Daming Yinghua

Chapter 311
Hearing this, Ma Biao controlled his hand, grabbed Man Gui's wrist and pulled him back.

Where the cold light flashed, what was unsheathed was only half of the Yanling sword.

"I didn't trick you, did I?" Man Gui rolled his eyes and broke away from Ma Biao. He didn't care about his incomplete weapon and sat down opposite Ma Xianglin. "General Ma, I, Man Gui, want to ask you why you tricked us." Brothers from the battalion?”

Ma Xianglin waved his hand and motioned for the other servants to leave, leaving only Ma Biao in the tent.

Ma Xianglin flipped the lamp twister and thought about the conversational tricks Zheng Haizhu had told him.

So he did not immediately respond directly to Man Gui's question. Instead, he picked up the broken knife that Ma Biao placed on the withered grass mat and asked calmly: "Where was this knife made? Judging from the condition of the fracture, not to mention Li Bai Steelmaking Far from it, even the Tatar's sword is stronger than this."

Mangui snorted: "It was sent by the imperial court, so it naturally comes from Beijing."

Ma Xianglin knows it.

According to Zheng Haizhu, in the early Yuan Dynasty, Shanxi's smelting skills were by no means inferior to Zhenjiang in southern Zhili.

Therefore, although Mongolia, as a nomadic people on the grassland, had poor cold weapon casting skills, after Genghis Khan wiped out the gold and controlled Shanxi, he acquired a large number of Han craftsmen who were able to forge high-quality cold weapons, and their military strength was significantly improved.After the fall of the Yuan Dynasty and the rise of the Ming Dynasty, the country returned to the hands of the Han people. Many blacksmiths from the north were moved to Yingtianfu, and then returned to Beijing with Zhu Di's move to the capital. They were affiliated with the bureau, Wang Gongchang and other yamen, and became hereditary craftsmen's households.

However, the officials were corrupt and the craftsmen were struggling to make a living. The weapons produced and exported in Beijing were getting worse and worse.Many generals in Jiubian, whether they are saving money from their empty pay or doing business to make profits, as long as they are rich and can afford to support their servants, they will recruit craftsmen in this town to make crafts for their direct servants. A really useful weapon.

A low-level officer like Man Gui was far from the personal servants of the commander-in-chief Zhao Menglin, so what he was assigned were naturally the rags from the capital.

Seeing Ma Xianglin thoughtfully pondering the broken knife, Man Gui said impatiently: "What does the knife do? Let's talk about the fight between us. General Ma, I really don't understand. You people from the south have all the holes in your heart." What? When you were sticking the gun today, you clearly felt that something was wrong with my knife, and you could just push it away with a quick stroke of the gun. Why did you deliberately let go of the gun? Are you going to win over me and let me work with you, or are you going to do it? Let me win and put money on my face? Regardless of the former or the latter, I don't care."

Man Gui became more and more anxious as he spoke, his eyes as sharp as lightning when he single-handedly fired a gun.

However, Ma Xianglin looked completely different from what he was in the evening, with no trace of murderous intent in his eyes.

"Brother Mangui," Ma Xianglin waited patiently for the brave man opposite him to finish, and sighed softly, "Ma is not trying to show off, he is just thinking that that man really knows the powerful players in the border army very well, but he is also conceited. Kindness.”

"who?"

"She can be regarded as a civil servant sent by the imperial court to patrol the border. She also has business in the Xuanda area of ​​Ji Town, so she is familiar with this place. It was she who taught Ma that there was a Man Gui in the Xuanfu army who was a brave general. Ma Ruo If you are willing to defend yourself from the enemy outside the pass, I would like to make you a comrade. However, she also said that if you are not willing to easily get along with foreign southern barbarians like us, I should not force you, but I might as well increase your prestige and reputation."

Mangui's face brightened a little as he listened. When he heard the last sentence, the disdain on his lips came up again: "I fight the Tatars with my real ability, not with bragging."

