surnamed Wang

Chapter 217 Girl Mountain, Wangshizhai

In the morning of the next day, they bid farewell to the old man surnamed Zeng, and they set off on the journey again.

The three women in the carriage were still chattering and discussing endlessly, Wang Gangquan threw them a handful of poker and got out of the carriage.

"Unbearable?"

Pu Wen held the rein in one hand, and the bamboo leaf green that he had begged from the old man before leaving in the other hand, and after taking a sip, he handed it to Wang Gingquan who was beside him.

The latter took the drink, took a sip and said:

"This trip taught me a truth."

"What's the point?"

"My wife must not ask too much. If there are three or four of them in the family, the relationship is purely seeking guilt, and the harmonious relationship is still seeking guilt."

Pu Wen took the wine bag again, smiled and said nothing.

……

From Zhenjian Mansion to Zhongzhou, it will take three days at the fastest, which means that several people will have to travel for two days to reach the nearest town.

It is possible to encounter villages along the way, but the map is not so detailed, at most some important towns are marked.

Wang Gangquan was really bored, so he chatted with Pu Wen about the customs and customs of various parts of the Central Plains.

Pu Wen had always yearned for the Central Plains, and had done a lot of homework before coming here, but even so, the Central Plains that Wang Bingquan told him was still very different from what he had imagined.

"The Central Plains has a vast territory and different scenery. One side supports the other side. The entire dynasty has a total of thirteen provinces. Each province has its own customs and customs, and the language is not the same. Even within the same province, there will be certain differences.

There is a saying in the Central Plains that when you follow the Romans, do as the Romans do, which reflects this very well. "

"Then we are going to Zhongzhou, is there any custom or special food that we need to pay attention to?"

Both Pu Wen and Yue Cake are foodies, and experiencing the local customs and customs is second to none. Eating all the delicacies in the world is their life pursuit.

Wang Gangquan said flatly:

"The customs and taboos of Zhongzhou are not much different from those in the capital city. There are not many delicious foods, but there are a few, such as spicy soup, meat sandwiches, soup dumplings, etc., but most of these are sold in the capital city. If you want to eat, there are a few Braised big carp in braised sauce is a must, and you may not be able to eat it in other places."

Pu Wen heard that Ha Lazi was about to come down. In the past in Beitu, limited by conditions, the most eaten food was cattle and sheep. Cattle and sheep are precious objects in the Central Plains, but they are the most common ingredients in Beitu.

Steaming, roasting, smoking, and cooking seem to have a lot of tricks, but if you eat too much, you will get tired.

While he was looking forward to it, he heard Wang Gangquan thoughtfully say:

"However, I remembered one thing. It seems that there have been many bandits in Zhongzhou in recent years. Before leaving, the old man also told him that he must take the road, probably because the bandits mostly do business on the forest trails. Bar."

Pu Wen is naturally not afraid of bandits or something, and he is eager to meet some of them.

There are few mountains in Beitu, so there are few bandits entrenched, but there are thieves.

Thieves usually have a team of at least a dozen people, each with a fast horse, and by virtue of their speed, they plunder some small tribes.

Because they came and went freely and acted decisively, when the officers and soldiers arrived, they had already disappeared.

But fortunately, all the people of Beitu are soldiers, no matter they are old or young, they can mount their horses to fight, dismount their horses and control their strings.

Rabbits bite people when they are in a hurry, so thieves don't dare to be too presumptuous. They usually only ask for money and try not to hurt people.

Even so, the North Turkistan court still launched activities to clear the thieves several times a year. It is said that the head of a thieves can hold at least [-] sheep, but it is only limited to those on the list.

Every time the payment is cleared, Beitu will participate in it, from the kings and grandchildren to the common people.

Some tribes with a larger scale even set up a special collection team, carrying bows and knives, and chasing those thieves who have never shown off their might like dogs in mourning.

Under such inhumane blows, those bandits who lived on looting could be said to be only better than beggars.

Under such high-pressure measures, some overwhelmed thieves quit the business after washing their hands, or left their hometowns to plunder neighboring countries such as the Eastern Han dynasty.This is why banditry has always been rampant on the frontiers of the dynasty.

Beitu's move has caused misfortune to flow to the east, and smoke is rising from the wicked belt.

……

On the other hand, for the dynasty, whether it is for the bandits in the central or even the southwest region, or for the water bandits in the southeast region, there is no way to use the power of the people to force them into desperation like Beitu did.

Bandits live on the mountain, most of them are easy to defend and hard to attack, they usually make a living by robbing roads, and some powerful ones go to the city below the mountain to plunder every once in a while.

