Five Dynasties River Mountains Fengyue

Shi Congyun looked at the sunset in the distance, the rugged road between the valleys and mountains, and the large black and invisible darkness under the sky in the east, which was about to move on the other side of the mountain, and he was standing in the morning sun, so he thought of a famous saying, For the first time, I had a deeper understanding.

"The glory lies in the plainness, and the difficulty lies in the length; it may not be difficult to have great ambitions, but the most difficult thing is to take revenge and not be worn down by suffering and time."

Wei Renpu was stunned for a moment, then cupped his hands: "Good advice, Commander."

The arduousness he mentioned may be even more arduous than Wei Renpu thought. The homeland Wei Renpu mentioned was the territory of the middle and late Tang Dynasty. Now there are Southern Han, Northern Han, Southern Tang, Wuyue, Sixteen Prefectures, and Western Liaoning.

But what Shi Congyun thought about was the Hexi Corridor, and the Western Regions that had been lost for nearly 200 years since the Han Dynasty began to control them. If they can’t control the Western Regions now, the next time it will be the Qing Dynasty in 1000 years. It's a sea of ​​change.

After feeling for a while, Shi Congyun quickly put those troubles behind him. The road is very long, so long that he can't see the end, so just keep your head down and don't look away.

There is a small courtyard in the middle of the mountain next to the road, where more than 20 wounded soldiers of the Zhou army were placed. Shi Congyun went to see it halfway, and found that the doctors accompanying the army had called some local women to help take care of them.

It is close to the mountains in the north, not far from Chengdu but not close, and it is isolated from the outside world. Many people in the villages in the mountains wear animal skins and coarse linen as their clothes, and they are not as particular about it in the Central Plains.

These villages are also almost independent. Shi Congyun talked with the local elders. They send people to pay tribute to the government dozens of miles away on time every year. embarrass them.

On the surface, the Sichuan Basin looks flat in the middle, but in fact, most of them are large and small hills, with many hills, and the real plain is only the one near Chengdu.

After going south from Jianmen Pass, there are many large and small independent villages in these mountains. Because of the geographical environment, the government is not easy to manage, and they dare not send people deep into the villages to occupy the complex areas of the mountains and valleys.

As long as the people in these villages pay tribute on time every year, the government doesn't care. They are not closely connected with the outside world, they are more independent, more wild, less red tape of the Central Plains, and have no loyalty to the so-called court of Shu.

It is also because of this that these mountain people don't care whether they help Zhou Jun or not, and they don't reject them.

Zhou Jun did not kill people or rob things, so the people in these villages were willing to guide them, bring them water, and do paid work, such as helping the army to collect firewood, build roads, lead the way, and borrow the courtyard of their homes for the wounded soldiers of the army. Wait.

This brought a lot of convenience to Zhou Jun, and Shi Congyun also emphasized military discipline more and more.

After visiting the wounded and leaving the small courtyard, Shi Congyun saw a few young people coming from a distance, and his soldiers brought them over, saying that they were invited by the elders of the local village to have a banquet in a big village in the middle of the mountain.

At first Shi Congyun didn't plan to go, because the invitation was very suspicious. How could the other party know his identity and came to him directly. The team of tens of thousands of people stretched for several miles, and it was not that simple to find someone.

Fu Zhaoyuan, who was beside him, just slapped his forehead and told him that this matter was the intermediary of the governor of Mianzhou who surrendered. He told him a few days ago that it was the governor of Mianzhou who told these people to find him.

It's just that my brother-in-law Fu Zhaoyuan didn't take it seriously at the time, thinking it was just a matter for the villagers in the mountains, so why bother him, he didn't say anything.

After hearing this, Shi Congyun scolded his brother-in-law, and told him to tell him as soon as possible in the future, no matter how young he was, his brother-in-law was wronged, and nodded repeatedly, expressing that he would resolutely correct it.

Shi Congyun agreed and proposed to take more than 80 soldiers to have dinner.

But obviously this is not simply eating and drinking. The mountain people's stockade is located in the middle of the mountain, which is easy to defend but difficult to attack.

There is a plank road in the middle of the mountain. The door through it is a natural big tree hole, which can only be passed by one person. Shi Congyun is tall and bowed, and behind him are some hunters with hunting bows and long knives.

He let the soldiers go first.

