"Oh, could it be that there's a place nearby where a lot of grain is stored?" When Zhao Yan heard Hu Yicheng's words, he couldn't help but ask with some surprise.

"Hehe, the old slave knows, presumably Hu Yicheng is talking about the grain escorted by Wang Xu, right?" As soon as Zhao Yan's words fell, he heard Huang Wude next to him suddenly laugh, and at the same time glanced at Hu Yicheng meaningfully, thinking that although this Hu Yicheng looks honest, he is also a person who will take revenge, if Wang Xu's military rations are less, no matter what the reason, I am afraid that he will not be able to pay the difference after going back, which is probably also to avenge the slap by the other party's people yesterday.

"Cough~, my father-in-law is wise, and the villain only thought of this method out of desperation, I hope my father-in-law understands!" Hu Yicheng is also an old slippery head, when he saw Huang Wude's appearance, he immediately coughed dryly and apologized, fortunately he didn't know Huang Wude's identity in advance, and he didn't dare to play such a cautious eye in front of the other party if he was killed.

Zhao Yan is not a stupid person who is ignorant of human accidents, and naturally he also sees Hu Yicheng's selfishness, but now there is only one way, after all, he can't let these more than 3,000 people go hungry, so after thinking about it for a while, he instructed Huang Wude: "Old Huang, you will come forward to talk to Wang Xuan about this matter, let him take out some food to help him first, and then I will write a note by hand, and I will not let his superiors blame him!" ”

"The old slave will do it!" Huang Wude heard Zhao Yan's instructions and immediately said, when he was in the capital, he only listened to Zhao Shu's orders, and now that he left the capital, he naturally focused on Zhao Yan, and he also knew that Zhao Yan didn't want to see Wang Xu, so he let him come forward, which was also a good opportunity to share Zhao Yan's worries.

With Huang Wude's identity, even the Hezhong prefect behind Wang Shu was a little polite when he saw him, so it was enough for him to come forward to get this matter done, and Zhao Yan didn't take it to heart. It's just that what he didn't expect was that after a while, he saw Huang Wude come in with Wang Shu with a wry smile, which made Zhao Yan and Cao Song very surprised, Huang Wude should know that Zhao Yan didn't want to see Wang Xu, and it should be impossible to bring the other party in with his shrewdness. Could it be that there is a reason for this?

"King Jun, I'm afraid we're really going to starve these days!" As soon as Huang Wude came in, he immediately said to Zhao Yan with a wry smile.

"What's going on?" Zhao Yan asked in a deep voice, and at the same time turned his head to look at Wang Shu beside Huang Wude.

I saw Wang Xuan salute Zhao Yan Shen at this time and said: "The king of the county doesn't know, although he is nominally escorting grain and grass, but in fact, it is just to cover people's eyes, this time the escort is mainly firearms sent from the capital, and there is not much real food, even if we add our dry food." It's not enough for 3,000 people to eat for a few days! ”

"What? Firearm? Zhao Yan also stood up in shock when he heard this, and then walked to the window to look out, he lived on the second floor, and at a glance he could see dozens of big cars parked outside, these big cars were only twenty or thirty meters away from him, in case of explosion, I am afraid he would be torn to pieces in an instant.

"Whew~, fortunately it's raining now. Otherwise, in case of an accident, I'm afraid the entire post station will be bombarded into the sky! Zhao Yan secretly wiped a cold sweat and muttered to himself.

No one knows gunpowder better than he does. Don't look at the front-line soldiers who rely on firearms to fight invincibility, but gunpowder also has many shortcomings, such as the instability of gunpowder, and there are countless accidents that occur because of gunpowder, at least hundreds of craftsmen have died in such accidents, and accidents are also prone to occur in the process of transporting gunpowder. He remembered that a month ago, a team transporting gunpowder was blown up into the sky due to an accident, and more than half of the whole team was killed and injured at once, these are bloody lessons, if he, the inventor of gunpowder, also died in a gunpowder accident, I am afraid I don't know what future generations will say about him?

Wang Shu escorted gunpowder. This thing naturally can't be eaten, and in the end, Zhao Yan had to let him take out the food used as a cover up to save the emergency, hoping that the rain could stop within two days, otherwise everyone would only starve. In addition, Zhao Yan did not forget to ask Wang Shu to pull the cart loaded with gunpowder to a place far away from the post station, so as not to raze the post station to the ground in case of an accident.

Maybe it's Zhao Yan's luck, this continuous autumn rain finally stopped after two more days, the weather also turned from cloudy to clear, the big sun in the sky emitted endless heat, it seemed to be to emit their last energy after this autumn rain, which also made the road dry quickly, Zhao Yan and they waited for another day, and immediately set off on the road, as for Wang Xu, they were actually on the same road with Zhao Yan, but Zhao Yan didn't want to be with a bunch of gunpowder, so he accelerated his speed and distanced himself from the other party.

