Chapter 204: A headache-inducing paranoid

This number also surprised Zhao Xing.

It was not easy to be a bandit in the Song Dynasty. His abundant life led to ordinary people not willing to engage in high-risk robbery work. According to legend, the bandits in the Water Margin Liangshan who were rampant in Shandong were only thirty-six big thieves. But the number of people in front of him was close to the number of big thieves in Liangshan. In the Song Dynasty, this was a rampant number of prefectures and counties. Because in a big city like Hangzhou, except for the imperial guards and the wing army, there were only fifteen archers in the entire armed forces.

When encountering such an armed force exceeds the prefectures and counties, it is necessary to report it immediately according to regulations, and the court will send another army to suppress it. The news is transmitted from Zhao Xing to the Privy Council in the capital, and the news is delivered to the relevant personnel by sending official documents. If the troops are dispatched to Hangzhou, it will take three months if you are lucky. Three months later, the castle of Zhao Xing... So generally, the bandits face the fifteen archers directly.

Under such circumstances, it was enough for the Song Dynasty to rampant the world and gather more than 30 thieves. However, it was not easy to find more than thirty people who worked together as thieves in this era of pursuing enjoyment.

Zhao Xing was thinking about Shen Kuo. At the gate of the castle, the crossbow van was shot empty. The third brother of Huang Dazhe quickly added new crossbow arrows. Soon, Zhao Xing and the black man Tyson stood side by side with shields and led the way. The crossbow van was on both sides of the road. As their actions progressed, another 50 fortresses followed closely behind the car with crossbows in their hands. After the team was empty, Shen Kuo stood at the gate of the castle hesitated for a moment, and finally followed Zhao Xing.

Passing through the smoke released by the fire crossbow, the dock area was clearly visible. The explosion just now caused several small boats docking at the dock to float in the water. The shipwreck area, scattered cargo floated all over the water. The bandits who were anxious to leave were pushing away the floating objects. At the same time, there were sporadic muskets on the largest cargo ship in the dock area, and people jumped into the water from time to time.

Shen Kuo took a deep breath again. He looked at the floating corpse around the ship, his lips squirmed, and stopped, and said, "It was not thirty people, but there were actually 50 people?! Li Ren, this must be not a bandit, but a group of bandits."

While speaking, a bandit's ship finally broke out of the dock and floated downstream along the river. Other ships struggled to follow. Zhao Xing waved his hand and the children around him broke through him, picked up crossbows and shot against the ship.

The power of machinery is always better than that of artificial. The small bow on the ship is almost no threat to the children. Under the intensive shooting of the children, most bandits fell into the water one after another. Only the first three ships were lucky enough to escape the range of crossbow arrows and rushed downstream.

Shen Kuo stomped his feet and said repeatedly: "Brother Li Ren, intercept it quickly. This is enough for the fire crossbow chariot, let the fire crossbow chariot blast at the boat."

Zhao Xing grinned: "Today is No. 7!"

When the children heard this, they all smiled knowingly.

They divided some people into their hands, carried their hooked spears, and drove out to catch the injured bandits in small boats, regardless of the escaped bandit ships.

Shen Kuo stamped his feet and said, "Brother Zhao once said that these people could not go upstream after robbery. It seems that they are planning to float down the river to the sea. Brother Zhao, they must have a supporter downstream. Once the fish enters the sea, it will be difficult to deal with."

Zhao Xing's feet did not move at all. He nodded at Jin Buer. Jin Buer immediately took out a few medicines and fired the puppets. With the three dongdong dong sounds, three green signal flares rushed into the air. Then, Jin Buer lit two yellow signal flares.

People suffering from depression were paranoid. Zhao Xing did not answer Shen Kuo. Shen Kuo kept asking questions and frequently asked Zhao Xing to control the big ship on the dock to go out to sea to chase him. During this time, the injured prisoners were taken back to the shore. Zhao Xing had no time to interrogate and had to deal with Shen Kuo first.

"Brother Chen, Mr. Mengxi, my cargo ship enters the port on the seventh of every month. Today is special. My ship has been waiting for my signal at the seakou. I have sent the signal just now. It's so unfortunate that no matter how many people they are supporting, they can't break my big net."

Shen Kuo understood, and he said oh, and immediately stared at the bandits again: "Are they from Huliang Mountain? Ask quickly, such a large number of bandits must be examined clearly."

