Suzhou Chengbei official road.

The cold wind swept the land, the rustling sound came from under the maple leaves, and under the dark sky, a long army meandered along the gray official road. When the members of this army lit torches and held them aloft on the foot troops, they resembled a writhing dragon.

This army belongs to Wu Song's battalion, numbering more than tens of thousands, and is rushing to Suzhou City to rescue. At this time, it was already the first night that Suzhou City fell into the hands of Fang Lajun.

Wu Song's camp made Chen Tao, a military attache from the third grade, and a general of the Jiedu side. At this time, Chen Tao rode a jujube red treasure horse and walked in the middle of the team, wearing a lacquered ink armor that melted into the night. The light of the torch held by the little colonel next to him reflected his white face, not like a military general at all, with deep facial features, vague eyes, and a hint of coldness.

Regarding the post of Jiedu envoy, although the authority of the Jiedu envoy was greatly weakened by the Great Liang, and the local generals only had the right to command the troops and did not have the right to transfer troops, the position of the Jiedu envoy was still the highest local military governor except for the privy councillor and the Tai Lieutenant, and once he was authorized by the superiors, he was qualified to command tens of thousands or even 100,000 troops.

Chen Tao had known that Suzhou City was under siege for a long time, and early this morning he received urgent reports from several Suzhou City scouts who rushed to ask for help, but he did not send troops to rescue him.

The reason is simple: there is no appointment.

Since Emperor Taizu, Daliang has established a system: local generals are not allowed to transfer troops privately, and local generals must be transferred away after staying in one place for three years at most.

Since An Lushan rebelled, the Central Plains has gone through more than 100 years of feudal separatism, local warlords privately set up prisons, indiscriminately kill innocents, and the horror of killing shrouded the land of China.

But no system is perfect, after eight or nine generations of emperors, more than a hundred years have passed, with the rise of Khitan, Western Xia, Jurchen and other foreign races, the shortcomings of this system have been exposed - soldiers do not know generals, generals do not know soldiers.

The issue of troop redeployment has become procedural and protracted. The right to transfer troops is in the Privy Council, and all troop transfer actions need to be approved by the accompanying officials of the Privy Council, and even every time there is a large-scale war, there will be a supervisor sent by the emperor himself. On the surface, military attachés with the qualifications of commanding troops, such as the Jiedu Envoy, the Economic Strategy Envoy, the Adjustment Envoy, the Xuanfu Envoy, and the Recruitment Envoy, are the supreme commander of an army, but in fact they are pressed by the Supervisory Army and the Privy Council, and in fact they do not have much autonomy.

Chen Tao was authorized in the afternoon to send troops to save Suzhou. In fact, he didn't want to come, he already knew that Suzhou City was broken, but the prime minister and the Privy Council didn't know yet, they ordered him to save Suzhou, so he had to carry it out.

When the army was about five miles away from Suzhou City, he saw the fireworks in Suzhou City from afar, flickering and dazzling, Chen Tao had guessed that it was Fang Lajun and the peasants in the city who were lighting fireworks to celebrate, after taking a look, he turned his horse back and said to the left and right: "Suzhou has fallen, go, go back to Wusong camp!"

"Lord Jiedu!" At this time, a lieutenant in the former army with a yellow flag behind his back rode over and reported: "My lord, there is a group of people in front, claiming to have escaped from Suzhou City, and saying that they are willing to lead the adults to enter Suzhou City through the Water Gate."

"People?" Chen Tao's eyes narrowed, and after glancing at Captain Huang Qi, he snorted and said, "Bring it over and ask."

This is a team of about 200 people, mainly composed of families, wealthy families, merchants, landlords and many students, who are indeed the people of Suzhou City.

When they saw the long army in front of them, they showed surprise on their faces, as if they saw the hope of returning to Suzhou City, after all, their family property was still in Suzhou City, and even many people's wives and concubines were still in the city.

"General...... a rich man knelt in front of Chen Tao's horse, opened his mouth, and was about to say something, when he suddenly found that their small team had been surrounded by soldiers armed with bows and crossbows.

"General, what do you mean by that?"

Chen Tao's eyes narrowed, waved his hand left and right, pointed at this small team of ordinary people and sneered: "Be bold and anti-thief!" How dare you deceive the general into the city? Rebel thief, shoot me to death!! ”

"General, we are really the people of Suzhou City...... Belch! ”

"Ugh!"

With a low, unsuspecting scream, the arrow pierced through the bodies of all the members of the common people's ranks, and almost all of them fell with their eyes still open, in a state of dead eyes.

