stubborn thief

Chapter 4
"Brother Lion?"

Liu Chengzong had just put the longbow down on the cold kang and the animal tendon string into his arms, and blew out the oil lamp. He heard someone calling him outside the door, so he had to get up and put on the tanned leather jacket on the quilt, saying: "The door Not plugged in, go pick up a torch and turn on the light."

Outside the door is a child, only nine years old, named Sixteen, with a bright little brain.

Sixteen is from Mizhi, who fled south with his parents last year.

It doesn't matter whether it is in northern Shaanxi or Henan, since ancient times, everything has to go to Guanzhong.

In fact, the yield per mu in Guanzhong is not outrageously high, and there is a reason for this.

In ancient times, the weather was good. In the era of poor infrastructure, it was completely dependent on the sky for food. If you were not careful, there were droughts and floods. There were fewer natural disasters in Guanzhong than in other places. If you escaped to Guanzhong, the men became long-term workers, and the women remarried. There can be a way to live.

But there are too many people going south, and there is not enough food on the way to let them escape.

Both parents starved to death on the road, and Sixteen followed another group of people to the north to Yuhebao.

The Liu brothers went out to recruit troops, seeing that he really had no other way to survive, and he didn't have the ability to protect himself.

Anyway, because he is young and eats less, a team of soldiers can feed him fat by eating half a mouthful of meals at a time.

This is how the name came about. There are 32 people in the team under Liu Chengzu's management. They eat together every day. Sixteen carries an empty bowl. six.

There are many ways of igniting, such as sulphur-dipped matches, fire tablets, rubbing fire scythes, or fire books, all of which are not enough to save money and trouble.

In places where many people live together, the most economical way to make fire is to keep a kind of fire and keep the stove bright.

The Changming stove is a small mud stove.

After a while, I heard the rustling outside the house, the wooden door was pushed open, and in the moonlight, the little bald head probed his head and came in with a fire stick to light the oil lamp. Room.

When Sixteen first arrived at Yuhebao, his messy hair grew three inches long, and his head was full of lice, which were all lice eggs.

Liu Chengzong used the grate for him several times, but the grate was not clean, and he was afraid of infecting others, so he shaved his head.

Generally, children in the Ming Dynasty would shave the surrounding area, leaving a small tug or braid on their head, and they would only tie their hair when they grew up, and some people shaved it directly.

The fort was full of military men with five or three thick men, and no one was so particular about it. Later, when he saw Sixteen's hair growing, someone would shave him.

"Brother Lion, you are so strong, how heavy is that with such a big lock, [-] pounds?"

Liu Chengzong, who was wearing a jacket on the kang, folded his arms and said with a smile: "It's only [-] pounds. I used to play a lot, but now I don't want to play anymore, so I put it outside to stay in the house."

"What is a town house?"

"Just to scare ghosts."

The little bald head looked envious: "It's amazing, I can play seventy pounds of stone locks anytime. I can't even lift a three-and-a-half-pound knife, so I can only drag it away."

It is normal for a three-and-a-half-pound knife to swing hard. Although it is light, the center of gravity of the knife is in the front. When Liu Chengzong first learned the knife, he felt heavy.

"It will be fine in the future. When you grow to be as tall as me, you will be able to play." Liu Chengzong asked, "Why are you here?"

"Oh, Uncle Tian asked me to bring you beans. He played leaf cards with Cao Guan's team in the barracks, sold the mirror, and asked me to bring the beans."

This made Liu Chengzong frown, how come Tian Shoujing is the uncle and I am the lion brother?
Saying that, the little bald head put a pocket on the table and said, "I'll cook it and crush the forage."

Liu Chengzong saw that there were still a lot of beans, and said happily: "This old thief really has food in his hands, let's cook it. After it's cooked, you can eat some and go back. There will be wild goose soup tomorrow."

Cao Guan's team is called Cao Yao, and he is also a veteran of He Renlong's family. He is in his 30s.

His hometown is in Henan, and he was transferred to Baoding as a soldier when he was young.

As a result, he caught up with the Battle of Sarhu, and was sent to aid Liaoning. He belonged to Wang Xuanbu. He was defeated by Nurhaci in the battle with Jurchen.

