Zhu Nao

Outside the entrance of Liujiazhuang, several men were hiding behind trees and haystacks, looking furtively into the village.

Right now it was time to prepare dinner, smoke was rising everywhere in the village, and every household was cooking.Suddenly, there were a few more smoking places in the village. At first glance, it seemed that there were a few more families starting to cook, and there was nothing unusual.However, as it was burning, the smoke and dust in the places where the smoke was newly rising was getting bigger and bigger, as if it was no longer the smoke from ordinary chimneys.

At this time, two men sneaked out from the village and joined the crowd behind the trees and haystacks.

"Brother Wei, it's done!" The two people who came back reported to a man.

The man they called Brother Wei was not older than them, and he was even considered younger among this group of people.However, everyone looked at him eagerly, waiting for his command.

Wei Yue asked: "Hasn't anyone found out?"

The two quickly shook their heads: "No."

Wei Yue said: "Then just wait."

Not long after, someone in the village suddenly shouted in panic: "The woodshed is on fire, come and put out the fire!"

Soon, more people were alarmed, and there were chaotic footsteps and shouts in the village.

Everyone listened carefully.

After a while, Wei Yue guessed that it was almost the same, and said, "Let's go, let's go in!"

People came out from behind the trees and haystacks one after another, and walked sneakily along the path against the wall towards the village.

Three woodsheds in the village caught fire. The weather was dry in winter, and the fire burned quickly, with thick black smoke billowing upwards.The villagers were afraid that the fire would be more difficult to contain, and everyone who was idle fetched water to help put out the fire.Even those who didn't go stayed at home and watched the half-burned dinner.Everyone sneaked into the village all the way, and there was no one on the road.

"Go from here." Wei Yue led the way ahead.The rest of the people followed behind him obediently.

Shuttle in the winding path, they did not run into anyone smoothly.Soon, a tall barn appeared in front of him—this was the granary in the farm.

There was a man guarding the barn door.This person was not transferred by the fire, but became more vigilant because he heard the movement, and was looking around.

Wei Yue raised her hand, signaling all the people behind her to stop.

Everyone immediately held their breath and stopped.

Wei Yue nodded to someone, and whispered, "Tao Bai, go and lure him away."

Tao Bai had prepared in advance, nodded, swallowed nervously, and tiptoed to the back of the barn against the wall.

At the gate of the barn, the guard was still watching the fire with his neck up, when he suddenly heard a "bang" from behind, something hit the barn, and he was startled.He hurriedly went around to the back of the barn.

When he came to the back of the barn, the guard didn't see anyone. Just as he was wondering, he suddenly heard some strange noises, and he hurriedly followed the noises.

That sound was made by Tao Bai.He walked all the way, making some noise all the way.When he heard footsteps from behind and confirmed that the guards were following him, he hurriedly turned into an alley and threw a few stones near and far to confuse the guards.

He hid and guided all the way like this, seeing that he was already some distance away from the barn, he began to estimate how long it would take to go back and reunite with his companions.Just as he was thinking, he suddenly heard footsteps and conversations in front of him.

"What's the matter? Where is the fire?"

"It seems to be the firewood room of Liu Datou's house, let's go help quickly!"

The sound of chaotic footsteps approached, as if several people were about to come towards the alley where he was.Tao Bai was taken aback for a moment, turned around and was about to run back.

However, there were also footsteps coming from behind him—the guard who was attracted by him was already very close, as long as he turned another corner, he could walk into the alley where he was!

He was dumbfounded now, there were high walls on both sides, and the footsteps on both sides were getting closer and closer, and he had no way to escape.He immediately broke out in a cold sweat: If he is caught, the villagers will definitely beat him to death if they find out their purpose!

Seeing the sound of footsteps and voices almost approaching, Tao Bai's heart beat like a drum, and he pressed himself against the wall tightly.When he was almost desperate, someone shouted not far away—"Come quickly, catch the arsonist!"

Then there was the sound of hurried running, as if someone was really chasing.

Tao Bai was stunned for a moment, not knowing what happened outside.However, the sound of footsteps about to turn into the alley stopped immediately.Attracted by the shout, the barn guard turned and ran away.

The footsteps on the other side were still approaching, and seeing that they were approaching, Tao Bai rubbed the soles of his feet with oil, and hurried out of the alley, towards the direction of the barn.

Soon, he returned to the barn.The door lock of the barn has been smashed open by his companions with axes, and several people are hurriedly carrying grain out.

Tao Bai squeezed to Wei Yue's side, and said urgently: "Brother Wei, I just heard someone shouting to arrest the arsonist, did we get discovered?"

Wei Yue waved her hand: "Don't worry, I just sent someone to help you out." He said again, "When you get back, help move it quickly, move two bags and leave quickly, don't be greedy, or you won't be able to leave!"

