The smug smile on his stomach hurt and froze, and he opened his mouth to look at Xiang Xiaoqiang. Xiang Xiaoqiang shook the flashlight:

"Do you hear that? Answer me. ”

"Listen...... I hear you, Captain. ”

"Well," Xiang Xiaoqiang pointed the pillar of light back to the map, "Go on." ”

He swallowed his saliva with a stomachache, and said with a red face:

"Yes...... Captain, you see, the subordinates think that the river may not be either, because ......"

Speaking of which, for various reasons, more than a dozen major rivers have been excluded. The remaining small river of one or twenty meters wide was naturally excluded. Now there are a few major rivers left, such as the Wen River, the Daqing River, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the ancient Yellow River, which are basically determined to be in the south or west of Shandong, or in the northern part of Jiangsu.

Xiang Xiaoqiang turned off the flashlight, took off the raincoat, and was about to lead the whole team to ride along the riverbank in one direction, when a train chirped faintly in the distance.

That direction is west. Everyone was stunned, and they all stretched out their heads to look west, but the night was too dark, and they couldn't see anything even if they tried to look.

Xiang Xiaoqiang thought about it for a while, and said happily:

"Brethren, maybe we're in luck. The main north-south railway line in the east of Qingyu has only one Jinpu Road. According to our pre-skydive estimates, the landing place would not be too far west. Let's go, let's see, if this railway is a north-south direction, it should be the Jinpu Railway! ”

Ten people got on their bikes and rode west along the dirt road along the riverbank.

After riding carefully for about ten minutes, I heard a "tutu tu" sound in the distance, the sound was like a steam locomotive, but it felt a little different, a bit like a tractor driving very slowly. Xiang Xiaoqiang continued to ride with people looking ahead, and slowly, the voice approached.

On the wide river, a small steamer drove slowly and suddenly, dragging two open-top cargo ships behind them, very low, or most of them pressed under water, and the high black stuff on the boat, probably coal, was piled up.

The waves of water behind the small steamer slowly spread out in both directions. The river was pitch black, and by the reflection of the moonlight, you could see a lot of ice ballast and a lot of cinders piled up on both sides of the bank. The stones were black, even the withered grass was black.

Seeing that there are special cargo ships driving on the river, Xiang Xiaoqiang is now seventy or eighty percent sure that this is the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. It's so black and black here, there must be a coal wharf nearby. Illustrate the large coal mines in this area.

His mind quickly turned to the familiar map of China's mineral distribution, and recalled where there were large coal mines along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

Xuzhou. Jining. Only these two places have coal mines.

It should be Xuzhou. Because the coal mine in Xuzhou is not only much larger, but in this section, the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal runs exactly east-west.

If it is really Xuzhou, then it is to the hometown. It can't help but say that it is the will of heaven in the dark.

Xiang Xiaoqiang suppressed the excitement in his chest and said to the snail:

"Shout and ask the ship."

"Okay."

"You know how to ask, right?"

The snail was stunned:

"How do you ask?"

"Don't ask what kind of river this is, just ask how to go in the market, where is the bridge in this area. We came out in the dark to arrest people, and came back to get lost. ”

"Yes."

With a wave of his hand to Xiao Qiang, everyone retreated to the back, hiding in the shadows. He and the snail took a few steps forward and stepped on the shore. The snail shouted loudly to the boat:

"Hey—the ship's—hey—the boat's—"

After a few shouts, the small steamer cabin was lit up, and a figure came out with a gas lamp, stood on the boat and looked at the shore, and shouted in a rough voice:

"Who? What for? ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang was excited for a while, this person's accent is from Xuzhou! He told the snail to stand back, stepped forward himself, and shouted loudly in his native dialect:

"Hey, big brother who sails, please ask, do you know how to go in the listing? The two of us are lost! Do you know how there is a bridge in this area? ”

The man on the boat shouted:

"Two miles east along the river, there's a railway bridge! I don't know if I can let you live! The soldier looks at the bridge! ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang was a little puzzled, why was there still a Qing army guarding the bridge? This is already the rear of the Qing Dynasty, what are you doing guarding the bridge? Is it still a strategic location?

Just pondering, the man on the boat added:

"You two be careful, just see if you can get by, even if it's really not good, you can't make it, and then put your life in it!"

