Chapter 447: Flee (3)

Li Rui also nodded subconsciously. At that time, the terrain of the Hangzhou-Jiahu Plain was far from the appearance of the fish and rice town in Jiangnan today. The main settlements were all on sporadic highlands. The lower terrain was mostly puddles and swamps, and they were rarely developed. Compared with Hebei, Central Plains, and even Huainan, there was a considerable gap in population density and land fertility. Therefore, the evaluation of Yangzhou land in "Yu Gong" was "frozen land", which is why. However, after this construction, the swamps in large areas of low-lying areas could also be developed after draining. The population and the number of fields that can be accommodated increased by more than several times, and naturally the military force that can be mobilized also increased accordingly. He had been with Lu Fang for many years and was clearly aware of his ability to use troops. However, he did not expect that after conquering Liangzhe, he could mobilize such a huge amount of people to carry out water conservancy construction so quickly. His courage was really terrifying.

"Look, there should be ponds on the other side of the earth dike. In my opinion, this mound is probably not just for drainage and farming." Shi Shude suddenly pointed at a distance, and Li Rui looked closely along the direction of Shi Shude's finger. A ditch appeared and disappeared in the reeds, and finally slowly merged with Chenxi. Generally, the other end of the canal like this would connect a pond to remove the peaks and valleys of rain, drain water during flooding and irrigation during drought. This is very common in the south of the Yangtze River. Li Rui quickly walked upstream, and sure enough, after walking half a mile, a pond appeared opposite the river. The water surface was three or five miles away, and dozens of people stood by the pond, as if they were fishing.

Shi Shude walked to the river, pointed to the terrain in the distance, and said softly: "The location of this pier is very knowledgeable. Look, the terrain here is lower than that of the pond. If an enemy army attacks, they dig up the earth dike beside the pond, and so much water will rush down. Within a few miles of the surrounding country, the enemy's army can only be regarded as fish and turtles."

Li Rui's face was pale at first, and then his cheeks showed a bright red color. As Shi Shude said just now, if the defenders dug the embankment, even if the besieged enemy troops prepared boats in advance and were not drowned, the low-lying land around the pier would become a large swamp again. It would be almost impossible for the attacking party to cross such swamps.

"It seems that our choice is not wrong this time." Li Rui laughed loudly, and the fatigue accumulated over the past few days seemed to be wiped out. "Mr. Shi, let's work harder and go to the front to pass the stream quickly. When you arrive in Huzhou, I'll be a host and treat you a good meal."

After passing Chenxi, the two of them were about to rush to the village where the pier was located. In the past few days, they would eat raw fish and reed roots when they were hungry on the road. When they were tired, they would find a shelter to sleep in the open overnight. Not to mention the old eunuch Shi Shude, even a man like Li Rui, who was a man who was soaked in iron. They were thinking about eating some hot food and soaking their feet in hot water to rest for a night. Tomorrow, they would rush to Zhuzhou Prefecture Wucheng.

Unexpectedly, the two of them were still more than 200 steps away from the entrance of the village. Seeing five or six men holding sticks squatting beside the road, Li Rui was about to come forward to say something good, but the men jumped up and shouted "Take a spy". They couldn't help but beat them down. Li Rui quickly kicked one of them, grabbed a stick with his hand, and started to fight. Seeing this, Shi Shude next to him took a step back, took out the pebbles prepared in advance from his arms, put them in the stone-capping belt, and on his head

After turning twice, he aimed at the man in charge, loosened his belt and stood on his forehead. He heard a whisper and fell to the ground. Those men were just ordinary farming men. They had relied on the number of people and were greedy for rewards before, but they lost their leader in a confused manner. Seeing the other party fierce, they felt timid in their hearts. They threw their sticks and turned to flee to the village, shouting: "What a great spy!" Even the knocked companion fell to the ground and ignored it.

Li Rui held a stick in his hand and looked at the backs of the men who were running away. He couldn't help but smile bitterly. It seemed that the bed and hot rice were soaked in the evening. When he turned around, he saw Shi Shude squatting on the fainted man and groping for something. He couldn't help but ask, "What are you doing?"

"Of course we can see if there is any food. We will definitely not be able to stay in this village at night. We can't eat reed roots and raw fish anymore." Shi Shude didn't raise his head and groped on the fainted man.

Li Rui couldn't help but laugh and cry. Seeing Shi Shude's words and deeds, he looked like he was from a wealthy family. He didn't expect that he would do such a small thief who blocked the way. However, he didn't know that Shi Shude had been wandering from Luoyang and finally arrived in Guangling. He had more than two or three thousand miles along the way. If he was as innocent as Liu Xiahui, he would have starved to death long ago. The concerns in the palace in the past had long been thrown into Java.

Suddenly Shi Shude exclaimed, took out a piece of thing from the man's body, and looked closely and it turned out to be a wooden sign. When Li Rui called him, he saw that it was a token commonly used in the army. There were two words "Huzhou Yicong" engraved on the front, and the "Great Wall County Gengshu Ding Station" engraved on the back. Li Rui couldn't help but be stunned. Could it be that he had just fought or was the Zhenhai Soldier?

