Ashinasili, who was getting a little faint in the bumps, was thrown to the side of the car by the sudden stop, and got up again with a grunt. I saw the driver hurriedly stepped forward and pulled him up and muttered loudly:
"The road ahead is blocked?... Copy guys, turn around quickly!"
"Introduction... What's this...?"
Ashinasili asked while raising the hunting bow in his hand, swiftly completing the string and setting the arrow, leaning against Yaoyao and tilting upwards to make a posture to shoot.
But I saw a faint trail of smoke rising from the intersection ahead. And as the driver drove the mule to turn around and shout, the yellow and white grass on the roadside in front of him suddenly fell over with a loud noise. All of a sudden, he rushed out of several ragged clothes, but with swords and guns. Come.
Ashina's instinctive reaction moved his hands up and down, and a figure that rushed out fell to the ground, and fell into the dust, stumbled and rolled into a ball with another person. And the crackling driver who whipped the whip couldn't help but turn his face to admire:
"You are a good horseman!"
"Ha... Also... OK."
Ashina drew his face in a naive manner, but kept his hands and eyes hitting the strings and releasing arrows again, immediately hitting the arm of another thief, causing him to lean on the ground sideways. So the remaining three thieves couldn't help being caught by his aura and quasi-head. They slowed down one after another and turned to help the injured; and let the driver complete the last turn around.
Somehow he had led a small leader who owned five horses, one cow, three hundred thin sheep, and fifteen men, women and children. But at least I have seen blood in disputes with other parts of the water (source) and grass (field), and also hunted wild horses and yellow goats, and brought the tribe to repel the hungry wolves that coveted livestock before the winter and the beginning of spring.
Although I can only eat rye batter and sour, half-baked and tasteless black air-dried meat to eat, a few rolls of rough felt and a large cloak of sheepskin are all people's most valuable objects. So much so that he was so poor that he couldn't please his wife, and he could only count on the tribe to grab one during the battle; but the basic skills of being born on horseback and shooting and hunting had not fallen.
It's a pity that he is quite good at archery and horse shooting. In front of the staggered array of Taiping sabers, guns and firearms, it is nothing more than a piece of straw paper or something like a man's arm as a car, and he was killed before he even rushed forward. Fragile and frustrated; now, it can only be used to deal with these gangsters and bandits a little bit.
Ashina thought so, and jumped back into the mule car that started to speed up the trot. At this time, the driver also freed up a hand, held up the small crossbow, pressed it on his leg, and pulled it up and put it on the string, and threw the nearest culprit who had caught up again and shot it head-on.
As a result, the remaining two culprits couldn't help but completely lost their courage and fighting spirit. They wailed like wild dogs, turned their heads and fled back to the grass, and moved further and further away amidst the overturning movement. As a result, the two mule carts that were to be retired were also sweaty and sweaty, and they turned their heads back reluctantly with the neighing sound.
Under the cover of Ashinasili's bow, the driver quickly checked the corpses that fell on the road, and then dragged away from the road to the side. He packed up all the knives, guns and equipment he was holding, and piled them together on the empty space of the cart as an afterthought, and then drove back to the road ahead.
Ashinasili then had the mind and leeway, and opened his voice in an unfamiliar tone:
"Help,, come on the list... No... Didn't you mean that the territory has been cleared out?"
"The land is indeed almost eliminated!"
This young and able-bodied driver, but shaking his head was trying to get rid of the annoyance:
"But the local water camp in Luzhou was collapsed before the war, and now they are everywhere in Chaohu. Now they are hiding under the cover of the border Shuize Lu **; this generation will run out to robbery or do things when they are extremely hungry. It will take some time to clean up these dangerous cuts?"
"But please be relieved, we are rarely seen in such a situation today; it's really not a coincidence that if I don't rush to pick up two more people from the town, maybe they may not dare to do it! "
"Take... that's good..."
Ashina couldn't help but nod his head in praise, this kind of scene is really not uncommon on the grassland beyond the Great Wall. After each tributary dispute and merger, either due to the turmoil caused by the famine, or during the seasonal migration process, there will always be many such robbers and marcos who are scattered outside.
