My surname is Wang, my neighbor Wu Dalang

Chapter 345
In the second year of Xuanhe in the Song Dynasty, the seventh day of May.

Qingzhou is almost full of elites.

Yue Fei was the general, and Han Shizhong was the deputy general. He led nearly [-] cavalry out of Qingzhou, galloped to Henan, and then detoured around Qinfeng to reach the border of Xixia.

On the other side, Hu Sanniang and Liang Hongyu led a thousand female soldiers to escort the Chongde Emperor Ji who was close to Xixia, and then proceeded slowly.

Another route is that Wang Lin led Yan Qing and Yan Qing's two thousand tiger guards to attack the Hexi Corridor through Hebei for thousands of miles.

Almost at the same time, Chao Gai and Lu Zhishen set fire to the Liangshan Dazhai, set up five thousand soldiers and horses in Liangshan, swept away all the gold, silver, property and food reserves, and led the army northward to Dengzhou.

Fifty thousand iron cavalry is all Wang Lin's possessions so far.

Except for Hua Rong and Huang Xin guarding Qinglai, Guan Sheng, Xu Ning, Wu Song and others guarding the capital, all the generals under his command are out.

Yue Fei, Yan Qing, Han Shizhong, Zhang Jun, Liu Guangshi, Lu Junyi, Hu Yanzhuo, Dong Ping, Yanshun, Zheng Tianshou, Zhou Tong, Yang Zhi, Suo Chao, Luan Tingyu, Li Kui, Shi Jin, Hu Sanniang, Liang Hongyu, Tang Huai, Wang Gui, Niu Gao, Hu Cheng...

With [-] iron cavalry, Yue Fei ordered the overall dispatch in the middle.

Yan Qing commanded [-] tiger guards, while Han Shizhong, Lu Junyi, Hu Yanzhuo, and Dong Ping each commanded [-] troops.

The rest of the generals are under the command of five people.

The second year of Xuanhe in the Song Dynasty, May 27.

An iron cavalry broke into the territory of Dingyuan City under the jurisdiction of Qinfeng Road. This is the most prosperous city near the border of Song and Xia.

The hot wind is blowing, and the scenery of Ganlong is very different from that of Hebei and Shandong. This lonely city lies on the boundless Gobi Desert. At a glance, it looks desolate and simple.

Two thousand Tiger Guards, full of travel and dust, camped outside the city. The soldiers each took dry food bags and water bottles from their horses, stuffed a handful of fried noodles into their mouths, and poured water at the same time.

Of course, this is also Wang Lin's original marching ration.

I still remember that "one bite of fried noodles, one bite of snow" became synonymous with our army on the Korean battlefield.

It is a huge project to transport food and grass in the operation of a large army.

In order to increase the marching speed, Wang Lin popularized fried noodles among the Qingzhou army.

The long cloth bag carried by each Qingzhou soldier is filled with powder made from rice and miscellaneous grains, which can be eaten directly with water, and can maintain rations for 16 days if necessary.

According to Wang Lin's formula, fried noodles are basically made of 70% flour, 30% other rice noodles, plus 0.5% snowflake salt, stir-fried and mixed evenly.Each bag contains 20 catties, which is convenient for cavalry to carry.

Of course, such fried noodles have no nutritional value at all. They can only be used to satisfy hunger temporarily and are not suitable for long-term consumption.

Wang Lin rode on the horse and looked at the farther place behind Dingyuan City, but he could only see a piece of white clouds and gray dogs.

Yan Qing galloped over and handed over a pack of warm sauced meat: "My lord, let's eat some meat. We only ate fried noodles on this trip, and a bird can fade out of my mouth."

Wang Lin was not polite either, took it, bit off a piece, and asked while swallowing, "Where did the army and the peace mission go?"

"We have arrived in Suzhou. Liu Yanqing from the Lin Mansion and Qu Duan from Qin Feng sent troops to intercept our army, but were repelled by Yue Fei with the official document of the Privy Council and the gold medal bestowed by the prince."

