One night, in the east camp outside the city, several figures appeared on the camp fence, turned over to the fence along the hemp rope, carefully touched the antlers, and slipped out of the camp and headed towards the eastern wilderness.

The sentinel on the arrow tower witnessed the whole process, but pretended not to see it, not only the sentry on the arrow tower, but also the sentry on the nearby arrow tower.

It's not easy to be a soldier these days, it's even more difficult to be a state and county soldier, you have to sell your life to fight, you have to sell yourself if you don't fight, you have to sell yourself if you don't fight, you say it's a soldier, you actually owe a lot of debts to your boss, and you can't pay it off for several lifetimes, and you have to go to do chores for your boss as a slave on weekdays.

Even when you're away on the road, it's no exception in your spare time.

Looking at the backs of several companions disappearing into the night, the sentry sighed, and then continued to be in a daze, two days had passed since the retreat of the enemy reinforcements, the vigilance of the military camp had finally relaxed a little, and the overseers who checked the sentry at night were slack, and their soldiers on night duty could take a few more naps.

In the cold wind, the soldiers who sneaked out of the camp shivered, and the shabby winter clothes on their bodies could not stop the cold, nor could they stop their progress, they hung knives and quivers around their waists, and also held spears and bamboo baskets, and looked at the ground under the night with wide eyes, groping forward.

Touching a grass nest, one of the leading soldiers suddenly shouted in a low voice: "Lao Li, are you sleeping?" ”

"Sleep on your head, it's freezing, how can you sleep!"

A soldier muttered in the grass nest, he and two of his comrades huddled together, holding spears, bows and arrows, dressed in shabby winter clothes, and a horn hanging from the waist of one of them, they were secret sentinels on the outskirts of the camp, beware of the enemy touching the camp at night.

The dark sentry took the cooking cake handed by the other party, and shared it with his comrades, seeing the trembling appearance of these people, he couldn't help but be concerned: "Okay, you guys, don't get to the water's edge before the people freeze." ”

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay when the activity starts"

The soldiers continued to walk forward in the dark, and they were not blindfolded, so they took on heavy responsibilities, and what was inconvenient during the day, they did at night.

This time, the official army crusaded against the rebels and thieves, and summoned the state and county soldiers to go to the army, and they followed the generals (lords) of the state to the south to serve the country, but the war was a war, and the debt still had to be repaid.

As soon as I opened my eyes every day, I owed 30 to 50 yuan, and I couldn't afford to do chores early and late, so where could I pay off the debt.

The state and county soldiers said that they were soldiers, but in fact they were no different from slaves, and they basically had little time to practice in the barracks.

Many state and county soldiers are very envious of the tribe, although the tribe has to follow the Lang master, but the treatment of the tribe is good, the family is guaranteed, in order to raise the tribe, those generals are not hesitant to invest money.

Not to mention anything else, when going to the battlefield, the armor and weapons are the most sophisticated, which is like the state and county soldiers raised by the queen, it is good to have crotch armor, the armor leaves are short and two, and they are rusty.

When they go out on the expedition, in addition to chopping wood and boiling water, they also have to give the creditors (military owners and building owners) to get game to pay off their debts, hunting by the mountains, and fishing by water.

Rushui flows outside the city of Hanging Gourd, and it is very convenient to fish nearby, but the southern and northern camps of the official army are on the edge of Rushui, so many people fish all day long, and the fish and shrimp in Rushui have long been fished out in a few months, so you have to find another way to fish and pay off your debts.

In the wilderness around the hanging gourd, there are scattered small rivers and many ponds, which is the case outside the West Battalion, where the soldiers in the battalion run to the pond to fish and fish, and do not need to go to Rushui to find a way, and for the soldiers on the side of the East Battalion, their advantages are more obvious.

A few miles outside the eastern camp is the edge of the chasm.

It is said that it used to be a lake that stretched for nearly 400 miles, shaped like a long pond, from northwest to southeast on the east side of the hanging gourd, but it would be wrong to think that this was a large lake.

It is said that in the Han Dynasty, the local officials governed the water and built a dam on a river called 'Lishui', turning the river that flooded in summer and autumn and dried up in winter and spring into a huge pond, stretching for nearly 400 miles, irrigating countless fertile fields around it, and ensuring harvest in drought and flood.