While the two were surprised, they heard another sound of "taking spies" from afar. Li Rui looked up and saw more than 20 men running towards the village gate. Li Rui was hesitating whether to escape, so he heard Shi Shude next to him whisper: "No, the way he came is blocked." Li Rui turned around and saw that there were six or seven people on the way he came, and obviously he could not escape.

Those men came very quickly, and in just a few breaths, the one in front was the one who was kicked down by Li Rui and took off the stick. However, at this time, his face had long lost the panic he had just now, and he shouted proudly: "Chief, the spy is the two of them. Brother Qu doesn't know what they were hurt by them, and he is still lying there."

Li Rui looked at the group of people who arrived carefully. Unlike those just now, they were no longer sticks, but swords, spears, shackles, and even four or five of them had bows and arrows. Their actions were clearly orderly. Obviously, they had received certain group battle training, so this was definitely not something that they could resist with just a stick.

"A certain family is an old acquaintance of Fan Changshi of Zhenhai Army, not a spy. It was just a misunderstanding just now. I hope you will forgive me." Li Rui threw the stick in his hand to the ground, raised his hands to let the visitor see clearly, indicating that he had no malice.

"Fuck! Just because of your appearance, you deserve to be a former acquaintance of Fan Changshi. Do you think we are idiots?" The man laughed loudly when he heard Li Rui's answer. The men behind him also started to cheer. The man picked up a stick, stabbed Li Rui in the chest, and sneered: "Didn't you say that you are also an old acquaintance with Mr. Lu."

Li Rui seemed to have not realized it and replied: "Yes, a certain family had fought against Mr. Lu on Huai. If you talk about an old acquaintance, it would be great."

A burst of crazy laughter broke out in the crowd, and the man laughed and couldn't straighten his waist. He pointed at Li Rui and said, "You're going to get hungry when you say you're fat. Do you still say that you're old acquaintances today? You really think we're all idiots?"

"The late emperor has been killed by the rebel Zhu Wen. When Zinian is still in his prime, our family has served him, but Li Zhuangshi has never seen him." The answer was Shi Shude. He was not pretending to be rough, and the eunuch's unique sharp voice seemed particularly harsh in the crazy laughter. Suddenly, both Li Rui and the men on the spot were shocked by Shi Shude's amazing words. Although Lu Fang had already learned about Zhu Wen's killing of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang, Lu Fang, who was trying to get the best benefit, only released the news that the emperor had abandoned the emperor, but did not announce the cause of the emperor's death, let alone Shi Shude claimed that he had served as a son today. This is why these ordinary men in the field were not stunned.

"The person who came is Li Rui and Li's Captain Li." A calm voice broke the silence. Li Rui turned his head hesitantly, and saw four or five scars on his face and two crotch armor on his body. He was ignorantly the leader of these men. But Li Rui could not recognize where he had seen this person no matter how hard he saw him, so he had to answer hesitantly: "Yes, it's a certain family, but are you?"

The scar-faced man smiled, pulling the scar on his face, which made people look quite intriguing. He bowed and said, "It's true. A certain family is the old subordinate of General Wang Foer. He met Li Ziwei several times in Danyang, so he recognized it. He didn't expect to meet him here today."

When he met his old acquaintance at this moment, Li Rui couldn't help but be overjoyed and smiled: "It turns out he is an old acquaintance from Danyang, but you don't serve in the army, why are you here?" He knew very well about Lu Fang's troops. When Moye was in his capital, he was known for his sharp military armor and strict orders. How could he be like this in front of him?

The scarred man bent down and rolled up his right leg pants. He saw that there was only one wooden leg left in the place that should have been the calf. He knocked on the wooden leg and made a crisp banging sound, and said with a wry smile: "When attacking Hangzhou, Gu Junen took Qian Miaoyabing and finally counterattacked, a certain family's leg was thrown there. Fortunately, he saved his life and came back. Mr. Lu is a kind man. He asked me to be a three-old man here and teach these men a lesson."

When Li Rui heard this, he immediately understood. He had also heard that if the soldiers in the Lu Fang army were severely injured or could not fight again, they would be divided into three elders in each village. First, these veterans could have a relatively stable life, second, they could strengthen control over each village, and third, they could also train the village soldiers in each village. After all, these veterans who could survive on the battlefield were all chosen in terms of martial arts and courage, which could be said to have three goals at one fell swoop.

The man who led the way just now learned that Li Rui was an old acquaintance of the leader, and was so scared that his face looked like a slut. He quickly threw himself to the ground and begged for mercy. Li Rui's attention was no longer on him at this time, and he was too lazy to say too much to him. He let him go and smiled at the leader and said, "You men are well trained, but what is the matter of catching spies before?"

The leader was stunned when he heard this, and turned to a wry smile and explained: It turned out that after Lu Fang "divides in the fields and feeds people" in Liangzhe, he cleared a large amount of surplus population and land. Some of the laborers were confiscated to construction sites for building polder fields and seawalls, and the reward was the newly reclaimed fields. However, most of these populations were ancient "vagrants". Many of them were not the kind of honest men who were honest and digging food in the fields, so they often formed gangs and robbed small merchants passing by in the name of "catching spies". Fortunately, there was no big trade route in this area, so they thought that the harm was not too serious.
Chapter completed!