Fourth.

The fourteenth day of the lunar month.

Shao Mingqian led people to transport half of the military rations to Zhong Yu's camp, and Zhong Yu personally received and thanked him, and held a banquet with Gai Motian and the generals.

The fifteenth day of the lunar month.

Shao Mingqian left the barracks and escorted the other half of the military rations to the capital with Mr. Wei, when the emperor had already received the report, Zhong Yu was afraid of his loss, and sent a thousand more people to escort him.

Since the accident in the fifteenth army of Layue, until the twentieth of Layue, Shao Mingqian and his entourage have no news, and on the twenty-first of Layue, the news finally came back, and a team of 'golden guards' sent to meet Shao Mingqian was wiped out, and these have an inextricable relationship with Zhong Yu, the emperor suspected his second heart, and vomited blood again in anger, so he angrily ordered Zhong Yu to be arrested.

The nineteenth day of the lunar month.

Shao Mingqian, Mr. Wei and his entourage entered the territory of 'Weizhou', a 'bluestone ancient town' in front of them, although the 'Weizhou' government is powerful, the rebels often raid and loot, this trick is the best at 'Tuota Heavenly King', before he specially sent his subordinates to intercept the official silver several times, although now the five kings have joined forces to besiege Zhong Yu, and were broken to the three sides, but after all, Li Dingtian still has many subordinates, these people can't enter the capital, and the strength of looting grain and grass along the way is more than enough. This time, the delivery of grain can solve the urgent need of 'Beichuan', and the emperor attaches great importance to it, and has previously sent a team of 'Jinyi Guards' to meet in 'Qingshi Town' to prevent the rebels from robbing grain on the way.

'Qingshi Town', named because of its abundant production of bluestone, the houses in the town are mostly made of stone from local materials, thick and steady, the style is very different and has a unique taste, before the famine came to the "Qingshi Town" to play the literati and ink countless, which also attracted many merchants to open shops here to sell goods, "Qingshi Xiaojiumei Garden" is an indispensable thing in the manor of the large family in "Qingshi Town", so although the "Qingshi Town" is only a town but extremely prosperous, after the famine, everything has changed,' Qingshi Town's tourists are decreasing, businesses have withdrawn, and foreign workers have also gone, and 'Qingshi Town', a town dominated by outsiders, has suddenly become much cleaner, especially in the past two years.

"Lord Shao Meng, are we waiting here or are we going to advance to the town?" Liu Da, the general who was escorted before the entrance of the town of 'Qingshi Town', came over and asked, there are more than 1,000 soldiers escorted this time, and the highest position is this staff general Liu Da, and the two deputies accompanying him are the two deputies of General Liu, one surnamed Li and the other surnamed Zhao.

Shao Mingqian said: "General Liu has been supervising the grain transportation all the year round and is an expert, how can Shao Moujie and the laymen dare to call the shots?"

Liu Dadao: "The master of the Shao League was personally given the title of 'Auxiliary General' by the emperor himself, and the rank of 'Auxiliary General' is still above the junior general, and the junior general was responsible for escorting the waterway before, so the young general is not very good at this land matter, and the young general who was instructed by the Hou Ye to understand that the junior general is the master of the Shao League, how dare he be good at it?"

Shao Mingqian smiled and said, "The general is polite. According to the grass people's shallow opinion, there is no big mistake in being cautious, it is better to send two people to explore the town first, if everything is normal, I will not be too late to go in again, if we happen to meet the 'Golden Guard', Lord Qianhu Wang, it will also save us from rushing into the town to run back and forth. ”

Liu Da nodded, and then called over to the two subordinates and said, "Have you heard what Lord Shao said?"

"I hear you. The two said in unison.

"Okay, if everything is in order, take the letter cannon as the signal. Liu Dadao.

"Yes. The two of them were about to enter the town, when Mr. Wei suddenly said: "The general is slow, if there is an ambush in the town, the enemy can also pretend to be our people and send a letter cannon." ”

"What do you mean, sir?" said Liu Da a little unpleasantly.

Mr. Wei said: "Before the battle between 'Osumi Amagi' and the enemy, there were different secret messages, fireworks, colors, cannon sounds, birdsong, kites, etc., and the meaning of these messages was different before each battle, so as to prevent the enemy from infiltrating and leaking information. ”

Liu Dadao: "According to your meaning, we still have to make fireworks kites?"

