Chapter 17: Return to the South (4)

Wu County.

A county town nestled in the middle of a large mountain, the scale is not large, and it can accommodate tens of thousands of people. There are no strong walls or moats, but only a symbolic two-person stone wall around them, with a tall wooden archway in the north and south as the gates. From the hill, it looks like a slightly larger cottage.

The buildings in the city are all one-story wooden and tiled houses, neatly built along both sides of the stone streets that run through the north and south of the north and south five zhang wide. In the center of the stone street, there are two three-storey wooden buildings facing each other, with a restaurant on one side and an inn on the other. The two buildings stand out in a city full of low-sloping tiled houses.

In the early morning, the mountains and forests were foggy, the vegetation was covered with layers of dew, and the winding mountain road was a little slippery, and a pair of cloth shoes with their thumbs exposed were walking quickly on the path. The mountains and forests in the early morning are quiet and refreshing, with occasional birdsong, crisp and pleasant.

After turning over a few mountains, Jiang Ge and Fu Bo finally saw the Shizhai county town under the mountain that was full of black tile houses, the county town was filled with layers of mist, the rising sun was just above the mountain, and a ray of golden light shone on the mountain, the scenery was hazy, like a fairyland.

It's just that at this time, the county should be full of smoke, and the chickens and dogs should sing each other. It's too quiet, it's as quiet as a dead city. Whether it was the route arranged by the Bai family or the change of route because of their own recklessness, the final foothold was in Wuxian County under this mountain. After arriving at the county seat as planned, enter a restaurant called Wushanyu in the city, meet with the people who should cross the river by themselves, and then walk south along the canyon under the mountain for 200 miles to reach the riverside ferry, board the ferry boat that has been waiting by the river and cross the river to the south. But now a sense of foreboding filled Jiang Ge's heart, and the quieter the city was, the more suspicious it became. Jiang Ge overlooked the entire county seat, and didn't want to let go of the slightest movement.

Fu Bo, who was sitting on the stone next to him, frowned tightly and said, "Young master, you can't go down the mountain." It's too quiet, the past that can be said without cooking smoke, the past that can be said without a voice, but there is not even a little movement, there must be a problem. There must be horses in the person who answers, and if there are horses, there will be movement. ”

"Look at the dilapidation all around, there must have been a great battle before, but it should have been a long time, if the people who received us were hiding in the city and did not carry horses, it was also said in the past. The three-story restaurant does have a white pennant hanging on it, so you can be sure that the meeting point is there. It's just too quiet. Jiang Ge whispered again and again, staring at the city below the mountain, hesitating in his heart.

"Why don't we wait and see, and then we'll make plans if it's still like this at noon." Fauber looked at the situation down the mountain and said worriedly.

"You can't wait, the peaks on both sides of the county are like knives, and there is no way to bypass them, and if you want to rush to the river, you must follow the small river on the edge of the city from the canyon to the river. It would be very difficult to climb over the mountains and mountains, and we were not familiar with the terrain of the surrounding mountains and forests, so there was nothing else but this trail. I'll be waiting for an hour at most, and if there's no movement, I'll have to go into the city to see, and then I'll be hiding in the woods, and I'll be able to escape even if I'm ambushed when I go into the city alone." Jiang Ge said firmly.

The county seat of Wuxian County is in the low-lying part of the canyon between the mountains, the peaks on both sides are straight and steep, it is the only way to go to the riverside, in previous years, the people who walked the merchants would stop here to repair, and when they fled south before, the family clan wanderers rarely chose to flee from here, the reason is that the mountain road is rugged, the pedestrians are still difficult, and those carriages full of materials and goods cannot pass at all, so only the nearby mountain people will go here to cross south. After all, Yidu County is located in the junction of hills and plains, the official road is smooth and gentle, there are many ferries and large scales, and the river level is gentle, which is the best choice for Nandu. Wuxian is relatively chicken, not only the mountains are rugged, the ferry is also small, it is located in a steep canyon, and the river is turbulent and abnormal. If it weren't for the nearly half distance of Biyidu, it is estimated that no one would choose this side.

