Xihe County is located in the middle of Bingzhou, north of Taiyuan County, south of Linfen County, in the fifteen counties of Bingzhou, it is a very inconspicuous small county, its west is the towering Luliang Mountain, the east is the continuous Taiyue Mountain and Zhongtiao Mountain, more than ninety percent of the land in the county is across the tall and majestic mountains, and Fenshui runs through the heavy and important mountains, and has become an important water transport channel to communicate with the north and south of the state. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

And the canyon washed out by Fenshui for tens of millions of years has also formed a land route through the north and south, and the only official road is built in this canyon that is nearly 100 miles long, which is the very strategic position of the Bird Mouse Valley, it is like a long thin line, the Taiyuan County in the north and the four counties of Jinnan in the south are tied together, if this line is cut, it will also cut off the connection between the north and the south of the state.

Although there are countless small roads or secret roads that communicate between the north and the south in the mountains, there is only one official road that can walk the baggage carts, for the army, for the merchants, and almost all the people who travel, this valley road is the lifeline of the north and south of the Jinzhong communication.

The Bird Mouse Valley starts from Xihe County and Jiexiu County in the north, and reaches Huoyi County in the north of Linfen County in the south, the widest point is dozens of miles, but the narrowest point is only two miles, there are several important strategic places distributed in the valley road of nearly 100 miles, one is Jiexiu County, he is the north gate of the Bird Mouse Valley, its importance is not in the terrain, but because it is an extremely important material transit station in the north and south roads.

The second is Yindi Pass, Xihe County and Linfen County are bordered by it, it is a pass that stands in the gap between two mountains, only two miles long, the city wall is tall and strong, the terrain is very dangerous, and it is also the narrowest place in the whole Bird Mouse Valley.

After Li Yuan raised his troops from Taiyuan, the reason why he was able to successfully clear the Bird Mouse Valley was because the guards of the Yin Di Pass at that time were his people, so the soldiers passed the pass without blood.

The third dangerous place is Huoyi County, Huoyi County is located at the junction of the two basins of Jinzhong and Linfen, holding the official road that must pass through the north and south, the right side of the county is the towering high mountain, the left side is the open valley, the depth is more than ten zhang, the Fenshui like a jade belt will flow in the valley, and the south will flow.

The strategic location of the Bird Mouse Valley was so important that the Tang army also deployed heavy defenses here, deploying 3,000 troops each in Jiexiu, Yindiguan and Huoyi, under the unified command of the governor of Bingzhou.

The chief of Huoyi County is Xie Yingdeng, Xie Yingdeng, Wang Junkuo, Wang Bodang and known as the three generals of Taiyuan, stationed in Taiyuan County for many years, are all Li Jiancheng's faction, but in the Turkic campaign, Li Jiancheng disobeyed the orders of the imperial court and cooperated with Zhang Xuan without authorization, which finally angered Li Yuan, the son of heaven.

After the war, Li Yuan began to clean up Li Jiancheng's army, and the three generals of Bingzhou were demoted and suppressed, Wang Bodang was transferred to train the militia, Wang Junkuo was transferred to Shangjun to participate in the encirclement and suppression of Song Jingang, and Xie Yingdeng was demoted to Huoyi County Guard.

With the passage of time, the fate of the three of them changed again, Wang Bodang was transferred to Li Jiancheng's guard general, and followed Li Jiancheng to inspect various places, Wang Junkuo changed the court, and was named the hussar general by Li Shimin, the king of Qin, and this time led 20,000 troops to follow Pei Lin to Taiyuan.

Only Xie Yingdeng seems to have been forgotten, he has been in Huoyi County for more than a year, but no one has asked him, what makes Xie Yingdeng even more unbearable is that two months ago, Pei Lin sent a henchman to Huoyi County to inspect the city defense, with a bad attitude and secretly asked Xie Yingdeng for a bribe, and when the bribery failed, he wrote back to Xie Yingdeng, Pei Lin was furious, and immediately demoted Xie Yingdeng from Zhonglang General to Lang General, and appointed his henchman as the defense envoy of Huoyi County, in charge of the defense of Huoyi County, thus emptying Xie Yingdeng.

Xie Yingdeng angrily submitted a letter of defense to Li Shude, but two letters of defense were lost in the sea, and there was no news, which made Xie Yingdeng completely desperate, and he only drank in his account every day, and no longer cared about any military affairs.

At noon on this day, a caravan came slowly from the south, this caravan consisted of hundreds of mules, full of packed goods, they waved the banner of the merchant, and dozens of guards with swords on horseback, it could be seen that they were not small caravans of individual customers, but a large caravan with a background background, which was not common on the trade routes of Bingzhou.

Since the Zhou Dynasty army occupied Shangdang County and Changping County, they began to suppress bandits, and wiped out dozens of large and small mountain bandits in Taihang Mountain and Wangwu Mountain, without the trouble of mountain bandits, and the caravans of Bingzhou began to rise rapidly, and several time-honored commercial houses also expanded their scale, and purchased a large number of animal power mules from Beihai County, and there were tens of thousands of business mules walking on the business road of Bingzhou every day.

The south gate of Huoyi County is very lively, farmers, merchants, porters and gorgeous carriages driving out of the city, dozens of soldiers guarding the city shouting and scolding, maintaining order at the city gate.

