Human dimension reduction

Zhao Wuque, although he bears the title of Commander-in-Chief of the Dingzhou Army, does not have the temperament of a general at all, and his habit of teasing cats and dogs is a bit of a bum, and he knows the streets and alleys of the entire Dingzhou City like the back of his hand , which shop has a cellar under the tile vat at the back, which wall has a covered dog hole at the base of the wall, which street has a strangely designed eaves that can hide a person from being seen, which house has a The attic that has been abandoned for a long time...he can tell it like a few treasures.

Zhao Wuque held up a bunch of sugar burners and pointed to a dead corner full of rubbish: "There is a recess in it, which is just right for people to hide against the base of the wall."

Xie Zhuo didn't ask him why he knew so much about this hiding place, Zhao Wuque told it as a story, and he listened to it as a story.

In the past few days, Zhao Wuque took him around half of Dingzhou, and he could tell him a story by just pointing to a family.

The old couple in the broken tea shop had six children. Two sons died in battle when they followed General Zhao to the northern barbarians. Zhao Jiajun, who was seriously injured, was shot to death by Liu Ya, leaving only one daughter with young nephews and nieces to support their parents.

A shop at Qiaotou had been closed for a long time, the wooden boards blocking the door were rotten and decayed, but there were many clean white cloth and paper flowers hanging on the door. Zhao Wuque said that this shop was originally a gold shop, and there was a well-known money-lovers owner in it.

This boss is obviously from a wealthy family, but he is so stingy that he is outrageously stingy. He collects the leftover rotten vegetables from the vegetable market every day, and he also charges the goldsmiths in the shop for food. When he went back to collect his things, he was ridiculed by his neighbors as an iron rooster. On the day Dingzhou City was broken, he was blocked in the city by the Beiman because he had to pack up his belongings and failed to catch up with the army to escort the people to flee.

Beiman burned, killed and looted like a sieve in the city, asking the people to buy their lives with money. The people living at the bridgehead are poor craftsmen. Many people have already planned to get up early the next morning to find a hemp rope to cut themselves off. Cheng Xiang got up in the morning and opened the door to see, there was a rag bag at the door of every house, and there were enough gold and silver in it to redeem his life.

Dozens of households at the head of the bridge struggled to survive relying on the money. When the Beiman came, they only looked at the gold shop and asked for money. The impoverished money lovers opened the door of the shop for them to search. There was no gold or silver in it, it was all rotten vegetables With a lot of ignorant rags and nothing to gain, the northern barbarian was so angry that he simply killed the money fan with a single knife.

This gold shop has been closed since then, but the people at Qiaotou come every year to clean the shop and put a few flowers on the door.

There is a cellar under the herbal medicine hall in the west of the city. The doctor secretly rescued more than a dozen wounded soldiers of the Zhao family army and hid in it. They survived the [-] days of Beiman's search and massacre by eating and chewing herbs. Most of the herbs that the Dingzhou army buys are now proficient. Let's take a look here first, the doctor has become a moderately rich man by relying on this.

There are also the peddlers in the south of the city, the old lady living alone next to the urn city, the master copying books in the study...

Zhao Wuque seemed to want to tell Xie Zhuo all the big and small stories of the entire Dingzhou City, talking while walking, they finally stopped in front of a rough and solemn mansion in the North City.

From the outside, one can see the flat eaves of the buildings inside, and the small watchtowers that are far apart, just like a miniature military fortress. According to the length of the house wall, it is obviously a family with flourishing children. There are many, and the population is thriving.

The walls outside the mansion are full of blackened cracks, the roof tiles are broken, the walls are half-collapsed and standing precariously, and the barren grass as tall as a person grows wildly between the cracks in the walls. After the fire burned the skeleton, a plaque was perfunctorily erected on the half-collapsed gate tower, just letting people watch.

On the plaque, the words "Dingzhou Zhongwu General" have been a little dim after years of wind and sun. It is obviously very old. There are obvious cracks and weathering marks on the edge of the plaque, and even repairs can be seen on the plaque. The patched scar, even if it is so casually placed on the abandoned doorway, without even a complete and solemn eaves, it will not damage its own majestic aura in the slightest.

This mansion, which seems to have been half burned by the fire, lay silently and majestically on the ground, like a scarred beast. The mansion was silent, and the cars and horses in front of the door were deserted. No one passed by, as if it had been abandoned. For a long time, waiting alone for the master who didn't know if he would come back.

