Four days later, the capital has entered the Spring Festival atmosphere, but in the northernmost Zhangde Mansion in Henan, a group of people braved the wind and snow to lurk not far from Linhe Ferry in Tangyin County.
Tangyin has a long history, with ancestors living there as early as the Yangshao Culture and Longshan Culture periods of the Neolithic Age in primitive society. In the summer time, Emperor Xia (Yin Jia) and Kong Jia set the summer capital in Xihe Village, 31 miles east of Tangyin County in later generations. Kong Jia also composed "Song of the Broken Ax" here, which became the pioneering work of "Dongyin" (Oriental music).
Since then, Tangyin has been in the center of Chinese civilization. By the Ming Dynasty, it belonged to Zhangde Prefecture in Henan. It was one of the three prefectures in Henan north of the Yellow River and was basically at the same latitude as Daming Prefecture in North Zhili.
In terms of topography, Tangyin County is dominated by plains, slender from east to west and narrow from north to south. To the west are the hills at the eastern foothills of Taihang Mountain, and to the east are about twenty miles away from the county seat. Huolonggang, which spans Jun and Tang counties, runs through it. The rest are plains, which are alluvial plains at the foothills of Taihang Mountains.
Generally speaking, plain areas are not a good place to set up ambushes, but the reason why Tangyin County is called Tangyin is because Tangshui crosses it, and travelers from north to south must pass through the first ferry after passing Anyang. The reason why these people ambush here has a lot to do with this factor.
Why should we arrange the first ferry south of Anyang? Because the visitor was Gao Wuruo, the younger brother of Gao Jingshi, no matter how anxious he was when he passed through Anyang, he had to pay homage to one place on his brother's behalf: Gao Jingshi's mentor, Guo Wenzhengong, a scholar of Xianzhong Jidian.
Guo Pu died six years ago, when the war to aid Korea against the Japanese reached its first stalemate. In order to win for his mentor the posthumous title of "Wenzhen", which was second only to "Wenzheng" in the Ming Dynasty, Gao Pragmatic returned the favor. Some tacit compromises were reached with the Heart School. This shows that Gao pragmatically insists on respecting teachers and teachings - at least in terms of face, he must have done enough.
In this way, if Gao Wuruo goes south this time, because Anyang is the only way to go, he must go to worship on behalf of his brother. This is an inevitable procedure for the Gao family as the "Zhongzhou Yifan".
Of course, because time is urgent this time, it is impossible for Gao Wuruo to make a big deal, so he can just follow the etiquette. But even so, this will lead to some changes.
For example, the Beijing Cavalry led by him will never go in large numbers, but will detour most of them to wait for the rendezvous at the front. Gao Wuruo can only go to Guo Pu's tomb with a small number of followers, and then go south after paying homage. Go find the main cavalry force.
In this era, crossing a river was a very troublesome thing, especially when a large number of cavalry needed to cross the river. It was even more troublesome. It often needed to be arranged in advance, or to collect boats for ferrying, or to temporarily clear the pontoon to avoid being caught. Occupy the road.
The capital sent people to inform these people who set up an ambush and knew that the cavalry was as high as 800. This number actually far exceeded the ferrying capacity of an average ferry in half a day. Therefore, they judged that Gao Wuruo would most likely let this main force of cavalry serve as the vanguard to arrange ships.
Here comes another detail, that is, there is Qishui to the south of Tangshui, and further south of Qishui is the Yellow River. Therefore, after arranging the transportation of Tangshui, these vanguard troops continued to go south to arrange the transportation of Qishui and the Yellow River.
Qishui is okay, but the arrangement of the Yellow River ferry is obviously the most critical. It must be treated as a major event and try not to waste too much time. And this means that after Gao Wuruo goes to pay homage to Guo Pu's tomb, he will only have a small number of bodyguards and cavalry around him when he continues his journey south for about two hundred miles. Until he reaches the Yellow River ferry, he can Gather eight hundred knights again.
From this, the best place to set up an ambush was selected, which was Tanghe Ferry.
The number of people who set up the ambush could not be said to be many, but it was said to be small, but it was still quite large. It seemed that there might be about two hundred people. What's more important is that this group of people actually have horses, and judging from the condition of the horses, they have been well taken care of. Not to mention that the horses are abnormal, at least they are fat and strong.
At this time, these horses were already picking up their bells, and the occasional snort in the snow-covered forest would not let the sound be heard at the ferry several miles away.
