Lu Ming

Chapter 682 Returning to the North (seven)

After the Yixinlong caravan bid farewell to the Beijing-Tianjin Expressway and set foot on the official dirt road of the Ming Dynasty, everything slowed down.

The most intuitive thing is the speed per hour. The daily mileage of the team has dropped from the [-]-mile high-speed straight to the ordinary grade of [-]-[-] miles.

Fortunately, this rhythm is the daily routine of the caravan traveling north and south, and the expressway is the alternative of the era, so everyone in the caravan expressed their emotional stability.

Of course, if you insist on hurrying, the team can still run at a speed of fifty miles per day.However, this kind of one-shot deal has prerequisites: either it is an emergency to avoid natural disasters or man-made disasters, or it is the last stop of the journey, and there is no need to care about manpower and horsepower.

Therefore, during the rest of the safe and sound journey, the experienced caravan still held the rhythm steadily.The convoy travels up to [-] miles a day, and would rather stay in a safe place early than miss the destination in order to hurry.

But in this way, Young Master Wu, the only scholar in the caravan who can be regarded as precious, began to suffer: now he has to get out of the car and walk frequently, instead of lying down and waiting to arrive at the station.

The reason is simple: bumps.

People in later generations drive by themselves, and after traveling hundreds of miles a day, they still have enough energy to drink a drink and get a girl a room.The development of science and technology has made people in later generations lack a deep understanding of the term "travel fatigue".

So how to experience the journey of the ancients?

Simple: Remove the hydraulic shock absorption system on the car, then remove the outer tire to leave the wheel hub, and finally, throw away the leather shock-absorbing seat. In this way, it is similar to the bump difference of the ancients.

Next, please drive such a car, find a washboard road near a remote town, and drive slowly. Half a day?

In fact, it doesn't take half a day at all.

It only needs to drive at a fast speed for two hours, and later generations will lie down in their own vomit and bile, and call 120 urgently for help.

This is the reason why Young Master Wu has to get out of the car and walk frequently: on dirt roads covered with messy ruts, with one foot deep and one foot shallow, it is often not suitable to lie flat.

Seven days after the Yixinlong caravan set off from Tianjin City, it arrived at the city of Bazhou, Hebei smoothly.

Bazhou is the center of the Hebei Plain.This place is well connected with flourishing commercial roads and a thriving service industry. It is an important finishing node for merchants traveling from south to north.

Yi Xinlong was not immune this time.After settling down at a familiar big car shop in Bazhou City, shopkeeper Wu ordered the unloading.

Unloading means a major overhaul.Generally speaking, the large convoys that have completed the first half of their trip will rest in Bazhou City for three to five days before setting off again.

Compared with doing business in other areas of Ming Dynasty, Yixinlong's journey from Tianjin to Bazhou this time is quite easy.

Not to mention the "scratching" of a section of the expressway before, even the remaining roads are within the sphere of influence of Tianjin Feihuying.Therefore, the team has traveled all the way, it is really safe and secure, and all members are in good health.

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From Tianjin to Bazhou, on the map, it roughly draws a horizontal line.The caravan went from the far right side of the Hebei Plain near the sea, all the way parallel to the left, and came to Bazhou in the middle of the plain.

Next, after the caravan departs from Bazhou, it will still go left along the map and draw a horizontal line.

This time, the horizontal line will be raised slightly to the northwest, ending at the westernmost point of the Hebei Plain: Yi County.

Yi County is at the foot of the vertical Taihang Mountains.

The Taihang Mountains are the wall that separates the Hebei Plain and the Shanxi Plateau.

The Yixinlong caravan will eventually start from Yi County and enter the Taihang Mountains.Next, the caravan will pass through the world-famous dangerous places, the two natural dangers of Taihang Eight Xing: Puyin Xing and Feihu Xing.

Passing through these two dangerous mountain paths is equivalent to passing through the Taihang Mountains.

At the other end of Taihang Mountain is the Wu family's lair: Weizhou, Shanxi.

This time, Yixinlong's caravan spent four days resting in Bazhou City, adjusting the condition of all the people, animals, and vehicles to the best.

In the early morning of the fifth day, facing the snowflakes flying all over the sky and the howling cold wind, the convoy returned to its full blood and embarked on the journey back to the north again.

Going west all the way out of Bazhou City, it is still an official road sunken deep in the ground.This so-called official road is covered with deep and messy ruts.

In the cold northern winter, the rut marks are frozen solid.Walking on this kind of striped road, be careful to slip and sprain your feet at any time.Whether it is people, livestock or vehicles, more energy is required to deal with it.

In the face of bad weather, Wu Fazheng and Wu Daxiu could no longer pretend to be a scholar.At this time, he was wearing a thick blue army cotton coat, wearing a Leifeng cap with ear protectors down, his hands in his sleeves, his head lowered, trying his best to avoid the oncoming wind and snow. It's full of hoarfrost, just like the second uncle who went through the Guandong.

Just like this, the first day the caravan left Bazhou, they only traveled [-] miles before finding a place to camp.

The days that followed were lackluster.The convoy seems to have copied the previous template, and it is on the road every day in the desolate and snowy fields of northern China in the seventeenth century.

Ultimately, however, something is different.

On the third day after leaving Bazhou, Young Master Wu encountered a large group of "long-lost" refugees on the official road.

There are quite a few refugees in this group, about 300 people. They look unkempt and emaciated.Dragging out a long formation of refugees on the dirt road, it was obvious that they had driven for a long time, and all of them looked exhausted.

