After galloping all night under the stars and under the moon, he finally felt sleepy at dawn, so he found a place to dismount his horse and rest next to a forest near a pond. Suddenly, he heard loud shouting in his daze. Chang Yu stood up and subconsciously pulled out the green bird from his waist. , looked around, and suddenly let out a cry, the camp was surrounded by nearly a hundred people.
These people were ragged and looked fierce, with all kinds of weapons in their hands, and some even carried dung forks.
"Bandit!" Li Muxian beside him shouted lowly and frowned: "I was careless today."
The guards were indeed careless. They were too tired after running all night. In addition, it was already dark when they rested and they were next to the official road. There were only a few people on duty who dozed off from time to time because no one expected that there would be people nearby. There were bandits, and they never expected that the bandits would be so bold as to try to rob them.
"Help me, I am Daqing...ah" Azig suddenly shouted loudly, not knowing whether he had a brain cramp or something, but was knocked unconscious by a backhand slap from Wuzhong next to him. This guy was so powerful that he hit him directly. Azig lost several teeth and his mouth was full of blood.
"We don't kill people, only steal wealth. Leave your horses and weapons and leave safely." A burly man walked out of the crowd of thieves. There were two archers beside him, aiming at Wuzhong because this guy looked too similar. A personal figure.
"Really?" Wu Zhong leaned on his sword and laughed loudly: "I am exactly the opposite of you, I only kill people but don't steal wealth, but look at you, you are so miserable and you don't have much wealth... You won't retreat for a moment, and you won't leave any armor behind! "
"Bah, I'm so scared." The leader of the thieves rolled his eyes: "Guan Guan, you only have forty or fifty men, and we brothers are one hundred and two. If three of you beat one of you, you will win a lot. You have to get out of here within a moment." , otherwise we would have taken it ourselves, and swords and guns would no longer be discerning at that time.”
Wuzhong laughed, Li Muchian also laughed, and then dozens of guards laughed.
"Laugh... why are you laughing?" The thief leader was a little panicked. Chang Yu took a step forward and said coldly: "People robber during the day and at night, but you did the opposite and went out early in the morning."
"Morning, the early bird catches the worm." The thief leader also imitated him but lacked the momentum: "I just like to go down the mountain early in the morning."
Moreover, Chang Yu rolled his eyes: "The problem is that you are not a bird, but a worm. Have you heard that worms who wake up early are eaten by birds?" He raised his hand and pointed to the mountains due north: "As expected, your thief is good." The nest is over there. He must have thought about it when he saw me waiting here to rest at dawn."
"Why are you talking so much nonsense? Let me ask you again, did you hand over the weapons and horses on your own initiative and then wait for me to get them for myself?" the thief said impatiently.
"Come on," Chang Yu breathed, "I wanted you to live longer, but you are so anxious." He snapped his fingers. The thief was stunned and didn't understand what was going on, so he was shot through the head with an arrow. The two next to him The archer shouted, and before he could react, he immediately laid down his body on the spot, leaving the rest of the thieves horrified.
"Why don't you get out of here, do you really want me to go on a killing spree?" Wuzhong roared, and the thieves fled in all directions.
"The mob..." Wuzhong looked disdainful before he could finish his words, when he saw a young and strong man rushing towards him with a knife: "You kill my eldest brother, I will fight..." Wuzhong came forward with a knife and shouted loudly He raised his sword to strike straight at him, but in a hurry, the man raised his sword to block it.
With a click, the knife cut off the human head and fell to the ground, with no blood on the red tassel.
"Good sword skills" Chang Yu praised, and Li Muchian's expression changed: "Good sword skills!"
Kuang Ren killed the leader of the thieves with an arrow, and the rest of the thieves fled without a leader, without even the courage to fight. The power of Wuzhong's sword made the thieves even more frightened, and they only regretted that they did not have two more legs.
This guy is too weak. Wuzhong looked at the thieves fleeing in all directions with disdain on his face: "It's far worse than the gangsters outside the customs."
"Look at all of them, they are sallow and thin. I guess they are mostly refugees who have just fallen into the hands of bandits." Li Muxian said softly, Chang Yu nodded slightly, but was disturbed by his sweet dream and couldn't help but take a sip, and ordered the soldiers to bury the four corpses. Continue to trim.
But Chang Yu couldn't sleep anymore. He leaned against the tree trunk and stared at the pond in a daze. Sometimes he looked at the mountains due north with a solemn expression.
