It was already the afternoon of the next day when we set off again from Hoi An Town, which is under the Goose Head Ridge.

And Zhou Huai'an, who temporarily lived in the house of a small boat owner who had escaped, also rarely slept in a lazy sleep that was rarely disturbed; And it is no longer a three-in-one bunk in a narrow cubicle with door panels, straw and coarse cloth that makes people hang on the side for fear of rolling to the ground, but the old low-legged bed collapse and yellowed silk cotton cushions in the serious wooden furniture, so that he no longer has to continue to bother with the possibility of getting up every day.

In addition, in addition to the silk cotton mat that was packed and taken away, he also harvested a woolen blanket with obvious foreign style and color, but apparently most of the rebel soldiers who had copied it here did not know the goods, and let it be torn into a ball and discarded on the ground and trampled on with black marks.

However, according to Zhou Huai'an's private identification and identification, this blanket should be a product of camel hair and wool from the alpine mountains that are conducive to warmth, and are woven through more than a dozen hand-blended weaves, which naturally have a certain waterproof and moisture-insulating effect; Therefore, after shaking off the sludge and dust on it, there is still a certain texture and oiliness.

This is a good thing, plus the previous silk cotton mat, as well as the chicken and duck fine down collected by Zhou Huai'an privately, it is completely possible to process and sew a crude sleeping bag, and the sleeping plan that needs to be readjusted and adjusted every day to fall asleep has been improved to a certain extent.

Then, after eating the breakfast slowly with the local stinky fish sauce and pickled oysters, with the yellow and pasty chestnut rice porridge and the slightly sour steamed yellow hair cake, he got another good news; The portable hammock he had asked for, made of cloth and brown cable, had been rushed out overnight after some potential stress.

In this way, these townspeople can finally be sent away and rid of the disturbances and pressures caused by these armed personnel, but all this is hidden under a certain oppressive atmosphere and emotions.

After dividing a part of about a team of soldiers, escorted these raised troops back to the station, the rest of the rebel soldiers continued to the northwest, and embarked on the road to the next outpost area and where it was.

According to the expected goal and direction, this trip has just begun; After walking some distance, he found a village to stay, and then the next day he saw another group of rebels who had come to join him, and the corresponding replacement and replenishment of the servants.

In the following days, it was almost like this reciprocating rotation, passing through seven or eight market towns and townships one after another; And the specific situations and circumstances are also different.

In Bottled Water Township, which is close to the tributaries of the Xiaojiang River and whose main livelihood is fish, most of them have the fishy smell of salted fish on their bodies for several days.

In Wuyuanli, which is close to the mountainous area, the outfit taken away by the sentinel team is more than 100 pieces of fur and more than a dozen loads of crude medicine, in addition to dozens of mountain people and hunters who are willing to leave and break through with the rebels under the temptation of various metal goods.

In Shashan Township, which looks lackluster and poor, it is because there is a small dock for transshipment salt, and in the private cabin of the local boat owner, hundreds of stones of mixed coarse salt were recovered.

As for Wujialiao, where the slopes and terraced fields are the majority, in addition to the sweet potatoes and taro produced locally, the soldiers of the Righteous Army, who are mostly from the north, also ate a meal of cold melon (watermelon) under the teaching and demonstration of Zhou Huai'an, and exchanged some of the salt and salted fish collected from the previous place for a lot of sun-dried plums, preserved peaches, and bayberry.

In Hechengdu, which is famous for its carpentry workshops and (river) boats, more than a dozen carts were requisitioned and modified on the spot, which can be regarded as expanding the capacity and carrying range of the sentry grain team.

Then in Baoshan Township, which is relatively barren and has a high terrain against the backdrop of mountains, they also encountered their first resistance and open rejection. It was only after the formation was lined up that the first team of men and horses in the sentry food took the lead, and it quickly collapsed under the impact and attack of more than a dozen wounded; So much so that Zhou Huai'an, who stayed in the rear team to arrange the escort, had not had time to see the specific battle scene and make a corresponding assessment, and everything was completely over.

