Leaving Yu'er Town in a hurry, Li Rujing led more than 20 guards to Changyi overnight. The carriage specially found on the road was full of holes, and it kept creaking and creaking on this not wide dirt road. Li Rujing and his entourage did not dare to take the official road, so they could only follow these paths and go straight to Changyi.

From time to time there was a sound of sobbing in the carriage, which was particularly noticeable in this dark night. Li Rujing frowned, and one of the guards beside him suddenly understood, raised his horsewhip and prepared to scold the people in the car. Li Rujing was on the horse, grabbed the arm he had just raised, and shouted in a low voice: "Give them some water and dry food, they are the people named by their father-in-law, don't wait for them!" ”

The guard nodded yes and casually threw the water bladder and dry food bag into the car.

As the sobbing in the car gradually stopped, Li Rujing finally breathed a sigh of relief. After counting on his fingers, it has been more than a month since he left Zhang Xianzhong's camp, and he has been squatting in Yu'er Town for about ten days, and finally he has waited for the person he is waiting for, and it is finally worth the trip. Although Shandong has undergone repeated turmoil, and the Tatars only retreated from here at the beginning of the year, after all, it is the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty official army, and Li Rujing has always been cautious, for fear of a business trip. Early this morning, Li Rujing has turned all the people who follow him into two teams, one team is exploring the road in front, and he is holding back with the "invited guests", once something unexpected happens in front, he will change the route at any time, in short, to ensure that the guests arrive safely at Zhang Xianzhong's camp.

The dark and dense trees on the side of the road are constantly swaying with the wind, but fortunately, the moonlight tonight is still bright, and the whole road is reflected very clearly, otherwise, Li Rujing really does not dare to walk this night road. Looking at the time, the group of people in front should have arrived outside Changyi City, and they should have settled down at this time.

Thinking about the hot soup and meal that was about to be enjoyed more than ten miles away, everyone was in high spirits.

However, in the blink of an eye, Li Rujing suddenly smelled a familiar smell, which could only be smelled on the battlefield, a smell of blood, and then Li Rujing's ears caught a sudden bowstring sound in the woods beside the road.

Li Rujing almost instinctively leaned to the side of the horse, and shouted at the same time: "Be careful! A strong wind whistled across his face, and then a feather arrow was deeply nailed into the trunk of a big tree beside Li Rujing.

The two guards at the front of the queue suddenly became short, and under the two exclamations, even the man and the horse fell down, and before they could get up, the sword in the grass was bright, and before the two could react, they were cut to the ground. Apparently something like a tripwire has been pulled up on the path.

The guards behind were frightened, and finally reined in the horses, and at the same time, the grass on both sides of the road throbbed, and two clusters of feathered arrows shot out at the same time, and the guards could not dodge, and when even five or six people did not snort, and planted their horses.

"Could it be the ringing horse of the robbery?" A thought instantly turned in Li Rujing's mind. Impossible, on the way here, Li Rujing's subordinates took Zhang Xianzhong's token and told all the people on the rivers and lakes in Shandong that there should not be such an eyeless fellow in the rivers and lakes who had the courage to rob the people and horses of the eight kings. What's more, this time it's just an escort just a person, and it's not any gold, silver and jewelry, Shandong Lvlin Road shouldn't be a hindrance!

While Li Rujing was thinking, his figure did not hesitate, his feet broke off the stirrups, and with a little force on the horse's back, his body quickly pounced on the grass shot by the feather arrows.

But in mid-air, Li Rujing's pupils shrank suddenly, because two spears stretched out from the grass, and the tips of the spears flashed a little cold light under the glow of the moonlight, piercing Li Rujing's chest.

Li Rujing was startled, and in a hurry, he could only swing the steel knife in his hand to open the two spears, so as to avoid the bad luck of being pierced through the chest by the spear, and threw himself directly into the grass, but as soon as his feet landed, three black shadows pounced around him, and the blade in his hand firmly entangled Li Rujing.

Then in the moonlight, Li Rujing clearly saw that there were no less than thirty black-clothed people in ambush in the grass, and at this time, they had already killed their guards with knives and guns, and there were clearly several corpses in the open space not far away.

There was already a helpless scream of a woman on the carriage, Li Rujing was suddenly startled, slashed out several times in a row, forced back the enemy in front of him, and shouted loudly: "Protect the carriage and retreat!" ”

Li Rujing cut down a black-clothed man dressed all over, galloped to the carriage, and the guards also dismounted, standing with the black-clothed men in ambush on both sides of the road. Seeing that these people are advancing and retreating to a certain extent, it is clear that they are not characters such as Xiangma, and Li Rujing's heart suddenly fell to the bottom.

……

Zhu Ping'an and others had already entered Shandong, and in Jinan Prefecture they met with the newly appointed prefect of Shandong, the political envoy, the envoy of the procuratorate, and the governor Yan Jizu. At present, Shandong, because of the ransacking of the Tartars, the officials have almost been purged, except for the previous governor Yan Jizu, but he will not be in office for too long.

This is due to the fact that during the Battle of Hebei, Yan Jizu was ordered to rush to Hebei with Shandong grain and grass, which was originally ordered by the Ministry of War. But after the Qing soldiers Yue Tuo Department entered Shandong, causing the king of Germany to be taken captive, the state capitals were looted by the Qing army, Yang Sichang in order to shirk responsibility, he took Yan Jizu as a scapegoat, although Yan Jizu has a good official reputation, but in the midst of the chaos, he is responsible for the governor of Shandong, so this denunciation can not be avoided no matter what, bad luck, I am afraid that even his life is worried.

