phoenix knot

Dong Liu took his wife and children to Songcheng not far from Yanmen Pass to take up his post. When there was a white disaster, the official road was blocked by heavy snow, and the horse's hoof was deeply sunken, making it difficult to move an inch.The female family members in the carriage were all frozen to death, Brother Xu was young and was also stuffed into the carriage, and the sisters and sisters were still shivering from the cold hugging each other.The few people riding horses outside the car suffered even more. When they arrived at the post station, Dong Liu took off his gloves and his ten fingers were blue from the cold. Wipe the stove carefully, and apply frostbite ointment to hands.

Seeing that her husband's hands were frostbitten, Su Mingyue hugged her in a hurry, like Cailian, she regretted coming to the north to suffer all these hardships.

Dong Liu comforted: "We are going to Yanmen Pass. If it is Yumen Pass or Jiayu Pass, I am afraid we will be late and cannot arrive in time. If it is light, it will be eaten with military sticks, and if it is serious, it will be beheaded."

Lianxiang said: "I issued the letter of appointment, but my head was beheaded because I didn't take office in time, then it would be an oolong."

Dong Liu asked her: "Do you still remember that winter when you searched for enemy troops in the wind and sand?"

Lianxiang nodded: "Why don't you remember? At that time, the second young master was leading the soldiers to grope forward in the desert. If we couldn't find the enemy, we would be the ones who were trapped in the desert to death. The sand is more sinful than the snow. I don’t want to eat the gang wind outside the Great Wall.”

Dong Liu sighed, "My second brother became famous in the first battle, and he was a success in his youth."

Lianxiang smiled, "I still remember that he was beaten up by the old general when he came back, and he blamed him for taking you with him."

"Don't blame him, I insisted on following. If I hadn't been careful and found the traces of the enemy's burying pots and cooking, he might not have been able to defeat the enemy. I was not there when the meritorious deeds were rewarded. I was so angry at the time Him." Dong Liu said happily, and then thought that his second brother was no longer alive, and his eyes dimmed again.

"So we can reach Yanmen Pass in time, right?" Hong Ling said.

"The army is stationed at Yanmen Pass, and the family members are placed in a small town east of Songcheng, called Baishui Town. It's not a time of war, and the soldiers in the barracks have to go out to plow the fields and train soldiers in slack. During the busy farming season, I can go home to reunite with my wife and children. On weekdays, I am on duty during the day and go home at night.” Dong Liu said as he dipped in the hot water in the washbasin, and drew a map of Yanmen Pass and the town on the table.

Brother Xu said: "Don't you need to be on duty at night?"

Lianxiang nodded her forehead, "Silly boy, she is an adult from a thousand households, and it is a small soldier who does the sentry at night. Of course, it is hard to say if it is in wartime."

Cailian said: "After talking for a long time, we should go to Yanmenguan to farm?"

Lianxiang said again: "That's hard to say, the iron hooves of the Mongols outside the pass will rush over at some point, and they will leave the pass to fight at any time."

Dong Liu nodded, "After this white disaster, the Mongols' cattle and sheep froze to death. They couldn't survive, so they had to go south to the pass to burn, kill, and loot."

After resting all night, they had to rush on the next day, Su Mingyue was pregnant, Dong Liu was extra careful and didn't dare to push her too hard, anyway, there was enough time, so they didn't have to rush so fast.Su Mingyue didn't feel forced, they were in the carriage, surrounded by blankets, they were much stronger than the three riding horses outside, she could bear it physically.

One night the north wind howled, and the next day the weather was fine, the sky was so blue in the sun that there was no trace of cloud residue, and it was a vast expanse of whiteness, except for the trees on the side of the road, the vast land was empty.Su Mingyue lived in the south of the Yangtze River, and had never seen such a scene before. She just felt that her whole body had become clean.

"Emperor Tai-zu established his capital in Nanjing. Although the south of the Yangtze River is good, the towns in the north cannot be easily guarded, and the Mongols often invade. I persuaded the emperor to move the capital, but he did not dare to move north rashly. Many of the officials in Jiangnan are weak and weak scholars, and they can't even speak the northern dialect, and they are even more opposed to moving the capital. This matter has been put on hold." Dong Liu rode a horse and followed the car around, and he did not forget to introduce the customs of the northern region to his wife.

In this way, they would rush on the road during the day and rest at the post station at night. By the time they arrived at Yanmen Pass, it was more than half a month before they set off.After resettling his family members in Baishui Town, Dong Liu took one of his guards, Dong Xiyu, and a servant, Feng Xu, to report to the army.

Su Mingyue took Hong Ling to pick lotus and was busy running around, keeping a house in order. Lianxiang was specially assigned to her. Although this place is in the pass, if there is a mistake, there must be a martial arts practitioner The child protects these weak women.

The customs and customs in the north are very different, that is, how to light and burn the kang is not known to everyone. Although Lianxiang is well-informed and experienced with Dong Liu, she is a personal attendant, and she has never experienced the rough work of lighting the kang. hand.Fortunately, there are not only Dong's family members in the army in Baishui Town, there are quite a few neighbors across the street, across the courtyard, and when Lianxiang went out to ask casually, some enthusiastic people came forward to help.

After the day was over, and at night, lying on the warm kang, Su Mingyue stretched her body, feeling as happy as a fairy. "This kang is really good. The whole room is warmed up. It's better than when we were in the south of the Yangtze River. It often rains continuously in winter in the capital. The inside and outside of the house are like ice cellars, freezing to death."

Several women were lying side by side on the big kang. At this time, Lianxiang said that in winter in the Northland, if a man goes out to pee in the wild, he must bring a stick to break the icicles that come out, otherwise the bottom will be frozen. .If one gets drunk and sleeps outside the house, one has to use a shovel to shovel him up from the ground the next day.

