The dense shade of the dense forest obscures the sky and the sun.

The flow of people passed under the green canopy and disappeared from the outside world.

The flow of people meandered into the distance, pulling into a thin line with no tail visible in the almost bottomless valley. It was covered by the thick shade of the mountains, and it was broken into a broken line.

Looking down from the top of a high mountain, the segments are almost stationary, and it's hard to see signs of movement. Only when one or two small wobbling red dots appear in the field of view can an observer from above confirm that the team is moving.

However, the observer still worries, because the tip of the thin line disappears into a cloud-shrouded canyon, completely lost. Observers know that in the low recess of the canyon where the mountains meet each other and the five dragons run to the river (Note 1) lies a small and simple town.

This town is also a key pass city, and its name is called: Yesan Pass.

……

The stream below the mountain is like a subtle but never-ending song. Song Hao stopped on a protruding boulder at the top of the mountain, held the bamboo gun in his hand high, and kept waving it down the mountain, beckoning those who walked slowly to follow.

He had two large burdens crossed over his left and right shoulders, and one wrapped around his waist. The burden has been deflated a lot, but it still contains at least thirty catties of rice and a dozen wheat cakes.

As a recruit of the security regiment who had just been recruited into the army, Shangguan did not issue a knife to Song Hao. In his hand, he only had this six-foot-long bamboo spear.

The Tartars outside the pass often dismounted and fought on foot when they encountered a strong enemy. They relied on the double armor on their bodies and the spears and halberds in their hands. The bamboo gun in his hand can only be better than none compared to those sharp and sturdy weapons. If you fight on the real battle formation, you will definitely suffer a big loss.

But Song Hao did not discard this inconspicuous bamboo gun.

Life experience told him that the circumstances of this bamboo spear were very different.

Yes, the wolf does not dare to get close, and other beasts can resist it for a while. If he encounters a small group of bandits on the road, he can use this bamboo gun to deal with at least five at the same time and stab three of them to death.

In addition, this bamboo gun issued by the Shangguan is also a symbol of the captain's authority. So in order to make it more eye-catching, Song Hao deliberately found Shangguan and asked for a piece of red cloth before leaving, cut it into the shape of a Yangtze River Delta flag, and nailed it to the front of the bamboo gun with willow branches. As long as he stood on a high place and waved a bamboo gun, this team of more than 400 people could see him as the captain even from a long distance.

Song Hao's little idea was quickly discovered by his superiors. The sergeant of the Protector Army immediately recommended it to the officers at the top, and soon ordered that all the security captains who led the people into Sichuan should carry a bamboo gun nailed to the red flag.

Before his team set off, the top adult with the red silk broadsword on his back specially asked him to speak. The adult first praised: What a big man (Note 2)! The adult said that it must be because Song Hao is very tall. He was more than six feet long, a head taller and twice as heavy than the homeless people around him. After the adult finished praising it, he immediately asked: Where are you from, you know the method of leading the army with banners, and you have been an official soldier?

How can this question be answered?

Song Hao did serve as an official soldier.

Song Hao was not born an official soldier. He was born into an ordinary peasant family. But when Song Hao's father and brother took him to abandon their homeland and fled to Phi Island in the sea, their family of three, like tens of thousands of people around, regardless of men, women and children, all became officials and soldiers, at least Mao Dashuai and themselves thought they were officials.

For this reason, they have been hungry for many years, endured the severe cold in the vast sea, and persevered on the desolate islands where no grass grows. With this helpless struggle, he guarded the borders of the country, the land passed down from his ancestors, the last dignity of the Han people, and the lives of himself and his family.

But the adults from the imperial court didn't think so. The adults of the imperial court first deceived Mao Dashuai to Shuangdao, killed him on twelve charges, and then threw tens of thousands of brothers on the desert island to starve to death. Because of this, the adults of the imperial court can kick away the stumbling block of Mao Dashuai, and in the name of drifting or the Qing army, they can exchange the bones of tens of thousands of brothers on the island for an ingot of silver in their pockets!

Before his father starved to death, he instructed the brothers to cook their bony bodies and eat them. His father said that his two sons didn't eat it, so he cheapened the people next to him for nothing. Anyway, sooner or later, you have to be eaten, it is better to let your flesh and bones fall into the belly of your own flesh and bones!

The official army couldn't do it, so his brother took him and floated to the boundless sea with a dead log. Just when they were about to die of thirst in the sea, they were fortunately rescued by the maritime merchants who returned from Dongyi, so the brothers came to Dengzhou, Shandong.

Relying on his brother's strength and martial arts, the two brothers had a full meal. Not long after, when his brother heard that Mao Dashuai's adopted son Kong Youde had come to Dengzhou to build a camp to recruit soldiers, he was ecstatic and led him to become an official soldier again.