When you meet money and food, you rob money and food, when you meet women, you rob women.It disturbed the local peace, and the people complained.

The imperial court sends troops to clear the payment every year, but it has little effect, and even most of the time, it will end up losing troops and losing generals.

As time passed, the imperial court had no choice but to come up with an unreasonable solution, that is, the local government issued a reward for those tight-knit gangsters to fight the bandits for their lives.

At first, this approach was really effective. Many medium-sized or even small cottages were disturbed by these groups of people from the rivers and lakes, and some were even directly uprooted.

But those large cottages cannot be shaken by a few rangers alone, and people in the Jianghu have always been solitary, with higher hearts than the sky, and are unwilling to ask for help. Even if someone tries, most of them will die on the spot.

In places where there are many hills, there is even a cottage that has just been slaughtered, and someone has occupied the territory at the back, and another cottage has been established, or other large cottages have taken the opportunity to annex the territory and expand their momentum.

In this way, the government that originally provided money and rewards has become a wedding dress for others, and the money was wasted for nothing.

Some people from the Jianghu with unscrupulous intentions even took the opportunity to join some cottages, charged a lot of protection fees, and acted as thugs for the bandits.

In the end, this plan became useless, and most local governments no longer implemented it.

……

The carriage drove for another half a day. Seeing that the sun was in the middle of the day, Pu Wen reined in the carriage and planned to continue on after lunch.

When they were eating, they saw a figure walking towards the end of the official road. The figure swayed as he walked, as if he was drunk.

After they could fully see the other person's appearance, they realized that the person who came was a boy of fifteen or sixteen. A twig or a plucked fruit.

Contrary to the harmless appearance of humans and animals, there is a machete hanging from his waist.

The scabbard was bright red and shiny, and looked new, as if it had just been painted.

They didn't intend to talk to this strange boy at first, but unexpectedly he came up to him by himself.

"Several, please ask, is there a girl mountain near here?"

Wang Gangquan took a look at the young man and said, "We are not from the local area, so we don't know very well."

The boy let out an "oh", turned and left without asking any more questions.

Looking at the back of the other party leaving, Pu Wen whispered:
"What a weird guy."

"How to say?" Wang Bingquan asked curiously.

"Looking at his steps, he has practiced some kung fu, and judging by his young age, he is undoubtedly a boy, but he is so gullible in others, he should be a young boy who has just left the rivers and lakes."

"Can you still tell if it's a chick?"

"of course."

Pu Wen said quite proudly, he didn't notice that there was something in Wang Bingquan's words.

The three women on the side had different expressions when they heard the meaty words.

……

According to this, about ten miles to the southwest, there is a steep mountain named Girl Mountain.

The west side of Girl Mountain is a cliff, and the east side is a steep slope. It stands to reason that nothing can reach the top of the mountain except apes and birds.

But there is a majestic building on the top of the mountain, occupying the only flat place on the entire mountain.

This building is a well-known local cottage named Wangshizhai. There are five or sixty people in the village, all of whom are bandits who make a living by robbing houses.

The village owner's surname is Bai. It is said that he used to be a general and has studied for several years. As for why he left the general and came to become a bandit, no one knows, not even his precious daughter.

The daughter of Lord Baizhai is named Bai Yuniang, she is twenty years old, she was born slim and elegant, and she is generous.

If there is anyone in Girl Mountain who speaks better than Lord Bai, it must be Miss Bai.

As one of the few girls in Girl Mountain, Bai Yuniang has always been the object of pursuit by the young people in the village, but Bai Yuniang, who has lived among the bandits since she was a child, doesn't look down on them at all.

Compared with the bandits who are the five big and the three rough, who only know how to rob houses and don't understand the romance, she prefers those young scholars who can chant poems to the moon.

People in the village often laughed at scholars for their lack of strength, and even made up a joke about a scholar who went to a brothel in the city and didn't even survive a round.

As a result, Bai Yuniang laughed at her. In her opinion, these gossiping bandits are worse than girls.

Although she is a woman, she grew up in a bandit's nest and was influenced by her ears and eyes, so she was lucky not to develop a domineering atmosphere, but if she was expected to be gentle and virtuous like other girls from a good family, it would be tantamount to wishful thinking.

Thanks to the gentleman who taught her to read, Bai Yuniang has always had a good impression of scholars. Whenever she meets bandits who make fun of scholars after dinner, she will stab them without hesitation.

In terms of the ability to swear, these bandits, who can't make up a basket of characters after searching their stomachs, are naturally inferior to this girl who has been familiar with poetry and books since she was a child.

She swears a few casually without profanity, compared with those living bandits whose sentences are nine and a half out of ten sentences, one is in the sky and the other is in the cesspit.

