Yanzhou, Chenliu County, outside Puyang City.
A very small carriage with extremely strange wheels and several layers of animal skins was parked on the side of the road.
The driver was Qu Yi. He turned to the inside of the carriage and said, "Sir, we're here."
After a while, the carriage opened and Yuan Xi jumped out first.
His original appearance was easy to recognize, so with Wu Zhao's help he drew some eyebrows and glued some Qu Yi's beard on his chin, and his whole person changed a lot.
In contrast, Qu Yi's beard has been shortened a lot, and his image is quite different from that of Beixin City.
Wu Zhao stuck his head out, his face a little red, but fortunately it was covered by the marks on his face, so it was not very visible.
The carriage was extremely small, and as they were rushing along these days, the two of them huddled inside, their bodies often colliding, which often made Wu Zhao's heart beat faster.
No one expected that Yuan Xi and others would appear here.
Seven or eight days ago, Yuan Xi left Beixin City in a majestic manner with a convoy of dozens of people, and even dozens of women, and headed south slowly, as if for amusement.
Calculating the time, the convoy is still hundreds of miles north of Yecheng, and there are still several days to reach Yecheng.
In fact, Yuan Xi, Wu Zhaoquyi and several personal guards secretly got into a special small carriage when the convoy was camping and resting on the first night, and traveled south day and night.
They drove lightly along the way, changing several horses, bypassing Yecheng, Weijun, the southernmost part of Jizhou, and arrived at Puyangcheng, Chenliujun, more than a hundred miles south of Yecheng, located in Yanzhou!
Yuan Xi stretched out his hand, and Wu Zhao naturally put his hand on Yuan Xi's arm and jumped out of the carriage.
Wu Zhao reacted and turned slightly red.
Wu Zhao secretly admired this whimsical idea of changing her identity. Yuan Xi asked her to pretend to be Mrs. Hidden Tiger. Instead of being angry, Wu Zhao was actually a little happy.
But when Wu Zhao asked Yuan Xi his pseudonym, Yuan Xi reluctantly told a cold joke.
"My name is Yinhu, you can just call me Maotu."
After Wu Zhao heard this, he unconsciously tightened his legs.
Seeing that he had said something wrong, Yuan Xi said casually: "Why don't you call me White Tiger?"
As soon as the words came out, Yuan Xi felt something was wrong and quickly turned away.
Wu Zhao clamped her legs tighter. She had been extremely sensitive to this kind of speech since her husband's death.
And did Yuan Xi just say it casually, or did he calculate it using some kind of stargazing technique?
If that's the case, then you don't need to call me Hidden Tiger, just call me Yinhu!
Qu Yi called to a few followers dressed as farmers who were following behind the car, and began to remove the animal skins covering the wheels.
At that time, the wheels were all made of wood, so the speed was very fast, which caused severe bumps and easily damaged the wheels.
There was no rubber or other materials to make tires in this world, so Yuan Xi thought of a way to wrap the wheels with straw, wrap them with cloth strips, cover them with animal skins on the outside, and wrap them tightly with wires to fix them.
In this way, the bumps are greatly reduced, and the sound is gentle, which can be said to be much more convenient than wooden wheels.
Qu Yi and others lifted up the carriage wheels and removed the wire, animal skins, straw and other materials on them, and the wheels returned to their original shape.
In this way, you will not attract attention when entering Puyang City.
Seeing that everyone was almost busy, Yuan Xi said: "Except for Brother Qu, you will go to the city separately to find out the news. Brother Qu will ride into the city with the two of us in a carriage."
After hearing this, several personal guards followed the order and left.
Yuan Xi and Wu Zhao got on the carriage, and Qu Yi drove the carriage towards Puyang City Gate in a swaggering manner.
When we arrived at the city gate, there were more than a dozen soldiers dressed as Cao Jun guarding the outside. When they saw the carriage coming, they stopped it with their wooden guns and shouted: "Stop!"
A soldier came over, took the tip of his gun and picked it up on the curtain of the carriage. Qu Yi's eyes flashed when he saw it.
As a result, a faint voice came from the car, "If you break my car curtain, I will make you regret it."
The soldier was furious when he heard this: "Who is inside? Get out of the car!"
