My house was confiscated and I was exiled. I emptied the emperor's warehouse and fled.

Qin Junyi saw him on the top of the mountain and asked Su Yunwan to wait and appear in front of Zhou Penghui.

"My lord, is it you?" Zhou Penghui said in doubt, but his tone implied confirmation.

Qin Junyi knew in his heart that Zhou Penghui had guessed his identity as early as the gate of the government office in Jizhou City, so he stopped hiding it and nodded: "You guessed it."

"Hehe, I have been with you for many years. If I don't even have this tacit understanding, it would be in vain." Zhou Penghui said with a smile, with confidence and pride on his face.

"I knew I couldn't hide it from you." Qin Junyi smiled and shook his head.

Then he got down to business: "The magistrate of Jizhou asked the garrison to send troops to bring back all the migrating people of Jizhou. At the moment, three thousand cavalry are still at the official post behind. You move forward at full speed. I will return to Youzhou first."

"Don't worry, my lord, with these three thousand horses, everyone can ride on horseback or in a cart, and the traveling speed can be much faster. In the end, these people will be brought back to Youzhou."

"Very good. When I go back, I will send someone to come and take care of you."

The two said a few more words, and then Zhou Penghui returned to the camp.

When Qin Junyu saw him coming back, he wanted to ask something, but because there were people around him, he didn't say anything.

Many other people curiously asked him where the horse came from. Zhou Penghui said loudly: "It was sent by Mr. Wu and Mrs. Wu. They also brought bad news. The prefect of Jizhou wanted to send out troops because he was afraid of being blamed by the superiors. Take you back!"

"What should we do? We don't want to go back!"

"He himself abandoned the city and fled. Does he want us to go back and wait to die?"

"I'm not going to sleep anymore. Let's run away quickly."

"Yes, yes, hurry up."

"..."

No one was sleepy at all, and the more they talked, the more panicked they became. The impatient person began to pack his luggage.

Zhou Penghui stretched out his hands and pressed it: "Don't panic, everyone. Let's move forward at full speed and not let the soldiers catch up. Now everyone listen, those who can ride a horse stand on the left, and those who can drive a car stand on the right... ."

As the arrangements were implemented one by one, the team was quickly assembled. Everyone traveled by carriage (horse) and continued to move forward with torch lighting.

After daybreak, the cavalryman at the post station woke up and found that he had been hit. He hurried out to park the horse and saw that there was no horse on the field. He was shocked and angry.

Without their horses, they were like birds with broken wings, how could they catch up with the migrating people!

The post manager, Yi Cheng, was also frightened when he heard about this incident. He quickly abdicated his responsibility: "This kind of thing has never happened to me. It was not done by our internal people, absolutely not."

"Do you have a horse? Lend me one and return to the camp quickly to report to the general." The captain bit his cheek and asked angrily, clenching his fists.

Yi Cheng wiped his sweat and said: "No, there is only a donkey carrying goods."

Captain: "...a donkey is fine."

Afterwards, he asked all the soldiers to stay at the post station to wait for further instructions, and then he rode his donkey back to the camp.

The endurance and speed of the donkey were far inferior to those of the war horse. By the time he returned to the Jizhou army camp, it was already evening.

General Zhu was furious after hearing his report, "Who on earth did this! He was able to take away three thousand horses overnight!"

"The general guesses that the person who stole the horse and the person who stole the magistrate's courtyard must belong to the same group, and they are none other than the Qin family."

"Okay, very good." General Zhu said suddenly, his teeth itching with hatred, "Call the prefect to me immediately and ask him to pay for the horse!"

"General, are you just going to let the Qin family go?" The captain was stunned.

General Zhu glanced at it and said bitterly: "Otherwise, what else can we do? Do you think you can still chase us back? Our cavalry only has 5,000 troops, so why don't we send more horses to the other side?"

That magical drug was almost impossible to guard against. The other party was able to move the soldiers who fainted in the snow to the lobby, which meant that there was still a chance.

It's totally not worth it to get involved with the Qin family like this. But someone must be responsible for the lost war horse, and this person must be the prefect of Jizhou.

Since ancient times, cavalry has been the strongest force in war. As part of the cavalry, war horses are indispensable and must be replenished as quickly as possible.

Nowadays, raising war horses requires a lot of manpower and material resources. Each horse eats more than ten times the feed of an ordinary soldier.

It is no exaggeration to say that the land and cost of raising one horse are enough to support more than twenty people.

The horses of the Great Zhou Dynasty were uniformly bred and managed by the imperial court, especially the fine war horses, which were firmly controlled by the official offices established by the imperial court.

Now if we want to hide this matter, we can only go to the north to purchase goods outside the customs.

The price of a good horse is as high as more than one hundred taels of silver, and the price of three thousand horses is at least more than three hundred thousand taels.

When the prefect heard the bad news, he was so anxious that he jumped up and down: "All my money has been stolen, how can I get any money? This matter is clearly due to the negligence of your cavalry, and it has nothing to do with me! "

"It's because of you that I was robbed. If you dare to shirk your responsibility, I will report it to the court immediately and the court will allocate military pay."

"You! General Zhu, even if you make trouble in Kyoto, the court will never take the blame for you!"

"How will you know if you don't try? It's you who has destroyed the good situation in Jizhou City out of control. Let me see if you can save the head on your neck!"

"You deceive people too much!"

"It was you who knew the other party was unpredictable and didn't cancel the action quickly, causing me to lose my vitality!"

"..."

The two argued at each other for more than half an hour, but they still couldn't decide the outcome.

The prefect's money was wiped out. Even if shops, farmland and other assets were sold off, they would not be able to collect hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. And it was difficult for the people under the rule to exploit such huge amounts of money after years of drought and crop failure.

He asked General Zhou to chase the horses back, but General Zhu said that by the time they caught up, the other party would have already entered the territory of Youzhou.

The imperial court strictly stipulated that local garrison troops were not allowed to leave their garrison without permission, let alone trespass into the jurisdiction of other state capitals.

And asking Youzhou Mu for a war horse is even more impossible.

If Youzhou Mu is really capable of seizing war horses from the Qin family, he will also add more cavalry to strengthen his troops, and it is impossible to return them to the Jizhou army.

The prefect was forced to panic, so he broke the jar and smashed it, thinking that he would just die and let General Zhou never get another penny.

General Zhou was so angry that he directly drew his sword at him. The prefect's legs were trembling and he refused to beg for mercy.

Under the persuasion of his own soldiers, General Zhou took back his sword and ordered the magistrate to be detained, preventing him from mobilizing refugees from various counties under his rule to Jizhou City to make up for his losses.

A few days later, the two men each took a step back and shared the cost of buying the horse, and the tug-of-war came to an end.

Qin Junyi and Su Yunwan returned to Beiling Village as early as the night they transported the troops and horses.

At that time, the two people appeared at the entrance of the village. They had just walked a few steps and looked at the wall not far away, which was estimated to be six meters high, and looked at each other.

"Something must have happened."