stubborn thief

1 Octopus River Fort

Liu Chengzong anxiously waded into the shallow Wuding River, lifted the hem of his red downed armor skirt, squatted down and pressed the water bladder into the river with trembling hands.

In February, the water in the river with ice flowers was bone-chilling, and when it was poured into the throat, it was so cold that the roots of the teeth were sore, and it was as if the whole throat was gripped.

He stood up and took a few steps back, squinting his eyes, looking over the dry riverbed and withered grass on the opposite bank, and looking at the undulating barren mountains and bald ridges in the distance.

The drought has changed the appearance of northern Shaanxi.

After a long while, the panic caused by the hunger in his stomach lightened a little, so he pressed the handle of the goose ling knife around his waist, and stepped on the dry cracked sand riverbed and walked towards the official road.

A Mongolian variegated horse is tied to a dead tree beside the official road.

The horse is very good, but it is a little thin and has a huge head. A few months ago, the long bangs were still white, and the name was also called Sanfa.

But later, its owner got nervous and used red vermilion dye to make the bangs red, and the name was changed, called Hongqi.

Hongqi carries a lot of things on his back, not to mention the bridle and saddle, the bow and arrow on the left of the horse's hip, and two geese on the right.

Below the wild goose is a thin black-haired Shaanxi fine dog. Like the fate of the red flag, it used to be sturdy, but later it was changed to a small diamond wind.

Xiao Zuanfeng was covered in wet thorns, shivering from the cold, but he still moved his nose to smell the geese, and the clear saliva ran down his mouth into a pool on the ground.

Liu Chengzong has a problem.

He has two memories.

Not long ago, after a high fever, in addition to the memories of the past 18 years, there were more memories from 400 years later.

The two memories are intertwined, very contradictory, and seriously affect normal life.

Let's talk about this mount.

In the past, when he saw this black Mongolian horse, his first reaction was to kindly call for three fat and add some fodder.

Now I dye the pony's head red, not to mention, I will call Hongqi when I see it, and I even want to put a motor on it.

Regarding what happened to him, Liu Chengzong guessed that he might have swallowed the soul of the owner of the memory... Because he was really hungry, he hadn't eaten enough for several months, let alone a soul in his head, even if there was only one The ghost is in front of him, and he will be eaten if he can't get it right.

Now he likes to find a place to sit quietly when he has nothing to do, recalling the bizarre world in his mind 400 years later, learning strange new knowledge, and even wants to experience a life without starving in the past.

It's a pity that every time I finish my daydreaming, I still have to return to the drought-ravaged northern Shaanxi.

The straight-seam cowhide boots belonging to the horsemen of the frontier army stepped on the cracked yellow soil. In the distance, the houses that were in disrepair and collapsed and the cave dwellings were covered with adobe, which made the official road look extraordinarily desolate.

The dead old elm tree lost its bark, and still stood stubbornly on the ground, and the broken branches fell all over the ground and no one picked it up.

Liu Chengzong threw the reins, walked across the official road to the collapsed house beside the road, picked up a large adobe, smashed a hole in the adobe of the sealed cave, looked into the cave in the evening light, and got in.

After a while, he first took out a clay jug outside. There was half a candle, a hemp rope, and a black whetstone in the jar.

When he crawled out of the hole, a dirty water scoop was pinned to his lower back, and a memorial tablet for the ancestors was clipped under his ribs.

As for the most valuable object, he held it in his hand and wrapped it in a piece of gray cloth. It was a bronze mirror whose surface could not be wiped clean.

Liu Chengzong walked towards the big elm tree across the road, and said something in his mouth: "It is estimated that your descendants will not come back. Let me, Liu Shishi, take you to Yuhe Fort, and let the thieves turn back and set you on fire."

He is neither a beggar nor a robber, he has a scholarly reputation and an enviable serious job.

The national active-duty frontier army is affiliated to Yansui Town, one of the nine major frontier military regions in the north of Daming. The direct commander is He Renlong, the guard of Yuhebao.

