The Wushan Long Gorge is 400 miles long, and the four boats have a very deep draft, and after dropping the sails, they are pulled up by three or four hundred slender men, and the speed is naturally not fast.

Han Qian and the others counted from entering the Nanjin Guanxia to the White Emperor City in Kuizhou, and the 400-mile waterway took more than half a month.

At this time, from the White Emperor City along the west of the west, it is necessary to walk another 800 miles of waterway to Yuzhou City, an important town in eastern Sichuan, which is also where the ancient Jiangzhou City is located; From Yuzhou to the west, through Luzhou to the north into Zishui (Tuojiang), meandering another 800 miles to the destination of their trip, that is, the base of the Shu lord Wang Jian's founding of the country, Jinguancheng Chengdu Mansion.

The White Emperor City was formerly known as Ziyang City, which was built by the male lord Gongsun Shu who divided the Shu land in the late Western Han Dynasty.

It is rumored that Gongsun Shu built a city on the mountain according to Shu, and a well in the view of the city had a white mist vapor evaporating out, just like a white dragon, he then called himself the White Emperor, and renamed the city the White Emperor City, and the mountain behind the city was named the White Emperor Mountain.

The White Emperor City is located on the north bank of the Yangtze River, one side of the mountain, three sides of the water, the back of the high gorge, the majestic water and land to Jin, the gateway of Wushan, the east is next to the last section of the Wushan Long Gorge, there is "the water will be Fu Wan, Qutang fights for a door" said that the dangerous gorge Kuimen.

The high cliffs on both sides of the river stand steeply, the surging river flows through this place and is suddenly narrowed into a ravine that is not more than 100 meters wide, only 50 meters at first, even if it is the dry period, there are tens of thousands of square meters of river water rushing into it every second, it is no wonder that there is the saying of "Kuimen is the hero of the world".

After Han Qian and the other fleet went out of Kuimen, he stood at the stern of the ship and took in the view of Kuimen, feeling more real, and secretly felt that as long as the Shu army had a naval army that could fight in the White Emperor City, the Great Chu Sailors were the most majestic and powerful, and it would be difficult to kill them from Kuimen.

The so-called battleground for all generations of soldiers is nothing more than that.

"In such a strong current, ordinary stone piers can't grasp the bottom of the river at all!" Yang Qin stood beside Han Qian, looked at the turbulence of the surging river rushing into Kuimen, and said with emotion.

Even if the traditional broad-bottomed flat-bottomed boat docks halfway, it is difficult to find a suitable large tree mooring on the shore and beach for more time, and the sharp-bottomed boat can only rely on anchorage if it wants to dock halfway.

In the early years, the boat was mostly tied with stone anchors, and the tether sank to the bottom of the water, and the anchors began to be cast with copper and iron during the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

The four-claw iron anchor sinks to the bottom of the water and can deeply grasp the mud of the riverbed, which is much superior to the stone pier that sinks directly into the riverbed, but the cast iron technology of the time, the iron anchor weighing three or four hundred pounds is almost the limit.

Not to mention the turbulent flow like Kuimen, even if it is a relatively gentle and open section of the Yangtze River, an iron anchor weighing three or four hundred catties should not be able to stop a giant ship with a load of up to three or four hundred thousand catties!

It is possible to use a winch to sink thousands of catties or even tens of thousands of catties of stone piers into the bottom of the river to tie the boat, but in such a turbulent river, such a heavy stone pier is not to mention the big ship that holds 4,000 stones or 2,000 stones, and it is difficult to tie the ship with a thousand stones, not to mention that the take-off and landing of such a heavy stone pier is extremely cumbersome and slow.

Although Dragon's Tooth City has been casting a thousand-pound iron claw anchor, according to the water potential of Kuimen, it may not be able to tie the thousand-stone ship.

"After the Shu-Chu peace talks, the two places no longer prohibit business travel, the Shu road is smooth, and when the ship passes through the Kuimen Gorge, you can try out the new iron anchor!" Han Qian said to Yang Qin.

