Outside Helin City, along the Hara River, there were densely packed tents. In the open space between the tents, piles of bonfires were burning, but the smell was a bit strong.
There is little wood on the grassland, and there are trees on Yanran Mountain and Langjuxu Mountain. However, they are regarded as sacred mountains by Shimen and Tiandi Dao, and they cannot be cut down easily. Tens of thousands of soldiers worked hard to collect a lot of dead branches.
The fallen leaves, combined with the heavy dry sheep dung, made up the piles of bonfires, but the smell was too strong.
The rewarded soldiers ate roast mutton, drank wine, and cheers and laughter danced in the air with the light of the fire. Looking from a distance, the cheerful crowd was faintly divided into two piles.
A group of guards were included, including the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry Division, the Valiant Cavalry Battalion, and the Jia Liu Infantry Regiment. They spoke various local dialects, ate meat and drank wine, and were very happy.
The other group of people were Jingsai Masters. They spoke with Yanyun accents, and they also ate meat and drank wine, laughing and laughing, and felt very uncomfortable.
It's just two groups of people, separated by an invisible fence, each enjoying themselves but rarely interacting with each other.
"Old Xue, there are all colleagues over there. Come out and say hello. They are all His Majesty's soldiers. After a few glasses of wine, friendship will develop."
Su Wenshu advised.
Xue Puti took a sip, wiped his beard stained with wine, and said disdainfully: "They are the emperor's personal soldiers, how can they think so highly of us? We are Yan people, not even Song people. At most, we can go back a few hundred years.
Damn, we can barely claim to be Han Chinese. Haha, yes, we are the Han army."
Listening to Xue Puti's complaining words, Su Wenshu's face changed and he was a little embarrassed, but he still spoke out to persuade.
"It's all about the old almanac, so what's the point of talking about it?"
"Old Huangli? Not old. After Tan Yuan formed an alliance, the Song and Liao countries had a truce for a hundred years. The imperial court occasionally issued orders to guard against Liao people and Yan people from spying... The Yan people who returned to the south would have repatriated them all a little earlier, and they didn't care.
It was a matter of life or death when I returned, for fear of affecting the friendship between Song and Liao. My great-grandfather worked hard and fled south with his family, but he never imagined that in the end..."
Xue Boti spoke in a calm tone, as if he was telling someone else's story. Perhaps the past hundred years have washed away the resentment in his heart.
"It will get better later. They will no longer be deported. They will choose a place to resettle and keep strict supervision..."
Su Wenshu advised: "What is this if not the old almanac? After the officials came to the throne, they immediately revised the laws and gave more preferential treatment to the people of Yanyun who returned to the south. The censorship here is also necessary to guard against spies. This is understandable. But discrimination,
The old laws of exclusion have all been abolished, and everyone is being treated with tolerance. This is also a fact."
Xue Puti took a long breath: "The officials are wise, I know, everyone knows it. But there are some things... that the officials cannot take care of. For a hundred years, we Han people in the sixteen states of Yanyun have been living abroad.
, the soldiers and civilians of the Central Plains regard us as aliens. Alas, I am so angry! The Khitan people do not regard us as human beings, and the Song people regard us as foreigners, not human beings inside or outside. Manjusri, do you think we Yanyun Han people are too innocent!
"
Su Wenshu was speechless. There were some words that he couldn't really say because once he said them, they would be contrary to his intentions.
The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, including eastern Liaoning and western Liaoning, have been gradually annexed by the Khitan people in the late Tang Dynasty and have been separated from the Central Plains Dynasty. The Han people living there have become outcasts. For hundreds of years, the estrangement from the Central Plains has made
These Han people were very embarrassed.
As Xue Puti said, the Khitan people regarded them as slaves and livestock, and the Song people regarded them as aliens. Over time, Yan Yun and the Han people of the two Liao Dynasties had no sense of belonging to the Song and Liao countries. They did everything just to survive for themselves and their families.
Go down.