When we arrived at the village, there was a wooden city wall on the outside, which was not very high. There were many people gathered inside, at least hundreds of people, and there were also some helping women who cooked and cooked. Most of them were not young.

Seeing the eyes coming together, it may be because of the simplicity of the mountain people, the fear, anxiety and other emotions in the eyes of these people.

Afterwards, Shi Congyun was invited to sit at the main table in the main hall of the village. There were some very old people inside. How to move chopsticks.

The rest of the guards stood proficiently at the entrance of the lobby, the gate, the entrance of the plank road, etc. The locals did not object, but just glanced at them from time to time.

Shi Congyun immediately understood what they meant.

The number of the army is seen by the local people, and these elders with high positions and weights have more knowledge.

So under the uneasy eyes of everyone, he got up and walked out of the lobby. Several old people also got up and followed him.

Shi Congyun went outside the lobby, raised his glass to the representatives from various villages and villages who were seated outside, and said, "Fathers and folks sitting here, we are from the north, and we are here to attack the ruler of Chengdu. , Don’t worry, I’m not here to be your enemy.”

As soon as he spoke, everyone sitting there fell silent.

However, I probably didn’t quite understand it. At this time, there was a difference between the local dialect and the later Sichuan dialect. Chengdu was one of Shi Congyun’s favorite cities to live in later generations. I can understand the words.

But it is still very different from now.

Those who know the history of Sichuan should understand, because these current Shu people were almost exterminated during the chaos at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which is another history of blood and tears.

More than [-]% of the later Sichuanese came from all corners of the country and reintegrated.

Shi Congyun patiently explained to everyone word by word, but in the end he still had a little understanding.

Shi Congyun suddenly remembered and asked if there were any literate people. Although they were relatively independent, since they still had contact with the governor, there should be literate people.

An older man understood what he meant, and got a pen, ink and board for him to write.

Now even if they don't understand the dialect, relying on the similar characters, they can quickly understand each other's meaning.

Shi Congyun lamented Qin Shihuang's great contribution to the unified writing.

Although Qin Shihuang actually failed to do it, because he chose the beautiful but difficult to write and complex Xiaozhuan to unify the characters, and the Qin Dynasty was subjugated in 15 years, which was not realized at the time, but the idea is good.

By the time of the Han Dynasty, the writing was truly unified and unified with the official script. From then on, even if there are different dialects in different places, everyone can communicate as long as they write.

Shi Congyun and several elders wrote while communicating with each other, and finally conveyed his meaning.

Do not harm each other, help each other, and at the same time hope that they will go back and inform the villages not to block their army from passing, so as not to cause misunderstandings and conflicts.

After understanding what he meant, everyone present, whether young or old, breathed a sigh of relief. The oldest elder thanked him again and again, but he didn't know much about etiquette. , On the contrary, it seems to mean worshiping ancestors.

Shi Congyun quickly helped the old man up.

After that, the communication between the two sides became more and more smooth. The mountain people killed the chicken, and the two sides drank chicken blood wine to make an oath, expressing that they would not harm each other, just like brothers.

In fact, they were planning to kill at the beginning...

The mountain people believed that the oath of human blood was the most reliable oath, and even selected a young man to kill and let blood, but Shi Congyun sternly stopped him, and then changed to killing chickens.

After drinking the chicken blood wine, someone from outside hurried in to report something in panic, but the situation quickly became a mess, and it turned out that it was Fu Zhaoyuan's idiot brother-in-law who saw that he hadn't gone down the mountain for several hours, and in a hurry led troops to surround the foot of the mountain up.

Shi Congyun had no choice but to ask him to withdraw.

On the same day, several elders in the cottage plucked up their courage and personally sent him to the barracks to show their trust.

Shi Congyun didn't do anything to them, but suggested that they should not use human beings in their ancestor worship or vows in the future, and they could use chickens or sheep instead.

Several old men nodded repeatedly.

The two sides made an agreement so happily, and on the next day, people from all villages were sent to guide the army.

That day, Shi Congyun was about to leave for Chengdu at full speed. The mountain elders who presided over the event that day actually brought three or forty people and picked some things with shoulder poles to meet him in the roadside tent.

After Shi Congyun let his soldiers go, he got up and went out to greet him, thinking that the mountain people would send him souvenirs when they saw that he was leaving.

As a result, the surrounding crowd gradually dispersed, and the one surrounded by them turned out to be a nervous and delicate little girl.

