Pingchuan, eight hundred miles away in Guanzhong, and outside Lueyang County are large tracts of farmland, with occasional mounds of low height, dotted with nearby cottages, and it looks like a beautiful picture scroll everywhere.
The Xie family's convoy moved forward unhurriedly, and gradually slowed down when it was thirty miles away from the county seat.
"What does it mean?"
Seeing the Xie family train getting slower and slower, Fu Su frowned and thought.
At this time, both sides of the road are dry fields and uncultivated wasteland, and there are no villages. There is only a small horse farm not far from a small river, and there are only a dozen scattered horses gnawing on the grassy slope. Green grass sprouts.
No matter how you look at it, there is no one around who can trade with the Xie family.
"It just slowed down completely, but didn't stop completely, which means that this place is where they want to do business, but the other party hasn't arrived yet." Ding Ning turned his head to look at Fusu, and said slowly.
The ancestor of the Zhou family squinted his eyes slightly, as if dozing off all the time, but his mind was extremely active.
Suddenly, his pinna moved slightly, and he heard something.
"It's a horse thief."
After only a few breaths, Ding Ning took a deep breath, looked at Fusu and said.
"Horse thief?"
Fusu was stunned and a little puzzled, but he immediately felt the slight tremor of the ground transmitted from the wheels of the carriage to the bottom of the carriage, and he immediately reacted completely, frowning deeply.
In the eight hundred miles of Pingchuan in Guanzhong of the Great Qin Dynasty, there were no poor mountains and bad waters that would be difficult for thousands of troops to pursue once they escaped. However, the absence of mountain kings whistling in the mountains and forests did not mean that there were no great bandits.
This kind of flatness gave birth to horse thieves on horseback.
Horse thieves usually prepared three or four horses, and never stayed in one place for too long. They set up camp in different places every day. For the Great Qin Dynasty, this kind of horse thieves who did not produce anything but only destroyed them were real locusts, and they hated them deeply. The Great Qin Dynasty had guerrilla cavalry in the Guanzhong area that specialized in chasing and killing horse thieves. However, it was extremely difficult to train elite cavalry, but this kind of horse thieves was very easy to form. They often killed one, but two came out again, and they were invincible.
In the dry land in the distance, a cloud of mud dragon smoke suddenly rolled up, and only a moment later, a group of horse thieves appeared in the sight of Ding Ning and Fu Su.
There are more than one hundred horse thieves in this group, and each of them brings at least four fine horses. Except for the one who is riding and an empty spare horse beside him, the rest of the horses are carrying packs and loads. On the wrapped cloth, even on the horses, there were dried and blackened bloodstains.
All the horse thieves were dressed in different clothes, with the same yellow scarves covering their faces. Even though their statures were not at all like Daqin's cavalry soldiers, they were sitting upright and solemn, but there was a cold and bloodthirsty aura constantly emanating from their bodies.
Ding Ning's gaze became colder and colder. In terms of numbers, these horse thieves are nothing. The powerful horse thieves often have more than a thousand riders, and they have thousands of horses. They have the ability to compete head-on with small groups of rangers and practitioners. However, just from the height of the dust raised under the hoofs of the horse thieves, he can judge that the load on the horses is beyond ordinary.
It is normal for a caravan to carry more goods, but for horse thieves, the extra weight is a matter of life and death.
The Xie family just brought a few carriages carrying people, and there were obviously passengers in each carriage, so it was impossible to carry the extra weight of all these horse thieves.
For Ding Ning, this meant danger.
"The horse belts of these horse thieves seem to be very heavy." At this time Fusu also turned his head, looked at him solemnly and said softly: "And it doesn't look big, it is likely to be some talisman or ordnance .”
Fusu was the prince most valued by Emperor Yuanwu and the Empress. He was naturally taught by a master since he was a child. Being able to make such a judgment did not surprise Ding Ning.
He nodded, "These horse thieves don't seem to be here to trade, but rather to fight."
…
"Even the drivers of these three carriages are not ordinary people." In Xie's carriage, Xie Lianying did not pay too much attention to the team of horse thieves who came with Chen Long, but focused more on following behind. On the three black carriages behind.
Seeing the calm appearance of the three carriages, Xie Lianying had a relaxed smile on his fat and oily face: "Even the groom driving the carriage has a calm demeanor. This Changling must have a very high status as a nobleman."
"Let's go out."
In the next moment, the smile on his face disappeared, and a layer of rare coldness slowly emerged, "Don't waste the time of this nobleman Changling."
