The winter in the imperial capital is very short. December has just passed, and by mid-January, the ice on the river has almost melted, and the weather has shown signs of warming up.
Yan Liqiang has been practicing desperately in the Deer Garden these days, like a trapped tiger.
For Yan Liqiang, time has finally entered the seventeenth year of Yuanping in the Han Empire. This year, for the Han Empire, is like the countdown starting before the gate knife hanging over the head of the Han Empire falls. On the night of September 7 this year, countless meteorites will fall from the sky with flames. The huge shock wave will turn the most prosperous capital of the Han Empire into a barren desert. The entire Han Empire will truly enter a chaotic world with an unpredictable future. As for Yan Liqiang himself, with the arrival of this heavenly calamity, the trump cards he had accumulated in the Heavenly Dao Divine Realm have almost been completely played out...
This natural disaster was not an "accident" but a "man-made" one. Whenever Yan Liqiang thought of this, he would feel a chill in his heart.
The court of the Han Empire and His Majesty the Emperor thought they could survive this catastrophe by sacrificing tens of millions of people in the capital area, allowing the court to regroup and wait for time to recover. However, the White Lotus Sect did not seem to be willing to give the court this time. Although Yan Liqiang did not know what the so-called killer weapon of the White Lotus Sect was, as time progressed to January, Yan Liqiang felt in his heart that the atmosphere in the entire capital area was becoming more and more tense. The entire capital area seemed to be on the crater of a volcano, with a kind of tranquility before the rainstorm...
After experiencing sadness, resentment, depression, and even despair, Yan Liqiang admitted his weakness and failure in resisting the heavenly calamity, and regained his spirits. He threw himself into cultivation like crazy, and at the same time, together with Fang Beidou and others, tried every possible way to get people out of the capital area to the best of their ability. At this time, whoever could be saved would be saved.
…
"Have Mr. Hu's family from Xiaoqi Village been picked up?"
"They have been taken away. According to your instructions, Mr. Hu's family from Xiaoqi Village were the first to be taken away. According to their itinerary, they have almost passed Huizhou by now. I went to Xiaoqi Village in person. When I went there, Mr. Hu's family couldn't believe that such a thing would happen to them. It was not until I told them about your situation and bought their land and houses on the spot that Mr. Hu believed it and was willing to go with us..."
After hearing Fang Beidou's words, Yan Liqiang let out a long sigh. Although he couldn't take everyone away, he felt comforted that he could take Hu Laozhang's family away.
At this moment, the time is already January 8th, and the location is Fang Beidou's home in Imperial Capital City.
"Where are Xu Enda and the others?" Yan Liqiang asked.
"Xu Enda and his family were also in the first batch. Everyone in his family left first. Now Xu Enda stayed in Huizhou City. There is a village called Baijiang Village in Huizhou City. There are more than a thousand people in that village. The villagers have been blacksmiths and various craftsmen for generations. Their craftsmanship is the best in the capital. I want to take all the people in that village away, and also open up various connections in Huizhou..."
"Do you have enough passes?"
"Of course the imperial pass is not enough, but the pass we made ourselves is enough..." Fang Beidou said, taking out two passes from his pocket and placing them in front of Yan Liqiang, "One of these two passes is from the imperial court, and the other is made by someone according to your instructions. The things are ready, take a look..."
Yan Liqiang picked up the two passes. The materials, strokes of the characters, and details of the official seals were exactly the same. Holding the two passes in his hands, Yan Liqiang himself could not tell which one was real and which one was fake. Looking at the two passes in his hand, Yan Liqiang breathed a sigh of relief, "Not bad, not bad, this is well done..."
"We have quite a few craftsmen here, and their skills are top-notch. In the past, several old men in the newspaper printing workshop directly made the engravings for the road passes. The one who wrote them was an old gentleman who used to set up a stall on the roadside to write letters to others. His handwriting can imitate anyone's notes. The official seals for signing and signing were all carved by reliable people, and there are no flaws..."
For Yan Liqiang and his team, forging a government pass was not technically difficult. The two tricks that the government had were not considered special skills. The real difficulty was actually being able to withstand the charge. According to the laws of the Han Dynasty, forging a government document or seal was a capital crime with the death penalty and confiscation of property. Yan Liqiang and Fang Beidou were actually risking their lives...
"How are those checkpoints doing?"