Shi Congyun immediately understood...

Chapter 288: Liezhai Chengdu

The elder of the mountain people did send some local products, but he asked the young granddaughter in the village to go with Shi Congyun no matter what.

Shi Congyun refused with righteous words at that time, and told them impassionedly that he was not a bad person and did not come to rob them, so he did not need to give him his daughter.

Unexpectedly, the elder asked again and again to let his granddaughter follow him no matter what.

This time he also brought a city resident who could understand the local dialect and speak Mandarin to communicate with Shi Congyun.

After repeated exchanges, the elder even uttered harsh words, if Shi Congyun didn't take her in, they wouldn't want this granddaughter either.

Shi Congyun suddenly looked puzzled: "Oh, you fellows, why are you like this? My king has always been an upright and clear person. You insist on forcing me!"

The mountain people over there stopped talking.

Fu Zhaoyuan next to him whispered, "Marshal, do you want someone to drive them out?"

At this time Wei Renpu came up, coughed twice and pushed away the stunned Qingfu Zhaoyuan, then cupped his hands and said: "Marshal, this is also the heart of the people, and it is a symbol of the affection between the army and the local people. Besides, the elders have let go. If the Marshal If you don’t accept her, you won’t let her go back, this is trapping her in an injustice!”

Shi Congyun was gearing up: "Duke Wei, you also know that XX has established a rule that we can't rob people's things when we go south, and we can't rob other people's children. As the commander-in-chief, I will take the lead in destroying it, it's not good..."

Wei Renpu spoke uprightly, and said with a serious expression: "Marshal, this is not robbery. Everyone listen, the fathers and folks have said that the marshal will not take him in, so they will let the poor girl fend for herself. The marshal is saving her. Helpless, it’s not a bad rule.”

The surrounding soldiers nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, what Duke Wei said is very reasonable."

"Marshal, just save this poor girl."

"......"

Everyone said something to each other, Shi Congyun was very helpless in the end, and it was hard to go against everyone's wishes, so he had to agree to the request of his father and fellow villagers.

Don't blame him for not being a man, it's because the girl is so beautiful.

The skin is fair and delicate, the beautiful and unobtrusive oval face is white and tender, the petite figure is exquisite and cute, the nose is small and regular, a pair of beautiful peach blossom eyes are very charming, the black hair on the forehead is thick, and the subconscious is several steps away from the crowd , standing there bowed his head restlessly, not daring to look at him.

These folks and elders really know how to test cadres. Fortunately, he is superior.

Immediately, the fathers and villagers were not in a hurry to leave, and the leader of the army was asked to make meals, and the brothers who came with them were invited to eat before leaving. Rich as hell.

It was only during this period that I realized that the person who came to act as the middleman this time was the director of the nearby county town, and he was the one who usually dealt with the people in these villages.

From his narration, Shi Congyun learned that among the rugged mountains south of Jianmen Pass all the way to Chengdu, especially among the large lush mountains next to the Hengduan Mountains in the north, Guan and the others knew more than 200 people. There are large and small villages, the large ones may have thousands of people, and the small ones have only a dozen people.

And in the mountains closer to the northwest, there may be something the government doesn't know about.

Isolated villages may be more xenophobic, and the roads are difficult, and the government dare not go deep.

Shi Congyun has a lot of knowledge, and he is not surprised. The world today is not a world with a large population and a high degree of development like later generations. In addition, in the 200 years since the middle and late Tang Dynasty, wars have continued, the population has dropped sharply, and the cultivated land has been abandoned. People either died or moved away.

He has been to the north and south of the river to fight, not to mention the deep mountains in Sichuan and Shu near the Hengduan Mountains, even Hebei now has large tracts of woods and inaccessible places.

And the master book also told him that in order to let the more than 200 villages pay taxes to the government, they actually fought a war. Two or thirty years ago, after the Later Tang invaded Shu, they found that there were barbarians who were not under their jurisdiction.

Later Tang sent troops to venture into the mountains, fought against the barbarians in the mountains, and killed hundreds of people before the villages began to pay taxes to the government.

Even so, they do not submit to the jurisdiction of the government. Accidents in the village will not be reported to officials, and there is no need for official rulings. Their elders decide to punish them on their own. People in the mountains are also very good at intermarrying outsiders.