The position is Jiading Xuanfeng, who has practiced martial arts for six years and joined the army for one and a half years.

But no matter how elite they are, they can't match the court's lack of military pay.

Yuhebao is no longer alive. It is closer to the Great Wall to go to Mongolia than to Yan'an, and it has no resistance to drought.

Last year, the crops planted by the army outside the fort were irrigated carefully, but they were still sunburned to death on a large area.

The old elm tree endured the drought, but did not escape the hungry beggars. The bark was stripped clean, leaving a bare trunk without water, which soon withered.

"Pity."

Standing under this old elm tree, Liu Chengzong looked up at the branch where no buds had grown at all, licked his chapped lips, and continued to lead the horse forward.

Yuhe Castle is not far away, and the burning clouds in the sky reflect the shadow of the castle in the distance. If this tree is still alive, it will be a good time to eat elm money nest with white noodles in another month.

It's a pity, it's not a pity that the tree died. Although the tree died, the people who never met and ate the bark were able to live.

It is a pity that there is neither white flour nor elm money in Yuhebao, only more than 400 hungry frontier soldiers, and only enough millet to feed them for a month and a half.

Seeing that in the beginning of spring, refugees were recruited to plant the 140 hectares of military farmland, but there were no seeds and no cattle.

Most of this year's military camps are deserted, and it is a sure thing.

It is not surprising that the land is deserted. Liu Chengzong has been a soldier here for more than a year, and the people who farm the land have changed twice, and the number of people is less than once.

In the seventh year of Apocalypse, he and his brother were kicked out of the Wuju Township Examination in Yan'an Prefecture. He was recruited by He Renlong, the deputy examiner, to be a servant. When they arrived at Yuhebao, they were catching up with the people who fled to Guanzhong.

The farmer has worked hard for a year, and the harvested grain has not yet spread to the ground, so what can he do if he does not leave?
In the spring of last year, another group of refugees from the mountains worked hard for another year, but in the end, they were still the same. They either went south to escape the famine, or went to Dongshan to become bandits.

There is no shortage of land in northern Shaanxi this year.

The fields in northern Shaanxi are barren, and it is necessary to plant widely and harvest only a small amount of crops. If you grow millet, you will be a master at harvesting seven.

But this piece of land with nine droughts in ten years cannot retain people.

Yuhebao couldn't keep people.

When he was recruited by He Renlong, he had agreed that the servants would be paid double rations and double rations, and the monthly salary would be one taels of silver and two stones of millet.

Stone is a unit of volume, and the grain of millet is small, and two stones are nearly three hundred kilograms.

Coupled with the monthly payment of one tael to five dollars of silver, there is little silver in circulation in Shaanxi, and a whip law of the government stipulates that people must pay taxes with silver, so this is hard currency, and it is put in the summer and autumn for one or two silver when paying taxes. Three stone rice is not difficult.

Excellent treatment.

Liu Chengzong's father was a tax officer of the ninth grade in the Yan'an House two years ago. He was a serious court-appointed official, and his monthly salary was only five stone meters.

However, his military salary is the same as the monthly salary of [-] to [-] for recruiting on the streets in the future, and the latter one does not count.

In fact, after guarding the old Zhu family for [-] months, Qiu Fang also took the head of the captives, but the court's rations were not enough, and the army salaries and rewards were not paid.

More than 100 catties of millet not only need to be eaten, salt, vegetables, sauces, fabrics, everything for food and clothing must be exchanged for food, and the rest is not enough for oneself, but also to find ways to feed the war horse Hongqi and the hound Xiaozuanfeng, the pressure Very big.

Now the emperor of the Zhu family owed him 62 taels of silver, and the official exchanged Tongbao forty-three thousand and seven hundred and fifty liters.

This allowed Liu Chengzong to take advantage of the opportunity to go out hunting to drill into a dilapidated house that no one lives in, and buy some things to subsidize his family.

Bringing out a waste pot made Liu Chengzong in a good mood. He clapped the red flag and said happily, "Big head, you have fallen forage at night!"

(End of this chapter)