Long live the general

Although the Mid-Autumn Festival is beautiful, it has passed after all.Like fireworks, they bloom brilliantly in the night sky, and after that, only pure white smoke remains.

After the Mid-Autumn Festival, Huo Yi took Huo Xiaoman and a few of his men to Thief Town without stopping.

Before? He said before that Thief Town was a mess, and Zhou Zhenzhen wanted to send him more people, but Huo Yi politely refused.He was there to buy horses, and not to fight, so there was really no need to mobilize the crowd.

Even so, Zhou Zhenzhen still ordered that General Huo must be taken care of along the way, and the emperor's edict was passed on at the post station.

Every time Huo Yi arrived at a station, there would be troops prepared in advance. He only needed to rest and didn't have to worry about other things.Even Huo Xiaoman didn't have much work to do. When he was eating at the post station, he said: "Patriarch, at this speed, we will be able to arrive at Thief Town in ten days."

"The road to Thief Town is even more complicated." Huo Yi said, "Have a good rest, there are still many things to do when we arrive at Thief Town."

The next day, they arrived in Shu County. The people here were more enthusiastic about Huo Yi. After all, Huo Yi's name was said to be Huo's family in Shu County, and the people of Dayue always valued their origin.

Huo Yi ate a lot of delicious food in Shu County. The terrain of Dayue is complex, and the customs and customs are completely different in every county? It is different. If it is not important this time, Huo Yi would like to walk on the land of Dayue. one go.

The clerk at the post station sat beside him, and said with a smile: "We knew about General Huo's coming early in the morning, and prepared these delicacies for you."

"Thank you." Huo Yi said, and invited the little official to have a meal together.

The little official quickly said: "It should be, General Huo's Northern Expedition to the Huns is also to win glory for Shu County. You try this cabbage. It is made from the broth that has been hanged for three days by the back kitchen. It uses the secret recipe of Shu County. , even His Majesty in Ziwei Palace has never eaten it."

Huo Yi smiled inwardly, thinking that His Majesty in Ziwei Palace really wanted to eat these things, it was just a matter of an edict, and the whole Da Yue would be in operation, just to provide him with a delicacy.

This is the enviable power of absolute power.

But Zhou Zhenzhen is not the kind of person who wastes money and money just for one dish, Huo Yi felt a little pity, he thought it was delicious, so he wanted His Majesty to taste it too.

Not only that, but he also wanted His Majesty to take a look at the beautiful scenery he saw.

The ring horse town is located in Jiaojun, separated from Shujun by a big mountain, Huo Yi found a local to lead the way.

The local is called Zhang Dasheng. He can speak the local dialect of Jiaojun, and he can also speak Mandarin with an accent. He is a hunter in the town.

After Huo Yi and the others entered Thief Town that day, Zhang Dasheng and Huo Xiaoman went out to inquire about the news, and when they came back, they said, "The horse seller's surname is Qian, but he's not here today, so he'll be back tomorrow."

So they stayed one night in the inn, planning to buy horses the next day.

That night, Huo Yi was in his room making plans for buying horses tomorrow, while the others were in the next room, and Huo Xiaoman lived with him.

Standing by the window, Huo Xiaoman said with emotion: "Patriarch, this Thief Town is different from Chang'an City? Eh."

"What's wrong?" Huo Yi asked?

"It's wet here, I washed the clothes tonight, I'm afraid I won't be able to dry them tomorrow." Huo Xiaoman said.

This is an angle that Huo Yi has never considered.

Huo Xiaoman asked: "Do you want to see the county magistrate tomorrow?"

"No need, let's go after buying the horse." Huo Yi said.

Huo Xiaoman groaned, and continued to sit by the window and look out. He always felt that the night in the south was darker than in the north, and the air smelled of green grass.

It was time to fall asleep at this time, Huo Yi wanted to urge Huo Xiaoman to sleep, suddenly? I heard Huo Xiaoman say: "Patriarch, the curfew is in the whole of Da Viet, right?"

"Of course, what questions are you asking?"

Huo Xiaoman pointed out the window, motioning for Huo Yi to come and have a look.

In the northernmost part of Thief Town, there is a big courtyard. A lamp is lit in the courtyard. The light of the fire is swaying in the wind. Many people walk into the courtyard.The south is quiet at night, even the sound of insects is almost extinct, but the noise from the other side is very clear.

"Gathering late at night?" Huo Yi thought, gathering late at night is illegal.

That's right, there is indeed such a clause in Dai Viet's laws that if more than three people gather late at night, it can be regarded as a crime of rape.