As soon as Shen Kuo finished speaking, a few roars sounded downstream. The sound paused, and two or three more roars. Then everything calmed down. Shen Kuo jumped in a hurry. He urged frequently. Zhao Xing had to start interrogating the thief in front of Shen Kuo for helplessly: "Where are you waiting for?"

"A thief, grandpa, I will not change my name, and I will not change my surname. Lu Nanshan is like 'hunjianglong'! What are your methods? Come quickly? Grandpa frowned. He is not a hero!" A bandit who looked like a small leader shouted passionately.

"Tsk! You are not a hero, but just a bandit, what kind of hero?" Zhao Xing took out a dagger from his boot belt, looked at Lu Nanshan's forehead with a smile, and said enthusiastically: "What did you say just now? I'm not a hero. I just happened to be interested in your brows.

It is said that there is an ancient method, which is to use a knife to cut a hole in the brow, then half bury the person on the ground and pour cement into the wound. After that, people will feel itchy and it feels so uncomfortable, but their hands are buried in the soil and cannot scratch it, so people will try their best to drill out of the soil. Guess what will happen with this force? With this force, people will drill out of the soil, but the human skin remains in the soil...

Think about it, there is no skin on my body, it is full of bright red flesh, the wind blows on the flesh, making it more itchy and painful... What did you say just now, you won't frown, right? Come on, prepare to bury a pit for me immediately."

Lu Nanshan's face changed, and his lips were trembling and unable to speak. Cheng Shuang walked up to him, looked at him curiously, and said solemnly: "Teacher, his legs were shot through, and the skin on his shoulders was also shot into a hole. We need to prepare more mercury so that we would not leak out of those three holes."

Shen Kuo explained attentively: "This is an ancient criminal law. It is said that it was used by Jie and Zhou. Li Ren, how could you know this ancient criminal law?"

Lu Nanshan could no longer hold it in, so he collapsed on the ground and shouted loudly: "Give up your life, sir, let go of your life."

Zhao Xing shook his knife, sighed regretfully, and apologized to Shen Kuo first, saying, "Mr. Mengxi, this person is going to be called. It seems that I can't play this criminal law with you today."

Then, he turned to Lu Nanshan and asked, "Lu Nanshan, right? You'd better be a 'serious and honest guardian' today. I ask you, are you from Huliang Mountain?"

"That's right!" Shen Kuo chattered around: "The Lu family in Huliang Mountain. During the Hou Jing Rebellion, he entered the mountains and built a family residence in Shicheng. When I built Mengxi Garden, I hired someone, the Lu family in Huliang Mountain. I heard that that area was the den of the bandits in Taihu Lake, and the biggest bandits nearby came from Huliang Mountain."

Shen Kuo did not say all this, the complete words were: The Lu family followed him to Zhaoxing Castle. After that, the Lu family quit his job and returned to his own house.

Lu Nanshan, opposite, quickly added the missing part of Shen Kuo. He lay on the ground and added weakly: "...My brother Lu is on the first ship. We inquired about it. We leaned on the big ship on the seventh of every month, and then started trading in the Cao Market not far away.

Originally, we wanted to go to Caoshi to grab one, but we didn’t expect that today it was obviously No. 7, but we couldn’t wait for the boat left and right, so we had to take the initiative, but we didn’t expect..."

Under Zhao Xing's questioning, Lu Nanshan explained in detail: After the Lu brother who followed Shen Kuolai to the castle, he introduced the prosperity of the castle and the prosperity of the grass market near the castle. What is particularly coveted is that the grass market near the castle is still outside the government. Since it does not pay taxes to the government, it has no place to complain after being robbed.

The huge benefits made the bandits in Huqian Mountain very tempted, but the castle of Zhaoxing brought too much oppression, so they sent several spies to investigate and formulated detailed plans. They planned to wait for the freighter on Zhaoxing Wharf to enter the port, cross the wharf to rob Caoshi, then float down the river, enter the sea, and find a place to dock. In order to escape the pursuit.

But the first spy they sent was greedy for a moment and planned to sneak into the castle. Taking advantage of the crowds coming and going in the castle, they could steal a few things... Unexpectedly, his whereabouts were discovered by Jin Buer's dog...

After the spies of this pier disappeared, the bandits who were preparing to pick him up guessed that he might sneak into the castle, so they sent a second group of people into the city to inquire about their companions, but were discovered and blocked in the basement and were smoked to death by Zhao Xing with coal smoke...