Only then did Tao Bai see the grain piled high in the barn, and he was stunned for a moment.He murmured: "The people in Langzhou are really rich..."

That is to say, in Langzhou, when the weather is freezing, the farmers can still have so much food, which is enough for them to survive the long winter.If this was replaced by a farm in Jianzhou, I'm afraid this season would be exhausted.

Just as he was thinking, someone slapped his head hard. Wei Yue scolded, "What are you doing in a daze? Hurry up!"

Tao Bai suddenly came back to his senses, quickly carried two bags of grain, threw them on the cart, and hurried away with his companions.

=====

Two days later, Zhu Nao returned to Langzhou City.

When the team came to the gate of the city, Zhu Nao lifted the curtain of the car and saw that Dou Ziyi, who had received the news in advance, was waiting outside the gate to greet him.

Seeing Zhu Nao's probe, Dou Ziyi hurriedly saluted: "See Zhuzhou Mu."

Zhu Nao waved his hand, indicating that he didn't need to be polite: "Master Dou, come up."

Dou Ziyi boarded the carriage, the carriage entered the city, and continued to drive towards the state capital.

After getting in the car, Dou Ziyi asked, "Is Zhoumu's affairs in Yuzhou going well?"

"Successful." Zhu Nao said with a smile, "Thanks to your help in Langzhou this time, you have made great contributions. I will give you a promotion after a while."

Dou Ziyi hurriedly said: "It's not hard work, it's not hard work. It's what lower officials should do."

After he finished speaking, he was taken aback for a moment: he is already the director in Langzhou, so how can there be room for promotion?unless……

He hurriedly turned his head to glance at Junnao, who was leaning against the window and looking at both sides of the street, with a faint smile on his face, he didn't think there was anything wrong with what he said just now.

Dou Ziyi shrugged.Fortunately, he has gotten used to it, and he can calm down any words that come out of Zhu Nao's mouth.

"By the way, Master Dou," Zhu Nao asked, "Is Langzhou still peaceful recently? But what happened?"

Dou Ziyi was taken aback for a moment, but did not answer immediately.

With his silence, Zhu Nao and Cheng Jingzhe couldn't help but cast their eyes on him.Could something be wrong?

Sure enough, Dou Ziyi sighed and said, "The situation in Jianzhou has become more and more chaotic recently. During the month when Zhou Mu was away, there were several incidents where refugees from Jianzhou robbed the people of Langzhou."

Zhu Nao frowned slightly: "Oh?"

Jianzhou, like Yuzhou, is adjacent to Langzhou.Since Langzhou became stable under Zhu Nao's governance, the neighboring states did not follow the peace, but became more chaotic.

This is not difficult to understand. Langzhou has reduced taxes, but the neighboring states still impose heavy taxes. How can the people not complain?Furthermore, due to Langzhou's policy of reducing taxes and reassuring the people, many refugees wanted to enter Langzhou to make a living, but Langzhou could not absorb so many people, so Zhu Nao ordered early on to guard the border and prevent refugees from other villages from entering Langzhou.However, there are still many refugees from Shu who heard the news and could not enter Langzhou, so they could only stay in the nearby Yuzhou and Jianzhou.As a result, the number of refugees in Jianzhou and Yuzhou increased greatly, and the law and order became more and more chaotic.

This was not intentionally arranged by Zhu Nao.You must know that the chaos in neighboring states is not a good thing for Langzhou.

Although the defense of Langzhou's border has been strengthened, the manpower is limited, and there will always be refugees from neighboring states mixing in.As a result, several farms bordering neighboring states were often harassed and plundered by refugees.Especially after winter, the refugees lacked food and clothing, and such things happened more frequently.

Dou Ziyi said: "Two days before Zhou Mu came back, even Liujiazhuang's granary was robbed, and a group of refugees took away half of the granary."

"The granary in Liujiazhuang?" Zhu Nao raised his eyebrows.The robbery of the granary is not just a loss of food.He immediately asked, "How many people were killed or injured?"

Dou Ziyi shook his head strangely: "That's not true..."

Zhu Nao was stunned, and Cheng Jingzhe said in surprise: "No one was hurt? How is this possible? Didn't the villagers of Liujiazhuang resist?"

The granaries are generally inside the farm, surrounded by village residents. If outsiders sneak into the farm and rob them, all the villagers in the village will definitely join hands to resist.Then Liujiazhuang is not a small and sparsely populated village. There are about [-] families in the village. How could it be possible to watch the granary being robbed without anyone resisting?

