There happened to be a pavilion at the foot of the mountain, which was built for passers-by to rest in the shade. A bamboo forest was planted outside the pavilion.
When the caravan marched to the bamboo forest, the seven carts of pears were almost eaten. The sweetness quenched their thirst, and the sergeants lost 80% of their interest in wine.
Song Che poured the wine all over the bamboos and told the soldiers to pretend to be drunk. They lay in a huddle in the bamboo forest with weapons under their bodies, waiting for an opportunity.
"If there are really thieves coming, if you hear me shouting the word 'do it' later, the brothers lying at the mouth of the forest and at the end of the forest should quickly get up and block their way. The others will follow me. Don't be merciful and stab a few to death." Each one counts, do you understand?" Xu Xiao ordered.
"clear!"
"It's a matter of life and death, don't really fall asleep... Now, fall!"
There were more than two hundred and forty people, fifty at the entrance of the forest and fifty at the end of the forest. The rest were staggering around the small pavilion, while Song Che pretended to have fainted in the pavilion.
About half an hour later.
"昘昘..."
Stepping on dry bamboo leaves, the sound gets closer and closer.
Song Che narrowed his eyes and saw three or two figures, tiptoeing into the bamboo forest. Three of them were the middle-aged man selling pears and the Zhang brothers selling wine.
When Zhang Dalang arrived at Linkou, he first pushed a few sergeants and called out: "Master? Master!"
"Stop shouting, our Mongolian medicinal cow will be down for three to five hours after eating it, let alone a human." The middle-aged man said and whistled outside the forest.
The footsteps suddenly became chaotic, and forty or fifty men in civilian clothes holding knives were seen striding into the bamboo forest.
"Brother, it's really silk. We are quite prosperous this time!"
"Don't just be happy, this batch of goods belongs to the emperor, we must move them away quickly!"
"Don't talk about the emperor, even if it is the king's goods, we will still accept them!"
A group of bandits rushed into the bamboo forest, just as they were about to move the goods——
"Do it!"
Xu Xiao jumped up and chopped down the nearby bandit with one strike.
All the sergeants jumped up and killed the bandits by surprise!
"No, we fell into a trap!"
"A group of audacious bandits who even dare to make money from the imperial court's business, kill them!"
With nearly five times the strength, there was no doubt about the chance of victory. After a few rounds of killing, most of the bandits fell in a pool of blood, and the remaining half abandoned their weapons and surrendered.
The wine seller, the pear seller, and several bandit leaders were escorted to the pavilion to wait for Song Che to speak.
Song Che leaned back on the sofa and gnawed on the fragrant pear, "You can think of such a plan, you have some brains. Why can't you do it better and have to be a bandit who robs homes and homes?"
"You...how did you see through our clever plan!" The bandit leader selling pears stared at Song Che unconvinced.
Xu Xiao kicked the bandit leader to the ground, "How dare you call yourself a clever plan with this method? When you were pretending to be fruit farmers, Mr. Song saw through you and laid an ambush in this bamboo forest. It was just a trick."
"My lord, we overestimated our capabilities and tried to be clever in front of you. Now that the goods have not been lost, you have mercy on us and spare our lives!" The Zhang brothers kowtowed and begged for mercy.
"If this batch of goods is lost today, not only will we die, but also the entire beam and millions of people will be buried with us!" Song Che threw away the pear core, grabbed Zhang Dalang's collar, and asked: " Say! Who are you! And who sent you to rob goods!?"
Zhang Dalang trembled with fright and said bluntly: "We...we are just a group of rabble from the nearby villages. I heard...I heard that there is a big deal coming from Heifenggang. As long as we can rob it, we will be rich and prosperous for several lifetimes." I have them all, so I had bad thoughts."
"Look at you guys, how could you set up such a sophisticated layout? There must be someone behind the scenes," Song Che pointed a musket at Zhang Dalang's head: "Speak quickly! If there is any hidden secret, I will blow your head off! "
Zhang Dalang trembled: "We really don't know. He is a stranger. We have never seen him before. He only told us that we can make a fortune here, and he also arranged the plan for us!"
Zhang Erlang added for his brother: He seems to have a Yangzhou accent, is about thirty years old, has a mustache, and at first glance he looks like a wealthy official. "
Yangzhou?
This place is not far from Yangzhou.
Who in Yangzhou would have the motive to stop this Sui coin business?
If this matter continues to be investigated, it will be too time-consuming. The most important thing at the moment is to return the coins to Luoyang. No matter how passive it is, we have to endure it.
"If it were an ordinary caravan, the attempted robbery would be fine, but this is royal cargo. Robbery of it would be a death penalty anywhere." Song Che glanced at Xu Xiao, turned around and walked out of the pavilion:
"I'm going to take a pee."
Song Che walked around the bamboo forest, and when he returned to the pavilion, all fifty-three bandits had been executed on the spot.
"Honestly, I have never killed so many people at once." Xu Xiao kept wiping the blood on the knife with a rag.
There were more than fifty corpses, the blood stained the bamboo forest red, and the heat wave steamed with the smell of blood, which made people feel sick.
"If the coins are not delivered to Luoyang for one day, our heads will be hanging." Song Che turned his back, closed his eyes, and said slowly: "Cut off all their heads and string them on swords and guns, generously. Fang Zoutun County."
"No...isn't it?" Xu Xiao and the other soldiers all showed shocked expressions.
Song Che sighed: "To be cruel to the enemy is to be kind to oneself. There is still a thousand miles to go to Luoyang. In today's world, wherever there are mountains and green forests, there will be bad guys and bandits. If the evil spirit is spread louder, the bandits will be frightened. The road ahead It will be much easier to walk.”
