The poem says:

Drinking the Great Wall Cave of Horses, the cold water damages the horse's bones.

In the past, I said to the Great Wall officials, be careful not to keep the soldiers in Taiyuan!

A man would rather die by fighting than let the Eastern Captains flow bloodthirsty!

...

On February 18th, the eighth year of Chongzhen, outside Hebao.

A sparse rammed earth house, a muddy path, and the dung of mules, horses, sheep and cattle is everywhere. When the cold wind blows, it will freeze and become solid.

"Auction~Auction~"

The long horse whip was raised, and the chariot drove the carriage and kept shouting. The horse team consisted of more than a dozen cars and horses, and bags of goods were piled up on them in the slogans of coolies.

A red-bottomed and gold-edged team flag was inserted at the front of the car. The flag was flying in the wind, with a large word "Zhang" embroidered on it.

Any old man with some experience will know when he sees this banner that this is the convoy of the Zhang family in Puzhou (Zhang Siwei, the Minister of War Wang Chonggu).

Just a few decades ago, looking at the entire Shanxi, no one dared to mess with the convoy as long as the Zhang family flag was hanging. Unfortunately, the Zhang family is no longer as good as before. Apart from a dozen handlebars that drove the car, there were only three or five young and strong people. In addition to drinking, cooking, repairing and other miscellaneous tasks, they also act as a guardian.

"Nephew Chen, I'll take care of you all the way back." A weathered elder thanked softly. He was only in his forties, his face was full of wrinkles. When he smiled, the folds looked like a gully outside his mouth.

Chen Shanhe held his horse and clasped his fists, feeling quite heroic, "You are kind to you, Mr. Zhang, my father once said that he would repay you with a drop of water. He paid more attention to you back then. This time I was ordered to go out of my mouth to inquire about the enemy's love, and it was a matter of course to take care of the convoy along the way."

Zhang Shouren laughed and said, "It's all the past. I won't mention it, I won't mention it anymore."

He said without mentioning it, but his eyes were full of nostalgia. He only heard him say, "I remember that our Zhang family's convoy had hundreds of cars all the time. Your father was smart. Every time he passed by your Chenjia Village, he would ask me to stuff a car. The benefits of selling goods were half the price. The inside and outside of the mouth were three times the price difference. As a result, this kid still thought it was too small. A car of reed salt was long, and he could mix about a hundred kilograms of sand. When I discovered it, he argued that those Tartars had thick tongues and bad breath and could not eat it."

When everyone heard the embarrassing things about the men back then, they laughed. Shanxi has few land and many people. In order to survive, many people do business. The tea-horse transactions with Outer Mongolians have never stopped for hundreds of years since the early Ming Dynasty.

Fang Jingnan rode silently on the horse, not participating in the jokes of everyone. He was looking at a group of children on the side of the road who were scrambling to pick up cows and horse manure. On a cold day, they were wearing thin coats, covered with patches, and most of them had to go up to a few numbers. They were loose and frigid as they walked, and the cold wind blew, but they didn't care. They sucked their noses and barefoot and barefoot. They saw a piece of horse manure like they were picking up treasures and rushed up to grab them.

There was a child who was too young, only five or six years old. Every time he saw the cow and horse manure he saw first, he couldn't grab it. He was pushed and was squeezed out during the push. Seeing that he could not get what he should have, he didn't know if it was a fall or aggrieved, but he sat on the ground and cried loudly.

"Brother Tiezhu, please give me a pancake." Fang Jingnan kept his eyes away and called out to Meng Tiezhu beside him.

Meng Tiezhu sighed: "The people in the border areas are hardworking but they are not good at all. They are all like this and they can't control it."

"I didn't think I could care about it all, but I just saw it but didn't do anything, so I couldn't help feeling uncomfortable."

The bread made from the far-distance home was usually very large, half a foot square, weighing pounds. Fang Jingnan rode a horse and stomped to the child, but he didn't get off the horse. He leaned down and handed over the cake, "Stop crying, I'll give it to you."

