After a long drought, it is a rainy day, and a foreign country meets a familiar one.

The cave room spends candle night, when the gold list is inscribed.

Qingzhou, which has been in drought for half a year, has finally ushered in its first rainfall, although it is already approaching early summer. When Du Wu woke up from the nightmare and was about to close the window, a flash of lightning suddenly streaked across the dark sky, followed by a thunderclap, followed by several lightning bolts and rumbling thunder in succession - it was raining.

Qingzhou City, which had been silent for a long time, finally became noisy again. People went out into the streets, in the wilderness, and at the gates of the city, and jumped and cried in oblivion, not forgetting that the hour was midnight. Du Wu stood in front of the window, quietly listening to the noise in the city and the thunder in the sky, and tears could not stop flowing. The city has finally survived.

Lin Lan and Du Wu took the people out on the morning of the third day. Du Zhong took the officials of Qingzhou Mansion to the city gate to see them off, Du Zhong took Du Wu's hand and said a lot of words, and in each other's cherished farewells, Du Wu stepped into the carriage back to Beijing.

When the convoy was about to leave the boundary of Qingzhou, Lin Lan asked Du Wu to get out of the car and rest. Both of them were bumpy in the car for several days, although the road at this time has an official road, but the official road is not a highway in later generations, and Du Wu felt that he was going to fall apart after a bumpy road.

Lin Lan saw that it was getting late, and ordered his subordinates to prepare to camp for the night, so he came to Du Wu's carriage, handed over a piece of dry cake, and asked with affection: "My Mr. Guan has been worried for the past few days, but there is something unspeakable, although the foolish brother is not talented, but one person is short-minded, and two are long-minded, why don't Mr. say it?" ”

Du Wu thought for a moment, pointed to the front, and asked Lin Lan: "Lin Sinong thinks the bandits will be waiting for us in front?" ”

Lin Lan sighed, looked back and saw that there was nothing, and couldn't help but be a little suspicious: "What Mr. said, the foolish brother has also thought about it, but within a radius of more than ten miles, only Qingzhou Mansion has official food relief, and the victims have also gone to Qingzhou Mansion." Moreover, the places we passed along were almost deserted, and even if there were bandits, how did they survive? The gentleman is very resourceful, and I am afraid that this matter is too much to worry about. Please rest early, tomorrow morning we will step up our itinerary, away from Beijing for a long time, the foolish brother is a little homesick, haha! After speaking, he patted Du Wu on the shoulder, and turned around to go to the bus commander to set up a guard.

Looking at Lin Lan's back, Du Wu thought about it again and felt that what he said made sense, but he always felt a little apprehensive in his heart. He didn't know what the problem was, it was like a stone falling in his heart, and he was so panicked that he couldn't do it. Suddenly, he remembered the bones on the back of the North Mountain in Qingzhou, and couldn't help but pray in his heart: I hope I am wrong.

The bus commander is a high-ranking official of 600 stones, originally the general of the Northern Army Forbidden Army in charge of Sima Gate and the palace at night, this time he came to Qingzhou, firstly, Dasi Nong personally provided disaster relief, and senior generals were needed to come to the town, and secondly, in order to show the importance of Du Wu, Wang Mang personally gave instructions to Wei Weiqing, and only then transferred 500 Northern Army, which was led by the bus commander. The Weiwei Mansion is under the jurisdiction of the two armies of the north and the south, and the southern army is led by the guard and is in charge of the troops in the palace gate. The Northern Army is more advanced, led by Zhi Jinwu, in charge of the patrol of the Beijing Division, which can be said to be the forbidden army of the Son of Heaven. The five hundred Northern Army who were in charge of the defense work this time were the best generals selected from the forbidden army under the command of Zhi Jinwu, so it was no wonder that Lin Lan was so relieved.

Sure enough, in the middle of the night, I heard someone shouting for an enemy attack. Du Wu hadn't slept much in the first place, but he hurriedly got up at this moment, only to see the dotted torches begin to fly towards the camp where he was, and several tents were ignited in a short time. The armies began to meet the enemy while fighting the fire. After a while, Lin Lan ran over, and the first thing she said was: "I really let Mr. say it!" ”

The troops resisted and retreated under the command of the bus commander. It was too dark, and the enemy's shouts shook the sky, and I vaguely didn't know how many people there were. The Northern Army has always been in the ranks of the Praetorian Guards, with no field experience, and most of its equipment is mainly long and short weapons, and there are no long-range weapons. And the bus commander did not personally lead the troops to fight, and was scattered by the bandits for a while, only to end up with a soldier who did not know the general, and the general did not know the soldier.

