In November, in the wasteland outside the city of Longxi Lanzhou Zhizi. A young man in a hurry kept coughing as he walked: "Ahem, cough, the weather in Longxi is really strange, it is dry and cold in winter, and my nose is broken." This person is Zhang Nianxin, although Yi Shunhua tried her best to dissuade her, but this time she still planned to disguise herself as a woman and go directly to Lanzhou Zhechong Mansion to find clues, and by the way, to verify whether what Wu Jiansheng said was true. But at the beginning, she encountered a big problem, that is, the two taels of meat on her chest. It's nothing to dress up as a man, but staying with a group of big men, although it's not much, it's always very eye-catching, so she can only tearfully wipe out the few taels of flesh with a breast wrap. Then he reverted to the dress he had when he first met Song Ying and Song Quan's brothers, but as soon as he arrived in Longxi, as a southerner, he felt a little unaccustomed, dizzy, his throat was dry and itchy, and his nose often couldn't breathe. "Ah~ cut ———" casually softened his itchy nose, and said to himself: "Strange, didn't Master Lian Cheng say that Su Wen is immune to all diseases? Saying that, Zhang Nianxin endured his dizziness and walked towards Zicheng County, Song Ying, Song Quan, and Ji Dafu, who had been waiting for him at the gate of the city for a long time, saw this, and hurriedly greeted Song Quan and said: "Oh, Brother Liu, you are here, I have been waiting for you for several hours, let's go to Zhechong Mansion to sign up." "Lanzhou is not a mainland metropolis like Luoyang, Chengdu, but a frontier fortress, although it is not very prosperous, but it also has a majestic scenery of the border fortress. On the city wall, the soldiers wearing Mingguang armor and fine scale armor were mighty and majestic, and they were ready to fight, and the Song Ying and Song Quan brothers who watched it were envious.

"Alas, big brother," Song Ying pointed to the soldiers on the wall and said enviously, "Look at the armor of those military masters, they are so handsome, can we also issue one when we become soldiers." ”

Zhang Nianxin, who goes by the pseudonym Liu Ling, interrupted his good dream: "Come on, Mingguang armor can generally only be worn by cavalry, and other soldiers are generally scale armor and chain mail." It would be nice for a new army like ours to have two pieces of leather armor. ”

"Huh?" Song Ying was suddenly disappointed.

Zhang Nianxin continued: "But don't worry,"

Song Quan was puzzled: "Alas, Brother Liu, how are you familiar with the military system of the official family? Could it be that you have been a soldier before?"

Zhang Nianxin said: "Oh, there was a veteran from my hometown who came to us to work for a short time, and I listened to him. ”

Song Ying nodded and said, "Oh, so that's the case." ”

Zhang Nianxin broke out in a cold sweat on his forehead and said secretly in his heart: It's so dangerous, I almost showed my stuffing, it seems that I will have to pay more attention in the future. Fu Dalong, who had not spoken beside her, looked at the scars on the corners of her eyes and chin thoughtfully...

At this time, a man wearing a lion-faced swallowing head Mingguang armor rode past them on a high-headed horse, stirring up a burst of dust, splashing them with dust, and almost hitting Ji Dafu, Song Ying wiped his face and scolded: ", what kind of thing?

Ji Dafu stopped him and said: "Alas, forget it, people look at their faces and look like a general, will they care about the life and death of grass people like us? ”

When the group came to the Assassin's Mansion soldiers, the named officer glanced at them and said absentmindedly: "Sign up." ”

Song Ying stepped forward excitedly and said: "My name is Song Ying, twenty-one" and then pointed to his younger brother and said: "This is my younger brother Song Quan, nineteen, we are both from Wenxiang, Baoxing County, Governor of Yazhou."

When the named officer heard this, he looked at them suspiciously, and said contemptuously: "Yazhou? That is also my Tang Frontier, right? Why don't you go directly to the local area when you have traveled so far to Longxi to serve as a soldier?"

Song Quan smiled: "Master Jun, you don't care about this, we have our own plans." ”

"Cut, inexplicably," the named officer finished, and said: "Remember, let's go aside, next." Ji Dafu came up and said: "Ji Dafu, a native of Nan'an County, Jiazhou, is twenty-four this year. The named officer looked at him and laughed, "You look like a rich soldier and put on your armor." When he was done, he said, "Okay, "Next." ”

Zhang Nianxin stepped forward, lowered his voice and said: "Liu Ling, 17 years old, from Changming County, Mianzhou. When the registerer saw this, he frowned and said, "Are you too thin?"

