"In the third year of Yifeng (678 AD), General Liu Xianli was captured in Chengfeng Ridge, and the only remaining forty-two people in our Xuange camp planned to take advantage of the chaos to break through overnight, but they were ambushed, and only eight of the forty-two people came out alive, and on the way back to Shanzhou, we met the stragglers of Tubo again, and four of the eight people who were still alive lost their heads. I was separated from General Zhang Zhaowu because of a broken leg. In the end, dragging a waste leg, he lay on his stomach for nearly half a month, and finally returned to the camp in Shanzhou. As a result, alas, as soon as I returned to the camp, I heard that Zhang Zhaowu, the captain of Xuanjie, had left the camp without permission to become a deserter. I couldn't figure it out when I wanted to break my head, I survived such a difficult day in Chengfeng Valley, and he also had a meritorious role in killing the enemy, and he was sure that he would be promoted to the knighthood. It's too late to be happy, how could he become a deserter? Alas, do you know what happened to General Zhang?"

Zhang Nianxin shook his head after hearing this: "I don't know, I only know that he and the Taoist priest went to Zhongnan Mountain to cultivate what Louguan Dao, and then ran back home after a few years, not long after giving birth to me, another ran to Wuyi Mountain to practice, I came back when I was four years old, stayed at home and taught me martial arts, until now." ”

Yi Shunhua posed: "Hey, most of him was inexplicably ill at that time." Saying that, he looked at Zhang Nianxin's clothes and sighed: "Oh, your father is really good, we slept in a camp tent and ate a pot back then, and now you and those two girls in my family dare not touch it." ”

Zhang Nianxin looked at his skirt and was embarrassed: "You misunderstood, after the imperial court abandoned the government soldiers, no one was in a bleak situation." My dress was given to me by a lady I met. ”

"Then this table..."

"I killed a nest of bandits for their ill-gotten gains, and I almost got into a squatting room for this. Oh, by the way," Zhang Nianxin took out the letters asking for supplies, and said, "I have something to ask you, why are these family letters so rough, almost all of them ask for money and food." ”

As soon as he heard this, the expression on Yi Shunhua's face suddenly changed, he gritted his teeth, sad and angry, as if he remembered some ugly person who was bitter and hateful.

Zhang Nianxin couldn't help but ask with some doubts: "What's the matter? Could it be that the soldiers of twenty or thirty years ago were..."

Yi Shunhua nodded and said, "Yes, Zhang Yatou, as a descendant of a military household, you should know the content of my Tang Dynasty's Juntian system and government military system." ”

Zhang Nianxin said: "All the people of the Tang Dynasty, regardless of men, women and children, will be granted 30 to 40 acres of land, half of which will be taken away when the armor is born, and taken back when the body falls. Those who are in the military household should cultivate the land when they are busy with agriculture and train in their spare time. In case of war, it is necessary to be transferred to the army by the Zhichong Prefecture, and those who serve in the army need to bring their own ordnance, food and grass, and the rest will be supplemented by the army. Those who serve in the army have no food and military salaries, but they can be exempted from paying taxes. If you do not go out of the male army to join the army, you need to pay a capitation fee. ”

Yi Shunhua nodded and said: "You are right, but when the land is divided, the bullshit in various places is official, layer by layer, card to eat, most of the land that can be distributed is only a dozen acres, and the same is true for my family, the county official said that there are only 30 acres of land, but there are actually only about ten acres of land, and my cousin's family does not live by working long hours every day because there is no male man. If this is only on weekdays, at least there is an acre and three points of land that can barely get by. However, somehow, a group of monks suddenly came to our township, saying that they wanted to build a temple on the order of the emperor, and they still had to rob our land. Isn't it the same there?"

Zhang Nianxin nodded, "Yes, we are similar there." ”

"Hmph, sure enough, the whole world is the same, after those monks finished making trouble, a few rich families in the county said that they wanted to borrow our land, saying that they were borrowing, but in fact, it was a robbery, and they had never seen it back. Borrow one acre today, borrow two acres tomorrow, and it won't be long before we have no land to plant, so we can only rent their land to plant, and life is getting harder and harder year by year. When the war starts on the Tibetan side, the imperial court will come to levy us, otherwise we will have to raise taxes. We don't have any land to plant, so the employers can skin us, and where do we get the money to pay taxes for them? ”

Zhang Nianxin sighed: "Alas, it's the same as my family, originally my mother thought that only the border army would be like that, but it turned out that less than a year later, our side was the same." ”

Yi Shunhua took a sip of wine, and then said indignantly: "But there are always people who can't run and are reluctant to run? However, when the government soldiers go out to fight, they need weapons and dry food, but it is difficult to gather these things when we have land, let alone when we have no land? However, there is no military salary when the government soldiers, and the little things that are distributed according to the amount are a drop in the bucket. What's worse is that the army has to check the materials you are carrying, and if you don't bring enough, you will be punished with 40 lashes. As a result, in the battle of Chengfengling, half of the more than 300 brothers in my Xuange camp could not walk before the battle began, and the rest were hungry, without good iron armor, wearing broken leather armor, and fighting desperately with rusty horizontal knives, can you not lose?" At this moment, Yi Shunhua slapped the table angrily and shouted.

