Will Ming

(for collection)

The winter sun in the north is always very lazy. When the soldiers had already got up and finished their morning drills, it lazily emerged from the eastern horizon reluctantly to drive away the darkness.The sun just emerging is not dazzling, the color is like a steamed egg yolk.Since they went to Yanshan, the soldiers of the Sui Dynasty were forced to add another training by Li Xian, which was to carry a three-kilometer cross-country run in the morning.

When the hungry soldiers who ran down this lap saw the beautiful sun, some even licked their lips and fantasized about the taste of food.

Yesterday afternoon, Li Jian, the magistrate of the Gucheng County, took his peasants and began to transport grain to the camp. It happened that the mules, horses and carts collected by the county to transport grain to the west of Liaoning were all there, so the grain was transported one by one. high speed.The food was supposed to be transported to Huaiyuan Town in western Liaoning, but in order to repay General Xue for saving his life, Li Jian didn't mind embezzling some of it.Anyway, the grain and grass of the Liao army were mainly obtained from the major granaries, and there was no specified amount of grain for the counties and counties in various places.

There was no shortage of food in the treasury of the Sui Dynasty, and it was the common people who were short of food.

In just one place of Liyang Granary, there are millions of stones of grain stored in the granary, and they would rather let it rot than help the common people easily.Whether it is a small local official like Li Jian or an official in charge of a large granary, the favorite thing is that the imperial court orders the allocation of grain and grass. If you pay [-] shi, you can report [-] shi. into their pockets.

Even if they took a little stuff from the granary, they could make a fortune.

The speed of the Great Sui from the founding of the country to the domination of the world and the coming of all nations to the dynasty is astonishing, but the corruption and degeneration of the officialdom of the Great Sui is even faster than that.If officials can't turn the things in the treasury into their own gold and silver, if they can't turn the taxes of the people into their own wealth, they will undoubtedly be despised by their colleagues.There were as many corrupt officials as a cow's hair in the Sui Dynasty, but honest officials were rare.

For an official like Li Jian, if he sends grain to Li Xian’s army, he only needs to wait for next year’s summer grain harvest to pick up some of the shortfall and make up for it. A disaster year, and then send a generous gift to the sheriff of Qinghe County. Naturally, there is no problem. Maybe the court will allocate some funds for disaster relief.

Li Jian didn't feel bad at all for using the court's food to repay Li Xian's favor.

In the morning, when the soldiers were leaving for training, Liu An, the captor of Gucheng County who was frightened out yesterday, supervised the peasants to bring in the first batch of grain for the day.Last night, he first personally went to the carriage house driven by Chen Que'er to return all the gift money he had collected these days, and then kept saying good things.Such a person, Chen Que'er, is not very polite. After taking back the money, he blackmailed a sum, and then promised Liu An not to care about the previous things. Liu An, who was blackmailed, left contentedly. This morning Before dawn, I dutifully arrived at the granary and waited.

There was also a man on a fast horse who went out of the city with the food delivery team, and the knight on the horse was one of Liu An's most trusted apprentices.In theory, the structure of local officials in the Sui Dynasty was not complex and large. For example, according to the court's rules, there were not many official arresters in the county government, but it was obviously not enough to maintain the law and order of a county. Yes, so these head catchers basically have a lot of apprentices and helpers. The wages of these people are not paid by the court, but by their masters. In order to support these people, those head catchers It is impossible not to be greedy and not to take possession.

This person, who was going out of the city with the food delivery team, galloped out in another direction at a small intersection.No one would be curious if they saw it, although that person was obviously in a hurry.

Liu An's apprentice rode his horse for dozens of miles at a stretch before stopping to rest for a while, eating a few mouthfuls of dry food in a hurry, and then started on the road again.

When he passed a town on the road, he entered a rich family. After a while, he changed his clothes and a horse before he went on the road again.Although he was sure that no one could keep up with him, he still carefully changed clothes and horses in two places, and deliberately took an extra detour before arriving at Gaojipo.

Gao Jibo, who was on guard, obviously knew this person, and let him into the village after only saying a few words.

After waiting for half an hour, he was called into a very spacious room.This room is ridiculously large, so even though there are a lot of furniture in the room, it still looks very empty.In the middle of this big house, there was a man in loose brocade clothes who was enjoying his breakfast slowly.

After Liu An's apprentice entered the door, he stood respectfully aside, not speaking, and he didn't even dare to raise his head.