The curtain of the car was opened, Yuan Xi poked his head out, threw a road guide to the soldier's chest, and coldly snorted: "Watch carefully."
The soldier caught the road guide and was about to have a seizure when he caught a glimpse of the sign on the road guide, and then his expression changed drastically.
He looked at the road signs carefully several times. A squad leader had already come over and shouted, "Who is causing trouble here?"
The soldier quickly handed the guide to the squad leader. The squad leader took it and looked at it. His face immediately changed and he put on a smiling face. He respectfully handed the guide back with both hands and said with a smile: "The villain has no eyesight and rushed. Sir, please don’t blame me.”
"I wonder what your purpose is in coming to the city, sir?"
"What if you don't want someone to help guide you?"
There is no other reason why the soldiers are so respectful. The sign on the road is signed by the Yuan family in Jizhou to the nobles.
At that time, the gentry were the masters of the people, and the Yuan family controlled the four states. Even Cao Cao's Yanzhou was also the Yuan family's territory, so how could these soldiers dare to speak.
Yuan Xi snorted coldly: "Do you need to ask about my matters?"
"Can we enter the city now?"
He made the gentry's frivolous and arrogant style perfect, because in the eyes of the gentry, there was no difference between these big-headed soldiers and civilians.
The more noble his demeanor was, the less the soldiers dared to ask more questions.
If he acted courteous, the soldiers would become suspicious.
Sure enough, the team leader quickly got out of the way and said with a smile: "Okay, okay, sir, please go slowly."
Everyone watched the carriage enter the city and disappear on the street. A soldier hummed: "It's so big..."
The other soldiers laughed and said, "Who knows that they are nobles? We can live our whole lives and never say a few words to them. Just thank God that you didn't cause any trouble."
The carriage was driving slowly on the street. Wu Zhao was curious and looked out through the gap in the curtains.
Since she was kidnapped by the Xiongnu in Luoyang, she traveled hard all the way until she was rescued to Beixin City, and then all the way to Puyang City.
At that time, Luoyang was hit by a fire, with ruins everywhere, streets collapsed, and people dying of hunger everywhere.
She stayed in Beixin City for more than half a month and found that Beixin City was much better than Luoyang in terms of streets and other aspects. She only thought it was due to the military disaster in Luoyang.
Finally, when we entered Puyang City, we found that the streets were also in ruins and hungry people were falling to the ground everywhere. Only then did we realize that Beixin City was a special case.
Wu Zhao explained his doubts. Yuan Xi listened and was silent for a while before saying, "I don't know, but I heard that Yecheng is pretty good."
"Cultivation of good relations with the people and less fighting, the people below will naturally live a better life."
"There have been constant wars in Yanzhou in the past few years, and the gentry controls the land. How is it possible that people will not starve to death."
Wu Zhao thought of Yuan Xi's abandonment of the grain-gathering nobles at the top of the city, and thought that only this man dared to do it.
In Wu Zhao's view, everything Yuan Xi did was against the nobles, and he lacked the style of a nobleman.
However, she recalled that when her group left Beixin City, almost all the men, women, and children in the city came to see them off outside the city, and she sighed in her heart.
It is really strange to look down on the scholars and value the servants.
The carriage walked a few streets and stopped behind a house. Qu Yi looked around and saw that he must have arrived at the agreed upon place.
He took out two strips of cloth, one black and one white, and tied them to the left and right shafts of the carriage respectively. Then he pretended to sit down and take a nap, while squinting his eyes slightly and looking around.
It took half an hour before someone came over and made a few gestures to Qu Yi.
Qu Yi said a few words, and the man nodded, came up and led the carriage, leading the way.
Wu Zhao felt the carriage start to move, and his heart pounded involuntarily.
Yuan Xi had told her earlier that this trip was to pretend to be a hermit, but the key was still Wu Zhao, who was familiar with the Yanzhou gentry.
The other party will definitely ask some probing questions. If you don't respond properly and reveal your flaws, all your efforts on this trip will be in vain.
The carriage circled the city for a long time, and finally turned into an alley and entered a small courtyard.
As soon as he entered the yard, Qu Yi's pupils narrowed slightly in front of the carriage.
There was a man sitting with his back to them in the yard. Although he did not move, the faint murderous aura emanating from him made Qu Yi alert.
He is a master who has experienced the battlefield!