The bandits were afraid of being alerted, so they decided to do it after discussion. When they thought, they had a large number of people and powerful people in the castle would not dare to pursue them. If the big ship on Zhaoxing pier was anchored and chased them... As long as they were quick, they might have rushed out of the river estuary without waiting for the big ship to catch up.

Unfortunately, although the plan is beautiful, the truth of Zhao Xing's pier is not something you can understand by looking at it. First of all, although there are many passing boats near the pier, each passing boat has a tacit understanding. Their own ships will not be blocked at any time and will directly dock, rather than their own ships. People familiar with this route will spontaneously sail in the middle of the river to open the Jiangzuo channel to facilitate Zhao Xing's entry and exit. Otherwise, such ships will be severely investigated and even sunk.

The boat sailing on the river is not as good as walking on land. Once the anchor is raised, the boat drifts along the river like a thirsty horse running in the spring, and cannot stop it. The bandits were waiting for news upstream, but they waited for the cargo ship to enter the port. An impatient bandit saw a large ship parked on the dock and thought it had already entered the port. He sent a signal that the bandits in the upstream set off and drove into the Jasmine Courtyard, and found that something was wrong, so it was too late to turn around.

Originally, they planned to quietly bypass the dock area and land in Caoshi downstream, but these ships were too unfamiliar. When the people on the river asked casually, they panicked and began to implement the second plan.

The second plan was to use gunpowder brought on the boat to blow up the castle gate so that the people in the castle could not get out, so that they could rob the dock and the grass market below. However, due to the death of two spies before, the people in Huqianshan were afraid of alarming the snakes. Without knowing the terrain of the dock, they hurriedly launched an attack. When their ships got on the dock, they found that their ships were too small, their freeboards were too low, and the embankment in the dock area was too high, so they could not climb up at all at the low point.

As a last resort, some bandits detonated the explosive ship...

The situation followed was a mess. The bandits' plans were all gone. They had to continue blocking the city gates with mud feet and rob the sunken ships on the dock to avoid returning empty-handed. In the chaos, they encountered an unimaginable counterattack, and the entire operation failed completely.

Lu Nanshan had just finished explaining that another boat came from Zhao Xing's dock. The three large ships sent their own signals to slowly approach the dock. Behind their hulls were the captured small sampans, and guided them on the dock to get up to the berth one by one.

This time, the bandits kicked the iron plate upright.

The cargo ships waiting downstream were not one, but three, and the rare three cargo ships entered the port at the same time. The main cargo shipped on these ships were soldiers. Zhao Xing's group of Mamuliuke slave soldiers who had not appeared for a long time also arrived, and there were also forty Gurkha slave soldiers.

Zhao Xing did not expect that three ships would enter the port, and two of the three ships had agreed with Zhao Xing: a cargo ship was sent from the Changhua Army to carry some of the force he left in Hainan; a cargo ship was sent from Vietnam to carry Chen Yiyi's dowry warrior and maid. The excess cargo ship came from Japan, and when it showed its banner, Zhao Xing was also stunned.

Zhao Xing's castle was too big. After the workers evacuated, he felt that it was insufficient, so he transferred some people from Nanyang to strengthen defense. Since the ship was transported with more sensitive armed personnel, he ordered the ship to guard the estuary in advance. When it was late at night, when fireworks were released from the castle, they quietly approached the dock... At this time, they happened to meet the fleeing bandits.

The one who came down from the Japanese ship was Yuan Yeping. He was covered with his hair, with large tufts of blood on his clothes, and carrying a samurai sword. He jumped off the boat quickly. His hands stained with blood and tucked over his beautiful face and lifted a few hairs behind his ears. His expression was indescribable. When he saw Zhao Xing, he breathed a sigh of relief and his body seemed to have become soft. He took a few breaths on his knife before he spoke indifferently: "It's okay for brother Li Ren, that's fine."

Zhao Xing touched his nose and thought to himself as Shen Kuo: "Today is all accidents, a series of accidents. Fortunately, these accidents constitute a lucky one."

At this moment, it was already a little dark.

The battle just now was not long or short. It was measured by modern time, and it only took an hour to exchange fire from the sunset to the present, and the twilight was vast.

The servants lit torches, and the newly arrived warriors on the two large ships began to sort out the wreckage on the wharf with the cooperation of the castle students. Zhao Xing looked at the slightly broken wharf and said with a heartache: "What a pity, I spent five years building this wharf, but it actually..."