"Aren't you afraid that their wronged souls will seek their lives?" Xu Xiao asked.
Song Che shrugged, "I peed. I didn't kill the person. If I want to kill him, I'm looking for you."
"Harm..." Xu Xiao smiled bitterly, "Just follow Aunt Song's instructions."
The sergeant cut off the first string of guns and marched toward Tun County in a mighty manner.
Tun County is not a small town, with two to three thousand households. The caravans are so terrifying that they will frighten everyone along the way, and even the faint of heart will faint.
"Oh my god! The evil star from hell has entered the city!"
The street was full of people, and in a moment there was no one left.
The magistrate of Tun County, whose surname was Li, was an old man in his sixties. When he saw the bloody heads, he was so frightened that he almost lost his breath.
Song Che explained the reason for doing this, and County Master Li finally calmed down a little, "If they really intended to rob the coins, they deserve to be punished by beheading, but the most taboo among people is 'death without a complete body', In my opinion, it is better to remove the heads from the sharp blade, find their bodies and let the cobbler sew them up, and give them whole bodies..."
"The body is in the bamboo forest under Heifeng Hill. Mr. Li should go there quickly. Firstly, it's hot and it smells bad. Secondly, there are wild wolves on the hill. Don't let it get eaten."
"Amitabha, that is, that is..."
That night.
The caravan then stayed in the county town.
The next day at the fourth watch, I got up on time. The county magistrate also sent twenty officials to see him off.
Along the way, all business travelers gave way. Those with children would blindfold their eyes and ask them to carry them on their backs, muttering: "Don't look, don't look, lest you get angry and get sick."
After the government officials sent him out of Tun County and arrived at the next boundary, there was already another county official waiting for him.
The coins were almost robbed, which sounded the alarm for all local officials. If the royal business was misunderstood in their own jurisdiction, it would be a small loss, but it would be a big loss!
Starting from the border of Yangzhou, we passed through Jiangning Prefecture and eight small counties. Those with officers and soldiers were sent out, and those without officers and soldiers were sent on official missions. They were carefully escorted all the way. After traveling for 500 miles and four days and five nights, they finally arrived in Luzhou.
Luzhou belongs to Huainan West Road and is controlled by Shouchun Prefecture. It is famous for tea, delicacies, silk threads, spices, cotton, ivory, etc. In terms of prosperity, the capital Shouzhou cannot match it.
At the end of July, God, who had been holding it in for nearly a month, finally couldn't help but pee.
It rains quite a bit, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Fortunately, as the heavy rain continues, it will be much cooler in the next few days, but the road will be muddy and difficult to walk.
It has been eight days since we set off from Suzhou and reached Luzhou, covering nearly half of the distance. At this speed, if nothing happens, we will be able to reach Luoyang before August 15th.
Silk is very precious, and we cannot do business in the rain. The caravan has been exposed to the sun for seven days, and time is not of the essence. It is not a bad idea to rest until the rain stops.
Luzhou has beautiful scenery. When he first arrived here, Song Che was very interested in playing around with an umbrella. But it has been raining for two days in a row, and the rain has not stopped yet, so I feel anxious.
Everyone was at the inn, waiting for the rain to clear.
Song Che was leaning alone on the window sill of a high-rise building. Unknowingly, he felt quite sad in his heart. Whether he was going to his country to miss his hometown or missing his family, he didn't know this feeling.
Looking forward to a bright future, we arrived in Luoyang smoothly.
Secondly, I hope that the mission will be completed and we can go home and reunite soon.
The third hope is that the world will be bright and the world will be at peace.
"I don't know when it will rain. Should we just wait in Luzhou for the rain to stop?" This is the third question Xu Xiao has asked today.
Song Che sighed softly: "Of course we can't wait for the loss of the head. We all went to the city to buy some oil paper and coir grass. We used the oil paper as a base and the coir grass to cover it. This way, no one will notice the flaw. No matter whether there will be any tomorrow. Rain, we all have to go.”
Xu Xiao resigned and left.
After a while, a carriage suddenly came outside the inn, and a middle-aged man who looked like a butler got out. When he saw Song Che leaning against the window, he asked politely:
"May I ask if you are Mr. Song?"
Song Che narrowed his eyes, but did not answer yes, but asked: "What happened to you?"
The steward said: "I am the steward of the Li family in the north of the city. My father Li Tong is a famous tea merchant in Luzhou City. I heard that Mr. Song is the son-in-law of the Shen family. My father-in-law has a close relationship with me, and in the first half of the year, the Yangzhou Chamber of Commerce also We were at the same table. Today, Mr. Song is on his way to Luzhou on business, and he has sent me to the inn to invite him, in order to fulfill his friendship as a landlord and as a friend."
Song Che didn't pay much attention to the seats at the Yangzhou Chamber of Commerce, but since he was on good terms with his father-in-law, it would be disrespectful for a junior like him not to go.
Song Che agreed to the butler's request and went to the warehouse to pull out two bolts of silk as a welcome gift. Then he left the inn, got into the car with the butler, and drove to the north of the city.
When they arrived at Li's house, they entered the dining room. Li Tong and his son had a banquet, which seemed to have been waiting for a long time.
"Nephew Song Xian, it has been four or five months since we last saw each other in Yangzhou, right? Hurry and take a seat!"
The father and son of the Li family, accompanied on the left and right, led Song Che to his seat.
Song Che was flattered. He had no contact with the father and son at all. It was his first time to eat, so he was too enthusiastic, right?
