The so-called Fifteen Miles Ditch is actually a trench built by the ancients. It is said that during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Lu Mingyue, a traitor from Zhuo County, set up camp here to confront Sui general Zhang Xutuo.
Now hundreds of years have passed by in a hurry. Both sides of the ravine are covered with grass and thorns are stacked all the way. Although the outside world is blocked, if you are not careful, you will make a rustling sound if you step on dead branches and leaves. Fortunately, Zhang Rong and others left.
You're used to it, so be careful along the way.
The most recent time, several people passed by a herd of Mongolian horses grazing. The horses were frightened by the shaking figures deep in the grass. They jumped and neighed suddenly. Several Mongolian knights rushed to comfort them. Fortunately, they had other things on their minds.
No one came to check for clues.
The group of people bypassed the Mongolian army camp and approached the Xiaoqing River. They were still a mile or two away when they heard the roar of people!
Zhang Rong quickly signaled to his companions to lower themselves, then pushed aside the reeds, stepped on the water plants and cold wet mud, and slowly took a closer look.
Last year there was a severe drought in two areas of Shandong, with no rain for more than 200 consecutive days. This year it is also dry and cold. When the water is dry in winter, many rivers dry up.
However, the Xiaoqing River was excavated by a large number of civilians during the Puppet Qi Dynasty, using the Jishui ancient road to connect the Beiqing River and the continuous lakes and springs in the north of Jinan City. It was also repaired unremittingly in the following decades, so the water is still surging at this time, and it can
Allow large ships to sail.
There are really big ships, many big ships!
Right in front of Zhang Rong, on the Xiaoqing River, at least dozens of large ships were connected end to end, and they were approaching!
"It's a ship like Tongzhou, a sea ship!"
Ma Wu whispered beside Zhang Rong.
Most of the ships used to transport salt in the Jin Dynasty were imitations of the Song Dynasty salt ships, with square heads, square sterns and flat bottoms. They were more than 40 paces long, had no compartments or masts, and relied on oars or trackers to pull them along various channels.
Caohe.
But these ships are all Tongzhou-style seagoing ships, with a single mast and a single sail, and a length of about seventy feet. This kind of ship is inconspicuous when traveling on the wind and waves on the sea, but when placed in the Xiaoqing River, it is very majestic.
What's more, there are dozens of ships of the same specifications, with masts and masts standing like a forest, which is really amazing!
This section of the river has a very wide water surface, a new grass market along the river, and piers and trestles on both sides.
But the Mongols attacked a while ago and burned the grass market to ashes. The docks and trestles were not spared either. At this time, they only built some wooden boards on the remaining bridge piles and spread a layer of straw. Walking on them was narrow and wobbly.
.
At this time, the fleet slowly approached the pier, and Zhang Rongdai wanted to take a closer look at the sailors.
An archer motioned to Zhang Rong to look south of the trestle.
"Brother, look!"
Zhang Rong was stunned when he saw the fleet. In a blink of an eye, he noticed that on the river beach near the pier, a large fence used by the Mongols to keep livestock was built at some point. Outside the fence, there were three to five hundred Mongolian cavalry.
They were lazily on guard, and there were no less than thousands of men and women enclosed in the fence.
Most of the people were tortured beyond recognition.
Some people were skinny and numb; some were half-dressed and shirtless, revealing horrific whip marks on their bodies; some had their noses and ears cut off; a few clearly looked like a couple, but they looked like they had just met.
, the woman cried loudly, and the husband also cried silently, perhaps because he missed his dead family members, or he was crying for their respective experiences.
Where do these common people come from? You don’t need to get close, just listen to the accent and you will know that these are the hometown of Jinan Prefecture, the same hometown and neighbors of Zhang Rong and others!
Zhang Rong was furious in an instant. He could not wait to get up immediately, draw his sword and arrows, kill all the Mongolians who were guarding him, and free the people.
But he was very clear-headed and knew that he couldn't do it.
In such a terrible world, if you don't have power, you can't protect others. And even if you have power, so what? Who can fight against the Mongols?
Zhang Rong felt that his forehead was hot and his heart was beating wildly. He tried his best to suppress his anger and said in a deep voice: "Don't be anxious, wait and see. The Mongols must be here for a reason."
Inadvertently, the wound on his cheek was torn open again, and blood continued to seep through the linen. Zhang Rong seemed unconscious and said again: "There must be something fishy about that fleet! Watch carefully!"
"
Just as he said this, a large ship at the head of the fleet finally approached the pier, and several people came out of the cabin.
The leader was a fat monk. When he strode onto the trestle, his heavy body made the board shake.
The monk seemed to have injured his legs and feet and was walking a little unsteadily. He quickly put a big black stick in his hand at the end of the bridge. When the trestle creaked and stabilized, he stood still.
Behind the fat monk were several more people, all of whom were strong-looking and dressed as generals of the imperial court.
"Where did this group of people come from? Are they from the imperial court? How come there is any contact between the imperial court and the Mongols?"
Zhang Rong couldn't understand it at all. He looked around and saw that his subordinates also looked at a loss.
Zhang Rong and other private salt dealers were active in a large area. They reached Changshan in the east, Shanghe and Yanci in the north. They went south to associate with bandits in Taishan, and to the west they crossed Dongping Prefecture and made friends with water bandits in Liangshan.
Within this scope, they have countless relatives, friends, and eye contacts. They should have sharp ears and eyes, and no trouble can be hidden from them.
