Then, Ma Yanghua lowered her voice again: "I heard that the Rat Fairy has started killing people again recently, not to mention near Junshan Island, but now in other waters of Dongting Lake, no fishermen dare to fish at night, tell me about this What's the matter? People just point out that they earn hard-earned money by fishing at night. This haunting has once again blocked the way for the living."
When Ma Yanghua spoke, her tone was quite complaining. They were probably among the fishermen who were frightened by ghost legends. Song Siyuan had an idea and said slowly: "Brother Fushun, how about I rent your boat for one night, and you can How about putting us near Junshan Island and we go to the Rat Immortal Temple on Broken Island by ourselves?"
"This... sister, if you go to other places, we can take you there. Junshan Island is really not possible. However, I will tell you a secret passage to Broken Island. You can pass through Broken Island without anyone noticing. , near the Rat Immortal Temple.”
"Is there a secret passage to Broken Island?"
Song Siyuan became curious.
"Oh, it's not really a secret passage. Do you remember that I told your brother Fushun about the origin of our Dongting boat people? As early as the previous dynasty, some water bandits were mostly near Dongting..."
The story of Broken Island Passage begins with the previous dynasty’s entry into the pass.
At the end of the Zhu Dynasty, the cavalry entered the pass. The small imperial court of the Southern Ming Dynasty first established its capital in Jinling, and then its territory continued to shrink. In the end, it could not even settle in Yunnan and Dian, and the country was completely lost.
Countless Nanming generals refused to surrender to the new dynasty and decided to build ships and enter Dongting Lake as a camp. They relied on the 800-mile Dongting swamp to cover their whereabouts. In the following decades, the Nanming generals divided into two factions, one of which was the Dongting boat people. The other faction is the Dongting water bandits.
Putting aside the Dongting boat people who are kind to others and never engage in robbery or killing, the secret passage on Broken Island was carved out by the Dongting water bandits who robbed homes, killed people and turned away goods, and it was specially used for illegal activities.
When the previous dynasty was just founded, it still had the intention of annihilating the generals of Nanming. It ordered the officials along the Dongting Lake not to exchange supplies with the generals of Nanming, and not to allow passing ships to replenish supplies with the remnants of Nanming. If the survivors of Nanming came ashore, they would be complicit in conspiracy and beheaded.
Under this kind of dragnet, the Nanming soldiers were finally forced into a desperate situation. In their view, the previous government had forcibly cut off their way.
Since the new dynasty was immoral and the officials forced the people to rebel, these Nanming generals had no choice but to abandon their etiquette, justice and shame, and seriously started to act as Dongting water bandits. They began to rob passing ships and harass fishermen along the lake, and gradually became cunning and cunning Dongting water bandits who were well versed in the nature of water. .
The hiding place of this group of Dongting water bandits was near Broken Island in Junshan. At that time, it was not called Broken Island, but Qianye Island, which means that this island in the lake was like a thousand green leaves floating in the lake.
The water bandits must have their considerations when choosing this place.
Chiba Island is far away from the lake shore and belongs to the Dongting Lake area. Although it can be close to the land, it cannot be said to be walking on the lake shore without breaking their oath. At the same time, the thousands of islands here are all kinds of strange and rugged like stars. It is extremely easy to hide among them. If Without anyone to guide you, it’s easy to get completely lost.
Furthermore, any ship that enters Dongting Lake from the river will approach Chiba Island, using it as a bandit's nest to observe the situation on the river and even facilitate robberies.
For this reason, the Dongting water bandits finally used Qianye Island as their lair and built dense secret passages here.
Since they are secret passages, they must not be known to the public. These secret passages are all covered by countless broken islands and are built in places with abundant vegetation. They are blocked by vegetation in all seasons and cannot be easily discovered. Even if it is winter and the flowers and grass wither, It will still be covered with withered grass and snow, making it difficult to distinguish traces.
The countless bandit villages are built in various caves based on secret passages like ant nest tree roots. These secret passages and cave bandit villages magnify the shielding function of Chiba Island tens of millions of times. As long as people walk into it and there are no water bandits to lead the way, Must be lost in it.
Even if the government troops came, it would be useless. These troops sent warships to clean up many times, but often returned without success. Instead, they suffered numerous casualties due to entering Chiba Island. Seeing that they returned without success time and time again, the government officials along the Dongting Lake also I am too lazy to do useless work and will never come to Chiba Island to suppress bandits again.
As for the more distant era, the imperial court relaxed its suppression of the Nanming water bandits. These water bandits began to cooperate with the government on the shore and do dirty things for them. Then Chiba Island was completely stable. If the government did not suppress the bandits, Who among the private sector would dare to go to Chiba Island to get into trouble?
During the three hundred years of the previous dynasty, Qianye Island had always been the base camp of Dongting Lake water bandits. It was not until the Dingmao famine, the civil unrest, and the government's dereliction of government in those decades that these water bandits found a way to survive. Only then did they leave Qianba Island. After landing, various trading firms, escort bureaus, and martial arts schools were established, and Chiba Island gradually became deserted.
