choke element

Chapter 1008 Punishment (Part )

In the blink of an eye, more than ten days passed, and winter had already arrived in all parts of Shukou in the Song Dynasty.

In the past two years, the people of Shu have been living in a more difficult situation than before. Especially last year, there was a mutiny in Xingyuan Prefecture and other places. Thousands of soldiers, in the name of the Red Scarf Team, plundered all over Shukou. While they killed a large number of officials to vent their anger, they inevitably brought heavy losses to the local hometowns, and the damage was incalculable.

After the chaos, the people of Lizhou Road in the Song Dynasty had to bear the increasingly heavy labor imposed by officials, and at the same time they had to replant tea seedlings or grain and repair their damaged houses. Fortunately, the neighboring country to the north of Lizhou Road had not been hostile for a long time, probably because of the transition between the old and new courts. It was different from the vigilance against the Jin Dynasty in the past.

As long as life goes on like this, even if the taxes are high and the officials are harsh, it is not unbearable. They are all soft knives cutting people. When the knife is first cut, the people bleed and are in great pain. After a long time, they get used to it and can always endure it. Therefore, in recent months, the popularity of Lizhou East Road has gradually recovered.

There is a pass between Xixiang County of Yangzhou and Shiquan County of Jinzhou on the east road of Lizhou, called Raofeng Pass. This place is a very important pass in the east of Xingyuan Prefecture, a key point of entry and exit at the southern end of Ziwu Road, and a must-pass road along the Han River to the east.

During the Shaoxing period of the Song Dynasty, when the Jin Dynasty was at its peak, the Jin general Wanyan Salihe was eyeing Shu. After being defeated by Wu Jie at Heshangyuan, he turned to Shangyu and broke into Jinzhou. Liu Ziyu, who was in charge of Xingyuan Prefecture, urgently summoned Wu Jie to come back for help. Wu Jie led his troops to rush 300 miles from Hechi day and night to Raofeng Pass and fought a fierce battle with the Jin army. Although he was defeated and retreated slightly, he left behind the allusion of Huanggan's enemy.

It was after that battle that the military confrontation between the Song and Jin states at the mouth of Shu gradually eased, and Raofeng Pass gradually transformed from a military fortress into a transit point for the transportation of money and grain and the exchanges of merchants along the Han River.

Decades later, Raofeng Pass, which was located at the strategic point of Raofeng Ridge and overlooked the valley below, has been abandoned. The pass was also moved southwards, closer and closer to the Han River, and finally settled in the south of Shagou adjacent to Niuyang River, fifteen miles away from the pass.

During the Shaoxing period, the Song Dynasty had three military governors, Xingzhou, Xingyuan, and Jinzhou, and the Jinzhou garrison had a strength of 11,000. This garrison situation was completely different by the 12th year of Jiading. The Xingyuan Military Governor's Office, which was supposed to have more than 20,000 soldiers, actually had only more than 4,000 soldiers available. The shortage ratio of the garrison in Jinzhou was roughly the same, and many of them were involved in the mutiny and took their families with them to become rebels.

Even if the remaining soldiers were available, how could the officials dare to use them?
After several rounds of selection and hesitation, only two hundred soldiers were retained to guard the Raofeng Pass, even though it was used for transportation.

Although the garrison was small, the city was very well built.

The city wall was more than two meters high and had a parapet. Rolling logs and stones were placed on the city wall, and there was even a large pot for boiling gold juice. There was a moat outside the city wall, and bamboo sticks were inserted into the moat. It must be admitted that the Song people were really good at defending the city. They were very careful when building the moat, and the gap left for daily entry and exit was not directly facing the city gate, but was close to the city wall and the mountain wall and took an arc.

If an enemy wanted to attack the city gate through the gap, they would have to walk fifty steps along the wall, facing arrows and wood and stones fired by the defenders. When they reached the bottom of the city gate, they would find that the flat land between the city gate and the moat was very narrow and could not accommodate any battering ram or ramming equipment.

Whatever the attacker wants to do, it will cost human lives. As long as the defenders are not dead asleep, hundreds of people will die every time the attacker comes.

The defenders would certainly not slack off to that extent, after all, such a pass was watched by many important figures. Since last year, as the mutiny led by Zhang Fu and Mo Jian in Xingyuan Prefecture intensified, the defending soldiers had to keep one eye open even when sleeping.

But later, Zhang Fu and Mo Jian's troops continued to attack Langzhou, Guozhou, Suining Prefecture and Puzhou, and once approached Chengdu. They did not pay attention to the east of Xingyuan Prefecture. For several months, not to mention sending troops to attack, they did not even harass or test, so the defenders gradually became lazy.

That morning, a flag officer with a yellow face and black beard on duty at the city gate had just eaten something and was rubbing his stomach, looking lazily at the empty road ahead. The road meandered out from the deep mountains, zigzagging to the southwest and disappearing behind the undulating slopes.