"Shhhh

Yi Shunhua calmed down and continued: "After I luckily picked up a life, I went back to my hometown and found that my parents and wife were starved to death, leaving only a son. Thinking of the sad past, his dizzy old eyes left a few lines of tears. (In order to prevent others from saying that I slandered the prosperous Tang Dynasty, I will post that record again: In the first year of Yongchun of Tang Gaozong (682), "In April, there was a famine in Guanzhong, 300 rice buckets, and the eastern capital (Luoyang) was fortunate, and the prince was left in charge of the country", "In May, the eastern capital was raining, Yimao, Luoshui overflowed, and more than 1,000 residents were drowned. Guanzhong first water and then early locusts, followed by the epidemic, rice bucket four hundred, the dead between the two capitals pillow on the road, cannibalism "Zizhi Tongjian". Look, Luoyang, the capital at that time, was like this, and the local people still used me to say: In the feudal dynasty where the productive forces were insufficient, no matter how good the prosperity was, the people at the bottom should be miserable and miserable. Of course, I'm not saying that the Tang Dynasty is bad, just to explain that the Tang Dynasty is not the paradise on earth in the modern YY text)

Yi Shunhua continued: "Later, when I was old, the court said that it would take my land, and my land had already been robbed, where did I get the land for them. The new county magistrate was not merciful at all, and directly sent someone to rob my house. I had no choice but to leave my hometown with my son, and within a few years my son starved to death. You now understand why all those family letters are written about asking for money and food? Because apart from these, they wrote ready-made things every day, and there was no time to write anything else at that time, so they could just send them back anyway, and they should leave a memory for their families. ”

After listening to this, Zhang Nianxin couldn't calm down for a long time, and said after a while: "In order to find the origin of the family letter, I made an appointment with a group of people to meet in Lanzhou, they were recruited to join the army in Longyou, what do you have..."

"Huh?" Yi Shunhua pointed to himself and said, "What do you mean by asking me?" Just one sentence, persuade them not to go, in the old saying: A good man should not be a soldier. ”

Zhang Nianxin frowned, "What, do you regret joining the army back then?"

"Regret?" Yi Shunhua shook his head: "Where do I have the qualifications to regret it? If I don't go, I'll starve to death," and then he looked at him firmly, and said: "But as General Zhang's subordinate, I don't regret it at all when I go into battle with him to kill the enemy and defend the country." It's just that after working hard for half a lifetime, I ended up being bullied and couldn't even support my daughter when I begged for food on the street......... Alas, I feel that in the eyes of the Tang Dynasty, we are bacon, when we are poor, we fill our stomachs, and when we are rotten, they shave us off the rope, and we don't even leave a little decency. ”

Zhang Nianxin listened, and remembered that he was also very melancholy, not knowing where the future direction was, whether to follow his father's old path or continue to wander in the rivers and lakes.

After that, Yi Shunhua grabbed the food on the table and threw it into the rag bag in his hand: "Thank you so much today, but I can't just eat alone, I want to bring these things to my two daughters to try." ”

Zhang Nianxin called Xiao Er to settle the account and smiled: "It's nothing, they are all born with a calamitous identity, and it is appropriate to help each other." ”

At this time, Yi Shunhua laughed: "Alas, why don't you go with me to meet Yi Jia and Yi Rou, the two little girls, they are picked up by me and raised, and they usually work part-time in other people's homes, and spend the night with me in the broken temple outside the city." Anyway, you are also my great benefactor. ”

Zhang Nianxin smiled: "Okay, let's just go and see if I can find a way out for them, I can't let them be called Huazi with you all the time." ”

Zhang Nianxin and Yi Shunhua went downstairs and went straight to a ruined temple outside the city, when there was a quarrel inside.

"Oh, I said that you have no way out of working in the old rich family in the countryside, so come to Chang'an with me. ”

"No, we have to wait for my father to come back before we can discuss. ”

The two hurriedly rushed in to take a look, and Zhang Nianxin was suddenly stunned: "Why are you?"

That person was naturally Wu Jiansheng, and at this moment he was taking a few taels of broken silver and stuffing them into the arms of two ragged women. The two women hugged each other and trembled, not daring to reach out to take it.