The golden and thin white cake surface was glossy, and I felt appetite. The child swallowed his saliva suddenly, but he was reluctant to reach out to take it.

"Here, it's delicious!" Fang Jingnan smiled encouragingly and handed over the hand.

It seemed that there was no danger? The child's eyes were bright and transparent, with a hazy light. He looked at the dough cake in front of him, raised his hands slightly, and when his fingertips touched the dough cake, he seemed to have a tremor. The dough cake was held in his hand for a while, and saw that Fang Jingnan had no other moves, so he happily bit it, and said thankfully: "Thank you, big brother!"

Seeing the child's happy smiling face, a warm current surged in Fang Jingnan's heart.

"I want it too, I want it too..." This action immediately attracted the attention of other children and surrounded them.

"You little brother is so kind," Zhang Shouren, who was beside him, saw this, and a hint of cruelty flashed across his wrinkled face. "But you better go and persuade him. Before you get on the road, don't just throw away your rations."

Chen Shanhe responded and was about to step forward. At this time, Fang Jingnan, who was about to be surrounded, grabbed the horse's belly and beat the horse and walked away.

Hahaha!

Zhang Shouren laughed roughly and praised: "It's good to be kind but not pedantic!"

Then he raised his arms and shocked, directing the convoy: "Get up, let's go to the west entrance."

The long convoy immediately started to move, soothing but without stopping to go north along the horse road. Chen Shanhe shook the horse's reins. Looking at Fang Jingnan who was leaving as if he was away, he smiled jokingly, turned his head and looked at the group of children again, and suddenly his smile froze. The north wind was desolate, and the yellow sand was rolled up in the sky.

Chen Shanhe turned his head suddenly and galloped quickly.

###

The Ming Dynasty should prevent the nine sides from being heavy, and the nine sides are important.

Before the rise of the Later Jin Dynasty in Liaodong, Datong Town was the most important border town for the Ming Dynasty to defend the Mongols, and it was also the most prosperous place for the transaction.

After a long journey of five miles, Fang Jingnan slowed down after riding his horse. He originally wanted to find a clear idea, but now he is even more congested. This world is so damn.

Fang Jingnan rode a high-quality war horse with bright black fur. It had a tall body and a wide body, strong four-hooves and strong muscles, and spent 80 taels of silver.

Once they agreed to make money by "robbing" that day, they started moving. As a good citizen, it was definitely a technical job, and it was not that easy.

First of all, we must be armed. As the saying goes, if you want to do things well, you must first sharpen your tools. It is not possible to rob robbery.

The five pairs of armor in the family were taken out, and the armor of the Ming Dynasty soldiers was generally very bad. This time, we must go deep into Mongolia to defend. We put on the iron armor in the coat and put on cotton armor. There are three layers in total, almost like the strongest Bayala soldiers in the Later Jin Dynasty.

The weapon is a long spear with a zhemu pole, a shaped anti-emulsion embroidered spring knife made of Baijian Steel, a shield covered with two layers of cowhide, and finally a composite step bow with one stone and two points. However, Fang Jingnan did not take the bow, but inserted a hand gun of a pretty good quality. Although the effective distance is only more than ten meters, it is better than none.

In terms of equipment, this is basically considered first-class, and the personnel are only a little thin. There are only five people in total, including Chen Baihu and his two servants, Meng Tiezhu, who is fighting for his brothers, and Fang Jingnan, who only knows how to ride horses.

None of the people who dare to do business outside the mouth are good. It doesn’t seem reliable if you want to rob them just because five people just want to rob them.

But since Chen Youfu dared to make this suggestion, he naturally had his own way. Just when he made the plan, Fang Jingnan immediately rejected it. It was too vicious!

If he followed his plan, he would not know how many people would die, and he would be sad about the level in his heart.

Chen Youfu was so angry that he cursed: He was going to rob, so why did he build a archway?

Chen Youfu's plan was to ask his son Chen Baihu to find a good citizen to kill him first, and then take the identity of this good citizen to find a caravan that forms a team. Then, when people are not paying attention, they feed all the horses in the caravan with crotons. If there is no horse on the grassland, no one can escape. Finally, they will kill people to silence them and blame the Mongolians.

