That Person In That River and Lake

  Chapter 108 Some people died, but he was still alive

There is wind outside the window, and the wind blows in with fine snow. The coal fire emits weak flames and crackles. The temperature in the room is very high. As soon as you come in, it becomes much warmer, but the breath from your mouth and nose is natural. Instantly turned into white mist.

   Gu Qingci was sitting, and sitting in front of him was Wu Kui, the head of Qianli Village, and Hu Yue, the second head of the village.

  Looking silently at the dim light of the fire, after a while, Gu Qingci handed the token in his hand to Hu Yue, and said, "You two, Ouchi guards, why did you come here to be horse thieves?"

   Token, a token unique to the guards in the Great Xia State University.

Gu Qingci has been the county magistrate for a year, and the various tokens within the imperial court can naturally be distinguished. However, he never expected that the horse thief he was going to kill was actually the imperial guard, the role played by the emperor's personal soldiers. .

Wu Kui coughed softly, stretched out his hands tremblingly to the charcoal fire, and said slowly: "It's been nearly twenty years, and at that time, like you, Mr. Gu, I was also in my youth. , high-spirited, passed through layers of selection in the army, and became a Ouchi bodyguard."

"I remember that year when I was not yet twenty-five years old, His Majesty personally arranged for me to come to Shiwan Dashan with my second child. We came here with a mission of more than forty people. At that time, we didn't expect it. After staying for nearly twenty years, even the emperor is no longer the former emperor, but we are still here, and we don’t know if we will have the chance to return to the Central Plains in this lifetime.”

Gu Qingci suddenly had a throbbing feeling in his heart. Although he didn't know what mission Wu Kui and Hu Yue had come with, but it's been nearly twenty years since they left their hometown. admired.

   "You guys, what mission are you here to perform, can you tell me?" Gu Qingci asked.

   "Cough...cough cough..."

  Wu Kui just opened his mouth to prepare, and immediately coughed violently. Hu Yue hastily patted Wu Kui's back lightly. When Wu Kui calmed down a little, he said, "You can talk to Mr. Gu!"

Hu Yue suddenly sighed, and said: "Twenty years ago, the first emperor accidentally learned that the Han people here in Shiwan Dashan were living in poverty and being oppressed by foreigners, so he couldn't bear it. Due to the situation, I dare not send troops.”

Gu Qingci is very clear about the form of the Xia Kingdom. Not to mention twenty years ago, even if the current emperor is ambitious and actively reforms, the Xia Kingdom has become much stronger in recent years, but the situation is still tense. Several countries are eyeing each other. Nominally belonged to the Xia Kingdom, but actually died in name only.

Hu Yue looked at Gu Qingci's expression and knew that Gu Qingci must understand the form of the Xia Kingdom, so he stopped explaining and continued: "In order to make the people of the Xia Kingdom in the Hundred Thousand Mountains live better, the late emperor quietly sent Da Nei The guards are divided into several groups and arranged to come to Shiwan Dashan, in order not to attract the attention of other countries, we can only pretend to be horse thieves."

Wu Kui also sighed and said: "We are the third group here, there are more than forty people together. Over the years, in order to live up to the late emperor's entrustment, only three or four old brothers are left alive. They died in the battle with the Xianbei, but even if they die, they cannot get the honor they deserve..."

Hearing this, Gu Qingci's mood became very complicated. I don't know why, but suddenly remembered the frontier soldiers who guarded the territory of the motherland alone. They were not like Wu Kui and the others, and some even dedicated their entire lives to the frontier. However, how many people know about them, how many people remember their achievements, and how many people get the honor they deserve!

There is another kind of people who work as undercover agents in order to carry out missions, like Wu Kui and the others. They may have sacrificed their lives but have not been able to recover their true identities. They are actually true heroes, but the world knows them only as bandits. One level of identity, it is possible that their descendants will be labeled with this label.