Just like now, this group of guys probably found the handsome young man who came last night displeased, and made fun of him early in the morning.

A black and thin man was the first to speak up: "Have you seen the boy who went to the mountain last night?"

A strong man next to him answered:
"I see, she has a womanly face, neither male nor female."

Hearing this, the thin black man chuckled and said:

"Looking at him like that, he would probably be too tired to straighten up after being tossed about by the slut lady in the kiln down the mountain once."

When the three of them were chatting happily, Bai Yuniang passed by with a food box on her cold face, muttering:

"A group of trash, they will talk about their ability, and when they see officers and soldiers running faster than anyone else, they can't wait to run on three legs."

Her voice was not too loud, but it was enough for the three of them to hear.

The three bandits who were chatting happily at first became extremely embarrassed when they heard this sentence.

This Miss Bai in front of her looks harmless to humans and animals, and even gives people a gentle feeling, but every time she says something, she can kill a person.

The three brothers have a nickname called "running fast", not because they are good at light work, but because they run away extremely fast.

Once, the three of them went to the kiln to "vent the fire" together. Because of the tight budget, the three of them called two girls, which was shameful enough.

As a result, when the matter was halfway through, they suddenly heard an official inspection, and the three of them were so frightened that they jumped out of the window and escaped without even caring about getting dressed.

The swiftness of the movement stunned the two scantily clad sisters.

The other two were fine, with some skills, they jumped from the second floor and landed smoothly, but the black and thin man was not able to do so, and broke a leg on the spot.

Thanks to the loyalty of the other two brothers, they didn't leave him behind and continued to run.

In this way, the three of them ran out of the city all the way, only then did they dare to stop.

Looking back, there was no one chasing after him.

It was only later that I found out that the co-authored official was only there to collect filial piety money, and it was just a cover to say that he wanted to check.

Leaving aside whether this pretense is useful or not, it shook the three brothers a bit.

Later, when the two kiln sisters spread the story, the other bandits who frequented it also knew about it, and then it spread throughout the village, and the three brothers got the reputation of "running fast".

When going out to hang out, one is afraid of being said to be disloyal, and the other is afraid of being said to be afraid of death.

"He lost his head and got a big scar, and he will be a hero again 18 years later." Any hero can say a few words of this kind of heroic words, but there are few who can do it.

Even if you can't do it, you have to pretend to be hard, otherwise you will be looked down upon.

The three brothers have thrown people into their grandma's house this time. They have been ridiculed as much as they can on weekdays, and they finally said a few bad things about scholars. After a while, they were stunned by Bai Yuniang, who is even better at speaking than the master of the village. One pass, really depressed to the extreme.

Regardless of the constipated expressions of several people, Bai Yuniang walked past them as if she was talking to herself, without stopping.

……

Near the side of the cliff, there is an elevator hanging directly to the foot of the mountain, which is driven by five or six big men.

The elevator can accommodate 20 people or five or six horses at a time, and people in the village usually rely on this ladder to go up and down the mountain.

Even if it took so much effort for our own people to go up the mountain, it was even more difficult for the officers and soldiers or rangers who were besieging and suppressing them. In addition, they never did great evil, so no one was willing to pay them for a long time.

However, before there were one or two rangers who were not afraid of death, relying on some skills, they climbed up the cliff, but unfortunately, as soon as they reached the top of the cliff, they were kicked off by the bandits who had been prepared for a long time, and fell to pieces. Bend.

The eastern part of Girl Mountain is steep and steep, and there are many snakes, insects, tigers and leopards in it. Because very few hunters come here to hunt, it makes this place more and more unpopular.

Although the eastern part is a natural barrier, it is too dangerous. Even the people in the village dare not set foot on it easily. In order to prevent tigers and leopards from entering the village and hurting people, a city wall was erected on the eastern side with high wooden piles.

To the west, facing the elevator, is the entrance of the cottage.

Just entering the gate, a large apricot-yellow flag stood in front of it, on which was written "Wangshizhai" in vermilion lacquer.

The reason why it is called Wangshizhai is also related to Girl Mountain.

It is rumored that this mountain was transformed by a girl who returned home after seeing her husband, but this rumor is mostly unbelievable, there is no such a big girl in the world.

However, since there is a legend of "looking at a husband and turning into a stone", the village is naturally named Wangshizhai.

As for why it is not called "Wangfu Village", in the original words of the village owner Bai Zijing:

"If it's really called by this name, outsiders will think that the village master is a big girl."

The destination of Bai Yuniang's trip was a house not far from the west gate.

(End of this chapter)