"Xia Xia is here to thank you all for saving your life." Xia Guang clasped his fists in the direction of the cannon fire, and then said, "The Jurchens have escaped. You heroes can come out."
He looked towards the direction where the gunfire was fired, wondering who saved him.
"Hands above your head, stand there and don't move." The person in the dark shouted to him.
"Okay, I won't move." Xia Guang raised his hands above his head and said, "I am the bodyguard leader of Zhangjiakou, and I am Han Chinese. Don't get me wrong, fellow heroes."
At this time, he saw a figure moving in the dark and walking in his direction.
He knew that these people should be the same people who had just saved him.
Soon, a dozen strong young men in black armor came to him and surrounded him.
"A few people go over and see if those Jurchens are still alive. If they are not dead yet, give them a stabbing blow." One of them ordered.
Five or six of the dozen or so young and strong men walked around to check on the Jurchens who had been hit by fire cannons.
"Go and search him." One of the leaders, who was obviously the leader of these people, ordered a strong young man next to him.
The young and strong man walked towards Xia Guang and began to search him up and down.
Xia Guang raised his hands and let the other party search him.
At this time, he was already sure that the people who saved him were all Han people. However, the iron armor on these people's bodies and the blunderbuss in their hands made him somewhat confused as to where they came from.
After the search, the leader looked at Xia Guang and asked, "Since you are Zhangjiakou's bodyguard, what are you doing here on the grassland? And why are you being chased by the Jurchens?"
Xia Guang said truthfully: "We were escorts for Fan Ji's caravan. We arrived at the grassland, but we didn't expect that Fan Ji colluded with Hou Jin. After knowing this, we bodyguards left the caravan and wanted to go back to Zhangjiakou. Unexpectedly, I left in the evening and was chased by the Jurchens at night. In the end, I was the only one who escaped. The rest of the bodyguards all died tragically under the Jurchens' butcher knives. If not for your rescue, I would have died by now. The hands of the Jurchens.”
When he spoke later, his voice became choked up.
There were more than a dozen escorts who came to the grassland with him, and they were all companions who accompanied him day and night. Now he is the only one left alive, and the rest of them are buried in this grassland.
A young and strong man beside him said: "Captain, the news we got is that there is indeed an escort who followed Fan Ji's motorcade to the grassland."
The man called captain nodded.
Xia Guang was startled when he heard this. He could tell that these people in front of him seemed to have known that Fan Ji's caravan had arrived on the grassland, so he guessed that it was probably not a coincidence that he met these people here.
"Captain, after checking, there are six bodies of Jurchens, and there may be injured ones. They should have been taken away by the Jurchens who escaped."
A young and strong man who went to check on the Jurchens came back to report.
The man called the captain nodded and said: "Take away all the useful things on these Jurchens, take away all the horses that were left behind, leave the bodies here to feed the wolves, and take this person back with them. "
"You heroes, I am a Han like you, and I really have nothing to do with the Jurchens." Xia Guang shouted.
When he fell off his horse before, he had already been prepared to die and wanted to fight the Jurchens with his own life. But after being rescued, he had no intention of dying in his heart. Instead, he was worried that these people would take him away. Go somewhere.
The people in front of me were obviously extraordinary. They were not like ordinary horse bandits. They all wore armor, held blunderbuss in their hands, and had sabers on their waists.
With such a suit of armor, even the personal servants maintained by the general army are not so neat. Moreover, most of the personal servants use bows and arrows, and almost no one uses blunderbuss. Only those in the firearms camp can use blunderbuss.
"Take them away." The man called captain ignored him and ordered directly to his subordinates.
Two men walked over from the side, tied Xia Guang's hands, and then led him away from the grassland.
Not far from this meadow, a dozen horses were gnawing on the tender grass on the ground.
Xia Guang was thrown on the horse, and then a young and strong man carried him, and he and others galloped the horse in one direction on the grassland.
A dozen horses ran on the grassland for more than half an hour, then stopped, and everyone dismounted.
At this time, Xia Guang noticed that he was brought to the edge of a small forest.
However, before they got close to the forest, they heard someone shouting from inside the forest: "Stop, command."
"Night detective." Xia Guang heard the man in front of him who was called captain say these two words.
At this time, there was only one thought in his mind. These people were well-trained, more like the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty. Otherwise, how could they even have passwords? Horse bandits would not have such strict orders.
"It turns out that Captain Chen is back. The captain has been waiting for you for a long time." The person in the forest said.
Xia Guang heard the title captain again, and this time there was also the title of captain. This made him frown, and he was a little confused about the identities of these people.
As a former Ye Fushou who also spent several years in the frontier army, he did not remember any titles of captain or battalion in the army.
Chen Wu turned around and said to the two men guarding Xia Guang: "Take him with you and follow me to see the captain."
A group of people entered the woods.
Xia Guang originally thought that the so-called captain was in this bush, but after he came in, he realized that he had guessed wrong, because he walked through the bush and came to the other side of the forest, only to see the light of the fire and the shaking silhouette.
"Chen Wu, captain of the sentry cavalry, has met the captain." Chen Wu clenched his right hand into a fist across his chest.
A person sitting by the campfire turned around and said with a smile: "Thank you for your hard work. Let's sit down and warm ourselves by the fire."
Chen Wu took two steps forward, sat on a wooden pillar next to the bonfire, picked up a dry firewood, threw it into the fire, and said: "The Jurchens are here, they are in Fan Ji's motorcade, just now I fought with them once."
"What's the result?" Ma Yunjiu turned to look at him.
I heard Chen Wu say: "It's not as powerful as the rumors. It may have something to do with the fact that my subordinates were in the dark. I only fired three firecrackers, and those Jurchens fled, leaving six corpses behind, but our people had no one." One casualty.”
Ma Yunjiu asked: "How many Jurchens have you met?"
"There were more than a dozen of them, and they were chasing a bodyguard. The bodyguard had been rescued by his subordinates. This man was the bodyguard invited by Fan Ji, and he was brought back by his subordinates," Chen Wu said.
Ma Yunjiu picked up the big teapot and took a sip of the hot water in it, and asked, "Have you asked? Why are those Jurchens chasing him?"
Chen Wu said: "According to his own account, he left Fan Ji's motorcade with his bodyguard because he knew that Fan Ji was colluding with Hou Jin. He was chased by the Jurchens that night. Only he escaped, and the rest All the bodyguards were killed by the Jurchens."
Having said this, he paused and then said: "My subordinates have sent people to the place he said to verify. If what he said is true, the bodies of the bodyguards should still be there."
Ma Yunjiu nodded.