Dou Ziyi said: "I heard that the group of refugees were very cunning. They first burned down a few firewood houses in the village and transferred all the villagers near the granary. They also lured away the guards guarding the granary and robbed half of the granary. It was not until more than half of the time for the incense sticks that the villagers discovered that the granary had been robbed, and by then the group of refugees had already run away."

Zhu Nao and Jing Zhe were taken aback for a while, and Jun Nao suddenly showed interest: "Oh?"

Jing Zhe was still surprised: "How many people are there in that group of refugees? Could it be that those villagers were drugged? How come they didn't find out?"

Dou Ziyi shook her head and said, "I don't know... I've been busy for the past two days. Although I received a report from the people of Liujia Village, I haven't had time to investigate the details of this case."

Zhu Nao nodded: "I see..."

After a while, Zhu Nao lifted the curtain of the car and told the coachman, "Change the direction, let's go to Liujiazhuang."

Jing Zhe, Dou Ziyi: "..."

=====

The carriage stopped at the gate of the farm, and Dou Ziyi had just sent someone to pass the news in advance.He didn't say that Zhu Nao would come in person, but said that the state government sent people to investigate the case of the day before yesterday, so there were already people waiting to greet him in Zhuangkou.

Several people got out of the carriage and entered the farm, Zhu Nao asked: "Did the person who stole your barn go that way?"

The person who picked them up was named Liu Datou. Hearing this, he hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Yes, we entered from this road. For the officials and brothers, what do you call them?"

Zhu Nao said, "My surname is Zhu, you can call me Brother Zhu."

Liu Datou only thought that he was an ordinary official, he laughed and said, "Brother Zhu, what a coincidence, you and our Zhuzhou Mu are in the same family!"

Cheng Jingzhe and Dou Ziyi: "..."

Zhu Nao's expression remained unchanged, and he smiled and said, "Brother Big Head, please take us through the way those people entered the village."

When mentioning those refugees who robbed their barn, Liu Datou was so angry that his teeth itch.As he led a few people to the farm, he scolded through gritted teeth, "If I catch those bastards, I'll have to skin them! After all, this year's tax cut, we have surplus food for the winter, and we're caught by those bastards." With so much food taken away, I'm afraid it will be hard to survive the winter again."

Zhu Nao comforted, "It's good that people are fine."

Liu Datou was stunned, and didn't understand what he meant by this for a while.

In fact, during this period of time, refugees from neighboring states frequently plundered villages, and they seldom outwitted them. They were often bloody conflicts, and it was very common for people to die.And Liujiazhuang only lost a batch of food this time, but there were no casualties. It was already very lucky-of course, the luck of those refugees was even better.After all, when the refugees plundered the villages and met with resistance, the casualties of the refugees would be more serious.

Several people walked the small path into the village—this was deduced by the villagers later.It is not difficult to infer that the villagers gathered together to make a plate, and no one on any road that day made the plate at once.

After seeing the way into the village, Liu Datou took Zhu Nao to see the locations of the firewood houses that caught fire that day.

That day the refugees burned down three firewood houses in the village, one of which belonged to Liu Datou's house.After seeing the location of the three woodsheds, Zhu Nao already knew the location.

No wonder no one in the village found out that day, the location of the three woodsheds was chosen very cleverly.The path chosen by the refugees to enter the village is a small path that few people would take, but few people take it does not mean that no one will take it.And when the three firewood houses caught fire, all the people who might appear on this road were attracted away.

Zhu Nao said, "Where are the people guarding the barn? Has anyone in your village seen those thieves?"

Liu Datou nodded again and again: "Yes, yes! I'll call right away!"

not for a while.Several people were called in front of Junao.

A middle-aged man is the guard of the barn. He said with a bitter face: "I heard a noise nearby that day, so I went to have a look. I didn't know that someone had slipped into the farm? I thought it belonged to The beast ran out, so he followed for a while, and heard someone yelling to arrest the arsonist, so he hurried over to have a look. When he returned to the barn, the door of the barn had been hacked down by those bastards, and the food had been destroyed. They moved a lot...it's really annoying!"

There was a young woman who had seen those thieves that day.She said: "That day we first heard someone yelling for a fire, my husband went out to fight the fire, and I was cooking at home. Suddenly, I heard movement outside. When I went out to look, I saw a few people pushing carts, their faces were all wiped. It was black, as if it had been smoked by fire. There were a lot of things piled up on the cart, and there was a person lying there, screaming and screaming. I thought it was a person who had been burned by the fire. Those people saw me , and yelled at me, saying that the fire was burning badly and many people had been injured, so I hurried to help and save me. I was frightened by them, and I was afraid that my husband would also be injured, so I hurried to see the fire, and Didn't pay attention to what's in their car..."

