Nanming Engineer

Chapter 18
Xu Goudan was very quick at running errands. He was mixed in with the family members. He was short in stature and walked around like a mouse. He quickly completed the task and returned to Wang Huan's side in a hurry.After a cup of tea, Li Yan hurried over in a hurry.

The strong man with thick eyebrows and big eyes asked as soon as he came up: "Counsellor, your Excellency is very anxious. I want to ask you if those four words mean that the Qing soldiers are closing the net on us. Does the sheep refer to us?"

He no longer dared to call Wang Huan by his name directly, and changed his title to his post.

Wang Huan raised a finger, made a silent gesture, carefully observed back and forth, and led Li Yan to a silver cart. The two lowered their heads and pretended to push the cart. Chen Ergou, Xu Goudan, etc. People scattered around, hiding them in the crowd, and covering for the two of them.

"The sheep don't refer to us, but someone else." Wang Huan leaned his shoulders on the frame of the car, as if he was pushing the car very hard, but in fact he didn't exert any strength.

When Li Yan heard this, he was first happy and then surprised: "There is someone else? Who is that?"

Wang Huan said in a low voice: "If you really want to deal with us, there is no need to go to such trouble. We have passed through so many states and counties along the way. If we randomly choose a place with more soldiers and surround us unprepared, can we still have any resistance? ?That’s the thing about lining up to be beheaded.”

Li Yan pricked up his ears, nervously listening to the following.

"So, the Qing soldiers' obvious way of driving the team to their predetermined place must be targeting other people, and they are people who can't resist even if they know something is wrong." Wang Huan continued: "In our team , who is such a person?"

When Li Yan asked himself, he couldn't help but looked up and down, looked back and forth for a while, then lowered his head and said hesitantly: "If you want to talk about this, I think all the people in this team meet the conditions you mentioned."

"Yes, the Qing soldiers targeted everyone. To be precise, they targeted rich households who drove their own carriages and piled up boxes." Wang Huan pouted forward.

The troop of silver carts walks in the middle of the entire brigade. In front is the team of family members who drive their own cars. They are regarded as rich people. The team behind them is basically pushing carts, or the team of family members who carry luggage on their shoulders at all. They are considered poor. In terms of class, the comparison of the number of people on both sides probably has a scale of one to one hundred.

Li Yan wasn't quick-witted, but he wasn't stupid. Wang Huan immediately understood what Wang Huan said, his eyes widened, his expression changed, and he said in surprise, "You mean, the Qing army is going to attack the rich family in front? That’s the family members of the surrendered army, aren’t they afraid of the Ministry of War’s crimes?”

"That's why I have spent all this thought." Wang Huan explained: "As the saying goes, money is never revealed, but there are more than a dozen of Liu Liangzuo's carriages alone. I'm afraid anyone can guess how much money and silver are on them. It’s not okay to keep others from knowing, let alone other wealthy households. I can see that the soldiers are greedy and want to kill people and steal money.”

Li Yan's shock was beyond words, and he could hardly come back to his senses for a while. This idea is too scary. The tens of thousands of family members who surrendered to the army, the army in charge of protection dared to guard themselves, rob and kill people. Can't accept it, 1 people don't believe it, but Wang Huan couldn't help but not believe it because it came from Wang Huan's mouth.

"But, that, is it impossible?" Li Yan hesitated and stammered.

"How is it impossible? I think it's too shameless and despicable?" Wang Huan glanced at him, with an expression of "Young man, you are still young", and said solemnly: "Don't you think that all the armies in the world are fighting against you for nothing?" Just like the soldiers, the military discipline is strict, and they will never do anything to the common people? If you don’t talk about anything else, let’s talk about Liu Zongbing, who you follow. Doesn’t Liu Liangzuo do less of this kind of thing?”

Li Yan swallowed his saliva with difficulty, thought for a while, and said sadly: "It's true that I have done a lot."

"That's right. The Qing soldiers treat us Han people like pigs and dogs. They are barbaric. Robbery is nothing at all. The Ming army will rob the common people, so the Qing soldiers can't rob the families of the Ming soldiers who surrendered?" Wang Huan said.

"But if the Qing soldiers do this, aren't they afraid that Liu Zongbing who stayed in the Qing army will be furious and angry anyway?" Li Yan asked again.

"He doesn't dare." Wang Huan said lightly: "If he dares, he won't surrender, so even if he suffers a loss, he can only swallow it by himself. And I guess the Qing soldiers will have a sense of proportion, and they have to pretend Fan, such as pretending to be a mountain bandit or something, will not be caught by others, the main goal is money, and there will not be too many murders."

Li Yan looked at Wang Huan deeply, and the doubts in his eyes gradually disappeared. After analyzing the cocoon, he has completely believed what Wang Huan said, and he admired this young counselor even more.

"Then, when will the Qing army attack?" Li Yan calmed down, thought for a while, and felt that this question was very important.

Wang Huan stared intently at the convoy ahead, and said slowly: "It must be tonight, the Qing army will choose a convenient place to camp. There is a canyon in front of it, called the Tiger Roaring Valley, and the terrain is narrow. Even birds can’t fly out, so it’s perfect for killing people and robbing Tao.”