Such a good plan was rejected, and Chen Youfu kicked the ball on Fang Jingnan with a swing of his hand: Come on!

It was really difficult for four people to grab the caravan. Fang Jingnan recalled it for a long time, and finally remembered the complaints of a friend of truck drivers. When he raised his thoughts, Chen Youfu scolded him, "It's really hard," and turned around and worked hard to cooperate.

The convoy walked slowly, Fang Jingnan fed all the horses once before seeing the Zhang family's flag.

Zhang Shouren slapped his horse forward, came to him, and smiled and said, "Brother, you are running too fast, everyone who pulls the carts is picking up the horse, but you can't catch up with you."

Chen Shanhe, Meng Tiezhu and others also followed and said, "It's still early now, so why not stop and rest and just rush to Zhuma Fort before dark."

"I can do it," Fang Jingnan took out a charcoal pen and paper from his arms and said, "I just happened to draw a map passing by."

"Everyone rest aside, eat some dry food, and let the horse drink some water and eat some grass." Zhang Shouren ordered everyone and leaned towards Fang Jingnan again, and saw him drawing carefully on the paper with a fine charcoal.

Fang Jingnan did not hide. While recalling memories, she drew quickly. Only five miles away, Fang Jingnan drew a piece of paper.

The more Zhang Shouren looked, the stranger he became. He couldn't help but ask, "I understand your curved line, and I understand the grassland and high slopes on both sides of the horse road, but what do you mean by vertical lines?"

Fang Jingnan explained with a smile: "This is called a contour line, which represents the height of the hillside. The short and thick line in the corner is called a proportional line, which represents the ratio between the map and the real distance."

Seeing that Zhang Shouren knew nothing, Fang Jingnan couldn't help but smile. Look, as soon as he left that old man Chen Youfu, his IQ advantage was reflected. Those who studied archaeology would definitely click to make maps. Although it was far inferior to the real military maps in later generations, in this era, it was estimated that one hundred points would be calculated.

Sure enough, Zhang Shouren said: "My family has a picture of Datong Town presented to the emperor by Lord Yang Shining. It contains a map of the four roads and seventy-two forts in the town, and it does not have the details of your painting."

"Oh, what are the pictures drawn?"

Zhang Shouren did not hide his own personal information and explained: "For our trip this time, looking horizontally at Datong Town, seventy-two castles were arranged along the Great Wall line, but they were not arranged in a row, and there were depths between them. In terms of depth, there were three levels: extreme rushing place, second rushing place, and buffering place."

"The Yungang Fort beside your Chenjia Village is the buffering place of the innermost line; thirty miles north of Yungang Fort is Chen Xiaonie who acts as a hundred households, and this fort is the second place to rush; thirty miles northwest of Zhenhe Fort, you will reach the Shuma Fort beside the wall, and that fort is the extreme edge."

Zhang Shouren explained it very clearly. Fang Jingnan had some concepts in his mind. The map now looks a bit like coordinate points, which is the distance of which direction is the fort. As for the terrain, mountains and rivers between the two forts, there are very few mentions.

But this was also very useful to Fang Jingnan. He smiled and said, "When I return this time, Datong Town Tu said, I wonder if Mr. Zhang can borrow a look at me?"

Haha, Zhang Shouren laughed and said, "Do you know that these mountains and rivers are treasures that we have passed on through business. Not to mention outsiders, non-tribes are not allowed to see them."

After laughing, Zhang Shouren said again: "But if you are interested, I will lend you a look."

Fang Jingnan said a little embarrassedly: "This, uh, is it all heirlooms. Am I a little embarrassed? Haha!"

Zhang Shouren smiled and said seriously: "The house is almost gone, and it's all a big deal!"

Perhaps because he was a little sad after thinking about it, Zhang Shouren stood up and shouted: "Get up, go, go to Zhuma Fort tonight."
Chapter completed!