On the morning of the second day, Li Mao went to the Thorn Mansion to say goodbye, and returned to Chengwu County with Qingmo and the three of them. The three of them took a shortcut and took the trail, and walked until noon, the sun was like fire, people were sleepy and tired, and suddenly saw a lush forest on the side of the road, and the three hurriedly got off the official road and rushed along the field.

To the near front, only to recognize is the famous Qingfu Temple of Jiyin County, Qingfu Temple is the Maitreya Buddha Dojo, covers an area of 30 acres, a hundred years of ancient temple, the hall is majestic, the ancient wood is towering, quiet and solemn. Li Mao had only heard of his name before, but he had never been here. Qingmo said with a smile: "When you see the Buddha statue, there is a triple rice, and it is a real monk." Now that you have passed through the door of your Buddha, how can you not go in and give up 300 stones? Li Mao smiled: "This kid is talking nonsense again." ”

said so, but he still got off the horse and prepared to draw a relationship with the monk in the temple and ask for a bowl of tea.

Qingfu Temple is geographically remote, there are few pilgrims, it is noon again at this moment, there are many birds in front of the door, only a carriage and a mule cart loaded with luggage are parked under the cypress tree at the temple gate, six healthy servants and two old and one young three women are chatting around beside the car, the voice is rough, the volume is very large, and there is a young maid with a beautiful face, wearing a green cloth shirt holds a baby and plays under the tree by the canal more than ten zhang away, the baby is teased by the little maid and giggles, babbling loudly.

Seeing Li Mao and the three of them leading the horses over, the six healthy servants who were chatting suddenly rushed over violently, stretched out their arms to stop them, and shouted: "My eldest lady is offering incense in the temple, who dares to trespass." "The weather is hot, Li Mao and the three of them are all short-sleeved linen shirts, and because they went out to do confidential business, they didn't ride official horses that night, and these servants didn't know that the three of them were officials.

Qingmo smiled coldly when he heard this, and said: "I don't remember when Qingfu Temple became someone's family temple, who are you waiting for, dare to stand in my way, do you know who I am?" ”

When the six men heard this, they looked at the three of them again, laughed out loud for a while, and the first one hugged his arms on his chest, looked at the three of them and sneered: "I heard that your accent is a foreigner, so it's okay, I'll tell you, the incense inside is from the Caozhou judicial army, do you still want to go in?" ”

Wang Xun, a tall middle-aged man with a cold face immediately appeared in front of Li Mao's eyes. Li Mao has never had a good impression of this person, although he is not afraid of him now, but he doesn't want to have anything to do with him, so he flew on the horse and said, "Let's go." ”

This move was beyond Qingmo's expectations, this little guy heard that it was the wife of Wang Xun, who joined the Caozhou judicial army, and he first had some difficulties in his heart, and then calmed down: Your judicial participation in the army is a seven-grade official, and my brother Mao is also a seven-grade official, and it is also a seven-grade official, but my brother Mao is a festival with him, and he is a handsome person, which will greatly pressure you.

No matter how much he thought in his heart, Li Mao shouldn't have turned around and left as soon as he heard Wang Xun's name, but the truth was that Li Mao left, turned around and left, and walked neatly.

Drive!

Qingmo glared at the man hatefully and drove away.

"Hmph, where did the leopard come out?"

The six people laughed, revealing six yellow black rotten teeth, laughed for a while, and the leader of the big man glanced into the distance, his face darkened, and ordered a half-old woman in a muffled voice: "Go and talk to Zhen'er, don't run around with Da Lang, who can take care of a mistake." ”

The woman looked at the tree by the canal, but saw no sign of the maidservant, and she was a little anxious.

"This dead girl has long legs, where did she run away for a while." The woman muttered.

After the woman left, the big man suddenly felt a little uneasy, he irritably pushed away the white peach handed by his companion, turned his head and walked towards the canal, still on the way, he heard a cry of despair: "It's a big deal, something is wrong, Da Lang is gone!" ”

The red sun is scorching and rushing, it is by no means a good enjoyment, the three of them did not go far, they forked into a ditch, hid under a few weeping willows to enjoy the cool, the small insects in the grass smelled fresh meat, and attacked it in groups, Li Mao was the most popular with skin and flesh, only lay down for a while, he couldn't lie down, the numb itch of being bitten by insects was unbearable, he jumped up, stripped off his clothes and jumped into the river.

The skin of the river is hot, but the skin of the water is cold and biting, Li Mao swam for a while, felt unbearable, saw a beach on the other side of the river, swam over, found a piece of fine sand and lay down to sunbathe. Qin Niang is coming back in the fall, and she can't be laughed at anymore.

As soon as I lay down, something hit my chest, and it hurt. When I opened the mud and sand, it was a small military file forged from wrought iron.

