The sweater on Zhu Ming's body had long been rotten, and there were holes scratched everywhere.

He took off his sweater and cut it into pieces with his sword. Then the sword was returned to the sheath, and the torn strips of sweat were carefully wrapped around the scabbard and hilt, and a few shoelaces were taken to tie it tightly.

The Song Dynasty implemented strict sword control, and the eight-sided Han sword is definitely a prohibited item and cannot be casually exposed to strangers!

After hiding their weapons, the father and son followed the sound of the horses and walked towards the depths of the tea field.

After about ten minutes, the two of them looked disappointed—there was indeed a horse there, but there was no sign of a human at all.

It can be seen that the skeleton of the horse is very tall, and the fur is brownish-yellow. But the bones are scrawny, the ribs are prominent, and the horse's belly has been completely deflated, which reminds Zhu Ming of the hungry Africans in the photo.

The horse's head is tied to a long rope that is tangled around the tea tree.

With the horses as the center, the area of three or four meters around is eaten bare by tea trees and weeds. Presumably the edible has been eaten up, and the horses are anxious to break free, so they run and jump, causing the rope to become shorter and shorter, and completely trap it next to a tea tree.

Seeing the two humans coming, the horse first panicked and took a half step back, then shook his head again as if asking for help.

Zhu Ming took a closer look and found that the horse's neck was strangled and scarred. Some of the scars have scabbed, others have festered, and there are even live maggots surging in the wounds.

"There are words here!" Zhu Guoxiang suddenly shouted.

Zhu Ming walked to the left rear of the horse and saw that there was a brand on his left crotch, and it was branded in two places.

The first place is a large seal, which is branded with several words, and the key word is "Qin". The second place is a small seal, and only a separate "A" character is branded.

Zhu Ming carefully recalled the information, perhaps because of the influence of the crossing, and the relevant papers were quickly remembered. He guessed based on clues: "This is a horse bought by the Tea and Horse Division from the Hehuang area, which was first sent to Qinfeng Road to buy a horse supervisor for filing, and then transported to Kaifeng through the Han River for use as a forbidden army horse of the palace front division." The word 'A' is the abbreviation of the number of the front division of the palace, and I don't know what happened during the escort, and the military horse fled to the tea field and was trapped. ”

"Since it's a military horse, you can't raise it privately," Zhu Guoxiang swallowed his saliva and said hungrily, "Just kill and eat horse meat." ”

Zhu Ming didn't do it immediately, but said to himself: "If it is the Northern Song Dynasty, the Han Water Horse Gang has not yet been customized, and the Hehuang horse is generally directly used as a border army war horse, and it is rarely transported to the states and counties further south. Even if it is to be transported to Kaifeng, it is to cross the Yellow River through Tongguan, how can it take the Hanshui bypass? Could it be that we have crossed over to the Southern Song Dynasty, and this horse is going to be transported to Hangzhou? ”

There is too little information to understand.

Zhu Guoxiang was already hungry, and in his eyes, this military horse was purely a piece of barbecue.

"Boom!"

Zhu Ming untied the shoelaces that wrapped around the hilt of the sword, drew the sword out of the sheath, and planned to kill the horse.

The horse turned to look at him, as if he knew human nature, and there was a hint of pleading in his eyes.

Zhu Ming and the yellow horse looked at each other, and couldn't help but soften their hearts, how could they not kill the killer. He asked his father, "Why don't you release it?" ”

Zhu Guoxiang was silent for a few seconds, nodded and said, "It's okay." ”

Zhu Ming stepped forward with his sword, carefully cutting the rope, and the horse did not struggle without any struggle, and stood there obediently to cooperate with the action.

Cutting all the ropes wrapped around the horse's neck, Zhu Ming stroked the horse's mane and said, "You are left to fend for yourself in the mountains, and it will be very troublesome for us to take you." ”

The father and son turned and left, but the horse followed them.

As he passed by the tea trees in front of him, he did not forget to eat tea leaves to satisfy his hunger, and the horse was obviously hungry.

Following all the way to the river, Zhu Ming went to clean the clay pot, and made a pot of river water and put it in front of the horse. The horse hurriedly lowered his head to drink water, and shook his tail comfortably, already taking Zhu Ming as his master.

Zhu Guoxiang looked at the white maggots surging from the wound on the horse's neck, and silently went to the vicinity to look for herbs.