At this time, a soldier saw a caravan approaching in the distance and shouted to the city, "There is a caravan!" ”

The soldiers guarding the city gate suddenly became excited, looking at the caravan in the distance and whispering, according to the custom, at this time they can all earn a hundred and ten yuan for wine, and some soldiers have already rushed to report to join the army.

Jin joins the army's full name Jin Jiong, and a native of Longquan County, is a staff member of Pei Lin of Xiangguo, this time he followed Pei Lin to Taiyuan to preside over the defense, he was appointed by Pei Lin to join the army, and went to the three places of the Bird Mouse Valley to inspect the defense, he asked Xie Yingdeng for a bribe in Huoyi County, so he wrote to Pei Lin and accused Xie Yingdeng of negligence in defense, which made Pei Lin very angry, so he appointed Jin Jiong as the defense envoy of Huoyi, replacing Xie Yingdeng.

Frankly speaking, the defenders of Huoyi County prefer Jin Jiong, and don't like Xie Yingdeng very much, although Xie Yingdeng is strong in martial arts, but he is very strict with the training of soldiers, and the soldiers are physically exhausted all year round, and Xie Yingdeng's management of military discipline is very strict, it is strictly forbidden for his subordinates to extort businessmen, and the soldiers guarding the city are not allowed to accept bribes from businessmen, and Huoyi County is the only way for caravans, but the generals who defend the city can not get any benefits, and as time goes by, the middle and lower-level generals gradually become dissatisfied with Xie Yingdeng.

On the contrary, Jin Jiong was just the opposite, he was laissez-faire to the army, not only canceled the daily training, but also turned a blind eye to the middle and lower-level generals who falsely reported the number of soldiers and ate empty salaries, and even more wantonly blackmailed the businessmen who came and went.

Not long after Jin Jiong heard the news and hurried over, at this time, the caravan had arrived at the city, the soldiers were checking the goods one by one, and the Tang army also strictly prohibited the caravan from trafficking some items, such as pig iron, copper ingots, weapons, armor, etc., if these contraband were trafficked, even if the bribes were useless, once they were found, the merchants would definitely die, and even the county order of origin would be held accountable and dismissed.

It is for this reason that bribery of the garrison army is even more inevitable, once the stolen goods are killed, the goods will also be confiscated, and there is no place to seek innocence for the great grievances, so although the profits of the merchants are large, but the risks are also large, especially without the background background, do not traffic in valuable goods, otherwise it is easy to get into trouble.

"Where did the caravan come from?" Jin Jiong asked loudly.

A captain who guarded the city rushed to report: "Qi Qi joined the army, it is a caravan of Pegasus. ”

Jin Jiong was stunned, Pegasus is a business house opened by Wen Xi Pei's family, no wonder it is such a large scale, and there are guards with knives.

Although Xiangguo Pei Lin is the Hedong Pei clan instead of the Wenxi Pei clan, they are all ancestors and have a very close relationship, Jin Jiong didn't dare to attack them, at this time, several soldiers ran up to the city and reported loudly: "Qi Yu joined the army, it has been searched, it is all cloth and dye, there is no contraband!" ”

"Let them into town!"

Letting the caravan into the city means that this caravan does not have to pay for the road, although Jin Jiong is also quite unwilling in his heart, but there is no way, this is the caravan of the Pei family, and he can't help but give Pei Lin face.

The soldiers moved out of the way, and the caravan began to slowly enter the city, one mule after another, carrying heavy goods into the cave.

Jin Jiong came down from the city gate, he saw dozens of guards with knives, his brows couldn't help frowning, people on horseback with knives are not allowed to enter the city, at this moment, an old fat middle-aged man stepped forward and bowed and smiled: "Does Jin Join the Army remember the villain?" ”

"You're—"

"Joining the army may have forgotten that when he joined the army last year and Pei Xiangguo came to the Baigong jewelry store in Dongshi, he joined the army received by the villain, do you still have an impression of joining the army?"

"You.... Your surname is Du. Right? Jin Jiong finally remembered.

"The villain is Lao Du, the shopkeeper of the Baigong jewelry store."

"It turned out to be the shopkeeper Du, why, didn't you do it in the jewelry store?" Jin Jiong asked with a smile.

"Back to join the army, the Baigong jewelry store is also the Pei family's industry, the villain was transferred to the Pegasus Commercial Bank as a deputy deacon today, this time with six thousand fine linen and eight hundred ingots of dye to Taiyuan City, these guards are all Pei family members, very important to our caravan, and please take care of Jin to join the army."

When the words arrived, a gold ingot was stuffed into Jin Jiong's hand, Jin Jiong weighed it slightly, it weighed about ten taels, this harvest was good, he immediately smiled and said: "It's not easy to make a living outside!" Well, forget it this time, let's not take an example! ”

"Thank you Kim for joining the army."

The gold entered his pocket, and with a wave of his hand, eighty guards also followed the caravan into the city, nearly a thousand healthy mules, two hundred men and eighty families, and soon crowded several inns.

Although Wei Chigong's army appeared near Taiyuan City, the news had not yet reached Huoyi County, which had not yet entered a state of war for the time being, and many years of peaceful life had made the people and defenders here a little forgetful, and such a large-scale caravan entered Huoyi County so easily.

(To be continued.) )