Seeing that all the people in this team were dead, Chen Tao waved his hand left and right and said, "Cut off the heads of these anti-thieves!" Let's go back to camp! ”

The left and right lieutenant generals looked at each other and smiled: this time the military exploits have ...... again The order from above to save Suzhou City, if it is unsuccessful, the boss must be investigated, with the heads of these people pretending to be the heads of the anti-thieves, at least they can claim to have fought with the anti-thieves.

…

Broken temple.

The next day was still gloomy weather, Song Ting fell asleep last night, feeling very cold, and woke up the fourth in the morning, and when he opened his eyes, Chen Dabeard, Lu Junyi, and the young Ah Ping were still sleeping, of course, they were all sleeping against the wall.

At this time, the cold wind blew into the dilapidated temple, and the young Ah Ping's curled up body was trembling, he was wearing a thin dirty gray dress on his upper body, and a pair of white-washed linen pants on his lower body, of course, everyone was also dressed in ragged beggar clothes, but he looked a little thin and malnourished.

Song Ting remembered that there was a time when he was as thin as him, as thin as skin and bones. But it's amazing, since living with Zhen'er, he has come back with "mellowness", although he practices swords and runs every day, so that his body will not be blessed, but his weight has indeed increased a lot, in addition, his spirit is getting better and better, and his eyes are getting brighter and brighter. This, he thought, must have something to do with his privileged living conditions.

He felt that he was lucky to be a colt, to be able to marry Zhen'er, and to have a love that he could not find in his previous life...... He was really lucky. But then I thought about it, now that I am in prison, I was locked up in Dali Temple by Zhao Jinji some time ago, which is actually unlucky enough......

"Master Pony." The young Ah Ping woke up and whispered respectfully to him.

Song Ting bowed slightly, and then said to him, "Isn't it a little cold?"

The young man Ah Ping crossed his arms and nodded.

Song Ting smiled bitterly at the corner of his mouth, stood up, and stretched his arms: "It's not cold when you get up and move."

Then he found a vacant place to move his hands and feet, found a wooden stick, and competed with Lu Junyi, who woke up, and competed in martial arts, which made Chen Bao and his wife dumbfounded, Chen Bao's two eyes were round: "The two of you have such strong skills, you can fight with General Pan Zilong!"

After practicing for a while, Song Ting was already sweating profusely, Lu Junyi, a strange man, didn't sweat a drop, and Youjian said that he was just a third-rate master, and he didn't believe it. However, if it is judged whether the light skills are high enough and whether he can use his body to take off, Lu Junyi can only sweep his body, and he is indeed far away from flying with his body method.

After practicing, I was hungry, and I realized that eating was a problem again, and there was also a problem with water. There is no water in this broken temple, there is no other house around 500 meters, it is located in a small mountain col, there is a broken stone at the entrance, the broken stone can vaguely piece together the words "cold" and "temple", and I don't know what the full name is the temple of Han, or what is the temple of Han.

There was a dry well in the temple, which had long since dried up and could not get water, so after eating all the beef jerky and drinking all the water with Chen Bao's family, everyone realized that they had to find water.

"Ah Ping, let you get more water, you don't get more, you see that the water is not enough to drink now, right? You stupid apprentice......" Chen Dabeard took out some hooks and other parts from the cowhide bag and fiddled with them, glared at the young Ah Ping, and muttered.

Song Ting found that Chen Dabeard seemed to have stayed in the house every day for a long time, and often complained about his apprentices, and his temper was quite eccentric.

Listening to Chen's bearded muttering, Ah Ping walked away silently, took two kettles, and didn't know where to go, at this time the cold wind was cold, everyone was cooking the fire to discuss countermeasures, and they didn't notice him leaving for a while.

It was noon, and the shock came.

A group of Fang Lajun peasant army into the city searched here, at that time Song Ting and Yan Qing were discussing the plan to go out of the city, Hu Sanniang sat on the futon in the wing room and slept against the wall, and Lao Liu asked Chen Dabeard about Ah Ping's whereabouts, Chen Dabeard looked surprised......

The first to discover the peasant army turned out to be Chen Bao, who had seen the martial arts of Lu Junyi and Song Ting, and hurriedly ran in and shouted: "Quick, someone is coming!"

Song Ting hurriedly went to wake up Hu Sanniang, everyone held steel forks, iron shovels, axes, wooden sticks, etc., and walked to the entrance of the broken temple.

"What a bad luck! The gold and silver treasures have been searched by the Fourth Army, and I don't know if there is anything valuable in this ruined temple! ”

"There is no gold or silver, it is good to have a little lady in hiding!"