When the herbs were found, Zhu Ming burned the sword with a fire, used the hot blade to dig up the carrion, and scraped it off with maggots and threw it away. The horse only neighed twice, and then stood firm until the herbs were finished.

Father and son sat down around the fire, and the horses themselves stood and graze.

"Roast two sweet potatoes." Zhu Ming couldn't help it, although those 20 catties of sweet potatoes would be of great use in the future.

Zhu Guoxiang nodded heavily: "Roasted sweet potatoes are delicious!" ”

When rolling down the hillside, some sweet potatoes were broken and the flesh was broken, and the father and son picked the seriously injured potatoes and built them into a kiln and roasted the sweet potatoes in the way of roasting kiln chickens.

When they eat the fragrant roasted sweet potatoes, they are so happy that they want to cry.

Since the snacks he brought were finished, he has been feeding his hunger with wild vegetables, but fortunately he grabbed a fawn from the yellow-throated marten halfway, otherwise he would have been malnourished and had no energy to trek.

There are also a lot of wild animals, but the two of them can't hunt!

A roasted sweet potato went down, although he was still hungry, Zhu Ming felt strong again, got up with his sword and said, "Let's go, Dean Zhu." ”

The father and son continued along the Han River, followed by a scrawny yellow horse.

Perhaps it was the horses that brought good luck, but this time they had only walked for three hours, and at about four or five o'clock in the afternoon, they saw a burst of cooking smoke rising in front of them.

"I've finally met a living person." Zhu Ming wanted to cry at this time.

Before I saw the house, the scenery was completely different.

The lowlands along the river have been cleared, and instead of endless weedy forests, there are large fields of golden rape flowers.

Farther away from the riverbank, there are still some wheat fields under the slopes, and the wheat seedlings are lush and rising.

In the wheat field, several figures can be faintly seen.

The peasants, dressed in short shirts, haphazardly wrapped in linen turbans, and with their arms tied, were toiling to weed the wheat fields.

"Don't gnaw!"

Zhu Ming slapped him and stopped the thin horse who wanted to nibble on rape.

This horse is actually quite sensible, and after encountering a big force, he obediently marched along the ridge.

At regular intervals, the ridge becomes slightly wider, and there are bound to be mulberry trees planted in the wide. First, mulberry can be harvested and silkworms can be raised to increase farmers' income; Second, it can stabilize the ridge and prevent soil erosion; Third, it can avoid others from encroaching on the field (the mulberry tree is the field boundary, and it is useless to move the ridge of the field, unless the roots of the mulberry tree are removed).

After passing through a few rape fields, we are already close to the village, where there are about a dozen families. All thatched houses, the walls are earth and stone structures, and the roof is covered with thatched grass to protect from the rain.

The father and son had already been discovered, and as soon as they reached the entrance of the village, several peasants came over.

The leader was a farmer, who seemed to be thirty or forty years old, and seemed to be forty or fifty years old, with a wrinkled face, and it was difficult to figure out the age.

Without waiting for the other party to speak, Zhu Ming saluted: "Hello fellow, my father and son want to beg for saliva to drink." ”

This move will put those peasants in order.

The two of them overcame thorns and thorns and went ascetic for ten days, their clothes were in tatters, and Zhu Guoxiang was even more bearded. They all have short hair, as if they have been tortured, and they look like monks who have descended from the mountain.

And Zhu Ming behaved politely, bowed and bowed, and seemed to be like a scholar.

On top of that, Ju Ming has an odd accent and doesn't know where to speak.

In fact, it's nothing, it all belongs to the northern dialect system. The difficulty of communication between the two sides can be imagined as Henan people meeting Sichuan people, and they can understand it except for a few rural slang.

Seeing that the peasants were stunned, Zhu Ming slowed down his speech and spoke again.

The farmer at the head finally understood, invited them into the village to drink water, and asked curiously: "Where did you come from?" ”

Zhu Guoxiang has friends who are from northern Shaanxi, and the accents of these peasants are more similar to the dialect of northern Shaanxi, and he tries to imitate them: "We came from the south to join our relatives, and we met bandits on the way, and we were tricked by the bandits and cut off our hair, so we finally escaped." ”

"This horse is skinny enough." The farmer said intentionally or unintentionally.

