Brocade tears

Meng Kuang and Sui'er lingered and finally made dinner. After everyone used it, they sat around and chatted for a while, and then went back to wash and fall asleep.Meng Kuang and Guo Dayou were in charge of night watch in turn to prevent pursuers or people with ulterior motives from touching the boat.Guo Dayou was in charge of guarding the first half of the night, while Meng Kuang picked him up to watch the second half of the night.In the morning of the second day, Meng Kuang will go back to his room to rest alone. Guo Dayou and Lu Jingshi will be in charge of boarding the ship's leader (that is, the leader of the gang transport merchant, who usually has an official background and specializes in official work, here specifically referring to the captain. ) joint with the boatman, ordered.

Meng Kuang lay in a daze in the room until he woke up in the middle of the night. He didn't know the time, but Guo Dayou hadn't come to call her yet, so it was probably not time for the shift.Lu Jingshi next to him was sleeping soundly, snoring lightly.Meng Kuang lifted the quilt and sat up, suddenly feeling a bit chilly.They were on a canal boat near the water, and the humidity was high. I wondered if Sui'er and his sister were covered with quilts, so as not to catch the cold.She wanted to see what was going on in the woman's room next door, so she got up lightly and walked out of the man's room.Pushing the door of the women's room, the door was bolted from the inside, only then did Meng Kuang remember that he had told Sui'er and his sister to lock the door well and be vigilant when they slept at night.

So she went back to her room, found a thick cloak and put it on, put on a mask, took a sword with her, and went out of the cabin.

On the deck, Guo Dayou was dragging a stool, sitting under the outer eaves of the cabin door, with a lantern hanging above his head, emitting a faint light.He dozed off wrapped in his clothes, and the sound of Meng Kuang's footsteps when he came up woke him up.

"Oh, it's time." Guo Dayou's voice was hoarse.

Meng Kuang nodded.

Guo Dayou stared at Meng Kuang silently, staring at Meng Kuang a little hairy, he suddenly said angrily: "You really look like a ghost standing in front of me at night, if I hadn't been so brave, I would have been scared to death by you."

Meng Kuang smiled.

"It's inconvenient for you to kiss a woman with a mask." Guo Dayou joked.

Meng Kuang's face immediately turned red, thanks to the cover of the dark night, otherwise she would really be ashamed to death right now.Maybe Guo Dayou saw her and Sui'er in the kitchen.She was a little apprehensive immediately, secretly thought that she was too careless, and she should be more careful in the future, and try not to talk to Sui Er and the others if unnecessary.

"Come on, watch carefully, I'm going back to sleep, I'm so sleepy." Guo Dayou didn't have the heart to play with the ice right now, so he got up and went back into the cabin.

Meng Kuang shook his head and smiled, sat in the seat where Guo Dayou had been sitting just now, and began to watch the night.In the silent night, the cold wind was blowing above the canal, and the wet water vapor rolled on the face.Meng Kuang looked at the dark surface of the canal in a daze, and could only vaguely see the masts standing on the pier in the light of the moonlight.The night was as thick as ink, sitting alone, she gradually emptied her mind and entered a strange state.

After an unknown amount of time, she seemed to see fire flickering above the surface of the canal.At first Meng Kuang thought it was some boatman who couldn't sleep in the middle of the night and drove the sampan out for night fishing, but then he found that the flickering of the fire was very regular.Three short, two long, three short, and so on.Staring at the flame for a long time, Meng Kuang only felt that it was unreal like a dream, and he couldn't tell whether he was dreaming or awake.

When she woke up, she realized that she really fell asleep at some point, and it was already dawn when she opened her eyes.She yawned and pinched the back of her stiff neck wearily, wondering whether the firelight she saw last night was real or a dream.

……

After Guo Dayou came out to take over, Meng Kuang went back to the house to catch up on sleep.At that time, there was no movement in the woman's room, and she probably hadn't gotten up yet. Meng Kuang only felt his mind was muddled, and when he entered the room, he put on his clothes and fell asleep, and fell asleep soon.

She was awakened by Sui Er, it was near noon on April [-]th, and the horse boat they were on had already left the port of Tonghui River, heading for Tianjin Wei.

"Are you sleepy, let's get up and eat something first, and then go to bed after eating." Sui'er felt sorry for her staying up late, and saw that her eyes were turning blue.

Meng Kuang shook his head, sat on the bed, and watched Sui'er carrying a copper pot to pour hot water for her to prepare for washing utensils.She got out of bed, walked to the door and glanced at the corridor outside the door, and seeing no one was there, she closed the door behind her, moved close to Sui'er, and hugged her with open arms.

Sui'er smiled, threw the hot handkerchief to her, and said, "What are you doing? Wash your face quickly."