Zhao Wuque looked at the two doors that didn't even fit together for a while, sighed, and suddenly laughed: "This is my home."

Xie Zhuo didn't say a word, this sentence is actually superfluous, the plaque on the door has clearly indicated the origin of this family.

The Zhao family in Dingzhou, the military generals guarding the border for generations, and Erlang served as generals in the Dingzhou army. Those with good deeds have counted their genealogy. From the first generation of Dingzhou generals to the sixth generation before the six-year battle, there are already 160 Eight sons of the Zhao family gave their lives for Dingzhou.

The descendants of the Zhao family are flourishing and have been passed down to Zhao Wuque's father's generation. There are already 15 uncles in the main branch alone, not to mention the cousins ​​below. He went to practice martial arts with his brothers in troubled waters for a while, and then under the cover of his brothers' connivance, he secretly brought out the best famous horse in the family to show off to his friends.

"It wasn't the plaque that was hung on it. After the northern barbarians entered the city, they occupied this place to have fun, and set fire to it when they retreated. However, these idiots also set fire to the fire in a hurry. They only burned the front house, and I repaired the inside. The house, the outside can’t be repaired without money, so I just put it away, anyway, there are no valuables at home, so I’m not afraid of thieves.”

Zhao Wuque grinned and rubbed his chin: "The plaque given by the emperor was burnt out, and the gatehouse was so bare and ugly, so I went to the ancestral hall to look around, picked out an old plaque and put it on, it's not bad."

He said that changing the plaque was like picking radishes in the vegetable market, but judging from the way the plaque was placed, it could be seen that he did not pay much attention to it.

Zhao Wuque stared at the burned and bald gatehouse for a while, then came back to his senses, and patted Xie Zhuo's shoulder: "Let's go, let's take you out of the city for an outing?"

Outing?this season?

Xie Zhuo looked at the fine snow that was still falling from the sky, and wisely kept silent.

"I heard that Mrs. Zhao was also born as a general." Xie Zhuo said suddenly on the way to the outside of the city.

Zhao Wuque found him a thick cloak in a doggy manner. The linen surface was as thick as half a finger, warm and soft, without any elegant incense, only with a faint scent of saponin, and he pressed it heavily on the cloak. The shoulders suddenly blocked the cold wind outside.

The general who was jumping up and down in black didn't seem to know what cold is. He tied Xie Zhuo's cloak straps, and he was still dressed in neat clothes. His boots creaked in the snow, and he wore a bag on his back. A bundle, which was filled with Xie Zhuo's bamboo slips, knives and pens, made a rattling sound as he moved.

Hearing this question, Zhao Wuque's face that was half ruined by scars suddenly became a little pale, and it took him a long time to answer vaguely: "Is it..."

Xie Zhuo turned his face to look at him, and repeated softly: "Really?"

Zhao Wuque was carrying a bundle on his arm, which looked a little funny, but he didn't care about it. He put his hands on the back of his head, looked up at the sky for a long time, and said indifferently: "The Hu family of Zhongzhou After the famous general Hu Li, the clansmen used armor-piercing spears without authorization, and there were thousands of family soldiers, who ordered and prohibited them, like soldiers in battle. In the sixth year of Yuanxing, the Hu family married their second daughter into the Dingzhou Zhao family. He inherited court training from a young age, was virtuous and virtuous, and after marriage gave birth to four sons and three daughters, all of whom were brought up to adulthood, protected Zhao's bloodline during the chaos, gathered the people of Dingzhou, fought against the northern barbarians, and had the grace of regeneration in Dingzhou."

Xie Zhuo raised his eyebrows slightly, this set of words sounded like bureaucracy.

Sure enough, Zhao Wuque finally added a sentence: "The old mother passed away the year before last, and the magistrate of Dingzhou wrote an obituary for her."

"This is Mrs. Zhao in the eyes of the world," Xie Zhuo put his hands together in his cloak and rubbed them gently, "Do you want me to write like this?"

He just asked this plainly, and Zhao Wuque's jaw tightened suddenly. He seemed to be experiencing a battle between heaven and man. After an unknown period of time, when the city gate was already in sight, he said slowly: " She is a well-deserved daughter of the general."

"Take the people as your responsibility, take the world as your responsibility, and take the emperor's order as your responsibility."

Xie Zhuo listened quietly and keenly noticed the omissions.

The people, the world, the imperial order...

"Sounds like a very remarkable lady." Xie Zhuo commented cautiously.