In Han Qian's view, to develop hundreds of workers, it is definitely not possible to build cars behind closed doors, the key is to apply, in order to accumulate more practical experience, the ships built by Wufeng Mountain,

(This chapter is not finished, please turn the page)

If we could be tested in a turbulent current like Kuimen Gorge, the technology might be improved more quickly.

"What are Lord Han and Commander Yang talking about?" Changxiang Marquis Wang Yong leaned over and asked.

Of course, Han Qian would not tell Changxiang Hou Wang Yong that they were discussing how the sailor warship could successfully kill Kuimen from the downstream, and said with a smile: "Thanks to the hardships of hundreds of slender men all the way, we successfully passed through the Wushan Changxia, I asked Yang Qin to take some copper coins and reward them to the slender men - at this time, I thought, maybe it is better in the name of Hou Ye." ”

Han Qian and the others went west, and did not ask the Yiling guards of Kipzhou to directly send officials and slaves to help them pull fiber, but hired local slender men after arriving in Yiling, which was also convenient for organic contact with the low-level people in eastern Sichuan.

These slender men who walk on the shore of Wushan Changxia all the year round, their shoulders are tanned on a cold day, and they are all bloodstains strangled by the ropes.

On the river beach full of rocks, a pair of straw sandals could not support much time, and when I walked down, my feet were cut with bloody wounds from sharp stones.

That's it, the slender men can only barely make ends meet this time.

The suffering of people's livelihood can be seen.

Although the hired money had already been paid in Yiling, Han Qian still took out a hundred yuan at the moment and asked Yang Qin to send someone to get off the ship and distribute the reward to more than 300 slender men in the name of the Changxiang Marquis.

After crossing the Kuimen Gorge, the terrain on both sides of the river is gentle, and there are low hills and mountains, and the river surface is also open, and the narrow place is almost nearly 2,000 steps wide.

At this time, there was no need to hire a slender man, and the four ships raised their sails, blowing the wind, and the speed was immediately raised, and it took only three days to arrive at Yuzhou, an important town in the southeast of Sichuan.

The Marquis of Changxiang was jealous of the suspicion of the Marquis of Qingjiang, and he was usually very careful not to make friends with officials, and his friendship with local officials was also very weak.

Han Qian and his team marched all the way west, except for exchanging documents to pass the customs, they did not dock much along the way, and finally entered the territory of Chengdu Prefecture, the richest and most prosperous Jinguan city in Sichuan and Shu on November 15.

Turning from Zishui into the Pijiang River, sailboats can directly arrive at the wharf located outside the south gate of Fucheng to dock.

The Pijiang River is also the moat of Chengdu's Fucheng.

Wang Jian, the lord of Shu, also sent Wei Qun, the secretary of Honglu Temple, to lead the guards to greet Han Qian and Guo Rong into the city in front of the wharf in the south of the city, and discuss the time and etiquette of the next meeting and relatives.

The bulk goods that Han Qian carried on this trip were sold by him privately, and he would not unload the ship for the time being, but the two or three hundred boxes of Lingluo cotton satin, jewelry and jade as national gifts and dowry gifts, as well as the goods that Han Qian secretly brought into Shu to hand over to the powerful people of Shu, had to enter the city together.

Honglu Temple here also prepared the carriage and horses in advance, by the Zhou with the family soldiers, will be a box of dowry on the car, Han Qian, Guo Rong in Changxiang Hou Wang Yong, Honglu Temple Qing Wei Qing accompanied by the majestic and majestic Shu City.

Sichuan and Shu, especially the Chengdu Plain, from the Qin Dynasty has been fully developed, much earlier than the Jianghuai region, the former dynasty was the most prosperous, recorded more than 1.2 million households, more than 6 million people, but the middle and late dynasties, so the clan fled Sichuan many times to avoid trouble, but also brought the war from Guanzhong into Sichuan and Shu, currently under the rule of Shu lord Wang Jian, although it has been calm for more than 10 years, but according to the inventory of the Shu household department in the past two years, the population has only recovered to 500,000 households, less than 3 million people, less than 50% of the heyday of the previous dynasty.

