Guide Mansion is an ancient city and was once one of the largest cities in the world.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, after the country was subjugated, it was based on this, and they still strived to be superior to the princes of Shandong for hundreds of years, and they called it the Five Thousand-Cheng Powerful Song Dynasty.
Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty, served here as the military governor of the Song Dynasty returning to Germany. Later, Zhao Kuangyin became the emperor, so he took the Song Dynasty as the country's name and promoted this place to Nanjing Yingtian Mansion of the Song Dynasty. When the Song Dynasty moved south, this place became Guide Mansion again. At its peak, it governed more than 70,000 households, making it a prosperous place in the Central Plains.
However, the current Guide Mansion still has a scale of twenty-five miles in the outer city, fifteen miles in the inner city, and two miles and 316 steps in the palace city, but it has become much more remote. There is a large open space between the inner city and the palace city. In the open space, there are ruins of collapsed buildings and overgrown grass. In the direction of the continuous houses, they also seemed to have a dilapidated appearance of being in disrepair.
However, this is already better than the outer city. Between the outer city and the inner city, you can even see piles of bones. It was obvious that it was the body of a refugee. No one in the local area was collecting the body, and the local government was too lazy to send anyone to bury it. The city is simply big enough and there is plenty of open space. Just leave it there. Wild dogs and birds will always eat it. When the corpses turn into bones, there is no danger of causing the plague.
This situation aroused the anger of the accompanying knights, but Peng Yibin, as the guide, quickly told everyone that this was not caused by war or harsh government, but the result of the rise and fall of the large-scale economy after the Yellow River changed its course.
Since the early years of Dading, the Yellow River has flowed southward, bursting several times in a row over the past few decades, dividing the north and south streams into three parallel streams to seize the Huaihe River. In particular, the southern branch branching off from Yanjin surged across Kaifeng, Suizhou, and Guide, destroying all the Bianshui, Suishui, Huanshui and other water systems.
Tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land around Guide Mansion were destroyed and turned into continuous floods such as Hong Pengze and Meng Zhuze. Since the agricultural foundation was destroyed, the people were scattered day by day.
Nanjing Road faces the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty. Even for political purposes, the Jin Dynasty hopes to run the business properly here, so strictly speaking, the court is closely watching the gathering, mainly in Shandong and Hebei; daily life on Nanjing Road Governance, and even the policies on salt administration and taxation, are much better than those on Shandong Road. Especially in terms of taxation, the burden on the people is much less than that of the Southern Song Dynasty.
But the power of nature is so irresistible. The Guide Mansion in front of us really doesn't seem to be prosperous and developing.
According to Peng Yibin, in the past two years, the role of Guide Mansion has been more reflected in the focus of military defense and the hub of material transfer and delivery. Therefore, even if Wanyan Bi is a pure warrior, he will not appear to be at a loss when sitting here.
But precisely because Wanyanbi was a pure warrior, the management of this city was almost completely under the control of the army. I am afraid that the local Recording Department or Sihousi had little power.
Once the army went out in large numbers, the remaining few soldiers relied on temporarily recruited strong men to maintain the situation. They were responsible for patrolling thieves, prosecuting night-time and so on. There were suddenly too many things to take care of, and it was inevitable that they would miss something.
Just like a moment ago, Guo Ning arrived with his servant knights, and the officers guarding the gates of the outer city and the inner city came up for questioning. However, Guo Ning's more than 200 people were very powerful, and the cavalry he led was also very angry. Anyone who came to question them was beaten on the spot, and several of them turned into gourds. So no one dared to intercept them anymore, and they were forced to break into the city.
At this time, the entire cavalry team gathered on the street. Occasionally there were ordinary people on the street. They looked at them all with ferocious looks and hurriedly turned around and left. There were also people who stuck their heads out from the cracks in the door or from the top of the wall to look at them, secretly guessing their identities.
Just looking at the shape of the Rongpao armor's stomach, it's hard to tell. The knights had obviously traveled a long way, their horses and men were covered in dust, and the original color of their robes could hardly be seen.
Their flags were also rolled up and tied to the horses' backs, as if they were in no hurry to raise the flags.
Peng Yibin felt the attention of many people gathering and felt uncomfortable all over.
There is an abandoned house next to the road with a broken door. A child sneaked out of the hole under the broken door and looked up. Peng Yibin raised his big eyes and made a grinning expression at the child. The child was so frightened that he screamed and crawled back out of the hole using his hands and feet.