However, when Cao Song was on the road, he once reminded Zhao Yan that firearms were the top priority of the Great Song Dynasty, and officials at all levels also attached great importance to it, Wang Shu was able to be sent by the prefect of Hezhong to escort firearms, so it can be seen that he is still more valued, and he may be able to become an official again with the recommendation of the prefect of Hezhong in the future, Zhao Yan didn't care too much about this, anyway, Wang Shu has nothing to do with Princess Bao'an, and how he tosses it has nothing to do with him.

Next, Zhao Yan and they did not encounter too bad weather, all the way to the northwest, Xu passed through Qingzhou and other places, and finally came to Xi'an, Zhao Yan who sat in the rear of the town has been staying here, when Zhao Yan on the carriage saw the city wall of Xi'an Prefecture from afar, he couldn't help but sigh, after more than a month of trekking, finally arrived at the destination.

Xi'an Prefecture is one of the busiest cities on the border of Western Xia, and now after being occupied by the Great Song Dynasty, it has also become the base camp of the Great Song Dynasty to invade Western Xia, and most of the materials transported from the Great Song Dynasty are hoarded here, and then turned to the various armies on the front line, most of these affairs are handled by Zhao Ji himself, which is also what he is best at.

As the base camp of the Song army, Xi'an Prefecture is naturally stationed with a large army, and the defense is very tight, Zhao Yan and their team has not yet come to the city gate, they have been stopped by the patrol team, and after Huang Wude's people showed the passage documents, the other party was released, but this is only the beginning, and then there are several checkpoints to check Zhao Yan's identity, and it is not easy to enter the city.

When the carriage entered Xi'an, Zhao Yan deliberately opened the window to look at the Xixia Jiancheng up close, only to see that the tall city wall of Xi'an Prefecture was full of black depressions, which were left by the explosion of cannonballs, and the city gate hole was also black, it is said that the city gate was blown open with a large amount of gunpowder, and Zhao Yan found that the city gate was also new, it seems that the city gate here was indeed blown up.

After passing through the city gate hole, Zhao Yan immediately felt a lively atmosphere rushing to his face, although the outside of the city was heavily guarded, but the city was like another world, only to see that the shops on the streets on both sides of the city gate had been opened, and some small vendors placed in the open air were also very lively and shouting, including Song people and Tubo people, and even some party members, all of them were leisurely and complacent, it seemed that they had already gotten rid of the war, Only the occasional Song patrols passing through the streets showed that it was still at war.

It is worth mentioning that the Western Xia is a country established by the party members, and the status of the party people in the Western Xia is naturally the highest, especially the plundering nature of the Western Xia, many Han people who were robbed back from the Great Song Dynasty became slaves, and were wantonly oppressed by the party members.

However, although the Song army now occupies a lot of places in the Western Xia, the Song army has not done any retaliation against the Western Xia people, and it remains the same, which is mainly to stabilize the people's hearts, so that the occupied Western Xia people will not resist on a large scale, these are also what Zhao Yan learned from Zhao Shu, and even he knew that Zhao Shu was already formulating a plan for the division and disintegration of the Western Xia people, and when the Western Xia was completely occupied, this plan would be truthful step by step, and any Western Xia people who dared to resist would be ruthlessly suppressed, If this plan is successfully implemented, then there is no need to worry about the Western Xia region breaking away from the rule of the Great Song Dynasty like last time.

Zhao Yan also entered the city of the Tangut people for the first time, and he was very curious to look around, but he was soon a little disappointed, because the economy of the Western Xia was much worse than that of the Great Song Dynasty, and the goods sold on the market were nothing to see, of course, this is also a bit too absolute, some of the goods of the Hu merchants from the Western Regions are still somewhat interesting, the Xixia is just blocking the original Silk Road, and the Hu merchants of the Western Regions can only come to the Western Xia with goods, and they are rarely able to go to the Great Song Dynasty, so there are many Hu merchants here, There are even some brown-haired and blue-eyed bearded girls who are selling goods, but it's a pity that Zhao Yan doesn't have time now, otherwise he can choose a few of them to take home as gifts.

Zhao Yan was rushed by Zhao Shu to scold Zhao Xu, so he didn't inform Zhao Yan in advance, and when his carriage stopped at the Shuai Mansion in the center of the city, he let people go in to report, this Shuai Mansion was originally the capital of Xi'an Prefecture, Zhao Ji directly changed a plaque after he moved in, and the guards were much stricter than before.

Zhao Ji also just received the news sent by the city patrol soldiers, knowing that an army from the capital came to the city, he was guessing why this army came, but he didn't expect someone outside to report that his younger brother Zhao Yan was waiting outside the gate of the Shuai Mansion, which made Zhao Ji also surprised and happy, and hurriedly ran to the door to greet him in person.

Zhao Yan and Cao Song also got out of the carriage and were looking around the scenery around this handsome mansion, when they saw Zhao Yan coming out of the gate, Zhao Yan immediately laughed and stepped forward and said: "Big brother, I haven't seen you for a long time, you have caused a lot of trouble!" ”

Zhao Yan was stunned for a moment when he heard Zhao Yan's words, and then immediately reacted, and said with a wry smile at the moment: "It turns out that the third brother, you were sent by your father, I don't know how your father asked you to deal with this matter?" (To be continued......) R1292