Chapter 52: The Ancient Road of Cuihan

This time, the caravan was really mighty, and it was still Liu Yun who led all the way, and Li Wei who broke all the way. It is still Yang Yulin who is not far from Zhang Zhimu. There were two people in the caravan who were the busiest, one was Yan Boju, who rode back and forth when he had nothing to do, looking at the horses, as if he knew all the horses, and then he would talk to the horse, and then touch the horse; In one is Lu Chengxiang, who also ran before and after, for a while to see if the cargo package was tight, and for a while to see if the horse pack was secure. And Li Mao looked complacent, riding a horse and following Zhang Zhimu all the way to see the scenery, chatting about ancient and modern Chinese and foreign anecdotes. Yang Yulin was beside her, listening to the words of the two of them all the way, and she was also very happy. After walking for two days, basically nothing. But Zhang Zhimu has something. Because he was not used to riding a horse, both legs were about to wear out. Chen Yufeng had no choice but to make room for Zhang Zhimu in a carriage and let Zhang Zhimu sit in the carriage. But this wooden-wheeled car is not as good as a steel spring carriage, and it is not good along the way.

On the third day, it was almost noon, and suddenly all the cars in front stopped. Zhang Zhimu got out of the car and moved his legs, and looked forward, on the side of the original road, there were seven or eight people lying and lying, and Liu Yun was talking to them.

Seeing Zhang Zhimu get out of the car, Liu Yun ran over and said, "The one in front is a businessman from Laiyang, Shandong, who was robbed by bandits in front." ”

Zhang Zhimu walked over and asked, "How far are the bandits from here?" Standing up, a man said, "It shouldn't be far, let us go, and we'll run for our lives, and we can't run anymore, so we're resting here." Don't go any further. There are one or two hundred of them. ”

Zhang Zhimu said: "After robbing you, the bandits haven't run away early?" The man said, "The bandits are still running away from the front of the village?" ”

"It's only half a day's journey from Hangu Pass here, and the bandits dare to be so bold?" Zhang Zhimu asked puzzled.

"Ahem! Now the officers and soldiers have long stopped fighting bandits, and both of them are safe. But it's a misery for us people. ”

It turned out that this Shandong businessman surnamed Lin was a native of Laiyang, Shandong, named Lin Xinmin, leading his son Lin Li, and his nephew Li Zhijing also had a buddy, prepared some goods, hired a ship to prepare to transport them to Tongguan, and sold them to Guanzhong. I couldn't wait in Sanmenxia, so I had to abandon the ship and go ashore, hire the four people and a dozen horses, and prepare to take the dry road, but I didn't expect that near Sanmenxia, he was robbed by Li Zicheng's people, leaving him only four horses and four horses to carry the goods. However, when entering Hangu Pass, because he had no money to take care of the defenders, he was blackmailed with a horse and goods. In fact, at this time, Lin Xinmin even had the heart to die. However, what is even more unfortunate is that he did not listen to the advice of the innkeeper and walked forward. I thought that God would not be so ruthless, and he would always let himself live. Unexpectedly, when they met bandits here, the bandits were too lazy to kill them, so they let them go.

Zhang Zhimu called everyone together to discuss it, and said: "There are one or two hundred bandits in front, I think with our current strength, we can deal with them, even if we can't wipe them all out, we can run away at the very least." Put the carriage in front of you for a while, as long as you don't let the horse team rush at once. In front of you, Liu Yun will command, I'll watch the excitement in the back" After Zhang Zhimu finished speaking, everyone was happy.

Zhang Zhimu said to the Shandong businessmen: "You are empty-handed now, why don't you just go with us, our direction is the direction you go home, at least you have something to eat." When they heard this, they immediately knelt down and said, "Thank you for the rescue!" Zhang Zhimu had no choice but to help them up again. Zhang Zhimu asked each of them to have a weapon, which they could use for self-defense if they fought.

