"According to you, is this a bandit or an outlaw caravan?"

"The last general can't say it well, he doesn't embarrass Ding Zhuang, he doesn't bully women, he just grabs some chickens and ducks and the like......"

Li Chong repeated the words of the farmer in Fang Cai, and he was very incomprehensible, whether it was a bandit or a horse team, such behavior was really unpredictable.

"Probably as their county guard said, the army of the local guard station had some clash with the villagers. I think the border army is arrogant, and there are things that rob the people. ”

Li Chongwu said to himself, and both of them felt that they could only make such conjectures.

"We haven't really seen it, but everyone we have seen it says it's not our people from the west."

Cheng Ye recalled the words of the farmer, but he was still confused.

He leaned his mouth into the skin and drank the water from the well in the farmhouse's yard, but spit it out.

"It's still a salty taste."

The life of the border people in the west is so difficult, the taste of this water alone is difficult to swallow, even Ah Xiao, who has lived in northern Xinjiang since childhood, is not used to it.

Cheng Ye suddenly remembered that this was originally the domain of King Yanling, in the most barren corner of Dachen's western frontier.

Seeing that the king of Yanling was mediocre, he was afraid that he would not be able to hold the sealed land, so Mingzong gave him the three guards of the Futu that he had painstakingly built to deter the Tuxilu and the surrounding small tribes in the Western Regions.

"After a few days' journey, we will arrive at the border of Tuxilu."

Li Chong stopped in the middle of the road, looked at the light gray sky that was gradually darkening, and said.

I think it's going to snow.

The land of western Xinjiang is sparsely populated, Rao is an official road is also in disrepair, full of gravel and yellow sand, in the middle of winter, the snow does not fall and there is still frost and soil frozen out of the ice edges all over the ground, it is extremely difficult to walk the horse.

Cheng Ye remembered his favorite poem when he was a child, "The wind roars in September in Luntai, and the gravel of a river is as big as a bucket, and it walks with the wind and stones all over the ground." ”

Only then did I know that the heroic words in the poem are such insurmountable difficulties in reality.

In the past few days, due to the fact that the road has become more and more difficult to walk, and there are many civil officials in the mission who are not good at horseback riding, the mission marched extremely slowly, and it was not until after noon that it had to meet Cheng Ye and Li Chong, who were waiting in front.

"What's going on?"

Cheng Ye was taken aback when he saw the mission approaching against the wind.

There was an extra group of people in the crowd, and it seemed that it was the vendors who often walked the border.

Although the mutual market has been closed in recent years, there are always bold outlaws who desperately rely on smuggling to do business with the border people of Tuxilu in prison.

It is no secret in the western regions that some bold magistrates have colluded with them, and even clearly marked the price of how much silver taels they have paid, so that they can be exempted from the pain of detention.

"Uncle, what's going on?"

Cheng Ye was even more shocked when he saw that there were several guards around Shifan who had some minor injuries on their faces.

Lin Shifan understated it, the corners of his mouth curled up in a playful arc, and he snorted to the horse team on the side.

"It's nothing, there is a small group of mountain bandits attacking the caravan."

"Huh?"

Cheng Ye and Li Chong couldn't help laughing, why did they walk all night on the path next to the pipeline but it was too peaceful?

Turning his head to look at Lin Shifan's expression again, he looked up at the Dachen Dragon Banner that was raging in the west wind.

What kind of fierce mountain bandits dare to make waves on the official road, and they can't see the dragon banner of the embassy swaggering through the city?

Cheng Ye turned his head and took a deep look at a few men in the horse team, turned his horse's head close to Shifan, and described the things described by the farmers in detail one by one, and Shifan did not suspect him silently in his heart.

In the following days, the mission and the caravan have been uneventful, but it has snowed for two days in a row, the official road is muddy and difficult to travel, and the people's livelihood on the western border is withered, and the population within a radius of dozens of miles is rare.