Is it true that if ordinary people want to survive these days, they have no choice but to fall into the trap of bandits?
War, natural disasters, people's livelihood is in dire straits, fallen grassroots turn into bandits, officers and soldiers suppress bandits... the cycle continues and falls into an endless cycle.
Chang Yu knew the crux of the problem, but he was helpless. The battle still had to be fought, and natural disasters were not taken care of by himself.
Hundreds of miles away in Beijing, Liu Zeqing and his three men left the city and returned to camp with their eyes covered and livid faces. After drinking and nagging all night, they finally borrowed food, but they were not happy at all.
It's a good thing that it's pie in the sky, but nine times out of ten, it's all a trap!
They met Zhou, Huang and Li outside the imperial city and casually talked about borrowing food. Huang Degong, uncharacteristically, patted his chest and said it was a piece of cake. He also held a banquet and said he wanted to have a good chat.
Zhou Yuji said that I would return to Taiyuan in a few days for control, and since the food on hand was limited, I would not borrow it. Li Yan spoke more tactfully, and after going around eight hundred times, he finally made it clear that if you were not familiar with me, you could drink, and there was no need to talk about borrowing food.
At this time, Huang Degong's generosity was highlighted: "My fellow ministers are about to fight side by side again, so we must help. I borrowed this food." Liu Zeqing and the other three were overjoyed and were about to say thank you, but Huang Degong changed the topic: "You have to pay. Interest!"
"You are taking advantage of the situation, Uncle Jingnan, you are not very particular about this," Liu Zeqing blew his beard and glared.
"Essential?" Huang Degong curled his lips: "Three months ago when I went north to Texas, I had to eat grass roots when I ran out of food. I begged my grandpa and grandma to borrow some food. Did you even lend me one? You still have the face now. Are you talking to me about the details?"
Liu Zeqing's old face turned red: "Hey, why are you bringing up the trivial things in the past?"
"Okay, then let's talk about the current matter. If you are short of food, I will definitely borrow it if you are not stingy. The interest is not high. Borrow one and pay three..." Before he finished speaking, Gao Jie slammed the table: "Why don't you go and grab it?" ?”
"I don't have the ability to rob people like you, and I'm not so shameless to do so"! Huang Degong roared, and Gao Jie was about to lift the table. Zhou Yuji, Liu Zeqing and others quickly got up to put out the fire, and managed to persuade the two of them to make peace.
"If it's too expensive, go find someone else to borrow it. It depends on who lends it to you. You can also go to the court to ask for it. Of course, if you don't come, you can also refuse to send troops." Huang Degong said with a smile: "It's just a big crime of resisting the decree... Adding more guilt, tsk tsk tsk, is a bit interesting.”
The faces of Liu Zeqing and the other two people immediately darkened. At this time, they finally figured out something. The court or the eunuchs had already figured out that they were going to borrow food, so they dug a hole for them. If they didn't borrow it themselves, they would let them Huang Degong came to borrow it.
If you borrow it from the court, what's the point of not giving it to you? But if you borrow it from a private person, it's Huang Degong who doesn't deal with them, so don't give it back! This is actually Chang Yu's backup plan. If Gao Jie can't handle Er Liu, then Huang Degong will have to deal with the three of them.
Gao Jie and the others are not afraid of Huang Degong, but they are afraid of what he said: disobeying orders and disobeying orders will increase the punishment for the crime.
Recently, the three of them have been smeared with dog shit and can't even wash it off. If they defy orders and don't send troops again... then they probably won't be able to leave Beijing.
"Oh, what a big deal. The three commander-in-chiefs now only have 10,000 people on hand. They will have supplies when they get to Jinan, commander-in-chief Liu. If you go south for at most a few hundred miles, your main force's baggage will also be there, so you don't need to borrow much, let alone Mr. Huang's three times profit is ten times more, so how can he get more..." Zhou Yuji and Li Yan were watching the excitement and were not afraid of trouble, and they tried their best to bewitch them from the side.
Although they knew that these two people had no good intentions, Gao Jie and the other three thought the same thing. Nearly ten thousand people would have supplies when they arrived in Jinan, and they wouldn't need much. Yes, although the interest rate was high, there was no other way. It consumes the court, but how dare you do it now?
So he agreed to Huang Degong's conditions, but he also suppressed his anger.