After resting for half an hour, Jiang Singer quickly descended the mountain with a walking stick, and secretly ran towards the county seat under the mountain. Jiang Ge and Fu Bo agreed that if nothing happened, Jiang Ge would wave the white-lettered pennant on the Wushan Yu Restaurant. If something happens, Jiang Ge will quickly evacuate and go up the mountain to join Fu Bo.

The sun is mostly blocked by the top of the mountain, the county town under the mountain still has no sunshine, the sun is shining on the mountain here, but the mountain forest under the mountain and opposite is still dark, Fubo looked up at the top of the mountain, a ray of golden sunlight penetrates the mountain, clearly visible, the mountain is still filled with mist, it is really half light, half dark.

Half an hour later, Fu Bo saw a black shadow the size of a grain of rice running quickly towards the stone city wall, Jiang Ge did not choose to enter through the entrance of the archway, but climbed over the wall through the side gate.

As soon as he entered the city, Jiang Ge felt like falling into an ice cellar, and a bone-chilling chill swept over, and the air was filled with rancid stench and blood, which was extremely strong.

Jiang Ge cautiously approached a tiled house, gently pushed open the wooden door, and creaked~. An extremely strong smell of rancid blood poured out of the door from the crack in the door, Jiang Ge held his breath, and looked carefully into the room from the crack in the door, the dark room was full of rotten bones, extremely disgusting, even Jiang Ge, who had been on the battlefield, could not control himself at this time, covered his hands and took a few steps backwards and began to vomit. The house was like a slaughterhouse, dozens of corpses were hung under the beams by hemp ropes, most of them were only the bones of Sen Bai, various rotten internal organs were placed on the table next to it, and there were more than a dozen corpses piled up not far from the door.

Jiang Ge, who was shocked by the scene in the house, was unbearable, his internal organs overturned, and he vomited nonstop. Just as Jiang Ge was leaning against the wall and vomiting, a feather arrow shot fiercely at Jiang Ge, who was temporarily in a trance. Just as the arrow was about to hit Jiang Ge's left shoulder, Jiang Ge quickly leaned sideways against the wall, and the arrow slammed into the wooden wall of the house behind Jiang Ge. The tail of the gray feathered arrow bobbed up and down, making a buzzing sound.

Jiang Ge, who reacted, quickly left the place and rushed towards the stone wall, there was an ambush in the city and he had to evacuate immediately. Jiang Ge's body is like a rabbit constantly between the legendary alleys, the feather arrows behind him continue to shoot from all directions, a moment later finally saw the gray-white stone wall, Jiang Ge sped up and rushed to the stone wall, when his feet jumped to the top of the wall, suddenly a person appeared from outside the top of the wall, the person kicked Jiang Ge in the air with both feet, bang, both feet just kicked Jiang Ge's chest, the person was bounced out by Jiang Ge's momentum, and Jiang Ge was suddenly blocked, and he turned around in the air with his strength before he could land, and at the moment of landing, the feather arrows around him followed, Jiang Ge rolled on the ground, and five or six feather arrows shot into the ground where Jiang Ge fell from all directions, at this time Jiang Ge couldn't care about anything else, there were people on the stone wall to defend, and there were enemies following, so he had to run towards the two three-story wooden buildings in the city.

The wooden houses in the city were intricate, and Jiang Ge was running around like a headless fly, and there were constantly feathered arrows shooting at the place where Jiang Ge passed in front of him. Finally, after turning a corner, Jiang Ge glanced back, and within his line of sight, there were five people on the roof holding a hard bow and aiming at him, and the footsteps of four or five people came from the ground behind him. Jiang Ge, who had just turned around and was about to continue running, was suddenly broken by a person, and a machete quickly slashed at Jiang Ge, and the responsive Jiang Ge blocked the opponent's right hand holding the machete with one hand, and kicked the other party back into the house with one leg, Jiang Ge quickly picked up the fallen machete and ran in the direction of Wushan Yu Restaurant.