It was Liu Yun who opened the way in front, and the caravan began to move forward again. From afar, I saw that there was a man in front of me. The merchants said, "The bandits are ahead." ”

Liu Yun ordered the musket to be loaded with solid bullets and the fire rope to ignite. The caravan continued to move forward, Zhang Zhimu looked at it, the bandits in front had obviously discovered the caravan a long time ago, there was a group of people in the middle of the road, and there were also people standing on the slopes on both sides, looking like they couldn't escape. But apparently the bandits are a little arrogant, and the people on the hillside are carrying knives and standing with a big grin, so that people can see the situation clearly at a glance. The horseback rider on the opposite side also looked like he was ready to collect money. Zhang Zhimu thought that this was like a bandit, but like a random toll on the highway in his previous life, and he had no professionalism at all. In fact, these bandits are really crazy, they think that even the official army can't help them, a few businessmen, at most a few dart masters who dance guns and sticks, in front of one or two hundred people, it's not all a piece of cake.

Liu Yun put down all his weapons and stepped forward to cross-path. After a while, Liu Yun came back and said that the other party would not open the face, saying that he could leave a quarter of the goods at most, but the woman had to stay. Yang Yulin snorted when she heard this. Zhang Zhimu said: "Then get ready to do it." At this time, Li Wei came over. Said I watched it, but there was no one behind it. Zhang Zhimu said: "Then deal with the one in front and turn the carriage sideways by two." ”

The bandits on the opposite side, seeing that the caravan did not reply, but the carriage began to move, began to charge.

Liu Yun ordered, and the archers and gunners prepared. The archers mounted their bows and arrows, and the gunners began to aim. Look at the bandits, the horses have rushed closer. Liu Yun shouted to the archers to shoot arrows. "Whoosh" Thirty eagle arrows shot out. Immediately fell a dozen bandits. Liu Yun shouted the first round of shooting. A volley of guns rang out, and more than twenty more people fell at once, and then the archers and gunners began to shoot in turn. Since there are valleys on both sides of the road, the gunshots rang out, very loudly. There was a fight here, but Li Jing took Fan Song and Liu Jun and ran to the side hillside, Zhang Zhimu knew that Li Jing must have some ghost idea. Thinking about it again, these people will be materials for special forces in the future. Li Wei saw that everyone was shooting together, and he felt that it was not enjoyable. Bring a box of **, find two people to help, one hand him **, and one light a fire for him. Li Wei has strong arms and long arms, and he flew out as soon as he raised his hand, and because he threw it far, it basically exploded on the bandits' heads. It's okay for these bandits to bully those merchants at ordinary times, but if they have ever seen this thing, there was a bang on their heads, and people fell. Li Wei** was thrown behind the horse team and followed the heads of the bandits on foot behind, they were densely populated there, and the killing effect was good. After Li Wei threw more than a dozen **, the bandits who rushed to the front and rode horses were gone. Most of them were either hit by arrows or bullets, and a small number of them, when they saw that they were riding on horses, died after a while, and they all jumped off their horses. But those who jumped off the horse were even worse, because the cart blocked the horse's way, and the horses could not hold their feet, and as a result, those who jumped off the horse were trampled to death by the horse. The bandits in the back ran behind without their lives, and Liu Yun launched a charge at the right time. At this moment, it was a gun and a knife cut, and there was a chaos. As a result, except for a few kneeling on the ground, it was quickly resolved. At this time, several gunshots were heard in the direction of the stockade set up by the bandits. Liu Yun led the people again and rushed towards the direction of the stockade. When I came to the door of the stockade, I saw Liu Jun waving on the watchtower.