The routed troops fled south all the way. Cao Yao originally wanted to flee to his hometown in Henan with the routed troops, but he was beaten by the governor Zhang Wo for a while in Henan.

Many of the thieves in the Shaanxi area today are veterans from the Saar Hu defeat. They hold swords and soldiers without serious status, and do some activities of occupying mountains and robbing homes for the king.

Cao Yao couldn't run away in Shanxi. He had been a thief for a while, and he took a dozen brothers to be recruited as a frontier army in Datong. Who would have thought that Tian Qinian would be sent to aid Liaoning again, but he didn't want to say anything this time. When he went to the battlefield to starve, he crossed the Yellow River westward as a deserter and entered northern Shaanxi.

There was also a period of Xiaoju mountain forest in northern Shaanxi, and later he was recruited by He Renlong, and he was given a management team of 50 people, and the job was not bad.

They are all very familiar, Liu Chengzong also learned a period of wrestling from Cao Yao, but he was not good at learning, that is, wrestling and playing.

While Xiao Shiliu went to cook the beans, Liu Chengzong saw that the bowl was empty, so he scooped a bowl of water into the jar and drank it.

Today, the soldiers on duty at night in Baozi can't eat, they are slack in their work, and the sound of patrolling the streets is low.

He was afraid that he would not be able to hear when he was asleep, so he delayed getting up at night to feed the red flag, so he drank more water before going to bed.

People are hungry and horses are hungry, and they have to get up three times a night to feed.

In the previous paragraph, Liu Chengzong fed the red flag twice in one night. He didn't get up at the third watch. The animal opened the rope with its mouth, opened the gate of the stable, and went out to bite the arrow and stamped it at the garrison, and returned with a bulging belly. six months pregnant.

At that time, the veterans in the courtyard were very happy, and they all counted when the red flags could survive.

No one cares about the regulations that Wanli set down for the burial of war horses.

At least in the Yuhebao Frontier Army in the disaster year, the superiority of the cavalry is here. When the war horse dies for some reason, everyone can eat a stew of horse meat.

If there are special talents who have mastered cooking skills, such as Cao Yao, who served as a soldier in Baoding Prefecture in his early years, he can also make fragrant horse meat fire.

Later, Hongqi didn't let everyone get his wish, and he digested the arrow by himself.

After that, Liu Chengzong did not dare to let him eat too much. He fed him three times a day during the day and three times at night, and locked the stable with a gourd lock at night to save him from coming out on his own.

Sixteen, this little bald-headed man who is not very old, works very quickly, and came back after a while, clapping his hands and saying, "Brother Shishi, I have cooked the beans, cut the horse grass, sprinkled salt, and left it at night. It's alright, I'll go after the fire is turned off."

After all, the little bald man squatted in the corner with his hands in his hands, and pulled his hands up against the kennel. It looked like he was punching well, but he was boring.

Liu Chengzong smiled and said, "Who did you learn boxing from?"

"Hey, the peeping team learned it."

"What kind of boxing do you learn as a little monk? Our soldiers all have armor. You can't kill anyone with a pair of fists for a long time. It's very cruel."

"What do you study then?"

"One courage, two strengths and three kung fu, don't rush to learn, eat more, sleep more, run and jump more, use stone locks to practice strength in two years, and then learn things when you are slender."

Liu Chengzong thought about it for a while, and said, "Find old thief Cao at that time and ask him to teach you to wrestle, catch someone and throw Amitabha Buddha on the ground. The heavier he wears, the harder he falls, and the direct escape, isn't it more interesting than this punch and that punch? "

Little Sixteen didn't speak for a long time. He reached out his hand and wanted to smash the little drill wind on the edge of the kennel, but he didn't dare, just grinned and smirked.

After a long pause, he raised his head again and asked earnestly, "Brother Shishi, I heard Big Brother Gao say that the general will be back tomorrow, and he will buy his mother-in-law back when he pays for the army. When the general comes back... Do we have something to eat? "

The smile on Liu Chengzong's face was fixed, and he laughed twice after a while. He raised his finger and pointed to the outside and said, "I don't know, but you have something to eat now. The beans are cooked, go get some to eat."

(End of this chapter)