Overlord's Road to Ancient Emperors

The team moved rapidly to the southwest, and only rested for three hours a day. On the third day, they rested in a ruined temple.

The people of South Vietnam generally believe in Buddhism, and there are many temples, but in the turmoil four years ago, many pirates chose to hide in the temples in order to avoid the pursuit of the Kou army. This is used to evade investigation, but the people are not stupid. There must be a problem with a group of vicious monks who worshiped in the temple all the year round.

After the pirates were wiped out, some of these temples were taken over by nearby monks, while some small temples were abandoned. The statues of the gods in the temples still stood solemnly in the center of the main hall, looking at the people staying overnight with compassion.

At night, the scouts who went out to explore the road came back quietly, walked up to Kou Xiao and reported, "General, a suspicious person has been found in the woods to the west."

Kou Xiao opened his eyes, his gaze was like a torch, "Who are they? How many people are there?"

"There are more than fifty of them, wearing short brown straw sandals, wearing bamboo hats, and a dozen bullock carts. The bullock carts are covered with cloth, but the ruts on the road are very deep. In addition, these people said I can't understand the words, and some of them look like foreigners."

"Foreign race? From the north?"

"I can't tell the difference from the humble staff, but they look similar to Li Maosheng. They are all red-haired and green-eyed, tall and tall, and these people should be the leaders of that group."

"This is strange. The south and the north are separated by thousands of miles. How could foreigners come to the mountains and forests of South Vietnam? You can take Li Maosheng to see if you can recognize which tribe they belong to." Li Maosheng happened to be at this time In the team, this kid has honed himself in the military camp for a few months, and he has made rapid progress. He is born with supernatural power, and he is majestic with a pistol. Kou Xiao met him by chance and couldn't help but teach him a few tricks. Kou Xiao stuck to it.

"No." The scout went to the other side to wake up Li Maosheng, and the two of them ran into the woods quietly. The sleeves are light and breathable, so you can wash them in the evening and dry them overnight, which is very convenient.

Kou Xiao whistled and called everyone to be alert. After waiting for a quarter of an hour, the two came out of the woods, panting for breath, with a nervous look on their faces.

"It was discovered by them." The young soldier exclaimed.

Kou Xiao immediately gave an order, "Make formation, the crossbowmen are ready, once you see someone appearing, shoot the arm first, then the leg, don't kill the person unless it is absolutely necessary."

This is planning to capture the opponent alive, everyone quickly lined up and waited with bated breath.

A few light soldiers rushed up the dense trees, hiding among the leaves and watching the movement ahead.

But in a short time, there was a slight movement in the woods, and the soldiers hiding in the trees uttered cuckoo calls, but after waiting for a long time, no one came. Kou Xiao made a gesture and ordered: "It seems that they If you find something wrong and escape, send 200 crossbowmen into the woods to search, send a signal as soon as you find the other party's trace, and remind the other party, if you dare to escape, shoot and kill immediately."

This time the deputy general who came out with Kou Xiao was Zhao Gang. He ordered 200 people in the front row and ran into the woods. They were all soldiers trained in the forest every day. Once they entered the forest, they were as agile as cheetahs. No flutter.

Soon, the sound of stringing and shooting arrows came from the woods, followed by a few screams, but it didn't last long, and the woods returned to silence.

Kou Xiao called Li Maosheng and Li Maosheng for questioning. Li Maosheng wiped the sweat from his head and said, "General Qi, they are five Qiang people. They should be from the west. They pretended to be merchants and hired Dayan people to escort them. Good thing, Beizhi and Xiaowu wanted to get closer to see what was in their car, but they were discovered, so they were chased all the way."

"It saves the trick to lure the enemy, let's wait and see when they bring him back." Kou Xiao sent the two of them to rest, and then made a few more fires to illuminate the ruined temple.

After a stick of incense, Zhao Gang dragged a wailing man in his hand, threw it on the ground, and said in a low voice, "General, this man is the leader of their party. He babbled all the way, and his subordinates couldn't hear a word." I understand, I haven't had time to ask the rest yet."

Kou Xiao walked around the leader of the Qiang people, and saw that he had two crossbows stuck in his arms and thighs, his face and body were covered with scars from thorns, and his whole body looked like a blood gourd.

Kou Xiao raised his head with his feet, and asked in Mandarin: "Who are you? Why are you here?"

The other party was howling again, and Kou Xiao couldn't understand it. He could understand dozens of languages ​​spoken in Nanyue, but he had no chance to touch the bird language of foreign people.

He called Li Maosheng again and asked, "What is he talking about?"

Li Maosheng didn't fully understand it, but he could even make some guesses, "He seems to be saying that he is a businessman who walks around and came to South Vietnam to do business."

"Ask him, why do you want to chase after seeing you, and dare to run around in front of the crossbowmen?"