It turned out that Li Jing knew as soon as she saw this formation that the result was the same as that of Wild Boar Ridge. He knew that the bandits had a stockade next to them, so he led Fan Song and Liu Jun around. Fan Song shot down the bandits on the watchtower. Liu Jun climbed up directly, and he could be condescending from the watchtower, looking at the entire village. Li Jing and Fan Song went in and shot a few people each, and then pulled out knives to kill a few. It was Yoo Jun who made Fan Song angry. Fan Song and a bandit, one by one, didn't take down this guy, they were angry in their hearts, ready to do this, they must kill this guy with a knife, and before he could do it, the guy's head suddenly cracked, and it turned out that Liu Jun shot from above. The angry Fan Song pointed at Liu Jun and stomped his foot. Liu Jun smiled and waved his hand at him, then held the gun, leaned on the railing, and saw that the two were busy working below, Li Jing and Fan Song had already driven out more than 20 men and women, and gathered in the open space in the middle of the stockade.

At this time, Liu Yun led people to rush over. The battle has been settled at first sight. Some men were left to clean up the battlefield, and others were directed to clean up the battlefield on the road. Then, Liu Yun came to Zhang Zhimu and Chen Yufeng and said that the stockade had been taken care of by Li Jing. Zhang Zhimu was amused when he heard it, and said: "This stinky boy, I said that everyone is fighting here, and he led the two monkey cubs to run up the mountain." That's what I did. ”

Seeing that Lu Chengxiang was shouting at the people cleaning the battlefield: "My horse, catch the horse first." "The bandit's horse became his horse. Zhang Zhimu asked him to go to the cottage first to count the items, and Lu Chengxiang took a few people and ran towards the cottage.

Chen Yufeng smiled and said, "Let's go to the cottage and have a look." You continue to clean up the battlefield. As he spoke, he led Yan Boju, Li Mao, Yang Yulin and others to the cottage.

A few people in the open space of the cottage, seeing Zhang Zhimu and others coming, the men all knelt down, saying that we were not bandits, but were caught up the mountain by bandits. Four of them are chefs, two fathers and sons. When the bandits destroyed the village, they stayed when they saw that the two had skills, and the other two opened a small shop by themselves, but they were robbed by the bandits, and they were also arrested. Three more are grooms. Zhang Zhimu said that you all get up, as you said, I will give you the money to go home in a while. The women knew at a glance that they had been robbed. There are four of the bandit leaders' wives, all of whom have children.

At this time, more than a dozen bandits who had surrendered were brought up. Zhang Zhimu still used the old method to ask the bandits to expose each other. As a result, only five had never killed or raped a woman. The rest, there was no accident with Zhang Zhimu, they were all seventeen or eighteen years old who hadn't had time to do bad things. Zhang Zhimu asked them if they wanted to live or die, and they all wanted to live. Zhang Zhimu still used the old method, let them do it and kill all those bandits. There was no accident, the rest of the bandits wanted to do it with Zhang Zhimu. As soon as Zhang Zhimu said to accept it, both the gang and the groom knelt down to stay. The most embarrassing thing for Zhang Zhimu was that seven or eight women also asked Zhang Zhimu to take him in. Zhang Zhimu knew that he couldn't push it off, so he also took it in.

Liu Yun cleaned up the battlefield over there, and according to the old rules, he put the corpses of the bandits on a pile of wood and prepared to light a fire. At this time, the four bandit family members knelt down and begged to be buried alone. Although Zhang Zhimu hated these bandits, he felt that it was excusable. Let them go to their own relatives. That's more than 200 corpses, all stacked on top of each other. Let them find it themselves, that's impossible. Zhang Zhimu asked him to take out four pieces of white cloth and four mats. Then, he instructed Liu Yun to send someone to help find it. It took a lot of effort for each person to find his master. Confirmed. The women used water to clean their husbands. Then they helped to wrap it in a white cloth and wrapped it in a mat. Dig a pit on the hillside and bury it. Seeing these women, crying endlessly, Zhang Zhimu asked, did your husband bury him like this when he killed someone? Several of the women stopped crying. They know that their husbands have killed too many people, and it will be sooner or later. Zhang Zhimu let the fire be lit, and the fire soon burned brightly. Zhang Zhimu thought to himself, I hope this fire can burn all their sins.