Zhang Nianxin smiled slightly, raised the water tank next to his table with his left hand slightly, threw it, and threw it five zhang high, and then turned around and swung out the Shadow Horizontal Knife in his right hand and firmly caught it in front of him, and the registered officer looked up, only to see that the remaining half of the tank of water was not spilled, and looked back at Zhang Nianxin with some surprise: "Good guy, you still came to join the army with a guy thing." Okay, I've got you covered. (It is known that the water in this water tank is about eighty catties, Zhang Nianxin threw sixteen meters with one hand, and then caught it steadily, and there was nothing in his hands.) Ask Zhang Nianxin what is the arm strength at this time. Funny face)

Song Ying and a few others were indeed dumbfounded, and Song Quan patted him on the shoulder and said, "Good guy, I saw that you were thin and weak, but I didn't expect to hide it." Alas, where did this knife come from, it's pretty good. ”

Zhang Nianxin put away the knife and said, "How can you do it when you go out without a guy who has no self-defense? Not to mention that you still came to join the army." ”

Then the registrar took note of his name and said, "All right, you guys, go to the camp outside the city to get a set of clothes, and then report to the fire room tomorrow." ”

At this time, Song Quan asked: "Alas, Master Jun, the room is for cooking, right? Why are you letting us go there? We are going to go into battle to kill the enemy." ”

"Go into battle to kill the enemy?poof~" The official laughed out loud and said: "Are you in such a hurry to go to the battlefield to die? With that, he turned around and went back to the Assassin's Mansion to attend to his business.

Song Quan said dejectedly: "Alas, brother, I originally wanted to kill the enemy to protect the country and gain fame, but I didn't expect to be sent to burn the fire as soon as I joined the army." ”

Zhang Nianxin patted him on the shoulder and said: "If you come, you will be safe, how can there be a general who will ascend to the sky in one step, work honestly." "He didn't care what position he had in the army, anyway, his original purpose was the record of the Folding Mansion thirty years ago.

Ji Dafu also echoed: "Yes, Brother Liu is right, we have to wait for a grain rain to sow seeds, let's boil slowly, maybe one day the army will transfer us over if there is a shortage of people." ”

Zhang Nianxin smiled: "I'm afraid that at that time, it was already a moment when the whole city was besieged and it was in great danger." ”

On the second day, several people received a set of red military uniforms and came to the house outside the city. Nowadays, many people are used to watching costume dramas, and they generally think that the ancient army was stationed in the city in one go. In fact, this is impossible, because the space of a city is so large, and thousands of soldiers, horses, and ordnance are piled up in the city. So generally speaking, most of the army was stationed in a large camp outside the city, leaving a small number of men on the four city walls as sentry posts, which were rotated every day, and the security inside the city was taken care of by the officials and other officials. Whenever there is a great enemy, the beacon tower in the distance will definitely send a signal. In the meantime, the army will enter the city, and then the four gates will be closed and the battle for the defense of the city will begin.

As soon as he entered the back stove of the room, a big man with a smoked face walked out with a kitchen knife and shouted: "Hello people, my name is Wang Dayan, I am the fire chief here, from now on you will be my soldiers, I have a bad temper, you take care of it." After the introduction, he began to "divide the troops" "Okay, don't stand there stupidly, that big tall man, you go and fetch water for me, and fill the fifty water tanks in the yard for me this morning. That fat pig with a belly like a sack, you go to the back mountain for me to chop firewood, and if you don't cut enough firewood, you won't have anything to eat. Then, he pointed to Song Ying and Zhang Nianxin and said, "You two, look at the two of you who are as thin as bamboo poles." Come with me on the stove and cook for me. At this time, Song Quan interjected: "That, Chief Wang, don't we all need to remember our names?"

Wang Dayan said: "Oh, hey, I'm not a place to fight here, you are just a group of people who come to work part-time, and you don't need to write a list of the dead of the secretary, what to remember." Okay, hurry up and hurry up with your guys, and go to the armor treasury to find old money by yourself. Saying that, he took Zhang Nianxin and Song Ying to the back barracks, only to see enough corn, vinegar cloth, salt, flour, and cured meat to be eaten by hundreds of people piled up on the board like a hill, and there were four or five sergeants next to them who were chopping vegetables, cooking soup, kneading dough, and were very busy. Wang Daring pointed to a pile of flour and said: "Recently, a group of people in our battalion are going to be sent to Weizhou, and I will make a batch of cakes for them to use as dry food. You two hurry up and make me the dough and make it ready. ”

Song Ying asked, "How far is it going to be steamed?" ”

Wang Dayan said impatiently: "Hey, hey, a group of rough-skinned and thick-skinned men, and it's not a rich young master who wants to eat? Then he went to add fire to one of the stoves.

