Xuanchuan Pass is a fortress. Except for the guards, there are no people living in the pass.
Those people who got a job at Xuanchuan Pass are actually inextricably linked with the garrison.
For example, the servants of the Ning family, the artisans of the military family who have been stationed in Xuanchuan Pass for several generations and raised horses, the old people whose sons died in battle and had no support, and the parents of the other brothers of the deceased who were too poor to support... Guan soldiers are short of resources and manpower is short, and the existence of these people is even more necessary. It is impossible to let the soldiers fight and kill the enemy without even having a bite of hot soup or rice, and they have to do laundry and feed the horses and chopping wood on an empty stomach.
In addition, some people’s homes are difficult, especially the men who died in battle and only women and children are left. There is empty land without labor to cultivate, and they may even be sold after the land is seized by the villagers. They can only rely on the Xuanchuan Pass to garrison the army, even if they work. It is also willing to get no money, as long as the orphans and widows can survive.
Therefore, although the origins of these people are different, they are not "outsiders".
The worst is that the family members within three generations have been recruited and guarded this great pass.
Who would have thought that such a person would betray.
There was chaos in the city that day, and that time was not enough to find out all the betrayers, but just like this, Yan Cen suffered a great blow.
"... Military households and craftsmen households who have no citizenship for generations, and old people who have other sons in their home village. Why did the woman in Huofang betray? You told me last time that she was homeless. The widowed mother! Didn't the Ning family's army save their lives?"
Although Yan Cen was unable to stand up after being tapped, how could his anger be easily quelled.
"If Xuanchuanguan didn't take them in, they wouldn't even be alive today!"
Strictly speaking not today, because people died a month ago.
The crowd did not correct his mistake. After a while, a soldier whispered, "Aunt Zhang from Hufang, her son is fourteen this year."
Fourteen is half an adult and can become a biological child. The Chu Dynasty did not allow men of this age to perform corvée and military service, but the Qi Dynasty did not have this rule. In harsher places, children have to pay a tax when they land, and at the age of 12, they have to be considered half-weds, which can be redeemed with money. If there is no money, the men who go to serve at home will be allowed to extend the period of hard labor by half.
After all, Yan Cen arrived at Xuanchuan Pass not long ago, so he naturally didn't know trivial matters like how old his child was.
Hearing this man's words at this moment, he stared, still unable to understand.
"...Maybe for fear of being incorporated into the military household."
The soldier wiped his face, squeezed his fists to suppress his anger, and said in a hoarse voice.
After entering the military household, the descendants are all military households, and the child grew up in Xuanchuan Pass.
The monks at Baoxiang Temple paused and continued to chant the scriptures.
The old servant snorted heavily, and some people had their eyes split open, and some people wanted to die, regretting why they didn't realize these "crises" earlier.
- Everyone just can't think of it. When you hear the first reason for betrayal and discover that there is such a side to people's hearts, when things can be thought like this, other reasons for betrayal naturally surfaced along this logic.
"Afraid of becoming a military household, why didn't she leave Xuanchuan Pass? Could someone tie her hands and feet and forbid them to leave?" Yan Cen said bitterly.
"... How do they make a living with nothing?"
The one who spoke in the crowd was a wrinkled, bookish and bureaucratic man who looked like an old aide.
His feet seemed to be injured, and he was choked on by the thick smoke that day in Chengpo and injured his lungs. He coughed from time to time, "In such an important place as the kitchen, I will not rashly use strangers, they are all old people who have accumulated years. She has no relatives and can't make a living... Ahem, it is estimated that the woman was pulled into an accomplice by the person who was about to poison it. Just say that she will go back to her hometown with them and marry her son, I am afraid that will be shaken."
At this time, it is meaningless to speculate whether the woman intended to betray or was persuaded.
Perhaps the adoption of Ning's army avoided the possibility of the child being sold to the widowed mother and forced to remarry, and prevented the orphans and widowed mothers from becoming slaves, but they were grateful that they could not be the food for a lifetime. Maybe some people thought that military households were worse than slaves. , at least being a slave or a servant does not necessarily kill you.
If it is dead, how can it be worthy of the ancestors.
"General Ning saved a lot of people, but he didn't save them because they were incorporated into the military household! Nor did he save them by expecting their children to grow up and give their lives to the Ning family... It's a villain's heart." Yan Cen almost bit it to pieces. He gritted his teeth, and then bowed his head slumped.
General Ning wouldn't think so, but as a commander-in-chief, he didn't have much time to ask the people at the bottom, and he couldn't put himself in the shoes of these people to think about things.
In the past two years, Xuanchuan Pass has become more and more embarrassing. The procrastination from the imperial court to the local yamen, the urgent attack of the king, the most critical time, the soldiers eat and sleep on the city wall, and children, women and children also help deliver hot water and meals under the city wall. With such a lack of manpower, whether or not to compile military households, do others think that General Ning has the final say
No, it was the jackals, tigers and leopards outside who had the final say.
Emperor Yongchen ascended the throne, and Baoxiang Temple came to help. Xuanchuanguan soldiers thought that all crises were over, but they didn't know that some "own people" who could see them every day didn't think so and had other plans.
Everyone is selfish, don't take it as a surprise.
The harm of selfishness is not the size, but the bottom line.
Asking others to pay a huge price to satisfy their own selfishness, even if it is only a small selfishness, will have terrifying consequences.
Meng Qi closed his eyes slightly, all emotions blocked his heart, and he could hardly breathe.
Yan Cen said that those people did not take advantage of the chaos to open the city gates after they poisoned them.