She said angrily: "Those thieves are really cunning! Now that I think about it, they piled up grain from our village on their carts, and the person who was burned by the fire was also pretending. But when I was yelled at by them, I was in a panic Well, I was actually bluffed by them..."

Several other witnesses shared a similar experience with the young woman.When the village was on fire, everyone panicked and didn't know that the barn had been robbed. Even though they saw the refugees, they were all taken aback.It was not until they learned about the theft of the barn that they regretted it.

Zhu Nao asked, "Before the barn was stolen, did foreigners often come to your farm?"

For those refugees to be able to rob food so smoothly, they must be very familiar with the terrain of Liujiazhuang.

Liu Datou hurriedly said: "Yes, yes! Some time ago, some people from Jianzhou said that they wanted to buy medicinal materials. They often came to our village, and when they came, they would sneak around from house to house. Now that I think about it, It must be these bastards who took the opportunity to inquire about the situation in our village!"

All the villagers were filled with righteous indignation, wishing they could quickly catch those thieves and cut them into pieces.However, the more Jun Nao listened, the smile on his face deepened, as if he heard something interesting.

Hearing this, the whole story of the matter is almost clear.Zhu Nao promised that the villagers would arrest the culprit as soon as possible, so he took Dou Ziyi and Jing Zhe out of Liujiazhuang.

After walking out of Liujiazhuang, Dou Ziyi sighed: "These refugees are quite capable, it's a pity to use them for stealing."

Nowadays, the current situation is turbulent, and refugees who steal and plunder for their livelihood are everywhere, but most of them only know how to fight fiercely to rob, or steal in the middle of the night when there are few people, and very few people can use tricks to plan.It was also because of this that the villagers of Liujiazhuang were so careless. They didn't understand what had happened until the barn was moved half empty.

Zhu Nao let out a "huh" and thoughtfully said, "I don't know who the leader of that group of refugees is, but he is quite talented."

As soon as these words came out, both Dou Ziyi and Jing Zhe were stunned.After listening to what Zhuang Min said just now, they also felt that the group of refugees were very clever.But Zhu Nao gave such a high evaluation, using the word "general talent"?

Dou Ziyi looked hesitant to speak, Zhu Nao glanced at him, and finally he couldn't help but say, "Zhu Zhoumu, that group of refugees is only a dozen or twenty people, and they are really smart in their actions, but is there some... ..."

Zhu Nao raised his eyebrows and said, "What does Master Dou think is a general?"

Dou Ziyi was momentarily at a loss for words.Although he knows how to govern the people's livelihood, he doesn't understand the affairs of warriors. He really can't answer this question for a while.

The smile on Zhu Nao's face deepened a little, and he said, "Then Master Dou thinks there are generals in today's world?"

Dou Ziyi thought for a while and said cautiously: "There is an uprising army in the north, there are some generals in the capital, and there are also some troops stationed in various parts of the country... However, when the world is about to be chaotic, neither the generals nor the young generals have made any achievements. The word "general talent" is something that lower officials dare not say."

Zhu Nao smiled and said: "Yes. Famous generals are born in troubled times. Famous generals are not born out of nowhere, they are also experienced in battles. I see that group of people are bold and careful, calm and thoughtful enough. Today, about ten people, Tomorrow there will be hundreds of people, and there will be more than a thousand people in the future. If you can rob the farm's granary today, you can burn the enemy's food and grass the next day. Why are you not considered a general?"

Dou Ziyi: "..."

In fact, if you think about it carefully, those people are really not easy.This matter sounds simple, but it is nothing more than a plan to divert the tiger away from the mountain.But it is easy to talk about it on paper, but it is not easy to do it.If there is no great courage and careful consideration, Zhuang Min will not be so easy to fool no matter how careless he is.And it was even more difficult for them to go out with all their tails and tails without losing a single person.It's not that Dou Ziyi doesn't think they're not good, it's just that Zhu Nao boasted so much as soon as he opened his mouth, which made him a little bit unacceptable for a while.

Zhu Nao patted Dou Ziyi on the shoulder: "Master Dou, talents are rare, don't be so harsh."

Dou Ziyi: "..."

Zhu Nao said it easily, but when he thought about it carefully, he was actually a bit helpless.Yu Changming can lead by example and is good at convincing others, but he has a benevolent heart and lacks some tact.He is a talent for commanding and training troops, but he may not be able to lead troops to fight.And Cheng Jingzhe has read a lot of military books, and has his own youth team, but after all, he is young and immature, and lacks experience.Langzhou is so big, talent is indeed rare.

Zhu Nao said: "Master Dou, you send someone to investigate the details of this group of people, and try to find out their identities."

Dou Ziyi took a deep breath, and said seriously: "Yes, Zhuzhou Mu, I will definitely do my best."