This time to the south, still take the Hanzhong Road, down the Han River.

Lao Jin was worried all the way, saying if he wanted to bring a letter to Taibai Mountain? Lest the little lord be frightened? I'm afraid someone misunderstood that Lao Jin and Zhongshan kidnapped and even killed their master.

When he arrived in the three towns of Wuhan, Qin Beiyang wrote a handwritten letter and sent it to the Mozhi Tiangong Company in Pudong, Shanghai, which could be sent to Taibai Mountain through the flying pigeon. He told Ah You not to worry, and not to blame Lao Jin and Zhongshan, at least three or four months, at most half a year, he will definitely come back.

Lao Jin was relieved and went to a small restaurant called "Yellow Crane Tower" to feast on Wuchang fish with Zhongshan. Qin Beiyang talked about the allusion of the Three Kingdoms - Sun Hao, the emperor of the Eastern Wu Dynasty, wanted to move the capital from Jianye to Wuchang, and the prime minister "would rather drink Jianye water than eat Wuchang fish". Lao Jin patronized the fish bones, but did not hear the words of the master.

After eating Wuchang fish, swallowing hot dry noodles, and gnawing on the duck's neck, Lao Jin burped, and Zhongshan simply let out a stinky fart.

Lao Jin pleaded guilty in shame: "Master, I was born in Taibai Mountain, and since I was weaned, I have eaten kiwi fruit and nectar water twice a day. Although the kiwifruit of Taibai Mountain absorbs the essence of heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, the nutrition of three peaches, and the meat and greasy meat without half a catty, it can be described as the best in the world, but I have eaten it for 40 years, and I have already eaten it until I vomit! ”

Qin Beiyang smiled but did not speak. He spent the night in an ancient tomb by the East Lake, trying to breathe in the breath of 2,000 years ago before boarding a train heading south.

The Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, from the year of Gengzi to the present 22 years, has experienced the nationalization of the railway planned by Sheng Xuanhuai, the "road protection movement" that sounded the death knell of the Qing Dynasty, and the tug-of-war between the warlords of the north and the south......

The slow green train enters Hunan in spring. The railway was interrupted in Changsha. Three people and one beast, get out of the car and walk. Lao Jin went to the Miao peak at the south gate of Changsha, and instead of Meng Po, he sent a few dried chrysanthemums, burned three incense sticks, and dedicated them to Xiao Chaogui, the western king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, who ascended to heaven in this cannon. Qin Beiyang pinched his fingers and counted, Meng Po had been a widow for seventy years.

They hired a wooden boat by the Xiangjiang River, and the captain hoisted the sails and sailed upstream.

It's a night ship again. Qin Beiyang and Jiuse were in the bow of the ship, and they no longer dared to "stretch their feet".

The still water flows deeply, and the shadow of Yuelu Mountain is sufficient. The lights on the other side are like a dream. The moon boiled itself half-cooked like a pot of boiling soup.

Passing by the orange island in the heart of the river, Qin Beiyang thought of Ouyang Anna and Qi Yuanshan...... Classmates and teenagers, where are they at the end of the world now?

The spring breeze of the Xiangjiang River, the night is as cool as water, drilling into the canopy, and the head rests on the waves of the Xiangjiang River into a dream.

After three days of boating, it passed Nanyue Hengshan and Hengyang, and turned into Leishui, a tributary of the Xiangjiang River. This road is shallow and rapid, going upstream, the hills on both sides of the bank are mixed with paddy fields, and Qin Beiyang drives the nine colors to pull fiber. Until the mountainous area, he abandoned the boat and went ashore and rushed to Lingnan on foot.

That night, I ran into a tomb robber digging a grave with an open fire. With the consent of his master, Lao Jin used a miner's pickaxe to cut off the head of a tomb robber, and the rest of the head was scurrying. Qin Beiyang slept overnight in this stolen and excavated ancient tomb of the Southern Song Dynasty, and lamented that the chaotic times of Beiyang, where mountains and rivers were broken and blood flowed for thousands of miles, had become the craziest tomb robbery paradise in history.

The next day, Lao Jin climbed a high slope and said, "After climbing this mountain, it will not be far from my hometown." ”

Yuecheng Ridge, Du Pang Ridge, Mengzhu Ridge, Qitian Ridge, Da Yu Ridge five mountains, lying between Hunan, Jiangxi and Guangzhou, collectively called Nanling, is the watershed of the Yangtze River basin and the Pearl River basin.

Qin Beiyang looked at the tall and strong old Jin and asked, "Weren't you born on Taibai Mountain?" ”

"Don't look at my Northwest dialect, but my ancestors are from Guangxi."