At least before they were starved to death or killed in battle, they would like lone wolves walking on the grassland to survive, and they would not hesitate to follow and attack every single traveler and passerby who appeared in their field of vision. And the old and weak migrating tribes.
Until a large tribe in a certain area suddenly rises, and in a fast and violent battle, the large and small tribes and the tents are unified under the banner of a certain major alliance; these horse thieves and bandits on the grassland will It calmed down and disappeared for a while.
But once the co-owner of this tribal alliance suffers an accidental death, or suffers a major or painful setback in the southward plunder; that will set off a new round of bloody winds of large and small tribes invading and fighting each other. . In the process of determining the final winner, more sources of horse thieves and robbers will be recreated.
This is the fragile ecology and extensive economic system on the grasslands beyond the Great Wall, and the unavoidable and exceptionally short and fast cycle of chaos control. In contrast, under the rule of these peaceful thieves in Tang Di, there are only two or three path-cutters of these kittens, which is enough to be called the blessing of eternal life.
Just when the driver and the stuttering Ashinasili were talking in a different way; the front of the bumpy car suddenly became cheerful, revealing a slab of wood. The edge of the fence is over. However, on the big trees on both sides of the relatively spacious road outside Zhuangzi, there are corpses of different old and new hangings.
Each corpse is still faintly visible nailed with cloth writing, but because of the wind, the sun and the rain, the accusation is a little vague. One of the most common is the crime of killing and overtaking. Such rows are staggered from time to time, gently swaying in the wind; it is like welcoming (warning and deterring) pedestrians and passengers in every way.
Seeing this scene, Ashina felt more relieved. After all, on the edge of the vast sea desert where he lives, where there are barren and bittern grasslands everywhere, isn't it the tents that can be decorated with more enemy heads, stronger and more able to protect their tribes
"I would like to thank the peace thief here?"
And in the Zhuangzi they passed by, a man dressed as a scholar sighed:
"Although this generation copied my hometown and caused countless elders to be displaced and migrated to other places; but it has finally ended the situation where the local clans and township parties have been fighting with their neighbors since the chaos of the bandit army and the birth of Guangling, fighting each other and invading the road. Ah? How many places of friendship and friendship have become blood feuds for generations!"
—I am the dividing line of the end —
And above the big lake named Baishuitang (the predecessor of Hongze Lake) at the confluence of the Huai River and Sishui.
The black and thin bow, nicknamed "Old Crab", has just checked the newly harvested alkaline soil in the full warehouse, that is, dried and burned into agglomerates of vegetation ash. This thing is also one of the largest local productions in the three towns of Huaishang; not only are the towns running around to make preparations, but even the private sector is constantly trading.
Because there are too many of the raw materials, and the re-growth is fast, the collection and processing are also exceptionally simple. However, if the truck is loaded and sent to the wild market set up privately by Hekou, it can be directly exchanged for the corresponding food, cloth, and other items according to the different barter ratios.
On the other hand, this thing was also an important raw material widely used under the rule of the Taiping Army. Not only is it extremely useful for non-governmental pastry fermentation and processing, it can also be used as one of the catalysts for primary industrial production with three acids and two bases as the core. Therefore, no matter how much it is produced, it is quickly digested like a sponge absorbing water.
Therefore, the "Old Crab" only used more than one hundred coarse cloths and ten iron pots with lids in exchange for half of the ship's alkaline soil blocks. As long as he can leave the Huai River and return to Hudouzhou in the south by boat, the more than 20,000 catties of alkaline soil on this ship can be converted into the corresponding Taiping new money at the purchase price of one catty and ten cents, or again. Equivalent sea salt, ironware, or other Southeastern specialties.
This is also due to the benefits and priority opportunities provided by the Metropolitan Government in disguised form for the first batch of sea people who have participated in the military supplies transportation and have persistently served. At that time, the old crab was able to stand on his own from his former owners, Hu Liena and Hu Jingshui, the ship merchants of Annan, and became one of the emerging small boat owners outside the mountains.
