In the North Canal, the river is rolling from north to south, eight fiber ropes are dangling on the surface of the river, and eight slender men are prostrate and pulling a two-masted river boat on the embankment, the temperature in late autumn is already a little cold, and they are still naked.

"Zhenggang, Chuanzong, why don't they wear clothes, this autumn cold is coming, how can they stand it when they stop." Chen Xin looked at the figure on the shore at the bow of the boat and asked the two people next to him.

Dai Zhenggang and Lu Donkey were both born as slender men, so they naturally knew: "Brother Chen, if you wear clothes, they will be worn out in two or three days, and no one will wear clothes." When I first started pulling the fiber, my shoulder was bleeding, so I found a rag to cushion it. Saying that, Lu Donkey pulled his cotton clothes apart, and some scars were faintly visible on his shoulders.

There was a section of water in front of him that was a little faster, and eight slender men shouted the trumpet, and the loud voices echoed on the surface of the river, Chen Xin looked at it and smiled, in such a difficult environment, life is still so tenacious.

"And if it's colder in winter, they don't have any clothes on?"

Song Wenxian was also at the bow of the boat, stroking his beard and said, "The North Canal is frozen in winter, and there will be no boats at that time." ”

Lu Donkey also agreed: "That's true, we went to Tianjin in winter to help people transport goods by land, and the thaw in spring took a short time, and we were forced away by the Tang Guigong." Then he gritted his teeth and said, "If Lao Tzu had this knife at that time, he would have been cut down long ago." ”

Dai Zhenggang persuaded: "Don't chop all day long, although Tang Guigong is not a thing, it is not enough to kill." ”

"Why not, he still called someone to cut off my hand......"

Lu Donkey argued loudly with Dai Zhenggang, after he came back from going to sea, he didn't listen to Dai Zhenggang's words so much, although he still respected Dai Zhenggang, but when there was a difference of opinion, he had to fight, and now he never questioned what Chen Xin said.

Chen Xin ignored the quarrel between the two, his eyes fell on both sides of the river, the north was depressed in late autumn, the earth was covered with a gray hue, and some farmers were scattered in the fields, busy planting winter wheat.

Chen Xin and his entourage set off from Tianjin five days ago, took a passing grain ship to the north, and will arrive in Tongzhou today, Chen Xin brought a large group of people, Dai Zhenggang, Zhu Guobin, Lu Donkey, Song Wenxian, Hai Gouzi and Zhang Dahui, plus a Qin Lufang who was already in Beijing, a total of eight people, and the team was slowly growing.

"Mr. Song, can we get to Jingshi today?"

"I'm afraid I can't do it today, I can only get to Zhangjiawan before dinner, and I can't get there today anyway."

"Isn't the North Canal going to Tongzhou?"

"Only the grain ship can continue to Tongzhou, and we, the passengers, must disembark in Zhangjiawan."

Chen Xin nodded: "So we will live in Zhangjiawan today." Rent a few carriages tomorrow, and you will arrive in one day for sixty miles. ”

Dai Zhenggang had already finished arguing with Lu Donkey, and when he heard this, he said: "Brother Chen, let's walk, you and Mr. Song can just take the carriage." ”

Chen Xin said with a smile: "It is indeed a virtue to be thrifty as a substitute brother, but when you go out to do errands, you should take the car when you should take the car, and it is important to do things." ”

Lu Donkey also said: "Brother Chen is right, on behalf of the eldest brother, let's sit together." Dai Zhenggang had no choice but to agree, the sea dog and Zhang Dahui had never been in a carriage, and when they heard that everyone was in the car, they were excited.

In the afternoon, the river in front of him gradually opened up, the water flow also slowed down, and the slender man's body did not have to lie so low, Song Wenxian told Chen Xin that Zhangjiawan was coming. Although Chen Xin was a native of Tianjin, he was not familiar with Zhangjiawan, and after the completion of the Beijing-Kowloon Railway at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the status of the Grand Canal gradually declined, and by the time Chen Xin was born, Zhangjiawan Wharf had become a piece of farmland. In the past few hundred years, the vicissitudes of the sea, the river has also changed a lot, the river of Zhangjiawan has moved ten kilometers east, even if it is a native of Zhangjiawan in later generations, it is only blind to come.

