The frontier troops from Yuhebao found a village in the deserted fields to settle down before dusk. The village was formerly called Guoshanmao.
Mao is a loess hill with a gentle top and steep slope in the northwest. The village is built next to the mountain. There are many cave dwellings along the steep mountain wall, and there are more residential courtyards. In the past, it was a large village with hundreds of households. .
There were still a few families here last spring. When Liu Chengzong went out to recruit soldiers, he saw Guoshanmao's sheepherders singing folk songs on the road.
The scenes of the past are still vivid in my mind, but this year only the collapsed and dilapidated courtyards and cave dwellings with yellow adobe covering their doors and windows are left.
Adding a bit of desolation.
The nearly 200 border troops released by He Renlong from Yuhe Fort were divided into three groups at the mouth of the river. One group led the troops northeast to bypass Yulin City and go to Baodou County. Their destination was Shenmu County and Fugu County.
The teams heading to Qingyang and Pingliang also said goodbye to them by the river. They carried their shoes and barefooted their way to the west bank of the Wuding River, which was more than a foot deep. They were going to Hengshan.
In the end, only two teams, Liu Chengzu and Cao Yao, went south, with a total of fifty people.
Tian Shoujing, the commander-in-chief, led his troops to cut firewood, while his brother Liu Chengzu had already climbed up the slope of the mountain wall when he first arrived in Guoshanmao to get a better view of the terrain.
The familiar faces all had worries about their uncertain future, but Cao Yao's team were quite at ease. They chopped down a dead tree and used it as a door slammer to rush around the village, breaking open the soil that sealed the cave dwellings when the people fled. Look around for something you can use.
It was said that it was a draw, but Liu Chengzong felt that there was something wrong with the soldiers released by He Renlong.
Liu Chengzu's team was recruited from the refugees last year. This year, there was insufficient food and supplies. Their training was not adequate and their skills were limited. Judging from the ability of the old frontier army, the only thing they could show was their queue.
So twenty people were released.
As for Cao Yao's team, they are all over 30 years old, and all have excellent military skills. Many of them are veterans who participated in the Battle of Saarhu, but they have all been thieves for several years and are difficult to manage.
The old thief in Guan Cao's team was even happier. He ordered his men to split the door panel and set up a bonfire. He was hugging his wife to show off the bronze mirror he bought with three handfuls of beans. He didn't know what was roasting on the fire. When he saw Liu Chengzong Walk around the village and say hello with your hands outstretched.
"Lion, lion! I see you have been wandering around the village for a long time. What are you looking for?"
"I didn't find anything. I took Xiao Zhuanfeng for a walk in the fields outside the village. I didn't see any living things." Liu Chengzong walked over and shook his head and said, "I want to see if there is anything in the village... Guan Cao, did I go around twice?" Meeting my senior high school brother, have you met him?"
Shi Chang Gao Xian was the third eldest son in the family, so everyone called him Gao Laosan.
Cao Yao chuckled, waved his hand and said: "Hey, what are you looking for? Don't worry about Lao Gao. He went to Qiyan Kiln over the mountain to find his aunt. It's probably night by then. He'll be back in the morning, and he's still looking for me. I borrowed three buckets of grain and said I would buy it back from my mother-in-law."
"I gave him advice but he didn't listen. If he asked me to just take two people over and kidnap my mother-in-law back, I'd tell him to sleep for a year in vain like a son of a bitch. In the end, I'd have to give him food..."
Not to mention, among the two groups, Cao Yao was the well-deserved big man. He packed two mules with his luggage after leaving Yuhe Fort, and also had some things for his men to carry on their backs.
This may be the reason why Cao Yao's group of soldiers were very comfortable. They knew that they would not die of hunger, and if they couldn't, they would eat these two mules for a few days.
"Then you lent him food?"
"You can borrow it or not, I gave it to you. He said that the family was trying to save someone's life, bam!" Cao Yao spat into the fire: "He was helping his mother, why did he have such a good thing? Why didn't he ask me for help? .”
Cao Yao laughed obscenely, and then screamed "Ouch", but Cao's sister-in-law twisted his waist hard: "You are such a shameless Cao Liu'er, I still ask you for help, how shameless! "
Sister-in-law Cao looks ten years younger than Lao Cao. She is a beauty with an oval face. She has followed Cao Yao since he defected to He Renlong and has been living outside Yuhe Fort. She is also a woman with great kung fu.
"Hey, I'm just going to talk about it. If I want to know this, he doesn't have to give away his mother-in-law... Look, lion." Seeing his wife getting angry, Cao Yao smiled and put aside the topic, raising his fingers to point at the few things on the fire. A piece of meat and said: "Does it look familiar?"
