Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 816 The Exile

This year is a special day.

Thirty years old.

In the early morning, the stone house was as cold as an ice cellar, and Chen Zilong on the kang was also awakened by the freezing. He opened his eyes, but didn't get up right away.

Although today is New Year's Eve, there is no New Year's atmosphere here.He misses his family at the foot of the mountain, but this is Dangjin Pass, where the mountain is closed by ice and snow for nine months a year.

Chen Zilong, who was exiled in Dunhuang, once thought that he would go to the Dunhuang of the Western Regions described by the poets of the Han and Tang Dynasties, the desert solitary smoke straight down the long river and the sun, and the Western Regions where there are no old people from Yumen in the west.

As a result, who knew that they only stopped for a few days in the beautiful oasis outside the Great Wall Dunhuang, and were finally sent to Dangjin Pass to guard the fort.

His whole family was dispatched to graze cattle and sheep by Sugan Lake in the south of the mountain pass.

The condition of Jinshan Pass was very bad, with nine months of ice and snow in a year, but the location was very important. It was located in the south of Dunhuang, at the junction of Qilian Mountain and Altun Mountain. The mountain was steep and the ice and snow period was long.

Now it belongs to Dunhuang County, Anxi Prefecture, Gansu Province, Ming Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, it was the Andingwei established by the imperial court to belong to the Mongols. It was Ruoqiang in Han Dynasty and Tubo in Tang Dynasty.

It was originally the land of Uighurs in Sali. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Buyan Tiemuer, his clan, was appointed as the guard of King Ning. In the third year of Hongwu, the Ming Dynasty sent envoys to appease him. In the seventh year, Buyantiemuer sent envoys to pay tribute. For armor, swords, etc., Zhu Yuanzhang rewarded Bu Yantie Mu'er, divided them into four parts, and conferred duties on the bronze seal, namely A Duan, A Zhen, Ruo Xian and Tie Li.

In the eighth year, the guard house was set up, and Bu Yantie Mu'er was named King Anding.

The area where Bu Yantie Mu'er is located is very large, with four guards set up, reaching the Altyn Mountains in the north, Kunlun Mountains in the south, and Xite Mountain by the small Qaidam Lake in the east. Mainly, but there are also many wetlands, grasslands and lakes with rich water and grass.

Later, after Yongli’s Andingwei civil strife, the Mongolian Yibula tribe invaded during the Zhengde period, and then it was invaded by Duoerzhiba, and then the invasion and occupation of Yaerqiang. The Seven Guards of Kansai, including Dunhuang and Yumen, and Hami were completely abandoned by the Ming Dynasty and occupied by Yarkand.

After lying down, Chen Zilong finally got up and sat up. He dressed quickly without any delay, it was too cold, although he had gradually adapted to the climate here.

When he first arrived, his head was swollen and he almost thought he would die here. He already knew it was called altitude sickness. When Jinshan Pass was nearly 700 meters above sea level, he grew up in the south of the Yangtze River and had severe altitude sickness.

If you can't die, you have to continue to hold on, and you will get used to it slowly.

The summer here is still very beautiful, but the summer is too short.

The weather at Dangjinshan Pass is dangerous and the location is still remote, but here it is very important.

When Heshuo Tegushi Khan of Oirat Mongolia went to Qinghai Weizang, he led the Oirat allied forces to join forces from Yili and then went south, crossed the Dangjin Pass, crossed the Tarim Basin, and arrived at the shore of Qinghai Lake.

When Jinshan Pass is located in the west of Gansu, the northwest of Qinghai, and the southeast of Southern Xinjiang, it is at the intersection of the three major plates, and it is still an important route pass.

Since Daming took advantage of Oirat's attack on Hami Turpan last time, he took advantage of the opportunity to recover the Guanxi guards, and stationed troops here. When Jinshan Pass is an important place, naturally he will not let it go.

Put on the sheepskin robe, still shivering from the cold.

On the kang, the other guards were still sleeping soundly. This room is not big, but a group of people fell asleep.

Before the closure of the mountain, the guards will be changed once, and after the closure is lifted, they will be changed again.

Chen Zilong is an exile with a low status. In fact, there are not many good people who can be sent to this kind of place. There are thieves, murderers, robbers, rebellious refugees, and slaves who kill their masters. Many people were originally a capital crime, but the imperial court exiled these criminals who should have been executed in the name of saints and benevolence, and exiled them to remote places to guard the border.

Many people were exiled and relocated from the whole family or even the whole clan. Their families live at the foot of the mountain, grazing and farming here, and the young and strong will be selected to take on the task of guarding in rotation.

Don't even try to escape when you come here, and there is nowhere to escape.

They can escape, but they cannot escape with their families.

Besides, where to escape?
Yarkand in the north, Heshuote Mongolia in the south, or the Tangut people?Here they can only hug together to keep warm, and can only work hard to live, for themselves and their families.

In the past, Chen Zilong was the leader of the Fushe, a talented man in the south of the Yangtze River, a great talented man who was admired even by the courtesans on the Qinhuai River, a romantic figure, and even Liu Rushi was once his housewife.

But here now, he is nothing more than an exile on the frontier.

Quickly opened the door and the curtain, and closed it again after going out. It was already bright outside, and as far as the eye could see, there were snow-capped mountains and peaks connected to each other.

