Chapter 193: Dengzhou Road
The official road paved with gravel becomes blurry underfoot, making it almost difficult to recognize. [No pop-up novel website] txt e-book download** The dawn wind blew from the wilderness. Even though he was wearing a windbreaker and a hood, Zhao Yingong still felt chilly.
The journey from Hangzhou to Dengzhou is difficult and dangerous. In Nanzhi, all the way north along the canal was a boat provided by the Xu Guangqi family. The Xu family took care of them along the way. Not only was the journey comfortable, but it was also convenient to cross the border and collect locks. The officials along the way were attentive and considerate, and the people were powerful. All of this made Zhao Yingong fully realize the majesty of Jin Shen again.
No wonder so many people want to be officials. People who make a fortune in business never forget to hire famous teachers for their children, bribe examiners, and do everything possible to provide them with nòng "within the system." The difference between officials and civilians is really so-called "cloud" The difference between mud".
However, his feeling about the difference between the government and the people disappeared as soon as he crossed the Yellow River.
In the Ming Dynasty, the Yellow River diverted the Huai River and entered the sea, and its mouth was near Xuzhou. After crossing the Yellow River near Xuzhou, we left South Zhili and entered Shandong.
The Grand Canal is also open to navigation in Shandong, but it does not reach Dengzhou. A group of people abandoned the boat and landed in Xuzhou and took the land route instead. Zhao Tong used to be a escort on the North Road, reminding everyone to be careful along the way.
Although the area in Nanzhi became more bleak and poor after crossing the Yangtze River, it was only after crossing the Yellow River and entering Shandong that Zhao Yingong truly felt the harshness of the environment.
Although it was already midsummer, there were no crops in the fields. Large areas of land were deserted, and the trees along the way were dead in patches. When I walked in, I realized that all of them had been stripped of their bark. From time to time, dead bones can be seen scattered among the grass and trees.
The villages I passed by by chance were either overgrown with wormwood, with crumbling houses, or high walls and deep ditches, and the village warriors were heavily guarded. After Zhao Yingong asked, he learned that less than ten years ago - in 1622, the White Lotus Rebellion initiated by Xu Hongru broke out in southern Shandong. The riot centered on Jining and spread to Rizhao in the east and Heze in the west. The southern bō reached the Xuzhou area. There are places along the road that have suffered from wars and floods in recent years. The government's land tax increases are getting heavier day by day. Bandits are everywhere. The people are dying or fleeing, leaving only the devastated land. Even in broad daylight, small groups of bandits were operating in the open, and desperate people were everywhere. For this reason, Zhao Yingong and his party, in addition to their own bodyguards, the Xu family also sent more than ten brave servants to protect them along the way. "Please familiarize yourself with the domain name"
In this way, I walked north without stopping, fearful and fearful. When we walked to Yizhou, we encountered heavy rain again and the water flooded. The water was six or seven feet deep on the flat ground, so it was difficult to get a boat. Zhao Yingong looked at the refugees supporting the elderly and young all over the ground and the corpses that had fallen dead along the way. He couldn't help but feel extremely distressed and secretly shouted: "It's too late!"
But he is now unable to take in refugees - no matter what he does, it will be difficult to do anything in Ming Dynasty without official support. He had no choice but to urge his entourage to hurry up and go to Dengzhou to meet Sun Yuanhua to gain his trust and support.
The group traveled through mountains and rivers, had a good night's sleep, and finally arrived in Dengzhou. The journey is difficult and dangerous.
At this time, Dengzhou was already the forefront of the Ming Dynasty's war against Liaodong. It was also an important town where Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua and others organized and trained the new army. We haven’t seen the Dengzhou City Wall yet, but we can often see troops and camps being mobilized along the way. There are also cavalry patrolling the road, and people are checking from time to time.
Although the road seemed heavily guarded, news of bandits and salt owl activities were heard along the way. There were even horrific incidents in which entire villages were massacred. As if to confirm this news, as soon as they entered the boundary of Dengzhou, they heard fighting and screams near the official road. A group of people immediately stopped their horses and showed off their horses. Zhao Tong, the bodyguard in charge of the security, ordered the dogs to be put down from the car to prepare for killing and biting, while turning the horse's head towards the middle of the team.
Zhao Yingong was walking slowly over surrounded by servants. After listening to the previous report, he turned back and asked the local postman accompanying him if he knew what happened. The old postman said: "This must be the local salt owl in Huo Bin."
"Aren't you bandits?"
"The bandits don't dare to go on the road in broad daylight. There are many troops here." The postman said, "Salt lords are mostly local military households. Even though they are poor and sell salt, many of them also have small flags, general flags, and hundreds of households. What about their future? The government generally doesn’t care about them—it can’t control them.”
Zhao Yingong heard that it was just a fight between Yan Owl and Fire, so he asked the troops to continue moving forward. Zhao Tong dissuaded him and said: "Master, we can't see what the fight is like now. If they see it in the past, some people think they are here to help. It's really troublesome - it started a fight and ended badly."
