At four o'clock, it was already summer, the morning light was spreading, and the world was clear.

The city gate of Huangzhou City also opened at this time, and Fan Xicheng hired a carriage to transport hundreds of jars of wine out of the city in a carriage, regardless of whether it was true or not, and to meet Zhao Kuo, Lin Zongjing, Guo Nuer and others who were in charge of guarding the ship at the dock outside the city.

No matter how rampant the river bandits and lakes between the river and Hubei are, they still can't isolate business travel, and there are many boats and boats moored at the wharf outside Huangzhou City, but they are mainly short-distance.

In an inconspicuous canopy boat, Ji Kun stared at the two boats more than a hundred steps away through a small hole, and saw Han Daoxun, Han Qian, father and son, standing on the bow of the ship surrounded by many family soldiers, and seemed to look at the long-unrepaired Huangzhou earthen city wall with emotion.

"The father and son of the Han family actually wanted to sell wine from Huangzhou to Xuzhou, and this time they were going to be planted in our hands, which is really unjust." A thin-faced man sitting in the corner of the cabin couldn't help but sneer at this scene.

Ji Kun frowned, he still had a letter in his arms that Zhao Mingting had sent over yesterday.

It took them more than half a month of work to thoroughly sort out the things before and after the preparation of the Dragon Bird Army. All signs show that the three princes have clearly mastered the methods to control the spread of the epidemic at the beginning of the preparation for the establishment of the Dragon Bird Army, and they have also implemented it step by step at the beginning of the establishment of the cantonment military government.

In the past six months, Han Daoxun's son Han Qian has not been to the Linjiang Marquis Mansion much, but has more time in and out of the Qiuhu Mountain Courtyard located in the military mansion of the Longque Army. As the most important material to control the spread of the epidemic, quicklime was put into use in a large number of military offices in the cantonment camp, and 40,000 quintals were invested in half a year, mainly from the craftsmen to which the Qiuhu Mountain Annex.

At the same time, Han Daoxun was appointed as the assassin of Xuzhou this time, and Han Qian was less than 20 years old, and he was awarded the military attache of the eighth grade, all of which shows that Han Daoxun is the core figure of the plan for the three princes.

And the so-called exhortation to set up the people is only the first step for Han Daoxun to prepare for the establishment of the Longhuai Army for the hungry people who are infected with the epidemic.

In order to conspire with this, Han Daoxun did not hesitate to anger the saint in the court, and also bore the notoriety of exhorting the hungry people for this, do these people really think that the road ahead is smooth and safe, and they can sell alcohol for profit by the way?

Ji Kun had deep doubts about what he saw in front of him, far less optimistic than the few subordinates around him, but he couldn't see where the doubts were, and his chest was depressed and uncomfortable.

"They're hanging their sails!" Pretending to be a subordinate of the boatman, he got under the canopy barefoot and rubbed his hands together expectantly and asked, "Shall we wait here for news, or will we follow the back and watch the fun?" ”

"No, prepare three fast horses, let's go ashore and watch the boat go." Ji Kun didn't think they could really win this time, but the two or three people of the canopy boat were too slow to paddle.

Even if they are not noticed, the three of them paddle and drive the boat against the current to follow for more than ten miles, and the physical strength of the three of them will be quickly exhausted, so it is better to go ashore and ride a horse to follow.

"Then our goal is afraid to be a little obvious?" The subordinate said hesitantly.

"If we don't show up, will they think we're not watching?" Ji Kun glanced at his subordinates and urged him to hurry ashore and prepare for the horse.

There are river embankments and roads along the river in a section of Huangzhou City, and more places are the large and small streams and rivers that flow down from the southern foot of Huaiyang Mountain, and the river intersects to form large and small grassy lakes.

Ji Kun took two subordinates to ride fast horses, blocked by the river, looking for a ferry to cross the river, bypassing the lake and the water, and was soon pulled away by Han Daoxun's sailboat, and in the afternoon, he saw a faint fire rising in the lake that was ten or twenty miles away.

Sheltered by vegetation, Ji Kun is located in a low-lying area, there is no high ground on the left and right, and he has no idea what is happening there, only birds are frightened, and there is a lot of movement, but it is definitely not a wildfire.

Ji Kun was full of foreboding, and he didn't care about the danger, so he waded directly into the shallow water between the grass lake and rushed to the firelight, but it was already two hours after he arrived there.

As the sun set, I saw only four blackened wrecked boats in a narrow alley on the relatively steep bank of the river, either half-sunk or resting on the riverbank.

There are also more than 20 corpses on the river beach, all dressed as river bandits, as if they got off the boat and wanted to wade into the water to rush ashore, they were shot and killed by ambushes on the river beach; I don't know how many corpses were washed into the river, and at this time, there was no trace of the boat Han Daoxun was on.

Ji Kun looked at everything in front of him in a daze, and his two subordinates were even more incredulous.

Seeing that in front of the four wrecked ships, there was an oarboat tilting sideways in the river alley, and then looking at the traces on the riverbed and the beach, so that they could roughly judge that the thief ship was lured into the narrow alley of this waterway by Han Daoxun, Han Daoxun first scuttled a boat to block the way of the thieves' advance, and then the ambush soldiers on the shore threw fire objects to ignite the thief ship from the rear.

The fire spread in a very short time, at least four thief ships were completely burned, all of them were only half of the charred black shells, and the out-of-control fire forced the thieves to abandon the ship and go ashore under extremely unfavorable circumstances, but they were hit hard in front of the beach, leaving more than 20 corpses on the river beach, and then lost their fighting spirit, most of the thieves had to flee along the river beach to the river, or hastily fled into the shrubs, reeds, and grass on the other side.

