Xiushan County Shou is a scholar in his fifties, named Li Xiu, he went to the capital of Dali (Dali capital city is called Yang Tho Baa City, not very good, the original book did not use this name, this book is called Dali City) when he made a pilgrimage to report on his work, but he did not see Duan Yu, who lived in a simple place.

Li Xiu saw that Ba Tianshi came in person, and the sincere and terrified good student received the two. He subconsciously thought that the two of them must be based on Ba Tianshi, and Duan Yu was regarded by him as Ba Tianshi's follower.

Li Xiu welcomed the two into the main hall of the county guard's mansion, but saw that Ba Tianshi was always half a step behind Duan Yu when he walked, and when he sat down in the main hall, Ba Tianshi also sat under Duan Yu.

He has been in the officialdom for many years, and he quickly realized that this young man was the person who came to take charge this time, and his status was higher than that of Ba Tianshi, and Li Xiu became more and more respectful to Duan Yu between his words.

Duan Yu dismissed Li Xiu's intention to catch the wind for the two of them, and went straight to the point: "Li Junshou, I am only here to find out the matter of the mine as soon as possible, and I will not stay here, you tell me the situation of the mine in detail." ”

Duan Yu didn't introduce himself, so Li Xiu didn't know his identity, so he looked at Ba Tianshi, and when he saw Ba Tianshi nodding, he said: "That group of thieves was discovered six days ago, and Xiushan County has always been peaceful, and that group of thieves seems to have appeared out of nowhere." The lower officials have been sending people to investigate in the past few days, but they have arranged for people to patrol the surroundings, and the people under the lower officials can only use some crops, and they dare not get too close when they sneak in, and they can only see many people digging ore, and then they are too strict to guard inside, and they can't see where they finally transported the ore. ”

Duan Yu thought for a moment and asked, "Since there are bandits, why don't you send officers and soldiers to exterminate them?" ”

Li Xiu smiled bitterly and said: "There are only more than 20 officials under the lower officials, and those bandits are very numerous, but where can they beat them." ”

Duan Yuyi frowned and said, "Aren't there any officers and soldiers stationed in Xiushan County?" ”

Ba Tianshi, who has not spoken, said: "The prince does not know, the officers and soldiers of Dali are mainly stationed in the area of the capital, Dali and the Great Song Dynasty, Tubo and Wu Yue have always been harmonious, Xiushan County is remote and mountainous, it is not easy to station officers and soldiers here, only to transport grain and grass is a big effort, so only in Xiushan County adjacent to Weichu Mansion stationed a battalion of officers and soldiers, if Xiushan County has something, you can send troops from Weichu Mansion. ”

Duan Yu thought about the mountain road that the two of them had walked on when they came, and couldn't help but shake his head, in ancient times, transportation was inconvenient, and it was indeed not easy to station troops in the mountains.

Li Xiu said again: "Although this group of bandits occupies the mine, the mine is too far away from the national capital, and His Majesty has not ordered mining, and the bandits have not made a disturbance, so the lower officials did not rashly ask for the transfer of officers and soldiers to come." ”

Duan Yu nodded, knowing that it was not easy to fight a war in ancient times. Now that he had obtained further information from the bandits, Duan Yu planned to go to investigate immediately, so he said to Li Xiu: "Li Junshou, you send someone to lead the way, and Ba Sikong and I will go to the mine to see who is making trouble." ”

Li Xiu said yes, then went out to look for someone, and in a moment brought back a man in his twenties who was like a thin monkey, and said to Duan Yu and the two: "The prince and Lord Sikong have been traveling for a long time, and the lower officials have arranged two sedan chairs to send the two to the mine. ”

Duan Yu was too slow to ride a horse, how could he sit in his sedan chair, and said: "If the sedan chair is too slow, you don't need it, we both came on foot all the way, and it is not bad at this point." ”

Duan Yu held his right hand on the waist of the thin monkey, and as soon as the strength of the soles of his feet was strong, he jumped out of the hall door with the thin monkey, Ba Tianshi hurriedly followed, and the two of them had already left the door of the mansion in a flash.

Li Xiu chased out of the mansion, but saw that the three of them were already half a mile away, where had he ever seen such a fast person, and Duan Yu was still carrying a person in his hand, Li Xiu rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was dazzled.

The mine was more than 20 miles away from the county guard's mansion, and the three of them arrived in less than half an hour.

From a distance, a bare stone mountain was very eye-catching surrounded by verdant mountains, and the thin monkey was worried that it would be discovered by the patrolling bandits any further, so Duan Yu asked him to go back on his own, and he and Ba Tianshi continued to explore.

In order not to be discovered, the two of them relied on their skill, jumping up and down between the trees, more agile and fast than apes.

When I got close to the mine, I saw more than a dozen men with large knives scattered around the foot of the mine, but there was no one mining iron ore on the north side of the mine, obviously they were trying to block the people from the north.

The mine was bare and could not hide its figures, so the two walked through the grass and trees, and circled to the south side of the mine.

Through the grass and trees, Duan Yu saw that there were hundreds of people on the side of the mine close to Yue Guo, most of them were in rags, and these people were powerlessly waving the tools in their hands to smash the ore.

A few others wore the same yellow linen robes as those on the north side of the mine, and these men had whips and sticks in their hands, and they went up to beat and curse those who did not work hard.

