At the time of the incident, the soldiers on the shore had finished their lunch and had just begun to pull the fiber.

Guo Xu and Xu Zhihao held the rope side by side, reminiscing hotly about their iron-making careers.

Before Guo Xu's grandfather came to Jiangnan, he always thought that southerners were inherently weak, and they had a lot of water on their bodies, not as much blood as northerners.

When he first arrived in Jiangnan, he saw that the local man had been arguing on the street for two hours and still didn't fight, he would be contemptuous:

If you are in Guanzhong, you have already played three games in this half a day!

But as the days went by and the more I knew, I gradually stopped mocking. The north has the strength of the north, the south has the flexibility of the south, and the stones of the north may not be able to withstand the water drops of the south.

His respect for the local area began with his old profession of forging swords from iron.

The Jiangnan sword casting is miraculous, and the hundred steels are beaten into finger wrapping, which has long surpassed the Central Plains.

The seemingly thin and slender blacksmiths in Jiangnan have long understood the secrets of creation and know how to inject the soul of the sword into the edge of the sword. If there is no such first-class weapon cheats, how can Wu Wangfucha be in full swing to deter the Three Jins? How did Xiang Yu's eight thousand children go forward and run rampant in the world? How did Sun Ce and Zhou Lang dominate Jiangdong and defeat the Northern Heroes?

By the time Guo Xu was seven or eight years old, his grandfather and father were already purely locals when it came to iron. They would sandwich a piece of iron between a piece of steel, fold and forge it repeatedly until the two were completely combined, and the carbon slag in their body would precipitate in a round of blows, leaving behind a sword embryo with just the right amount of stiffness and toughness. Such a sword, if you look closely, there will be various shapes of patterns on the blade, or like flowing water, or like clouds, or like flowers, or like snakes, this is the so-called hundred folding knife.

The hundred-fold knife built by the Guo family has always been purchased by the imperial court forbidden army at a fixed point, and it is forbidden to sell it to others. In fact, the sword ordered by the emperor and the generals of the forbidden army, the father and son of the Guo family will fold and forge thousands of times, light and sharp, bright and cold, and it is the best of the best.

Xu Zhihao's family also made swords, but they didn't mix with Cheng Dù, who struck iron for the emperor, so most of the processes of sword casting were the same. But when it comes to quenching, disagreements arise.

When the Xu family quenched, they would use the urine of cows and horses, thinking that this would make the sword tougher. Guo Xu only knew that when his father was alive, he was extremely particular about the water used for quenching, and often took water from a spring outside Jingkou City. The large wooden barrels for carrying water and the large tanks for storing water are dedicated and are not allowed to be mixed with water from other places. Guo Xu was accustomed to the cheerful sound and mist of the fiery sword embryo when it met the clear spring water, and he couldn't imagine the scene of the stinky cow and horse urine being suddenly heated.

Mung Bean interjected next to him: "Doesn't Brother Zhihao want to smell the urine of livestock every day?" ”

The soldiers around him burst into laughter.

Without waiting for Xu Zhihao to speak, the madman had already begun to deduce:

"My brother has something unclear about, and I need to ask my eldest brother. Do you quench with animal urine, do you always use a pool of old urine, or do you change new urine every day? If you keep using old urine, will it become invalid after a long time? If it's new urine, how can you get that much new urine? Do you need to bring a bucket every day and go to a large family to knock on the door to collect the urine of the livestock? ”

The soldiers laughed again. Guo Xu felt that he needed to maintain order, not that he was worried that Xu Zhihao would not be able to hang on his face, but that he was giggling like this, and he couldn't pull the fiber hard.

"Brethren"

As soon as he opened his mouth, he was choked by a sudden cross wind. It's always a northwesterly wind these days, and everyone is used to it. Today, I was happy, but I didn't realize that the wind direction had changed. At this moment, a strong southeast wind carried sand and dust, like a yellow dragon, swept towards the fiber pulling team, engulfing everyone in an instant.

The tall hull of the "Pingyu" big ship was forced out more than a foot away by the wind. The rope was originally tight, and as soon as the big ship moved, this force was instantly transmitted to everyone. When a man pulls a boat, the strength of the milk can only make it move; The boat pulls people, and with the movement of their fingers, people turn over on their backs.

Guo Xu only had time to turn his back. People are like a piece of paper, fluttering, leisurely, unable to step on their feet, unable to stand still.

A thought suddenly flashed through his mind, and he immediately shouted: "Steady! Squatting" but as soon as the voice came out of his mouth, it was immediately swept away by the wind. Before he could stabilize himself, he was thrown into the river, and the icy water poured into his mouth, almost suffocating him. The muscles of the whole body contracted in an instant. He coughed and slapped the water hard to keep himself afloat. By this time he found himself twenty paces away from the south bank.

Settle down and see Mung Bean, the madman and Xu Zhihao. They also found him. Guo Xu stepped on the water and waved his hand to signal everyone to gather together. In the end, he was surrounded by seven or eight people, like a drifting island, pushed by the swift river to the north bank downstream, to the territory of the Xianbei people.