Mr. Wei knew that the general was a little dissatisfied, and immediately did not think it was angry, and said with a smile: "That's not necessary, the two officials can each bring a few letter cannons into the town, one is dangerous, four sounds are safe, and the rest of the cannons are meaningless, so even if the enemy takes away the letter cannon, it is useless, in other words, if the enemy releases the letter cannons indiscriminately, as long as the sound is not four sounds, their plan will be difficult to succeed, and the other sounds will know that the two officials have fallen into the hands of the enemy, and then we can prepare in advance to try to rescue." ”

Liu Dawei was stunned and said, "Okay, Mr. Yi is." ”

The two officers immediately trotted into the town with a letter cannon, Shao Mingqian ordered the accompanying carriages and horses to stop and rest for a while, and the brothers of the 'Yang Dao League' took out water and dry food and distributed them to everyone, two of the people who escorted the military rations were infected with a cold, and Cai Langzhong, who accompanied him, took advantage of this gap to hurry up and take a look at the two.

The two officers entered the town for half an hour without being heard from.

'Qingshi Town' is not small, not too big, like the elite in the army, each soldier carries a weight of dozens of catties and runs dozens of miles in one breath, like this year, the entire 'Tianmang Dynasty' can reach this elite soldiers, together with the masters in the 'Golden Guard', there are only a few thousand people, these thousands of people are basically stationed in 'Beichuan', although Zhong Yu is powerful, his soldiers are called elite, but in fact they can only be regarded as qualified, the reason is very simple - food and war.

The second reason is that the war wife is too frequent, easy to understand, dozens of large and small battles a year, every day, the recruited soldiers die in a few days, the gap between training and training is not big, and there is no time to train the troops well, most of them are the level of defending the city and being able to do coolies and throw stones to fight and fight water dogs, and most of the 100,000 troops can really fight less than 10,000 people, just like before. There are more than 8,800 gangs of the Yangdao League, at least half of them have practiced three punches and two kicks, but there are only about 2,000 people who can guard the rudder against the enemy, and ninety percent of the people who really decide the battle of life and death rely on three hundred 'Xuanyi Guards', and the role of these three hundred people in the battle is far greater than that of the other more than 8,500 people, which is also the situation when the three gangs joined forces to attack the mountain.

And the first reason seems not easy to understand, the actual simplicity is more important, training needs equipment, food, time, 'Tianmang Dynasty' lack of silver, since the establishment of the dynasty has been non-stop for more than 200 years, several major mistakes in the middle of the heavy losses have not been inherited until now have not been able to make up, so the later military tun became a major pillar, and now the normal military salary can not be paid, the military tun can not grow things, there are many people who join the army, there are not many people who are full, how to train if you are not full?

The emperor was extremely willing to equip each person with cannons, firearms, and even more powerful firearms, but where did the money come from?

With 10,000 sets of armor, firearms, and war horses, the emperor needs to tighten his belt for several years, and 10,000 sets of command errors in World War I are all reimbursed, and some have become the enemy's things, so the previous achievements are wasted, so the army is easy to recruit 100,000 'weak soldiers', and 1,000 elite soldiers are hard to find, just like the 'Yang Dao League' Shao Mingqian also wants to train 3,000 'Xuanyi Guards', at that time, don't say a 'Immortal Evil Venerable', three or five are not afraid of him, but if you train 3,000 'Xuanyi Guards', you need nearly 100,000 people to do business and make money,' Yang Dao Alliance's business has to expand more than ten times, therefore, three thousand elites for the imperial court is also extremely difficult, when Wu Jingguo rebelled, the five hundred 'Golden Guards' who rushed into the palace are the hard work of the imperial court for many years, and it can even be said that they have the strength of the entire 'Golden Guards' ninety percent of the strength, if they were not bluffed by impermanence, I am afraid that they still need to pad another 'Yang Dao Alliance' into it to have the hope of success.