The file is one of the standard equipment in the army, about one in a group, used to repair weapons, and the files of each army are stamped with their own logos. Li Mao washed the tweezers in water, and clearly saw that a four-horned elk was printed on the surface of the tweezers. The Pinglu army takes the first word of Pingzhou and Lulong, stationed in the camp state, the defense area is in the Liaodong area, the four-horned elk is regarded as a mascot in the local area, and it is an auspicious one for the military map, and this habit is still retained after moving south. Li Mao judged from this that the file belonged to the Pinglu Army.

This place belongs to Jiyin County, the west fortress of Ziqing, before the Qing Navy stationed, the Pinglu Army had been stationed here for a long time, and the soldiers lost a file here, which is not worth making a fuss about, but what made Li Mao feel uneasy was that there was no trace of rust on the file buried in the mud and sand, and it was obviously lost here not long ago, and the time would not even exceed three days.

Since the Qing Navy moved to Caozhou in the spring of the fifteenth year of Zhenyuan, there was no Pinglu Army stationed in one city and six counties in Caozhou, where did this small file belonging to the Pinglu Army come from?

Li Mao looked around vigilantly, and found nothing unusual, he walked towards a few willow trees on the river embankment, and his eyes were soon attracted by a few withered branches on the ground, these branches were cut down by sharp blades, the incisions were smooth and neat, with a knife instead of an axe, and the thin and soft branches on the branches had been removed, leaving only the crooked trunk.

Li Mao searched carefully left and right, and found a sunhat woven of thin wicker in the grass, the wicker leaves had withered but not yet dried up, and it was speculated that it should have been woven a day or two ago.

Stepping on the riverbank, looking around, there are no villages as far as the eye can see, which basically excludes the possibility that nearby villagers come here to cut willow branches and weave straw hats, and when it comes to the military files left on the river beach, Li Mao suddenly has an ominous premonition in his heart.

Following this hunch, he searched everywhere, and at last found a foot-trodden path in a waist-deep meadow, beside which was still fresh horse manure, and judging by the grass and trees that had been trampled in the mud and had not yet withered, an army had passed through it not long ago.

The contradiction between the Qing navy and Yunzhou has almost become public, and the matter of Yu Hualong sending Huang Rengu to Xuzhou to seek foreign aid has already been laid out.

The fighting methods of the two families have changed from a secret fight to an open fight, who wins and who loses, and has a great deal to do with themselves, if the war starts, he must not stay out of the matter, Li Mao feels that he needs to find out.

Li Mao swam back to the other side of the river, passed the small file to the two of them, left Mo Qi Shentong to watch the horses by the river, took Qingmo to follow the trail all the way, walked out of about two miles, in front of him was a pine forest, and there was a faint neighing of war horses in the forest. In this era, the land was vast and sparsely populated, the entire Chengwu County had a population of less than 100,000, and a large area of land was deserted.

However, soldiers are easy to hide, but it is not easy to transport supplies, and experienced scouts can roughly judge the number of enemy troops according to the ruts used to transport baggage, Qingmo claims to be proficient in this way, which squeezed out Mo Qi's divine power to follow Li Mao, he turned around, and found no rut marks, nor did he find any traces of other horses.

Li Mao tried to continue to explore, but within more than ten zhang he found the trap set by the protector Yu Hou, and Qingmo claimed to smell the smell of dog urine. The two didn't dare to go any further, and when they returned to the river, Qingmo asked, "Do you still want to explore?" Or a state soldier in the field. Li Mao said: "If it is a state soldier, I will be at ease, but I am afraid that it is not so simple." Probe, you must probe to find out. ”

As soon as it was dark, Li Mao sneaked over with Qingmo again, leaving Qingmo two miles away from the pine forest, Qingmo refused to insist on entering the pine forest with Li Mao, Li Mao said: "Have you run past me?" Qingmo shook his head and said, "I can't run." Li Mao said: "Then don't be my burden." ”

Although Li Mao has not been in the army for a long time, he has some understanding of all kinds of military technology, not that he is a saint, but mainly because there are only a few things about military technology in this era. The trap is five feet long, one foot wide, and three feet deep, and the pit is buried with antler guns and bamboo sticks, covered with grass and fine dust, which can effectively prevent cavalry night attacks, but there is not much threat to the infantry troops who reconnoiter on foot.

With what he had learned, Li Mao safely walked into the woods, about ten steps into the forest, there were no trees in front of him, and the felled trees were built into a six-foot-high wooden fence, and there was a trench dug outside the fence, and horses were placed.

This confirms Li Mao's speculation from the side, those who come are not good, these people can never be Yunzhou state soldiers, although the state soldiers are also officials supported by the imperial court, but their style is loose, discipline is lax, and they often don't even let go of sentries when camping in the field, how can they build such rigorous field fortifications in such a short period of time?

Li Mao tried to move a few steps forward in order to see what was going on, but a big yellow dog suddenly came out, and the dog was very violent, fortunately, it was chained. The barking of the dog alarmed the sentry, and Li Mao turned his head and ran away when he saw that the situation was not good.