"The general spares his life! Spare your life! ”

The wet leader of the thieves was pressed to the ground by the clean-faced Qin pawn, and he struggled to raise his head, revealing an ugly face cut by the sword.

After the lair was suddenly attacked by Zhao Shu, the thief leader fled in a hurry with some of his cronies, ran to a hidden boat location unknown to outsiders, and rowed a small boat to avoid the county soldiers and Ding Zhuang who were pursuing him on the shore.

As long as he hides in the vast lake, it is his world.

However, he didn't expect that there were more than ten boats in the lake, hundreds of boat soldiers were waiting for them, relying on years of familiarity with hydrology, the thief leader finally got rid of the boat soldiers, and he had nowhere to go He could only choose to flee to the south shore of the lake - that is the land that belongs to the Qin State, he expected that the boat soldiers of the Zhao State would never chase deeply, in the past, whenever he was chased and suppressed, he used this way to escape, the Qin soldiers fled to the Zhao State, and the Zhao soldiers fled to the Qin State, and tried repeatedly.

But this time, the thief leader miscalculated, and as soon as he landed ashore, he was caught by a group of patrolmen.

The head of the thief knows very well who he has fallen into, this is the county temple of Wu County, Qin State, and behind him is a group of Qin soldiers in black clothes and black armor, their costumes are very simple and clear: those with low status basically have no crowns, Shi Chang and other small military officials wear cloth curtains on their heads, ordinary soldiers tie their hair in buns, and their hair buns are crooked to the side, which is the most ordinary dress of the Qin army.

As for the person sitting behind the desk in front of him, he was a middle-level military official of the Qin State, dressed in black fish-scale leather armor, with a brown robe underneath the armor, his hair knotted in a flat bun, wearing a seven-inch high double plate long crown, and a figure-eight knot under his chin, looking energetic and capable. If it weren't for his very old looks, he could have been seen as a young man in his early twenties.

But it was such a young man, but his eyes were very mature, he looked at the thief leader, and said in a mellow Guanzhong accent: "I'm not a general, just a local five hundred lords, acting county lieutenants." ”

"The captain is a thief, if there is a thief, and the name of the master is not established, then he will push and search, and the case will be investigated for adultery, so as to start the matter." Qin's law stipulates that all officials with rank above 100 stone in Qin have the duty and obligation to arrest and hunt down fugitives, and this is especially true of the acting county lieutenant, and it is the duty of Wang Jian to arrest and interrogate the thief and his comrades and maintain local law and order.

"Surname, place of origin, when he was a thief, where is the lair, why did he escape into the territory of my Qin country, answer them one by one!"

Wang Jian stood up, he was not tall and very young, but he spoke very neatly.

While interrogating the thief leader, Wang Jian was also recalling how he got to this position step by step......

……

Wang Jian was a native of Qin, and his family flourished in the Qin state at least ten generations ago, eventually settling in Pinyang County.

Before the Shang Jun changed the law, Pinyang was the front line of Qin's defense of Wei, and it was also the only way for the Yiqu Rong people to cross the Beishan invasion, from the time of Qin Li Gonggong to set up a county, until the Qin Xiaogong era, here experienced hundreds of years of war, Wu Qi's soldiers, Yiqu's soldiers, have attacked here, every inch of Pinyang's land has left traces of fierce battles, and the bones of the war dead abandoned in the valley are more than the living population.

The Pinyang Wang clan was withering in this war, and the war did not bring them benefits. It wasn't until after Shang Jun changed the law that Wang Qian's great-grandfather seized the opportunity of conferring military merits, and cut off the first head and accumulated the first military merit in the battle of following Daliang to defeat Wei Gongzi Ang.

In the next 100 years, through the wars with Han, Wei, and Yiqu, the descendants of the Pinyang Wang family steadily accumulated military merits through beheading, and they, like thousands of families in the Qin State who benefited from military merits, became a military family that only knew how to plough and war, and wrote a bloodstained family history.