It can be seen that after the thieves were completely defeated, Han Daoxun's side pulled the wreck to the side so that the boat could sail out of the river alley, and everyone on their side should have been safely evacuated.

Ji Kun and two subordinates abandoned their horses, cautiously touched south along the river beach, seven or eight miles, and saw six or seven corpses washed up on the river beach, two of them were sent by them to contact the secret room of the Kou soldiers, seeing that their clothes and armor would be burned in the fire, they should have been burned into serious injuries and fell into the river and drowned.

Looking at the traces of the battle on the river beach, they could roughly estimate that the soldiers and horses on Han Daoxun's side who were ambushed on the east bank and directly participated in the ambush would not exceed 50 people, but they took advantage of the favorable terrain and unexpected fire attack to kill nearly 300 river bandits and fled, and even more than 50 thieves died here.

Although the fighting spirit of the thief soldiers is not strong, and the training and armor are far from being elite, how can they not be killed like this!

Ji Kun looked at all this, and intuitively felt a chill rushing up from the tail vertebrae, what kind of enemy was Han Daoxun he was going to deal with? I patted my chest in Zhao Mingting to ensure that Han Daoxun would never live in Xuzhou, is it too big?

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When Ji Kun was frightened and trembling, on the river that was more than 20 miles west, Tian Cheng, Gao Shao and others were happily drinking the pure wine left over from the small half jar.

Although the purified pure wine is mixed with a certain amount of lime water, the entrance is very bitter, but they have never drunk such a strong wine, and they take small sips, feeling the burning sensation like a line of fire along the throat into the abdomen, it is still a different kind of pleasure, or today's ambush is too enjoyable.

In addition to three of them who were shot and wounded, and two of them broke their feet while running, they killed nearly 300 thieves and cried for their fathers and mothers, and fled in a big rout.

Even Tian Cheng and Gao Shao, who had ambushed and killed many rogues who could only be regarded as a rabble in the army in the past, it was rare to see such victories.

Yang Qin led his troops to take another galleys, but their mood was complicated.

Besides, they had just gone through the tragedy of the destruction of their relatives in the village, and no matter how smoothly this battle was fought, it was difficult to get excited, and thinking that they were a group of rabble, at the instigation of Ji Kun, they had delusionally wanted to ambush such an enemy, and there was also an indescribable other uncomfortable feeling in their chests.

In the eyes of the real elite, aren't they just a vulnerable rabble?

But they don't know it, but they have caused such a terrible disaster.

Han Qian sat at the stern of the boat, but he didn't have much excitement, only looking at the two galleys captured from the Jiang bandits behind him, his mood was quite comfortable.

He thought to himself that in order to block the Jiang bandits in the ambushed river alley, they scuttled Yang Qin's pulp sailboat, and they needed to take a galley sailboat back to Yang Qin, then they could also get an galleys, which could almost offset the consumption of this battle, which was not a loss or a gain.

However, thinking of such a small-scale battle and the consumption along the way, Han Qian hesitated whether to continue to encircle Yang Qin's group.

He had previously sent Zhao Wuji and others to lead the Zuo Si scouts to escort all the way, less than 50 people, borrowed 50 fast horses from the cantonment military government, but reported news along the way, to avoid the eyes of the staff division, can only surround the long road from the outside, the squeezing of horses is particularly large, sometimes in order to hide, and even to discard the horses at every turn or even slaughter them painfully, so far more than 20 fast horses have been lost.

In the north, the price of horses is cheaper, but in Jianghuai, every healthy horse that can go to war is worth 80,000 or 90,000 yuan, and the loss of more than 20 fast horses is equivalent to 2 million yuan.

After Han Qian returned to Jinling with a headache, how could he smooth out the account or rely on it directly.

In addition, personnel sent out to maintain physical strength, at most dry food on the way, but when they arrive in the market town, they need to find a way to replenish meat, and even need to drink a lot of alcohol to eliminate fatigue; At the beginning of the assignment, each person was given an additional amount of gold, silver, precious metals equivalent to 10,000 yuan, and a number of copper coins as funds, and in the end it was estimated that there would not be much left.

This expense is more than 500,000 yuan.

Fortunately, there have been no casualties so far, and there is no need to pay a large amount of pensions, but if he really succeeded in escorting his father to Xuzhou, he would have to give some symbolic rewards, not to mention more than 100,000 or 200,000 yuan.

After calculating it in this way, Han Qian felt that he was about to use up all the money that His Highness promised to allocate to him this year.

Yang Qin's group, between the rivers and Hubei provinces, is extremely familiar with the water situation in this area, and they are enveloped, and even directly incorporated into the secret Cao Zuosi, which must be of great use, but thirty or fifty people are used as elites to raise outside, but it is not enough to feed three catties of rice grain every day.

Han Qian secretly estimated that to raise an elite team of thirty or fifty people between Jiang and Hubei, and to keep an eye on the expansion of the power of the Shui Kou and his relatives Xu and Anning Palace in this area, the salary and a lot of extra expenses, not to mention investing two or three million dollars a year, can he raise more money?

Or, at such a big cost between Jiang and Hubei, can pulling Yang Qin's team bring him so much additional income every year?

Han Qian could understand at this time, the deep roots of the Xinchang Marquis Mansion and the Late Red Mansion, and the conspiracy for such a long time, why in just half a year, the foundation was squeezed dry by the Dragon Bird Army, which was not too large, in fact, they had maintained an elite secret force for a long time to operate, which was too costly.