However, with the passage of time, the embankment fell into disrepair, and in the chaotic era at the end of the Han Dynasty, it was a shortage of soldiers, and it was difficult to wait until the Jin State unified the world, and the world was in chaos within a few decades.

In the troubled times, no one cared about the chasm, and the embankment gradually collapsed in disrepair.

At this time, the gap has actually been "cracked" into dozens of large and small ponds, and the 'water' of the year has no dam constraints, and has become a harmful water, and now it is called 'flood', because the river always has a big flood in the rainy season.

For the soldiers who went out to camp tonight to fish, it didn't matter what kind of big water there was, the Pitang they were going to was one of the many Pitang in the Gap, there were fish, or fat eels.

The best time to catch eels is in summer and autumn, and now it's winter, and it's not easy to get eels out of the mud in this icy snow.

However, it is precisely because of this that the eel is valuable, and the debt can only be paid by catching the eel to the creditor.

The team they belong to has a total of 50 people, and the big guys are looking forward to these 'capable people' catching eels and going back to pay off their debts, but if they can't do it during the day, they will violate military regulations and will be hung up and beaten by the patrol generals.

Because of the ban, they went out of the camp privately, went out in the dark at night, and rushed back before dawn.

So the sentinels all turned a blind eye to a few of them, after all, the eels they caught were used to pay off their debts, and one of them had their own share, and who would not be happy with their own people.

Eels can now be sold for a good price in the grass market of the barracks, and those rich generals and generals now like to eat eels, and the creditors (military owners, building owners) make a fortune from this transaction, and make enough money, and the monthly profits owed by everyone can be regarded as paying off.

However, not everyone can catch an eel in the winter water, this requires a secret, and one of these soldiers is a 'capable man', and the others follow out, one is to strengthen their courage, and the other is just in case.

The enemy soldiers have withdrawn, and they want to guard against wild beasts, and it is difficult to say that there are any wild dogs, wolves, and wild boars in this wilderness, and it is not possible to go out alone in the dark, so everyone carries knives, spears, bows and arrows, just in case.

As for the bamboo basket, of course, it is used to hold eels, and it is covered with hay so that the eels caught will not freeze to death so quickly.

After walking in the grass for a long time, the group finally came to the edge of the pond, and despite the cold and bitter cold water, they took off their broken boots and began to pull their trousers and prepare to enter the water.

It's cold and the water is cold, and this taste is not pleasant, but the money owed to the creditor is not enough, and the taste is even more unpleasant after all kinds of means, so in order to repay the debt, the eel hibernating in the mud should be unlucky.

The 'capable man' who can catch eels in winter began to introduce his experience: "In winter, eels hibernate, and the eel hole is very easy to block, when looking for it, don't confuse it with the snake hole..."

"So, how do you tell?"

An abrupt voice suddenly sounded, this voice was different from the accent of the soldiers, and the 'capable man' was startled when he heard this, and the stick in his hand fell into the water, and he was about to draw his saber, but his neck became cold.

A few men emerged from the grass and restrained him and his companions, cold blades against his throat, and his whole body began to tremble with fear.

The man holding the knife was wearing armor, grabbed him by the neck, and then laughed in a low voice: "It's not easy to touch the eel on this cold day." ”

The capable man was so trembling that he couldn't even speak: "Okay... A good man spares his life..."

"Don't be afraid, I'm like you, we're all officers and soldiers, a family, a family!"

His companion learned to cry a few times from the night birds, and then the sound of water sounded on the edge of the pond, and countless black shadows approached this side, and the black pressure looked at a large area, and the sound of water was mixed with the sound of metal crashing.

Several soldiers catching eels could understand that it was the sound of armor leaves rubbing and hitting as people in armor walked.

When a large group of armor soldiers appeared in front of them, they couldn't help but cry out in their hearts, and at this moment, an amiable voice sounded in their ears:

"As the so-called invitation is better than a chance encounter, everyone has a fate, tonight we actually met here, such as today's cold and freezing, why don't you lead the way in front of a few people, take me back to the camp to roast the fire?"