Later, although Tang Dajun suppressed these barbarians, he also suffered a lot of losses due to the high mountains and dense forests, so the government did not dare to take more care, as long as these villages paid some taxes on time every year.

After hearing this, Shi Congyun understood the situation in this area, and he also had a general understanding of these local people who were called barbarians by the army of the later Tang Dynasty.

Their population may be around [-] to [-]. They are not a small force, but they are too many and scattered, closed to the outside world, and difficult to organize. The geographical environment determines a special ecology.

Closure is a very dangerous thing for civilization, not only in the world, but also in this part of China.

The more closed the geographical unit is, the easier it is to be left behind. If you don’t maintain communication, learn from each other’s strengths, and keep pushing forward under the pressure of competition, you will be stuck in the closedness and do not try to make progress. Once you encounter a strong foreign enemy, you will be unable to stop it.

But even so, the elders in the village are considered smart, seasoned and cunning.

They must have been scared when they saw so many foreign troops. Judging by their age, the Tang army entered Shu around 30 to [-] years ago, and then fought with them. These old people must have experienced when they were forced to pay tribute, and they knew how powerful foreigners are.

So even if blood was an alliance, Shi Congyun assured them that they were not at ease. They were all human beings, and they knew that the so-called alliance was unreliable, so they just sent their granddaughter to him to be at ease.

Shi Congyun thought to himself, in order to make his fathers and villagers feel at ease, he had to sacrifice himself.

So it was delayed for another half a day, and when Shi Congyun's army marched on the road, the forward Pan Mei probably led the troops to Chengdu.

During this section of the road, Shi Congyun didn't ride a horse anymore, but went to ride with the little girl in the carriage. His coach's shaft carriage was very spacious, but the road was a little bumpy.

Shi Congyun couldn't wait to ask the little girl's name, but the little girl sat nervously next to him and couldn't answer for a while, maybe she didn't understand well.

In order to make her not nervous, Shi Congyun tried, picked up the light and petite little girl easily, put it on his lap, and continued to communicate patiently.

If those soldiers or generals outside dared not even remember his orders clearly, Shi Congyun would have yelled at him a long time ago.

But it was different when facing a beautiful and cute little girl. Dashuai Shi's patience doubled in an instant, and he even patiently taught her to speak Daliang Mandarin.

After all, as long as it is for the benefit of the lower body, a man's patience is beyond imagination, and he is impulsive regardless of the cost.

Anyway, nothing happened on the way to Chengdu, so Shi Congyun simply started teaching her how to speak and communicate with her seriously.

The little girl was very nervous and obedient, she didn't get rid of his embrace, she gently pulled his sleeves, and slowly raised her beautiful peach eyes, daring to look directly at him.

Those beautiful eyes are like a pool of spring water, rippling with charming light in simplicity, if not for Grand Marshal Shi, who galloped across the north and south, he would be considered a veteran in the battlefield, almost couldn't control it, and ruined a lifetime of wisdom.

He always thought that he was the most handsome man in Daliang City, probably because of his beauty and affinity, and gradually the little girl became less nervous.

After teaching him all the way, he gradually became able to communicate smoothly after two days.

The little girl said that everyone in the village called her "Hua Wazi" because everyone said she was the most beautiful flower in all the villages.

Shi Congyun thought it was too vulgar, so he asked her surname, and she said her surname was Huang, but she was only 14 years old, and her grandfather hadn't given her a name yet.

Shi Congyun was overjoyed, and immediately felt a shudder down his spine like a conditioned reflex, but soon realized that there were no policemen here, and became ecstatic again.

"Then I'll call you Huang Hua? It doesn't sound good. Let's call you Little Huang Hua first. When you're 16, I'll give you a nice name."

The little girl nodded, and Shi Congyun felt that she was rubbing forward, and when he lowered his head, he found that she was lightly holding the seat of the carriage with her hand.

"Why, I'm afraid I think you are too important." Shi Congyun teased her.

The little girl shook her head honestly: "No, I'm afraid that Alang's legs will hurt from sitting. I've been sitting for a long time."

Shi Congyun and Xiao Huanghua looked at each other for a while with beautiful and innocent peach blossom eyes, and suddenly felt that Mrs. Huarui's affairs were not important anymore, just looking at them was enough, although he originally wanted to conquer Shu for the sake of world affairs, and never thought about Mrs. Huarui.