Puchangze is the lowest-lying place in the South Tianshan Mountains, which originates from the ice and snow meltwater of the Tianshan Mountains, Altun Mountains and Kunlun Mountains, and eventually flows into seven or eight rivers such as the Tarim River, the Peacock River, the Cherchen River and the Shule River, and then flows into Puchangze. Zhao Xingde estimated from the map given by the Military Intelligence Department that the lake area of Puchangze may exceed 5,000 square kilometers. The amount of water that flows into Puchangze varies over the years, causing the lake to shrink and move, leaving a large swampy area on the lakeside, and many roads that were originally passable on the bank of Puchangze have also become dead ends due to the changes in the lake surface and the swampy area.

Several trade routes around the post station loomed to the west, and not far away, they were hidden in the growing aquatic plants. If you follow these trade routes, you may be led astray. If you don't march along the trade routes, you can easily get stuck in a swamp. The major rivers that flow into Puchangze branch off many times near the lake, making it difficult to distinguish which one is the main stream of the river.

"I thought I should avoid Puchangze and march south to a semi-dry area between the desert and the swamp, and then march west until we meet the end of the river." Zhao Xingde pointed to the map, to the south of Pu Changze, there was a piece of quicksand, and he estimated that between the quicksand and Pu Changze, there was at least a relatively dry and hard ground. In this way, it is not necessary to be confined by swamps, misguided by the trade canals, and to take a march path that is close to straight.

"You mean, to march off the road," Du Horn mused, "and to walk on the edge of quicksand." He suddenly laughed, "It's too risky." ”

"It's just that there is no way to do it, it doesn't make sense." Several of the other ten-captains chimed in.

"Walking on the edge of quicksand is not necessarily without danger."

"It's at least twice as long, and you have to go around in a big circle. It's not good to delay the march and delay the schedule. ”

"I've only seen those who take the wrong road, but I haven't seen anyone who doesn't take the wrong way."

Someone else whispered: "The rookie is really a rookie." ”

Even Jian Cheng looked at Zhao De with suspicion. On the contrary, Wang Tongdeng's eyes flickered slightly, and he looked at Zhao Delai seriously.

Although the vast majority of people were opposed to leaving Pu Changze's existing trade route and detouring, Zhao Xingde's face remained unchanged, he stood up, looked around at the ten captains present, and said in a deep voice: "Everyone, please forgive me for taking the liberty of being presumptuous. Going deep into the water and grass swamp on the bank of Puchangze, no matter which road you choose, you are just gambling. Once you go astray, because of the limitations of the swamp, you can only turn back. What is needed for the march is not only the road, but also the freedom to correct the direction at any time. What is lost in Pu Changze is the opportunity to correct mistakes and the exponential delay of time. ”

Zhao De is usually very kind, but at this moment he is stubborn, and at that time, a few ten captains couldn't look at it, and said one after another: "Zhao Shichang, I don't have too many concerns." "The brigade has left the road and marched, it is difficult not to miss the deadline, are you more powerful than Li Guang." "The road is unknown, but the direction is always known, and if you notice something is wrong, you can turn back immediately."

Du Fujiao smiled slightly and asked Zhao Dedao, "Have you finished speaking?" ”

Zhao Xingde glanced at the ten commanders present, except for Jian Cheng, Wang Tongdeng and a few other younger commanders who cast sympathetic glances at him, everyone else was disdainful, the most seniority in the army, a senior commander who had just joined the army pointed fingers, and it was impossible to march off the road anyway. After Zhao Xingde understood this, he arched his hand to Du Fujiao: "I'm done, forgive me for being presumptuous." ”

"Okay, sit down." Du Fujiao smiled, turned his head to the other ten-masters with high titles and seniority: "Do you think it is more appropriate to take which path?" The crowd came together again to analyze which road was more like the one that had been passed by caravans recently.

After the military discussion, most of the ten commanders felt that they should take a straight road to the west, so they decided and prepared to set out tomorrow. Jian Cheng followed behind Zhao Xingde, patted him on the shoulder, and said in a low voice: "Okay, I think you have a point, but ......" Looking at his appearance of wanting to speak and stopping, Zhao Xingde smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and whispered: "I also hope that the road I choose leads to the end of the river." ”

Back in the team, the sergeants were already cooking in their own pots. "Team Zhao, drink it while it's hot." Sergeant Chen Yongqi brought Zhao De a pot of miso soup, and when the military was discussing just now, Zhao De rashly came forward to put forward a ridiculous suggestion to leave the road, and the matter of being repaired by the veteran ten captains had already spread in the barracks. Some people ridiculed, and some people were upset with Zhao De. In fact, this proposal should have been considered more solemnly, but it was wiped out because the person who proposed it was not qualified enough.