The team of horse thieves stopped suddenly when they approached a distance of several hundred feet from Xie's convoy, and lined up silently. Under the control of these horse thieves, almost all the horses under them and the heavy-loaded preparation horses stopped. The dust under the hooves of the horses was still burning fiercely, but the hoofs and the riders above were all silent. It is like a forest, giving people a sense of pressure like a mountain.
A grey-haired horse thief controlled the horse under him and walked out slowly. Looking at Xie Lianying and Xie Rou who had lifted the curtain and walked out, a gleam of light flashed quickly in his somewhat hazy eyes, and then his eyes turned again. Landing on the three black carriages of Zhou's family in the distance, his brows were slightly frowned imperceptibly.
"Where are our people and goods?"
Xie Lianying, who also walked to the front of the convoy, smiled slightly when he saw the horse thief who came out of the crowd, and spoke first.
The grey-haired horse thief glanced at him calmly, remained silent, and didn't make any unnecessary gestures.
The dust dragons behind them spread out slowly, and the figures of dozens of horse thieves stationed in the distance slowly appeared in everyone's sight.
Those horse thieves formed a small circle, and there were more than a dozen horsemen in the circle who were obviously different from their clothes.
"Where your cargo is, your people know it."
The grey-haired leader of the horse thief did not speak out calmly until this time, and said: "Your people have seen it, and you should let us see what we want."
Xie Lianying nodded, his expression didn't change much, but his tone suddenly became sarcasm, "I really admire your courage, even dare to rob our people... I really think our Xie family is in Guanzhong Can everyone move?"
The gray-haired leader of the horse thief frowned deeply.
He heard many unusual meanings from Xie Lianying's words, but he didn't say anything, but his left hand was out of the rein and he was about to lift it up.
"Don't threaten me by killing one of my people at will."
Xie Lianying's eyes narrowed at this moment, and he said mockingly, "I'll talk about it after reading what I brought you."
Following his words, the drivers of the two carriages in the Xie family's convoy opened the curtains of the carriages they were driving at the same time.
The body of the gray-haired horse thief leader suddenly stiffened.
There was only one passenger in each of the two carriages on the soft couch.
One is an old woman with snow-white hair, and the other is only a five or six-year-old child.
Xie Lianying looked at the leader of the horse thief whose body suddenly stiffened, and said with a strong sarcasm: "How about it, is the thing I showed you enough?"
"My people, you can kill as you please from now on."
In the next breath, this extremely vulgar-looking merchant changed his face and sneered, "But as long as you kill one, I will let your Chen family have no old and no young."
Ding Ning and Fu Su have been listening hard to the conversation between Xie Lianying and the leader of the horse bandits. Fortunately, their voices are not low, so they can vaguely hear them clearly.
At this time, although they couldn't see what was in the two carriages of the Xie family, but through Xie Lianying's words, both of them quickly came to their senses.
"These are not real horse thieves, or they usually have other identities."
Fu Su turned his head to look at Ding Ning, and said softly: "They robbed the people and goods of the Xie family, but they didn't expect that the Xie family also found out their details and robbed their people."
The horse thief leader took a deep breath and remained silent for a while.
At this time, Xie Lianying had already continued talking.
Xie Lian applied sympathetic eyes to the leader of the horse bandits, shook his head, and said: "Although my Xie family is not as good as those real noble families in Changling, my Xie family has established a foothold in Guanzhong for more than fifty years. What? I have never seen the wind and rain, you children, do you think that you can take the place of our Xie family just by using this method?"
"It's fine if you want to deal with our Xie family."
Xie Lianying's tone suddenly turned sharp, and a layer of frost began to appear on his greasy face, "But you should know what our Xie family is escorting, you are also from Qin, and you can even do such a thing ?”
Listening to Xie Lianying's words, the horse thief leader slowly shook his head, his dim eyes revealed a deep sense of helplessness and emotion.
Then, he directly took off the yellow scarf that concealed his face.
Under the yellow scarf is a slightly pale and thin face.
"My son's disobedience has frightened you."
The thin-faced, gray-haired man bowed deeply, saluted the old lady in the carriage of Xie's family, then his face regained his composure, looked at Xie Lianying, and said very simply: "Change."
Xie Lianying smiled coldly, knowing that from now on these people can only become real horse thieves, so he nodded and said, "Deal."
The leader of the horse thieves took a deep breath, his left hand was out of the rein again, and he was about to lift it up.
However, at this moment, an indifferent voice sounded behind him, "I want to try."