Zhao Yingong thought the same thing. After all, he was in a guest place. If he got involved in a local conflict, the follow-up treatment would be very troublesome. Although he is very "tough" in officialdom, Yan Xiao is a local snake after all, and he has formed unnecessary resentments after killing people.
Everyone waited on the road for a while, and when they heard the killing sound in front gradually stopped, Zhao Tong asked everyone to wait on the road for a while while he went to the front to investigate. He dismounted and walked slowly along the shoulder of the road. After a meal, he came back. He ran to Zhao Yingong's horse and reported: "Back to the master, the front has dispersed. But there are many corpses and weapons on the road. Please be careful when passing by."
Everyone walked over cautiously under the guidance of Zhao Tong, and saw that thirty or forty corpses were scattered along the official road in the distance, dripping with blood, and there were many broken weapons on the ground. Zhao Yingong noticed that the bodies were scattered on the ground. It was full of sharpened bamboo spears and more than a dozen damaged bows and arrows, and there were scattered cattail bags on the ground, scattered with a lot of sea salt.
"This is robbing," said the soldier, "a common thing on this official road." Lo and behold, the wheel of the chariot went down the official road - and the person who robbed it succeeded. He looked at it and muttered: "That's not right..." After saying this, he seemed to regret his gaffe, and quickly shut up again.
"What's wrong?"
Zhao Yingong asked again and again, and the postman hesitated and said that there were many marks of horse hoofs on the post road, and the feather arrows left on the corpse were not weapons used by ordinary bandit salt owl.
"Are they from the imperial court?"
The postman said nothing, but his expression already acquiesced to this matter.
"Sun Futai doesn't care either?" Zhao Yingong originally had doubts about Sun Yuanhua's ability to run the army, but now he feels more and more that his opinion is accurate.
The postman whispered: "How can Sun Futai be controlled? Nowadays, the salary owed by the soldiers is one or two years. Most of the troops in Dengzhou are guest troops - the most lawless. There is no local Openly robbing merchants and massacring villages to raise wages is already Sun Futai and Zhang Zhentai's suppression."
In other words, it is nothing to secretly do some dirty things. Zhao Yingong also knew a little about the limitless things officers and soldiers could do. Judging from the discarded corpses and wheel marks, the amount of salt transported by the salt lords was equivalent to the carrying capacity of about twenty wheelbarrows, and the total amount of silver was only a few dozen taels. With both sides leading to a killing spree, one can only imagine what the chaos in the world will be like.
"Come on, this is a place of right and wrong." The postman urged a group of people to get on the road quickly.
Just as he was about to hit the road, he suddenly heard someone shouting "Help" among the corpses. Zhao Yingong asked the people to search for him, and after a few words about the corpse, he pulled out a young man. His body was covered in blood, and he couldn't tell the extent of his injuries.
"Is there any hope?" Zhao Yingong asked.
Zhao Tong nodded: "He suffered flesh and skin injuries and a few sores. He should be able to be saved."
"Then take it with you and put it in the car. Whether he can survive depends on his luck." Zhao Yingong said.
The group finally arrived at Dengzhou City peacefully. Dengzhou City is now a military city, and there are soldiers speaking with various accents everywhere outside and inside the city. Zhao Yingong noticed that many people spoke with Liaodong accents - obviously these people were the original Dongjiang Town troops, the main force in the upcoming Dengzhou War.
Relying on the posts from Xu Guangqi and others, Zhao Yingong entered the city unimpeded - because this was the frontier of the Liaodong campaign and a heavy military base, the inspection at the city gate was very strict.
After entering the city, Zhao Tong saw that the big inns were full and the small inns could not satisfy the owners, so he took the initiative to find a large local temple, donated six taels of silver, and moved into the temple under the attentive greetings of the host. a courtyard. Zhao Yingong asked everyone to rest for three days, bathe and change clothes to get rid of the dust along the road. He also ordered people to unpack the luggage and count the gifts prepared for Sun Yuanhua and others - the gifts were all carefully selected, and many of them were specially transported from Aomén and Lingao.
This time when he went to see Sun Yuanhua, in addition to letters from the Xu family and the Hangzhou church, he also brought the missionary Jin Lige to fully prove that he was a "catechumen."
To get the greatest help from Sun Yuanhua, you can only dress yourself up as a devout quasi-believer, so that Sun Yuanhua will treat his request from the perspective of a believer rather than an ordinary camper.
He knew very little about Sun Yuanhua. The information given to him by the big library only had his basic life and some political opinions. They had no way of guessing what kind of person Sun Yuanhua was. However, since Xu Guangqi is willing for his son to have a son-daughter relationship with him, I think this person's character is not bad; but he became a governor in his early fifties, which shows that he has quite a lot of ability as an official. He is also a Catholic and is keen on "Western methods" to improve the military technology and system of the Ming Dynasty. Taken together, Sun Yuanhua should be a person of good character, capable of serving as an official, and willing to accept new ideas. It shouldn't be too difficult to deal with such a person - Zhao Yingong is most afraid of meeting people who are unwilling to do things - then nothing can be done.
Zhao Yingong asked his servant to inquire about the news first and confirmed that Sun Yuanhua was in the Yamen recently. So I searched for a day and formally went to the Yamen to see him.
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