Although many people die in battle every year, in order to keep the titles earned by their ancestors, the descendants of the Pinyang Wang family still cannot be soldiers, and they still cannot accept the fate of their ancestors, fathers and brothers. This is because in the narrow sphere of life of the Qin people, it is rare to imagine the possibility of other ways of life other than war and farming.

They don't need to think about the purpose of the war, they just need to follow their orders, either win the battle and cut off the enemy's head to increase the land and subordinate concubines for their own families, or die on the battlefield and leave the title to their sons, so that they can continue the cycle.

For the Qin people, war has become an essential part of life.

Wang Qian's background is unremarkable, ranking last in the family, his father died early abroad, he inherited his title, and under the training of his uncle and brother, he began to continue the road of military merit for several generations.

He learned to use a sword while learning to walk, and learned to shoot arrows while learning to write, and by the time he was ten years old, he was already able to ride a horse and gallop through the fertile fields of Guanzhong.

Although Pinyang was already a stable hinterland of the Qin State at this time, the international situation was also very different, only the Qin people had the share of attacking other countries, and few other countries could penetrate into the Qin land. But the entire Qin State has long been transformed into a large military camp under the century-long transformation of the martingale law. The social relationship of the Qin people is simple, the usual neighbors, when they go to the battlefield, they are the same as the robes, because of the cruel method of sitting, their lives are closely connected, and distant relatives are really not as good as close neighbors.

Therefore, everything Wang Jian saw, heard, and learned since he was a child is inseparable from the scope of war and military affairs.

However, when Wang Jian was young, he did not stand out from his fellow villagers who were trained by his father's peers, and his only characteristic may be that he "knew the soldiers", he was particularly interested in the war stories of his father's generation, and he also turned over the "Shang Jun's Art of War" borrowed from his uncle Wang Ji to the point that the twine through the bamboo slips was rotten.

When he was seventeen years old, he began to serve officially, followed the Qin army to fight, accepted the test from the battlefield, cut off his first head, and the title was promoted from the fourth-level "no change" to the fifth-level "doctor", and the position was also promoted from the chief to the chief.

Two years ago, that is, in the summer of the forty-first year of the king, under the pretext of mourning the death of the prince, Wang Jian was the general, so he let him join the expedition, that year, Wang Jian was 20 years old.

In that battle, the Qin army pulled out Xingqiu and Huai, and laid two nails in Hanoi, and Wang Qian, as the commander of the tun, was also promoted to a hundred generals because of his outstanding performance, and his title was also promoted to the sixth-level "official doctor".

He is no longer young, his face is more weathered, and he is more mature, and after a long period of fine grinding of the war mill, he has gradually become a real soldier.

Last year, Wang Jian participated in the attack on Zhao again, and the Qin army pulled out the three cities of Lin, Lishi, and Wu, and when the army withdrew, Wang Qian's uncle, the general Wang Di, recommended him to be the 500 lord of Wu County, the acting county lieutenant, and the title remained unchanged.

Wu County is a special area, here is the only county in Hedong County of Qin State located in the east of Fenshui, north is Taiyuan County of Zhao State, south of Pingyang, Shangdang, South Korea, in wartime, Wu County is the offensive front of Zhao and Han, but in the long peace, Wu County is an isolated island that will be attacked from both sides at any time.

This is a dangerous place, so Wang Jian is a little puzzled by the recommendation of the clan uncle, and even has a sense of grief and indignation about being abandoned.

At that time, Wang Di, who had been promoted to the "Five Great Doctors" and became a rising star in the Qin State, told him the reason.

"Wu County is very important, you need to be a serious person to guard, although you have not been outstanding since you were a child, and your martial arts are not the most top-notch among the children, but you are young and knowledgeable, resourceful and steady, and clearly analyze the overall situation, you hold this place, I can rest assured that ......"

Wang Jian suddenly realized that his uncle's words made him feel a great responsibility, and he did not dare to relax in the slightest since he took office for a year.

Among the 500 men under his command, there were many non-military soldiers, and some of them were convicts from Guanzhong, who were exiled to this place because of their crimes. There are also more than half of them who can't tell whether they are from Zhao, Wei, or the locals of South Korea, who may have been Zhao a year ago, but now they are wearing the clothes and armor of the Qin army, these people do not have the slightest sense of belonging to the Qin country, and they are conscripted into the army, just to beg for food.

