Reading synopsis: 3126 years ago, she and he were a loving couple of childhood sweethearts. He is Zuo Lie, a general who was once invincible and finally ended up with a disability and besieged. She is Wan'er, a beautiful woman as clear as a mountain spring, but she has become a fearsome murderer in order to save her family.

"Today, if the country attacks each other, the family usurps each other, the people are thieves against each other, the monarchs and ministers are not loyal, the father and son are not filial piety, and the brothers are not harmonious, then the world will also be harmful." -- Mozi

1.

Shang King Zu Geng has been ill for a long time, bedridden, the legitimate heir to the throne, that is, Zu Geng's younger brother Zu Jia is far away in Panlong City in the south, and the news spreads: the ghost side in the north, the Ba side in the west, the tiger side in the east, Jing Chu in the south of Xinjiang, the Fang country in the world has coveted the throne, and now it is even more powerful, ready to move, until the arrival of Zu Geng's limit, he waved the Central Plains and won the royal power.

Zu Geng secretly summoned the ministers to the palace, and ordered him to send people to Panlong City to pick up Zu Jia, inherit the throne, and have calmed the hearts of the people in the world. Fu said that he was ordered to be in danger, and successively issued nine talismans, and selected elite cavalry to form nine Yingjia armies to go to Panlong City, but these nine Yingjia armies were all gone, there was no trace, and even the corpse capital was not recovered, which is really incredible.

Since the Yingjia army was marching to the south, Fu said that he suspected that the barbarians in the south intercepted and killed the Yingjia army in the middle, but the Tanma report did not find any barbarian movements. At present, the only thing that is certain is that the nine Yingjia armies, a total of 900 elite cavalry, have all disappeared, and no one has ever witnessed these soldiers who had made great contributions to the Empire's conquest encountered the enemy in a certain place, fought fiercely with the enemy, or were ambushed by someone in a certain place. No, not once. Could it be that these elite cavalrymen who once swore to follow the Shang king's expedition to the east and west had a collective defection? There is a certain basis for this suspicion - this happened when the war was fought in the north, that is, when the fierce and cruel Hun cavalry was fighting, but those deserters were all slaves of Mobei in order to escape back to their homeland, and these nine Yingjia armies were all composed of locals from the royal capital, and the reason for fleeing was not sufficient.

Fu said that he knew very well that the first king Wuding was so happy, and he had been fighting for more than 30 years in the fifty-nine years of his reign, and none of the Fangguo tribes on all sides had not been beaten by the iron hooves of the merchant army, so that it attracted countless hatreds. After Wu Ding's son Zu Geng succeeded to the throne, he was afraid that the Huns would come back to retaliate, and stationed the troops in the barren land of Mobei for a long time.

After a long time without scrutiny, it is time to rest and recuperate.

However, at present, the king of Shang is terminally ill and precarious, and the enemy countries on all sides are eyeing each other, but the heir of the empire is thousands of miles away in Panlong City. If he can't be protected and let him return to the royal capital safely, once he is captured by the enemy, then the rule of the empire will be threatened, the world may be in chaos, and the royal capital may also be besieged by the enemy country and turned into a pile of ruins. Of course, all this is still hypothetical, but if such a situation really occurs, it will inevitably be unsalvageable, and it will be doomed to a disaster for the entire empire.

Fu said to remind himself: This is a matter of life and death, if you succeed, you will continue to unify the country and the scenery will be the same, and if you lose, you will be reduced to slavery and have nothing. He felt like a gambler who had thrown all his possessions down at the table, and if he lost the game, he would be done with it. He knew that he had to win, but he knew very well that the combat effectiveness of the merchant army was not as good as it used to be, and he was driving a herd of sheep towards the wolves.

Fu Shuo, who had a strong sense of fighting for his life, took great pains in selecting these nine Yingjia armies, requiring everyone to be a native of the royal capital, that is, Yin people, and his wife and children must stay in the city. In this way, they will not abandon the king's order and flee to other lands, but they will also be faithful to their duties because they care for their wives and children. For the time being, this strategy was undoubtedly correct, because through these two days of overt and covert visits, he did not find that any soldier had sneaked back to the royal city during this period.

However, these Yingjia troops who had absolute reasons to be loyal to the empire disappeared from the world overnight, and not even a shadow could be found, what was going on? What went wrong?

