end song

Chapter 5 Quishiji

"The gate of heaven interrupts the opening of the Chu River, and the clear water flows eastward here. The green mountains on both sides of the bank face each other, and the lonely sails come from the sun."

On the bank of the Yangtze River, Han Chengxu recited the poem in an old voice, pointing to the distance and introducing a sentence.

"Over there is the Tianmen Mountain mentioned in Li Taibai's poem."

Han Qiaoer put her hands on her eye sockets, looked upstream for a while, and wondered, "Grandpa, why didn't I see it?"

She is 12 years old this year, she has not yet grown up, she is thin and small, her face is also dark, she is wearing shabby clothes, she does not look beautiful, only a pair of eyes are quite smart.

Han Chengxu said: "Because Tianmen Mountain is in the west of Dangtu County, the river there is too fast, we have to go to Caishiji in the east to cross the river... Have you written down the poem just now?"

Han Qiaoer responded crisply: "Remember, the gate of heaven interrupts the opening of the Chu River..."

After the granddaughter recited the poem, Han Chengxu said again: "Speaking of Caishiji, Li Taibai died here."

"Didn't grandfather say last time that Li Taibai drank too much and died drunk in Xuancheng?"

"That's one way of saying, that's another way of saying it." Han Chengxu said: "It's said that Li Taibai was drinking on the river, and after getting drunk, he jumped into the water to catch the moon, and unfortunately drowned. The so-called 'drunk to catch the moon, ride a whale to heaven' .”

"Grandfather, I like this saying better, it's more like the Li Taibai I imagined to die like this."

"There are a few more poems about Caishiji..."

Liu Jinsuo turned around and interrupted: "I said old nerd, you are so old, and you talked endlessly along the way, aren't you tired?"

"Of course, the little old man also has dry mouth, but if he thinks he can teach the baby a little more, he will teach him a little more."

"Ha, what's the use of a little girl knowing this?"

Han Chengxu smiled wryly and said, "This world is in chaos, so what the sages have learned has to be passed on from generation to generation."

"That's the fall of your Kingdom of Jin." Liu Jinsuo said contemptuously, "The morals of our Song Dynasty are not chaotic, and there are so many scholars walking around everywhere."

Han Chengxu laughed a few times, but continued to teach Han Qiaoer to recite poems.

The little girl has an excellent memory, and can memorize the content after only reading it once.

After completing this little learning task, she immediately turned to look at Li Xia, and began to murmur, but in Mongolian.

Li Xia struggled to answer her in Mongolian, but he still couldn't speak fluently.

Occasionally, Han Qiaoer would criticize him a word or two.

"Brother Li, you made a mistake again. You can't breathe out when you say this word, you have to hold your breath like this."

Han Chengxu said: "Qiaoer, you are also stumbling when you say it yourself..."

This group of people is the team led by Nie Zhongyou to Kaifeng.

There were a total of 32 people in the team, dressed as a caravan, and brought six carriages to pull the goods, each with two horses.

The goods were carried by horses, but the people had to walk. It took six days to walk from Lin'an Mansion to Dangtu County.

The reason why Han Chengxu and Han Qiaoer were brought in may be because having old people and little girls makes them look more like a caravan... Maybe there are other reasons.

The grandparents and grandchildren were also walking on foot, but it was Li Xia who proposed to let them sit in the van.

Nie Zhongyou thought that they could go to Kaifeng, at least it was easier than being a laborer.But he only has achievements in his eyes, and he doesn't bother to care about ordinary trivial matters.

Li Xia saw this, and being able to make arrangements for this trivial matter was a successful test of Nie Zhongyou's character.

After leaving, Li Xia heard that Han Chengxu had been the translator of the Kingdom of Jin, so Li Xia asked him for Mongolian and Jurchen languages.

During these six days of walking, I could hear their chattering conversations.

Li Xia's language talent is not good, but it is because of his hard work and concentration, just like when he used to practice fencing, he made rapid progress.

And Han Qiaoer is still not proficient in Mongolian, so they just practice with each other.

On this day, I finally arrived at Caishiji, which belongs to Taiping Prefecture, which is the later Ma'anshan City.

As one of the ferry crossings of the Yangtze River, Caishiji has set up a pass on the official road to collect taxes.

The group of them was pretending to be a caravan, and it was inevitable to pay taxes and interrogate them.

The government strictly forbids the circulation of ironware and copper coins to the north, and there are many contraband items on their carriages.Every time he passed the customs, Nie Zhongyou never took out any official orders, and all relied on bribes.

There was a middle-aged man named Wu Dexian in the team. He used to be an accountant who traveled all over the world. Now he appeared to be the leader of the caravan, but he didn't dare fart in front of Nie Zhongyou.

Seeing the tax soldiers coming to investigate, Wu Dexian skillfully carried his bag containing copper coins and went up to deal with it.

As for the others, they stood by the side of the road and waited.

They took swords and swords one by one, but those tax collectors took Wu Dexian's money, so they didn't care.

Li Xia was standing beside the road wearing shackles and a sword, when he suddenly heard someone in the team curse

"The rules and regulations are lax. Just by looking at this matter, you can see how much copper and iron flow out of the daily life, and the country's affairs are also broken by these stubborn ruffians..."

Li Xia looked sideways, and saw that it was indeed Jiang Xing who was speaking.

Jiang Xing is a man around 30 years old, unlike Li Xia and other thieves, he is a military officer and the number two in the team.

