Lu Gongxing said: "Do you also know? Mr. De and I are talking about this matter."
I was surprised and said, "You also know?"
Lu Gongxing said: "During the day, several brothers in my camp encountered one. More than a dozen people surrounded that one, but it escaped and two of us were injured."
I asked: "Where did you meet?"
Lu Gongxing said: "It's in the west of the city."
The west of the city is the defense zone of Shen Xiping, the loyal brother. Shen Xiping and Lu Jingyu are equally famous and are known as the best in the army. Gonglun Wuhou's two brave generals, Lu Jingyu is both wise and brave, but Shen Xiping is as fierce as fire and wind, and is nicknamed "Fire Tiger". He is not good at siege warfare, but he is invincible in field battles. Marquis Wen made a comment to the two of them: Lu is slightly inferior to Shen when attacking, and Shen is far inferior to Lu when defending. But if each united a hundred men to fight, Shen Xiping's The skill of charging is unparalleled in the world. This time the four generals encircled and Shen Xiping led the right army to attack the west of the city. Marquis Wu was also afraid that Shen Xiping would not obey military orders and strictly ordered him not to act arbitrarily and could only take precautions outside the city. His troops were the least engaged in the battle. Probably because the troops had held back for a long time, the massacre after entering the city was the most ferocious.
Lu Gongxing said: "General Chu, how did you meet that snake man?"
I recounted what I had just encountered with the snake man. After I finished speaking, I saw Lu Gongxing's expression solemn. I said, "I have reported it to Marquis Wu, but the Marquis still doesn't take it to heart."
Lu Gongxing pondered for a while, then turned around and said, "Master De, please sit down for a while while General Chu and I go to the west of the city to have a look."
After walking out of the camp, Lu Gongxing asked his men to prepare two horses, and we walked towards the west gate together. It was starting to get light. Except for the captive women and craftsmen, there were no civilians in this area. We could only hear the voices of the forward battalions. The soldiers were making a loud noise. I said, "General Lu, is that snake man really so worrying?"
Lu Gongxing looked at the sky. There was already dawn in the east, but the crescent moon was still hanging slanting on the horizon, and a few stars were blurred. He looked at the sky and said: "My ancestors had a good relationship with Master Tianji back then. Master Tianji left a manuscript under his roof before he became immortal, and I read it when I was a child. Most of it was about Master Tianji’s travels and experiences, and I gained a lot of insights from reading it.”
I don’t know what Lu Gongxing is talking about. I haven’t read many books. The method of making paper for books has been lost. Most of the books today are made of leather paper, which is made by carefully polishing and decolorizing the skins of cattle and sheep. A thicker book would require the skins of five or six sheep, which is equivalent to the cost of an average family of three for one month, so many people have never even seen the book. Lu Gongxing said this, of course, not to show off that he has many books. , but I still feel a little uncomfortable.
He added: "Master Tianji remembered the snake people in detail in the book. He also said later that when he accompanied the prince to travel around the world and captured the snake people in southern Xinjiang, he used two hundred imperial guards and one hundred cangs. Yue Gong's guard, but even so, it was still a lot of trouble. The snake-man was so powerful that it took more than a dozen people to be injured before catching it. Master Tianji once offered advice to the prince, saying that if he could tame a force of ten thousand snake-men, The army is probably invincible in the world. But at that time, the world was at peace, and snake people were rare to see, so the late emperor did not take it seriously."
I said: "This is indeed not feasible. The snake-men are so ferocious that it is just an empty promise to tame them. What's more, the number is so small. It would be too difficult to tame an army of tens of thousands."
Lu Gongxing said: "Anyway, I heard Mr. Deyang mention that he saw a figure on the roof when he entered the city, and I somehow thought of the snake man. There are indeed traces of snake men in the city now. Let me hear what you say. There is more than one, so there are probably more in the mountains and fields."
I said: "It's not a big deal if there are more. The three armies have to be in uniform anyway, so what does it matter?"
Lu Gongxing just said: "Be prepared." He shook the reins, and the horse quickened its pace and walked forward.
There are dilapidated houses all around, with rubble and bloodstains everywhere among the ruined walls. From time to time, one or two incomplete rotting corpses are seen, probably left behind after the massacre. Those corpses were moved cleanly near the camp. It was a bit far away from the camp, and the supply camp was too lazy to clean up the mess. I looked at the back of Lu Gongxing, and for some reason, I felt a chill. The commander of the forward battalion, who I had worked with for two years, suddenly seemed like a Like a stranger.
I also shook the reins and chased after him.
If Lu Jingyu is like ice that will never melt, and as soon as you enter his defense area, you can feel the seriousness and killing, then Shen Xiping is like a raging fire in the wilderness. His right army has strict military discipline in the battle formation. It was very harsh, and each regiment was under the responsibility of a regimental commander. If one person retreated in the battle formation, the entire regiment would be killed in front of the formation. Therefore, the right army marched forward in several charges. However, after the war, the military discipline of Shen Xiping's department was also poor. Extremely bad, the city was massacred for five days, and on the sixth day there were often right-wing troops looking for people to kill in the abandoned city.