The mysterious disappearance of the Yingjia army, the sudden strange illness of the Shang king, and the dying, together with the endless snow and fog weather, cast a huge shadow on the empire.

Fu said that he knew that he must immediately send elite soldiers and strong generals to Panlong City to welcome the new king's return to the north, while he patrolled the officials of the Manchu Dynasty with eagle-like eyes, those civil officials who could only play tricks were not mentioned, and only the brave and resourceful generals with martial arts could be qualified to challenge the enemy hiding in the shadows.

At this time, the ministers who used to speak loudly in the court were like a group of defeated roosters, with their heads bowed, their tails between them, and they were silent.

Fu said that it was the first think tank of the former king Wuding, who had repeatedly performed miraculous feats in the battle of the conquest of the Fang Kingdom, and his prestige in the court and in the army was unrivaled, if he personally led the troops to Panlong City, the victory would be greater, but he knew that in the current complex situation, it was obviously more important to defend the safety of the royal capital than to welcome the new king, because there were not only royal clans in the royal city, but also more than half of the population of the empire, and he must first keep the royal capital foolproof. If you go on your own expedition, the king will be captured by the enemy, and even if the new king is welcomed back, it will be meaningless.

Fu said that he really couldn't think of anyone who was more suitable to stay in the city than himself, and he really couldn't think of anyone who could be the new commander of the Yingjia Army.

At this dilemma, Shang King Zu Geng suddenly woke up from his dying life if he had divine help, and ordered Zuo Lie, the general of the forbidden army, to enter the palace. Zuo Lie was the most famous general of the Shang Dynasty in the past, and Zu Geng's chief protector general.

Zu Geng ordered Zuo Lie to find out the truth about the mysterious disappearance of the Yingjia army within ten days, escorted Zu Jia to return to the royal capital safely, and very solemnly handed Zuo Lie a wax pill, saying that this wax pill was very important, so that he would hand it over to him after seeing Zu Jia.

Zuo Lie didn't know why this pill was important. Zu Geng didn't say it, he couldn't ask, let alone look. But he knew the content of the wax pill, Zu Geng must not want him to know, otherwise there would be no need to seal it with wax mud. Since the king didn't want him to know, he could only put it in his arms as it was, and then hand it over to Zu Jia intact, which was the duty of the minister.

After Zu Geng finished speaking, he fell on his back in the fluffy and heavy brocade mattress, his shriveled torso working like a piece of rotten wood.

His empire and his still-young concubines came to mind in his breath.

Fu Shuo, who was standing on the side, thought that his ears had heard it wrong, and when Zu Geng ordered him to send Zuo Lie out of the palace, he remembered that this was true, and said in his heart whether the king of Shang was burned out of his brain by illness, and he actually forgot that the person he appointed had a terrible background, born in Panlong City, is an authentic Chu person, a stranger, God knows if he will be like those soldiers in Mobei and never return.

This made a huge loophole in Zu Geng's edict.

There is also Zuo Lie himself has problems, although he used to wield a dragon knife in his hand, rampage on the battlefield full of spears, and single-handedly take the head of the enemy's general, but that was more than ten years ago. Now, Lie has long passed the year of the Mandate of Heaven, just a veteran who no longer longs for the battlefield, a remnant general who lives on the glory of the past.

However, this remnant general does have a bit of luck, an ordinary guard has experienced countless battles, not only did not die, but also climbed to the position of the protector general for a time, which is really a great blessing. While countless people lost their heads on the battlefield, he only lost something that seemed unimportant. Of course, these things were originally given to him by others, and they all have a right eye, half of the nose, a left ear, six teeth, and a left arm, which add up to ten, and others such as three right fingers and five left toes are not counted. He looked very pitiful when he had lost these things. But the countless scars and arrow wounds crawling on his broad chest and muscular arms are reminiscent of how fierce and cruel he used to be. The scars are crisscrossed, old and new, overlapping and crumpled, and anyone can never forget them just by looking at them.

To be honest, Zuo Lie's luck seems to have been good, once an enemy soldier hugged him from behind, and another enemy soldier in front of him smashed him on the temple with a mace. There were countless triangular nails on the mace, and if they were smashed on the head, they would surely die. But Zuo Lie was held against his waist by the man's shoulder, unable to move at all, just when his life was hanging by a thread, Zuo Lie's best comrade-in-arms in the army, Zuo Jie cut off one of the hands of the enemy soldier holding him with an axe, and Zuo Lie moved away to avoid the fatal blow. However, he found that one of his arms had also fallen to the ground, so he cried out in horror: "My arm! Instinctively, he threw himself to the ground, ready to pick it up and take it back to his severed arm, but when he saw that arm was about to be regained, a mace appeared in front of him with a sharp whistle, and he threw himself back sharply, his head dodged, and the arm was smashed away.