This person obviously has some enthusiasm for serving the country, and it is not the first time he has abused the tax soldiers for extorting bribes along the way.

Obviously he brought contraband and bribed himself.

But Jiang Xing also knows how to measure, he didn't really stand up and make noise, but just complained to Nie Zhongyou in a low voice.

"Stop it, if they hear it, it will cause a lot of trouble." Nie Zhongyou replied lightly.

Although Jiang Xing obeyed the assignment, he was not like Lin Zi who was Nie Zhongyou's confidant, so he grinned and snorted disdainfully.

"Are we afraid of these beetles?"

"Hush..."

When they encountered interrogation a few times ago, Wu Dexian's bribery went smoothly, but today there seems to be some trouble.

The leading tax soldier looked at the goods, stroked the beard on his face, walked over here, and carefully sized up the group of them.

"Is it really a caravan?" He looked at Li Xia, and said, "Damn it, why is there a prisoner?"

Wu Dexian followed behind him, and replied: "Yes, the young one is really a businessman, just for a living. That kid has epilepsy, so he was handcuffed."

He opened his mouth to talk nonsense.

The bearded Shui Ding didn't bother to care, looked at Nie Zhongyou and the others, and asked, "Why do you bring so many guards?"

Wu Dexian said: "The young one went to the north for the first time, and he was afraid, so he brought more people."

Li Xia looked sideways, and saw that Nie Zhongyou had a rare look of humility, and he would rather keep a low profile than show his identity.

This is still south of the Yangtze River and within the territory of the Song Dynasty, so it is too cautious.

He couldn't help but think of Han Chengxu's sentence, "Even if we die in the north, we are not officials of the Song Dynasty."

Over there, Wu Dexian handed over another bag full of copper coins, and the bearded Shui Ding reached out to take it. He looked at them suspiciously for a long time, and finally raised his hand to order to let them go.

Li Xia walked in the team, faintly feeling that something was wrong...

When they arrived at the ferry, they found three big river boats, hired some laborers who were begging for work on the riverside, and loaded six carriages and goods onto the boats.

Nie Zhongyou, Jiang Xing, and Lin Zi each brought guards to escort the boat, Nie Zhongyou took Han Chengxu's grandson and others; Jiang Xing took Li Xia, Wu Dexian, Bai Mao and others; Lin Zi took Liu Jinsuo and others.

Before boarding the boat, Lin Zi took a key and waved it in front of Li Xia.

"Look at this, the key to your shackles."

As he said, he threw the key into the Yangtze River.

Then, he spread his hand in front of Li Xia with a smile on his face, and it turned out that the key was still there.

"Why aren't you scared?"

Li Xia was also quite annoyed by people like Lin Zi, so she responded patiently: "I know you won't really throw it away."

"Okay." Lin Zi said, "I'll untie the shackles for you after crossing the Yangtze River, but sooner or later I'll scare you."

He waved his hand and boarded a river boat.

Li Xia shook his head slightly, and followed Jiang Xing to a riverboat behind.

There are ships on the Yangtze River no matter how big they are, and the big ones can carry two thousand stones, that is, hundreds of tons of cargo.Although the three boats they were looking for were not that big, they were more than enough to carry four horses, two carts of goods, more than ten people, plus laborers and boatmen.

The boat first drifted down the current for a while, bypassed the small island in the middle of the river, and started rowing to the opposite bank.

Li Xia stood at the bow of the boat and looked at it for a while, but remembered another poem by Li Bai.

"The mountains follow the plains, and the rivers flow into the wilderness."

He frowned suddenly, stared at the bottom of the boat for a while, then turned his head to look around.

There was a sudden "clang" sound, and a scabbard fell to the ground.

Because Li Xia had shackles on his hands, he couldn't pull the long sword out of its sheath directly, so every time he pulled the sword, he dropped the scabbard like this.

And with this sound, the sword in his hand was on Bai Mao's neck.

Bai Mao was standing there drowsy, and before he could react, he saw Li Xia pull out the sword and stab out, all in one go, the sword was already in front of him.

"This... this... everyone is a good brother, what are you going to do?"

"Undo my shackles."

"But... but my mother..."

"Your mother will be fine, but if you don't untie it for me, you will die now."

Bai Mao was terrified, and said again: "You don't mean to run away, do you? If you run away, I'll be miserable..."

"Don't talk nonsense, untie it."

~~
At the same time, Jiang Xing leaned against the cargo and sat in the cargo hold to doze off.

His waist knife was placed within easy reach.

Suddenly, he heard a "click", as if something had fallen on the boat.

Jiang Xing suddenly stood up.

The next moment, a hand stretched out from behind him, pressed his mouth, and the dagger quickly slashed across his neck.

With a sound of "呲", blood gushed out from Jiang Xing's neck, making a sound like a breeze, which was pleasant to hear.

A thin man was lying on the goods piled behind Jiang Xing.

This man was only wearing short shorts, but he was one of the laborers who moved the goods earlier.

He pressed Jiang Xing's mouth hard until the blood sprayed out, and then slowly put Jiang Xing's body down.

He bit the dagger in his mouth, raised his hand, and made a gesture.

In the cabin, two more men came out from the hiding place and responded to a gesture.

They just lowered their voices and started talking.

"Ten people, including a businessman, a scholar in shackles, and a thin servant. There are only seven guards. We killed three, and there are four more outside. The old snake can touch them and kill them all... ..."

(End of this chapter)