Along the way, he admired his uncle the most, a Confucian general who was gentle and white on weekdays, and spent all his time in the capital to do his best to do extravagant things, but he didn't want to be in this bitter cold place, he still talked and laughed freely along the way, riding a horse and galloping in the ten miles of yellow sand and gravel.

Cheng Ye looked coldly, Lin Shifan, who was eating freeze-dried baked cakes with gray snow dumplings next to the official road full of dry grass, and his face was full of flying pride, which was no different from when he looked down on the ministers at the Kyoto imperial banquet to thank Jun'en.

He silently hid his respect for his uncle in his heart, and endured the pain under his thighs and sat up straight on the horse's back.

Looking at Cheng Ye's straight back, Ah Xiao also gritted his teeth and straightened himself from the horse.

"What kind of business did Boss Bai do this time?"

Shifan swallowed the dry food in his mouth with great difficulty, and asked as if unintentionally.

The leader of the horse team was called Bai Xian, about thirty years old, with a white face, three points of laughter when he saw people, and four points of untimely madness.

"It's nothing more than some silk, tea, and some leather goods with people. If you go back and sell it, you can make a little money, and the family can have some oil stars in the New Year's bowl. ”

"Walking in the west all the year round, can you do the business of the boss of Tongyuan Commercial Bank Jiang?"

"There are also a lot of big bosses who have made a fortune in the west of Dachen, and we haven't heard much of this person."

Bai Xian tried to recall as he muttered.

"Hahaha, I see."

Shifan and Bai Xian looked at each other and laughed.

"Isn't this too hasty?"

Cheng Ye looked at the horse team moving forward, leaned closer to Shifan, and said in a low voice.

"If someone doesn't want to reach this mutual market, there are more methods, and when they reach the territory of Tuxilu, people pretend to be their herdsmen to attack the mission, which makes the two countries unhappy, Dachen withdraws the mission, and even turns his face with Tuxilu, and the mutual market is impossible to talk about, this is a simple way."

"It's not a plan, it's more like a reminder to us."

Shi Fan looked at the people in front of him who were getting farther and farther away, and the gloomy color in his eyes became more and more intense.

There are many people who want to disturb the situation under the rule of the new emperor, especially the king of Yanling, who has repeatedly caused trouble, and I don't know which force sent this obviously pretending caravan.

"I think King Yanling is just blindly domineering, and all kinds of behaviors are really not done by the king, how can anyone obey?"

"At this time when the dynasty is not stable, it is the king of Yanling who has no intention, and the people behind him are not willing to give up. What's more, he's still such a domineering appearance, and he inevitably wants to make waves-"

Shifan turned his head to look at Cheng Ye, his expression was ambiguous.

"What's more, if you serve such a reckless and unintentional master, wouldn't it be easier to operate the means of tyrannical power and wealth accumulation?"

Since ancient times, it has been the cowardice of the lord that has led to the appearance of powerful ministers who have turned the clouds and rain.

Cheng Ye slapped a spirit steeply, and his mind became heavy.

It was the night to stay at the last post house in the west of Dachen, Tucheng Station.

"The people of the caravan did not move, they all slept in two inns, and no one of the post guards went out to deliver the news...... Fu also rested. ”

Cheng Ye made a brief report to Shifan, and he couldn't help but slander in his heart, if Fu Zhi was still in the courtyard tonight, he would probably say that he was enjoying the snow.

Shifan quickly wrote an address on the paper and showed it to Cheng Ye, and asked him to write it down by the candlelight, and lit it on the white candle casually, and the two watched the white paper burn into ashes on the ground.

"You cross the border alone on a fast horse tonight, go to Jiang Yuyi at this address, and ask him to send a team of people to Wuluo to meet the mission."

Shifan took out an envelope from his bosom and gave it to him, "Give him this letter, and ask him to contact the people in Kyoto to secretly check the whereabouts of the orchid who is entangled with Fu Zhi, and don't startle the snake." ”

"Uncle is not afraid that the letter will be robbed?"

Cheng Ye was surprised.

"They don't understand," Shifan patted him on the shoulder and smiled.

"Change into clothes over there after crossing the border, and remember not to be followed."