The two of them came to the dough, and Song Ying said with some embarrassment: "I don't know how to make dough, my mother and my sister have always cooked at home." ”

Zhang Nianxin rubbed his head and said, "I know a little, but my skills are not very good, you help me, I'll make do with it." ”

Song Ying nodded and said, "Okay, that's the only way." ”

Half an hour later, a woman in her forties and fifties suddenly ran in in a hurry, and said anxiously to Wang: "Old Wang, have you finished the herbs I asked you to fry yesterday? ”

Wang boldly put down the bellows, took a cloth bag from the side and handed it to her, and said: "Give it, you find someone else, I'm busy here, how can I have time to get medicine for you." ”

When the woman heard this, she took the medicine and walked away.

Seeing this, Zhang Nianxin asked, "Alas, are women allowed to come in the military camps in this Xinjiang?"

Wang Daring said while working: "Of course, there are so many people in the camp, and from time to time there will be an injured person." We're a bunch of big men who don't know how to serve people, and few women take care of it. ”

Zhang Nianxin suddenly regretted it in his heart: Cao, I knew that I would not be a male companion or a woman, so wouldn't it be okay to just find a job here to take care of people.

Wang Daring closed the door of the stove and continued: "But judging from my previous experience as a janitor in the wounded camp, the women who came to work in the camp did not end well. ”

Song Ying asked, "Why?"

Wang Daring said: "Hey, these soldiers in my camp are all men who are standing and peeing, what do you want me to say? Therefore, the women who come to the camp often come in standing on their waists and go back with a big belly on their backs. (Even in modern society, there are such things in the military, and the QJ scandal of the US military Florida came out some time ago, after all, this is the physiological needs of the human body, and I can't help it.) Some people may ask the ancients didn't know how to beat their hands to relieve their boredom? Not to mention, the ancients really knew how to do it, and there was a poem "Mocking the Surname Ni" recorded in Xiaolin Guangji: Sitting alone in the study and being a wife is not known to outsiders. If you change your left hand to your right hand, you will stop marrying again. One strangle, one strangler, all over the body. Bit by bit fell to the ground, and the children and grandchildren all turned into mud. But after all, doing it yourself is still not as fragrant as others feeding you. So, a thousand words turned into an old saying: men. ）

Zhang Nianxin, a woman, turned slightly red when she heard this, avoiding the eyes of the two of them and pretending to be kneading her dough. Wang Daring continued: "But the fate of the women who came to the camp was really miserable, a few years ago, Tubo came to invade my frontier again, General Song led people to pursue, and was besieged in the valley halfway, in order to break through the siege, the hundred and ten women in the army, whether they were captured or brought or picked up halfway, were all killed, alas, I was also present at the time, and it was miserable." ”

When Zhang Nianxin heard this, he put down the dough in his hand and tightly grabbed the two edges of the wooden basin.

Wang Daring continued: "But seriously, General Song did this to save the dignity of those women, and those Tubo people are all animals that eat people and don't spit out bones. If they are left behind, most of the Tubo people who eat people and don't spit out bones will be captured as serfs. The thin ones were stripped of human skins to make thangkas. ”

Song Ying asked, "Alas, what is Brother Song's human skin thangka?"

"Oh, it's a kind of cloth painting painted on human skin, and I heard that when it is peeled, the herd of animals, in order to look good, will make a hole in the head when the person is alive and pour mercury into the crack, and then peel it off raw, tsk, it is scary to hear. Then, the remaining bones will be made into various magic weapons, which will be used to worship some bullshit gods. As he spoke, he took out a knife with a white bone handle from his bosom, and said, "Oh, this thing was picked up when I was fighting in the past, and I heard the Tubo soldier say that the handle of this knife was chopped off from the hand of a Tang soldier, and the head of the Tang soldier was smashed by him with a stone and made into a bowl, which was used to drink wine...... (Regarding the production of thangkas, generally speaking, only the monks who have attained the Tao will be stripped off after their death to make adult thangkas, but the fact is that a large number of serf owners, the old nobles, in order to show off, will peel the serfs and captives and cramp to make thangkas.) As for making magic weapons from human bones, there are too many of them, and you can't count them if you search the Internet... ）

After listening to the evil deeds of the Tibetan people, Song Ying was already furious, and said through gritted teeth: "These animals will be driven out one day sooner or later." ”

Wang Daring patted him on the shoulder and said, "Okay, before you kill the Tubo people, you can make me the noodles first, you can't cut the Tubo barbarians with an empty stomach." As he spoke, he walked up to Zhang Nianxin and said, "What's the matter, are the noodles kneaded?"