Even though the river water was supposed to be frozen at this time, because the frozen ice was not enough for horse racing, the ferry had already arranged boats and manpower to cut through the ice, so the place was still noisy - that's why Gao Wuruo had to send someone to deal with it in advance. These things are also caused by the weather.
"Why is this kid from the Gao family so lazy? If you don't come here quickly, our brothers will freeze into popsicles!" A man with a beard shouted angrily.
"Qiu Laoer, keep your fucking voice down!" A middle-aged scribe with a goatee glared at the bearded man with dissatisfaction, lowered his voice and yelled: "We are not fooling around here from Dongping. Today This battle is a major matter that will determine the lives and deaths of nearly a thousand people in the entire village. If it fails because of you, even if you cut off your head and become the master's chamber pot, you still won't be able to bear the consequences!"
When talking about this matter, "Qiu Lao Er", a bearded man, was obviously angry, but he still lowered his voice and replied: "Straight bitch, ever since that Gao guy brought up the Jinghua Security Team, the brothers on the street have become less and less... Way to live.
Thinking about how majestic our Dongping Water Village was back then, Anshan Shuiyi, Dongyuan Mayi, and even Xinqiao Mayi, how could we not honor our tens of thousands of taels of silver? Life at that time was so prosperous!
Who would have thought that since the arrival of that bullshit security team, these water horse stations have found a backer, and they actually raised the damn money to hire the security team to wipe out us! Over the past few years, the water village has been unable to maintain its banner. Not only can it not receive money from the surrounding area, but it has to hide and hide... I really want to chop down all these shit balls one by one! "
"Cut down all the Beijing security forces? You must have that ability." The goatee scribe sneered: "I have sent people to visit and investigate all over the country a long time ago, just in Shandong and Henan provinces. There are probably at least 40,000 security forces, and almost all of them are equipped with firecrackers - the same kind as the official army.
Not to mention that these people relied on the name of Mr. Gao Ge, and there were even some general cannons in the team - the same things that blasted through our water stronghold back then. Tell me, even if you, Qiu Laoer, practice kung fu all over the place, how many shots can you take from that thing? "
Qiu Laoer snorted coldly and ignored it at all. What kind of problem is this? As long as a flesh and blood body, who the hell can take a shot from a general's cannon? It’s not like everyone has seen the scene where that thing directly hits a person. A good person was turned into bloody foam on the spot. Not to mention that leaving a whole body was purely a luxury. In fact, even the human figure could not be reconstructed afterwards. , it’s just a puddle of meat sauce.
Seeing that he had stopped talking, the goatee-bearded scribe continued: "But you don't have to be too angry. If we can kill this boy named Gao Wuruo today, it will be regarded as our revenge - he is still a senior citizen no matter what. Brother, gold is precious."
"What's the point? It's not very pragmatic."
"Huh?" The goatee scribe sneered: "That is the imperial court's 'world's bravest', a true hero who killed Mongolia to the point of sweating! Even if someone is standing in front of you, why do you still dare to be disrespectful to him? Kill him, You deserve it!"
Qiu Laoer was furious when he heard this and stared at Tong Ling: "Why don't I dare!"
"Shut up, everyone!" The leader, who had been silent all this time, finally couldn't help but glare at the two of them, and cursed angrily: "You motherfuckers, why are you still arguing at this time! Why do you think you are tall and pragmatic? Are we good enough for him? How dare you kill him? You have time to talk nonsense, so why not save your energy and take down Gao Wuruo for me later? It’s a bargain. chips, you know!”
This big boss is only average in stature among Shandong men, but his face looks quite tough. He is only wearing a thin jacket in the middle of winter, which shows that his energy and blood are extremely strong. Although he was half a head shorter than Qiu Laoer, he was actually more evil. As soon as he spoke, neither of them dared to talk back, and each looked away.
However, Qiu Laoer seemed to be a bit talkative. After a while, he couldn't help but said: "Master, did I, Lao Qiu, remember something wrong? Didn't I say before that the big shot in Beijing wanted us to kill Gao Wuruo directly? Now, why is the boss talking about taking him down as a bargaining chip? This is not... not..."
The boss glanced at him and asked: "Kill him? After killing him, will the man in Jingli be willing to fulfill his promise? Can you guarantee this?"
"Oh, so that's it." Qiu Laoer suddenly realized it and nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, none of these scholars are good, and what they say is like farts. We really can't believe them too much."