Zhu Guoxiang explained: "There is an abandoned tea mountain in front of it, and this beast is wrapped in a rope around the tea tree. We rescued it, and it followed. ”

The farmer smiled: "It's human nature." ”

Zhu Guoxiang learned from his son and asked, "Your Excellency's surname?" ”

"Don't be expensive, my surname is Tian, and everyone in the village calls me Tian San." Crop Han said.

Zhu Guoxiang introduced himself: "Contemptible Zhu Guoxiang, this is the dog Zhu Ming. ”

chatting all the way into the village, Zhu Ming was speechless throughout the whole process, quietly observing a few farmers next to him.

And the peasants, too, were watching them, staring at their backpacks and their skinny horses.

One of them, intentionally or unintentionally, glanced at Zhu Ming's shoulder—the sword wrapped in a torn sweater was carried behind by Zhu Ming, and the hilt of the sword protruded from his right shoulder.

The peasants seem to walk casually, but in fact they secretly surround the father and son, and can immediately besiege them in the event of an accident.

When he came to the small courtyard of the farmhouse, Tian San asked the Hun family to bring a scoop of water.

When the father and son were drinking water, Tian San asked a little deliberately: "Where are you going?" ”

Zhu Ming slowed down his speech as much as possible: "We came to join our relatives, and I heard from the old people in the family that our relatives have been growing tea here and haven't moved around for decades." But when we come, the tea mountains all the way have been deserted, where can we find relatives? I don't know where I'll be in the future. ”

Tian San shook his head and sighed: "The tea mountain in front of you was no one ten years ago. There are so many good tea trees, no one dares to pick them, and if they do, they have to pay taxes to the government. It's okay to say that the tea tax is okay, but I am afraid that I will be overcharged with miscellaneous donations and errands. ”

"Even if you don't pick tea, why don't you grow grain fields?" Zhu Ming asked.

Tian San suddenly became angry: "It is said that there is a Cai Xianggong who is changing the law, what kind of Fang Tian Ling." The larger the households, the fewer the fields, and the smaller the households, the more the fields. Small households could not survive, so they either joined as tenants or fled to the mountains. By the second year, large households were also given more and more fields, and a few mountains and forests were randomly divided, and they were all said to be good fields for large families. The big families who have no backers in the county government have to flee with their families. ”

Fangtian's average tax is the core content of Wang Anshi's reform.

After Cai Jing came to power, he immediately restarted Fangtian, to put it bluntly, he checked the acres of fields. For the sake of political achievements, the magistrates pointed to the barren mountains and said that they were dry fields, and pointed to the river beaches and said that they were paddy fields, and forcibly registered them in the names of the common people.

As a result, the whole country was in turmoil, and even the landlords who were not strong enough were forced to abandon their family business and run away.

Zhu Ming asked again: "How far is the county seat ahead?" ”

"Far away," Tian San pointed to the west, "There are still dozens of miles to Xixiang County, you have to take a boat to go there." The riverside is full of mountain roads, twists and turns, and it will take two or three days to walk. ”

Zhu Ming asked again: "Is there a market town?" ”

"You mean the grass market?" Tian San replied, "Ten miles up, there is a white market, and I go there to buy salt on weekdays. ”

After chatting for a while, Tian San's brother Tian Er came home, and the woman in the kitchen had already prepared the meal.

Tian San invited the father and son to eat together, but Zhu Ming and Zhu Guoxiang were naturally disrespectful, they hadn't tasted rice for a long time.

Tian Er and Tian San have wives and children, and the youngest daughter is only five or six years old, staring at strangers curiously.

The meal is a pot of mixed porridge, there is actually rice, but there are a lot of chaff husks, and I don't know whether the rice is not clean, or whether the bran husks are deliberately left in it to fill the stomach. There are also unknown wild vegetables, which are also boiled in porridge, and the green color is very beautiful.

The dish is a bowl of pickles, quite salty, and you can drink half a bowl of porridge after eating a bite.

With such coarse tea and light rice, the father and son felt indescribably fragrant, and devoured it like a starving ghost reincarnated.

I'm embarrassed to eat too much because the porridge is not enough.

Eventually, the pots in which the porridge was cooked were scraped clean, Tian Er's wife went to wash the dishes, Tian San's wife went to feed the chickens, and the men sat in the yard and continued to chat.

Before you know it, it's getting dark.

The family has only a few rooms, no guest rooms, not even a firewood room.

The father and son were arranged to rest in the kitchen, although the conditions were very poor, but they would not sleep in the open anymore.

