The reeds in the waiter's mouth are as far as the eye can see.
Seeing Xu He watching the reeds undulating in the wind on the wide water surface, the waiter explained: "These are the reeds used in the salt farm to dry salt."
In Xu He's memory, the ancient method of drying salt in salt fields was used. This was the first time he heard of using reeds to dry salt.
After the waiter's explanation, he knew the whole story.
turn out to be. The Lianghuai Salt Fields inherited the Song Dynasty system. The salt workers' union planted reeds near the salt fields. After the reeds grew, the salt workers' union harvested them and brought them to the salt fields.
When the sea tide rises, the salt workers throw the reeds into the sea water.
After the tide receded, they took the reed poles back and exposed them in the sun. After the salt and frost had condensed on the surface of the reed poles, they swept the salt and frost off the reed poles to become the daily Huai salt.
After hearing this, Xu He sighed. Sure enough, he had read thousands of books and traveled thousands of miles, but he had never been to this vast reed field. His knowledge was still stuck in the salt-drying method of salt ponds in later generations.
Although the waiter here knows that there are large reeds here, he is not familiar with the water environment here.
After searching for a long time, he finally found the waterway used by salt workers to harvest reeds.
When he entered the reed marsh with his boat, Xie Lan suddenly pointed behind him and said: "Look, there is black smoke over Dong'an Town!"
Everyone was suddenly startled and turned their heads.
Sure enough, in the direction of Dong'an Town, several black smoke rose into the sky. It seemed that someone set a fire in the town.
When everyone saw this, they couldn't help but feel frightened. If Xu He hadn't immediately called everyone to move, they might have been robbed by now.
Not long after we left, the waiter asked: "Brother He, what should we do?"
Xu He looked around and asked, "Is there any sandbank or other place where I can stand near here?"
The second-hand boy pointed to the west: "There are many sandbars here. My father said that there are usually sandbars in the reed marshes chosen by the saltworks for the salt workers to rest. Let's look to the west and there should be one."
Xu He nodded.
Everyone on the boat was looking at Xu He immediately, and naturally they would not object, so the boat headed towards the depths of the reed marsh.
At this time, everything was quiet in the reed marsh. Apart from the sound of the boat cutting through the water, the only sound left was the occasional cough from the patient.
Sure enough, not long after we marched, we saw a shed built by someone between the shadowy reeds, and the waiter said: "It should be there soon."
As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly heard the sound of children crying in the distance and the voices of adults coaxing children.
Xu He frowned slightly when he heard the sound, wondering if someone had already found the sandbank before them.
Sure enough, after the boat had gone more than a hundred meters, they saw a small sandbar appearing in front of everyone.
To everyone's surprise, the small sandbank was already filled with people taking refuge, and many small boats were moored along the sandbank.
Just as their boat was about to approach, someone suddenly rushed out from the sandbank. Those people were holding poles in their hands. After seeing Xu He and his boat, they used their poles to push the boat open and prevent them from docking. .
At this time, a familiar face stood on the sandbank and sneered: "We meet again!"
Xu He took a closer look and saw that it was the shopkeeper who had just robbed their boat at the dock.
"You can't do this, there are patients on our ship!" Xu Peng's eyes were red and he glared angrily at the middle-aged man on the sandbank.
The shopkeeper sneered and said, "I don't care if you have any patients! As long as I'm here, you can't even think about going ashore!"
"You..." All the men on the boat were angry.
The two Xie brothers even stayed with their mother, tears streaming down their faces.
The old man guarding the gate said: "My boss, the two young masters on the boat are the sons of our Dong'an Town Inspection Department Xie Inspection. Please ignore the past grudges and let us go ashore!"
I thought the shopkeeper would give him some face when he heard Xie Bin's name.
Unexpectedly, the man sneered after hearing this: "A small inspection is worthy of us giving face. Tell them, what are our backgrounds?"
The guys under the shopkeeper all sneered and said: "So that you know that our shopkeeper Zhou is the disciple of our Yangzhou Zhoufutai. A small inspection is nothing. Get out of here, or the brothers will go down the river and take you into the boat." Lifted!"
When everyone heard it, they found out that the other party was a family member of Futai. No wonder they dared to rob a boat in Dong'an Town just now.
Now that the matter was over, Xu He turned around and said, "Xiaoer, let's go!"
The waiter didn't talk nonsense when he heard what he said. He held up his pennant and left the sandbank here. There was a burst of laughter behind everyone.
"How big of an official do I think you are when you come to Te Niang for inspection! How dare you point a sword at me!"
"If there weren't some thieves chasing you today, I would have asked someone to throw you into the river!"
When the men on the boat heard such arrogant words, they all clenched their fists.
After the boat left, Xu He asked the waiter: "Are there any others nearby?"
The waiter shook his head: "This is the location that my father roughly pointed out when I passed by. I don't know anything else!"
The old gatekeeper said at this time: "How about we find a secluded place to rest on the waterway, and everyone will make do with it!"
Hou Desheng was already tired after a long day's journey. Hearing this, he immediately nodded in agreement and said: "Yes, yes, yes, the thief went to Dong'anji. He should have left after robbing. He will not come here. Is there any gold in the reed swamp?" Silver jewelry.”
Hearing this, Xu He shook his head and said, "No, just stop on the waterway. If the thieves have a boat, we won't be able to escape."
He thought for a while and said to the waiter: "First find a secluded place, let's go down to the river to find a way, and then push the boat in!"
When the old gatekeeper heard this, he wanted to say something like "There's no need to go to such trouble."
But the waiter had already begun to take off his clothes.
Seeing this, Xu Peng also took off his clothes, and they jumped out of the boat together.
Xu He also wanted to go down to help, but Xu Peng stopped him in the water and said: "Xiao He, two people are enough. You are too weak to come down!"
After saying that, the two separated the reeds, and pushed the boat to the left and right toward the depths of the reed swamp.
After pushing for about two hundred meters, there was a place inside that could not be pushed. The waiter took the kitchen knife from the boat and cut off the reeds.
Seeing that the situation on the waterway outside was no longer visible, Xu He said to the two of them, "That's it!"
When the two of them were about to get on the boat, Xu He quickly stopped them and simply took off his clothes and jumped into the river.
"Xiaohe, you..." Xu Peng looked at Xu He in surprise.
"The three of us cut down all the reeds around us to prevent thieves from setting fire!"
Hou Desheng shook his head when he saw this, obviously not paying attention to what Xu He said.
Seeing this, Xie Xiu, the eldest son of the Xie family, also took off his clothes and came down to help.
Fortunately, the reed poles were fragile, and many of them were cut with swords and swords to create a fire barrier.
Xu He saw that it was almost done, so he quickly called everyone to climb on the boat.
Seeing this, the old man lit a fire in the stove at the stern of the boat to warm up the few boys.
When Xu He saw this, he wanted to stop it, but when he thought that his aunt still had to boil the medicine, he acquiesced.
But not long after they dried themselves off and warmed themselves by the fire at the stern of the boat, suddenly there was a scream of old, weak, women and children in the distance.
Then, just from the direction of the sandbank, sounds of begging, yelling, and diving sounds of "plop" and "plop" came one after another.
Xu He's face darkened, the thief was chasing him!
