Chapter 4: The Warriors of the Kingdom

Jiangjia Village is 30 miles outside the city of Huayang County, is a small mountain village by the mountains and rivers, in front of the village is the Qingshui River flowing from Huayang County, all the way around the village to Chengdu County. Behind the village, you can see a series of majestic peaks, the peaks are very high but the foothills are very gentle, with a lush carpet of pine forests, and a lot of large and small wastelands are exposed in between, which look like baldness on the head of a middle-aged man from a distance.

This mountain is Jiulong Mountain! The "bald spot" on the mountain is the place where the Jiulong Mountain bandits in the mouth of the people of Huayang County were originally stationed.

"Brother Jiang, are you so close to Jiulong Mountain here? Didn't you have to be attacked by mountain bandits often? An Yi looked through the curtain opened by her sister and asked Jiang Ruyue,

Jiang Ruyue smiled, "Don't hide it from the son, this river in our county is called Qingshui River, which flows from the northwest of Jiulong Mountain to Chengdu County, just between the village and Jiulong Mountain. ”

"But I heard that the mountain bandits attacked the county seat back then, and the villages outside the city were also one of the victims?" An Yi wondered:

"At that time, the mountain bandits attacked Huayang County first, and the patriarch of the village knew in advance, and rang the bell to warn as usual, and then gathered the young people in the village at the entrance of the village, and the earthen walls for defense were prepared in advance."

Jiang Ruyue pointed to the dilapidated stone wall outside the window, which looked weathered at a glance, but could vaguely identify the traces of man-made piles back then.

"But no one thought that the mountain bandits were menacing that time, and they actually broke through Huayang County, and then they came to our village." Jiang Ruyue continued:

"The mountain bandits have broken through Huayang County, and the grain in the granary of the county town has increased so much burden, so they should hide in the mountains as soon as possible, why are they so interested in this small village?"

Comfort doesn't understand very well, it's very unreasonable,

"At that time, the elders of the clan also judged this way, so when the mountain bandits rushed into the village, the young men in charge of the village defense were not ready for battle, and they were harvested by the mountain bandits." Jiang Ruyue sighed, "At that time, my neighbor Uncle Zhao and I both went to support the village defense, and entrusted my father and mother, who were unable to participate in the village defense due to old age, to take care of the second brother Zhao, and we were both ............ by the mountain bandits" He choked up,

An Yi was silent and gently patted Jiang Ruyue's shoulder

"Forget it, it's all in the past, and life in troubled times is like mustard." Jiang Ruyue regained her composure, "It's here!" It's my house right in front of me. He pointed out the window to a mansion.

I saw that the house is not big, although it is dilapidated, but you can also see the basic outline, the courtyard wall and courtyard door plaque screen are readily available, most of the paint powder on the wall has peeled off, revealing the blue-gray wall tiles, and the green "creeper tiger" grows from the crack in the wall.

The three of them got out of the carriage and entered the courtyard, where there were three wings, the left side seemed to be a stove room, and there was a pot with a broken bottom at the door. Jiang Ruyue walked towards the middle house with the two siblings in front.

"Squeak~"

Pushing open the door, a musty smell rushed to his face, almost smoking An Yi's head, and An Xin also covered her mouth with her cuffs.

In the middle of the room, there is a square table, two Taishi chairs, two tablets and an incense burner on the table.

Jiang Ruyue stepped forward to wave off the cobwebs that had been densely covered on it, took three sticks of incense from the corner of the table next to her, lit them and inserted them in the incense burner, and bowed three times in front of the two tablets.

Through the dust, you can vaguely see the inscription on the ranking,

In the middle is:

Chengjiang of Huayang County is the spiritual seat of the king

On the left is:

Jiang's mother and widow are famous for the spiritual position of Xiuzhi

Jiang Ruyue took out three small stools from under the table and dusted them off, "Two of you, please take a seat!" The two of you eat here at noon before leaving, right? ”

An Xin pointed to the kitchen outside, "Master Jiang, let our brother and sister eat this pot of ashes?" ”

Jiang Ruyue scratched her head embarrassedly, only to remember that her courtyard was already surrounded by four walls.

"Do you know how to cook?" An Yi looked at his sister, "Why don't we try Miss An's craftsmanship." ”

"Hmph~ Don't look down on people!" After speaking, he walked out, and Jiang Ruyue looked at it like this, until An Xin disappeared outside the courtyard gate.

An Yi looked at Jiang Ruyue, feeling that he seemed to be very concerned about his sister An Xin, wouldn't he like her?

However, An Xin doesn't seem to have a very good feeling for Jiang Ruyue, although his father An Zhiyuan is a very enlightened person, and he doesn't have the old-fashioned concept of being the right person in the traditional family, but in the bottom of An Yi's heart, at least he has not fully recognized Jiang Ruyue.

"Five years ago, it wasn't easy to get enough to eat." An Yi interrupted Jiang Ruyue, who was still immersed in her sister's back,

Jiang Ruyue said: "It has been more than five years since the famine, and I am afraid that the memory of the people in the county will not be erased in another fifty years. How could there ever be a human tragedy in the country of abundance like Huayang County, where people were hungry and eaten. ”

"Brother An, I never thought that the tragedy was entirely due to the invasion of the mountain bandits!"