Then he flickered back to the cabin with the lamp, muttering:

"Alas,...... Now in this world, we only let you go north, not south...... Grandma's ......"

Xiang Xiaoqiang was creepy for no reason, and muttered in his heart what he meant by these two sentences, "If you can't get it and put your life in it", "Only let you go north, not go south". He was about to inhale and ask again, when a hand quietly tugged at his coat.

He looked back and saw that his stomach hurt. With a sincere face on his stomachache, he whispered:

"Captain, I know what's going on, I'll tell you. It's best not to ask too much about this matter. It's true. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang glanced at him, nodded, turned his face to the boat and shouted:

"Thanks, big brother!"

Then he turned back to his stomach ache and asked:

"Tell me about it, Ziteng. What's going on? ”

Stomach ache glanced at everyone, licked some chapped lips, and said:

"In fact, 'only let go north, not south', this matter, maybe everyone knows."

As soon as he finished speaking, he "chuckled" in his heart, knowing that he had said the wrong thing again, and the implication was that everyone knew it, only the captain didn't know. What do you do as captain for food?

He was afraid of another public beating, so he glanced at Xiaoqiang with some surprise, but found that Xiang Xiaoqiang's face was the same, smiled and nodded, and let him continue.

Relieved by the stomachache, he continued:

"Captain, many people flee to Daming every year on the Qing side. In order to prevent the people from fleeing south, the Qing captives used a lot of bloody methods. For example, if a person flees to the south, his family, and possibly relatives and friends, will have to be arrested and imprisoned in a labor camp, or in a mine to do hard labor, and he will generally not be able to get out for the rest of his life. The one who escaped, caught halfway and was sure to be shot. Sometimes the head of the person would be cut off and hung in that place for public display. Generally, the Qing captives will set up cards in the major places that must pass through to the south, and ordinary people go from the south to the north They don't ask, and when they encounter someone who goes from the north to the south, they have to stop and check, and find out that you want to escape, then it's over. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang asked:

"How do they know who's trying to run away and who's going out normally?"

Stomach ache:

"The Qing Lu manages the people differently from my Ming Dynasty. As long as you want, you can move anywhere, live anywhere and make a living, as long as you can apply for a visa from other people, you can enter and exit the country completely freely. But this is all in the 20th century, and the Qing Dynasty is still registering the people in order to restrict the free movement of the people. If the people have something to go out, they will go to the township and county to burn high incense, beg their grandfather to tell their grandmother, find a relationship to trust the door, and get a road, which is written on it, from where to where, and they have to take the household registration with them, so they dare to go. The card of the Qing army, check your road strips, and check your household registration to see if it can be matched. is often clearly right, he has to say that you have problems here and there are problems, and a knock on a bamboo bar is indispensable. If you see that you have two money in your family and you don't have any background, they call this 'catching a fat sheep', and if you arrest people and get them in, your family will have to give money. If you don't send money, you don't want to see people, and if you don't toss and die, you have to be shot with those who really escaped. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang listened silently, and sighed in his heart. This is the Qing Dynasty in the 20th century. Raising the army of the twentieth century, holding the weapons of the twentieth century, but running the people with the barbaric methods of the nineteenth century. The Qing Dynasty in normal history, although it also used the user registration, did not achieve this point. This was obviously due to the fact that there was a richer and more popular Ming Dynasty in the south, and the people of the north continued to flee south, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty became more and more a state ruled by military police and police like Tsarist Russia.

As for why the people of the north fled to the south, and not to the south? It is estimated that the Manchu government has been asking itself this question for more than 200 years. But they can't solve it. They probably tried to be like the Ming Dynasty, but they couldn't learn anything.

More than 200 years ago, a barbaric, ignorant, and greedy bandit broke into a scholarly house, killed the male owner, his wife and daughter, smashed all the furniture, porcelain, antiques, burned all the books, calligraphy and paintings, and even burned the exquisite house. When he thought that he could own this property in this way, he suddenly realized that all the good things had been destroyed by himself. When the bandit wanted to win the hearts of the people and run the house like the original owner, the servants who were lucky enough to survive under the butcher's knife were bent on escaping. Those staff and doormen who were reluctant to make a living became very servile, and when they saw him, they groveled, and never said a complete sentence except "Whoa, whoa, the slave should die".