It turned out that long before the Jintian Uprising, Lao Jin's grandfather followed Yang Xiuqing to plough the mountains and burn charcoal, and later joined the Taiping Tianguo Land Camp - the first professional chemical army in history to "privately dig tunnels, secretly place mines, and bombard the city wall", and repeatedly performed miraculous feats for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Tianjing fell, and the old golden father followed the young king and fled to Taibai Mountain. The Glory Hall, the replica of the underground palace of Qin Shi Huang, the tomb of the Heavenly King and other huge projects were all completed by this family.

Lao Jin is the third generation of the Kingdom of Heaven and adheres to the family handicraft. His "Assassin Dao" was only barely graduating, but digging holes and graves was his interest. Most of the tomb beasts in the Heavenly and Earthly Palace were captured by him with his own hands.

It was already dark, and they camped on the South Ridge.

"Since ancient times, only our Qin Clan's Tombsmith Clan can control the Tomb Beast." Qin Beiyang lit a bonfire, touched Jiu Se and said, "Old Jin, how did you do it?" ”

"During the Jintian Uprising, an old man came from Vietnam, claiming to be surnamed Qin, a descendant of the Ming Dynasty royal craftsmen - Ming and Qing Xingti, whose ancestors fled into Burma with allegiance to the Southern Ming court. Emperor Yongli was strangled by Wu Sangui in Kunming, and his group was forced to flee to Vietnam, marry a wife and have children, multiply for two hundred years, and be loyal to the Lê, Zheng, Nguyen and other dynasties. Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East, had a whimsical idea - wouldn't it be wonderful if the tomb beast was tamed and used to crusade against the Qing demon? This old man of the Qin clan had no descendants, so he taught my grandfather the art of controlling the tomb beast. ”

"The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom used the Tomb Beast to fight?"

Lao Jin inserted a hare with a branch and roasted it on the bonfire: "The Taiping army was only tens of thousands of people in the early days, and the weapons were primitive and backward, why was it able to break through the encirclement, enter Hunan, go down to Wuchang, and take Tianjing directly?" Due to several key battles, the tomb beast killed the Qing demon without leaving a piece of armor, which established the status of Yang Xiuqing, the king of the east. ”

"Except for the nine colors, usually once the tomb beast leaves the dungeon, it will turn into a pair of useless steel bumps."

"There are also people in the Taiping army who have learned Western steam engines to make simple transformations of the tomb beasts dug up in the ancient tombs."

"It turns out that the modernization and transformation of the soul mechanical body was first made by us Chinese! Since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom controlled the Tomb Beast Legion, why was it still defeated? ”

"We've only learned how to manipulate the Tomb Beast, but we don't know how to make it? When encountering gunpowder and cannons, they were also wiped out. Compared with the superb skills of the gravesmith clan, the 'Underground Palace Dao' is only a scratch of the surface. But the real turning point was the Tianjing Incident, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was known as the 'Hong-Yang Revolution', and Hong and Yang were on an equal footing, and to put it mildly, the Heavenly King was nothing more than a puppet of the Eastern King. ”

"Lao Jin, the rules of the kingdom of heaven have changed, there is no need to hide it."

"The Tianjing Incident, the Eastern King Yang Xiuqing was killed. That night, the Tomb Beasts collectively lost control and ran wild through the streets of Tianjing, killing thousands of soldiers and civilians, and even attacking the Heavenly King's Mansion. My grandfather could only lure the grave beast into the powder magazine, ignite it and explode...... The invincible Tomb Beast Legion is over! The Heavenly King decreed that the Tomb Beast should no longer be captured, so as not to cause a disaster that would get out of control. ”

Qin Beiyang thought to himself, is this the turning point of the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom? One last question: "Why has there never been a record of the Tomb Beast War in history?" ”

Lao Jin replied: "The Qing court eliminated or tampered with all the writings, whether it was the official records of the Hunan army or the private notes of the people, none of them were spared. In their writings, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is still a murderous long-haired thief! The Qing court did not want the world to know about the existence of the Tomb Beast, fearing that the rebels would dig up a large number of Tomb Beasts and even shake the foundation of China's absolute monarchy for more than 2,000 years! ”

Qin Beiyang looked at the starry sky in the southern sky and was shocked to find that the nine-colored eyes were radiating green light.

Three days later, along the Xijing Ancient Road, we walked to Shaoguan. Get back on the train and travel all day and night to Guangzhou. There was no time to visit Shangxiajiu in Liwan Xiguan, so the three of them slept overnight at the train station and then transferred to the Kowloon-Guangzhou Railway eastbound.

The steam train passed through Dongguan and Shenzhen and entered the New Territories of Hong Kong. At that time, everyone could travel freely between Guangdong and the British colony of Hong Kong, and the terminus was Tsim Sha Tsui Station on the Kowloon Peninsula.

Hong Kong!