"Oh? I wish Brother Wen Jiang a high view. ”

"The Great Xia Dynasty was founded for more than 400 years and experienced seven emperors, and Chinese history has been regarded as a longevity among all dynasties from ancient times to the present. But now it is riddled with diseases, internal and external troubles. Jiang Ruyue looked at An Yi, "Brother An may feel that Jiang doesn't know the depths and talks about the government in vain." If Jiang hadn't been rescued by Brother An, he would have been dead on the street, and now he is very close to Brother An, so he will speak bluntly, if you are offended, please don't be surprised. ”

"It's okay, there are only two of us brothers in the house, and Brother Jiang said bluntly." An Yi waved his hand, indicating that he didn't care.

Jiang Ruyue arched her hand to show her gratitude, and continued: "The Northern Liao Kingdom is now in power with Empress Dowager Xiao in power, and that is a strange woman who has never been seen before. ”

"However, I heard that in recent years, the activities of the Liao people in the north to fight the autumn wind have almost disappeared, and the border is very peaceful." An Yi said

Most of the Liao Kingdom is located in the vast grassland in the north of the Great Xia Dynasty, and a small part goes deep into the plains north of the Hetao and divides the Yellow River with the Great Xia Dynasty. Because the looting season is often in the autumn of the Great Xia Dynasty, the people at the border pass call this kind of looting "fighting the autumn wind".

"Brother An, do you think that it is my Xia Dynasty border general who is brave in battle and has a good garrison?"

"What does Brother Jiang think?"

Jiang Ruyue shook her head, "Jiang Mou thinks otherwise, Great Xia has not had a war for more than three hundred years since Emperor Gaozu. For the family of military generals, those who have fought may have become portraits and hang them on the wall. What do we use to resist the Liao people who grew up on horseback since childhood? ”

"The extinction of the autumn wind can only be because of the reform of the Empress Dowager Xiao, who has made the officials clean and the people rich, and the Empress Dowager, who has Han Chinese blood, is transforming the nomadic people of Liao into an agricultural civilization. If Jiang is not mistaken, Empress Dowager Xiao's Liao cavalry is already waiting on our border, waiting for the opportunity to give us a fatal blow. ”

An Yi gasped when he listened, "According to Brother Jiang's meaning, I can only sit and wait to die?" ”

Jiang Ruyue nodded noncommittally, but shook her head again, "The Great Xia Dynasty is thousands of miles long, and if it can fully activate this state machine, it is definitely not something that the Liao State that is currently in the transition period can afford. He sighed again, "But now in the Great Xia Dynasty, the eunuchs are in power, the factions in the court are tilted, the court is unstable, and the grassroots officials below are naturally greedy and bent the law, disregarding people's lives, making the people's resentment boiling." You see, Jiangnan was originally a heavy place for taxation, but an uprising more than ten years ago burned the money and grain savings of the imperial court for decades! It hasn't recovered yet. ”

"I also heard about that uprising, which was first launched by a small village, and as a result, it swept through Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the Yangzhou Mansion and the city of Nanjing in Nanzhili were breached, and the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River, which were originally ten miles away from Qinhuai, became devastated." An Yi recalled that because his grandfather was an official eunuch, he was also familiar with the changes in the imperial court.

"Do you know why?"

"I don't know this..."

"The self-proclaimed general at the head was originally a farmer, and his family did not have a few acres of thin fields, and he was all encircled by the landlord. In the yamen, he complained to the government, but not only was he not accepted, but he was also beaten to death by the county officials who colluded with the officials and businessmen, and was sentenced to pay the rest of the land to the landlord and had to bear a debt of several hundred taels. ”

Originally, the peasants were the most simple and appeased class in the country. In other words, no one wants to go down the road of no return to rebellion without being pushed to the last step. But the ruler always squeezes this seemingly "sponge" that takes what he wants, and in the end, the officials force the people to rebel.

Jiang Ruyue sighed, "Even if that famine doesn't happen in Huayang County, it will happen in other prefectures and counties of the Great Xia Dynasty; Even if it is not because of the invasion of mountain bandits, it will be caused by other emergencies, because the imperial court and the state capital simply do not have the ability and awareness to resist disasters, which is the root cause of the tragedy. ”

The leisurely temperament of being as comfortable as being overturned by Jiang Ruyue's words in a few paragraphs, he felt that he was not an ordinary person when he saw Jiang Ruyue for the first time. From what he thought and said, An Yi realized that the person in front of him would never be mediocre, he was born and raised in a small mountain village in this county, but he was a showman who didn't go out, but he knew the world. Between conversations, I can always vaguely feel that this person has thousands of talents in his mouth, and he has the ambition of the Quartet in his chest.

"Come on!"

A shout interrupted the two people in this burrow.

"What's going on?" Jiang Ruyue stood up and looked at the door,

"Let's go! Go out and have a look. An Yi said that he walked to the gate of the courtyard, at this time he thought that An Xin went out to buy ingredients for the two of them to "show their skills", thinking that something was wrong with his sister, the more he thought about it, the more anxious he became, and he took three steps and two steps out of the courtyard gate.

"Come on! The bandits are coming! ”