Hearing the sound of footsteps outside the house, Zhu Ming observed through the crack in the door for a while, and only after making sure that there was no one did he whisper: "Something is wrong with this village, when we first entered the village, the eyes of those villagers were too penetrating." ”

"I don't think there's something right, too." Zhu Guoxiang said.

Zhu Ming said: "The horse is at the door of the kitchen, if the villagers have bad intentions, they must go to grab the horse first." As soon as we hear movement, we will run away from the door, and the horses will let them take it. ”

Zhu Guoxiang said: "The old rule is to take turns to keep vigil. ”

"What if there are too many people? It's hard to run away if you block us in the kitchen. Zhu Ming asked.

Zhu Guoxiang thought about it, but there was no good way, and proposed: "Why don't we go out to sleep, I see that under the eaves on the side of the house, there is a lot of firewood and grass piled up, and it is not easy to find it hidden inside." If someone comes, we will find an opportunity to escape. If no one comes, we'll go back to the kitchen before dawn. ”

Zhu Ming glanced at Chai He in front of the stove: "There's no need to go out, we're here." Bolt the door, and if you notice that something is wrong, you can set fire to the house. When the fire broke out, then open the door and rush out while there was chaos, and then when you saw the house, it set fire. Every household in the village has firewood and grass under the eaves, which is easy to ignite. If they dare to mess around, we will also play ruthlessly and burn down all the houses in the village! When the time comes, the villagers will go to fight the fire, who will have the leisure to chase us? ”

Zhu Guoxiang belongs to the people in the system, and he tends to be conservative, where did he come up with this method, he was immediately shocked and said: "You ...... It's awesome! ”

Just do it, the father and son put flammable firewood such as straw and bamboo shoots around tree branches, bamboo poles and other good firewood.

Once there is a disturbance, it can be ignited quickly.

While the father and son were preparing for the fire, the Tian brothers were also discussing in the hall.

Tian San said: "These two outsiders are probably not ordinary goods. ”

Tian Er said: "That young offspring, with a weapon wrapped in rags on his back, I'm afraid he is still a practitioner who pierces his hands." ”

"That official horse, I'm afraid that we grabbed the rest last year, and fled to the waste tea mountain and was met by them." Tian San guessed.

Tian Er asked, "Do you want to get it back?" ”

Tian San smiled: "I'm so skinny, grab it back and you will serve?" You can only kill and eat meat. ”

Tian Er said: "It's okay to eat meat, I haven't eaten meat for a long time." ”

Tian San shook his head: "If you are really a practitioner, it is not worth it for a meal of horse meat." Seeing if they can leave, if they stay for two days and leave, we won't be guilty of causing trouble. It's time to pick tea again in a few days, be careful in everything, don't make a big fuss and invite the government. You went to the cottage overnight, reported to the brothers, and told the two strangers about the matter. ”

"Okay, I'll go now, you keep an eye on the house." Tian Er immediately got up.

Tian Er returned to his room, took the firewood knife from the wall, and took out the stick from under the bed, and connected the firewood knife with the stick.

A simple knife was assembled and formed.

Although the Song Dynasty had strict knife control, lawbreakers also had ways to deal with it.

It is to disassemble the short blade and the long handle and place it, and when the government finds it, it is said that it is a farm tool, and when it encounters a fight, it is assembled into a simple knife to fight.

The Pu knife has no fixed system, and its appearance is strange, and it is a very flexible and free DIY weapon.

But in the night, Tian Er went out with a Pu knife, walked out of the village from the west, and turned into a valley.

Walk along the valley into the deep mountains, walk for miles, and there are large areas of tea mountains.

And in the depths of the tea mountain, there are more people.

Every household here has hidden weapons, and they have contact with the little white staff further upstream, who is responsible for opening up government channels. Therefore, the tea mountains hidden in the mountains are completely exempt from paying tea tax, and after being collected and steamed into tea, all of them are used for private smuggling trade.

Deeper in the tea mountain, there is a dangerous mountain.

At key points in various parts of the mountain, earth and stone walls were built, and there were bandit villages on the top of the mountain, and peasants also lived in the village.

Tea smuggling was only one of them, and occasionally they had to go down the mountain to rob merchants.

Even, rob the official platform!

And the official materials that were grabbed were sold through channels outside the little white staff.

At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the officials were honest and the people were simple.