"It's not just us," Hu Yue said, "there are several Han bandit dens in the Shiwanda Mountain. In fact, they were all the guards of the Great Household. After the new emperor succeeded to the throne and sent people to contact us, most of us , or choose to continue to stay, let some young people come here... After all, that is another lifetime, anyway, we have been here for most of our lives!"

  Gu Qingci took a deep breath, suppressed the complexities in his heart, and asked: "But why do I see you robbing the grain of the Han people by force, and I also heard that you slaughtered villages and killed people?"

"Ah," Wu Kui shook his head, and said, "We have a lot of Xianbei people in the area of ​​Niutong Mountain, and they often come to Han villages to wreak havoc. We spend most of our time confronting or fighting with Xianbei people. How can we have time for ourselves?" To prepare more food, and it is impossible for the imperial court to give us food and grass."

"Another point is that we are horse thieves. We have to cover up well enough. Horse thieves don't rob, how can it be possible? However, we have never robbed a lot. Mr. Gu, you should have seen it all the way here. Do you think we demand Do you have a lot of food?"

   "Uh..." Gu Qingci thought about it for a while, nodded, and said, "It's almost the same as paying taxes to the court!"

Wu Kui nodded and said: "We all collect monthly tributes according to the court's tax requirements. As for the massacre of villages and murders, most of them are fake news that we deliberately released. First, it is to deceive people. Second, it is to Establish among the people that we are horse thieves, a very cruel image."

"The Han people who were actually killed by our Qianli Village were all those who colluded with foreigners, and the so-called massacre of the village was nothing more than taking the blame for the Xianbei people. However, we are also willing to take the blame and ingrain the murderous reputation. "

Gu Qingci listened, although Wu Kui's tone was very flat, but his heart was surging like a river. He didn't ask about Hu Yue beating people in that village, and even said that he robbed other people's wives. No need to ask, he knew it was why.

   It's nothing more than Wu Kui's reputation as a villain, because there is something called the human heart.

If Qianlizhai didn't show a little toughness in harvesting grain, those people would get even more aggressive. Even if they knew that some circumstances were special, the precedent could not be set. If they didn't kill people, they had to act like they were killing people, and they had to scare ordinary people. .

   Moreover, most of them are really horse thieves. It is normal to kill people, even if they really kill the sixth son, Gu Qingci does not intend to take revenge!

  What is a Xia? What is saving people?

  In order to stand up for the old sixth son, or the people in that village...kill Hu Yue and hurt more people?

  The most important thing is that Gu Qingci doesn't want to kill Hu Yue now, there is not much reason, he doesn't want to kill, he just doesn't want to kill!

Gu Qingci and Wu Kui and Hu Yue chatted for a long time until midnight. Wu Kui had to rest due to physical reasons, so he gave up. Moreover, Wu Kui's serious injury was to protect the Han people and fight the Xianbei people. Time to get hurt!

When leaving, Wu Kui said: "Master Gu, please don't tell Xiao Li about my identity. I may never have the chance to return to the Central Plains in my life, but I hope Xiao Li can go back to my hometown for me. I remember , my hometown is actually very beautiful..."

That night, Gu Qingci stood by the window, looking at the snow, he thought a lot, he thought he was a hero, but when he faced Wu Kui, Hu Yue, and those who died in the frontier and no one cared about him... A true hero, he knows that in this world, there is a kind of greatness called obscurity!

  The protected people don’t know they are protected at all, and they still hate the hero who protects them, but the hero just smiles because he knows that he protects the weak!

There is a kind of person with iron bones, regardless of the frost, snow, or wind and sand, he will guard the frontier, maybe ten years, maybe a lifetime, maybe thousands of years from now, buried in a foreign land, no one knows, but he has no complaints, Still insist!

That person died, and the world said it was a good death, because he was a horse thief, but when he fell down, he smiled. He felt that he deserved to die. !

   Some people died, but he is still alive!

  Some people live, he should live...

   Thanks to the book friend "Haiyan Nianger" for the 2000 starting point reward.

  (end of this chapter)