Most of the refugee gangs consisted of adult men, most of whom wore tattered homespun clothes.Even though it is already cold winter, many of them are still wearing single clothes, exposing large areas of festered skin.These people hunched over, shivering in the cold wind, and moved forward with all their strength.

Most of the refugees carry cloth bags or bamboo baskets, and hold a bamboo pole in their hands. This is the last weapon to prevent themselves from being snatched away by wild dogs.

Following the loud whistle of Wu Qian, the leader of the guards, all the guards of the caravan immediately unsheathed their knives, wound their arrows, and led their horses to protect the vehicle.

"Okay, sir, let's have a treat!"

At the moment when the two forces intertwined, countless pairs of black arms stretched out, and on the faces of the refugees with chapped skin, only the whites of the eyes showed human color, which looked creepy.

"Get out of the way for Lao Tzu!"

The next moment, the guard, nicknamed Monk, and the other two fierce generals named Mute, holding wooden sticks and whips, yelled repeatedly, relying on their superb horse control skills, repeatedly rushed and smashed, and forcibly beat the refugees who were trying to stop the convoy. Spread out.

After this round, the refugees immediately realized the gap in strength and stepped aside.

As a result, the two sides, the caravan side, were on high alert, and slowly crossed with the refugee team.

Wu Fazheng was standing on the moving frame, holding the cargo rope in one hand and an iron ruler in the other, looking coldly at the begging or hateful eyes at his feet, showing no mercy at all.

Northerners who can live to adulthood in this era, even rich sons, have heard and seen the horror of refugees since childhood.

At this time, if you don't deal with it well, it's not a matter of losing a little property.

If the caravan had been a little weak just now and made these refugees clamor, there is no doubt that they would be besieged the next moment.He, Wu Fazheng, will soon turn into broken bones on the side of the road. His clothes have been ripped off, and the skin and flesh are boiled because of their tenderness. There are still residual tooth marks on the skeleton.

So Young Master Wu didn't dare to be careless at this moment, tensed up his body, ready to smash someone's head at any time.

In this way, in a state of full alert, the entire caravan tensed up, and it took a long time before they finally intersected with the refugee brigade.

Turning his head to look at the black shadow gradually going away, Wu Fazheng breathed a sigh of relief and sat back in the back of the car.

At this time, Wu Fazheng suddenly realized one thing: for a long, long time, he had not seen refugees or starved people on the road.

"When did it start?"

"Oh." Wu Fazheng recalled: "I went to Jiangnan last year, and I never saw Lu's dead body again."

Just when Master Wu was recalling a lot of stories, shopkeeper Wu, the team manager, beckoned Wu Qian to come over, and then whispered a few words in his ear.

After Wu Qian nodded and took the order, he prepared for a while, and then led the monk and the dumb two humming generals, three of them and three horses, with their long knives out of their sheaths, and turned around to catch up with the end of the refugee team.

Looking at the refugees who turned around blankly, Captain Wu waved his hand, and the two bundles were thrown in front of the horse.

The next moment, the bundles were scattered, and the yellow grains and steamed buns were scattered and rolled on the snow.

Facing the crowd that was slowly approaching, Wu Qian raised his voice and shouted: "Listen well, from here, go eastward for three days, and you will be Bazhou City. When you arrive at the ground, there will be Marshal Cao of Haidong to help you. Marshal Cao is unparalleled, I will teach you to eat and drink without worrying about it. Take the dry food and go for refuge quickly!"

After shouting the last word, Fourth Master Wu swung his saber and hit the horse, turned around to catch up with the convoy, and steadily escorted the group and the refugees away.
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In any port area where the traversers are located, the political propaganda system is the first department to enter the area to start work.

Even though most of the time-traveling crowd are low-level dicks, there are still a lot of sensible people after all-ideological struggles can never be taken lightly.

Over the years, although there is no deep-seated theory (the people who travel through time don't understand it), the publicity system has done a lot of superficial and easy-to-effect work.

For example: Ad soft text.

Nowadays, any teams that start from Tianjin and go to various parts of North China to do business, whenever they encounter refugees, they will more or less do what the convoy did just now, preaching a few words to the refugees.

Gein, these refugees will fall into the hands of Marshal Cao sooner or later.At that time, if the department in charge of political review finds that a certain caravan has not made a name for Cao Dashuai, then Cao Dashuai will be very angry, and the consequences
no way.The last coquettish operation of the guard just now was the "tacit understanding" of the "epiphany" after businessmen from all over the place and the "Tianjin Commercial and Trade Corporation" had "broken in" with each other a few times. It's a bit like 404 in the seventeenth century, invisible and tactile Less than, but everywhere.

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From this group of refugees, in the days that followed, the convoy began to frequently encounter skeleton-like starved corpses on the roadside and large groups of refugees.

The Yixinlong motorcade, relying on the strength of the guards, had no danger along the way, and finally arrived at Dingxing County four days later.

Dingxing is a large county in Hebei, where the famous Juma River runs through the county.Next, after the caravan passed Dingxing, it was not far from Yi County at the foot of Taihang, and it took two or three days at most.

So the convoy did not stop, and only set out after one night in Dingxing, leaving the city and going up Hebei, with the goal of Yi County - due to the terrain here, the convoy had to go up Juma Hebei first, bypassing a river and lake before arriving at the city. Go west to Yi County.

However, at noon that day, when the convoy was resting on the side of the road, Captain Wu Qian quietly came to shopkeeper Wu's stall, glanced at shopkeeper Wu and young master Wu with a gloomy face, and said in a low voice: "Boss shopkeeper, we are being held by the shopkeeper." Wild dogs are watching!"

(End of this chapter)