Now, after the Dragon King Temple was built on Junshan Island, the nearby area became a bustling town, and Broken Island no longer had any use. In the past two years, with the establishment of the Shuxian Temple, more and more people came to offer incense near Broken Island. However, because these people took the open route of the waterway, they still knew nothing about the secret route and the hidden route.
"Then if you don't know, how do you two know these secret passages?"
Yue Guanchao became curious. He remembered that Ma Yanghua said that they belonged to the Dongting boat people, not the Dongting water bandits.
Zhu Fushun waved his hand: "Hey, it's true that we are Dongting boat people, but our predecessors were indeed Dongting water bandits. My grandfather was the master in the water bandit camp back then, and was in charge of the blueprint of the secret passage on Qianba Island. His old man After his death, he passed the blueprint to my father, and when it came into my hands, the blueprint was indeed still there, but no one had been to this secret passage for decades, and no one knew what it looked like."
"Although I have the blueprint of the secret passage, I haven't been to the secret passage very often in the past few years. That place has been abandoned for seventy or eighty years. I don't know what happened to it. It's useless for ordinary people to go to that place."
"So that's it."
Yue and Song suddenly realized.
"Then Brother Zhu, we'll leave it to you. When the moon is full, I'll thank you for taking us through the secret passage."
Yue Guanchao originally thought of renting a large ship to anchor near Junshan Island, but he saw that there was a secret passage that could directly enter Broken Island, so there would no longer be the risk of being discovered. As long as they were guided by Zhu Ma and his wife, this could be regarded as solving their immediate problem.
"Okay, no problem. Just wait. I'll give you the blueprint first. You should be familiar with the route. It will be easier for us to leave in a few days."
Zhu Fushun led them into the cabin. After rummaging in the living room for a while, they took out a cowhide diagram, walked into the living room and immediately handed it to Song Siyuan: "Here, keep it, don't lose it. .”
"okay."
The two of them did not expect that they would gain something new at the lakeside dock today. After returning to Qingtong Inn, they immediately told Yue Qingshan what happened today.
"That would be great."
Yue Guanchao immediately took out the map, spread it on the table and picked up a flashlight to observe the details carefully. The cowhide map was about half a meter square, with a regular rectangle. It was specially softened and had a matte texture similar to cloth. It was said that it was a map, but it was actually more like using cowhide. The relief is to carve the secret passage directly on the back.
If you look carefully, you can see that the gray-yellow surface is full of cracks of time. With Junshan Island as the center, Thousand Pages Island is completely drawn directly in the center. Countless islands are all visible on the white edge, which looks extremely clear. It can be seen that the distance between the islands is high and wide, and the secret passage is Starting from the islands near Junshan Island, continue along the waterway to Broken Island.
Judging from the plan view, the entire secret passage is really like an ant nest at the root of a tree. Starting from one point, it can lead to different islands. It is like an irregular maze. In this group of secret passages, there are countless black dots marked out. There are also small characters for the Cave Bandit Village, which are distributed according to the southeast, northwest, and collectively surround Yugou Island.
Overall, Chiba Island has been hollowed out by the Dongting water bandits. They have adapted measures to local conditions and made the best use of the island. All bandit villages and secret tunnels can be accessed from one point, and all tunnel sections are marked with A, B, C and D. Symbols like nine make it easy to identify the route of the tunnel.
In this way, with this map in hand, you can pass the secret passage with your eyes closed.
"only!"
Song Siyuan became curious and pointed at the largest Yugou Island with a flashlight and said, "I have no idea about the others. But don't you think it's strange why these bandit villages are almost all built around Yugou Island?"
Regarding this point, everyone looked at each other, not knowing what they meant.
Sun Daqiao hissed: "We're not sure about this. Maybe it's because Yugou Island has the largest bandit village, or maybe it's because Yugou Island is the center of the Chiba Island Belt. If you want to say that, I think so. Get up, these cave bandit villages seem to be arranged according to the Bagua directions, and there are exactly eight different bandit villages."
Lao Suntou divided the beans among the bandits in each cave. After discarding the line interference, it was easy to see that the direction of the bandits was close to the Bagua. The Yugou Island was right in the center of the Bagua, shaped like half a yin-yang fish. Of course, This is symbolically speaking, but it is actually just a crescent moon shape.
"This is strange. Does the water bandit also pay attention to Feng Shui when building the bandit stronghold?"
Yue Erpao's words made everyone find it unbelievable, but it was true, and it was extremely appropriate.
Song Siyuan said: "It's probably possible. If you think about it, the last years of the Zhu Dynasty were at least three hundred years ago. We don't know what happened three hundred years ago. Maybe the ancients really built according to Feng Shui theory in order to be safer. Bandits’ stronghold, this makes sense.”
"Fortunately, we can get to Yugou Island without renting a boat. It depends on whether the rats on Yugou Island will worship the moon."
She paused and her tone became mysterious: "I have always wondered why rats worship the moon on Yugou Island. Maybe it has something to do with the Feng Shui pattern on the island."
One stone stirred up a thousand waves, and Yue Guanchao chewed his teeth: "There are too many secrets. The Dongting Bandit Village may not be as simple as it seems. When we have time, we must let Brother Fushun tell us what the structure of this bandit village is." why is it like this."
Some people died, but not completely...