As a result, the area was plundered quite thoroughly and punitively, and it can be said that very little was found except for a pile of smashed and dilapidated houses, and in the end there were probably hundreds of young men and women who had not had time to escape, and the crying became the main harvest of this trip. However, Zhou Huai'an still tried his best to dissuade the follow-up treatment of the sentinel team from burning down all the houses and setting an example.

In Xingtou City, which is relatively wealthy and has a larger building scale, it collided with another rebel army that was the first to move across the border, and almost ate a closed door; It's just that in the midst of a tense confrontation and mutual scolding, after some negotiations and struggles by the brigade commander Deng Cun, who led the team, it still failed to turn into a fight and attack between the two rebels.

In the end, the sentry squad was only given some extra money and a dozen donkeys and mules from the people in the towns, as compensation and price for leaving and bypassing. However, under Zhou Huai'an's suggestion and request, he asked for all the over-the-counter medicines and pill powder prescriptions in the local pharmacy, and took a bone-setting man who sat in the restaurant as a basic addition.

As the coordinator of the deputy battalion manager and logistics support staff, while selecting and identifying various available things for the rebels, he can also openly collect some personal items for himself as the benefits and gains of this trip. Therefore, all kinds of objects selected by him were quickly loaded with a small half of the flat ox cart.

However, compared to the towns and towns near Guangzhou that were largely preserved and maintained because the officials and armies collapsed too quickly; The further north you go along the branch of the river, the more obvious and profound the traces and creativity brought about by the war become. From time to time, the old and new corpses and flocks of crows that hover on the roads, as well as the broken ruins of the burned grass markets, post stations, and wild shops.

Therefore, there were times when this regiment of sentinel food teams had almost no harvest at all, and in a large Guangtou town on the riverside, what could be seen was a dilapidated scene that was empty and unsightly, and in the end, except for a dozen dogs that could not wander in the human town were put into the pot, there were only some rags that could not be taken away.

Therefore, after a short total proposed by Brigade Commander Deng Cun, everyone unanimously decided that they could embark on the return journey; Of course, in order to create benefits and results as much as possible, as well as to reduce the empty consumption of returning back, Deng Cun planned to let the sentinel team take another route on the return trip, so as to continue to raise troops along the way as much as possible, and not to go back to empty or anything.

For this point, although Zhou Huai'an felt that it was better to accept it when it was good, it would be better to return the same way with an increasingly large and bloated team; But in the midst of a generally optimistic and uplifting mood, there are no more doubts and reasons to keep silent.

After all, the places that had been bothered before could no longer squeeze out more supplies; And this regiment and team of men and horses, plus nearly a thousand miscellaneous laborers and hundreds of livestock eating horses, can find a point on the return journey of the unfamiliar route to replenish the money is still worth a trip.

Of course, in the relative smoothness of this journey, there are occasional discordant noises and episodes;

For example, some people forcibly bought and sold in private, and even openly robbed people's property, although they were punished to varying degrees by brigade commander Deng Cunhe when the materials in the army were relatively abundant; But in the end, it was Zhou Huaian who came forward to compensate and deal with the aftermath.

This can not help but make him sigh that the common people of this era are really very low and too easy to fool, as long as they add less favors and courtesies, they will temporarily and completely forget the hardships of life and the impermanence of the world, and give the most simple touch and understanding.

Then, a few soldiers got lost on the road and never recovered; This made Deng Cun lose his temper, thinking that there were deserters under his command, and ordered stricter supervision measures and mutual supervision methods, which made the original and growing team more sluggish and slow.

In the end, it became slower and slower and all kinds of trivial problems arose, so I had to temporarily stop and sort out in Shixiang Town, near the county seat of Sihui.

It is known as the place where the incense is soaked in stones because of the reprocessing of various spices imported by sea, which led to the flourishing of the local incense industry. However, also because of the war, as part of the luxury market, the local area has been depressed for some days; All kinds of workshops and shops related to incense medicine are also closed to every house.

However, for Zhou Huai'an, he seemed to have entered a treasure mountain in disguise. There aren't many places in this world where you can collect all kinds of spices.

This is not only a good substitute currency and a luxury that is easy to maintain value, but it is also one of the most valuable pharmaceutical ingredients, but I don't know why it is ignored by these vigilantes with limited knowledge. Although it nominally belongs to the scope of other rebels, since it has collided, there is no reason to let it go.