Wang Lin pondered for a while before saying: "The army is temporarily camping in Suzhou, and rushed to Dingxi with the pro-envoys, ready to join us."

……

Dingyuan City.

In terms of scale, this city is at most a few tenths of Qingzhou City.

However, it is located on the border between the two countries, and it is a gathering place for businessmen and merchants, so the flow of people is prosperous, which is quite impressive.

Wang Lin and Yan Qing entered Dingyuan City with a few Tiger Guards in micro-clothes. The scene in front of them was actually not quite like Han soil.

To be precise, there are very few Han people, and the foreign races or Xixia people, Tubo people, Western Regions people, or more distant Mongols who are several times larger than the Han people occupy most of the entire city.

Nearly all the streets in the city are shops selling food, wine and meat, and there are many hawkers who barbecue on the street. The smell of burnt meat is mixed with the smell of sweat and dust, giving off a choking smell.

There was a sea of ​​people in front of them, Wang Lin, Yan Qing and the others strolled along, and stood outside and saw a strange scene through the crowd:

On a board lay a naked woman.

This woman has protruding cheekbones and sunken eye sockets. She is not a Han Chinese at first glance.

A burly man was holding a machete, like a sharp knife for slaughtering cattle, but it seemed wrong, he stood beside the woman and shouted: "Sell it for a penny, and sell it for fifty cents!"

"Look carefully, I will cut off whichever piece you see in the picture!"

The crowd around the audience laughed, and there were actually many people dressed as Han government servants among them.

Wang Lin gasped: Selling living people?

Or the legendary "vegetable man"?
Although the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty were chaotic, it was not to the point of cannibalism, right?

Wang Lin winked.

Yan Qing immediately took out a piece of silver from her bosom and threw it over: "This woman, so-and-so bought it, let her go!"

The man was naked from the upper body, with glaring black hair on his chest.

He tipped the piece of silver given by Dian Yanqing, and laughed contentedly: "Guest officer, look at it, this is just a Xixia woman, not worth the money, but if you are willing to give it, I will sell it, but I will sell it to you." The ugly words come to the fore, if you buy it and leave it, it will not be refunded at all!"

Yan Qing sneered: "Stop talking nonsense and let me go."

The man stopped talking nonsense, and directly cut off the rope that bound the woman with the knife in his hand.

The woman shivered and propped herself up, climbed up from the wooden plank, and then, to everyone's surprise, she neither thanked Wang Lin and the others, nor turned around and ran away, but pounced on and bit the A man's thigh.

Before everyone could react, the Xixia woman had already bit off a piece of flesh from the man's leg, her mouth was bloody, and she spat on the ground with a puff.

The man screamed in pain, and stabbed the woman's chest with a sharp knife in his hand.

Wang Lin frowned, and suddenly kicked the man out.

Sure enough, as Wang Lin expected, most of the people who can make a living in the border towns, especially those who openly sell vegetables like that man, have connections with the officials.

Wang Lin and his entourage rescued this woman named Yilu. In fact, she was not from Xixia, but from Uyghur. She was originally a girl from a good family, but was deceived by a caravan of Uyghur. After several rounds, she was sold to Dingyuan in Song Dynasty city.

They wandered around the city again, and just as they were about to leave the city, they saw an army of more than a hundred soldiers approaching from the east of the city, and the leader was the man who was kicked away by Wang Lin.

……

Dingyuan was under the jurisdiction of Gengxincheng County. Ma Wensheng, the county magistrate stationed in Xincheng County in Dingyuan City, and Song Lin, the leader of the garrison, heard that the special envoy of the imperial court had arrived, and brought people here in a panic.

Seeing Wang Lin's well-dressed clothes, he guessed that he was a big shot in the court. He looked up and caught a glimpse of the token of the King of Qi in Yan Qing's hand. He was so frightened that he knelt on the ground and apologized.

