On the fifth day of the sixth year of Kaiping in Daliang (332), the sun is sunny and scorching.
The weather is so strange. In May, the wind is still blowing and frost is constantly coming. Now the summer is hot again, as if everything has passed. But no one dares to take it lightly. The snow on the shady side of the northern foot of Yinshan Mountain is at the end of April and there are still remaining in early May. This year is not a good year, and maybe it will get colder again one day.
After marching for dozens of miles, the army finally found a place to stop. Seeing that they were like that, they would probably camp here tonight.
The team of more than a thousand people had almost no intention of setting up camp. They just found a flat land by the river, took off their luggage from the horse's back, and set up a tent.
Some people found a flat hole in the hillside, pruned the temporarily cut branches, and put them on the ground as simple antlers.
Some people also carried horn bows and rode their guns away from the camp and swam far away.
Most people sat on the ground, fetched water to cook, and washed horses.
This place is not far from Hongcheng Town.
Because of the negotiations in advance, the town was loose outside and tight inside, so some preparations were made.
Gan Ximuhan brought people outside the town and bought some wine and food.
Hongcheng Town has been expanded and has two cities in the north and south.
Nancheng is an old city, smaller, and is the residence of the town generals and main officials. It also has important facilities such as grain warehouses and arsenals, and a total of five or six hundred families live in.
North City is a new city, relatively large, with more than a thousand families living in it.
More than ten miles west of Hongcheng Town and twenty miles east, there are hundreds of military households each living in the newly built fortress, Rihong City left and right.
Among the hills across the river in Hongcheng Town, another village was established, called Luo Cheng, and five hundred military households were stationed.
The entire Hongcheng Town is a complete defense system. The main city has 3,000 military households, and the three outside military camps totaling 1,500, with a total of 4,500 households. As for the population, it is only more than 1,100, and the average household is less than three.
The reason is that the Hongcheng Town soldiers were mainly recruited from the Luonan area, and recruited more than 3,000 soldiers, most of whom were unmarried young men aged fifteen to seventeen.
A single teenager is a military household, each household is a family.
In recent years, some people got married one after another. The boy who originally moved north with his wife has gradually had children and the population has increased slightly.
There are more than 3,000 Luonan soldiers outdoors, and there are more than 1,000 Hu military households.
These are basically "retail investors" who took the initiative to surrender, namely, the fugitives who lost their tribes and their clans were destroyed, including Xianbei, Wuhuan, Xiongnu, Jie people, and even various Hus. Most of them were with their families, but not many people.
The Hu people lived in a narrow area between Hongcheng Town and Zhonglingchuan (this section of Zhonglingchuan is also called "Honghe"). They used tents and thatched houses as their residences. At the beginning, the military town called it "city beside the city", which means living near the town.
But now they have registered their household registration and are uniformly assigned to Hongcheng Town Military Households.
The entire Hongcheng Town is like an isolated stronghold, drowned in the vast sea of ​​the Hu people. It requires continuous subsidies from the outside world. Of course, they can also produce a certain amount of materials themselves, such as "How to sell chickens?" Xi Mouhan skipped the messy urban residents and went directly to a relatively clean village and asked.
A woman bent over and walked out of the chicken coop. She had a chicken feather on her head and four chickens in her hand. Seeing Xi Mouhan's outfit, she was not afraid of him and said, "Don't sell it."
"I can't bear to sell it?" Xi Mouhan asked with a smile.
The woman shook her head and said, "It's something for children at home."
"I exchanged honey. I almost vomited honey all the way, so I wanted to eat some chicken." Xi Mouhan said.
The woman stopped, and after a moment of silence, she said, "Take your honey and take a look."
Xi Mouhan winked, and soon a follower brought honey. He saw a short table outside the yard with a wooden bowl on it, poured it in, half a bowl.
A man soon came out of the yard. He seemed to be less than twenty years old. He was holding a horn in his hand. Maybe he was making a bow. After seeing Xi Mouhan, he asked about the situation and said, "It's changed."
The Xianbei entourage threw the skin directly to him.
The man thought about it, took out a few chickens from the house, handed them over, and said, "That's all."
If you feel it’s not enough, go to my garden to pick some vegetables.”
"Okay." Xi Mouhan followed the direction of the man's finger, and saw the green vegetables, and nodded.
Instruct your men to pick them.
But he didn't leave, but just looked at the mud house and asked, "Everyone lives in the city, but you can't live, why?"
The man took advantage of it and said a few more words to him, saying, "I'm late, so I can only live outside the city. The West City will be expanded next year, and I may be able to move in."
"Come from Henan, don't you blame me?" Xi Mouhan asked, "It's cold and hot this day, and the frost falls, and your fruit trees will not bear fruit this year. Planting in spring, once you don't have time to drop the frost, the harvest will be greatly reduced. There will be no frost. When the north wind blows strongly in August, the slurry will blow away, and how many buckets of rice will end up?"
The man was obviously told that he had a little bit of a concern, but he was unwilling to admit defeat and said, "My family will change to plant spring wheat next year."