On the mountain, watching the movement in the city, Fu Bo clenched his hands into fists, and his heart was very nervous. Condescendingly, you can vaguely see five or six black shadows shuttling quickly on the black tile roof, and the posture of the bow and arrow in his hand can still be seen clearly. Occasionally, you can see Jiang Ge's figure moving quickly in the narrow alley, it seems to be extremely dangerous, everywhere is full of dangers, Jiang Ge has intercepted in front of him, there are chasing soldiers after him, and from time to time there are enemies hiding in the room who suddenly hit the wall and come out.

Jiang Ge kept turning left and right to avoid the bow and arrow on the roof, and the machete in his hand was already stained with blood, and the enemy who had just been ambushed in front was cut off by Jiang Ge's arm before he could make a knife. After about a stick of incense, Jiang Ge ran to the edge of the bluestone street, just took a breath, the roof on the opposite side of the street suddenly appeared three people with bows and shot over, Jiang Ge rolled on the ground to avoid three arrows, got up and quickly ran along the stone street towards the center of the city, the three people on the roof across the street followed Jiang Ge on the roof and kept running and shooting arrows, each feather arrow shot out of Jiang Ge was only a fraction of a millimeter, but it was this fraction of a minute away from Jiang Ge that allowed Jiang Ge to get out of danger this time, less than two hundred steps away from Wushan Yu Restaurant, the roof in front of Jiang Ge suddenly collapsed, Two lean knife men jumped down from the roof to block Jiang Ge's running route, and the archers who were originally on the roof behind him also jumped to the ground and chased after him, the front and back and right directions were blocked, and the left was full of closely connected houses, this time Jiang Ge could not escape, facing the two knife hands in front of him Jiang Ge held the handle of the knife, his feet were forced, and the speed of running forward was accelerated, just when Jiang Ge had five steps left to collide with the two knife hands, the three archers on the right roof had already shot an arrow three steps in advance, Just when Jiang Ge took three steps to approach the knife hand, he would be hit by an arrow, and at the same time, the three archers who were chasing twenty steps behind Jiang Ge also shot three arrows in the left, middle and right directions, just when everyone felt that the six arrows blocked all Jiang Ge's routes, and the knife hand raised the machete to look in front of him, Jiang Ge suddenly leaned back and slid on his knees, his whole body almost leaned back to the ground, the knife hand in front of him leaned forward, and the six arrows instantly shot into the two knife hands, Between the calcium carbide firelight, Jiang Ge supported the ground with one hand and flipped over to face the three archers who were chasing behind him, kicked hard with both feet on the bluestone slab, and jumped out as fast as lightning, the machete in his right hand was held across his chest, and the distance of more than a dozen steps was instantaneous, when Jiang Ge's blade crossed the necks of the three archers, the three of them had just taken out the feather arrow from behind them, Jiang Ge's right hand blade slashed from the right to the neck of the third archer on the left, and when Jiang Ge's machete flew to the roof across the street, he was aiming at one of his archers, only to hear a poof, One of the archers on the right was pierced through the chest with a swift machete, and fell to the ground. At the same time, the feather arrows of the other two archers had already shot towards Jiang Ge, Jiang Ge pounced forward, grabbed an archer who was about to fall and fell to the ground in front of him, and two arrows shot into the back of the archer that Jiang Ge caught, Jiang Ge picked up the hard bow that fell to the ground from the ground, and picked up two arrows from the scattered feather arrows on the ground with one hand. After two thuds and two heavy objects falling on the ground, the whole street fell silent.

Jiang Ge squatted down and picked up two feather arrows, and stood quietly in the middle of the street, suddenly the sun climbed over the top of the mountain, and the golden sunlight instantly sprinkled on the county through the mist, and the sudden sunlight made Jiang Ge's eyes feel a little dazzling, and Jiang Ge, who just wanted to wipe the sweat on his forehead with his shoulder, saw a triangular metal reflecting the sunlight towards him from the corner of his eye. There was no time to dodge, Jiang Ge turned in a 360-degree circle on the spot, half-squatted on the ground and shot two arrows towards the window on the third floor of Wushan Yu Restaurant like Hou Yi shooting the sun, and then picked up a feather arrow from the ground and shot it three feet to the right outside the window of the restaurant without thinking. The arrow shot at Jiang Ge flew past his left arm, but it also cut a blood groove on his left arm. In the restaurant, only two pops of arrows were heard on the wooden board, and a agile figure broke out of the window, and in the next second, the third feather arrow shot by Jiang Ge accurately hit the head of the person who had just broken out of the window, and with a bang, the man smashed down on the roof of the tiled house under him, and there was no movement.