When he followed Guo Ning before, he thought that soldiers and horses who had sneaked into the enemy's territory would continue to converge along the way, or that there might be some hidden stakes to control important positions in Guide Mansion. As a result, I ran all the way and saw nothing.
Guo Ning and others rushed into the city in a swaggering manner.
Because Wanyanbi led his elite troops to the front line, Guide Mansion was extremely weak at this moment. What's more, no one could imagine that enemy troops would disturb the fortified city from more than two hundred miles away, regardless of the front line fighting. Therefore, the city was completely defenseless at this time.
If the intelligence of Xu Wei and Liu Erzu is correct, the reinforcements arriving at Guide Mansion from various places will arrive one after another tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Therefore, Guo Ning and his party may seem to be taking a huge risk, but in fact they are very safe. At least they have nothing to protect themselves. Yu.
However, the process of entering the city was a bit humiliating. Guo Ning beat, cursed and threatened at the front and rear gates. When the city guarding officers were so frightened that they could not lift their heads, Peng Yibin almost wanted to rush up and grab them by their collars to make them stop. Get started:
Please open your eyes wide and take a look. This is Guo Ning, the thorn in your side of the Kaifeng court. As long as you kill him, you will have made a great contribution!
Peng Yibin was just thinking about it, and of course he wouldn't actually do it. Such a powerful man who controlled the court of the Kingdom of Jin actually went to the enemy's territory in person, and his courage was limitless. Faced with this lawless banditry, Peng Yibin was so convinced that he was holding the horse for Guo Ning as agreed in advance.
When he arrived in the city, Peng Yibin was still feeling dizzy. It wasn't until he stood on the street that he suddenly woke up and said to Guo Ning: "Why don't we leave some manpower to guard the city gate?"
"Don't worry about these bits and pieces for now." Guo Ning shook his head.
Peng Yibin frowned: "Although the soldiers who were guarding the city were released, they were not willing to do so. We are not keeping an eye on them. They have probably sent people to report to the military commander. The due interrogation must be indispensable. There is still half an hour at most, and the local soldiers and horses The commander-in-chief of the department will send someone to interrogate you. That level is not easy to handle!"
"What do you want to do with the lake?"
Xu Yan laughed: "They would never have imagined that the outpost of the Ding Navy was entering the city. They only thought that the marshal was an officer who came from Haozhou and Suzhou for reinforcements. Judging from the size of the accompanying cavalry, he might be a certain important general. The general next to you."
"So, the person who came to interrogate him soon was probably a high-ranking officer in the city, at least a Qianhu or Meng'an member of the defense army. Moreover, this person would never dare to accuse him when he came up. Instead, he wanted to receive reinforcements. The banner of the place where we are stationed is trying to tell us what is right and what is wrong and to be reasonable."
Peng Yibin said happily: "Let's talk reason with them and try to cover it up again?"
Guo Ning was stunned.
He glanced at Peng Yibin and said with a smile: "Old Peng, could it be that you look like a rough warrior, but you are actually a sour yellow and rotten tofu who reads books about sages?"
"What's this? Why did I become sour and rotten tofu?"
"You and I are both rebels from the Kingdom of Jin. What's the point of being a rebel?" Guo Ning sighed: "Look... we just need to be fierce and ruthless!"
Guo Ning pointed to the other side of the road.
Sure enough, they saw a group of infantry running out of the fork in the road, led by a majestic-looking officer, holding a silver waistband in his hand.
He quickly walked closer, looked at the cavalry formation, and squeezed out a smile: "I don't know which group of soldiers and horses are coming to help? I am the guard girl Xi Lie of Guide Mansion. I would like to ask the leader of your department to come out." …”
Midway through his words, Ni hit his face with a fist, knocking him over.
"You guys, since you want to pay homage to our marshal, why don't you kneel down? You are so cowardly!"
Ni yelled in confusion and used all his strength on his hands. He and several of his companions also swarmed up, pressed the officer to the ground, and beat him like spring rice. In a blink of an eye, his mouth and nose were crooked, and his head and face were covered with bloody bulges.
The soldiers who followed the officers didn't react in time. A deputy-looking colonel was about to come up to try to persuade him, but Ni Yi pointed at his nose: "Shut up if you don't want to die! Where is the local military commander? Hurry up and lead the way for my marshal!"