However, the Mongols carried out a massive killing spree. In just over ten days, not even one out of ten local people survived. They were trapped on the Hongtang Mountains, and they had not inquired much in the past few days, so they did not know what was going on.
The fleet belongs to Guo Ning, the military governor of Dinghai Navy.
This fat monk is naturally Guo Ning's right-hand man, Monk Luo, whose monastic name is Huifeng.
Monk Luo has always been bold. When the Mongolian army first arrived in Shandong, he proposed to use elite troops to take boats and go along the Xiaoqing River to the Jinan City to harass and give the Mongols a good look. Unfortunately, the current situation changed and his suggestion was not realized.
Later, Guo Ning captured the fourth prince Tuo Lei and used Tuo Lei as a hostage to extort a huge amount of ransom from the Mongolian army in Shandong. The two families made a verbal agreement that the soldiers and horses would disperse and not threaten each other; horses, herdsmen, ordnance and armor
The two armies directly sent people to complete the delivery in person.
The delivery of large items of money, food, people, and craftsmen were all placed on the Xiaoqing River, north of Zhangqiu, where the river winds. The Ding Navy dispatched its own fleet to receive and transport the goods.
The main reason why the delivery office is placed here is that most of the original residents here have fled and there are few people around. Therefore, no one will watch the Mongols' various deliveries. This can make the Mongolians, who are deeply humiliated by the defeat, feel a little better.
Better, at least the humiliation is more bearable.
Guo Ning caught fire that day and suffered a headache and two blows in the prison cell. Later, the medical officer said that three of his ribs were broken.
This kind of action was really inconsistent with diplomatic etiquette, so he didn't hesitate to accept the Mongols' request for a delivery place and readily agreed.
The fleet and boatmen under Guo Ning's command were all obtained by Wang Shixian's assistance to Li Yun in Zhigu Village. The task of leading the fleet up the river should have been Wang Shixian's.
However, Wang Shixian's troops suffered heavy losses when fighting the Mongols. He was busy comforting the soldiers these days and couldn't get away from it.
So Monk Luo happily accepted the task, regardless of the fact that he was missing two toes, and headed to Jinan Prefecture on crutches.
The two officers accompanying Monk Luo were called Liu Yue and Zhao Xuan.
On that day, Monk Luo fled with the monks from Xuanzhong Temple in Datong Prefecture, Xijing. He recruited desperadoes along the way and fell into the trap of Baozhou Shenyuan Park. His deputy was Pei Ruhai, a junior fellow of Xuanzhong Temple, whom outsiders called
Monk Pei's.
But among the monks, there were few who were brave and good at fighting, so his other capable subordinates were all well-known local bandits in Hebei.
For example, Liu Yue was a murderer who killed a local wealthy businessman and escaped, and was wanted by more than a dozen military states. As for Zhao Xuan, a wealthy businessman, followed his parents to travel all over the country since he was a child, only because his family was bullied by local officials.
Forced, he fought hard and killed the officials.
The two people have another difference. It turns out that Liu Yue often dreams that he was once the right eunuch of Yulin in the Han Dynasty and the emperor's confidant; while Zhao Xuan always claims that in his previous life, he was a scholar in Liangzhou and was good at
Bow horse.
Everyone else knew that Monk Luo knew nothing about Buddhist scriptures, and he was even more entangled in Buddhist principles, but no one dared to say it in front of him, so Monk Luo always regarded himself as an eminent monk.
The tunes described by the two men were like the wisdom of previous lives in Buddhist scriptures. Monk Luo found it interesting and attracted the two men as his confidants.
In fact, most of the lieutenant generals in the army knew that the two men were in favor of Monk Luo, and they made it up for fun. As for whether Monk Luo himself knew it or not, others did not dare to ask.
Despite this oddity, both of them were capable military academies and were so brave on the battlefield that even Guo Ning praised them.
After Pei Ruhai's death, these two men became Monk Luo's lieutenants.
At that moment, Liu Yue accompanied Monk Luo and stood on the trestle to watch indifferently. Zhao Xuan, leading a soldier, stood in front of the Mongolian cavalry queue and opened his mouth to shout.
Those Mongolian cavalrymen glared at Zhao Xuan, as if they were about to spit out fire. Zhao Xuan was really bold. He nonchalantly raised his head and shouted at the Mongolians on horseback. He actually knew some Mongolian.
After a few words and gestures, a man who looked like a hundred Mongolian households came out.
The hundreds of Mongolian households looked up at Monk Luo, ignored him, and shouted sharply at Zhao Xuan: "The first batch is five thousand people, and there will be five more batches after that! We will pick out the people you want on the spot! Pick out
Strong men and women are like picking out jumping yellow sheep, like picking out cheerful horses!"
Zhao Xuan was stunned for a moment. The previous agreement with the Mongols included 30,000 men. That was estimated by Guo Ning and his generals.
After the massacre by the Mongols, the remaining population of Jinan Prefecture was about this. In the verbal agreement, it was only mentioned that the Mongols could not use all the old and weak to make up the number, and 30,000 people were sent in six batches.
Apart from this, there are no other detailed rules. It should be noted that the Mongolians do not even have writing, and everything is transmitted orally through compilation of lyrics. The calculations are so detailed that Naminfu cannot remember much, so it is a waste of time.
At this moment, the Mongolians are willing to give all the young and strong, which is naturally good, but they have to choose on the spot... Doesn't that mean they are inspecting people like animals?
Zhao Xuan felt a little unhappy. But he knew that this move would not harm Ding Haijun, so he nodded slightly and said proudly: "Then hurry up!"