerged in the water of the Yellow River for eternity.

"You don't see the water of the Yellow River coming up from the sky, rushing to the sea and not returning!" Zhao Xingde raised his hands and shouted loudly, his wide sleeves fluttering in the wind, as if he was going to go away from the wind, and his excited voice seemed so faint in the huge roar of the Yellow River.

Seeing that he was fierce and fierce, Li Ruoxue was not disappointed, and said with a light smile: "You don't see Gao Tang Mingjing's sad white hair, and the morning is like green silk turning into snow at dusk." ”

"Five-flowered horses, daughter-in-law, Hu'er will exchange for fine wine in the future." "Sell with you....." Zhao Xingde's voice was low, and as far as his eyes could see, dozens of figures vaguely appeared, slowly walking north along the river bank, if he guessed correctly, the purpose of this group of people with large and small bags was the same as him, the smuggling ferry of the Yellow River.

Just as the Xia State tried its best to attract the people of the Song State, the Song State also tried every means to prevent the people from migrating to the Xia State. However, with the 100 years of recuperation, the population carried by the fertile soil of Kanto gradually reached a limit, and the result of the current dynasty's failure to establish a land system and not suppress annexation was that the originally scarce land was further concentrated in the wealthy families, and ordinary farmers either cultivated smaller and smaller land due to the division of their sons, or had no land at all, so they could only rent it. For the Kanto peasants who regard the land as their life, it is simply an irresistible temptation to go to the west of the Kanto and go to the Xia country to accept a land grant.

Xia has almost endless fields, from the founding of the country to the present has been a hundred years, as long as you are willing to go, sixty acres of hard land is yours, as long as you are willing to work hard to get it cooked, it is the family property of the descendants. Of course, this field is not in Guanzhong, not in Shuzhong, not even in the river, but more distant places, those strange place names, it is really difficult to explain, only the stories passed down from generation to generation, inspiring them to continue to venture west. Some of them are not entangled enough, one generation spends the rest of their lives in a workshop or grange in Guanzhong, the second generation marries a wife and has children in the river, and the third generation continues to migrate until they obtain a land that truly belongs to them. Such an obsession of theirs makes even the most cruel and ferocious barbarians ashamed of themselves. With the reclamation and rooting of these farmers, the territory actually controlled by the Xia Kingdom grew little by little, line by line, like a seedling under the rock, and finally grew into a towering tree, turning the rock that once pressed on the top of the head into the soil that nourished itself.

In the deep prison, the officials of Kaifeng Mansion were executing Zhang Bing. Because of the severe pain, beads of sweat the size of beans soaked through the clothes, and the sweat flowed onto the wounds that had not yet healed, like a knife cutting and burning. The flickering candle shone on his pale and puffy face, like a ghost.

He endured the execution like this, and Fan An, who was in charge of the execution, was also a little worried, if he died before he confessed, he would also have to bear a lot of responsibility. The boss ordered him to ask, and he said: "Zhang Gongzi, you also know that when you enter this Kaifeng Mansion, you are a hero who is beaten with iron, and you can also make him speak, why are you so bothering to spoil your body?" What he asked was actually a "move" word, and the people who moved the torture had experience, as long as they broke through the prisoner's defense, it would be a matter of course in the future, and he would definitely be unable to change his mouth in the court.

Zhang Bing's head was tilted to the side, and his black and white eyes only looked to the side. The official of Kaifeng Mansion who was monitoring was angry, and with a wave of his hand, half a bucket of cold water was splashed on his head, which made him shiver all over, and he had to turn his head again, and coldly looked at the officials who were tortured and sentenced.

His throat moved, but he could not make a sound, and the official thought that he was going to confess, and was greatly surprised, and ordered someone to pour cold water on him.

Zhang Bing coughed several times, spit out a mouthful of bloody phlegm, and said in a hoarse voice: "You have asked me for a long time, and I will also ask you. ”

The errand officer frowned and did not speak, so Zhang Bing continued: "Let me ask you, am I comparable to an ordinary farmer when ploughing the field and weaving cloth?" ”

The poor official said in his heart, this move is not crazy, the excellent and wandering Guozi prisoner does not do it, he has to go against Cai Gongxiang Tong Gonggong, and now he is going to farm again, hum, I am afraid that it is impossible. Thinking so, he shook his head.

Zhang Bing sighed, as if he was disappointed, and asked leisurely: "Going into battle to kill the enemy, defend the country and protect the frontier, am I comparable to ordinary soldiers?" ”

The errand officer thought to himself, you want to reduce the sentence and stab yourself in the army, but unfortunately this crime of rebellion is only to behead Ling Chi, he disdains to deceive the mortal in such a small matter, and shook his head again.

Zhang Bing sighed again and continued to ask: "Then is it possible to run a business and run errands to settle accounts?" ”

The errand official said in his heart, this scholar was really crazy, and still shook his head.

Zhang Bing coughed and continued slowly: "Tell me, I am not diligent, I am not diligent, I have no strength, what is the use?" ”

The errand official was stunned, he was most unaccustomed to these Confucian officials on weekdays, one by one he was dumbfounded, some even pushed official documents to the scribes to handle, and some were deceived by the officials of the entire yamen, and they didn't know it. He also often complained secretly that Lao Tzu just didn't have the imperial examination, and if he became an official, he would be a hundred times stronger than you nerds.

Zhang Bing said slowly in a hoarse voice: "Let me tell you, the scholar reads the books of sages and sages, and is favored by the imperial court, just for the people of the world to keep the word morality," he paused and sighed, "It is useless to be a scholar, if you can't even keep morality, it is better to live than to die." After speaking, he closed his eyes and looked calm.