The magnificent scenery used to make him intoxicated, but now he has no interest in reciting poems. The first thing to consider here is survival, not romance.

He turned and went into the stove, a low stone hut, and started a fire.

It was too cold, he had to melt the ice and boil water for cooking.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of food here now. Before the heavy snow closed the mountains, Hong Chengchou and Wu Sangui not only added many beacon fortresses in Kansai, restored many passes, but also sent some more soldiers and sent some exiles. There are also many supplies for the winter, ranging from food to clothing, salt, and so on.

When the garrison personnel at Jinshan Pass also reached a post, there were three platoons and more than 100 people. They not only sent rice and wheat, but also slaughtered frozen fat sheep and cattle and frozen fish.

The dry leaves were ignited, adding leaves and twigs, the fire started, adding the stored dry cow dung, the fire in the stove was red and red, making him feel very warm.

Roasting the fire and boiling the water, he sat in this strange and difficult place that was not like a human being, and he couldn't help doubting himself again.

who am I?
where am I?
What am I going to do?
The mountain is blocked by heavy snow and news is blocked. Basically, no one will cross the mountain pass. Even herdsmen or caravans, whether selling salt, tea or cattle and horses, will not cross the mountain pass in such a season. It is too dangerous.

These people stay here, and sometimes they don't see a single person passing by for a month or two.

He hadn't seen his family for several months. He trekked all the way from the Central Plains to exile in the Western Regions. When hundreds of members of his family finally arrived at the shore of Sugan Lake, more than a dozen people had died on the way.

After settling down here, it is also difficult for them to adapt to the new life, life is too difficult.

Before going up the mountain, he heard that Hong Chengchou, Wu Sangui, and the others had quelled the Shaanxi-Gansu Hui Rebellion, and Mira Yinding Guodong and others were also wiped out. He wanted to go to them and see if they could change the situation.

But there is no chance, no documents to guide them, and they can't even leave the station a hundred miles away.

As an officer of Jinshankou Guancheng, a man from Guanzhong with a fierce face, he ignored his request at all, and he even suspected that he didn't understand his own words at all.

Here, no one cares where you are from, nor your past.

Here, they have only one identity in common, the exile.

When the water boiled, Chen Zilong got up and cooked pimple soup, which was simple and convenient.

After his meal was cooked, another four people from his class came over, and they all sat in silence by the fire, drinking pimple soup, and eating steamed potato seeds.

After eating and drinking, he got up reluctantly, went to the warehouse to get the weapons, and started patrolling.

There is a post stationed in the pass, and there are three platoons below, one platoon has three teams, and one team is divided into three squads.

A team of 15 people, a class of five.

The post is divided into three shifts to ensure that there are people on duty 24 hours a day.

The people on duty are divided into three groups, one group is fixed guard, one group is patrolling outside, and the other group is on standby to guard, and they come by turns.

There is no wind or snow outside today, and there is still some sunshine.

It looked very peaceful and beautiful.

However, Chen Zilong knows that the beauty outside hides murderous intentions. The high altitude, extreme cold weather, and snowstorms that may appear at any time may take the lives of the patrolling guards outside at any time.

But the chief whistler from Guanzhong didn't care about their lives. Whoever dared to be lazy and disobeyed orders would be dealt with by military law. Those who were light were whipped, or stripped naked to climb ice and lie on the snow, and those who were serious were beheaded directly.

That is a black Hades.

It doesn't matter if he can't read or write, he used to be the leader of Fushe, or he used to be an official minister and assistant minister, and he didn't have any special treatment.

Added two more layers to the body, then picked up the weapon and went out to patrol through the thick snow.

"When the seal is lifted next year, it is estimated that Yarkand will be wiped out?"

"Definitely, I heard that the saints will go to Dunhuang to celebrate the New Year. All the Mongolian tribes in Mobei and Moxi will come to worship. Hong Chengchou, Wu Sangui, Zhang Yong, these killing gods will lead the way, and there will be the emperor's imperial camp guards, plus the various tribes of Mongolia. Can Erqiang survive?"

"When the Yarkand is extinct, do we not need to stay on the mountain for the winter in the future, but can directly spend the winter at the foot of the mountain?"

"In your dreams!"

"Even if the entire Western Regions belong to Daming, it has nothing to do with us damn exiles."

Chen Zilong listened to the four people in the same class talking there, but did not interrupt. The few people in his class were not good birds, and even in his opinion, they were despicable people, some murdered and robbed, and some raped women. There are also deserters, he is ashamed to be with this group of people, but Hei Hades has nothing to do with it, but he is unwilling to chat with them.

"The mountain is covered by heavy snow, and there are no ghosts. What are we guarding here? If we can still see people, maybe even meet girls, even if we can't do it, at least we can enjoy our eyesight, right? Damn, there isn't even a live ewe on the mountain now."

"Come on, wait until the lockdown is lifted, and then you can go home after changing shifts, family reunions, farming and grazing."

"Damn it, I'm a bachelor, and the whole family died in the year of Chongzhen."

"Then behave well, maybe you will be assigned a female prisoner, or you can save some money and ask an exile's daughter to start a family."

The fierce old bachelor in his 40s looked at Chen Zilong with a smile, "I said, Lao Chen, do you have a suitable daughter? How about marrying me?"

Chen Zilong stared at him, but said in a low voice, "Get lost!"

(End of this chapter)