Duan Yu and Ba Tianshi glanced at each other and said, "It seems that our inference is correct, these people don't look like bandits at all, and no bandit can serve so many people, and they are well-trained, but more like officers and soldiers." ”

Ba Tianshi nodded and said, "I just don't know where the iron ore driven by these people went." ”

Duan Yu smiled confidently, pointed to the place where the ore was stacked not far away, and said: "Look here, according to what Li Xiu said, these people have been mining here for more than half a month, obviously it is impossible to have only such a little ore, they must have arranged a team of people to transport the ore away, we will wait here, we will definitely see this team of people, and then follow them to know where the ore goes." ”

The two waited silently for almost an hour, and sure enough, they saw a convoy of four ox carts coming to the mine from the south, and the leader of the convoy said a few words to the person who looked like the leader of the mine, and then arranged for someone to load the cart with iron ore.

The ore was all broken into very small pieces for easy loading and unloading, but it still took half an hour to fill four carts of ore, and Duan Yu had to complain about the low productivity in ancient times.

After the ore was loaded, the convoy immediately set off, and Duan Yu and Ba Tianshi slowly followed behind the convoy. The ox cart drove very slowly, and after walking for two hours, it finally came out of the mountains, and there was an open field ahead.

The two of them could no longer hide their bodies through the grass and trees, but fortunately, there were more pedestrians on the road, and they were not conspicuous.

Duan Yu didn't know where the border between Dali and Yue was, and Ba Tianshi couldn't say it clearly. In fact, in this era, there was no clear border between countries, and the territory was divided by cities.

Duan Yu estimated that he had already entered the boundary of Yue Kingdom, because he could see that the pedestrians on the road were far away when they encountered the convoy, as if they were very afraid.

In Dali, Emperor Baoding implemented benevolent governance, and the people under his rule respected the Duan royal family very much, but they were not afraid. The people here are obviously different from the people of Dali.

After a short journey, a small town appeared in front of them, and after passing the town, the convoy stopped in a clearing with two large piles of ore piled up in the shape of small knolls. The man in the yellow robe of linen instructed the people to unload the ore on one of the piles, and then went back on the road.

Duan Yu whispered to Ba Tianshi: "It seems that this is the place where their ore is transferred, and there should be someone who will pull the ore away from here." ”

Ba Tianshi asked, "Then we are waiting here for someone to come?" ”

Duan Yu nodded and said, "If you want to investigate, I will find out to the end, I want to see where these ores end up."

Duan Yu could see that the mine should be full of people who were working under orders, and if they wanted to know more, they had to track it down along the ore line.

There was a tea shop not far from the clearing, and the two of them ordered a pot of tea in the tea shop, drinking and waiting. It was not until late evening that a convoy came to the clearing from the south.

The convoy was also four cars, but it was four horse-drawn carriages, and five people accompanied it on horseback.

The people driving were no longer in linen yellow robes, but big men in brocade robes, each with a sword pinned to their waists.

Except for one of the five people on the horse, who was dressed in green robes, the other four were dressed in the same clothes as the four people in the carriage, and wore brocade clothes and swords.

Duan Yu also saw that the green-robed man only had six fingers! Only the middle, ring and little fingers of both hands remain, and the thumb and index finger are cut off at the same root.

The green-robed man commanded eight brocade-clothed swordsmen to sort the ore, and only selected a small part of the ore and loaded it into the carriage, and the rest may be in poor condition, and they were all still on another pile of ore next to it.

After filling four cars, the nine headed south again.

Duan Yu and Ba Tianshi quietly walked out of the tea shop and followed the convoy all the way to the south.

At this time, the sky was gradually getting dark, and the two of them were extremely successful, but they were not afraid of being seen.

The main road to the south from the town was the main road, and the speed of the carriage was faster than that of the ox cart, and the people were much faster than before.

But this trip was a long way, and after more than two hours, the convoy came to a city.

At this time, it was late at night, and the city gate had long been closed, but the officers and soldiers guarding the gate seemed to have become accustomed to the entry and exit of the convoy, and when they saw the convoy, they opened the city gate directly.

Duan Yu had excellent eyesight, and he saw the two big words "Huiji" written on the city gate from a distance!

It turned out to be the capital of the Yue Kingdom.

Duan Yu has already checked the information, in this world, Wu and Yue are south of Dali, it seems that these two countries occupy most of the Indochina Peninsula, and the Yue country is about the northern part of Vietnam in the later generations, bordering Dali and the Great Song Dynasty.

After the convoy entered the city, the city gate was closed again, but it was difficult for the two of them, and the city wall was only two zhang high.

There was already a curfew in the city, and there was no one on the street except for the ox caravan that had just entered the city.

The two of them were far away, and found that the convoy had turned two corners and entered a very large mansion.

Jumping on the wall, Duan Yu saw that the inside of the wall was actually bright, and the sound of clanging was endless, it turned out that this was the workshop for forging weapons.

In the workshop, the eight brocade-clothed swordsmen did not know where to go, but the green-robed man kept directing everyone to work, some threw the iron ore into the furnace, some took out the red pig iron from the furnace and forged it, and some held the almost forged sword for the final forging.

On the stone table on the other side were dozens of forged iron swords.