"I have to be careful in the future, I can't just talk to you." Meng Kuang hugged her, put his cheek on her forehead, and whispered.

"What?" Sui Er asked with a shudder in her heart.

"Yesterday we were making out in the kitchen, and Lao Guo saw it, and I lost him." Meng Kuang said, "Fortunately, he didn't hear me talking to you."

Sui'er's cheeks also burned, and she slapped the hot handkerchief directly on Meng Kuang's face, saying:

"Wash your face quickly."

"Oh." Meng Kuang listened to her obediently, washed his face, brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth. After tidying up, she put on the mask again.Sui'er was going to go out with a basin to pour water, when she reached the door she turned around suddenly, and said to Meng Kuang who was arranging the net towel on his head:

"You might have to find Sister-in-law Bai to make out."

Meng Kuang was puzzled, and Sui'er said with a mischievous smile, "When we were in the palace, we all said that your Majesty gets both rain and dew. Now you, Ehuang Nvying, can't spoil me alone, or Guo Dayou won't be suspicious?"

Meng Kuang rolled his eyes to the sky, thinking that Sui'er really still cared about what happened in the Tianxiang Pavilion that day, and now and then she had to turn over old scores with her, how could she bear it.He hurriedly stepped forward to wrap his arms around her waist, and whispered in her ear:

"Your Majesty, I am eating vegetarian food and reciting Buddha's name now, so I am no longer a womanizer. I don't favor both of you, Ehuang and Nvying."

"Pfft." Sui'er was amused by her and laughed out loud.

"But if you are caught by me when it's just the two of us, don't blame Your Majesty, I can't help but want to hug you." Meng Kuang added.

"Bold maniac, are you trying to rebel? How dare you call yourself the emperor?"

"For no reason, I was dubbed an Ehuang Nvying. I have become Emperor Shun, so I can't call myself the emperor?"

"loquacious."

"Then I won't talk."

While talking, Meng Kuang took off his mask and kissed Sui'er on the cheek. Seeing Sui'er biting his lip and staring at her, Meng Kuang smiled with crooked brows and eyes.Sui'er felt that she saw Meng Qing from nine years ago again, that sunny and cheerful girl who always liked to laugh.For a moment, I couldn't help feeling a little bit relieved, but my heart was warm and relieved. This is the original appearance of Sister Qing. If she hadn't experienced all this, she would still be the carefree girl in the market in her memory.

……

Meng Kuang ate lunch with the others in the banquet hall on the ship. The lunch was made by the cook who boarded the ship today.The people working on these ships are all veterans who are used to serving officials, and they do things just right, making them very comfortable.After lunch, the female relatives could not show their faces on the boat full of men, so they all went back to the house to have tea and chat.Meng Kuang followed Guo Dayou and Lu Jingshi to the deck, and stood at the bow to breathe.

The horse boat sailed and sailed on the river, chopping the waves extremely fast.Meng Kuang stood at the bow of the boat, blowing the oncoming river wind, while Guo Dayou beside him was chatting with the leader who commanded the boat.Gangshou is from Tianjin Wei. He is 50 years old and has spent his whole life on the canal.Guo Dayou asked Gangshou about how many days it would take to reach Hangzhou at the fastest time. Gangshou said that the fastest speed of this horse boat can reach eighty miles per hour. can reach Hangzhou.It's just that this is the most ideal situation. Generally speaking, it is the most normal situation to travel [-] days by water from the capital to Hangzhou.If you change to a fast horse by land, you will have to travel for a whole month to arrive.

This time Meng Kuang and others went to the south of the Yangtze River, and their first destination was Yangzhou. They would get off the canal at the wharf of Yizhen County, Yangzhou Prefecture, and cross the river to Nanjing by land.After staying in Nanjing for a period of time, board a boat at the canal wharf in Dantu County, Zhenjiang Prefecture, and travel south along the canal to Yuhang.Calculated in this way, it will be at least 20 days before they actually arrive in Hangzhou. By then, Jiangnan will already be ripe and rainy in May.

When boarding the ship today, Gangshou brought new news from Beijing.The news came from Luo Xun who stayed behind in Beijing, it was encrypted by Jin Yiwei and sealed in a sealed barrel.After confirming that it was not leaked, Guo Dayou avoided Gangshou and Lu Jingshi, and only opened the secret letter with Meng Kuang alone.

A few lines in the letter explained the current situation in Beijing: after the Nine Fingers Wang Candang was arrested, the imperial court had already decided to lift the blockade of the capital on April [-]th.Chen Ju and Zheng have made moves, and they may gather people to chase after Li Huier.The party of Lao Luo, Zhu Yan, and Shuer Haqi has been confirmed not to be in the city, and the Japanese Anbu ninjas have also been found. It is very likely that they have already left the city. Luo Xun specially reminded them to be careful.