"My lord, I don't know that my lord is here, I deserve death, and I ask my lord to move to the city to rest." Ma Wensheng kowtowed repeatedly.

At this time, the two thousand tiger guards stationed outside the city had already arrived at the city.

Wang Lin originally came to the border, just to check and understand the situation of the Xixia Army, but from Dingyuan City, it seems that the Xixia people have deployed heavy troops on the right side of Jingyuan City and the direction to the north.

Wang Lin said calmly: "Maxian Chancellor, in the territory of Song Dynasty, there are traders selling human flesh. As officers and soldiers, you turned a deaf ear to it. What should we do?"

Ma Wensheng said with a wry smile: "Your Majesty doesn't know this. This is the case with all the cities on the border of Xixia. I have very few Han people, and most of them are barbarians. Therefore, people of different races sell each other, and the localities basically turn a blind eye. Generally not investigated..."

"Of course, if a foreigner dares to insult our Han people, that's a different matter, and they will definitely be punished severely!"

Wang Lin frowned: "Forget it, let me ask you, the Western Xia army has [-] troops on our border, why is there such a gap in Dingyuan City?"

Ma Wensheng said: "If you want to return to the prince, this place is an important place for the caravans of Uighur, Xixia and other countries in the Western Regions. In fact, the purpose of setting up a distant city in Song Dynasty is mainly to collect taxes."

"It is true that Western Xia has deployed heavy troops on our border recently, but most of them are in the direction of Weizhou and Jingyuan. Therefore, there is a large desert between Xingzhou, the capital of the Western Xia people, and the army cannot be deployed. Therefore, the Western Xia people have never deployed heavy troops here."

"How did the merchant get there?"

"Returning to the prince, merchants usually go down the river from Xingzhou, the capital of the Western Xia Dynasty, to Dingyuan for a transit, and then go to Tubo or the southwest of our Great Song Dynasty."

Going down the river... Wang Lin murmured, this obviously refers to the Yellow River.

If this is the case, his plan to lead an army to raid the capital of Xixia from Dingyuan is basically going to fail.

Crossing the vast desert, don't even think about it.

Wang Lin wants to train soldiers, but he can't just watch the soldiers die.

Thinking of this, Wang Lin waved his hands and said, "Okay, everyone, let's get back. This king will escort Chongde Emperor Ji and Xi Xia, and will stay in Dingxi City temporarily.

Quickly inform Qu Duan and negotiate with the Xixia people as soon as possible. At least next month, this king will escort Emperor Chongde to enter Xixia to get married! "

……

Wang Lin led [-] tiger guards to rest in Dingyuan City for a day to replenish supplies.

However, he rejected Ma Wensheng's request to enter the city for resettlement, and camped outside the city with the army horse as usual.

Yan Qing ordered people to light a fire and roast a lamb sent by Ma Wensheng.

The Uighur woman named Yilu changed into a Song dress, cleaned her face and washed her face, she was quite pretty.

Yilu knelt down beside Wang Lin, assisting the soldiers to use the blades to cut the freshly roasted mutton.

"My lord, since the direction of Dingyuan is not feasible, we can only go straight to Lingzhou from the direction of Jingyuan. This Lingzhou was originally my hometown in the Song Dynasty, and it was occupied by Xixia people in the previous dynasty."

"But on this line, Xixia has deployed heavy defenses. If our army wants to advance, the casualties will not be small. And if we can't take the Xixia King City in the shortest time, we will fall into the siege of the Xixia army."

"Also, we have to cross the river..."

Yilu next to him suddenly interjected in blunt Chinese: "My lord, this official from Dingyuan City is not a good person. He has cheated on Xixia people, and he will strip all the passing caravans."

"He didn't tell the truth. From Dingyuan, detour to Xiliang, and then go northeast, you can avoid the desert and go straight to the Xixia King City."

"I walked this road."

Wang Lin suddenly looked at Yilu, but didn't speak for a long time.

If Ma Wensheng's words were not to be trusted, then this strange foreign woman might not be either.

(End of this chapter)