Ma Xianglin smiled lightly and said: "In the border area, you must have real skills and a good reputation. It is exactly what that person told me that Cui Jingrong, the governor of Xuanda, had a 150-pound shot at the edge of Ningxia Town. He ordered his subordinates to carry the big iron sword, while he rode on a horse, carrying a wooden sword of the same size, and patrolled the grassland. Beibei thought that even the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty were fierce men who mounted their horses and fought. The principle is the same. Let the Tatars think that there are many brave generals in Xuan's army who can defeat me, Ma Xianglin, so what's wrong with that?"

Man Gui was choked by what he said, and remained silent for a moment. She turned her eyes away and looked at the unpredictable lights.

After a moment, he looked back at Ma Xianglin: "So, General Ma, no matter whether my sword will break or not, you will show me a flaw today to let me win?" Ma Xianglin nodded: "Yes. However, with your skill, if the sword does not break, you will not be able to win." , maybe, Ma doesn’t have to show any flaws to really lose.”

Man Gui felt relieved immediately.

This southern barbarian is quite good at speaking beautiful words.

Ma Xianglin winked at Ma Biao, who walked deep into the tent and opened a wooden box.

After the clanging sound of iron tools colliding, Ma Biao held out a weapon.

"Brother Man, please point me to my civil servant friend. I have a cloth armor and ironware workshop in the south. The cotton armor on Ma's body was made by her. The ordinary lead hammers from Shenji Camp cannot be penetrated from thirty to fifty steps away. . This time, she also asked Ma to bring some good knives and swords, as well as gun heads, to Yehuling to give them to the good garrison man she respected. You are a swordsman, that's great. "

Ma Xianglin said, took the knife offered by Ma Biao, put his index finger and middle finger together, and gently stroked the blade like checking the head of a hook and sickle, then picked up a piece of jute paper on the wooden pier to write a letter to his family, and gently used his wrist. Shake, throw into the air.

There was a soft and hoarse "hiss" sound, and the jute paper was cut into two halves where the sword passed by, slowly falling down like autumn leaves.

Ma Xianglin sheathed his sword and pushed it in front of Man Gui. He said in a tone of Ning He: "Brother Man, civil servants in the court are not all bitter and mean swordsmen and pen officials who despise us warriors. There are also swordsmen, guns and people who are all on the road. Ma. I will go to Longmen Pass in the east soon. I can’t wait until Brother Man takes advantage of this new sword, so we can fight and compete again. Why not, let’s compare, whose guy can kill more Tatars, right?”

Man Gui stared blankly at the person in front of him, and then at the knife in front of him.

For the first time in his adult life, he encountered such ups and downs of words, deeds, and ways of thinking, which made him go from being arrogant and disdainful, to blood boiling, to being surprised everywhere, to coming to the door to answer questions, to being excited, and finally, I became confused and didn’t know how to deal with it.

The only thing I can be sure of right now is that I have a good knife.

It's not a reward, as people said, it's a gift. Yes, that's the word I learned from the scholar in town: a gift.

You can hear a pin drop in the tent.

Ma Biao was in the shadows, staring at this scene and found it quite interesting.They were also face to face, and the fierce close combat with various moves at dusk had turned into a silent watch.

However, silence is better than sound.

When Ma Biao was wondering whether Mrs. Zheng and the young master's wishes would come true, Man Gui stretched out his big hand and grasped the handle of the knife.

"General Ma, the frontier army needs one or two and a half taels of silver per month for food supply. I am Mangui, and I am not a country bumpkin who has never seen good things. This knife costs almost ten taels of silver. I will take people to follow you to the east. , you can just give Guankou food. I don’t want the money for more than half a year, which can be used to exchange for this knife. I am full of Gui, and I will never take the benefits of others in vain. If I kill the Tatars, I will kill them happily. The general will reward me again."

(End of this chapter)