Zhangjiawan soon appeared far away, it is at the confluence of the North Canal and Guoshui (a tributary of the Lugou River), the water flow is gentle, the river is very open, it is very conducive to mooring the boats, in the Yuan Dynasty because the fleet sent by the Cao transport officer Zhang Xuan first berthed here, it was named Zhangjiawan, it was an important commercial cargo and passenger terminal on the canal in the Ming Dynasty.

Chen Xin heard the loud slang tune of the mountain song from afar, and listened carefully: "Hide from people to get acquainted with private affairs to be obedient, Fu wants to be guessed, meet in front of each other and return the courtesy, and meet on the narrow road to dodge" (Note 1) After singing, several slender men laughed for a while.

Chen Xin laughed dumbly when he heard it, this mountain song that teaches people to pay attention to cheating is not something that can be sung everywhere after the reform and opening up, this Ming Dynasty is good, even some slender men can sing it. "Good!" Chen Xin applauded at the bow of the boat, and the slender men on the shore all looked over, and one of them even bowed slightly.

When Lu Donkey heard that Chen Xin liked it, he was not to be outdone, and he also sang with a hippie smile: "Greedy flowers are newly made to make headscarves and arrange flowers, and when my sister sees it, I will grab my hand to take it, take the flowers and eat Lang's milk, and Lang is greedy for white milk." "This Lu donkey has become a hooligan.

Zhang Dacheng and the sea dog heard loudly, especially Zhang Dahui, who stayed in the Qinglou for two or three months, Chen Xingang asked him to come back, and before he had time to ask him about his learning experience, he listened to it itchingly, and also howled: "My sister was born with a white chest, and it doesn't hurt for the lover to touch it, and the horse on the stone bridge has to be recognized extravagantly, and the surface machete is not damaged." The voice of the wild goose echoed across the river, and his was a little more rogue than the donkey, meaning that he had nothing to lose by touching the milk woman anyway.

"Good! Good! "This time it was Song Wenxian who was the first to call out, this person looked like a bad scholar, especially after being rich, every time he went to Tianjin, he went to the Qinglou to spend the night, Zhang Dahui met him several times in Qunfanglou, and he was most familiar with Song Wenxian in Chen Xin's followers.

Lu Donkey said loudly: "Brother General Assembly, how many white chests have you touched in the Qinglou. ”

"Three, none of them gave money." Zhang Dahui looked triumphant and raised three fingers.

Chen Xin patted him on the head: "Touch and touch, don't talk nonsense when you go back, your brother Liu knows that you have to scold you to death." ”

Zhang Dacheng said with a smile: "I touched my mother's daughter, what happened to Brother Liu." ”

A few people chuckled for a while, and the slender man on the shore also shouted for a while, and was about to sing again, when the owner of the boat in the cabin came out and scolded the shore for a while, and scolded a few slender men and dogs with blood, so they had to pull the fiber seriously and no longer dare to sing nonsense.

"What's the spirit?" Lu Donkey waited for the owner to return to the cabin, and said in his mouth, he was also scolded enough by the owner when he pulled the fiber before, and when he saw a similar situation, of course, he was on the side of the slender man, and the other people were disappointed and felt bored.

Chen Xin didn't want to do much, and he no longer provoked those slender men, and asked Song Wenxian beside him

"Mr. Song, I have never been to Tongzhou, and I don't know why the Grand Canal was chosen here as the starting point."

Song Wenxian said: "The four rivers of Tongzhou will flow, only more than 40 miles away from Jingshi, and there is Tonghui River directly to Jingshi, which is the starting point of the North Canal." ”

"Then why don't the grain be transported directly from the Tonghui River to Jingshi?"

Song Wenxian frowned and said: "It seems that the Tonghui River does not have a lot of water, and it is necessary to build locks layer by layer, and every time you reach a lock, you have to change boats, so only the grain used by the palace is transported through the Guò Tonghui River, and the others have to be transported by land." ”

Chen Xin suddenly said: "I see. ”

Song Wenxian added: "Here in Zhangjiawan, people from the south and north get on and off the boat here every year, but the goods may not be more than Hexiwu, but the Zhangjiawan grain warehouse is far more than Hexi. ”

While the two were talking, the slender man had already pulled the boat to Zhangjiawan, the town of Zhangjiawan was on the west bank, Guo Shui was also on the west side, the two banks of Guo Shui and the west bank of the canal were connected by boats, the shops on the shore were lined up, and the pedestrians were like ants, which was generally similar to the two banks of the canal in Tianjin and Hexiwu, but the number of wharves was significantly more than that of the latter two places.