"Oh? Are you not afraid of frost? Or are you not afraid of wind?" Xi Mouhan said strangely.
"It will be better." The man said.
"I understand." Xi Mouhan smiled and said, "But it's only a difference between fifty steps and hundreds of steps, right? It's still a hard life. Since that's the case, it's better to take your wife and children back to the countryside and live with your relatives, wouldn't it be nice?"
"Henan has no more land." The man sighed.
"Liang Ting doesn't make arrangements for you? If it were me, he would have been fucking back." Xi Mouhan laughed.
The man finally reacted. He looked at Xi Mouhan carefully, then smiled and asked, "Where did it come from? Huyi Mountain, Kujiesha or Noh's true water man, or more west?"
"Yi Xinshan." Xi Mouhan said with a smile.
The man asked again, "Helan, Xi or which small tribe?"
The Helan family had long been out of reach. After being raided by the Dean Army, they fled in scattered areas. The last part was annexed by the Wang family and some were forcibly moved to Hebei. In the past two years, some people fled back one after another and gathered together, but the momentum was not as good as before.
The Wang family wanted to destroy the Helan tribe, but the opposition was too loud. After all, even if it was a serious crime such as regicide and rebellion, it would not kill a tribe and completely eliminate it. This is not in line with tradition.
As for whether there are other reasons, it is unknown. Anyway, the Helan tribe still exists, but it doesn’t even have one-third of its previous strength.
"Xi." Xi Mouhan said in surprise: "Have you actually heard the name of Xi's tribe?"
The man smiled faintly and said, "When Mrs. Wang attacked the Helan tribe, Hongcheng Town recruited two thousand soldiers and went north of Daochuan. But halfway through the journey, I heard that the Helan tribe was scattered and the head of the Xi tribe tied up and asked to surrender."
Gan Ximuhan's face looked a little ugly, but he was very good at adjusting his emotions. He laughed again and said, "That's the case on the grassland. Today you are strong and I am weak, tomorrow I am weak. Who can tell the truth about luck? The Douling tribe was once a vassal of the Helan tribe, but now its strength is far above Helan. Hongcheng Town has mountains, waters and flat land, which is good in Shengle's vicinity, but it is not a little worse than Henan, right?"
"It's a lot worse." The man also didn't deny it.
"It's better to fight back to Henan." Xi Mouhan smiled and said, "You can fight too."
The man looked at Xi Mouhan with fun and said, "This place is indeed poorer than Henan. But I am a military soldier.
Last year I got four pieces of silk, six pieces of cloth, one jacket, one quilt robe, two white felt, and one set of bedding.
Twenty-one hukou, six tumblers of grain, five tumblers of salt, and one jar of wine. When practicing martial arts, I also got a pair of celadon bottles and several food utensils for rewards. When I didn’t practice or went to war, I would farm at home and take care of orchard vegetables. When the horses were fat, I would cross my knife and bow to hunt on the grassland. All my income was my own, what do you think?"
Xi Mouhan's face was a little nervous, and he could only shake his head and said, "One day, the Luoyang imperial court will not spend so much money to support you. To be honest, you don't have much income from the imperial guards, and you still have to farm and grazle yourself. Wouldn't you lose?"
"Let's talk when the court doesn't send money." The man stopped talking nonsense and turned back to the yard.
The woman put away the pot of honey like a baby, looking happy.
Her family lacks nothing, but honey. Her children have long been envious of this, so they will give them honey water tonight.
Xi Mouhan returned to the camp by the river, and was worried.
The existence of Red Town is really disgusting!
The tribes living around became much more honest when they knew that there was such a force that could recruit 5,000 people at the limit.
As the man said just now, when the horses were high and fat, the soldiers gathered to hunt around. Sometimes they hunted yellow sheep, and sometimes they were hunters.
In a bitter and cold place, these soldiers are wild and fierce, and are also fierce. After a long time, pure and good people will gradually become this kind of virtue.
When a military city was opened near Hongcheng Town, Hu and Han merchants came here to trade, and they all had to provide a portion of the military town or get a grain.
Speaking of which, merchants transported grain to the frontiers in exchange for the qualification to trade with each other, which was carried forward by Sima Yi, but it was in Guanzhong at that time, so it should be considered a "frontier".
A considerable part of the things the town soldiers received last year were given by military merchants.
As long as these military towns exist for one day, the people of the tribes will be in chaos. They want to rebel, and then become afraid. They feel that they might as well "join the flow" with the military town. In short, it is difficult to use their strength in the same place.
Xi Mouhan thought for a long time, and finally sighed and went to eat.
On the seventh day of the lunar month, his team passed Wuzhou City and walked east along Wuzhouchuan.
This is another military town.
According to the nobles in Pingcheng, Wuzhou Town has more than 5,500 households and more than 17,000 people. The household registration is much higher than that in Hongcheng Town, so raising it should be a considerable burden.
But the witch Wang's witch had to pay half of the money to support them, which was simply outrageous.
On the ninth night of the lunar month, Xi Mouhan and his group arrived near Pingcheng and camped outside the city.
Chapter completed!