Yi Shunhua didn't step forward, knocked over his silver, and protected his two adopted daughters and was angry: "What are you going to do? No matter how poor I am, I won't sell these two girls for you." ”

Wu Jiansheng was stunned: "What do you mean, old man, when did I say that I am a human trafficker? I want to hire them as handmaids." As he spoke, he turned to Zhang Nianxin again: "I didn't expect that the famous Blood Rakshasa of Bashu recently is also here." ”

After a while, Zhang Nianxin finally explained to Yi Shunhua that the person dressed as a scholar was Wu Jiansheng, who had just become famous with Jiang Xue, and was not a human trafficker. (Liu Zongyuan: Is it okay if I want to strangle him)

Yi Shunhua immediately apologized to him respectfully, then found two broken wooden planks to form a bunk, and then put the food Zhang Nianxin bought on it and set it up into a small banquet. The two poor little girls, who had never seen such a delicacy, devoured them regardless of gratitude.

Yi Jia said while chewing a chicken leg: "Well, Dad, you can eat some too." ”

Yi Shunhua patted her forehead and said kindly: "Dad eats, don't be hungry, you eat." ”

Wu Jiansheng told about how he met them at this time: "I came out of Guanzhong and went to Zheng County to go to the countryside to inquire about Miss Zhang's news. When I asked, I found out that the rich man had framed them for stealing things from the house while they were working in the yard, and had beaten them without paying them. After I rescued them, I asked them to take me to their house. As a result, as soon as I arrived at this broken temple, tsk, the tears were about to fall. Wu Jiansheng smacked his lips and looked at the beam on the roof that was about to collapse at any time. "Then, I gave some scattered silver taels, and asked them to go to Chang'an with me as my maidservant, and they said that they would wait for their father to come back, and then they met you. Alas, old man, you have a broken leg and an eye blind, and it is not easy to feed them in the past few years. ”

Yi Shunhua said freely: "Hahaha, what's not easy, the sky makes quilts, the ground makes beds, no one recruits us as soldiers, no one asks us to pay taxes, and we are very happy." However, the rags and the stubble of his body proved that the day was clearly not as good as he said.

At this time, Yi Rou had almost eaten, looked at Zhang Nianxin's purple dress, and said with envy in her eyes: "Sister Zhang, your clothes look so good, I will definitely wear them in the future."

Zhang Nianxin looked at his dress and said, "This dress is not mine, it was given to me by Miss Dugufeng." ”

The envy in Yi Rou's eyes became even worse when she heard this, "Wow, this Miss Dugu is so good, she actually gave you such a good clothes, can I touch it?"

Zhang Nianxin directly took off the outer coat of the skirt and handed it to her, and smiled: "You can touch it as long as you want." ”

"Thank you, Sister Zhang," Yi Rou took the clothes excitedly, and put the clothes on herself as she spoke. Zhang Nianxin reached out and touched her back, but she couldn't feel a little fat under her skin, all of which were piercing her ribs. Look at her face again, the bone face shape is not bad, but the two eyeballs are sunken, which is even worse than when Master Lian Cheng forced her to open the valley. Seeing their miserable appearance, Zhang Nianxin also had a sour nose, and two lines of tears fell uncontrollably. Although her family was also in a bleak situation after the military household gradually became abandoned, his father was a petty officer in the army after all, and had some savings and food, and she herself could learn martial arts and literacy when she was young, so as to have some skills to make a living when she grew up. And the Yijia and Yirou sisters really can only beg for a living in this life, and there is no way out. So Zhang Nianxin asked: "Mr. Yi, how old are the two of them, do you have any plans for them in the future?"

Yi Shunhua sighed and said: "Alas, Jia Yatou 19 is the eldest and Rou Yatou 16 is the second, both of which I picked up in my hometown. Are you going to do it? No, isn't it okay to see if you can starve to death for a day? Today, Wu Gongzi is here and willing to take them in, so let them go with Wu Gongzi. ”

Zhang Nianxin hugged Yi Rou into his arms and said pityingly: "Okay, in total, I can suffer less." ”

Wu Jiansheng looked at her appearance and sighed: "I didn't expect the famous Blood Rakshasa to have such a compassionate appearance. ”

At this time, Yi Jia asked, "Sister, what is the Blood Rakshasa? That uncle kept calling you that just now." ”

Wu Jiansheng squirted out a mouthful of water: "Uncle, Cao, am I that old?"

Yi Shunhua hurriedly covered her mouth: "Jia girl, don't ask about this." ”

Zhang Nianxin glanced at him and signaled him not to say it here, it would scare the two children, Wu Jiansheng understood and walked out with her.

