Lu Fei and his group of fourteen caravans all the way through the state through the capital, after crossing the Yellow River, the weather is getting colder and colder, occasionally there is a burst of scattered snowflakes falling, all kinds of Yiren caravans can be seen everywhere along the way, here has arrived in the place where the Han Yi lived, where the caravans came from, the jingling camel bells accompanied Lu Fei and they all the way into Yanzhou City. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

At this time, Yanzhou was already an authentic border city, although this place was still far away from Xiazhou, but a large area north of Yanzhou had already belonged to the sphere of influence of the party's activities, and the elusive party's cavalry often harassed the border people, and most of the nearby Hanmin villages were robbed by them more than once.

The biggest official in Yanzhou is Zhou Xian, I heard that this person is an upright official, tolerant and generous, since the previous dynasty has been an official here, the official reputation is quite popular with the people, Zhou Zhizhou in order to strictly prevent the party people from continuing to invade, along the line of Yanzhou lined up a total of several large and small military towns, the larger ones have more than 1,000 soldiers, and the smaller dozens of people are even a few veterans guarding the beacon tower in some places, look at this frame The Song army is completely on the defensive on the border.

The north wind rose suddenly, rolling up the yellow sand in the sky, looking at Yanzhou City from a distance, it was like a dirt city swallowed by the yellow sand, Lu Fei and his party stood outside the west city gate, everyone wrapped their heads and faces with cloth towels to block the wind, snow and sand, in the city gate, camels and horses were crowded, and the city was full of patrolling guards, from their restless eyes, they seemed to suspect that everyone who entered Yanzhou City might be a party member, and dozens of guards carefully checked everyone who wanted to enter the city.

On a row of wooden stakes on the side of the city gate hangs a string of bloody and blurred human heads, looking at the hairstyle are all party members, of course, not every party member is a rebel, like the current rebel leader's brother Li Jisheng is an official in Bianliang, Li Jisheng This is a tribe that has completely returned to the Song Dynasty, but still lives in the border area, and the living habits are different from the Han people.

There was a sudden noise in front of the already crowded city gate, and two Song soldiers pulled out a person from the crowd entering the city, seeing that he was a party member, and his face was so frightened at this time.

In this chaos, dozens of Song soldiers rushed out of the city one after another, stood in a row at the gate of the city, raised their spears and did not let anyone enter.

The party member was dragged aside and knelt on the ground, and a Song soldier stepped forward and stepped on his hand and said, "Say, the cocoon on your hand is not sharpened with a knife?"

The party members were babbling and shaking their heads all the time.

At this time, a Song soldier probe on the city wall shouted: "What's going on down there?" ”

Song Bing below raised his head and said: "Dutou, this party has a barbarian hand"

"That's verbose, cut it"

The knife fell, the blood stained the sand, and a head was hung up.

The small riot did not stop the people who entered the city, as if these were commonplace, and after a while, there was a long queue waiting to check and enter the city, as for whether the party member who had just been killed was an ordinary person or had participated in the rebellion, no one cared, this is also a way that cannot be done on the border, and it is really impossible to distinguish the stupidest and easiest thing to cut down.

Looking at all this in front of him, Lu Fei asked Cao Keming on the side: "Have you been to Yanzhou?" ”

Cao Keming shook his head: "I haven't entered the city, I passed nearby when I fought Xiazhou last time, Lu Tou, do you plan to enter the city?" ”

Lu Fei looked at the sky, the dark clouds were very low, the northwest wind was blowing non-stop, it was estimated that it would snow in the next two days, I heard that the snow in the north was coming, that is, it would not open for several months, the heavy snow closed the road, and it was troublesome to go anywhere, although everyone was sleepy and tired, but they could not rest, and they had to find out the eyebrows of some party rebels before the heavy snow closed the road.

Lu Fei said: "I won't enter the city, go directly to Xiazhou, Brother Cao, do you know how to get to the military town closest to the party members?" ”

Cao Keming pointed to the west of the city and said: "Walk more than 40 miles along that side, Balcony Town, but there are no more people who passed there last time, and all those who can run have run away, and you may meet party members at any time after Balcony Town."

Lu Fei smiled and patted the silk goods on the horse's back and said, "We are a caravan, Luo Cheng"

"Land Head"

"You take the two brothers into the city to buy some dry food and daily necessities, and then go to Balcony Town to find us."

"No"

Bypassing Yanzhou, heading west in the wind and snow, there are few trees in this area, only patches of dead grass and some low bushes and other plants, you can see far away at a glance, but at this time it is the wind and snow weather, and the scenery in front is shrouded in gloom, which makes people feel very depressed.

Not long after traveling west, I saw in the distance that there were houses scattered across the wilderness in front of me, which looked like Han dwellings from a distance, but they looked lifeless, and there was no trace of human activity, not even a barking dog, let alone cooking smoke.