Li Maosheng danced and recounted the words to the other party, he stuttered, and Kou Xiao felt that these simple words seemed particularly difficult.

"General, he said that they thought they had encountered bandits, so they chased us. Then they saw a large army and retreated knowing that they were invincible. He didn't expect that we would send people to chase us, so he ran even faster."

"What are they shipping? Where does it come from?"

"He said that what they transported was a kind of ore, which was excavated in Shu County in the west and sent all the way to Nanyue. It was General Kou, not General Zhao or General Li.

"Oh!" Kou Xiao showed interest, "Why didn't this general know when he did business with the Qiang people?"

"He said that this kind of ore can burn fire. It is a sacred stone in their locality. It took a lot of effort to transport it out, and the person who bought this kind of ore also said that it will need a larger amount in the future. He said It was brought all the way here.”

Kou Xiao suddenly thought of the factory in the western suburbs. It is said that every factory in that factory burns a lot of firewood. Li Xu even worried that within a few days, the mountains near Minzhou would become bare mountains. Although every tree After the cutting, new saplings were planted, but the trees can grow in one or two years.

If anyone needs something that can be burned the most, it must be King Shun, but will Li Xu use his name to do business with the Qiang people?

Probably not, even if you want to borrow someone else's name, the Lei family is a better choice, so who did it?What is the purpose?

Kou Xiao ordered the group of people to be guarded, and went to see the goods they were transporting in person. He lifted the tarpaulin, and there were indeed black stones in the ox cart. It was really hard to see that these stones could still burn.

He threw a stone into the fire, and didn't see the scene of the fire burning. He thought he was deceived, but after burning for a while, the surface of the black stone really burned.

"It's kind of like charcoal." Jiang Qiuming said standing beside him.

"There are not many houses in Nanyue that burn charcoal in winter. Who on earth would buy such a dark thing?"

Jiang Qiuming thought the same as him, Li Xu was the first one that came to his mind, "My lord would like it, but it's hard to say that someone else saw the shortage of fuel in South Vietnam, after all, the price of firewood has been rising."

Kou Xiao nodded, "I will write a letter and send someone to secretly take these people back together with the goods and hand them over to the prince for review."

"General, do you trust King Shun?"

"Believe it or not, does he still use my name to buy something? What's the reason?"

Jiang Qiuming said in a low voice, "What if this kind of stone is very precious? Or it's something that the imperial court prohibits buying and selling. It's inconvenient for him to buy it in his own name."

"How long has he been in South Vietnam before he can get on the line with the Qiang people? Who made the line? The people around him must not be free. Are the people from the Lei family or the group he recruited later?" Kou Xiao shook his head, "Impossible It's him, if the prince really wants to plot against me, he won't use this method."

"How about this, the subordinates take them back, participate in the review, and see the prince's attitude, so we can rest assured."

Kou Xiao didn't object, he gave Jiang Qiuming a sideways look, and joked, "Didn't you say you're a fool? You're going to fall to King Shun, and this general doesn't even believe you."

"Hey, what did the general say? This subordinate was joking. How can you take it seriously! We have been friends since we were young."

"Tch, friendship is nothing." But Kou Xiao didn't doubt Jiang Qiuming, his lieutenants may not all be loyal, but it's not so easy to betray him.

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Early the next morning, the team assigned 100 people to escort the convoy back to the city. They changed their appearance and even put makeup on a few Qiang people, and then rushed back to Minzhou day and night.

The leader of the Qiang tribe was seriously injured. It happened that there were medical craftsmen and medicinal materials in the team. After treating the wound, he threw it into the bullock cart and drove away.

When he arrived in Minzhou, Li Maosheng personally reported the letter. He handed over Kou Xiao's handwritten letter and told Li Xu what had happened. He said shyly, "The general said that I am a member of the palace. Let me take you there." The military camp is in the name of inspecting the military situation."

"Can the black ore burn?" Li Xu's eyes widened, and he almost jumped up in surprise. What is missing, isn't this a coal mine?But is anyone using coal mines at this time?

He doesn't understand what started to use coal as fuel in history, but the historical records may not be true. Since this kind of thing exists, it will be dug out sooner or later.

I don't know which god dug it out, and it was transported to South Vietnam in such a tortuous way. Wait, he asked, "Is their destination Minzhou City?"

"I've asked about this, and they only said that the delivery is at the foot of the mountain, a hundred miles away from the western suburbs of Fujian Province. From this, it can be inferred that the other party should be in the city of Minzhou."

"Ha, I'm really thankful to the other party. Come here for whatever you want. Let's go and have a look together." Li Xu walked out of the gate, got into the carriage, and read Kou Xiao's letter carefully. It's exactly the same, there is not even a superfluous sentence, and it doesn't look like Kou Xiao's style at all.

"You're still angry." Li Xu was helpless, he didn't expect Kou Xiao to be so angry.