Li Yang's face changed again, and he said with a trembling voice: "Tonight? Counselor, our plan is also launched tonight! What should we do? Do you want to inform the adults to change the plan?"

"No need!" Wang Huan grinned at the corner of his mouth, revealing a sly smile: "Tomorrow we will arrive in Huai'an. If we don't do anything tonight, we won't have a chance."

"But, that, how to do it?" Li Yan couldn't keep up with his thinking, and stuttered again.

"The plan is the plan, the praying mantis catches the cicada, how can you know that the oriole is behind!" Wang Huan's smile was even more cunning, and Li Yan was startled when he saw it.

He hurriedly said: "Please discuss and clarify."

Wang Huan put away his smile, and said with a serious expression: "The plan remains the same, but the time is changed, and the time of action is moved back. The Qing army has spent a lot of time thinking about it. Of course, we can't spoil the scenery. Wait for them After we get it, let’s take another step to drain the fire!”

He put his mouth close to Li Yan's ear and whispered in a low voice. Li Yan nodded repeatedly and took note of every word Wang Huan said.

"Understood?" Wang Huanyan asked.

"Understood." Li Yan whispered again in fear of making mistakes.After checking with Wang Huan, after confirming that there was no mistake, he hurriedly returned to Li Tingyu's place to report.

As soon as Li Yan left, Chen Ergou and Xu Goudan came up together, and asked Wang Huan in panic: "General Li has been talking to you for so long, and the actions of the Jianzhou Tartars are so strange, is there something wrong?" Is it going to happen?"

Wang Huan looked at the two teenagers who had saved him during the crisis, and when he was emotional, he almost blurted out what he had done at night, so as not to worry the two of them. If you slipped your mouth and let it out, then it's not like one or two people's heads fell to the ground.So after hesitating for a while, he finally suppressed the emotions in his heart, patted the two of them on the shoulder with all his strength, and said kindly: "It's okay, it's just that the Tartars want to go to the nearby villages and towns to play the autumn wind, and it has nothing to do with us. "

The two listened suspiciously, and felt that something was wrong, but they couldn't tell what was wrong, so they had to believe it, so they cursed in a low voice for a while that the Jianzhou tartars were not human, and they robbed so many things in Yangzhou when they closed the gates and slaughtered the city. Don't forget to hit the autumn wind on the road, it's not a thing.

Wang Huan echoed absent-mindedly, but his mind was spinning rapidly. He connected the actions of the Qing army along the way and thought about it thoroughly. He thought about every detail, looked at the sun again, and calculated carefully in his mind. , Instead, let go of the burden and relax.

"It's up to people to plan things, and it's up to God to make things happen. Everything that should be thought of has been thought of, and what has to be done has been done. Whether it will be successful or not depends on God." Wang Huan thought to himself, put his hands together, closed his eyes and bowed to the sky. It is also good to worship the Buddha's feet without burning incense.

The official roads of this era are about one foot wide and can accommodate two horses running side by side. In some prosperous towns and near the capital city, they are paved with bluestone slabs. , Sunny weather billows with wind and dust, and rainy days are muddy and difficult.But now wars are frequent, everyone is too busy to take care of themselves, the official roads are even more unattended, the carts in the baggage camp are crushed, and countless beast-legged people are trampled on, and the sand and dust are flying up. The raised loess can drown people, but Fortunately, the land in the south of the Yangtze River is not rugged. Although it was difficult for the huge team to walk, under the deterrence of the Qing soldiers' whips, they moved forward at a faster speed than the previous few days.

Since the afternoon, Wang Huan has found that there are no longer any villages and towns on both sides of the road. The jungle and weeds, high hills and deep fields constitute the landform of this area. The land is barren and there is no water source. It is normal for no one to live in such a place, no wonder In a densely populated place in the south of the Yangtze River, there is no one in this area for dozens of miles.

The sun was gradually sinking to the west, and the silently marching team walked along the official road. When the sun was setting and the sky was full of colorful clouds, a mountain range appeared in front of them.

Wang Huan was refreshed, and his tired expression was immediately dispelled. The mountain in front of him must be the mountain range that Xu Goudan had inquired about. look ahead.

I saw this mountain stretching endlessly across the front, like a huge gable blocking the way, the mountain is not very high, but it is difficult to climb over, so the winding official road winds into the middle of the mountain From a distance, it looks like the mountain was cut by a sharp sword, and a crack was cut out, and the official road led to the front along this crack.

Wang Huan took a look and jumped down, because the cavalry of the Qing army on both sides of the team had already rushed from behind like lightning, and the soldiers on the horse shouted loudly: "Master Zuo Ling has an order! It's getting late, all battalions hurry up!" Speed ​​up, enter the valley ahead to camp!"

After hearing this order, the tired people felt relieved. After walking for a day, they could finally rest. No one wanted to hurry into the valley, drink hot water, eat some porridge, and then quickly find a dry and sheltered place to lie down and sleep for a while. Feeling, so the speed of the whole team increased a little bit, and before the sky was completely dark, they all entered the valley.

(End of this chapter)