In Yiyang County, Bazhou, at the southeast foot of Qishan Mountain, a woodcutter is cutting down trees in a mountain forest, and the charcoal kilns at the foot of the mountain are emitting thick smoke, and the trees cut down by the woodcutters are about to be transported to the charcoal kiln to be burned into charcoal.

Sunlight leaks through the dense woods, a large area of lush mountain forest, where many trees are hugging together, and lumberjacks work in pairs to cut down trees.

They wielded their axes vigorously, and the iron axes slashed at the trunks of the trees, making the sound of "tuk, tuk, tuk", and these logging sounds came and went in the forest, and the echo of the mountain forest was entwined, making the usually quiet mountain forest very lively.

A sharp axe chopped the trunk of the tree into sawdust, and the lumberjacks in teams of two cut two diagonal gaps in the roots of the tree, and when the gap reached eighty percent of the tree diameter, the two stopped cutting and shouted "The tree has fallen".

After everyone around him noticed this side and prepared to dodge, one of them pushed hard towards the diagonal intersection of the gap, and heard the rolling sound of the torso of the big tree.

The tree slowly fell, faster and faster, and finally slammed into the ground with a thud, and the two lumberjacks stepped forward to cut the fallen tree into several pieces, while the other lumberjacks continued to cut down their own trees.

One by one, the big trees fell, and then they were cut into sections, and looking at the more and more tree segments, the foreman beckoned everyone to rest.

Lu Daogu sat under the big tree, he was from Yizhou, his family was poor and landless, and he wanted to be a tenant farmer and no one hired him, so he helped other families to do short-term work on weekdays to make a living, and he heard the uncle who cut trees in Yiyang County, Bazhou, said that there was a shortage of people here, so he came over to do a lumberjack.

I can't eat enough, but I can barely mix it half-full, and I am very tired of cutting trees, and the salary settled at the end of the month is not much, but Lu Daogu can save some money if he wants to save money, so he is very satisfied with the current situation, which is much better than being hungry in his hometown.

Not long after he came to the mountain to cut wood, he didn't understand many 'rules in the industry', especially when he went up the mountain to cut wood yesterday, he left, and now he has to transport wood down the mountain.

It takes an hour to go up the mountain, and the mountain road is rugged and difficult to walk, Lu Daogu is thinking about how to transport these things down the mountain, one person is too difficult to carry, two people can carry it, but the next trip to the mountain is enough to choke, what to do with so much wood.

"Uncle, how are these pieces of wood transported down the mountain?" He asked, and a middle-aged man sitting next to Lu Daogu smiled when he heard this, saying that when he went up the mountain, he saw a long soil trough on the hillside, which was called a slide, which was used to put wood down the mountain.

Lu Daogu sighed when he heard this, he lived on the side of the mountain in the countryside of Yizhou, and he had also gone up the mountain to cut firewood, so he was no stranger to the mountains and forests, but it was the first time he had seen such a large-scale logging.

The middle-aged man continued to explain some knowledge, some trees are not suitable for charcoal, such as pine, fir trees, etc., the charcoal burned by these trees is not of good quality and is not durable, so when cutting wood, you must see the tree species clearly, do not waste effort to cut these trees.

"Don't swing your axe when cutting down a tree, keep your ears up and listen, and look up quickly when something is wrong, although the tree will shout before it falls, but I'm afraid of what happens."

"Oh."

"You can't eat the wild fruits on the mountain, and you can't eat the fruits you don't recognize, even if you're hungry."

"Oh."

"If you go out, don't go far, be careful to give jackals, tigers and leopards to them, and hit two sticks first where there is a lot of grass, so as not to have poisonous snakes."

"Oh."

Lu rice has gone up the mountain, so at first he was worried about logging, after all, don't talk about poisonous snakes in the mountains, even wild boars, jackals, wolves, tigers, leopards are there, if it is not for the accumulation of years of hunters, it is easy to die recklessly on the mountain without a place to be buried.

Even if you don't encounter these things, it's easy to get lost in the old forest, and the branches are thick, you can't see the sun, you can't tell the direction, and you can't find a way out and you are trapped in the mountains.

However, after coming to Yiyang County, Lu Daogu was a little relieved, there were dozens of lumberjacks on the mountain, and some guards accompanied them with bows and arrows and other weapons.

Eating the dry food brought up the mountain and drinking the cold stream water in the bamboo tube, Lu Daogu felt that his strength had recovered a little, he was a person who was used to working as coolies, so logging was nothing, and he was not afraid of being bullied.

Look at the shoes on his feet, they are already in tatters, the mountains are full of thatch, shrubs, and thorns, and if you are not careful, your shoes will be covered with small cuts, and his cheeks have been scratched with small wounds because they are not covered.

"Uncle, isn't this salary really in arrears?" Lu Daogu is concerned about this, now the quarries, lumber yards, lime kilns, and charcoal kilns in Yiyang County are recruiting, he feels that they are all working with strength anyway, and it is better to go to which one has more money, and it always feels a little unsafe to cut wood in the mountains.

"Don't think about it, the quarry is more tired, where is the salary of the lime kiln and charcoal kiln, where is the logging more, I believe uncle, the owner has not been in arrears in the past few months."

Lu Daogu looked around and found that no one was paying attention to them, so he asked cautiously after a moment's struggle: "Uncle, I heard that the mountains in this mountain are not very peaceful, and last night I heard people muttering, saying that the owner of the village in the mountain often sends people to make trouble, and the owners are not allowed to cut down trees." ”

"Who did you listen to?" The middle-aged man was a little nervous, looked at both sides and then asked rhetorically, Lu Daogu said that he heard people talking, and he didn't know who it was after he came here for a few days.

