Ye Feng and Lu Chong had just organized their defense when the cavalry team rushed closer.
The person who came was none other than Zhamuhe. It turned out that Zhamuhe had led 100 soldiers, so he led 30 cavalry over first, and let the remaining 70 soldiers come after him.
When Zhamuhe saw Ye Feng, he smiled and said, "Brother Ye, why didn't you say hello to me when you left?"
Ye Feng teased: "You didn't even say hello to me when you ran away from Qiemo, right?"
The corners of Zhamuhe's mouth twitched up, and he said calmly: "King Loulan, I know that you are talented, why don't you and I take a trip to Hanni City?"
Ye Feng said disdainfully: "Go away? I've heard this line before. It's what all the little devils and traitors say. If you go with the imperial army, there will usually be no good ending."
Lu Chong asked: "Brother Ye, what traitor are you talking about?"
Ye Feng smiled and explained: "They are those two-skinned dogs who betrayed their own country."
Lu Chong pretended to suddenly realize it, looked at Zhamuhe, and laughed.
Zhamuhe's face was livid, and he said with a cold face: "Ye Feng, don't be ungrateful, and you will be fined if you don't eat the toast."
Ye Feng boasted wildly: "You're not going to be toasting or punishing me with a drink. If you want to fight, let's fight. My reinforcements will be here in a minute. I want you to look good then."
Ye Feng was originally worried that the other party would have reinforcements, and delaying it for a long time would be detrimental to his own side. The current situation is that a dozen of his own people are still fighting against the thirty or so of the other party. If the other party does not take action, his own side will also be trapped and die here.
But what Ye Feng didn't expect was that he actually pointed out a group of people with a casual finger.
Ye Feng secretly thought in surprise: "Come on, when did I have this special power?" Of course, the appearance was normal, and it looked like he had been prepared and had everything under control.
Not far away, I saw a caravan carrying the flag of the Qin State's caravan, rushing towards Ye Feng and his caravan.
It turned out that the other party saw a caravan flying the Chu Kingdom's caravan flag in the distance and was surrounded by unknown cavalry. They thought it was being robbed, so they came to help.
During this period, although the caravans from various countries in the Great Zhou Dynasty each belonged to different countries, they all recognized each other as citizens of the Great Zhou Dynasty and helped each other without distinction when traveling.
When there is no foreign threat, we can fight each other to the death, but when there is a foreign threat, we are all brothers.
Zhamuhe divided ten cavalrymen to intercept the Qin caravan, and the remaining twenty men began to attack the temporary defense circle set up by Ye Feng and others.
Zhamuhe ordered several cavalrymen to throw a flying hook and hook a carriage at the same time. Then several cavalrymen rode their horses and pulled hard outward.
Ye Feng and the others realized what the other party was up to, and immediately ran forward and tried to pull the carriage with their own weight. However, the other party used the power of the horses after all, and the carriage was soon dragged out.
Zhamuhe immediately ordered the cavalry to attack through the gap, but Ye Feng and the others had to block the gap and fight with the cavalry.
Although there was a gap, due to the narrow gap, the advantages of the cavalry and the number of people could not be used at all. Zhamuhe ordered several cavalrymen to continue clearing other carriages in the same way.
Ye Feng saw the opportunity and asked Lu Chong and several guards to mount their horses. When several soldiers from the other side pulled away the carriage, they rushed out and caught them off guard.
With one person and a big sword, he blocked the position of the carriage that had been pulled away to intercept the Loulan cavalry.
The strategy worked as expected. Several soldiers pulling the carriage held the rope with both hands for convenience. When Lu rushed out to them, they were killed before they could even pick up their weapons.
Lu Chong and the others made a circle from the outside and circled back to the front to form a pincer attack with Ye Feng and his men, and took the initiative to attack Zhamuhe's remaining dozen or so cavalry.
For a moment, Zhamuhe's cavalry was beaten into chaos. Zhamuhe immediately ran away when he saw that the situation was unfavorable. At the same time, he did not forget his classic line and shouted back: "I will come back again."
When the other cavalry saw the general fleeing, they followed him. The cavalry responsible for intercepting the Qin caravan saw the general fleeing, so they gave up intercepting and chased in the direction of Zhamuhe.
When the Qin caravan approached, Shen Xi led Ye Feng and Lu Chong to greet them.
After introduction, the two sides learned that the merchant of the Qin caravan was named Lu Ren. This Lu was not his surname.
According to the "State History Talks on the Spring and Autumn Period", during this period, there were surnames and surnames. People with surnames could not have surnames, and people with surnames generally had surnames.
The surname with the female character next to it comes from the maternal cognition, please note that it is not a matrilineal clan.
The Zhou royal family has a surname but no surname. Because the surname Ji is inherently noble, there is no need to have a surname. The common people have a surname but no surname because of their low status. Only those with high status have a surname and a surname.
Surnames were very important during this period and were involved in the daily lives of ancient people.
During this period, men were generally called by their surname instead of their surname, and women were called by their surname instead of their surname. Because people with the same surname did not marry, a woman's surname was very important.
In the marriage system of the Zhou Dynasty, there was a very strict law that has been passed down to later generations, that is, "people of the same surname do not marry."
By the end of the Qing Dynasty, people with the same surname had changed from not marrying with the same surname to not marrying with the same clan. They believed that people with the same surname would not reproduce if they married and had children. If you bought a concubine and didn't know her surname, you would use divination to solve the problem.
Although some countries or clans at that time broke this law by breaking this law by marrying each other out of mutual affection, there were not many examples.