Huo Yi looked at it for a while, and there were quite a lot of people entering the courtyard. After a while, the lights in the courtyard were turned off, but those people did not leave.

Huo Xiaoman looked at Huo Yi: "This..."

"It's okay, let's not worry about it." The strong dragon can't beat the local snake, but it's just gathering late at night, and Huo Yi can't do anything because of it.

Huo Xiaoman muttered, "I still think it's weird here."

"Go to bed first, we'll talk about it tomorrow." Huo Yi said.

The next day, Huo Yi and Zhang Dasheng went to buy horses, but were told that the owner had not returned.But the servant of the Qian family let Huo Yi in to see the horse.

It is indeed a good horse, with a black body, a smooth body, strong limbs, and bright and unruly eyes. It is hard to imagine that ordinary people can raise such a handsome and handsome horse.This is still a stallion, and the owner named it Heifu, which is a simple name.

The more Huo Yi watched it, the more he liked it, and he told the servant of the Qian family that he must notify the owner as soon as possible when he came back, and the servant naturally agreed.

After leaving the Qian family, Huo Yi was quite happy.However, he found that the atmosphere on the road was not very good. Many people were in a hurry, with expressions of curiosity and fear.

Huo Yi asked: "What happened?"

Zhang Dasheng: "I don't know..."

They walked along the crowd and saw many people looking towards a place, but they didn't dare to go up to join in the fun.

When Huo Yi and the others walked over, they realized that there was a dead body there!

The deceased was a young man in his twenties, short in stature, with a ferocious and astonished look on his face, as if he did not expect the other party to attack suddenly.

There was a broken knife stuck in his chest, and the opponent was fatal with one blow, without even a knife.Judging from the state of the body, the man had been dead for two days.

And beside the corpse, there was a woman standing. It could be seen from the appearance that this woman was the elder of the deceased.The woman's face was full of anger and sadness. She stood there alone, and no one dared to step forward to ask more questions.

Huo Yi asked: "What's going on?"

Unexpectedly, Zhang Dasheng said with an extremely terrified expression, "Don't worry about it, don't worry about it, it's none of our business, let's go!"

Huo Yi held him back and frowned: "In broad daylight, in broad daylight, someone died in vain, and the body was still there without being buried. How can we ignore it?"

Zhang Dasheng looked at him in horror: "How can you control this?"

Huo Yi: "Do you know who I am?"

"General Huo, I know." Zhang Dasheng pulled him to leave: "General Huo also don't care about their family's affairs..."

Huo Yi discovered that Zhang Dasheng's fear was not for the unknown murderer, but for the woman whose son died.

Zhang Dasheng said earnestly: "General Huo, I am really looking out for you, let's go."

He approached Huo Yi's ear, and said softly: "Even if the emperor and I come, we can't do anything with his family."

Huo Yi glanced at the corpse again. The people around him were indeed afraid of that woman.

He didn't insist anymore, and followed Zhang Dasheng back to the inn.

In the inn, Zhang Dasheng was about to leave, Huo Yi said: "It's been a hard journey, I want to reward Brother Zhang with good wine."

Huo Xiaoman went to the back kitchen and asked for a jug of expensive wine, and poured the liquid into the wine glass. Zhang Dasheng couldn't bear the free wine, so he sat down.

"Don't dare..." Zhang Dasheng sipped his wine while refusing.

Huo Yi asked: "Are you a local?"

"Yes, a local who grew up in Thief Town." Zhang Dasheng said with a smile, "General Huo, you are looking for me in the right way. Let alone buying horses, I don't know anything about Thief Town."

Huo Yi poured him a glass of wine again, and said to himself, "This Thief Town is really strange."

Zhang Dasheng stared and asked, "Why is it so strange?"

"On your side, why don't you bury the dead, but throw them on the street instead?"

Zhang Dasheng groaned, stood up, walked to the window and closed it, then came back and sat down, and said, "General Huo, you don't know something."

Huo Yi put on a posture of listening attentively.

"The person who died was from the Guo family." Zhang Dasheng said, "The head of the Guo family was named Guo Xie. The one who died was his nephew. The woman standing next to him was his sister."

Huo Yi analyzed: "So, it was Guo Xie's nephew who was killed, and his sister didn't let someone bury her, but threw her son's body on the side of the road for people to watch?"

"You can't say that." Zhang Dasheng quickly retorted: "Sister Guo's purpose is to find justice for her son."

Huo Yi: "The murderer who killed him ran away?"

Zhang Dasheng: "Run away, kill someone and run away."