Yuanye finished breathing and stood up and looked at the dock, comforting him, "Brother Zhao, don't worry, I think this dock can still be used, and the gunpowder just now hurt some of the edges, so it's better for people to be safe."

Shen Kuo had already climbed onto the fire crossbow cart and studied it. He pulled out a rocket from the beehive of the fire crossbow cart, looked over and over again, muttering: "It's so strange, why is this arrow pointed and round, and this kind of craft is so wonderful."

Zhao Xing waved his hand, and the servants began to carry the injured bandits into the castle. Thinking of the officials in the Blue House, Zhao Xing was worried about the wives and concubines who were concerned about him, so he quickly pulled Shen Kuo and called Shangyuan Yeping to walk into the castle. As for the matter in the dock area, it was left to Cheng Shuang to handle it.

When Shen Kuo left, he did not mean to put the gunpowder arrow in his hand back. While walking, he looked at the gunpowder arrow in his palm, muttering, as if he was thinking about its production. After thinking for a while, he raised his face and shook the gunpowder arrow and asked Zhao Xing: "Li Ren, how did this thing be made? The rustling sound inside, why is the gunpowder so unreal?"

Zhao Xing just spoke Yu Yuan Yeping, and Shen Kuo asked directly without hesitation, forcing Zhao Xing to turn his face to face Shen Kuo.

Shen Kuo is really too persistent. If you don’t answer the question he asked, he will ask repeatedly. Given that the other party was so focused, Zhao Xing was soft-hearted and did not care about the other party’s rumor personality. He said frankly: “There are two ways to do this kind of vertebrae. One is to use plaster instead of sand and stone as a mold. The cast vertebrae is very standardized. The other is to use stamping method to stamp a vertebrae... Ah, plaster, that is, cold water stone."

Shen Kuo said a long time, continued to look at the gunpowder arrows in his hand, and walked to the door of the Blue House Hall. Zhao Xing found the opportunity to grab the gunpowder arrows from Shen Kuo, and said haha: "Mr. Mengxi, there are fire candles everywhere in the hall. It is really dangerous to take this thing into the hall."

Shen Kuo was stunned for a moment and asked reluctantly: "Can I look at it again? I want to look at it again during the day tomorrow... mold, are you talking about plaster mold? I know this thing, and I also want to see how it is made."

Zhao Xing was stunned for a moment and reluctantly said, "Okay, I'll wait for you tomorrow!"

But Shen Kuo had no intention of leaving. He stood by the door and waited for Zhao Xing to open the door. Zhao Xing pushed open the heavy fort gate in pain. When he saw the scene in the castle, he was stunned.

The Song Dynasty was so enjoyable. The noise on the pier calmed down for a long time. No one in the castle wanted to go out to see it. They got together and they were actually happy again.

In the center of the hall, Liao Xiaoxiao was wearing a colorful dress and singing "The Beautiful Woman" there. She sang the song "There is a Beautiful Woman in the North" over and over again in a spirit. Of course, this song was also taught by Zhao Xing, and it was sung by Su Man.

The lyrics of this song are Li Yannian. The author of the song is Mei Linmao, a famous Japanese composer. This master completely uses the instruments of the Song Dynasty to create this song full of Song Dynasty. The main melody is Xi Qin (erhu), plus the plucking music that is like crying and complaining, and the ringtone that is soft and sad:

“There are beautiful women in the north,

Peerless and independent.

A look at the city,

In Gu Qingren's country.

I would rather not know,

Beautiful and beautiful,

It’s hard to get a beautiful woman.”

Liao Xiaoxiao was so heartless that she slapped her. Just opposite the gate, Chen Yiyi slapped excitedly. It seemed that Liao Xiaoxiao's song was dedicated to her, but Zhao Xing realized that Liao Xiaoxiao's face was full of narcissism when she sang this song. Yuan Yeping had no time to explain to Zhao Xing why he had returned to Hangzhou. He had no chance to explain at this time. As soon as he saw the famous Chinese masters in the hall, he began to drool. He immediately ran to Su Shi like a pug, looking at the latter drooling, and kept looking at Qin Guan, looking at Mao Pang, and seemed to see a lot of delicious food. Zhao Xing knew that even if you asked him who he was, he couldn't remember, so how could he talk about serious matters? He looked at Su Shi and Qin Guan,

Shen Kuo stood at the gate, but no one dared to say hello to him. Everyone turned a blind eye to him and ignored him, but Shen Kuo felt embarrassed at all. He swept the hall and muttered, "The echo is so good", and then lowered his head to observe the ground. After observing for a moment, he actually lay on the ground without caring about his image and knocked on the tiles.