Several northern troops protected Lin Lan and Du Wu and fled to a hillside, and everyone sat on the ground tired and gasped. Lin Lan anxiously asked Du Wu what to do, Du Wu frowned, he is now without soldiers and generals, what can he do against the enemy? At the moment, he could only shake his head. Lin Lan sighed, said "I regret not listening to Mr.", and sat down in another place, never saying anything more.

Nothing was said all night.

At dawn, a Northern Sergeant went out to investigate, and the news he brought back silenced everyone: the bus commander was killed, most of the Northern Sergeant was killed, his clothes were stripped off, and the group of people was barbecuing human flesh! There are almost more than 1,000 people all over the mountains, all kinds of clothes, and some shirtless, all of them are like ghosts in the underworld, and their heads are scattered.

Everyone lay quietly for a while, no one spoke, and they did not know what to say. Du Wu carefully calculated the resources available to him: 13 Northern Army soldiers equipped with short weapons, he and Lin Lan, and this small hill that could be invisible, there was nothing else.

In danger again, Du Wu did not panic as before. He's waiting for his moment, waiting for himself to turn things around. So he ordered everyone to hide for the time being, and only sent two soldiers to observe the bandits' movements.

Near noon, the soldiers came to report, saying that the bandits had retreated, and everyone quietly crawled out, and after the two discussed, they decided to make a detour to Yanzhou and borrow troops to return to Chang'an.

Everyone ran desperately, and at night they saw the boundary monument of Yanzhou, everyone look at me, I look at you, and finally breathe a sigh of relief. I happened to see a small village in front of me in the middle of the mountains, so I decided to go and stay overnight.

When the wood door opened, everyone was stunned. I saw that this man was nearly two meters tall, with a hooked nose and deep eyes, looking at his group with fierce eyes. And Du Wu immediately thought of the descendants of the Roman legion that Chen Tang promised him when he was drinking with Chen Tang in Sima Mansion! It was only later that I heard from Wang Shu that after Chen Tang's death, the Roman family suddenly disappeared. At first, he thought that he was under Wang Mang's command, but he didn't expect to meet him here again.

Du Wu was afraid that the northern soldiers around him would misunderstand, so he hurriedly asked, "Your Excellency is from the Hou Mansion in Chang'an Guannei?" ”

The man was stunned for a moment, Du Wu immediately understood, and added: "Your Excellency, don't think too much, this is Lin Sinong of the imperial court, and he is Lin Sinong's deputy below, who went to Qingzhou for disaster relief half a month ago, and now on the way back to Beijing, because he missed the accommodation, he troubled the master to spend the night, I don't know if it can be convenient?" ”

The man glanced at the people behind Du Wu, only to see that they were all gray-faced, and they were all holding sharp blades, and they didn't want to allow it, but the other party said their origin in a word, hesitated for a moment, and welcomed them in.

At night, Du Wu couldn't sleep, he thought back to the bits and pieces when he drank with Chen Tang, and played with an ancient Roman coin in his hand. It was given to him by Chen Tang when he was drunk, and he smiled and said that it was the military talisman of the commander of the Great Qin Family. It is a copper coin with the head of a man engraved on the obverse, with long hair and a high nose, and a soldier with a helmet on his head, holding a shield in his left hand and a spear in his right. According to Chen Tang, this is their god of war, and I don't remember what his name is. When you take this copper coin to recognize each other, the other party will take out a copper coin holding a javelin, as long as the letters on the two copper coins are the same, you can control the command of this family. For several months, Du Wu had been keeping this copper coin close to him, and he didn't even know about the pipa. I didn't expect to actually see the Roman family tonight.

Someone knocked low outside the window, Du Wu got up, glanced at the sleeping Lin Lan, and tiptoed out of the door and came to the courtyard. Dahan was waiting for him in the courtyard, and when he saw him come out, he made a salute, made a gesture, and led Du Wu out of the house, and came to a large courtyard near the village. Pushing the door in, I saw a dozen or so Romans sitting inside. The leader was a bearded man, and when he came up, he asked Du Wu: "Who are you from Guanneihou?" ”