Hong Ling wondered: "Is that still alive?"

Lianxiang said: "Nonsense, of course he would have frozen to death long ago!"

Everyone was speechless.

It was getting late, Su Mingyue looked out the window, but in fact the window was closed, she couldn't see anything.

Lianxiang knew what she was looking at, and comforted her: "She went to the army on the first day, and all the subordinates at the peak will know each other, and maybe some colleagues will drag her to drink, so please stay calm."

"She asked me to work on her face to make it less conspicuous. But I can't go out to catch the mask every day. That kind of disguise can only be used for a while, and the mustache is very time-consuming. , it's inevitable that she will slack off after a long time. She goes out with that face on her face, just don't let people see the clues. "

Lianxiang said: "Don't underestimate her. It's not the first day for her to work in the army. The guard at Yanmen Pass, everyone from thousands of households, she knows everything. She chose this place to have her own family. reason."

Su Mingyue nodded, "She told me that the border is a place of bitter cold. Now that the world is peaceful and prosperous, there are few meritorious ministers and not many people who know her. This is one day. In the future, she will still plan to move the capital to all parts of the Northland. The pass has not been inspected for many years, and she wants to come and see it in person, this is the second, and we will work together to do great things together in the future, if I don’t come to experience and practice, I will always be just a bird in a cage.”

Lianxiang said: "It's great that you have a discussion and a quantity."

Hong Ling said: "It's just that the young lady is still pregnant, if there is a contingency..."

Su Mingyue said: "During the winter solstice to Shanhaiguan, to the west to Jiayuguan, and beyond the Great Wall, aren't they all people who live a life, don't they all have children? Mongols don't have women, and their women don't give birth to babies?"

Hong Ling said: "You, a girl from Jiangnan, how can you compare with a Mongolian who grew up on horseback?"

Lianxiang said: "Your lady is very comparable, you have to trust her."

Everyone talked for a while, there was a dog barking in the yard next door, and the door squeaked, it was Dong Liu who had returned.

Su Mingyue hurriedly got off the kang, put on her clothes and went out to greet her. Her husband took off his bamboo hat, patted off the frost flowers on his shoulders, and got close, smelling of alcohol.

"Did you really go to drink?" Su Mingyue was a little annoyed.

Dong Liu took the hot tea from her and rinsed his mouth, "They are all uneducated bastards, and they have no other entertainment except drinking. Oh, you want to take me to a building to drink flower wine with court prostitutes. I was so scared that I made excuses and escaped back."

All the people in the house came out to welcome and wait for the head of the family to wash up. Dong Liuzhi said that it was getting late, so he let them go to sleep on their kangs in each house.She sat there washing her feet, took the towel handed by Su Mingyue to dry them off, and took the footwashing water by herself and went out and splashed it on the snow outside the house.

The two finally went back to the room and lay down. Su Mingyue took off her mustache and put it in a small box on the table beside the bed, and then untied the cloth strips that bound her chest under the quilt. Six changed back to Liang Guanjing.

"The water at Yanmen Pass is quite deep. The guard, Ma Yu, is a money addict. He joined forces with a few thousand households below to deduct money and led to a mutiny in the army a few years ago. Commander-in-Chief found out, and now Ma Yu is being escorted to Beijing to wait to be dealt with. The Commander-in-Chief of the Dragon and Tiger Guard sent his cronies to thoroughly investigate the matter. The four thousand households below are very nervous, and now they are going to draw me in to solve the problem together. If this matter cannot be resolved, they probably want to solve me."

Su Mingyue said "Ah?", "Is this asking you to join forces?"

"Then didn't the army mutiny? The hundreds of households and soldiers who slipped through the net and escaped were on the border of the Mongols outside the pass. Now I don't know whether they surrendered or went west to the mountains to become bandits. In short, banditry is also serious here. If these troops Master Qiu Ba, who has been trained, goes into the mountains and becomes a bandit, and he may become a serious disaster in the long run."

Su Mingyue fell silent.

"There are also quite a few caravans going to and from Yanmen Pass. A big businessman came in a few years later and brought a large amount of gold and silver treasures to buy medicinal materials such as ginseng and antler. Now the bandits are eyeing this piece of fat."

Su Mingyue sighed.

"Then the cronies sent by the Commander of the Dragon and Tiger Guards tried my martial arts tonight when they were drinking with me, and they thought I was very skilled." Liang Guanjing looked at Su Mingyue, "He appointed me a secret The task is to go to the kiln and kill a person, that is, the big businessman who is staying there now and refuses to leave, and make it a bandit to kill."

Su Mingyue yelled strangely: "What is this?"

Liang Guanjing covered her face, "I don't think I should have brought you here, this is the first day."

"Can you still take it off now?" Su Mingyue asked.

Liang Guanjing smiled wryly, "I'm afraid it will be difficult. By the way, I have inquired about it. There is a sage Wen woman in Yanmen Pass. I will go to visit her early. When you are about to give birth, she will be there to take care of you."

Su Mingyue stroked her lower abdomen with both hands, it was already slightly bulging. "What are you going to do with this kid, it's such a burden."

"Didn't you insist? It's like having a child, so it looks like a family." After Liang Guanjing finished speaking, she also reached out to stroke her belly, "But it is true that I still have to have a child, otherwise who will inherit the throne in the future? ?”

Su Mingyue laughed "puchi", "He is neither a descendant nor the eldest son. He doesn't even know whether he is a man or a woman. How can he inherit the throne?"

"It's man-made."

Su Mingyue thought for a while, "Didn't you have a child who was living outside? Maybe..."

"I came here because I also wanted to look for it. Although there is no hope, but... Maybe... I have been thinking about this person who never lived or died, and it is also uncomfortable."