Jiangbei in winter looks more desolate than usual.

Sitting on the boat going north, as far as the eye can see, once you leave the range of the canal dock fort, you can't see even a slightly taller tree on the whole earth.

When she was a child, Wen Yue had heard that this was because the homeless people had eaten all the bark of the tree a long time ago.

This sentence impressed Wen Yue, who had been pampered since childhood, so much so that she had forgotten when and where she heard it, but the content was always hidden in her mind.

In her heart, the land of Jiangbei is similar to an uninhabited wasteland, and it can even be compared to hell.

Now that she has really seen it with her own eyes, the scene she sees is indeed more in line with her imagination.

This begs another question: What are the people living in this wasteland like?

Of course, Wen Yue has seen the homeless people in Jiangbei: yellow and thin-skinned, with a wooden expression, and they sell themselves for a bite to eat.

Her father once said that those displaced people are actually good, after all, they have the opportunity to cross the Yangtze River, and there is always more chance to survive in Jiangnan.

Those who stay in Jiangbei will inevitably have an even more miserable life.

I'm afraid it's really not going to be much better than hell.

What are the people who live in hell?

Evil spirits?

So who is the leader of the demons?

Beelzebub?

When Wen Yue learned that she was going to marry a demon king, she actually refused in her heart.

However, this era is like this, the marriage between men and women is not up to the young people themselves, since her father Wen Jiefu has agreed to marry her to Jiangbei, then no matter what happens, Wen Yue has to set off to Jiangbei and follow her husband.

The demon king named Xu Shiyang.

That's ...... to think about.

Rough.

But not fear.

The news of the Wen family's determination to marry the Xu family came out, and during the period before Wen Yue's departure, her best friends had run in front of her, pretending to hold a handful of bitter tears .......

Actually, Wen Yue thinks, what is there to cry about?

Does crying work?

A commoner woman marries in the hope of living a prosperous life, and the youngest daughter whom Wen Xianggong loves the most will never have a hard life.

And the marriage of the daughter of a high-ranking official and eunuch like her usually has some political purposes, and Wen Yue has already figured it out.

Besides, men are essentially the same, and those romantic talents that girlfriends secretly admire may not be much better than the legendary murderous demon king in terms of women.

Love? It can't be said that there are none, but in this day and age, it is definitely a rarity.

So Wen Yue didn't cry, even if she knew that the husband whom her family had booked for her quarreled with the saint's house and became a violent person who slandered the world, she only had a little more bumps in her heart.

She really wanted to know as much as she could about her husband, who was this? What was he thinking? What does he like and hate?

And so on and so forth.

It's a pity that as a girl who has not left the cabinet, Wen Yue can't invite Zhang Mingyi, who commanded the fleet to go north to Qi Province, to listen to him talk about his views on Xu Shiyang.

And the famous concubine who wanted to take refuge in Qi Province to her husband didn't know much about Xu Shiyang, and in that woman's heart, Xu Shiyang's image seemed to be unconsciously beautified.

It seems that everything has to depend on Wen Yue herself.

'Observe carefully, listen more, see more, think more, and talk less. Wen Yue warned herself in her heart: "The husband that my father found for his daughter will not push me into the fire pit." ’

……

Wang Qinian sat on his horse and yawned heavily.

Someone next to him immediately laughed: "The boss also has times when he is lazy?" ”

Several riders laughed a few times as if they were playful, but Wang Qinian's eyes swept over, and the laughter disappeared immediately.

Wang Qinian is not a harsh boss, but the recent period has not been good, this team of riders has not made a profit for a long time, and the previous reserves have been almost depleted, if they don't open again, they may be hungry.

In this case, Boss Wang is probably also holding back the fire in his belly, so it is better to provoke him as little as possible.

"Didn't the brothers who went out come back?"

Wang Qinian asked calmly, he didn't care about the innocuous joke just now.

What's more, he is indeed a little lazy, and his subordinates have not said anything wrong.

"Sixth, they're back." One of the riders replied: "They saw a group of homeless people, and they followed them for a while, but they didn't have any oil or water." ”

"Old Five, they probably have to wait, the east is the canal, and that side is now the territory of the Qingzhou soldiers, they don't dare to get too close."

"Displaced ......." Wang Qinian pondered for a moment and said disappointedly: "That's really not much oil and water." ”

The homeless people have all become homeless, and naturally there is nothing else except one life.

But what is the use of Wang Qinian's life? He's not one of those bandits who make sobering soup out of people's hearts and livers.

Wang Qinian is a horse thief.

On the official wanted list of the Great Zhou Dynasty, he and his subordinates were called "horse thieves", because a long time ago, Wang Qinian's father, uncle, and brother had led this group of horse thieves to commit crimes in Hebei, Qi, and Henan provinces.

An official once wrote: A group of 100 thieves on the horse broke into the rich family, counted their families, and invited gold and silver to scatter flowers. Or rob the state and county official treasury, take light money, restrain the loading, put the wine high, and go on the horse in three days. The state and county are not armed, and there is nothing like it.

Not only did they plunder the rich and the official treasury, but they even attacked the boats.

That's quite a majestic, proper bandit.

After the Great Zhou Dynasty moved south, the horse thieves lived a period of unrestrained days, but in the blink of an eye, the Jin soldiers went south, and the horse thieves who were unwilling to surrender became the rebels again, and they fought with the Tartars a few times.

The horse thieves suffered heavy losses, from more than 600 riders at their peak, all the way down to only more than 100 riders now.

Wang Qinian's father, brother and elder also failed to fight, and the result was that three years ago, he became the leader of this group of powerful horse thieves.

Since it is called a horse thief, then Wang Qinian's subordinates are naturally mainly cavalry, and there are more than 80 people, all of whom have horses, strong bows and hard lances, and double sabers.

Even a few months earlier, they had attacked a group of stragglers in the retreat, getting some armor and extra horses.

It's a pity that the Tartars are like locusts, and along the way, they swept away the land from Ji Province and Qi Province west of the Yellow River.

Originally, Wang Qinian could also extort the Dock Fort, the bandit cottage, or trade with them in exchange for grain and grass supplies.

But now, none of this is possible, because whether it is a dock fort or a bandit cottage, if it had not taken refuge in Qi Province to the east, the Eight Achievements would have been eaten and wiped out by the Tartars.

The rest of the homeless people hiding in the deep mountains and old forests are all poor and don't even have clothes, even if Wang Qinian is willing to put down the shelves and rob the homeless, he can't grab enough materials to support his consumption.

Therefore, the horse thieves had to follow the route of the Tartars' march for several months all the way south, all the way to the Xuzhou border, intending to find some grain and grass in the places that the Tartars did not sweep.

Of course, if there is prey on the canal, so much the better.