The man in brocade is Gao Shida. Normally, he hates people to disturb him when eating, because he thinks eating is the most important thing in life.In his opinion, nothing is more important than filling his stomach.This feeling was stronger than ever since he raised the flag of rebellion.

But today he made an exception, because just now he came in to report that Liu An, the captor in Gucheng County, had important news about Gaojibo's life and death.

Liu An is his dog, at least Gao Shida thinks so.Give him some favors, and this dog will repay itself in no time.For example, for any important matters in the court, Gao Shida got them from Liu An.The reason why he dared to take troops to attack Gucheng County last time was because of an insider like Liu An.However, Li Jian, the county magistrate of Gucheng, was very kind, and he paid tribute to three thousand shi of grain and grass and ten thousand golden meat, so Gao Shida showed mercy and did not continue to attack.

He hadn't planned to occupy a county, that would only provoke the court's attack.

The tallest tree in the forest must have been the first to lose its branches and leaves by the wind. This is what Dou Jiande once said to him. Gao Shida thought it made sense and kept it in his heart. For him, Gucheng County It's like a chicken he raises. If the chicken is there, he can eat eggs every day.But if you eat chicken, although you will feel that the taste is far better than eggs when you eat it, there is no doubt that you will never eat eggs again.As long as Li Jian doesn't want to die or lose his job, he can squeeze it again and again.

Therefore, he needs someone like Liu An.

"What's the matter? If the news you bring today doesn't make me feel very important, I'll have your tongue cut off."

Gao Shida said lightly while eating.

He likes this feeling very much, one sentence can determine life and death.

Liu An's apprentice was taken aback, and his voice trembled when he spoke.

"Back... If you go back to the master, my master does have important news for me to tell you personally."

He glanced at the young and beautiful women standing beside Gao Shida serving him, and then quickly lowered his head.

Gao Shida said: "Say, no one here will betray me, so no one will betray you and your master."

Liu An's apprentice hesitated for a moment, then raised his head and said what Liu An asked him to say.Before he finished speaking, Gao Shida stood up in shock.

……

……

Just after Liu An's apprentice entered Gaojibo, an unremarkable ordinary citizen came out of the woods on the side of the road, rode his horse and drove back towards the old city.There was nothing special about this man's attire. If he had to find something out of the ordinary, it would be a silver ring on his right index finger.

After the man returned to Gucheng County on horseback, he went straight into the carriage shop opened by Chen Que'er.

And just last night, more than a dozen secret agents of the Flying Tiger Army changed into ordinary people's attire and left the camp on horseback, heading south all the way.They travel day and night, specially pick small paths, and try their best to hide their tracks.The time was pushed forward another five days. When a few Gaojibo boys followed their leader into the brothel in Gucheng County to be happy, they waited and waited, but the leader came out of the girl's room, and rushed in when they felt something was wrong. , there was only one gagged naked brothel woman left in the room.Pull out the gag in her mouth and ask her where the leader is.She only said that a few big men came in through the window, tied up the man who was rolling with her, and escaped through the window.

The little guys searched for a long time but couldn't find it, so they had to return to Gaojibo.

Later they heard that it was said that their leader fought with others because of jealousy when he went to the brothel last time, and this time it happened that the man brought a helper to take revenge.Naturally, such a trivial matter would not be reported to Gao Shida, even if he knew about it, he would not bother to bother.

And this person was actually locked up in Chen Que'er's carriage shop for several days.After hollowing out all the things he knew in his head, he was strangled to death unceremoniously and then thrown into a dry well at night.

So, this little boss named Chen Sanqi naturally turned into a black-faced middle-aged man named Niu Jinda.

……

……

Niu Jinda came out of the camp with a dozen or so Flying Tiger secret agents, and headed south in the starry night.A few days later, they appeared only [-] miles away from Juyeze. After making sure that no one found them, Niu Jinda left four people to find a place to guard the horses, and they walked towards Juyeze on foot. Outside the Ze, it was easily discovered by the guards, and then escorted into Juye Ze.

Less than an hour later, Niu Jinda, no, it was Chen Sanqi, who appeared in front of Zhang Jincheng, the head of Juyeze who was said to like eating human hearts raw the most.

"Your name is Chen Sanqi?"

Zhang Jin said that he was sitting on the tall headed seat, looking down at Niu Jinda who was standing below with his hands tied and his head bowed.His eyes are very small, but in the tens of thousands of people in Juye Ze, no one dares to look at him.The sinister color in those triangular eyes is very much like the bamboo leaf green that can poison people to death within five steps with one bite.

Zhang Jincheng