Meng Kuang suddenly remembered the fishing lights flickering on the river that she saw in a daze last night. Although she was very confused, she still told Guo Dayou about it out of caution, hoping to hear Guo Dayou's opinion .After hearing this, Guo Dayou frowned and thought for a moment, then said:

"Could it be an encrypted message in the military?"

Meng Kuang also thought of this possibility, but she couldn't confirm which kind of military code this method of using lights to send messages belonged to.Since ancient times, there have been many kinds of military codes, such as the Yinfu in the Shang and Zhou dynasties and the Yinshu derived later, the handwriting test in the Song Dynasty, and the anti-cut code invented by Qi Jiguang, which became popular in the army about 20 years ago.This is a cipher that uses two characters to phonetically annotate another character.Qi Jiguang has two sets of cipherbooks, one with 36 initial tones and the other with 25 final rhymes, plus the eight tones of the Fuzhou dialect, spliced ​​into a three-segment code.For example, "five-20-two" is the fifth character of the first tone codebook and the five characters of the final rhyme codebook No. [-], and then read with the second of the eight tones, so that an original tone can be deciphered. Word.

Military passwords are a must-know skill for the Jinyi Guards who are patrolling. Every new Jinyi Guard who enters the patrol station will receive systematic training in this area. Skilled experts can directly memorize the code book in their minds, and they can directly correspond to it when they see the password. Text output, which plays the role of fast encrypted communication.

Guo Dayou shook his head and said: "Now there are too many uncertain factors. First of all, we cannot be sure whether Yuhuo is subpoenaing. I don’t know what kind of code it is, and I don’t have a codebook, so I can’t decipher it. I still have to observe and observe. If someone really wants to send us a secret message, they won’t do it so hastily. Maybe someone will follow us in the future Go all the way south and give other signals."

Sailing on the [-]th day of April, we set off from the Tonghui River in the capital city in the morning, sailed for five hours, and arrived at Tianjin Wei Port in the evening. The journey was very smooth.After entering the port, the horse boat had to load and unload cargo overnight, so Meng Kuang and his party disembarked, intending to temporarily stay in an inn near the port before boarding the ship tomorrow.

He got off the boat with a horse-drawn cart, and Guo Dayou led the way to the inn he was familiar with.This Tianjin Wei Guo Dayou and Meng Kuang have been here many times, and their first mission as a partner was in Tianjin Wei, patrolling the river and cleaning up water bandits.They didn't care much, but the girls in the car were very excited. Whether it was Meng Yan or Han Jiaer, it was the first time they were so far away from Beijing, and it was also the first time for Sui Er and Bai Yuyin to come back to Tianjin Wei. Everything was new.They looked out curiously through the curtains of the car, chirping and pointing at each other when they saw interesting things.Meng Kuang and Lu Jingshi, who were driving by the shaft of the car, couldn't help showing helpless smiles. I'm afraid that all the way down to the south of the Yangtze River, the women will have no peace.

Tianjinwei has a completely different cityscape from the capital city. Unlike the well-organized capital city, the fireworks and water vapor here are extremely thick, and the roads and rivers are criss-crossed and twisted.The key point of the river and the sea, and the gateway of Jifu, is even more crowded with people and busy with trade in goods.The three religions and nine streams are mixed, and the streets are full of businessmen, which is very lively.

Passing by a lively food stall on the side of the street, Meng Yan was greedy. Looking at the stall owner from the car window, he was making a kind of fried cake. It was fragrant, soft and sweet, and his mouth watered.

"Brother, I want to eat, you can buy some for us." Meng Yan seemed to have returned to his childhood, and reached out to grab the back of Meng Kuang's clothes who was driving outside.

Meng Kuang reined in the horse rein helplessly, and when she turned around, she saw the women in the carriage staring at her eagerly.So he threw a small sling of money to Lu Jingshi, and motioned to Lu Jingshi to help him buy some. She was wearing a mask so as not to scare the stall owner.Lu Jingshi jumped out of the car with a smile, and quickly ran back with the oiled paper bag and handed it to Meng Kuang. Meng Kuang unwrapped the oiled paper bag, and the smell that hit her face hooked her gluttons, and she swallowed her saliva. , and handed the fried cakes to the women.Meng Yan took it happily and shared the food with the sisters.Meng Kuang glanced at it lingeringly, licked his lips secretly, sat back on the shaft of the car, raised his whip and continued to drive.

At this time, two fried cakes were brought to her mouth, one was from Bai Yuyin and the other was from Sui'er.Meng Kuang was stunned for a moment, then he took off his mask and bit the fried cake that Sui'er gave her. Bai Yuyin didn't care about it, and naturally took back the fried cake, and took a bite himself.

Guo Dayou in front was turning his head and waiting for them to come over. Seeing this scene, he couldn't help frowning.