As soon as we arrived near the camp of the Right Army in the west of the city, we could hear the roar inside. It was noisier than the vegetable market, and there was no one standing guard at the door. Our vanguard camp is considered to have lax military discipline, but here it is worse than the vanguard camp.
As soon as they entered the camp, they saw drunken soldiers everywhere. Gaojiucheng was famous for producing a kind of wood bamboo wine. Wood bamboo is a fruit that is native to the southern part of the empire. It is slightly like a loquat, larger than a loquat, and mature. In autumn and winter, it is far sweeter than loquats, but the storage period is very short and it will spoil after three days. The emperor once asked Cang Yue Gong to contribute 100 kilograms of wood and bamboo every autumn and winter, but this kind of fruit is difficult to store and is afraid of bumps. Every year Cang Yue Gong The capital is delivered by special express. This bamboo is considered a common fruit in southern Xinjiang, but it is not expensive. But when it is transported to Wuyun City, a pound of wood and bamboo is almost worth the price of a pound of gold. This is also One of the reasons for Cang Yue Gong’s rebellion.
Every autumn and winter, the production of wood and bamboo in Gaojiu City is extremely abundant, and the locals even use it for tea and rice. I don’t know which year, some people try to use it to make wine, and the wine produced is according to Master Tianji’s "Huang Yu Zhou Xing Ji". It is recorded that "it is as bright as gold, as clear as water, and has a strange fragrance. A household makes wine, and everyone outside the door is intoxicated." Of course, this wood and bamboo wine is also a tribute requested by the empire. This wine is also very popular in Wuyun City. , is a must-have item for dignitaries to entertain guests. Many people in southern Xinjiang made their fortune by selling wood and bamboo wine. In the heyday of Gaojiu City, there were thirty wineries in the city, the largest of which were 19 located in the west of the city. , when Master Tianji came here with the prince, he recited the sentence "The fragrance of wood and bamboo wine has just begun to rain, and half of the people in the city are waking up from drunkenness." Last night when Wu Hou entertained guests, they used wood and bamboo wine, and even the captured craftsmen also had it. Nearly half are people working in breweries.
We jumped off the horse. Lu Gongxing looked at the chaos, grabbed a soldier who was staggering and said: "I am Lu Gongxing, commander of the forward battalion. Where is Uncle Zhongyi's central army?"
The soldier drank so much that his tongue was shortened, and he said vaguely: "Ask Sir Shen, he doesn't see guests now."
I looked around. The right army camp was really in a mess, and most of them were drunk. The 20,000 people probably drank all the winery's stock. Many of them had women in their arms, and they were holding wine bottles in one hand. Gourd, drink and gamble at the same time. This pleasure can only be enjoyed by the right army. The other armies can't drink that much wine even if they want to.
Lu Gongxing said patiently: "Then is your lieutenant general here?"
The soldier said: "You mean General Tian? Well, over there."
He pointed to a camp not far away. There were a group of officers, still wearing soft armor, sitting around a large round table in the open space gambling money. Each of them was holding a woman in his arms, holding a woman in his hand. Grabbing the wine gourd.
Lu Gongxing and I tied our horses to the tying stone on the edge and walked towards the group of people. When we got to the edge, none of those people raised their heads. Lu Gongxing said, "Excuse me, is General Tian here?"
A bearded man raised his head and said, "I am. Who are you?"
Lu Gongxing said: "I am Lu Gongxing, commander of the forward battalion and centurion of the first battalion. This is Chu Xiuhong, centurion of the fifth battalion."
The man heard my name, but pushed away the woman in his arms, stood up and said: "It's General Chu. Ha, I am Tian Wei, an officer in the right army. Your name has spread throughout the army now, how lovely it is." But he looks too unimpressive."
I noticed that Lu Gongxing looked a little displeased. Tian Wei's words didn't mean he respected me at all. I said, "General Tian, we have something to ask General Shen. Can we find him?"
Tian Wei smiled and said: "My lord, you won't see guests now, unless you have the general's order from the king."
Lu Gongxing and I looked at each other in confusion. We just wanted to ask, where could there be any general order? If we ask for the general order for this matter, we are afraid that we will be in trouble.
At this time, an officer sitting under Tian Wei said impatiently: "Tian Hu, it's your turn. If you don't throw, you will lose."
Tian Wei said: "Come on, come on." He stopped paying attention to us, stretched out his hand to hug the woman standing aside, and grabbed a few dice with his other hand.
They were playing the three-dice gamble that was very popular in the empire. This kind of gambling has been around for a long time. Each side of each dice is carved with one to six small pits, and the pit is painted red. Three dice are thrown in a bowl. Among them, if three are the same, it is called a leopard. The six-point leopard is called the Supreme Leopard, which is the largest. There are some miscellaneous flowers below, and their names and colors are very complicated. Except for people who have been gambling for a long time, generally they cannot remember this kind of gambling. It is most popular among the military because it is simple and the gambling equipment is easy to carry. They use bone dice, which are probably newly made and very white.
Lu Gongxing wanted to say something else, but Tian Wei had already stretched out his hand to throw the dice into the bowl and shouted: "Supreme! Supreme!"