……

Looking at the coal pulling boat that was still moving slowly in the distance, he took a deep breath to Xiaoqiang, looked at the dark and dreary earth, and waved his hand:

"Let's go, let's do our thing!"

All of them got on their bikes and rode east along the riverside according to the instructions of the boatman.

After riding for about two or three miles, the night sky in front of me was a little bright, and when I got closer, I could see a rolling hill on the other side of the river. But it seems to be shorter than the hills, and the ones are very sharp and steep. In the middle of the hill, there is a field of lights.

Riding closer, everyone could see clearly, it was a mountain of coal. In the middle is a large area of bright lights. At the water's edge of the wharf below the coal mountain, there are long and short cargo ships. There seem to be a lot of small houses around.

Under the yellow light of wind lamps and light bulbs, a dozen workers shouted trumpets and loaded coal into the ships at the docks. The chimney of the waterside steamer "suddenly" floated sparks, a hot scene.

Xiang Xiaoqiang was right, this is the coal terminal.

About a hundred meters to the east, there was a black thing across the river, and from the afterglow of the coal port, it was barely discernible that it was a steel bridge with several cement piers. That's supposed to be the railroad bridge. The sound of the train just now should be a train passing on this bridge.

Xiang Xiaoqiang gestured to his subordinates to silence them, and then tilted his ears to listen to the coal transporters on the other side.

Fortunately, there was no wind, and the night was quiet, although the loud shouts of the workers were quite clear across the river nearly 100 meters wide.

Yes, it's Xuzhou dialect. So sure, this is the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and across the river is the suburbs of Xuzhou. This railway was the Tianjin-Pudong Railway, which later became the Beijing-Shanghai Railway.

But Xiang Xiaoqiang only knew that the city had developed in later generations, and the opposite bank was the suburbs, and the cities were very small at this time, and it might be far away from the city to cross the river. If you count from the old city, there is a road of ten miles between the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal.

He turned around and said:

"Ziteng, contact home. It is said that we are now in the northern suburbs of Xuzhou, on the north bank of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, on the side of Jinpu Road. There is also our matter on the plane, and we ask them to cooperate as much as possible, so as to create the false impression that His Majesty has fallen into the territory of Qinglu. This is important. ”

With a stomachache, he hurriedly squatted on the ground, covered himself with a raincoat, shone a flashlight, took out a code book and pen and paper, turned to the page of the key set by the Hedong manufacturer, first wrote the message carefully, and then translated it into ciphertext, then opened the suitcase, put on headphones, turned on the radio, and sent a report to Nanjing.

The regular sound of the transmitter in the ear is not the "Didi" sound in the movie, but just the touch sound of "da-da", and the sound is very soft.

Xiang Xiaoqiang listened to the telegram behind him, observed the other side, and observed the railway bridge on the left, and couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive in his heart, and the scene of the German occupation army driving a car with a metal ring on the top of the car and looking for the resistance radio station from street to street came to mind. Then he secretly laughed, after all, this is the rear of the Qing Dynasty, not Pukou, not a war period, not to.

The response of the East Factory was very fast, and ten minutes after the telegram was sent, the call back came. According to the location of the parachute, the East Factory revised the arrangement in time, so that they could find a place to settle down first, and it was best to live in the city, and then go to a restaurant at noon the next day to have dinner and find the contact of the shopkeeper. He will provide them with the necessary help.

As for which restaurant it is and how to contact it, I will be ready to receive the report at 11 o'clock at noon the next day, and then give instructions.

It seems that Dongchang is also very cautious, for fear that they will be arrested before noon, and the shopkeeper will be exposed in vain.

"Well, eleven o'clock."

Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded, and with a stomachache, he wrapped a small stone in the paper that recorded the message and threw it into the canal.

He looked at the ripples spreading in a circle under the moonlight, and then looked at the railway bridge a hundred meters away, and ordered:

"Okay, now cross the bridge and enter the city! Ziteng, you are the first to go, responsible for dealing with the bridge guard. ”

After all, Xiang Xiaoqiang has just come to this era, and he doesn't know how the officers at the sticky pole deal with ordinary soldiers at this time, and to what extent the frame has to go, whether it should be arrogant or cold, I don't know it. Therefore, let the experienced agent behind enemy lines have a stomachache and walk in front, and he will follow behind.