It is not easy to control these people well, and at the same time cooperate with the county commanders and officials to manage local law and order in an environment where bandits are rampant, and to be vigilant at all times against temptations and offenses from Zhao and Han.

So in just one year, Wang Jian learned a lot of things that he would never have understood in his lifetime.

He once again turned out a few military books that his uncle gave him before leaving, and pondered carefully, no longer the same as when he was a child, he was only interested in Sun Tzu's "Military Form" and "Soldier" in the Art of War, and began to study those "Beginning Plans" and "Uses" that only the big people in the court needed to know in his eyes.

When he was inspecting the township, he began to try to talk to the locals, feeling their fear of the Qin soldiers, and what did he care about in his daily life?

For his mixed subordinates, he also tried to use different attitudes and methods to envelop and control, and for the Qin people from Guanzhong, he used robes to show nostalgia, and to local soldiers, he was more lenient and benevolent.

He also began to study the law, and as a county lieutenant, it would not work to know a little about the Qin law.

So at this moment, when interrogating this thief who seems to have experienced a lot of things, Wang Jian does not need to read the documents, and can go through the routine interrogation procedure word for word.

The question and answer to determine his name, identity, place of origin, crimes he had committed, and what punishment or pardon he had been given were to be recorded by the scribe and stored in a storehouse. This is the "sealed diagnosis" that has been clearly stipulated in the law since the Shang monarch changed the law.

After a set of processes, the identity and experience of this thief are almost asked.

"It seems that Chang'anjun of Qi County on the other side of the river is unwilling to live in peace after all......"

Wang Jian was a little worried, because Zhao was busy cutting Yan last year, and Qin had also been busy attacking Korea since last year, and the tension between the two countries had disappeared, and the border was surprisingly calm, as if the previous months-long confrontation was fake.

As long as Wang Jian is given time, he is confident that he will govern Wu County like an iron bucket, and at the same time attract the people of Zhao who are suffering from thieves to defect, so that the forward position of the Qin army will become more and more stable, and prepare for the Qin army's attack on Taiyuan in the future.

But the calm of this situation, which slowly tilted towards him, was broken by the arrival of Chang Anjun.

From the initial salute before the soldiers, to the current stormy thief action, it can be seen that Chang'anjun is determined to do something big in Qi County, and Qi County's military training and frequent military reinforcements have made the Qin-Zhao border, which has been quiet for a long time, tense again in vain

Thinking like this, Wang Jian felt that he should report the situation to Hedong County immediately, so he waved his hand and asked people to take the thief head down.

"General, general, villain still has something to say!"

The head of the thief knew that the laws of the Qin State were strict, and he was probably inevitable to die, so he grabbed the last straw at this time and shouted desperately.

"Oh? Do you have any more to say? Wang Qian, who had already walked to the door, looked back without the slightest pity. He was able to get to this day by relying on dozens of hundreds of human heads to pave the way, compared to which the lives of this thief and his accomplices are not worth mentioning.

The thief thought of his nest being wiped out by a pot, and he hated it, and immediately made a fool of himself: "Although the villain and the others are thieves, they are familiar with the situation on the east bank of Zhaoyu Qi, and they are willing to help the general and serve the Qin State!" ”

"Serving the Qin State? That's you! "The Qin soldiers from Guanzhong next to them all felt insulted, their Qin army was invincible, when did they need a group of thieves to help?

Wang Qian's expression did not change much, he touched his chin and thought for a long time, as if he was weighing the pros and cons, and finally made a decision: "According to Qin law, the thief is the first to die, and the rest of the party is reduced to prisoners, drag it down, and behead it!" ”

……

A few days later, Chang Anjun, who had returned to Qi County, looked at the head of the water thief leader who had been pickled in white ash and packed in a wooden box, and was a little speechless.

"This Wang Jian ......"

Mingyue frowned and flipped through the polite letter, muttering to herself, "What kind of idea did you want?" ”