Tan Bin, his ancestor was a teacher, but he was not recommended for many years and could not become an official. He finally died in depression. There was no outstanding person in his family. Tan Bin began to practice literature and martial arts at a very young age. Unfortunately, he did not have the talent to become a monk. In the end, he only relied on Some of my ancestors' Fuyin entered the Qianhu Office of Xuanqing Guard in Fengri City.
Because of his literacy and quick thinking, he was selected as a clerk when the Black Flag Battalion was established, and was later sent as a street detective.
The so-called traveling detective is actually a kind of errand that goes around the streets. It mainly listens to the gossip on the streets every day and reports if there is anything worthy of note. Its effect is very limited, and basically not much useful information can be obtained. The guerrilla detectives also evolved from the guerrilla detective posts of the military. The scope of authority of the Xuanqing Guards was actually not suitable.
After Shen Hao took the position of the Hundred Household Officer of Black Flag Camp, he had directly banned the detectives. Those who had previously served as scouts were retained and entered various banners to continue to serve as scouts.
Not all the people in Qianhusuo Black Flag Camp are monks, there are also quite a few ordinary people inside. These people will not be on the front line of the fight, but they are an indispensable part.
Monks have zhenqi reactions on their bodies. The lower their cultivation level, the easier it is to be discovered. However, ordinary people are the same. The chance of being exposed when mixed in the crowd is much smaller. The best choice among spies is ordinary people rather than monks.
This time, Tan Bin and two other companions received an order to sneak into the convoy of Hengshun Carriage and Horse Racing Co., Ltd. to transport a batch of pig iron to Haixia. The task was to record in detail all the suspicious people and things along the way.
Tan Bin can drive a car and is very skilled at it, but this is his first time driving a mule cart. Fortunately, the two mules in his hands are honest enough, and he did not make any mistakes. After a few days of adaptation, no one can tell that it is his first time driving. convoy.
Those with four wheels are called carts. There is a flap on the cart for people to sit on, and there are cargo boxes behind it. The maximum amount of cargo that can be carried is 1,800 kilograms at a time, which will be reduced appropriately considering the distance. This time it carried 1,500 kilograms. There was nothing strange about any of this. The first thing that really surprised Tan Bin was the iron block that was loaded into the car from the warehouse.
Tan Bin had seen pieces of iron before when he was a traveling detective. Generally speaking, for the convenience of transportation, iron blocks are weighed in pieces of five to ten kilograms, square and packed in thick wooden boxes.
However, the shape of the iron blocks moved from the warehouse outside Xiaoshan Iron Furnace was extremely strange. The pig iron blocks were actually in the shape of stone locks, and each piece weighed about fifty kilograms. There is no need to pack them in thick wooden boxes, just put them one by one in the carriage, then cover them with thick cloth and tie them tightly with ropes.
Fifty pounds! And it's still in the shape of a stone lock. You think this thing would be suitable for monks to use for body training. Who doesn't use a pushcart or a horse-drawn carriage to pull iron blocks? Does it look like this so that people can carry it with one hand and carry it away?
Starting from Licheng and then to Yucheng, Tan Bin did not see any buyers along the way. But I saw the level of corruption on the roads along the official road. It turns out that when I arrived, I could just show my name as a horse and carriage dealer and I could go straight there without even looking at the cargo documents, let alone randomly checking the physical items on the car. It's extremely outrageous that this kind of Luca exists in name only.
It's not even like this in Licheng, it's all like this in the six roads along the official road. I don’t know if Hengshun Car and Horse Racing is really good or if the people in these road administration yamen are really bad.
After arriving in Yucheng, the convoy did not choose to enter the city, but took a detour to the small pier in the south of Yucheng. The pier is on the edge of Baijiang River. It is very small and can only accommodate five or six boats in total.
When he arrived at the pier, Tan Bin noticed a group of new faces contacting the people in the motorcade. These people are well-dressed, with jade accessories around their waists, and their belts are also of high quality. And you can feel a slight sense of oppression from a distance.
Tan Bin, who had undergone special training, knew that the slight pressure he felt came from the opponent's cultivation. These new faces are all monks. It's just that Tan Bin can't determine the other party's cultivation level.
Catch the cart to the ship, then unharness the mules and lead them to the lower level. The goods are in the middle. People stay at the top.
Those who didn't have cabins slept on the deck or simply lay on the iron blocks on the middle deck. Tan Bin asked some old people who had taken this route several times and they said that it would take at most two days to go down the river to Haixia, which was much faster than on land.
But when Tan Bin asked about those monks, the old man shrugged and said he didn't know. He only knew that they were sent by buyers to follow the goods. We don't always follow them to the boat. Sometimes we can only see them when we arrive at Haixia. The faces are also changing, not sure who will come next time.
Before coming, Tan Bin had seen a portrait and was asked to remember it firmly. However, among the monks following the ship who appeared at the dock, there was no one in the portrait.
After two days on the boat, Tan Bin sadly found that he was seasick! Although there were no big waves on the river, the slight shaking still made him feel very uncomfortable. His head felt dizzy and he wanted to vomit but couldn't. It wasn't until he arrived at the next pier the next night and Tan Bin got off the boat that he slowly got better.
After getting off the boat, we reached the boundary of Haixia.
Although it was night, the lights were bright on the dock. Ships were unloaded and trucks were loaded overnight, and they continued southward along the official road. In the middle of the night, we stopped at a fork in the official road, camped on the spot, and then continued walking until daybreak.
When he arrived here, Tan Bin found that there were many more new faces in the motorcade, more than thirty people, all of whom were monks. These people were very vigilant. Those who took shifts kept wandering around the convoy, their hands always on the weapons on their waists, and they were filled with evil spirits.
Is this to prevent thieves?
Tan Bin saw it all. He felt that the more than 30 people who followed the convoy at the second pier gave him a familiar feeling, like people in the military.
At dawn, the team did not continue on the official road, but turned onto a private road. The road conditions suddenly deteriorated a lot, and the mules had more effort to pull and walked slower.
On the way, Tan Bin saw several fast horses coming and hanging far behind the convoy, and then disappeared soon after. He knew they were horse bandits, but maybe he saw the big flag of Hengshun Horse Racing Center or the thing inside. There were more than thirty monks, so there was no large group of people coming to kill them.
So it seems that Haixia is very uneasy.
After resting and walking on the sidewalk for three and a half days, I finally saw a landmark and reached the beach stone. It took another two days to reach Xiaochuan after Tanshi.
This road is actually not too far away, but there is no official road, the road conditions are really bad, and the car is heavy, so it is not possible to walk fast at all. On the contrary, it is the most difficult part of the road.
There are no towns in Xiaochuan, only a few small villages. The convoy had no way to enter the village and could only stay on the sidewalk along the road.
After looking around for a while, Tan Bin didn't see anyone coming to pick up the goods, but why was the convoy parked here? Several drivers who were running this route for the first time like Tan Bin were asking about it, but they were told to just stop talking and wait. Then all the coachmen, including Tan Bin, were told to get off the bus and walk three miles east. They would not come over until they were recruited.
Tan Bin understood that he was going to send the driver to pick up the goods.