Lu Fei and the others stopped the horse outside the town and observed, there was a stone broken in two on the side of the road, Lu Fei urged the horse to go over, the two stone slabs were connected to read it to be sure that this is Balcony Town, the handwriting is very blurry, look at the small characters on the side, it turned out to be an object from the Tang Dynasty in the previous dynasty.

"Zhang Jiang" Lu Fei lowered his voice.

"Lu Tou, what's the matter?"

"Take a few brothers to touch in from both sides to see, no matter what the situation is, don't reveal your identity first"

Zhang Jiang beckoned a few people to get off the horse, hid their weapons, and slowly touched the waist-deep weeds towards the town, which was too close to the party members, and they didn't know what was going on inside.

Lu Fei also let everyone get off the horse, squatting in the grass, he put his hands in front of his mouth and sighed, shrinking his neck: "This ghost is too cold"

Cao Keming looked around and said with a smile: "I heard that Lutou is from the south of the Yangtze River, this is just the beginning, the winter in the north is unbearable, and in two months, you will have to take a stick while urinating even when urinating."

Lu Fei's mouth was full of white gas, and he said, "Why? ”

"Knock while urinating, or the urine will freeze"

Lu Fei was stunned and said, "What will happen if you freeze?" ”

"No way, cut it off"

Lu Fei gave him a blank look.

Everyone laughed sullenly, Lu Fei had never been to the north in his two lives, and he really hadn't seen the cold in the north, maybe Cao Keming was exaggerating, but judging from the current temperature, the few ditches he passed by just now had already frozen, at least a few degrees below zero, and this was only October.

Cao Keming said again: "Lu Tou really plans to go to Xiazhou directly? ”

Lu Fei asked rhetorically, "Do you have any good suggestions?" Our task is to find out as much as possible the haunt of the main force of the party, where to go if we don't go to Xiazhou? ”

Cao Keming was a little worried: "There is no fixed gathering place for the party members, the army of the imperial court has already moved westward, I am afraid that the news has already reached Li Jiqian's ears, eighty percent of him has already found a place to hide, you look at the weather, if Li Jiqian is so consumed, there is no need to fight, our army may not survive this winter"

Lu Fei took off the cloth covering his face, rubbed his frozen face hard, his nose was red with pain, and said: "Who the hell said no, those officials above don't look at the yellow calendar when they fight, but then again, it's not up to us to say whether to fight or not, by the way, haven't you Brother Cao always been thinking about fighting, what's the matter, cowardly?"

Cao Keming hurriedly said: "That's not it, I mean that we will probably not be able to inquire about anything when we go to Xiazhou now, the party members never live in the city, even if they have a house, they would rather set up tents in the wild."

Lu Fei smiled: "A group of cheap bones, there is a house to live in a tent"

Cao Keming snorted and laughed, "They have been like this for hundreds of years, the party is riding and shooting, and they won't even be able to fight when they enter the city, I dare to say that Li Jiqian is very likely to flee to Helan Mountain, that is his real lair."

Lu Fei said: "Where is Helan Mountain?" ”

Cao Keming pointed to the gloomy sky in the north and said: "About four hundred miles west of Xiazhou, in the eyes of the party members, Helan Mountain is their sacred mountain."

Lu Fei was a little surprised, and said: "Four hundred miles, here is more than two hundred miles away from Xiazhou, and it can't add up to more than six hundred miles."

Cao Keming nodded, "It's just a lot, it's not a lot, and besides, the desert in the middle of these six hundred miles is even the Gobi, and sometimes you can't meet a person for hundreds of miles, it's too difficult to think about it."

Lu Fei was silent for a while and said to himself: "The battle line is so long, the grain and grass will definitely not be supplied, no matter how many people have been in the past, Dane will not take this risk to fight Helan Mountain, or this ghost weather"

Cao Keming muttered: "Then we can only wait for the beginning of spring."

Lu Fei shook his head and said, "Emperor Lao Tzu will not give Dane this time, Brother Cao, now it seems that your uncle and nephew were not wronged at all, and they went deep alone, and they were bold enough to make dumplings."

Cao Keming argued: "When the Han general Huo Qu was sick and drove the Huns deep into the desert for 3,000 miles, what a hero he was."

Lu Fei stood up and stomped his feet to ward off the cold, and said: "At the beginning, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty had more than 500,000 war horses, but now, I have heard that our Japanese army has only more than 5,000 war horses up and down, and we have to pull out a part of the grain, can this be compared, fighting, we can't just rely on the courage of a mouthful of blood, we must have 500,000 war horses, not to mention fighting, just stepping on these party members will be trampled to death, how can you use lying on the ice and snow here, the hanging is frozen hard"

Cao Keming was stunned for a moment, and said with a smile: "Lu Tou's words are rough enough, what you said makes sense, anyway, you are the head, listen to you"

A few people were talking about it, and the ten generals Zhang Jiang came back with people.

Zhang Jiang pointed to the town and said: "Lutou, I have investigated, there are two veterans in the whole town, one of them is dying of hunger, and no enemy has been found."

Lu Fei looked at Cao Keming and nodded, "Enter the town, and be here at night first."