Ten bicycles swaggered under the bridge, then each got down and carried the bikes up to the bridge.

To the left of the bridge is a small brick house with lights on, and on the right is a small pillbox more than one person high, with three black holes open for firing ports.

"Fuck, I'm tired...... I have a stomachache, I put down the car with a scolding scolding, patted the seat of the car twice, and looked around, "I said, who is standing guard here, the girl doesn't even turn on the lights, the black lights are blind, who is the gentleman riding into the river!" ”

Two figures flashed out of the small bunker, and two flashlights shone on the stomachache face.

"Yes, yes, take a shot, take a hard shot," the stomach hurt and didn't use his hands to block it, he opened his eyes and looked at the strong light, pulling the epaulettes on his coat, and guiding them, "Yes, take a good look here, take a good look." Do you see it clearly? I didn't see the next photo clearly. ”

The two pillars of light moved to his epaulettes, and suddenly "popped" and went out.

Two trembling voices in the darkness:

"Ah, big ...... Adult ......"

"Sir...... Long ......"

"What's the matter, do you see that?"

"Yes...... See...... I saw ...... clearly."

"Fuck, see? There are a few other brothers, and our chief, all going to take pictures! ”

"This ...... Sir...... We ......"

Just when the two GIs were trembling with fright, ten people behind them also came up with the car, and suddenly shouted with dissatisfaction:

"What's the matter, someone cares about it, no one cares? The black light is blinding! ”

"That is, where did the guards die? Hurry up and turn on the lights to cross the bridge! ”

"Is there anyone? Hey, the guys are from Nanming East Factory, has anyone caught them? ”

", you dare to yell like that. Let's talk about it first, you're alone, we're not. ”

"I said, are there any lights here?"

……

"I said Fuhai," he spoke to Xiaoqiang's voice in the dark, "don't talk nonsense anywhere, let them turn on the lights, hurry up." It's a railroad bridge, it's so narrow on the side, it's who fell down. ”

One person with a stomachache slapped them on the back of the head:

"Go, hurry, hurry!"

As if they had been pardoned, the two of them ran to the house, pulled the electric switch, and the three large light bulbs on the bridge were lit up, and the whole railway was brightly lit.

Ten men muttered and pushed the cart along the narrow concrete road by the railroad tracks across the bridge.

The railway bridge is not wide, there is only one railway on the bridge, which belongs to the monorail line. The wattage of the bulb was very large, the water surface under the bridge was very gentle, and the huge shadows of ten people were reflected in the strong light, like ghosts.

There is also a small bunker on the other side of the bridge in front, just now there was a noise here, and the two soldiers on the other side also carried guns to probe their brains, and saw that this group of living Hades was coming, and a soldier was so frightened that he got into the bunker, and the one who couldn't drill stood at the head of the bridge, hunching his waist, laughing, and trembling vaguely in his mouth:

"Hehe, coming, coming? Oh, go well, go well......"

Ignoring them, the ten men pushed off the bridge, got on the bike, and left.

There is a parallel road a few dozen meters away from the railway, not too wide, and can accommodate up to two cars in parallel, but it is asphalted, probably like the asphalt road in the countryside in later generations.

Although it is an asphalt road, the quality is very scummy, potholes, and it looks like it is in disrepair, like a dilapidated national highway next to a small county town in the poor countryside. Fortunately, the moonlight is very bright, otherwise it may not be easier to walk than the dirt road just now.

On the left is a large bare field, and grave mounds can be seen from time to time on the side of the road. Villages can be seen in the distance. On the right is the railway.

Xiang Xiaoqiang rode on the side, took out the luminous pocket watch with one hand and saw that it was almost five o'clock.

It's December, and it's still dark, as if it's darker than when I first skydive. The East doesn't even mean to shine at all. Maybe it's the "darkness before dawn".

……

Suddenly, a "giggle" laugh came from behind the mound in the field, and the night air was far away and very gritty.

Everyone was so shocked that their hairs exploded, pinched the brakes, stood on the ground with their legs, and looked ahead in surprise.

There was a dark shadow in the field on the left, moving, as if it was very short, staggering up the road, accompanied by the sound of "croak, croak", at once, slowly, as if clogs were stepping on the road.

In view of the fact that there are quite a few graves around, several people have already carried the pot-bellied box in their hands.