Zhao De picked up the hot soup, drank it, closed his eyes, and felt a warm stove steaming in his abdomen. The Xia Kingdom's supply of long-distance marches has almost reached the extreme of this era. Each team of ten carried four horses, two carts, and five camels to transport the baggage needed for the march. In addition to the concentrate for the livestock, the dry food carried by the sergeant consisted of beef and mutton fat cubes, dried jerky that was air-dried and hard as stones, compacted dry dough, air-dried vegetable dough, cheese cubes, and salty sauce packets. Most of the soldiers of the Xia Kingdom would identify some edible wild vegetables, and whenever conditions permitted, the marching meal would first dissolve a small piece of dry dough with hot water to make a very thin noodle soup, and then put various ingredients into it and boil it together with the wild vegetables collected by Zuo Jin. Although this kind of marching meal is far worse than Li Ruoxue's hand-cooked meal, at least it is not difficult to swallow, and it basically does not have diarrhea.

"Team Zhao, we think what you said makes sense." Chen Yongqi, Liu Zheng, Shi Yan, Tan Binglong and other teammates surrounded him, in the march some time ago, Zhao Xingde did not put on a long stand, but also handled the affairs of the team in an orderly manner, and several other sergeants slowly convinced him. Every time he went to the mountains, rivers, and towns that the longitude and latitude lines passed through on the marching map, Zhao De had to carefully measure them with the Sky Observation Locator, so as to master the use of the Heaven Observation Instrument and correct its errors. At first, several marching horses thought he was pretending, until Zhao De occasionally talked to them that the error of this celestial observatory was about twenty miles. The three marching horses were all surprised, and the positioning error of ten miles was extremely rare in the marching division, and the various devices themselves had to be adjusted extremely accurately, and the time to observe the celestial phenomena was also extremely accurate.

Looking at the comforting eyes of several people in the team, Zhao Xingde smiled and said: "The truth is not that people say it's right, it's right." Truth only proves itself. He put down the soup pot that had been drunk, knocked on it, and said with a smile: "I also hope to find the end of the river at once, and arrive at the end of the city in advance, maybe there is still time to get some jade." ”

"Team Zhao, is there really any jade at the end?" Tan Binglong asked, these days when Zhao Xingde and the sergeants camped at night, they had nothing to chat, and they seemed to know astronomy and geography.

"Of course, everyone knows about Khotanese jade, but they don't know that the main production area is in the end." Zhao Xingde said with a smile, scrubbed the soup pot with hay and put it in his bag, "The main ore veins must already have owners, and we can only try our luck." ”

Xia Guo's customization, whoever discovers the vein will have the right to mine. The imperial court only collects mining taxes, and supervises the exploitation of mineral deposits without destroying the local water and soil. Therefore, there are countless young people in the Xia country, after learning the positioning of the sky, they will carry their bags and survey around the vast desert in the Western Regions and Mobei, once they find the vein and determine its location, they can register it at the Prime Minister's Mansion, and then sell it at the auction. The huge wealth that countless generations have been difficult to accumulate has been reached, which has stimulated countless young people to study the art of viewing the sky and finding mineral veins, and the various mineral deposits discovered by the Xia Kingdom in the Western Regions and Mobei in just a hundred years have exceeded the sum of all previous dynasties.

After dinner, Zhao Xingde set up the sky-watching locator as usual. This post station is also marked with latitude and longitude on military maps, which is obviously very important. To enter the swamp, at least you have to figure out where to start.

He opened a wooden box that matched the celestial sphere, and a pendulum clock wrapped in silk cotton cloth was revealed, if it was placed safely, Zhao Xingde believed that its daily error was set within one second.

At noon, Zhao Xingde calibrated its time, I don't know if the bumps of the half day, this old man's marching bell has convulsions again. Zhao Xingde smiled bitterly, carefully moved the marching bell out, and looked at the scale of the clock face, now he was used to an hour of one hundred and twenty minutes of algorithm.