The road is a very wide road, which was built by Zhang Jun, a famous minister during the Jianyan period, when he governed Sichuan and Shaanxi. In previous years, even in winter, the road was full of merchants. After all, many of the chieftains and nobles of the Tibetans and the Xixia people to the west of Lizhou Road would go to the border of the Song Dynasty to spend the winter and exchange supplies. The people of the Song Dynasty always had to buy something for their homes during the winter and the New Year.

But in the past three years, the number of merchants on this road has been decreasing. It is said that this is because the tea-horse trade in the western military states is sluggish, and the court has sent people to severely suppress the local wealthy families and merchants.

Not to mention the mutiny this year, if you occasionally see a group of merchants, there will be dozens or even hundreds of people forming a large group, holding weapons to prepare for robbery. In fact, there is no need to be so nervous, they don't make money from their business, and the thieves may not look down on them.

The flag chief understood this very well, because he himself was a bandit active in eastern Sichuan.

The flag bearer was called Han Yanmo, and because of his extraordinary leg strength, he could climb mountains and cross ridges as if walking on flat ground. He was known as Han Feishan, a gangster. He also had two sworn brothers, each with their own abilities. They originally called themselves the Three Bandits of Bashan, and specialized in robbing merchants between the Yangtze and Han Rivers.

As they had rarely opened for business since last year, the three men went to the hideout in Jinzhou, intending to start a new life. However, they happened to encounter the local semi-forced recruitment of new soldiers, and the three brothers became the defenders of Raofeng Pass.

Among these newly recruited soldiers, those who were born as farmers had no fighting skills, and those who were born as bandits were still lazy and bandit-like. Han Yanmo squinted his eyes and saw the patrol captain leave the city. He immediately yawned and prepared to find a corner to take a nap.

Just as he wrapped his cloak tightly around him, he heard footsteps. A new soldier from Jinzhou ran over and shouted, "Someone's coming! Flag Captain, look, someone's coming. Could it be the Red Scarf Team from Xingyuan Prefecture?"

Before Han Yanmo stood up, his sworn brothers Luo Yingkui and Wang Lichan jumped up first, holding bows and swords, on guard.

Han Yanmo stood behind the two men, squinting his eyes and looking in the direction the recruit pointed, only to see smoke and dust rising faintly at the end of the road. After a while, a group of people came out unsteadily and approached the city gate.

There were not many people, about twenty or thirty, driving seven or eight carts. The mules and horses pulling the carts were quite heavy.

Han Yanmo looked at the new soldier with disdain and spat, "You idiot, how can they be rogue soldiers? Do rogue soldiers have so many carriages? Are they delivering goods or trying to rob?"

After cursing for a while, he said to his two brothers, "This caravan is carrying a lot of goods. We can definitely make a fortune if we stop it. Let's open the gate and keep an eye on it, lest the officers above take all the benefits and leave us only some coarse grains."

"Brother, something is wrong!"

Luo Yingkui suddenly said, "Look at the way those people walk, they all have bow legs... This must be caused by long-term riding, it's not something that merchants in Sichuan can have!"

Han Yanmo looked again intently. Those twenty or thirty people not only had bow legs, but also were stout and broad-shouldered. Although only the few guards at the head held knives, the others were definitely not laborers, but tough characters who had killed many people! Han Yanmo could feel it from a distance!
Seeing this, he couldn't help but become suspicious, and hurriedly whispered orders. The soldiers who were in charge of this section of the city wall with him immediately became alert, with their bows and arrows drawn, ready for battle.

But at this moment, the captain suddenly ran over and yelled, "What are you doing? Are you crazy? Put down your bows and arrows! It's Master Tolui who's coming! Master Tolui has friends and acquaintances in Xingyuan Prefecture and Chengdu City!"

After shouting twice and spitting saliva on Han Yanmo's face, the captain no longer paid attention to the rest of the people. He went down the city wall with a smile on his face and went out to greet them.

Han Yanmo muttered subconsciously: "I didn't even know there was someone with the last name Tuo in this world!"

Luo Yingkui was from Mianzhou and was more familiar with the situation in Shu. He immediately replied, "Brother, I have heard of the great official Tuolei mentioned by the captain... He should be Tuolei, the leader of the Mongolians who have been traveling to Shu in the past two years. It is said that this person has friendships with many masters. No wonder our captain wants to flatter him."

"Mongols? Where did they come from? Are they so great?" Han Yanmo asked back.

The chapter title is a bit messy, I'll revise it tomorrow.

Last year, my old, dilapidated house had an elevator installed. Then, the old men and women in the building were arguing over the proportion of the electricity bill for the elevator. After a year of arguing, there was still no result. Today, I couldn't help it anymore. I spent 20 yuan to download several papers on elevator energy consumption analysis, studied them for three hours, and then presented facts and reasoning in the building group, posting tables and data, and outputting a lot of information.

We will wait and see tomorrow whether this output has any effect and whether it can make the old men and women sober up and sign the agreement as soon as possible.