The monarchs and ministers of the Song Dynasty once imagined that the people of Yanyun would eat pots of pulp to welcome the king's master, which was just their wishful thinking.
If the government in the last years of the Liao Dynasty had not been too corrupt and there was really no way to survive, and the Song Dynasty had timely changed its national policy and was tolerant and friendly to the soldiers and civilians returning to the south, Yan Yun and the Han people in the two Liaos would rather hide in the mountains and form a stronghold.
To protect the country, or form a dangerous and fragile alliance with Bohai, Jurchen and others, rather than go south and defect to the Song Dynasty.
After the fall of the Liao Kingdom, the imperial court did treat Yanyun and the Han people of the two Liaos very favorably. It is said that the people of the old Liao ethnic groups, Han, Bohai, Jurchen, Khitan, Xi, etc. should be treated equally. In practice, the Han people will always have
Various preferential treatment.
However, a century-old habit is difficult to reverse in a short period of time.
First of all, Hebei and Hedong, the two areas that have been on the front line of the war against the Liao for hundreds of years, are not so friendly to the Han people in the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun. I don’t know how many border conflicts have occurred between the Song and Liao countries in recent years.
times. In every conflict, the Yan, Yun and Han troops were one of the main forces.
This is why the soldiers and civilians of Heshuo, who lost many of their families in the conflict, hate the Han army in the Sixteenth Prefecture of Yanyun, and in turn do not like the people of the Sixteenth Prefecture of Yanyun.
As for the Heshuo armies, because their overall quality was higher than other armies of the Song Dynasty, they and the Western Army became the main force of the Song Army after the military reform. This prejudice was also brought into the Song Army, and some kind of discrimination gradually formed.
These discriminations and prejudices will be difficult to eliminate in just a few years.
Su Wenshu knew these facts and understood where the anger in Xue Boti's heart came from. But he was powerless to change all of this.
Su Wenshu sighed deeply and raised the wine glass in his hand.
"Old Xue, have a drink."
"Drink, once the wine is in your stomach, once it's in your head, you won't have any worries anymore."
While the two of them were drinking, the officers and soldiers surrounding the bonfire stood up one after another, like a flock of birds in the forest at night. Xue Puti and Su Wenshu turned around when they heard the sound, and saw a group of people walking over.
.
The face of the man at the front flashed in the red light of the bonfire, and the two recognized him at a glance. They jumped up suddenly and stood up straight, just like the officers and soldiers at the bonfire in front of them.
Zhao Si walked forward and greeted the officers and soldiers standing by the bonfire.
Suddenly he stopped and stood in front of a bearded platoon leader.
"Old Dingtou, I didn't expect to meet you here."
"Your Majesty, you still remember me." Platoon Leader Ding said with a trembling voice in excitement.
"Of course I remember. When my family went to Peiping and stayed at the Xishan Palace, you stood guard for me and even talked to you about family troubles. Of course I remember it. Okay, we are all platoon leaders. Yes, you were still there back then.
Just a big shot."
Zhao Si patted Platoon Leader Ding's shoulder and continued to ask.
"How are you at home? Last time you said there were four people at home."
"Reporting to the official family, there are now five people in our family. Later, my mother-in-law added a big fat boy to my family."
"Okay, you old boy is working hard." Zhao Si laughed, "Have you got all the land?"
"I reported to the officials that everything was allocated to them. After I studied and was promoted to an officer, I made up another ten acres."
"That's good. You serve as soldiers for the Song Dynasty and for me. You have to live in the open air and go through life and death. I can't treat you badly. If you have any difficulties at home, tell the troops and the Privy Council, and they will definitely be solved."
"Report to the officer, there are no difficulties, everything at home is fine." Platoon Leader Ding straightened his chest and said in a loud voice.
"Okay, keep working hard and strive for further progress.
"yes!"
Zhao Si walked straight over, walked up to Xue Boti and Su Wenshu, and said loudly: "I am here to see the hero who captured the rebel leader!"