Huo Yi: "Then go to the government to arrest people, what does it mean to throw the corpse on the ground?"

"Government?" Zhang Dasheng was drunk, and said calmly: "The government can't control this matter. The reason why the sister of the Guo family wants to do this is to force Guo Gong to avenge her nephew."

Huo Yi understood that the government here was useless, and the Guo family sister didn't want to report to the police when someone died. She just wanted her younger brother Guo Gong to come forward to solve it.

Huo Yi still couldn't help asking: "Why can't the government control it?"

Zhang Dasheng was even more at a loss: "Everyone has always turned to the Guo family to solve their problems. It used to be Mr. Guo's father, but now it's Mr. Guo..."

Huo Yi hummed, but Huo Xiaoman was very surprised, he didn't expect that there is such a useless bureaucracy.

"Then why is Mr. Guo not avenging his nephew?" Huo Yi asked: "Isn't he very prestigious? It's not difficult for him."

"Because Mr. Guo Gong is frugal and frugal, repays grievances with virtue, and gives a lot of money." Zhang Dasheng said with emotion: "His nephew was killed two days ago. A group of people gathered at Guo's house to drink , his nephew forcibly persuaded someone to drink, and was killed by that person. Mr. Guo Gong believed that his nephew was at fault first, and he did not want to hold the murderer accountable. Because of this, his sister put the body on the street and buried it not far away. thing."

Huo Xiaoman couldn't help but said: "If you are persuaded to drink and kill someone, you must be a bit angry."

Thinking deeper, who are the people drinking at Guo's house?

Huo Yi was silent for a while, and said: "Guo Gong repays grievances with virtue, he must be very admired."

"That's natural." Zhang Dasheng drank too much wine, and his words became more verbal: "There is one more thing before. Guo Gong went out, and everyone avoided it. That day when Guo Gong was walking on the road, there was a man with his legs crossed. Sitting on the ground and squinting at him, the posture is very indecent. Guo Gong's subordinates wanted to kill that person, but Guo Gong stopped him. He also secretly asked for the person's name, invited him to the mansion, and said to him—— For me, it must be the reason for my lack of virtue, thank you for coming to warn me.”

Huo Xiaoman let out a long cry, not knowing what to do? To describe this matter, he and Huo Yi looked at each other, and Huo Yi signaled him to be calm.

Zhang Dasheng went on to say: "Later, Mr. Guo also greeted the government, and every time it was his turn to serve corvee, he would jump over him. After this incident, Mr. Guo's reputation became even stronger."

Huo Xiaoman thought to himself, this is where the co-author Guan Fu appeared.

"Guo Gong is really amazing with such prestige in the body of a commoner." Huo Yi clapped his hands and said with emotion: "It's just that I don't understand one thing. Since? Guo Gong is so respected, everyone should respect him. Why? Are you so afraid of him?"

He was so afraid that if he asked Gong Gong to go out, everyone would avoid him; he was afraid that he would be disrespected, so he would be killed by default;

The people's fear of him is deeper than that of the government!

Zhang Dasheng was stunned.

After a while, he drank a few sips of wine before saying, "Mr. Guo was not like this before."

"When Guo Gong was young, he followed his father to wield a sword as a knight..."

Huo Yi asked: "What kind of chivalry?"

"...revenge by means of friends, hiding life for adultery, privately minting currency, digging up people's ancestral graves, etc.." It is to invite friends to kill people for revenge, and even secretly hide criminals ordered by the court to provide them with shelter. They also do things like digging people's ancestral graves and building scorpions.

"This is Ren Xia." Huo Xiaoman took a deep breath: "It's really not human affairs."

Gather a group of people at every turn to kill people with weapons and throw people's graves, who dares to touch them.And Guo Gong's power was accumulated in this way.

Awesome, no wonder Zhang Dasheng said he can't control it, a strong dragon can't overwhelm a local snake, Guo Gong really dared to keep the general here.

"But Mr. Guo is loyal, and he must do what he says, and he must do what he says." Zhang Dasheng couldn't help but argue: "For things that the government can't do, you can definitely go to him."

Huo Yi nodded: "Is that so? I understand that Guo Gong's subordinates are all fugitives from the imperial court, right? So at the Guo family banquet two days ago, although his nephew was wrong in persuading him to drink, the crime is not to die for. Ordinary people definitely wouldn’t do it, but that’s not necessarily the case for the group of murderers who were protected by Mr. Guo.”

Zhang Dasheng slowly broke out in a little cold sweat: "General Huo, don't say that, I want to live a few more days..."