However, at that time, when men and women married, as long as they did not have the same surname, the generational hierarchy could be ignored. For example, a niece could marry the same husband from her aunt, or her step-aunt could be the first and second wife, and an uncle could also take his niece as his wife or concubine, etc.
Lu Ren's ancestor was from the Jin State and later immigrated to the Qin State. Shen Xi's Shen Ye family ancestor was Wan Xiong.
First, Shen Xi thanked Lu Ren repeatedly, and then the two introduced each other's family status and told each other about the glory of their ancestors.
This is not to show off from both sides, but that families and clans were valued very highly during this period. Many cities and even a country were a clan.
The power of local families and clans even exerted great influence on local administration and economy in many subsequent dynasties.
Even some families have certain ability to interfere in the entire country. The emperor sometimes needs the support of some big clans to deal with major national affairs.
Gu Li ran over with the little maid and asked if Ye Feng was okay. She also looked carefully to make sure Ye Feng was not injured before she felt relieved.
Gu Li took another water bag to Ye Feng. Ye Feng took the water bag and was about to ask the guard next to him if he wanted to drink. Thinking about the past experience, he took a few sips himself and then handed it back to Gu Li.
Because Ye Feng and the others had to re-hitch the carriage and prepare to set off, Gu Li took the water bag and walked away with a smile.
Lu Ren felt that he had offended the people of Loulan Kingdom, so he decided to divert to Bashu Kingdom, so he went back with Shen Xi and others. The two caravans headed east one after the other.
Zhamuhe did not go far with more than twenty cavalry. On the one hand, he was monitoring the movement of the caravan from a distance, and on the other hand, he was waiting for the arrival of the remaining soldiers.
One of the corps commanders took out a sheepskin map, pointed at the map and said to Jamuhe: "General, they will reach Xirong if they continue forward. Once they escape to Xirong, it will be more troublesome for us to continue chasing them. Xirong is a fork in the road. It’s very difficult to intercept and track.”
"But if we drive them north to the Yiqu Country, things will be much easier to handle. In addition, we have always been friendly with the Yiqu Country. If we cross the border to chase the caravan, the Yiqu Country people will not blame us but will also help us."
Zhamuhe was not familiar with the Loulan Kingdom, so he asked, "What's your plan? Tell me, and if you can capture them and take them back, it will be your first achievement."
The corps commander was very happy after hearing this, pointing to the map and saying: "The road they took will eventually reach the bank of Hengsha River. To the north of this river is Yiqu Country, which is twenty miles to the east.
It’s Xirong.”
"We can take the road next to it, use the cavalry to go around and block it, and the infantry will catch up. Because there is a desert to the south, they can only go north to Yiqu Country."
Zhamuhe looked at the map, nodded in approval and said: "Well, not bad, a good plan. Just do it like this, leave one person to take care of the infantry, and the others will go around with me to intercept them."
Ye Feng and the others walked for a few more days and arrived at the Hengsha River. The reason why this river is called Hengsha River is because there are sand and rocks on both sides of the river, with desert to the south and Gobi to the north. This river seems to lie across the desert.
A silver ribbon.
The river is very shallow and the water is very clear. You can see that the bottom is full of fine sand.
Ye Feng and the others are planning to camp here and make rice.
The only problem is that there are bare mountains to the north and a desolate desert to the south. There are no trees and only some camel thorns and apocynum to burn.
Ye Feng felt a pity when he saw them burning these, so he collected some thorn candies and apocynum leaves and flowers.
Everyone was a little surprised to see Ye Feng picking up these grasses, but everyone was busy with their own things, so no one asked.
When Gu Li saw Ye Feng picking, she didn't know what he was doing, but she took the initiative to come over and silently help Ye Feng pick.
Ye Feng said to Gu Li: "This thorny thing is called camel thorn, and the yellow-white sticky juice secreted from its leaves is sugar juice called thorn sugar. It can be condensed into small transparent particles, sweet, sour, warm in nature and non-toxic."
The water boiled with sugar can be used to treat dysentery, diarrhea, abdominal pain, indigestion and other diseases."
"Apocynum leaves and flowers can be used as Apocynum tea, which can regulate liver yang, clear away heat and detoxify, treat dizziness, fever and colds, heart disease, high blood pressure, neurasthenia, etc. The side effect is that it is harmful to the kidneys. In addition, the chemical properties of Apocynum
Fibers can be used to make clothes.”
Gu Li looked at Ye Feng and listened carefully to what he said, her eyes shining.
The little maid next to him interrupted and said: "This thing you call camel thorn, we call it thorn grass. When we were young, children would often pick its leaves and eat the juice inside. But we have never heard that it can cure diseases. We all
It’s used to feed livestock.”
"That weed you said is called apocynum is so bitter that no one wants it, and even livestock don't like to eat it."
Ye Feng said with a smile: "Camel thorns have high nutritional value and are rich in digestible substances such as crude fiber and crude protein. Feeding cattle and sheep when they turn green in spring has the effect of promoting fattening."
The little maid asked with wide eyes and confusion: "What are crude fiber and crude protein?"
Ye Feng slapped his head and said in embarrassment: "It's just that domestic animals eat things that make it easy for them to gain weight." Only then did Ye Feng realize that he had just spoken smoothly and said some modern nouns.
Gu Li looked at Ye Feng's embarrassed look and smiled.
Ye Feng didn't have time to wait for the thorn sugar to dry into pieces, so he had to collect the sugar juice directly. The amber color of the sugar juice when collected together was very attractive.
Ye Feng put the collected sugar juice into a small water bag. The collected apocynum leaves and flowers were left aside to dry, and then wrapped in cloth when leaving the next day.