Although we have crossed numerous mountains and rivers along the way, this is the first time we have seen such a steep cliff like the river in front of us.
On both sides of the galloping river, there are steep cliffs with jagged rocks more than ten feet high. The fast river water continuously washes away the cliffs on both sides, splashing up a confused white mist, which shines with a confused luster in the sun.
This should have been a picturesque scene, but when I was only thinking about how to build a road and how to cross the vast river, I had no intention of appreciating it at all.
The remaining ten brothers in Longwei Mansion have already explored upstream and downstream along the river bank. They want to see if they can find a shoal to cross the river directly, so that they can build a wooden bridge.
Isn’t it powerful?
None of this is important. What is important is that the road must turn from here. The twists and turns are not important. What is important is that we don’t know how many brothers will sleep in this barren land.
The endlessly flowing river water suddenly seemed to have begun to reveal traces of bright red.
"General, general!"
An urgent call came from far away from the mountainside behind me.
Meng Kuo turned around and saw Captain Chen Xian running towards him, sweating profusely.
A bad premonition suddenly came to mind.
"General, the brothers from Longwei Mansion are back." Meng Kuo strode to meet the panting Chen Xian.
"Are you all back?" Meng Kuo raised his eyebrows and asked in a deep voice as he helped Chen Xian up.
"Those who went to explore the path upstream haven't come back yet, and the brothers who went to explore the path downstream have all come back..." At this point, Chen Xian's words stopped abruptly.
Meng Kuo's heart tightened.
"The two brothers were bitten by poisonous insects, and they died halfway through." Chen Xian's voice deepened.
At this moment, the camp at the foot of the mountain suddenly began to boil.
Meng Kuo and Chen Xian looked at each other and ran down the mountain.
Before reaching the camp, another Huben captain Fang Tao hurried out. When he saw Meng Kuo from a distance, he shouted loudly: "General, a messenger has arrived from Shu County!"
When he heard that it was just a messenger, Meng Kuo's heart, which had been tugging at him, immediately relaxed.
…
"Lead the army and return to Shu County quickly!"
This is an extremely simple letter. There is even a large group of ink stains on the edge of the letter. Looking down the ink stains, Meng Kuo's pupils can't help but shrink. There is a small square in the lower right corner of the letter.
Stamped with a bright red seal.
The generals above the rank of Captain of Da Qin may not be able to write, but there will definitely be no one who does not recognize this small seal.
This is the seal that the second emperor of the Qin Dynasty carries with him. Except for the seal hanging on the emperor's waist, there is absolutely no chance that there will be another seal like this in the world.
The seal in the lower right corner clearly told Meng Kuo that this seemingly simple letter was actually written by Emperor Hu Hai of the Qin Dynasty.
The scrawled handwriting shows that the emperor's mood must have been greatly fluctuated when he wrote these six words. The large mass of ink stains on the edge of the letter can be clearly seen as the ink stains caused by throwing down the brush after writing.
.
Then this fluctuation will definitely not be happiness, but anger.
The messenger who delivered the letter was from the Prime Minister's House in Shu County. He drove for two days and one night before catching up with Meng Kuo. He had already gone down to rest. Meng Kuo already knew that this letter, which could be said to be an edict, was actually transferred from Longxi to Shu.
County, and then the courier rushed all the way to deliver it to this hand.
The matter was so urgent, and it was obvious that something had arisen that I didn't know about.
Early the next morning, the remaining army of less than 50,000 soldiers heading south broke out of their strongholds and set out to return to Shu County along the road paved with the bodies of countless robes.
Four days later, Meng Kuo's army returned to Shu County and met the five Longwei Mansion guards wearing golden waistbands who had come south from Xianyang.
"Meng Kuo, bring the remains of all the fallen tiger soldiers and civilians back to me quickly. If there is one missing warrior's remains, I want your head!"
A few words, but they made Meng Kuo feel cold all over his body.
Especially when Meng Kuo learned that these five personal guards of the Longwei Mansion who were always by the emperor's side had been rushing south from Xianyang for seven days and seven nights to deliver the imperial edict. Meng Kuo knew that he might misunderstand the emperor.
That makes sense.
After all, Meng Kuo was not too stupid, but he thought correctly.
The message Hu Hai received in Ba Palace that day was that Jun Cheng Zhang of Shu County secretly reported to Hu Hai the situation of Meng Kuo's southbound army. Originally, Jun Cheng Zhang Cheng did not have the power to directly deliver memorials to the emperor.
However, after Hu Hai summoned the governors, lieutenants, and eunuchs of all the counties in the world to gather in Xianyang to perform affairs, and the daily affairs of each county were taken care of by the magistrates of each county, the charter naturally had this power.
Shu County is responsible for the food, fodder and baggage of the lone army going south on the Mengkuo road. Every time the people who transport the baggage come back, they will bring back part of the situation of the army going south. Originally, the governor of Shu County, Mo Cheng, also knew the situation of Meng Kuo's army, but he
He had always thought that this was the emperor's order, so Hu Hai did not mention Mo Cheng and would not question the emperor's will. He just tried his best to maintain the logistical supplies of Meng Kuo's army.
Mo Cheng left Shu County and went to Xianyang with the county lieutenants and county supervisors to report. The burden of logistics and supply for Meng Kuo's army fell on Zhang Cheng.
However, when the officials responsible for escorting supplies came back this time, they unintentionally revealed the situation of the rapid attrition of Meng Kuo's army, plus several dead soldiers of Longwei Mansion who had lost their limbs and returned to Shu County with the heavy troops of Shu County.
, which made Zhang Zhang feel the seriousness of the situation.
However, Zhang Cheng's original idea was just because the dead soldiers of Longwei Mansion were lost in the process of going south, and the importance of Longwei Mansion in the emperor's heart was very clear to Zhang Cheng. If he continued to pretend to be deaf and dumb, Zhang Cheng was worried that the emperor would conduct a thorough investigation into the death of Longwei Mansion in the future.
When a soldier suffered a loss, he was blamed on himself. So Zhang Cheng reported everything he knew about the situation to Hu Hai in a red letter.
Naturally, he would not have thought of the consequences of his cowardly move.
When Hu Hai saw the letter from Zhang Zhang, he once again felt the stupidity of the Qin people. The stupid and cute Qin people. At the same time, deep self-blame began to fill Hu Hai's body. He knew that the nearly 20,000 tiger soldiers and the common people were buried
It's all because of his hasty and unclear order.
Zhang Cheng only knew about the casualties of the Mengkuo army last month, but did not know that the exact number of casualties of the Mengkuo army now had almost exceeded 30,000 people.
His original intention was to let Meng Kuo lead an army of 50,000 tigers and soldiers to explore the road. Then he escorted several old farmers to see if they could find wild rice seeds of Vietnamese rice, bring them back to Daqin, cultivate them, and plant them in Daqin, and also build roads for
Prepare for the future.
This road construction was not the main purpose. If things couldn't be done, he thought Meng Kuo would report the difficulties to him. However, there was no news from Meng Kuo, so Hu Hai always thought that Meng Kuo was progressing smoothly, and he just asked Shu County to
Shou Mocheng was responsible for all the logistical supplies for Meng Kuo's army.
However, he never expected that Meng Kuo's 80,000 troops would have been building roads for the rest of the year, building a thoroughfare from Yan Road all the way south.