The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the ancients have long known that if they encounter a lost situation, they will use this simple but effective method to find the direction, and now Fuquan also relies on this method to identify the direction.

The young general was naturally Fu Quan himself, since he led his soldiers to sneak attack the rebels' food storage place, because he walked a lot of rugged and steep mountain roads, naturally he would not bring a guide car to identify the direction. After all, this kind of equipment is not transported by horses, so it is heavy and difficult to carry, and Fuquan's sneak attack is fast, so he will definitely not bring this kind of equipment, and even if it is not for armor, bows and crossbows, which are the sharp weapons of the Han army to defeat the rebels, Fuquan plans to let all troops and horses only take short soldiers and march in single clothes, just to achieve the effect of "soldiers are noble and fast".

"Prince, where are you going now?" Huang Zhong wore blood-stained armor on his body, walked all the way, saluted and asked, at this time, there were no rebels chasing behind the army, Huang Zhong also wanted to ask Ming Fuquan's intentions, to see if he could speak in time, let the army turn around and go back to Shu County, after all, it was the main battlefield of the Han army and the rebels.

Looking at the south, Fu Quan did not immediately answer Huang Zhong's words, but said to the soldiers beside him: "Where is the guide?" ”

After the soldier saluted, he hurried to look for them after retreating from the mountain bag at night, and met several mountain woodcutters on the way. After some inquiry, I knew that they were people nearby, because of the Han rebellion, the family was uneasy, so they hid in the mountains and forests for refuge, this time there was no food in the mountains, and they wanted to go out hunting and find some food for their relatives at home, but they did not expect to be bumped into by the Han army at this moment.

For those people, of course, Fu Quan did not hesitate to enlist in the army after knowing the identities of several people, after all, the army fled and was not familiar with life. Even if the rebels in the army surrendered, most of them were Jiangxia people, and the other Lujiang people were not very familiar with the southern part of Lujiang County, so it was undoubtedly a little reluctant to let them lead the way.

Think about it, the Han Dynasty was very strict about the household registration management of the people's travel, and if you want to go out of the county and out of the county, you have to have the "transmission" certified by the local government office. The rebel soldiers under Fu Quan were originally poor people, and it was good to be able to wander around the counties around their hometown, and it was obviously a little impractical to let them out of the county, so now with these woodcutters, Fu Quan could only count on them as a guide for the march of his army.

Soon, a sound of footsteps was heard, and following the sound, I saw the soldier coming with several young men dressed in ordinary linen clothes. Because these woodcutters walk in the mountains all year round, they are often injured and mostly treat themselves, so there are still ways to treat some simple external injuries. Fuquan was on this march, and there were no healers in the army, so in addition to being guides, they had to do something that healers should do, and they had just been sent to treat some wounded soldiers in the army.

"I've seen the general!" Several woodcutters are obviously vulgar people in the countryside, some of them don't know the number of etiquette, and they don't even know how to call Fuquan, so they directly regard him, Taishou, as a general.

Fu Quan bowed his head and did not blame them, but asked the guide: "The south is Zongyang?" ”

"Exactly!" The men forgot to glance at each other, and finally a relatively older man with a little silver strand in his hair came out and replied.

"Lonely desire to lead the army into Zongyang, is there a shortcut?"

"Returning to the general, there is a road, but you need to pass through the remaining veins of Dabie Mountain, the mountain road is steep, and people who walk for many years have many worries about life......"

"Stop!" Hearing that he had to walk a lot of mountain roads, Fu Quan decisively stopped a few people, he didn't want to take the mountain roads anymore, his soldiers had just fought bloody battles for a long time, and their strength was already weak. After thinking about it, Fu Quan shouted to the left and right, "Go to the map." ”

"No!"

After the soldiers around him saluted, they rushed to get a parchment scroll from their side, and after opening it, they saw that there were some concise lines drawn on it, and from time to time there were some place names mixed with it, and there were six big characters written on the parchment scroll, which was the words "Lujiang County of the Han Dynasty".

In ancient times, geographical maps were actually very important, and most of the imperial courts generally strictly forbade private collections, and it was difficult for ordinary people to see geographical books and atlases except for the government. To a certain extent, books and maps related to geography were no less important to the imperial court than important weapons of the military state. Think about it, most of the reasons why the peasant uprisings in the past generations failed, in addition to the problems of organizational strength and equipment morale, the lack of maps, ignorance of geographical terrain, and the lack of reasonable strategic planning and deployment, which were also one of the reasons for their failure.

In all dynasties, most of the rebels could not last long after the uprising, most of them because they did not know how to occupy key passes and important military communication areas, so that they could attack and retreat, but they only knew how to attack defenseless states and counties, and plundered everywhere in order to seek peace of mind. If you do this, the initial result seems to be great, but the final result will definitely be that the huge army that knows the geography will design a heavy siege, so that they have nowhere to escape, and it will be difficult to fly at that time, and it will be a failure.

Of course, when compiling historical books such as the Book of Han, some geographical records are added in the middle, but there are not many of them, but such books can be owned by the people, because they are of little use to private individuals. After all, it only roughly describes the mountains and rivers in various places and the general directions, but it is not drawn into an atlas, and ordinary people see that unless they are geniuses, it is difficult to summarize those materials into useful military information.

So, in other words, without maps and geography, people run around like blind people, not to mention armies, even ordinary people can only walk when they ask their local guides.

The map of Fuquan was also specially found when he left Jiangxia, and he attacked it when he came, because there was a map of Qin Chuan and the rebel garrison he offered, so he didn't use it for a while. Now that he had succeeded in burning the rebels' grain and grass, he did not go directly to Shu County in the north, but went all the way south, towards Danyang County next to Lujiang County, just to avoid encountering the rebels who were rushing to meet and thus encounter a siege.

However, it is safe to walk in this way, but after all, the road is unfamiliar, and you can only rely on the map to guide the way, which also gives Fuquan a headache. Because, the Lujiang River is not like other places, most of the southeast of the county is in the aftermath of the Dabie Mountain, and the rugged roads surrounded by the mountains, even if you have a map, you can't march at the first time. Fortunately, Fuquan met these woodcutters on the way, otherwise, it is estimated that he would have to grope for a long time before he could leave according to the retreat path he had thought in advance.

Holding the map, Fu Quan then recruited Guan Yu, Xu Huang and other generals in the military center, and then inquired carefully with these woodcutters, and finally discussed, Fu Quan ordered to continue south, led by the woodcutter, and took the avenue directly to Zongyang.