"I understand, no? It's embarrassing for you."

Huo Yi was a little funny, Zhang Dasheng kept saying that Guo Gong was a man of virtue and prestige, but after saying a few words behind his back, he was afraid that he would be killed by Guo Gong.

Will a truly virtuous person remain in the hearts of others? Is this the impression?

It seems that even if it is self-brainwashing, people like Zhang Dasheng know that Guo Gong is inherently more terrifying than the government.

Zhang Dasheng said with difficulty: "Anyway? Later, there were more people around Mr. Guo, so he stopped doing the things he used to do..."

Because of killing or something, naturally? There are people under him to help him, so he doesn't need to do it himself.

After Zhang Dasheng left, Huo Xiaoman asked: "Patriarch, what should we do now?"

"Look again, this kind of problem cannot be solved in a short while." Huo Yi said: "We are only here to buy horses this time, try not to cause extra problems."

There is one Duke Guo in Thief Town, and there are many other Dukes they don't know.

The next day, the owner of the horse seller finally came back, and Huo Yi immediately went to see the owner of Qian's family.

The horse seller is called Qian Cao. When he came back today, the servant had already told him about the general's purchase of horses.Naturally, Qian Cao was happy. After meeting Huo Yi, the two chatted happily. Qian Cao said: "I still have a good horse here. I will send it over tomorrow. Why don't you buy it together tomorrow, General?" Come on, I'm ready to prepare hay and bean cakes for the horse to eat on the road."

The business was successfully negotiated, and Huo Yi also wanted to buy a few more horses. Naturally, the more varieties the better.He simply gave the money to Qiancao, saying that he would just take the horse with him when he came tomorrow.

However, Qiancao only accepted a part of the deposit, and generously shared with Huo Yi how he raised these good horses, and explained many precautions one by one.Huo Yi admired him very much in his heart, and the two talked for a whole morning before Huo Yi left Qian's house.

When he went back this time, he happened to see several people collecting the corpses on the street. Guo Xie's sister was crying and shouting, but he couldn't stop them.

This scene even makes people feel that she is very pitiful.

"Are you sorry for your nephew!" Guo Xie's sister grabbed a man of medium height and shouted sharply, "He called you uncle! Now that he's been killed, you haven't said a word." !"

The one caught by her was a middle-aged man with an ordinary face. He held down his sister and told the others: "You should bury him first."

"No! I can't!"

Guo Xie sighed, held his sister down, and said, "I found the murderer yesterday."

His sister's eyes widened: "Where is it, I'm going to kill him!"

Guo Xie said, "I have already let him go."

"why?!"

Guo Xie pressed her shoulders, and said slowly: "It's my nephew's fault for persuading her to drink. He just killed someone on the spur of the moment, and he didn't do it intentionally. I'm also very sad that my nephew died, but what he did? There's nothing wrong with that."

Huo Yi was stunned at the side.

Good guy, is this repaying grievances with virtue, or is it that Mr. Guo has sheltered murderers for a long time, and he really thinks that killing people is not a big deal?

Naturally, Guo Xie's older sister didn't want to hear this answer, and immediately started a quarrel. Guo Xie was no longer willing to comfort her, and asked his subordinates to take her back directly.

He turned around, met Huo Yi's gaze, was stunned for a moment, and said, "General Huo, I have long admired your name."

Huo Yi arched his hands towards him, and said meaningfully: "Mr. Guo, I am the one who has admired his name for a long time."

Guo Jie smiled: "Is there still a small matter to take care of at home? I won't bother General Huo. I will definitely come to visit someday."

Huo Yi: "You're welcome."

The two of them pretended for a long time, Huo Yi watched Guo Xie take the corpse to bury him, and then returned to the inn.

Huo Xiaoman couldn't help asking in the room: "Does he really not care that his nephew was killed?"

Huo Yi asked back? He: "Do you think Mr. Guo's behavior is repaying grievances with virtue?"

Huo Xiaoman shook his head hesitantly, he always felt that something was wrong.

"Of course? No." Huo Yi said coldly: "It is the national law to report and punish the murderer. This is a public prosecution case. No matter whether the victim forgives the murderer or not, he will be punished."

Huo Xiaoman finally understood.

"And what happened before? He exempted others from corvee. Who gave him the power?! Taxation and corvee are the obligations of every citizen. He exempted this person from corvee for no reason. People are unfair." Huo Yi said: "Cultivating private morality and destroying justice, there is a collective name for this kind of people, and they are called rangers."

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