The young man opposite Mr. Zili laughed and said, "What a fuss!"
"It's just the imperial court's canoe. We've seen a lot! Get off!"
The middle-aged man hasn't spoken yet, but the man named Mr. Zili said: "Wait a minute, we are not far from the riverside, why don't we go and have a look!"
The young man advised: "Sir, a batch of these grain-carrying ships will come every three to five days. You don't know, most of these ships carry grain from Jiangxi to Huai'an Prefecture! When you get to Jingkou, you can rely on We people transfer the food to the boats on the inland rivers, we are not surprised!"
The middle-aged man at the head also said: "Yes, sir, you came here to help us and other brothers who were in charge of Hefei on the orders of Chief Assistant Xu Ge. You bypassed many checkpoints of officers and soldiers along the way and finally got to us. We You must do your best to be a landlord!"
Mr. Zili was already disgusted with the harmony between father and son, but for the sake of the overall situation, he still smiled and said: "Let's go and have a look. I just came here and I happen to be familiar with the situation."
Hearing this, the middle-aged man at the head looked at his son, and finally said with displeasure: "Okay, Tianshu, you take your husband to have a look!"
After saying that, he stood up, flicked his sleeves and left the main room.
The young man named Tianshu was also very impatient and said: "Sir, come with me!"
Tuqiaohe Town is actually not very big, and the place where everyone is stationed is very close to the river. The reason why Zhang Jingxian has been unable to do anything about Tuqiaohe Town is that the navy of this group of people is very powerful, and the second is that there is a real shortage of troops.
He wanted to focus on guarding against enemies in Hefei and did not dare to risk his limited troops on Tuqiaohe.
In the plan Xu He had designed for him, Tuqiaohe was not the key. As long as the enemies of Hefei were defeated, Tuqiaohe's gang of rebels would naturally collapse.
Therefore, this group of talents settled down here safely.
At the beginning, this group of people were also worried about the imperial army's purge, but after two months, there was no movement at all from the imperial court.
These people also gradually relaxed!
When they came to the river bank, the young man named Mr. Zili looked at the broad river in the distance. There were no ships visible to the naked eye, and he was puzzled.
A good-looking woman wearing men's clothing walked up to the two of them and said: "Brother, the army is three miles away and will be here soon! Do you want the boats in the inland river to be ready? If something goes wrong, let them go immediately." Brothers, come aboard?"
Tianshu looked at the woman in front of him and snorted coldly: "Did you ask someone to notify dad?"
Seeing that he looked unkind, the woman's expression changed, and she said dryly: "Yes, it's me!"
"Hmph, you are a woman, just do your job in the church. Leading troops to fight is a man's job. Why are you getting involved?"
"You!" The woman's face turned green and red, but due to the difficulty of getting angry in the presence of outsiders, she could only glare at Tianshu and stop talking.
Seeing this, Mr. Zili frowned slightly and said, "Miss, please ask someone to inform the leader. Is there anything different about the official ship coming this time?"
The woman glanced at Mr. Zili and said: "There is nothing wrong, but it is early spring and is not the season for transporting grain. Normally, it is normal for a ship to pass by on the fifth day. This time, it only took three days for another ship to arrive. , I’m afraid there’s something fishy.”
Before Mr. Zili could say anything, Tianshu said angrily: "What do you, a woman, know?"
"Now our troops are making trouble in Jiangxi and Huguang, and the imperial troops have gathered in Yuanzhou. With so many troops, what do they eat? What do they drink? We still have to rely on the imperial court to transport food?"
"The grain has been transported to Huai'an Mansion in autumn and winter. At this time, the court has no choice but to transport the grain back from Huai'an Mansion. Do you understand?"
"Otherwise, why did Zhang Jingxian go crazy and want to open the Yangtze River channel a few days ago?"
What Tianshu said was very reasonable, and neither the woman nor Mr. Zili could find fault with it.
But the woman still insisted: "Brother, we don't know how to march and fight, so we have to be careful at all times to avoid ruining His Majesty's affairs!"
"That's because you don't understand!" Tianshu snorted coldly through his nose, "I, Su Tianshu, have studied military books since I was a child. I am proficient in mountains and rivers, geography, sun, moon and stars, as well as troop formations. Such trivial matters have always been in my heart. I know how to do it, but I still need you to teach me?"
"Okay, okay!" At this time, Mr. Zili interrupted the two of them, "Xian brothers and sisters don't have to fight anymore."
"I know that Brother Tianshu is the best among us, but my sister is right to be cautious! We are already here anyway, why don't we wait and see before talking about it!"
Mr. Zili was sent by the [Imperial Court], and Su Tianshu didn't want to refute his face too much, so he had no choice but to look away and acquiesce.
After a while, sure enough, more than 30 large boats came on the river.
When the fleet just entered the Tuqiao River, Su Yaoguang suddenly realized something was wrong.
"Their flag!"
The flag of a canal ship is usually an earthy yellow pennant with the word "Cao" in the middle of the flag.
But this time the canal boat came under the banner of Jining Military Preparation Road, Shandong Province.
"How come the ship from Jining Bingbeidao appears here?" Mr. Zili frowned.
"Brother, these boats look weird, why don't you ask the brothers to come forward and test them out?" the woman asked Su Tianshu.
Su Tianshu turned his head and sneered: "What do you know? Jining Bingbei Road is responsible for river salt and other affairs in Shandong, and also helps patrol the canal. It must be a large sand ship improvised by the canal transport yamen in order to transport more food!"
"But!"
Su Tianshu glared at her, then looked at the river and sneered: "If you are willing to blow the wind here, then do it, I will go back first!"
After that, he turned around and left without even saying hello!
"Brother..." The woman hurriedly shouted, but how could she call him back? Su Tianshu had already got on the horse, turned the horse's head and left.
Without Su Tianshu, not a single woman among the soldiers here could be mobilized.
She bowed her hands to Mr. Zili and apologized: "Mr. Tan, my eldest brother..."
Mr. Zili's original surname was Tan, his given name was Tan Lun, and his courtesy name was Zili. He was a native of Yihuang County, Jiangxi (Fuzhou, Jiangxi).
It was the [Director of the Ministry of War] sent by the [Imperial Court] to help Tuqiaohe contact Hefei.
However, because the defenders of Tuqiaohe were all Jianghu people, they didn't even care about the rules of the imperial court, let alone the chief of the military department of the [Little Imperial Court].
Tan Lun first smiled at the woman, and then looked at the official ships of the imperial court sailing unimpeded on the river. For the first time, he felt that could this group of willful grass bandits really defeat the imperial army?
On the river, Qin Lie in the cabin looked towards Tuqiaohe Town with a monocular telescope.
Sun Qianshi on the side said nervously: "Liangfu, why do you hang the flag of Shandong Jining Military Preparation Road? What if the thieves mistakenly think that we are soldiers and horses of Shandong Dusi and send troops to attack?"
Zhou Bi said with a smile: "Master Sun, don't worry. If we use the banner of a water ship, the thieves will be more suspicious. But if we use the banner of Jining's military preparation, the other party will think that we are guilty!"
"This is called the imaginary and the real, the real and the imaginary, the imaginary and the real, the thief can't figure out the situation, so naturally he won't go out easily."
At this time, Qin Lie put down the telescope and said: "It's okay, let's hurry up. After arriving at Yuanzi Port, we can go north from Anqing Mansion to Lengshuiguan!"