The betrayal is for selfish desires. Of course, they will not go to death. I am afraid that they have never thought of opening the city gate. As long as they run away before the king's army attacked the city, there are city gates before and after Xuanchuan Pass. The objects, when the time comes, they will get mixed up in the crowd and walk away from the back.
I didn't offer the city, I didn't plan to stay, and of course I wasn't afraid of massacre.
Their hometown is even more impoverished, and it is no better than Yizhou, where the king came from heaven. Everyone knows that once the Xuanchuan Pass is broken, the rebels can enter the Central Plains and loot. They will not stay nearby, and naturally there is no worries. More importantly, the Xuanchuanguan soldiers at the moment are mainly from the Ning family army from the northern Xinjiang, but they are not their children and villagers, and they will not be soft-hearted when they are poisoned.
If Xuanchuan Pass is not a fortress but a city, many people in the city are still living with family members and family members, and the people are not regarded as "own people" by the officers and men. Instead of the Qi Dynasty, which only accounts for half of the country, the King of Heaven and the Holy Lotus Temple are not so infamous, etc... As long as there is one of these things, betrayal is difficult to happen.
But the fact is not, looking back, only to find that many coincidences came together, and it happened so suddenly and tragically.
When the fire was extinguished, the monks picked up the remains and put them in a small jar.
The rest of the ashes and bones were scattered on the cliff while chanting Buddhist scriptures and let the wind blow away.
Baoxiang Temple does not enshrine relics, nor does it build a golden pagoda.
In this altar, there are not only the remains of Master Yuanzhi, but also the bones of some uncles, uncles, and uncles that they retrieved from the ruins afterwards. As many people came out, they wanted to bring back a lot of them, and finally buried them in the mountain forest of the temple. inside.
The corpses Meng Qi saw everywhere was the result of their best efforts to bury them.
Including Yan Cen, most people have not completely exhausted the residual poison and cannot do heavy physical work.
In addition, Master Yuanzhi was in critical condition and could not move easily, so they hid in the cave for so many days.
In this complex underground cave, there is a secret passage that leads directly to Xuanchuan Pass, which is also a back-up prepared by the Ning family secretly, to prevent one day when the city is broken, the remnants of the pass can still have a place to hide. There is also living water in the cave, just prepare tarpaulin and easy-to-store food.
If Emperor Yongchen hadn't ascended the throne, General Ning would have a little more money, and he still couldn't find any extra jerky to put in.
The food that the remnant army can eat and drink for three days, it is no problem to raise only so many people now.
Yan Cen also went to the ruins to search for supplies from time to time, and returned to find some useful things, such as pots and pans, and all the sundries that were not destroyed by the fire.
"If Meng Guoshi comes a few days later, we may be leaving."
The monks from Baoxiang Temple put their palms together and said.
"Where are you masters going?"
"Listen to the movements of the Tianshou Wang Dajun, and maybe turn back to Yongzhou."
The headed monk looked at Yan Cen with a bit of worry in his eyes.
Meng Qi stretched his finger and pressed Yan Cen's wrist, but he didn't understand Qi Huang and could only distinguish the flow of internal force, he pondered: "The true qi that Master Yuanzhi instilled in him is too pure, fortunately, he has a good foundation in martial arts, and Feng Qi is very good at it. Once the acupuncture point is selected, the internal force will not be used for three days, and the internal breath will be circulated for several large weeks.”
"Amitabha." The monks breathed a sigh of relief.
The leader of the monk smiled bitterly and said: "We are not strong enough, we are not as good as Junior Brother Yan, even if we want to help, we can't help."
Meng Qi shook his head, he couldn't help at all.
Master Yuanzhi has passed away, and Pili Hall did not use a new one.
—Except to understand how Xuanchuan Pass was broken, I achieved almost nothing on this trip.
"Where did Meng Guoshi come from? Did the rebel army go to Jingzhou or Yongzhou?"
"It's Jingzhou, burning, killing, looting, doing all kinds of evil..."
When the monks heard the words, they all showed a sad look, and they said impulsively, "Why don't you go back to Yongzhou, it's better to go to Jiangnan."
"Could it be that King Jing did not stop the rebel army when he was defeated for thousands of miles?" The old aide asked in surprise. He didn't understand where the name Meng Guoshi came from, but seeing that Yan Cen and the monks of Baoxiang Temple believed in Meng Qi very much, he could not help but be solemn. a bit.
"Jingzhou's army is too careless and doesn't take the rebel army seriously. It has lost the opportunity. When it is time to regroup, the king of heaven has rushed to Nanping County."
Meng Qi didn't explain too much, only a few words, the old staff's face was as pale as paper.
More people didn't understand the art of war, and they didn't read the map. They only vaguely understood that King Jing was useless. He was beaten to the door by the King of Heaven within a month.
The crowd was excited and scolded.
Yan Cen didn't say a word, just clenched his fist tightly.
Meng Qi saw that they were old and sick, and after thinking about it, he turned around and went to the ruins to help them find things.
After leaving the crowd, his mind became more stable. Whenever he felt that he saw the misfortune in the world, something happened that shocked his mind even more.
Meng Qi stared at the cliff covered with vines, thinking that something was wrong with Mo Li. Once the matter here, he must rush back to Nanping County as soon as possible.
"Um?"
Meng Qi raised his head suddenly, he seemed to hear the sound of hooves.
Standing on the ruined wall, he saw from a distance a group of people riding horses galloping in the distance.
- When you see it, the eight raccoon slaves lying on top of the man's arms will come to mind first.
"Gong Jun?"