However, when he looked at the basin, he was dumbfounded: "I, Cao, how did you knead the flour into a pile of dead dough with you scumbag." Alas, forget it, just make fried dough for them, and save me some trouble. Oh, your name is Liu Ling, right? Bring me the salt. ”

"Oh," Liu Ling took out a jar, saw that the salt grains in it were colorful like minerals, tasted one, bitter and numb, and immediately spit it out and said: "Brother Wang, this salt is too earthy, and there is a pile of sand in it, can you eat it?"

Wang Daring was angry: "You people in Bashu have well salt, of course there is good salt to eat. We are a border army here, the conditions are hard, and it is difficult to drink water in the station, so where do you have the qualifications to dislike it? Let me tell you, it is good to have salt, if they don't go far away, they still can't eat, and I usually use salt cloth. ”

When Zhang Nianxin heard this, he took the bag of salt and smiled: "I know a simple way to make fine salt, please get me some plant ash and sieve cloth." As he spoke, he poured a bag of salt into the pot and boiled it carefully. (In fact, there is no need for plant ash or quicklime, and the solubility of potassium chloride, magnesium chloride and sodium chloride is different at different temperatures.) Adding an appropriate amount of water can remove most of the heavy metals in the salt mine, similar to the physical purification method of sea salt. The Tang Dynasty should already have a similar method. However, the salt production increased greatly in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and most of the people in our country were still eating light food in their leisure time before, and even if there was this method, it was unlikely to be promoted among the working people. The king boldly looked at it and stamped his foot: "Oh, what are you doing, don't spoil that bag of salt." Song Ying knew his ability and found tools according to his instructions.

Dozens of minutes later, Zhang Nianxin finished his busy work and scooped up the salt in the pot and handed it to Wang Daring. Wang boldly looked at it and was stupid. Seeing that the salt in the bowl was still coarse, but as white as snow, he stretched out his finger and stuffed some into his mouth, tasted it carefully, although his tongue was salty, but he still swallowed it in one gulp, and praised it: "It's good, it's not worse than the sea salt in Suzhou." If it is put into the world, this kind of salt is worth at least 500 wen a catty. Liu, Brother Liu, how did you do that?"

Zhang Nianxin smiled: "Ah, this is a method taught to me by a scholar surnamed Wu, I can't get used to other salt after eating the salt he makes, so I have been using this method to make salt myself, oh, and gave me a picture that seems to be called a table tube well?" Suddenly, his hands were trembling, and he said excitedly: "What is the name of that scholar surnamed Wu? I want to take him to introduce Cui Tingshi." ”

Zhang Nianxin said with some embarrassment: "That person is Wu Jiansheng, who has recently grown up in Chang'an and is famous for a song of Jiangxue and Liangzhou lyrics, and now he has gone to Xinwang Li You, are you sure you want to find him?"

When Wang Daring heard this, he was dumbfounded, and said: "Alas, it's just that, it's really a big man who can't be touched by a small person like us. "Saying that, I took this fine salt to find a worker in the history of the assassination.

Song Ying tasted it in the pot and sighed: "I'll go, what kind of person is this Wu Gongzi, I didn't eat this salt when I was working in the mine in my hometown." ”

"Ah Che, Ah Che, who is talking about me?" Wu Jiansheng, who was in Chang'an at this moment, sneezed several times in a row. At this time, a guy next to him came over and said, "Master, those officials in Jing Zhaoyin's mansion have come to ask for silver again."

Xiao Pian was angry: "Ah, haven't we already paid this year's brewing tax? ”

Wu Jiansheng patted her shoulder and sighed: "Alas, in these days, if you have money and no power, of course you will become a fat pig raised by the government." After that, he said to his fellow man, "Today, I will lock up the drunken village for a while, it seems that I am going to visit the king of letters." ”