The floor of the Blue Tile Terrace is paved with large pieces of high-temperature tiles. The tiles are large in area and are decorated with light patterns. The center of the first floor hall is paved with circular patterns. The center of the circle is traditional cloud dragon pattern. Shen Kuo lay on the ground and tapped the tiles with his fingers. He listened to the empty sounds of the tiles. He looked at Zhao Xing in wonder and asked: "Empty? Is there empty under the tiles? How did it be done?"

When Zhao Xing came in, the sound of opening the door had attracted everyone's attention, but when everyone saw Shen Kuo in the team, they immediately looked away at Huo Zhuo, pretending that they did not notice the team coming in at all. Only Liao Xiaoxiao in the center of the field shook a charming look at Zhao Xing and continued to sing intently.

Chen Yiyi was also very focused when she heard it and did not notice Zhao Xing's coming in at all. She clapped her hands while listening.

Everyone pretended to be serious and didn't hear Shen Kuo's question. Zhao Xing had to deal with it and reluctantly responded. He smiled and replied: "Mr. Mengxi, all the corridors of the Blue House and two rooms are the same as this hall. This is the same as this hall. The tiles are not completely empty. Under each tiles, nine light bronze cups were placed in a nine-grid manner. The purpose of this is to increase the echo."

Shen Kuo's erudition was not something that Zhao Xing could fool him. He nodded and immediately replied: "This is a drum hall and drum gallery based on ancient methods. The ancient kings built such drum halls and drum galleries to prevent assassins. Legend has it that such corridors and halls can turn slight footsteps into loud bells, making the infiltrating assassins unable to hide."

Zhao Xing forced a smile and replied: "What do I need to prevent assassination... As you said, this is called the drum hall and drum gallery, but it is used to enjoy singing and dancing. If you play music in such a place, you don't think the music is particularly pleasant, and the singing is particularly melodious... Look, how intoxicating and beautiful Miss Liao sings?"

Shen Kuo climbed up quickly, and didn't even dust off the soil on his body. He stared at Zhao Xing with a focused expression and asked: "There are two halls left and there are also two halls. Where are they? I'll go and take a look."

Zhao Xing's eyes rolled, and his face was full of bitterness and called the black female slave Cindia, and instructed in Hu language: "Take him to the Tianlai Hall, then take him to the study room and turn the books, stare at him, and record every book and every page he read... He can be allowed to copy, but he is not allowed to go out at will. If necessary, he can use force to stop it. Also, the books in the Tianzi Cabinet are forbidden to read."

Cindia agreed in Hu language, picked up Shen Kuo and left quietly. After Shen Kuo left, Zhao Xing seemed to be relieved when he heard the people in the audience. The person's breathing was very small and it was difficult to hear, but in this special hall, many people gasped together, and their voices were as loud as a shout, even covering Liao Xiaoxiao's singing.

Now, Chen Yiyi finally found Zhao Xing returning. She clapped her hands and said what everyone wanted to say: "Look, I knew my husband was fine, just a few little thieves. As soon as my husband went out, they would just want to escape. The official caught a few? Where did the thieves come from? Are our people injured?"

The Dharma Cao Maopang squeezed into Zhao Xing. Before he could speak, Su Shi walked over. He quickly turned around and moved away from Su Shi. Before Su Shi spoke, Yang Zuren also rushed over. Su Shi turned sideways and asked Yang Zuren to go first. Yang Zuren looked at Zhao Xing's armor and said enviously: "I wish I could wear it again... Leaving people, who are there outside? How many bandits are there?"

Zhao Xing replied: "There are about fifty."

"Hiss", the whole room was filled with breathing sounds.

Zhao Xing continued: "I caught some of the injured. Some people admitted that they came from the upper reaches of Huliang Mountain. There were some who had no time to interrogate them. Looking at the outfit, it seemed that several groups of bandits had joined forces. According to them, they originally wanted to rob the Cao Market near the ferry, but they were blocked at the ferry."

Fa Cao Maopang couldn't sit still, so he bowed and signaled to Zhao Xing: "Brother Zhao, look..."
Chapter completed!