The smell of meat was already coming out. Before Liu Chengzong could speak, Sister-in-law Cao smiled and said, "Stop playing tricks on the lion. This is the goose that others hunt."
As she said that, she raised her eyes and said to Liu Chengzong: "You also know your brother. He is used to being a bastard. He felt unhappy when he saw that he had won the short lottery. When he was about to leave the castle, he ordered someone to find He Yong to get the wild goose."
"I'm going to get one." Cao Yao said, picking up a wooden stick and checking the heat, then handed it to Liu Chengzong and said, "I'm going to roast the goose leg for you. Give that one to your brother, and share the rest later." Brothers make soup.”
Liu Chengzong didn't react at all. He stared at the willow stick stretched out by Cao Yao: "Want one?"
"It's a good idea to leave one of the geese you hunted for them. Whether we see them in the future or not is another matter. Let's eat first."
Thinking about it, although Liu Chengzong felt that he couldn't do this, Cao Yao wanted to come back to the goose. The goose legs were roasted and fragrant, which was really good, so he sat down to eat.
Seeing him sit down, Sister-in-law Cao stood up and patted the loose soil on her old cotton-padded jacket. She smiled at him and said, "You two brothers are talking about business, lion. I'll go into the house to burn the kang. I won't be able to sleep at night if I don't clean it up."
The person walked step by step into the cave and disappeared. Cao Yao turned his twisted neck back. His big face with a scar on his forehead was still smiling like a man in a dream. When he came back to his senses, he shook his head and sighed: "Your sister-in-law is a Good woman!”
It was useless for Cao Yao to tell Liu Chengzong. He had no wife and did not understand these things. He just nodded and asked with a gossipy mind: "Brother Cao, how long have you been with your sister-in-law?"
"How long have you been with me?"
Upon hearing the question, Cao Yao stretched out his hand towards Liu Chengzong's hand holding the goose leg and paused. He leaned back, closed his eyes and thought, "Yes, it has been ten years. The year of the Salhu War, well...it has been ten years." ”
"Ten years?" Liu Chengzong paused, opened his eyes in surprise, handed over the wild goose leg and blurted out: "I think my sister-in-law is only twenty!"
"Yes, she was eleven when I was there. Without Saar Hu, I, Cao Liu'er, would not have been able to find such a good woman in my life." Cao Yao took the wild goose leg and took a bite, making his mouth full of oil: " fragrant!"
"Tell you about it?" The wild goose leg was handed back. Cao Yao used a wooden stick to tease the bonfire, his eyes were filled with fire, and his speech slowed down: "In the war that year, the army was defeated and the general and I escaped. Consider him a soldier.
When we were about to enter the pass, the general ordered Xiong Tingbi to behead him. I led nineteen brothers to kowtow to heaven and earth, agreeing to live and die together, and fled into the pass.
It was snowing heavily in Guangping Prefecture, and I didn’t dare to go to the county town. I wanted to find a village to buy some food... Don’t look at me like that. I was only your age at that time, and I wasn’t a bastard. I just wanted to go back to Henan alive and put on my boots. All sold.
When we found the village, it was completely robbed. The defeated army that got there first was not at peace with me. All the men were killed, leaving only the women to cook.
We were all very hungry. "
Cao Yao took a deep breath and spoke in a very smooth tone: "There was still food in the village, so we drew our knives on that group of people, and many people were killed in the fight.
I thought she was so pretty and fair, and I really didn’t know what to say, so I said I would take her home. She took me home, a rich and nice family. I still remember the courtyard in Sanjin, with the screen wall and tiles holding up the snow, it was really good!
The wing was burning, and everyone in the front yard and six backyards were dead. I helped her carry her father and mother out and bury them, and I got a lot of money... We paid homage at the grave.
People say I'm stupid, but I'm not stupid. How could I keep such a good wife if I don't fool around? After kowtowing, I made up my mind. Even if I go back to my hometown in Henan, I'll still have to fall asleep. In this life, I can no longer cultivate land for others. Sooner or later, my wife will belong to someone else.
Later, when I went to rob the country, she was the wife of a thief; when I went up the mountain to be a thief, she was the wife of the village leader; when I was in charge of the team, she was the wife of the team leader.
She's like me, no, she's my brother! "
Cao Yao smiled and turned his head and said very seriously: "If I had just kept to myself, I don't know how many times I would have died."
After that, he took a deep breath again, his face calmed down by memories, and he stretched out his hand to pull between the two of them: "Brother, let's talk about something serious?"