"Our evacuation routes are divided into three routes: Jingdongji, Jingnanji, and Jingxiji. They will leave Jingji through Tongcheng, Jinling, and Huizhou respectively. There are a total of nine checkpoints to pass. Now the middle and lower-level officials and servants in various places in Jingji are actually a little scared and anxious, but they dare not say it. The emperor and ministers in the court can tour the south to leave Jingji, but they can't leave and have to stay in this place. They also have wives, children, and families at home. In addition to money to open the way, in fact, as long as they can bring the family members of those people with the pass, they will have a smooth journey along the way, and no one will make things difficult for them. The pass for exiting the customs in various places is counted separately and not summarized. If the court summarizes the pass for exiting various places, it will naturally discover our tricks, but at this moment, no one in the court will do such a thing..."
"That's good!" Yan Liqiang nodded. "I have already communicated with Datong Bank. If you need money along the way, you can go to Datong Bank in various cities to withdraw it. I have asked Datong Bank to lend you 3 million taels of silver. You don't have to worry about the money..."
"There is still a problem. Some of the craftsmen we found before agreed to go to Ganzhou with us before leaving, but after arriving in the capital, we found that some of them escaped and did not want to go to the northwest with us. This is a bit troublesome..."
“Are there many people like this?”
"Not many, but when we left in batches, there were one or two families like this in each batch. Once these people left the capital, they no longer needed a pass. As soon as we settled down, they disappeared the next morning. Some people didn't even say goodbye before leaving. The better ones would even leave a letter..."
"Then don't worry about them. If they want to leave, then let them leave it to fate. We just need to get them out. As long as one survives, it's a good thing..."
"Okay!" Fang Beidou nodded, then hesitated for a moment, "Ganzhou..."
Yan Liqiang lowered his eyes, "It was the No. 3 earthquake, but it was not reported in the court's official newspaper, so the news has not spread yet..."
"knew!"
"It's troublesome to get in and out of the Imperial Capital. I'll see you move out of the city in two days so that we can contact each other if anything happens!"
"good!"
"Please pay attention!" Yan Liqiang stood up and picked up the bamboo hat on the table, "I'm leaving..."
Fang Beidou accompanied Yan Liqiang to the gate of the courtyard. Yan Liqiang opened the door, put on his bamboo hat, nodded to Fang Beidou, and then left the alley...
Yan Liqiang and Fang Beidou meet once every three days, and it is Yan Liqiang who comes to see Fang Beidou. This morning, when it was still dark in the capital city, Yan Liqiang came as soon as the city gate opened. Now, after finishing talking with Fang Beidou and leaving Fang Beidou's house, the sky outside has just brightened, and there are a few pedestrians on the street.
There was a mutton noodle shop on the street near Fang Beidou's home. Early in the morning, the noodle shop had just opened for business. A pot of mutton soup had already been boiled, and the aroma filled the air on the street.
"Boss, give me a bowl of mutton noodles..." Yan Liqiang walked into the noodle shop, put eight copper coins on the counter where the boss lady collected money, and then found a table by the roadside and sat down.
"Okay, wait a moment..." The boss quickly put the noodles into the pot and started to cook...
There weren't many customers in the noodle shop right now. Apart from Yan Liqiang, there were only five or six people. On the wall of the noodle shop, there was a striking slogan, "Don't talk about state affairs." A few people were sitting at a table, eating noodles while chatting quietly...
The mutton noodles arrived quickly, but Yan Liqiang had just finished half of the bowl of noodles when he saw some commotion on the street outside. Someone was running off into the distance, and he could vaguely hear someone say, "Someone died in Chetou Lane..."
dead
Yan Liqiang did not move. This was a big deal for ordinary people, but for Yan Liqiang, he was not interested in ruining his appetite this morning for a dead person. It was normal for someone to die in the Imperial Capital...
After a while, Yan Liqiang saw several detectives rushing past in a hurry on the street outside, but he didn't care. After finishing his noodles, Yan Liqiang walked out of the door leisurely and continued walking on the street.
After walking less than a hundred meters, Yan Liqiang saw many people outside an alley, bent over with pale faces and retching, and some even vomited out their breakfast.
The two detectives Yan Liqiang had just seen pushed through the crowd outside the alley with pale faces. They couldn't hold it in any longer and bent down to vomit violently on the street. While vomiting, they shouted at the top of their lungs, "Everyone... leave quickly... leave quickly..."
"Seal off this place, no one is allowed to enter..."
"Corpse, plague..." A fat middle-aged man stumbled out of the alley, screaming in fear as he ran...
Yan Liqiang stopped in his tracks, his eyes fixed, his body moved, and he quickly flashed into the alley...
Deep in the alley, a highly decomposed corpse was lying on the ground. From a distance, one could smell a disgusting stench. The ground was full of corpse fluid, and strange red maggots were crawling all over the corpse...
(End of this chapter)