Then, relying on a two-hundred-hundred-thousand-material sea boat photographed from Canton, he followed the great master Solomon in the middle of Fujian province, and did a few years of trafficking business from Canton to Jiangdong coast, turning the boat into After the big ship, one old ship became one big and two small three ships; now they are walking on the short-term routes from Guangfu to Fuzhou and Fuzhou to Yuezhou.
Then seeing that after the Taiping Army took all of Jiangdong, the remote trafficking business that originally had a certain risk has also become a relatively stable and long-flowing human and cargo shipping business; however, he did not want to live down like other people, and has become a lot of people. One of the wealthy and wealthy families.
Instead, he took advantage of a little connection he had forged in the past, and found the proprietor of Suo Luomeng and Suo Da, who had great abilities and a wide range of business; he won this new business of trafficking in alkaline soil among the people in the northern region along the Huai River Way. Although it is not comparable to the bulk of official contacts, even picking up leftovers from the corners is enough to benefit him endlessly.
Therefore, in addition to the first time due to lack of experience and means of storage, the alkaline soil that was sold was soaked in the wind, resulting in a loss of a ship of goods; other times not only quickly regained the lost capital, but also The extra profit is a lot. So he has already begun to plan to buy the fourth boat.
Therefore, after visiting the local and large shipyards in Fu, Quan, Wen, Ming, Yue, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Changzhou along the southeast coast, he finally came across a 500-material new cutting-head ship under construction; in order to deliver the order. He had already spent all his savings and wealth, and for this reason he specially made a wish in the Sea God Temple, so that he would not go to the courtyard without wine or banquet. . . .
According to his estimate, the ship was transported back, and after paying off the cost of the ship and the labor of all kinds of manpower, at least a quarter of the price of the new ship could be repaid. And when the new ship gets in hand and recruits all the people, he can try to follow the ship group headed by Suo Da, and run on a longer route.
For example, if you cross the sea to travel to Wai, Silla, Bohai and other foreign domains, you will be able to make your business in Hebei at the worst, instead of just running back and forth between the coastal rivers and seas. However, he was figuring out whether to continue the trend and drive further upstream to fill up the remaining space of the ship merchant.
Only when the ship sailed out of the waters of Baishuitang, and not long after re-entering Huaishui, the old crab suddenly heard the waterman in the bucket on the mast, who was in charge of watching, and began to ring the bell four times and yelled:
"Boat, there are many boats coming from above..."
The old crab couldn't help but was taken aback, and quickly took out a heavily worn copper-nickel single-eye mirror that he obtained from the official. He looked at the distant upstream direction hard; then he saw it on the vaguely misty surface of the river. Surprisingly, I found many large and small ships that slowly descended down the river, as well as the reflections of swords and armor faintly printed on the ships.
Upon seeing this, the old crab lost his voice:
"No, this is going to be a war along the Huaihe River..."
"Forehead, let's release it out of the sea quickly..."
One of the subordinates who had been with him for many years quickly said:
"No, let's go to Shanyang by boat..."
The old crab seemed to have made up his mind and said: After all, he also knows a little bit. Now that the three towns of Huaishang have been beaten steadily and regressed, only the Caizhou army located in the upper reaches of the Huai River has the corresponding rampant Huai River. Needs and capabilities. And when this generation is rampant on land, the target that needs to be transported by ship has become very clear.
However, a short while later, someone from the mast yelled again:
"Owner, those boats are getting closer... This generation started paddling and speeds up..."
"Owner, let's turn our heads and let go out of the sea!"
Another subordinate quickly persuaded:
"We have few boats, so I'm afraid we won't be able to run those boats against the trend..."
Others all echoed for a while:
"No, let's go to Shanyang!"
The old crab indeed shouted more and more firmly:
"It's a big deal, so I dumped all the alkaline soil in the warehouse to lose weight..."
"Owner, don't..."
"That's a business of pricing and perseverance?"
"That's your hard work and capital..."
The others yelled again and again. (End of this chapter)