However, the good days are fleeting.

The Shandong gentry hated these displaced people who fled from Liaodong very much, and the Shandong soldiers and the Liaodong soldiers also clashed from time to time. The Liaodong soldiers came to the north to aid Guanning and walked to Wuqiao, Kong Youde and the old brothers finally couldn't bear the humiliation, held a mutiny, turned around and killed back to Dengzhou, and served those dog officials in a pot. The imperial court panicked and hurriedly sent Guan Ningtieqi, the sworn enemy of the Dongjiang Army, to suppress it.

Soon after, the city of Dengzhou was broken. His brother is said to have died tragically on the wall of Dengzhou Water City, and as he grew up, he jumped into the sea again and escaped by chance. When he was rescued again, these Liaodong remnants had become street rats in Shandong, and everyone shouted and beat them.

Shandong can't stay any longer. So Song Hao relied on short-term work along the way, crossed the canal to the west and fell to Henan, and finally settled in a certain Zhuangzi in Xincai County, Runing Prefecture.

Here, Song Hao lived a comfortable life for a few more days. There was a girl in the village who fell in love with him who was tall, handsome, and honest, and the two soon reached the point of talking about marriage. The girl's family did not agree to this family affair at first, because his identity and origin were unknown, and he was afraid that he would cause trouble in the future. The girl was looking for life and death, and her family had to give in, but on the condition that he get married.

It's better to have a home than anything else. However, fate played tricks on Song Hao again. Happiness is always lost, and suffering is always accompanied.

First, the severe drought caused the lives of the villagers to plummet, and then the plague hit the city, killing half of the people in the village, including his sweetheart who was about to worship heaven and earth and enter the cave house. Later, the officers and soldiers who invaded and suppressed the thieves were defeated in Xiangcheng, and the scattered officers and soldiers robbed everywhere like the thieves. The people of Zhuangli could not bear the robbing of the officials, soldiers and thieves, so they met with several other Zhuangzi to form a villager team to protect themselves. But how can the township soldiers who are not in line with the people's hearts and have poor military discipline be the opponents of the officials and the thieves? In the blink of an eye, more than half of the team died, and several Zhuangzi were burned to the ground.

With his home gone, Song Hao had no choice but to continue to wander south, followed by everyone who was left in a few Zhuangzi.

From Xincai, Henan to Macheng, Huguang, Song Hao and the villagers ran out of food and all became beggars. Just as they were dying of starvation, the government and gentry of Macheng suddenly showed great mercy, and each gave them a few wheat cakes and a few sacks of grain.

The great good man said that there is only one way to die if he stays here, and the only way to be saved is to go west, all the way to Yiling.

So Song Hao had no choice but to lead the rest of the villagers on the road suspiciously. When they arrived in Jingzhou, they finally merged into the torrent heading west.

At this time, Song Hao and the villagers finally realized that the so-called salvation was that Xiao Wang of Shu was recruiting displaced people to reclaim the famine, and the government of Huguang was trying to send the displaced people away in order to reduce the number of local displaced people. Wheat bread is used in the kinder places, and knives and guns are used in the wicked places!

How do you answer your words? Song Hao thought.

said that he was a Liao soldier under Mao Dashuai when he was very young, ate his father's meat, grew up and participated in the Dengzhou Change, and killed a few officers and soldiers with his own hands last year?

Song Hao instinctively lied in the face of Shangguan's questioning. He only said that he was a peasant in Henan, who had been captured by the official army and served as an auxiliary soldier for a few days.

Maybe Song Hao's Henan dialect is very realistic, maybe his name is good, or maybe the people in the village have done a guarantee for him, in short, the adults have taken a fancy to him at a glance. On his first day in the security team, he became the captain of the security team in charge of hundreds of displaced people. Of course, most of these hundreds of homeless people are still his original Henan villagers.

However, Song Hao's security captain is not without gold. Of the thousands of recruits who enlisted that day, only one became the same captain as him.

Although the man was not tall, he had bright eyes, thick joints, and a treasure knife with him, so he knew at a glance that he was a long-term martial arts practitioner. The man's subsequent public martial arts performance proved that he was indeed not an ordinary person:

The three men took turns throwing stones and mud at him, and he always dodged them one by one, or cut them away with a knife. According to his own boasting, not to mention throwing stones and clods of soil, even if he throws water on him, he will not get a drop of water!

Aside from these two, the other recruits were not so lucky. Even if they were officers and soldiers, they only became a deputy captain or squad leader, or they simply stayed in Yiling to practice, and they were not entrusted with important tasks.

……

"Hao Wazi!"