The goatee scribe from before knew that this fellow was referring to Sang and Huai, so he couldn't help but sneered: "A soldier never tires of deceit. In the eyes of those in the court, we are just thieves. Since we are thieves, they can do whatever they want... This principle is inherently unreasonable. , but this has been done since ancient times, so what can we say?”
The head of the family glared at them again, waved his hand and said: "There is no need to discuss this matter anymore. In short, many minds can never be wrong. After all, this Gao Wuruo is Gao Pragmatic's younger brother, even if he is just a concubine, he is not an ordinary person. Someone will take care of it.
If we just give him to Kacha, if Shen breaks his promise and gets fat, he not only refuses to remove the gum for us, but also blames the whole matter on us, it will be like yellow mud sticking to his crotch, which is either shit or shit. .
So we have to keep this guy alive. When the time comes, whether we talk with Shen or Gao, we will have something to talk about... What we want is a way out, what we want is money, not money. Get involved in all the bullshit going on between these people. "
Everyone felt the same, but before anyone responded, someone suddenly reminded: "Master, here's the idea!"
The leader quickly turned his head and stretched out his hand towards the man. It turned out that the man was holding a monocular telescope. Judging from the degree of wear and tear, it should be an early product of Jinghua, but I don't know how it fell into the hands of these people.
Taking over the monocular telescope, the leader quickly looked towards the official road, and sure enough he saw thirty or forty horsemen riding in the snow ahead. Although these people were marching in the cold winter, their speed was not slow. The horse even looked better than the family's wealth that they had worked hard to accumulate for many years - after the Dongping Water Village was destroyed, they almost became horse bandits, and they were quite confident in the horses in their hands.
"Be careful later. These guys seem to be riding the Ujumqin horses that the Mongols are most proud of. Try not to kill them, we will need them."
"Okay!" Qiu Laoer became excited and asked, "How many people did the Gao family bring?"
"Including himself, there are thirty-seven riders in total." The boss did not put down his binoculars and observed while saying: "They are still four or five miles away from the ferry. When they arrive at the ferry, we are not in a hurry to start. Everyone Take a few sips to warm yourself up first, but not too much...
When they start to arrive at the ferry to feed the horses and drink water, we will quietly approach them, the closer the better, and then take action immediately. Wang Shusheng, you don’t have any skills at all, so you lead people to seize horses; Qiu Laoer, you accompany me to arrest people; the rest just kill people...remember, we only need to be arrogant, but others must be killed. of. "
Everyone agreed in a low voice and began to take out the leather bags around their waists and fill themselves with wine. Drinking at this time is firstly to warm the body, and secondly to strengthen the courage - of course no one will say the second reason.
As for warming up the body, it is different from the usual wine tasting. Drink in large gulps to give a greater stimulation in a short period of time. However, you cannot do this in excess, otherwise you will be in big trouble if you get drunk. From this point of view, the people in Dongping Water Village are relatively experienced.
At this time, the headmaster spoke again and ordered: "Pass this down and tell the brothers that if the high official is the one wearing the fox-cropped cloak, you can tell at a glance, so don't greet him randomly."
The subordinates immediately spread the word, and now they only have to wait for Gao Wuruo and his party to arrive at the ferry, and start feeding and watering the horses as the leader wanted.
However, just at this moment, another person suddenly said in a hurry: "Master, a ship is coming from the south bank!"
The boss was immediately startled. He quickly turned his telescope and looked towards the south bank. Sure enough, he found a ship on the south bank heading towards the ferry on the north bank. What's worse is that there are quite a few ships coming over. Even under the white sky and the earth, it can be seen that at least a dozen ships are carefully sailing along the cracked ice zone.
The Tanghe River is not a big river, it is just a tributary of the Weishui River, so the river surface is not wide. Even if the incoming ships do not dare to go too fast due to the limited ice crack zone, they can reach the shore in a stick of incense. .
At this time, the leader took a deep breath and decisively ordered: "The situation has changed. Without further delay, take action immediately!" After saying that, he immediately wrapped himself tightly in a "cloak" made of white cloth for camouflage in the snow and got on his horse. , the others did not hesitate and made the same move one after another.
More than two hundred horsemen, wearing white cloth cloaks, quickly approached Gao Wuruo and his group of thirty or forty horsemen.
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi", "o Shangshu Ling", and "book friend 20191115180024768" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
ps: I should be owed 4 chapters at the moment, and there may be another chapter in the early hours of tonight, but even if I can catch it, it will probably be very late. You don’t have to wait, just get up tomorrow morning and see if it’s available.
