stubborn thief

Chapter 8 Where to Go
In fact, Liu Chengzong wanted to ask Cao Yao more about the battle of Sarhu.

It's just that Cao Yao didn't want to talk about it, he could talk about things before and after that battle, but that battle -- he didn't want to talk and he had nothing to say.

As night fell, smoke rose from the wild villages.

An iron pot was placed on an earthen stove made of yellow mud. Cao Yao's men cut the goose without legs into two halves and simmered them in their respective pots. They also took some seasonings from the back of the mules, and prepared dry food for the moment. soup.

Soup stew, soup is the best, one cake is not enough to eat, there is no way to make two cakes.

The soup is different. Add a little water to half of it, and you can turn it into two bowls of soup.

What Cao Yao wants to talk about is where to go.

"Your brothers are scholars. If it weren't for the drought and you couldn't pay taxes, Fourth Master Liu wouldn't have let you two join the army. You are both knowledgeable and knowledgeable."

He swept across the village with his hands up, and said, "My 27 brothers, from Beizhili, Shanxi, Shandong, and Henan, even if their hometown is in Shaanxi, there are none left."

"Your brother is a soldier idiot. As soon as you enter the village, you will climb high and look far and set up posts to find no one. Let me ask you, you can tell me the truth."

Cao Yao looked left and right, moved closer to Liu Chengzong, and asked in a low voice, "What's your plan going south?"

Liu Chengzong was very serious, wiped the grease on his mouth, shook his head and said, "I don't know."

More than ten years later, whether the Ming court will be overthrown by the Yinchuan courier who taught him riding skills will be doubtful, and his brother will be expelled from Yuhebao in a blink of an eye.

After receiving the notification at noon, he had already set off in the afternoon, sleeping in the wilderness at night, and the team only carried two and a half days of dry food. No matter what he thought at this time, it was too pale.

What are you thinking about, how to protect the world after ten years?

He didn't even know what to eat in three days, or even if he could walk to Ansai in three days.

However, Liu Chengzong couldn't bear the disappointment in Cao Yao's eyes.

He knew that if there was no other way, Cao Yao could only take people up the mountain to become a bandit.

Liu Chengzong pondered for a moment and sighed: "Brother Cao thinks, where did Zuo Hangzi hit?"

The Zuo Hangzi in his mouth was called Wang Zhijue, and his name was Zuo Hangzi, also known as Wang Zuohang. He started an army at Long'erzui in Yichuan. The court knew that this man was last year and said he had thieves riding thousands of people.

The Qingjian people went into the mountains to become robbers in their early years. Miao Mei, Feishanhu, Dahonglang and others who were with him were the thieves of Xiaoju Mountain Forest in the south.

Cao Yao squinted his eyes, rummaged through his bag, took out a cigarette rod and a cigarette pouch, put them on a bonfire, and asked in the smoke, "You mean, you want me to vote for Zuo Hangzi? "

Tobacco was still a rare thing in the north in this era. It was planted in Fujian from Luzon. It was brought to the north due to the transfer of soldiers from the south to the north, and it was given the function of sheltering from the cold.

It was popular among the officers in the border army of Yansui Town.

But what Cao Yao took out from the backs of the two mules, whether it was the old tobacco that was robbed the year before or bought from a frontier army officer, would not surprise Liu Chengzong.

"Zuo Hangzi was mentioned in the Yuhebao discussion, and the official document said that he had thieves riding thousands of people. I don't believe it." Cao Yao shook his head and said, "That is, including all those who ride horses, donkeys, oxen, and mules, there is one Two thousand rides are worth the sky."

He obviously didn't like Wang Zuohang, and he didn't think it was a bright road. He breathed out a cigarette and waved his hand: "It's better to go to find Wang Jiayin than to vote for him."

Wang Jiayin is also a thief, with Buzhanmu, Yang Liu and others under him, who specialize in plundering rich families in Fugu County, which is on the border between Qin and Jin in the northeast wall of Yuhe Fort.

Liu Chengzong quickly waved his hand and said, "I'm not going to vote, I'm avoiding them."