Zhao Wuque smiled very quickly, and praised sincerely: "It is indeed remarkable."

"...but I'm terrified of being so great."

The ladies of Great Xia get married and have children early, especially military generals, whose lifespan is easy to be shortened, and their parents must marry early. Therefore, although they are already from the generation of grandmothers, in the year of Dingzhou's catastrophe, Zhao Hu's family was born. Kankan is in her early 50s, and she is used to practicing martial arts. She can even walk back and forth with a gun on a horse.

After Dingzhou City was broken, the Zhao Hu family took the only remaining one, Zhao Wuque, and hid in Dingzhou City. Manchun Garden was actually their last foothold. Passing through the hut, laying in the coffin and waiting for the dawn with eyes open, the sound of horseshoes from the northern barbarians, crying for help and hissing could be heard endlessly, Zhao Wuque was full of enthusiasm, and when he heard the people calling General Zhao's name, he was about to go out to rescue him. Zhao Hushi grabbed his wrist and covered his mouth countless times.

Sometimes, when Zhao Wuque looked at the calm and black eyes of his mother in the dim light, he would feel a kind of inexplicable fear. The eyes that would smile and bend when he was giving him dessert cakes before would have such cold and hard eyes. look like?The hand that used to warmly caress the top of his head and protect him when he got into trouble, actually has such terrifying and terrifying power?

"Mother, I'm not afraid of death, let me save them."

Zhao Wuque thought that Zhao Hushi was worried about his safety, so he naively declared that he had no hesitation.

However, Zhao Hu, who heard this sentence, looked at her grandson with a very strange look for a while, and Zhao Wuque shuddered for some reason, then she smiled slightly, and touched the top of his grandson's head: "It's my Zhao family. Erlang."

The tone of this sentence is very weird, Zhao Wuque can distinguish the light praise in it, but he doesn't want such praise: "Mother..."

"It's not hard to be afraid of death," Zhao Hu's voice was low and cold, "The hard thing is to live."

Zhao Wuque didn't understand the meaning of this sentence.

"Your elder father has died in battle, and your father has not been heard from. It is very likely that something unexpected will happen. Your second uncle is now luring Beiman to leave Dingzhou outside the city of Dingzhou. Most of the sons of the Zhao family are with your elder father. In the army, there are probably not one out of ten."

Zhao Wuque shuddered.

Everyone mentioned in her words was either her husband, or her son and grandson, but her tone was so calm and indifferent that Zhao Wuque felt uncomfortable.

"You are probably the only Zhao family alive. If your second uncle is also surrounded by northern barbarians..." Zhao Hu paused this time, "My son is a great hero, and he will fight to the death. By then, you will be The only one who is qualified to take over the flag of the Zhao family army."

"So if you want to live, you must be ready to take over the banner of the Dingzhou Army and gather the defeated soldiers. Even if you crawl on the ground and roll in the mud like a dog, you must do whatever you can to survive. Do you understand?"

There was a cold and sharp light in Zhao Hu's eyes, Zhao Wuque was stunned by such an old lady for a moment, and nodded blankly.

So when they saw the northern barbarians massacre civilians, they hid in coffins and listened silently; when babies and children were chopped up alive, they curled up in holes in the wall and listened silently; Listen in silence.

Zhao Wuque's hand scraped bloodstains on the wall. He looked at Zhao Hushi with pleading eyes countless times, but Zhao Hushi always looked cold and firm.

After the Spring Garden, Zhao Wuque sat blankly on the ground with his blood-stained hands spread out. He also brought back the beauty who was tortured to the point of being covered in blood. The girl was still begging for death when she fell into a semi-consciousness. Taking care of her as soon as possible, Zhao Wuque suddenly felt that being a member of the Zhao family is not good.

He wanted to be Zhao Wuque, rushing out to die with those people when they were crying for help.

Sixteen days later, the northern barbarian army in Dingzhou City crossed the city that had been swept to pieces, and led their troops southward. Zhao Hu quickly gathered some of the defeated troops, cleared out the few northern barbarians remaining in the city, and personally covered the area with The bloody military flag was handed to Zhao Wuque.

"Good boy, take it, go out, and meet your soldiers."

Zhao Wuque raised his eyes and looked at the familiar yet unfamiliar grandmother in front of him.

"I do not want……"

His voice was low and thin, and his eyes avoided the bloody flag. Zhao Hu looked at him for a long time, and then set the big flag on the ground.

"Stand up, grab it, and get out."