Song Hao was thinking about his thoughts when a hoarse voice came from the team at his feet. Song Hao knew who it was when he heard this voice. He immediately lowered the bamboo gun in his hand and respectfully shouted in the direction of the coming voice:

"Daddy! What are you looking for? ”

An old man with a white beard was waving to Song Hao on the mountain road, meaning that he couldn't climb. Song Hao hurriedly jumped off the rock in a few steps, ran down the uneven bluestone steps, and held the old man.

"Dad, put the burden on my back! I have a lot of strength, so it's okay to carry a few more! Song Hao said while helping the old man unburden.

This old man's surname is Li, and he is not the same surname as Song Hao. But if Song Hao and Lao Litou's daughter worshipped, Song Hao would become Li Hao. It's just a pity that it's half a step behind, so Song Hao is still Song Hao.

But Song Hao is a person who remembers his affection. He still calls Daddy as he used to be. Lao Li Tou is not very old, but the tragic deaths of his wife, eldest daughter and only son have exhausted his energy. All he has left now is Song Hao, a fake son-in-law, and a little daughter who has not left the cabinet.

"Hao Wazi, you have tall legs and long steps, you take one step, and the villagers have to take two steps. This mountain is so steep, how can the villagers keep up! Lao Li Tou panted and scolded, "You are an official now, do you want to throw away the villagers?" ”

In the face of Lao Litou's deliberate heavy words, Song Hao, as before, just smiled honestly and didn't make a fuss. He sorted out his baggage, and when he saw that Lao Litou's lips were dry and white, he handed over his water hyacinth.

"Dad, what do you say? You and your fellow villagers took me in and saved my life. I swore to God that I would honor you like my father in the future! ”

Lao Li Tou got Song Hao's letter, and his expression was obviously relieved. He himself is secondary, and the villagers in Lijiazhuang are not at ease with Song Hao. There were more than 100 people who escaped with the descendants of several Zhuangzi. Several died on the way, and only seventy or eighty were left in Yiling. The Shu Wangfu recruited security guards, and they all signed up in order to have a full meal. But because he had been hungry for a long time and his body was too weak, there were only thirty-eight people who were finally admitted, including Song Hao. This time in Sichuan, only four people were assigned to Song Hao's men, and the rest were left in Yiling to train soldiers.

As soon as the villagers put it together, the descendants of the village have nothing to do, and now they all rely on Song Da to help the villagers support the façade. Although Song Hao has always been honest and does not look like a person without conscience, he is an outsider after all and has no roots. Now the nobles of Shu value Song Hao so much, if he is promoted and leaves one day, these hundreds of villagers will have no pillars. So the villagers asked Lao Li Tou to come to Song Hao to ask for an accurate word: Would you like to marry another girl in several villages?

"Hao Wazi, are you twenty-seven this year? It's not small. Lao Li Tou tried his best to keep up with Song Hao's rhythm, panting, and whispered: "Aunt Xiu has been gone for so many years, you should also think about your marriage and marry again." The old man said: There are three unfilial pieties, and no queen is great. Even if you don't think about yourself, you should think about your ancestors......"

The old man's words made Song Hao's heart ache. My father died, my brother was gone, and it was easy to fall in love with a girl, and I was ruthlessly taken in by God. He sometimes wonders if he is the broom star sung in the play, and whoever gets hit will be unlucky.

"Why are you dumb? I didn't let you get into trouble this time, why are you still proud? Song Hao's silence made the impatient old Li Tou angry. His youngest daughter, Chungu, must have hid not far away and followed, waiting for him to signal that everything was fine.

"Daddy, I'm ......"

"A few Zhuangzi girls, don't you look down on any of them?" Old Li Tou has begun to despair. But even if his own Chun Gu has no hope, he must complete the entrustment of the villagers, and he must not let the women from other places seduce Song Hao!

Song Hao still walked with his head down, silent.

"Listen, Haowazi." Old Song Tou took a few steps forward and stopped Song Hao very strongly: "The girl in the village, you can choose any one to be your wife, and you will get married tonight!" Otherwise, you don't have this father! ”

Song Hao didn't expect things to suddenly develop to this point. He was suddenly shocked and said, "Dad, what's going on?" ”

"What's going on? That's a big deal! It was easy for the dog to inquire about the news from the Shu Army, and the rules for dividing the land in Shu are first-come, first-served, first-served! ”

Note 1: There are five rivers near Yesanguan: Yesan River, Zhijing River, Chaer River, Mulong River and Sidu River. Yiwan Expressway has erected a cable-stayed bridge on the Sidu River Gorge, which is extremely spectacular from afar, and is a must-take landscape for SLR lovers.

Note 2: Sichuan language, a person with a particularly tall stature.