Chapter 172: Staying in a mountain village and staying overnight
The team pretended to be traveling merchants and stayed in the villages in the mountains relatively smoothly. In times of trouble and local instability, about half of the houses in the villages were either vacant or converted into warehouses and livestock sheds.
A man who looked like a steward in the team offered ten kilograms of millet as a favor and persuaded the elderly in the village to act as guarantors. He also borrowed several uninhabited houses and courtyards from the Wulipo Village Office to serve as shelter from the wind and cold.
The chief security officer came forward to contact the elders in the name of the same clan and wrote down the road information. He went to the village hall to get the key to the unused house and personally led the way to lead everyone to rest.
A group of people walked to the courtyard where they were staying. The security guard took out the key and pointed out the house number on the wooden sign on the key chain. The leader took the key from the security guard and stuffed a handful of silver dollars back calmly: "Thank you for leading the way.
, a little bit of thought, no respect."
The security guard cupped his hands and said, "Guests, please help yourself. There is a well under the big locust tree to the east of the village hall. You can buy firewood from the villagers." Perhaps the leader gave too much, but Wang Chengzhu seemed to see the look on the security guard's face.
His expression became kinder.
The team leader gave the team members a key chain with a wooden sign in his hand, and arranged for everyone to clean up and carry water. He also took out a few copper coins from his pocket and prepared to go to the villagers to buy some firewood to boil water for cooking and heating the Kang.
The sky turned from white to dark, and the frugal villagers rarely lit oil lamps or candles for lighting. Several lodging courtyards followed the local customs, and they blew out the lights and candles one after another to prepare for rest.
Out of habit and caution, the team leader arranged for a rotating sentry to be on duty at night, and then announced that they were disbanding and getting ready to sleep.
Wang Chengzhu was assigned to the mobile sentry duty from 2 to 4 o'clock in the middle of the night. He could sleep peacefully in the first half of the night. After queuing up and taking turns to wash up, he took off his coat and covered himself with a thin quilt, then lay down on the warm earthen kang and fell asleep.
go.
When his consciousness entered the system space, gunner Wang Chengzhu quickly cleared his fatigue points to increase his proficiency. He set an alarm clock for 1:50, sat in front of the bookshelf and read a travelogue introducing the customs and customs of the Taihang Mountains in eastern Shanxi and western Hebei in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China.
.
If he hadn't had the memory before time travel, in the world of Liangjian, he could call on various functions given by the system. This space of consciousness separated from the body would be like a fantasy dream.
Wang Chengzhu looked at the illustrations in the book in front of him, which were both fantasy and reality, and his thoughts drifted in an inexplicable direction. Today, he walked about 40 kilometers of mountain roads throughout the morning and afternoon, and the speed was a bit fast.
When reading the book "The Great Turning" before, Wang Chengzhu had read about the forced march of the "Flying Capture of Luding Bridge" incident. Without counting the stragglers and casualties, they marched continuously for 280 miles day and night, equivalent to metric length units.
One hundred and forty kilometers of mountain roads.
Compared with the glorious past, Wang Chengzhu felt that today's march was a bit slow. Especially the book records that the mountain road between Erlang Mountain and Dadu River was rugged and broken, and the altitude of more than 3,000 meters was extremely unfriendly to the Hunan-Kiangxi Red Army.
However, when he saw the travelogue in his hand, Wang Chengzhu understood why "The Great Turning" emphasized the behavior of "marching two hundred and eighty miles day and night" and "ignoring non-combat attrition".
It turns out that there were gravel roads built on the basis of the official roads of the previous dynasties in the Taihang Mountains. The business travelers and melee warlord troops traveling between the three provinces of Shanxi, Chahar and Hebei could travel at a speed of thirty miles per day, which could be called high-speed transportation or a speedy army.
In contrast, the team that detours to join them and travels nearly a hundred miles in a day is already a rare "team with iron legs." This situation is already rare for people who walk upright, and it only increases the pressure on donkeys, mules, camels and beasts.
reduce.
It’s the same principle as “Hurry for hundreds of miles, change horses but not people”. Even if this escort team disguised as a business trip is all walking on a leash, the animals without the people can’t carry them forward continuously. It turns out that the people on the road today
During the rest time, the camels are given water and food...
When Wang Chengzhu thought he might have found a reasonable explanation, a burst of pleasant xylophone music sounded, and the time and date toolbar on the lower right side of the horizon trembled.
It turned out that the night patrol time was coming soon. Wang Chengzhu put away the books in his hands, gathered his thoughts and waited for the comrades changing the guard in the world of bright swords to call him to "wake up".
March 31, 1940, the 23rd day of the second lunar month.