There is also Liu Zeqing, the chief soldier of Shandong, who is also Zhu Ping'an's top boss, who mixes in Shandong's one-third of an acre, and it is unreasonable not to meet him, but now he is leading the troops outside, and he will not be able to see him for a while.

After meeting the chief official of Shandong, Zhu Ping'an planned to go south again to meet Zhu Yihai, the king of Lu who was in Yanzhou, but the news from Yanzhou was that since the Tatars entered the prison, especially the fall of Jinan, the German king Zhu Youshu and his son were taken away by the Qing army, Zhu Yihai was frightened and couldn't afford to get sick, and he still lingered on the sickbed and didn't see outsiders at all. Therefore, Zhu Ping'an could only give up.

So, Zhu Ping'an and his entourage set off from Jinan and entered Qingzhou along the line of Licheng, Zhangqiu and Zibo, without notifying the cities along the road, and appreciated the customs of Shandong all the way. After the Tatars entered the Kou, Shandong was full of devastation, even if it was an official road, there were still few pedestrians along the road. Since Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, Shandong has always been peaceful, not to mention the increasingly fierce rebellion of the displaced people in recent years, but this horse thieves will make the whole Shandong panic, plus there is a long history of Maitreya, Wenxiang, Sanyang and other branches of the White Lotus Sect to make a rebellion, Shandong seems to be the people are not living, and the Qing army is pushing the whole Shandong into the bottomless abyss.

On the wide official road, except for the homeless people, sometimes you can't see the carriages and horses of merchants all day long, and the villages you pass along the way are already dilapidated and deserted. After the post stations in Shandong were dismantled, they were not rebuilt, so Zhu Ping'an and others took the towns they passed along the way as a resting place and avoided spending the night in the wilderness as much as possible.

But Rao is like this, and the ruin of Shandong is still greatly beyond everyone's expectations, such as the place where the original stop was scheduled tonight, that is, Majiaying between Weixian and Changyi. Originally, it was a prosperous place between the two states of Denglai, but when I arrived, I found that it was burned down as early as when the Qing army entered the country, and now it is already a ruin, and everyone has no choice but to continue to march towards Changyi, but seeing that the sun is setting, it seems that today is really going to sleep in the wilderness.

Fortunately, Zhu Ping'an and others are used to living a military life, and this problem is really not difficult. Now that it is the middle of July, Shandong is also a major drought in various places, there is no wind and rain, and it is naturally not difficult to sleep in the wild. The only thing to watch out for is the presence of thieves and ringing horses at night.

The number of people on Zhu Ping'an's trip is not small, because considering the safety problems on the road, Zhu Ping'an and Lu Xiangsheng specially arranged for Yang Dekai to lead 50 personal soldiers to send him back to his hometown, although Lu Xiangsheng didn't care, but if there is a trend of chaos today, Zhu Ping'an doesn't want Lu Xiangsheng, who he finally saved, to have any accidents.

Even so, Zhu Ping'an was accompanied by a team of more than 150 people on this trip. Wang Jinfa, the blind Shen Ke, the brocade guards sent by Wang Chengen, Guo Chai, Cao Wuxian, and Yin Shigang were all in the team.

Along the way, Yin Shigang was born as a literati after all, and he couldn't compare to Zhu Ping'an and others with rough skin and thick flesh, and when he arrived in Jinan, his body already felt unwell, and when he arrived in Weixian, he began to have a high fever, which frightened Zhu Ping'an, and hurriedly found a doctor in Weixian for diagnosis and treatment, and stayed for a few days, Yin Shigang's condition gradually stabilized.

The camp was chosen next to a stream, and while speaking, the guards had already collected firewood and lit two bonfires, which were about twenty miles away from Changyi, but at this time, they must have closed the city gate to Changyi, and it was useless to hurry, so they simply camped.

Yin Shigang couldn't stand the wind, so he stayed in the carriage to rest, Shen Ke had already brought more than a dozen guards with outstanding archery skills into the dense forest, and went for a while but returned in defeat. Shandong drought, grain harvest, the official road around the woods, not to mention birds and beasts, even wild fruits can not see few, these more than ten people, tired all over the body is sweat, but only found a few hares and pheasants, nothing else.

Zhu Ping'an originally thought that Guo Chai, who was born in Jinyiwei, couldn't bear this kind of suffering, but these days, Guo Chai has not mentioned his opinion once. This person said very little, and no one in the team paid attention to him except Zhu Ping'an, but he was also calm, and he was silent when no one spoke.

The camp was set up, seeing that Zhu Ping'an's arrangement was the head, and more than ten guards were sent to spread out to guard on all sides, Guo Chai nodded secretly, looked at Shen Ke who was roasting wild game not far away, exchanged a meaningful look with each other, and walked to the river by himself, took off his clothes, and jumped into the river to take a bath.

Zhu Ping'an observed this person's every move, and saw that he was so peaceful, and his perception of him in his heart was getting better and better, although he didn't know what Wang Chengen's intention was to place Guo Chai in the army, but now it seems that Wang Chengen has no malicious intent.

While thinking about it, Guo Chai, who was washing heartily, stood up in the river with a "bang", and under the reflection of the lights on the shore, Zhu Ping'an suddenly found that his face was inexplicably tense, and then he walked naked to a pile of aquatic plants on the shore.

After searching in the aquatic grass for a while, Guo Chai dragged something to the shore, and everyone couldn't help but exclaim, looking at the thing, it was clearly a corpse. R1152