In comparison, the population is in the tens of millions

(This chapter is not finished, please turn the page)

The above Liang State, Chu State, and Shu State control about a quarter of the population is slightly stronger, and it is naturally the weakest, but even so, in addition to the local military equipment in Kaizhou County, Shu Lord Wang Jian directly controlled the forbidden army, which is as high as 160,000.

Even the Chengdu Plain, which is directly controlled by Wang Jian, the lord of Shu, is a rare wealth in the world, and it is extremely difficult to maintain such a large military armament.

160,000 Shu troops, 30,000 Zhenjiang troops stationed in Yuzhou, Kuizhou, Kipzhou Yiling, mainly used to prevent the Great Chu West Peeping, 60,000 soldiers and horses stationed in Shudu and nearby areas, control the most core Chengdu Plain, and the most elite 70,000 soldiers and horses, stationed in Liangzhou (Hanzhong) and other places, to prevent the Liang army from invading south.

Although it was a cold winter season, the climate of Shu was warm, and Han Qian stood in front of the moat and didn't feel how cold it was.

After more than 200 cages were loaded into the carriage, Han Qian led Yang Qin to lead a large army into the military camp specially arranged by Honglu Temple outside the city, he was surrounded by nearly 100 troops, and was about to get into the car and enter the city, when he heard the sound of horses' hooves clattering, and turned to look, but it was three fast horses galloping along the gallop outside the south city gate.

When the three fast horses galloped closer, Han Qian saw that the person in charge was Guo Ke, who had entered Shu one step ahead of schedule and was in charge of spying on the intelligence affairs of Shu.

"What's going on?" Feng Yi was beside Han Qian at this time, and asked in surprise.

Guo is the little crow Guo Qi'er who used to lurk and serve by Feng Yi's side, and he was awarded the eight-rank martial arts medal for his achievements in the war of cutting the domain, so he wanted to take the opportunity to change his previous "cheap name"; Han Qian helped him take the meaning of "but the enemy", and used a homophonic word "but" as the name.

Emperor Tianyou didn't use his father's envoy to greet his relatives, Han Qian had been thinking about this in his heart, and he couldn't come down, but at this time, he saw that Guo was an official of Shu State on the left and right, and he rushed over to meet him directly, and his heart was even more "chuckled", he didn't know what was going on in Tanzhou, and he asked Guo to come over in such a hurry to deliver the message.

Seeing that the person who came knew Han Qian, Shu Honglu Siqing motioned for the guards to get out of the way.

Guo got off the horse and walked over, handed a wax pill to Han Qian, and said in his ear:

"Mrs. Ting instructed that no matter what the situation, this letter must be handed over to the adults as soon as possible!"

I don't know what happened in Xuzhou, Han Qian didn't care about Guo Rong, Changxiang Hou Wang Yong and Honglu Temple Qing Wei Qun were by his side, and saw that the wax pill was indeed the secret mark he had agreed with Zhao Ting'er, so he pinched open the wax pill and took out a note, but saw that it was written:

"Half a month after the husband left Longya City, Jinling sent a messenger to Qianyang with a decree to transfer his father to Beijing to serve as Jing Zhaoyin. The concubine rushed to Qianyang after knowing the news, and wanted to persuade her father to leave after the New Year's Festival, but her father seemed to have realized that a crisis was brewing in Jinling, and on the same day, he entrusted the military and political affairs of Xuzhou to Changshi Xue Ruogu and Sima Tiancheng, and took Zhao Kuo, Han Laoshan and several other family members to Beijing directly. The concubine hesitated for a long time, but finally did not dare to advocate the matter of the poisonous candle without authorization......"

Han Qian's hands and feet were cold, he didn't expect that Emperor Tianyou didn't use his father to send an envoy to Shu to welcome his relatives, and he actually transferred his father to Jinling to serve as Jing Zhaoyin at this time!

Moreover, Jing Zhaoyin is such an important appointment, Emperor Tianyou said that he would order the replacement, but he didn't even reveal the slightest rumor in advance, and he didn't even consult the three princes at all.

Han Qian definitely didn't want his father to enter Beijing at this time, but counting the time, his father might have been in Jinling for two days at this time!

(End of chapter)