"I said, you really cut off all twenty people in the Sky Eagle Martial Arts Pavilion, and then chopped off their heads and threw them on the ground. Wu Jiansheng looked at her delicate face and said with some incredulity.

Zhang Nianxin nodded.

Thinking of the scene of more than twenty people's heads falling to the ground and rolling towards him, Wu Jiansheng suddenly felt terrified: "My God, you are really vicious, although those people in the martial arts hall are bandits, but this is not a war, you are too..."

Zhang Nianxin glanced at him and said: "I killed that group of killers at that time, I was seriously injured, I couldn't hold the knife steadily, and the group of officials outside the door were all scum who colluded with Wu Weifeng, what could I do." If I don't want some way to suppress them, can I come back alive? Walking the rivers and lakes, I will not talk about benevolence, righteousness and morality to those who want to kill me, and I will be qualified to say this only if I live my life first. ”

Wu Jiansheng was stunned for a moment, and then remembered that this was ancient and could not be applied to others with modern values, so he said: "Yes, I am too considerate of others." Alas, you're going to Longxi recently, aren't you?"

Zhang Nianxin nodded: "Yes, there were still three veterans alive in my father's Xuange camp back then, and this Yi Shunhua was one of them, I want to find them." ”

Wu Jiansheng continued: "That's good, do you know Wang Haibin, the military envoy of Feng'an?"

Zhang Nianxin nodded: "I heard them mention it when I chatted with my three companions on the road, and he is famous for his bravery and good fighting. ”

Wu Jiansheng continued: "I speculate that he will die at Wujieyi, north of Weizhou, by October next year at the latest. You have to keep an eye on him, but when he's dying, it's better not to save him. ”

Zhang Nianxin was inexplicable when she heard these words, and she said: "Wu Jiansheng, how strange are you? The first time I met you, you asked me to find a Sihu named Yang Xuanyan, and the second time I met me, you asked me to go to Wang Haibin, the military envoy of Feng'an, and said that he was dying and didn't let me save him. Now that you're famous, I know you're a talented person. I know that people who are highly educated will have some strange behavior, but your words and deeds are too weird. ”

Wu Jiansheng didn't know how to answer for a while, so he had to say: "In short, you only need to know that if you catch one of these two people, you will enjoy endless glory and wealth in the rest of your life." ”

Zhang Nianxin shook his head and said, "Forget it, for the sake of your deep trust in Li Xuantong's son, maybe you do have some ability, I will trust you one last time." ”

Wu Jiansheng nodded a little embarrassedly, since the last time he drank and almost exposed his identity as a traverser, he had never mentioned foreseeing the future.

At this time, Zhang Nianxin asked: "Alas, aren't you famous in Chang'an? Why did you come here to find me?" ”

"Hey, what kind of famous Chang'an, I haven't even entered Chang'an City, those poems were all made when I was drinking with a group of scholars in Fengyang, and then they passed it into Chang'an City, I haven't even entered Chang'an City. As soon as he arrived in Fengyang, Wu Jiansheng saw a group of scholars who went out to play in the banquet, Wu Jiansheng patted his head, and remembered, why do I have to go to the king of letters to become an official, as a modern person, I know countless ancient poems, I can copy poems to become famous, Li Bai didn't rely on poetry to attract He Zhizhang's attention and was recommended, He Zhizhang is now in Chang'an, I can also do this. So I copied it in a row: such as Dream Ling, Jiang Xue, Spring Festival, Xiao Lingzun saw Yu Xiao and several other poems of the Later Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty came forward to make a scene, in fact, he personally liked Su Shi's poems, in addition to the various styles of Biansai poems, almost all kinds of styles, but most of his more famous words are words, at this time the word is not the mainstream, Wu Jiansheng He didn't dare to say nonsense. This poem really impressed those scholars and worshipped them. One sentence: The new song is gorgeous, drunk and dancing, and the eyes are slanted. Who can continue his life with five threads, but he will die today. It was even more directly amused that a few little ladies who accompanied the wine rushed to accompany her, and said that it didn't cost money for the master to spend the night today. However, when the banquet arrived, what kind of flying flower order, wine order, right ceremony, and sticking to each other came later. He was stunned on the spot, he didn't understand what it was. And after the banquet, a scholar named Wan Chu was a little embarrassed and said that the prostitute poem seemed to be a prostitute poem he wrote when he went to the Qinglou. Suddenly Wu Jiansheng was so frightened that he didn't even dare to sleep with the little lady, and he ran away that night, and then he remembered when he wrote these poems, but maybe he had this idea when he was young? (He Zhizhang: Why does your words sound so awkward?) So he decided not to go to Chang'an first, but to go around and wait for the reputation to brew for a while.