The memory in his mind was not clear about the endless number of rebel leaders during this period, and there were only three people who could be named, Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, and Li Zicheng.

Coincidentally, he knew all three of them.

Gao Yingxiang is an Ansai native and the head of a horse thief. He lived in Mizhi prison from spring to autumn for smuggling horses.

They tried their best to teach the two brothers so that Liu Juren could let him out, but Liu Juren was too timid, and Gao Yingxiang's brother outside did not dare to ask for the gold and silver boxes to his home.

In the end, Liu Chengzong finished Gao Yingxiang's decapitation, and it was the brother outside who bribed the county magistrate at that time, and then he rescued him.

Gao Yingxiang took people back to the city that night, shot the door of their house with bows and arrows, and smashed a brass door knocker with blue bricks.

This person gathered the hungry people in Ansai last year and raised his army. In another memory of Liu Chengzong, he was called the King of Chuang, and he went to war.

Zhang Xianzhong, who later became the emperor of Daxi, was not very familiar with him, and they only met once. The two brothers set up a water table in their hometown before they joined the army. I just remember that there was a man named Zhang Xianzhong in Yan'an who drank a lot of wine that day. , refers to the world and scolds the earth to make a fool of himself, full of complaints.

There is also Li Zicheng, a postman in Yinchuan, who was still called Li Hongji at this time, the same age as Liu Chengzu, so when Liu Chengzong met, he had to call him Huang Wa, and the relationship was not far or near.

Back then, Liu Juren asked Yicheng to teach horseback riding, and he was reluctant to invite even a delicious meal. He stopped coming after a few visits, and sent young Li Hongji to teach him for a while.

Liu Chengzong didn't know who was good or bad, who was strong and who was weak, but he knew who was alive and who lived long and who was powerful.

Therefore, the other leaders of the army are unreliable, and defecting to them is a dead end. Naturally, I do not recommend Cao Yao to defect, but only ask: "Where do you think these thieves are now scattered?"

However, Cao Yao didn't answer immediately, squinting and pondering: "Hide from them and go, Zuo Hangzi and Wang Jiayin have more horses, yes, they have to hide - but if we want to go south, they will also Go south!"

Not only did they hide for fear of meeting on a narrow road, but also because the large animals and people had to eat, and the place where the rebels walked was only afraid that there would be no grass in the mountains.

Running into them is a dead end, and even following the trail behind their ass is a dead end.

Saying that, Cao Yao picked out a short branch from the bonfire, and said while drawing on the ground: "They are getting bigger and bigger, can you not be afraid that the court will send the frontier army to ask them? He must leave the frontier defense and leave the frontier army more and more. far better."

"The roads in northern Shaanxi go sideways, and there are mountains everywhere. Officials and troops can't enter the mountains, and they can't enter the mountains." Cao Yao easily used the Yellow River to separate Shanxi and Shanxi, and drew lines to connect several towns as important nodes.

"The mountains north of Yan'an are all bare. Whoever goes in will starve to death. Either cross the Yellow River east and enter Luliang Mountain, or go south, south of Yan'an."

Liu Chengzong looked at the route drawn by Cao Yao, and couldn't help but praised in his heart, "As expected of an old thief who escaped from Liaoning!" ', stretched out his hand on the ground and pointed to the dots along the west bank of the Yellow River from north to south: "Mizhi, Suide, Qingjian, Yanchuan, Yanchang, Yichuan, Hancheng, this is Yaozhou, right?"

After passing Hancheng, Cao Yao turned west a little, clicked three dots at the confluence of the three rivers, looked up at Liu Chengzong and said with a smile, "Those who have read books know geography."

After that, he raised his hand and tapped the three points twice, took the conversation and said, "Fuping, Sanyuan, Jingyang, close to Xi'an, the richest and most fertile place in Weibei, I heard that this cut tobacco was shipped from the south. Jingyang, cut it there."

"If I were the lifeless Zuo Hangzi, I would definitely snatch this into Shanxi!"

(End of this chapter)