"It's not a big deal, there is still a water source between the two villages, those mountain barbarians are poorer than us on weekdays, and they see that the owners hire people to cut down trees to make a fortune, and they have no way to burn charcoal or quarry to sell them, this is red-eyed."

"But," Lu Daogu wanted to speak, but stopped.

"Nothing, but do you see these guards? One by one, with bows and arrows, they not only guarded against jackals, tigers and leopards, but also against these mountain barbarians. The middle-aged man persuaded, "Besides, there is not only one owner in this mountain, but some of the owners are easy to talk to, and those who make a mess are very few." ”

The uncle and nephew muttered and chatted for a while, and the foreman shouted and worked when he saw that he was almost resting, and the loggers still walked out in groups of two, carrying a section of the tree, and they came to the side of the slide opened up on the hillside, and several people shouted "yo hehe" down the mountain.

The shouts echoed through the mountain, a reminder that there was a log to slide down the mountain, and a moment later there was a shout at the foot of the mountain, and it was the people below who signaled that everything was ready.

With the foreman's order, the lumberjacks put the tree segments into the slide one by one, and the smooth slide made a rumbling sound, and the tree segments slid down the hill one by one, making the sound of thousands of horses galloping.

Lu Daogu saw this spectacular scene for the first time, and was very excited, and after all the cut trees were put down the mountain, the woodcutters breathed a sigh of relief, today's work has been done, and it is finally time to finish work.

"Now, that's how it works."

Before the middle-aged man finished speaking, a feather arrow was nailed to his temple, and Lu Daogu was sprayed in his face by the blood splashed on his head, and he was stunned to see the clan uncle roll his eyes and then fall to the ground.

"It's the mountain barbarian, it's the mountain barbarian who is coming!!" The guards shouted as they bent their bows and arrows toward the shadows that emerged from the depths of the woods, and the arrows that they fired were also bloodied on the lumberjacks.

"Murdered !!" The lumberjacks howled and became a mess, some of them reacted quickly and ran down the mountain, some of them were slow to react and just squatted down with their heads in their hands, or they hid behind the trees and shivered, while Lu Daoyu, whose face was covered with blood, was holding the corpse of his uncle and howling like crazy.

"Run, run!" The guards shouted loudly, and although they fought back and shot down many of the ragged mountain barbarians, more figures poured out of the woods, and this was no longer the small group of harassment they had encountered before.

The duty of the guards is to follow the loggers up the mountain to be vigilant, no problem to deal with wild beasts, and no problem to deal with small groups of mountain barbarian harassment, but the current mountain barbarians are numerous, and they are no longer able to withstand it, but the duty is that they must also inform the loggers to run quickly before retreating.

Many of them came back to their senses when they heard this shouting, and ran down the hill one by one, but the barbarians also rushed quickly, and they had lived on the mountain for generations, and walked up the mountain road as if they were walking on the ground, and it was a sudden attack, so that many of the fleeing lumberjacks were shot down before they could run far.

Lu Daogu howled and picked up an axe, and rushed up against the flow of people to the attacking mountain barbarians, he was deeply stimulated by the tragic death of his uncle, so he wanted revenge like crazy.

An arrow struck him in the shoulder, and the pain in his heart made him stumble and he could barely stand, and he saw a hideous-looking mountain barbarian rush in front of him, and he roared and threw the axe of the felling with all his might, and it hit the man in the face.

"Damn it, bastard!!" Lu Dao Gu shouted with tears in his eyes, bent down and picked up a wooden stick to meet several rushing mountain barbarians, who held short spears in their hands and rushed towards him with a smile like a hunter surrounding their prey.

Lu Daogu's eyes were red, and he thought about dying with the mountain barbarians, but he didn't expect a palace guard to desperately hug him, and rolled down the slide where the wood was placed.

"Bastard, bastard!!" He howled in pain, tears covering his eyes......

"Motherfucker!!" Zhang Ning roared hoarsely, he was now in the quarry, the quarry that should have been busy was now full of corpses, many quarrymen were hit by arrows and fell to the ground, and the heads were all gone.

"The owner!! The guards suffered heavy losses and failed to stop those mountain barbarians!! Some people were crying and shouting, and the rest were all injured, all of them looking silent.

Zhang Ning looked at the burned houses in the quarry and wanted to cry without tears, just now he was in Yiyang City, and received an urgent report that there was an accident in the quarry.

The workers suffered heavy casualties, and now they had to hemorrhage to compensate their families, and only this one of the three quarries was attacked, but the workers in the remaining two places were scared away, so the quarries were completely suspended, and they did not know the year of the monkey if they wanted to recover.

"Owner, this quarry is suspended, if you miss the progress of the state government, this"

Zhang Ning's heart was in turmoil when he heard this, he couldn't make money by stopping work, it was not a good thing to violate the contract with the state government, if the one in Xiyang City launched a rush, no one could stop him, thinking of this, he only felt that the world was spinning, and he was unsteady and almost fell to the ground.

The horn sounded in Yiyang City not far away, it seemed that the county government was assembling the county soldiers, hearing this voice, Zhang Ning's miserable face finally recovered some blood, and he staggered towards the mount, but he couldn't get on the horse in a hurry.

"Quick, help me get on the horse!! I'm going to enter the city, I'm going to see the county guard!! (To be continued.) )