In the past few days, the sun has been shining on the battlefield, the mud on the ground has turned into floating dust, tens of thousands of people have trampled and fought on it, horses have been flying on wheels, and the branches tied to the horse's tail have been dragged around on it, making the dust and smoke billowing and the sun is dull, the mouth and nose are full of bloody dust, and the air is like hanging a heavy yellow curtain, which cannot be seen clearly. Naturally, the arm was nowhere to be found. However, Zuo Lie didn't bother to look for it. He was entangled in that mace and almost lost his life.

The battle was ultimately won by the Shang army.

Zuo Lie searched back and forth several times on the bloody battlefield among the merchants who searched for loot on the dead people, but he did not find the severed arm that suddenly flew away.

He went to the military doctor, cleaned the wound on the severed arm, applied herbs, wrapped a bandage, and went to rest in his tent. He closed his eyes, his body slowly calmed down, and he began to feel that the fierce energy in his body had disappeared, and a huge pain shot out from his broken arm, which radiated all the way to his body. He felt the pain grapple at his heart, and he couldn't get rid of it. An arm, the largest body part he'd ever lost, was a huge loss. But he didn't shout, he had been fighting for many years, and he had long been accustomed to this kind of day of licking blood from the knife, and when he went to the battlefield, he either killed others, or cut something off others, or was killed by others, or left something on his body on the battlefield, it was all a matter of pinning his head to the waistband of his trousers, who would dare to guarantee that it would be intact?

The number of injuries on Zuo Lie's body is also counted, although this loss is indeed a little bigger, but at least he is still alive, not to mention how heroic he has to behave, he must not be as fragile as a girl, he must maintain the dignity of a man, you must know that this is in the barracks, in the world of men, this is his usual style, otherwise he will not just lose an arm, but lose the entire battlefield, this is what a man cares about the most.

When he woke up the next morning, Zuo Lie felt that the pain in his broken arm was no longer so bad, and he didn't know what spell the military doctor used on his arm, anyway, it was no longer so heartbreaking. He walked towards Zuo Jie's tent. He didn't want to blame him, it was common for him to accidentally injure his own people on the battlefield, or to be accidentally injured by his own people, and no one could blame anyone for this. He just wanted to ask him if he had ever been lucky enough to see his arm. Unfortunately, Zuo Jie was not in his tent. However, he still felt that he was lucky, the enemy soldier was trying to kill him, but fortunately, Zuo Jie appeared in time to help him escape the embrace of death. Everyone knows that it is much better to lose an arm than to lose a life, at least he can still save a breath to go back to his hometown Panlong City to see his wife and children, he has not been back once in the army for many years. He missed them so much. Every time he misses his wife and children, he goes to Zuo Jie's tent to chat with Zuo Jie. However, not only did he not see him this time, but he also did not see him many times after that, until the troops were drawn out and the battlefield moved from the desert of the long river to the deep valley and secluded Wuling Mountain, he never saw him again. To this day, he still doesn't know whether Zuo Jie sacrificed his life for the country on the battlefield or became a deserter like a coward.

Zuo Lie is a famous "can't be killed" among the generals of the Shang Dynasty, Fu said that he knew this, but this time the enemy is in the dark, and I am in the light, so far I don't know who the enemy is, where he is, and how many troops are there? It is not a strong will alone that can defeat the enemy. In addition, Zuo Lie's movement was also inconvenient, because the sole of his left foot was crushed by the chariot in the battle against the Di people, and the soft tissues were severely atrophied, which shortened the muscles and bones of the knee socket and ankle, making his left leg unable to straighten, and he walked crookedly and twisted. From the analysis of these circumstances, Zuo Lie is fully qualified to receive a bounty to return to his hometown for the rest of his life, but he is absolutely not qualified to be selected as a general to protect Zujia's return to the north.