"Hahahaha! Fear of one is not enough! ”

When Song Ting and others met with this group of peasant troops, they saw that these peasant soldiers were either holding guns or waist knives, or holding machetes, but none of them had a complete set of armor, some wore armor skirts that looked extremely funny, and some only wore shoulder pads or leg guards and wrist pads, which looked like a set of armor was given to more than a dozen people to wear.

When these dozen or so peasants saw Song Ting and the others, they were also taken aback, the first bald head, five big and three thick, fat head and big ears, eyes like cowbells, a beard on the chin, but there was no scar on the head, and he looked like a wine and meat monk. When the monk saw Song Ting and the others, he was taken aback at first, thinking that he had seen a group of beggars, but when he saw Hu Sanniang and Zhou Yun, he immediately laughed.

"What did you just say? Little lady? Aren't there just two little ladies here? Ha ha! Brothers, drive these beggars away and arrest these two little ladies! ”

There was a monkey face next to him, and at first glance, he was floating and broken, staring at Hu Sanniang and smiling: "Great monk!" This lady is good! Born beautifully! ”

Hu Sanniang's hands were almost unbearable, and Song Ting reached out to hold her down, signaling her not to worry.

Then Song Ting took two steps forward and said to the monk, "Who asked you to come here?" He asked this because he was worried that there would be other teams of the Fang La army who also noticed this.

The monk ignored him and shouted, "Hurry up, leave the two little ladies behind, and spare your lives!"

With his roar, more than a dozen peasant armies pulled out of formation, raising guns and arrows, and their eyes were greedily staring at Hu Sanniang and Zhou Yun, Zhou Yun held Chen Bao's hand in fear, although he knew that Lu Junyi and Song Ting had strong skills, but these rebels all had weapons, I am afraid they can't beat them, right?

"Stand back...... Song Ting glanced at Chen Dabeard and Chen Bao, and motioned for those of them who didn't know martial arts to step back.

But at this moment, Chen Bao's mother, Li, came out of the guest room to see the confrontation, and heard that she was going to rob her daughter-in-law inside, so she couldn't help but step out with her body bent and said to the peasant army: "You evil obstacles! Indiscriminate killing of innocents will not lead to a good death! ”

Sou! A feathered arrow pierced her left chest.

This change happened too fast, no one had time to stop it, Chen Bao and Zhou Yun were stunned, their eyes were in disbelief, they rushed forward, crying and shouting "Mother" several times, but unfortunately the old woman was already desperate.

It was the monkey face who shot the arrow, and after he shot the old woman Li, he bent his bow and arrow again, aimed at Chen Bao, and said, "Great monk, look at me and shoot another one!"

Song Ting felt that there was no need to bother with words anymore, so he shouted: "Do it!"

Lu Junyi, Hu Sanniang, and Yan Qing flashed out at the same time. Hu Sanniang held the iron shovel, flashed out obliquely, only to see her wrist flick, her body jumped up, kicked the bow of the monkey face with both feet, and the iron shovel in her hand fell suddenly, and with a bang, the monkey face's head was knocked open!

……

In less than a cup of tea, more than a dozen corpses of peasant soldiers appeared on the ground, and none of them ran away.

touched more than 20 taels of silver and a few silver hairpins with blood from these corpses, and then collected the weapons, and at this time, Chen Bao and Zhou Yun were still holding the corpse of the old woman Li and crying bitterly.

obviously escaped a catastrophe, but he didn't expect to die here. Chen Bao was deeply saddened by his misfortune and what happened to his mother.

Everyone also understands the couple's feelings, in addition to saying "festival mourning and change", they can only cry, now the world has changed, the world is in chaos, not to mention that ordinary people's lives are like ants, they are people with skills, and they don't know when they suddenly encounter danger and die.

There are more than a dozen corpses of peasant soldiers at the entrance, if they are not dealt with, it is likely to cause trouble, Song Ting and others will first concentrate the corpses in the precarious west wing, as well as the corpse of the Li family, and I don't know how to deal with it, Chen Bao insisted on taking it home to be buried, seeing him insisting, Song Ting and others can only let him, hoping that things will be calm as soon as possible.

In the evening, Ah Ping came back, with two or three water bottles hanging on his body, it turned out that he didn't know where to fetch water, and he also lost his other shoe, and he came back barefoot, his feet were full of blood, saying that there were soldiers chasing him and losing his shoes. He recounted in fear, and also brought good news, "In two days, the warehouse will be opened to release grain, and then all the peasant armies will go to collect the grain." Moreover, what kind of sacrificial assembly will be held, saying that the heads of a group of officials will be killed......"

After listening to the news brought by Ah Ping, Song Ting's eyes lit up, does this mean that there will be many fewer soldiers guarding the city gate, perhaps, it is an opportunity to escape......

(End of chapter)