For an hour, there was no news from the two people who were supposed to send out the letter cannon, the sun was already in the west, and it would be dark in more than an hour, and if it was dark, it would be even more troublesome, Mr. Wei was a little worried in his heart, and walked to Shao Mingqian's side without a trace and whispered: "Lord Shao, I think it's a big matter, I think it's better for me to go and see." ”

Shao Mingqian said in a low voice: "I'm tired of Mr. Lao." ”

"You're welcome. Mr. Wei turned around and asked Liu Da for four letter cannons and entered the town, Liu Da was reluctant, since he had sent people, what did this poor scholar go to do?

As soon as Mr. Wei entered the 'Qingshi Town', he was extremely vigilant, his body was fast, and his vision was also extremely accurate, looking at the courtyards, which courtyard was empty, and how many people were in which courtyard, he could immediately see a rough idea.

"The emperor ordered the 'Golden Guard' Wang Qianhu to take someone to meet in 'Qingshi Town', it stands to reason that he should greet him at the entrance of the town, even if he is afraid that the news will be discovered by the rebels, he should send someone to disguise himself at the entrance of the town to investigate, and now a 'Golden Guard' has not shown up, and it seems that no one has arrived. The terrain of "Qingshi Town" is complex and easy to ambush, although it is easy to defend and difficult to attack, it is easy to be besieged, the first two robberies of official silver happened in the section of the "Qingshi Town" generation, which is also the reason why the emperor sent people to meet here, if the person who responds in the future is not to take the risk of dragging in "Qingshi Town" and waiting, it is better to drive more than 30 miles to the front of Leijiazhuang to settle down, after all, we are understaffed, Leijiazhuang has fewer households, the terrain is simple, whether there is an ambush is easier to detect, even if someone is disguised, it is far better than ' Qingshi Town is easy to monitor and distinguish, not to mention that the cost of land transportation is extremely high, and there is not much grain and grass left for a few more days for people to eat and chew horses......"

Mr. Wei thought in his heart that he would speed up, as long as there were no people in the 'Golden Guards' in 'Qingshi Town', he would personally go to Shao Mingqian to explain his thoughts, and would not send a cannon to invite Shao Mingqian and others to come in.

'Bluestone Town' is not big, one end to the other end is only ten miles, the problem is to find out whether there is an ambush in the whole town, it is far from a trip to ten miles of road, which yard and which house hide ten or eight is not a problem, the whole town is an ambush of ten or eight people, others to monitor them is easy for them to find people difficult, if the brigade of people and horses into the town with a mighty carriage into the town, the other side of the spies will immediately find out, when they go deep into the hinterland, a drum sounds, the enemy from the outside to close their mouths, their line will be the back of the enemy。

Mr. Wei's feet are very fast, in the blink of an eye, he has run out of four or five miles, Xu is the reason that outsiders have left, the streets of 'Qingshi Town' are deserted and there are not many pedestrians, and then half a mile has reached the center of 'Qingshi Town', Mr. Wei is slender, and he can take a look at all the residential houses on both sides of the road, only to see that there are four or five courtyards around the street that are cleaned very clean, spotless, just like when he came to 'Qingshi Town' ten years ago. Mr. Wei felt a lot of nostalgia in his heart, and just when he was about to continue walking, his heart suddenly moved, in this year of famine, people are still worried about starvation, who cares if the courtyard is clean or not? Who can eat enough, and can have the extra strength to clean the courtyard?

"Is it to cover up something?" Mr. Wei suddenly had such a thought in his heart, this thought together he walked quickly to a courtyard, probed to look into the courtyard, deliberately paid attention to let him see clearly that there were a few whitening places on the stone wall of the courtyard, as if they had been scraped with a knife, he raised his nose and smelled, there seemed to be a faint smell of blood in the air.

"The original owner's house was indeed killed, and it seems that there must be an ambush in the courtyard. "Mr. Wei retreated backwards and turned around to return the same way, he didn't need to find out the cause and effect, he didn't need to find out what kind of ambush was, and he didn't need to know who was in ambush, he just needed to rush back and tell Shao Mingqian not to enter the town, because there was no 'Golden Guard' here or there was no 'Golden Guard', because the 'Golden Guard' would not slaughter ordinary people, even if they did bad things behind the emperor's back, they would only go to the money of the officials, and they would not bother to do this.

"Careless, I should have thought of it a long time ago. Mr. Wei turned around and just took a few steps, suddenly stopped, looked at a big tree in the corner of the house, and said, "Since you have found it below, please come out." ”