Jiang Ge didn't dare to slack off, took the quiver from the corpse next to him and pinned it to his waist, carefully observed the surroundings, and made sure that there was no ambush before Jiang Ge quickly ran to the restaurant, on the third floor of Wushan Yu Jiang Ge looked at the backyard of the restaurant, more than 20 men in gray suits were piled together at random, and in the corner of the third floor lay a handsome man in white who was covered in blood and had long been unconscious, it was Bai Yu, the future head of the Bai family, who was responsible for escorting the person who received him.

Seeing this, Jiang Ge patted the handsome man's face, and Bai Yu woke up faintly and looked at Jiang Ge in surprise. Before Bai Yu fell into a coma, he had gone through a tragic battle, and his thirty good men were tortured and killed by ten Qiang scouts who were as agile as monkeys. After forcing him to find out that he was here to pick up a clan child, he was knocked unconscious. His outstanding martial arts and thirty good hands didn't hold on for even a quarter of an hour, and the whole army was wiped out in the alleys. The Qiang people, who had been in ambush for a long time, actually failed to kill the person in front of them. Bai Yu was glad to be saved in his heart, but he resented the uselessness of those Qiang people, and more of loss and remorse.

"Okay, can you go? We need to get out of here. Looking at Bai Yu Jiang Ge, who had flickering eyes, he didn't pay much attention to it, he just felt that it was caused by excessive fright. Jiang Ge stood up and found the white-lettered pennant outside the window on the street, and swayed vigorously towards the opposite mountain, signaling Fu Bo to hurry down the mountain and enter the city to join him.

"I can go, but I just trouble Young Master Jiang to help find the white jade Xiao below, and the gift from the master cannot be lost. It should be in the hands of the Qiang man guarding the restaurant. Bai Yu, who was already sitting against the wall, looked very miserable, and pleaded towards Jiang Ge's struggling arch hand.

Jiang Ge quickly went downstairs to find the Qiang scout who was shot to death by himself in the end, and found the unscathed Bai Yuxiao on his waist, holding it in his hand was refreshing, Jiang Ge was also curious, I don't know what material it was made of, but it was not damaged in the slightest.

After a stick of incense, Fu Bo gasped and rushed to the restaurant to meet Jiang Ge, Bai Yu was already much better after drinking a bag of water, Jiang Ge collected two water bags and some wheat cakes from the Qiang scout. Fu Bo supported Bai Yu, Jiang Ge walked ahead, and the scarred three slowly walked out of the city and went south along the canyon river.

In the conversation between Fu Bo and Bai Yu, Jiang Ge learned that more than 3,000 displaced people came to the entire Wucheng half a month ago, and they were ready to cross the river together after waiting for half a month to take in some displaced people, but who would have thought that a group of Qiang people with about 500 people passed by here, and saw that there were no defenders in the city, all Han Chinese, and there were many women, so those Qiang people slaughtered the city. After a few days of abuse and murder in Wuxian County, he rushed to the direction of Yidu County.

When he left the city, Jiang Ge set fire to the restaurant, hoping that those in the city who died tragically in the house could be reborn with the flames.

The war does not hurt the innocent and poor people, but I knew that the poor people were like ants in the eyes of those in power when Chang'an was forced to go to the city, and then the Xiongnu who met captured the Han people, cooked the Han people, and then slaughtered the city by the Qiang people. Jiang Ge had mixed feelings in his heart, could it be that in the face of war, he could not have the slightest humanity, wantonly killing, and humiliating the people, and he was not afraid of God's punishment?

Jiang Ge, who had always been reluctant to carry weapons, clenched the longbow in his hand at this time, and his fighting spirit was awe-inspiring.