The candle flame in front of Zu Geng's couch, Zu Geng's snort in the candle flame was weak, and he couldn't see any anger. Why did Zu Geng choose a remnant to die? Why tie the fate of the empire to a cripple? In Fu Shuo's impression, Zu Geng is exhaustive, uses soldiers like a god, never misses, and every time he makes decisions, he is so unique and wise, and he can often turn decay into magic and turn loopholes into opportunities for victory. I don't know if he has already explored the mystery of the annihilation of the Yingjia Army this time, and realized that Zuo Lie is the key to cracking the mystery, so he sent him so boldly and confidently.

Fu said that he has always believed that those who reach the pinnacle of power must have something extraordinary. However, this time the stakes were too big, and he had to question Zu Geng's judgment. He was worried that Zu Geng's misjudgment would overturn the achievements of the Shang Dynasty Empire. So, he went to ** to find the Queen Mother and expressed his worries.

The Queen Mother is the widow of the former King Wuding. She hides the furrows that time has left on her face with a heavy white foundation, and her shriveled lip line with blood-red plaster. She raised her drooping eyes, revealing cloudy eyes, and looked at Fu Shuo who was lying on the ground with puzzled eyes, and only after a while did she lightly open her lips and say, "Go down." ”

Fu said that he went backwards and came out of **. He didn't understand why Zu Geng's mother didn't object to Zu Geng's stupid move?

He didn't have time to think about it, and there was a very important problem that he needed to solve. The old king is about to die, and the new king has not yet returned to the court, this is a secret that cannot be said, although the courtiers are talking to each other in private, and the people are also rumors, but they can't be made public in the public, and they can't say it in a word, after all, he still has to use this straw to suppress those Fang Guo who are about to move, so that the rebels can't get accurate information and dare not act rashly.

Fu said that he was beating a drum in his heart, this is really a life-saving straw related to the survival of the empire.

Fu said that he didn't have much contact with Zuo Lie, a civil official, a military general, and rarely intersected, he had only heard of the prestige of this Chu person on the battlefield, but he didn't know if he could keep this secret tight-lipped. It's funny to say that the hero chosen by Zu Geng turned out to be a remnant general who should have returned to his hometown to retire, and Fu said that what he wanted this remnant general to guard turned out to be a secret that was known to both the government and the opposition. But Fu explained that things in the world are often so absurd, especially the national government and royal power, often with a joke to determine the winner. Therefore, he wants Zuo Lie to promise to keep absolute silence about this flawed secret.

When Zuo Lie knelt down in front of the king's couch with his forehead touching the ground, Fu Shuo realized that although Zuo Lie had mutilated limbs and a ruined face, he could not see the demeanor of a general, but he was definitely a person who could keep secrets. Therefore, he silently sent Zuo Lie out of the palace gate without saying a word.

Zuo Lie walked crookedly beside Fu Shuo, not minding Fu Shuo's unconcealable pitying gaze.

Fu said that he felt the dignity of this once invincible general in Zuo Lie's calmness, and found in him the heroic atmosphere of the company battalion blowing horns and horse leather shrouds in the past, of course, this is just a feeling, but for Fu Shuo, such a person who has been tested on the battlefield for a long time, as long as he has this feeling, it is enough, this is like two masters who have made a move, as long as they look at it, they can decide the superior, this feeling is very subtle, it cannot be seen by the naked eye alone, and it takes people to understand it for a lifetime. Of course, some people may not be able to realize it in their lifetime, while others can capture it in a split second.

Fu Shuo and Zuo Lie clearly belong to the latter. With this feeling, Fu Shuo gradually began to believe in Zu Geng's wisdom.

Zuo Lie put on his helmet, jumped on horseback, ordered a hundred fine horsemen in the Praetorian Guard, ordered him to quickly line up in formation, and then turned his head to look at Fu Shuo, who was still standing in front of the palace gate. Fu Shuo was also looking at him. The moment his eyes collided, Zuo Lie took a deep breath, and the hot blood on his body suddenly jumped, turning the snow balls flying beside him into a white mist. He turned his head and struck the horse in the belly with his stirrup, and the horse was short, and the arrow shot out, and the hundred horsemen disappeared with him in the endless night.

Fu Shuo raised his head and watched the falling snow turn into splattered blood flowers in the red candle flame, blooming in the night wind.

Fu said that he actually knew that although this remnant general was a victorious general, experienced in a hundred battles, and had never tasted defeat, so he could always stick to that pride in his heart, but now he is now the afterglow of the sunset, and with the mutilated limbs, I really don't know what kind of tricks he can come up with to defeat the enemy in the shadows, unless there is a miracle.