The North Canal is flowing from north to south, from Tongzhou to Tianjin is a downstream, no need for a slender man, the boats that pull fiber are from Tianjin, generally go from the east bank, to get off the goods in Zhangjiawan, they will first pull to the upstream, and then turn around and come back to dock, but a few people take a grain boat, do not go to Zhangjiawan, have to get off the boat on the east bank, and take a ferry to the west bank.

Chen Xin got off the boat and looked around, a low thatched shack on the east bank was similar to the kind where Dai Zhenggang and they used to live, outside the shantytown, a group of children looked at the dock with dull eyes, most of them were ragged, even shirtless, all skinny, with black stains on their faces, and occasionally a woman walked out, also staggering, as if they could fall down at any time, similar to the African refugee camps that Chen Xin had seen on TV, and formed a strong contrast with the prosperity of the West Bank.

"Brother Chen, there are five or six thousand slender men in Tongzhou and Zhangjiawan, all of whom live in this kind of place." Dai Zhenggang looked at this once familiar scene and said to Chen Xin: "In another ten days, these ships will go south, the slender man will have no income, those who are close to home will have to go back, and those who are far away and those who have nowhere to go can only stay here, and it would be good to have eighty percent of them survive this winter." ”

Chen Xin asked in slight surprise, "So many people want to die?" ”

Lu Donkey snorted: "The canal is generally not frozen until March next year, and there is no income for a few months of freezing, the government is afraid that they will make trouble, and the porridge will be distributed once a day in winter, so that it can shine on people, and women and children can not finish eating, so they must share some to men, otherwise next year men will not be able to pull the fiber, and the family will starve to death, and many people will die every winter." ”

"Why are they going nowhere?"

Lu Donkey said: "The last time I pulled through the state, I met a few, many of them are homeless, either from Henan, Shandong, or Liaodong into the customs, what else can you do if you don't do this, some families are outcast, all pointing to the man's family to work, anyway, it is also bitter." ”

Chen Xin looked at the boat he was on just now, the slender man had continued to pull forward, the owner of the boat was going to rush to Tongzhou today, the slender man shouted the trumpet neatly, and walked with a bow in unison, Chen Xin's face floated with a professional smile.

Song Wenxian looked at Chen Xin's appearance and asked, "Brother Chen, but you have a crush on these people?" Among these people, there are many White Lotus, Wenxiang, and Luo Zuke. ”

Chen Xin nodded and said: "It's a fancy to it, but I can't eat it in one bite, it doesn't matter if there is a cult, if I have a thousand people and recruit a hundred people, in the end there will be no white lotus, but if I only have a hundred people and recruit a thousand people, then all of them will become white lotus." ”

Song Wenxian nodded and said, "That's the reason." ”

Chen Xin didn't say anything, in fact, the most important thing is that as long as he can give them food and clothing, it is useless to teach anything, as long as he enters the barracks, kicks the leader of the cult, manages it in a closed manner, brainwashes him for several months, plus he has food and clothing, and controls his family, most of them will not think about what to teach anymore. So you really can't eat too much at a time, just watch these slender men shouting trumpets and pulling fibers in unison, they are the best source of soldiers. If the imperial court uses some brains, don't let them die meaninglessly, but gather into an army and train it, it will definitely be a combatable army.

"Guobin, what do you think of these people as soldiers?" Chen Xin suddenly asked Zhu Guobin, who didn't speak behind him.

Zhu Guobin said: "Lord Baihu, according to Grandpa Qi's method of military selection, most of these people can be good soldiers. ”

Chen Xin pondered for a moment, how much did he take away when he arrived, Chen Xin looked at the group of ragged children outdoors in the shed, how many of them could survive this winter.

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Note 1: The three slang songs are all from Feng Menglong's "Mountain Songs", and many of the songs included in the mountain songs are related to pornography, hehe, which shows the openness of the atmosphere of the late Ming Dynasty.