An Li was about fifty or sixty years old, with a faded dark red felt hat on his head, white sideburns, blue-gray coarse cloth clothes, and a jade ornament around his neck.

"Friend, hmph, I think money is your friend." Wu Peng, the chief flag officer of the Northeast Province, muttered.

An Liman obviously heard it, but he still didn't think so, and Xie Xinghua stretched out his hand.

"Old guy, I'm afraid you're not crazy about money, I haven't said where to go, you know the way?" Xie Xinghua naturally couldn't give the silver directly to An Liman, and looked at the tanned old man with suspicion on his face.

"Phew! I've lived in the desert for most of my life, and there's no place in the entire Western Regions that I haven't been, even to the west.

Since you can't trust me, there's no need to come to me, I'm busy, don't delay me feeding the camels. Seeing this, Anliman turned around and went to feed his camels.

"Just kidding! Just kidding! Our caravan needs to go to Yili in Kazakhstan, and we need to hire you as a guide, I think ......" Xie Xinghua knew that Jinyiwei's information would not be wrong, and when he heard that this old man had also been further west, he hurriedly chased after him.

Although Xie Xinghua is a rough man, he also knows that he can't tell the destination, the road to the Holy Roman Empire is too far, and a guide can't do it at all, his plan is to go to Yili first, and then find a new guide when he gets there.

But before he could finish speaking, An Liman turned around and raised a finger at him.

"A silver coin a day?" Xie Xinghua knew that the guides here were paid on a daily basis, so he took out a silver coin from the money bag.

"A gold coin a day, young man, the desert is not so easy to walk." An Liman shook his head, picked up a handful of grass and put it in the camel's trough.

"A gold coin, you rob the money!" Xie Xinghua hadn't spoken yet, and Xiaoqi said angrily.

Although Hami is located in the east of the Western Regions and close to the Ming Dynasty, it is mostly inhabited by the Hu people and the Arabs and Europa people further west, and the silver is not as good as the gold and silver coins commonly used in the West.

In Western currency, one gold coin is equal to ten silver coins, and one silver coin is equal to one hundred copper coins.

When they came, they had already inquired, and the merchants here usually asked the guide for one silver coin a day, and because of the harsh natural environment in the desert and the frequent bandits, the guides all asked for the end of the day for safety, so that they could run away without any worries in times of danger.

But this bad old man is one gold coin a day, this is to slaughter them as pigs, Fang Dagang is used to being arrogant in Chahar, where can he stand this anger.

"Of course I accept a silver coin from ordinary vendors, you are not ordinary vendors, and I have never seen you here at all.

You're from Daming, right? It is very dangerous for the Ming people to go west, and this price is not expensive, not expensive. "An Liman still looks like he can't go with love.

Since Liu Hong gradually beat the Rakshasa country to Europa and not come to Taiwan, the Rakshasa people regard the Ming people as great enemies, so that the merchants of the Ming Dynasty westward have been affected, after all, the northwest of Kazakhstan is the Rakshasa .

Xie Xinghua naturally refused to give up because of this little money, glared at Magnified Gang and put on a red face again.

In the end, it is good to say that at the price of eight silver coins a day, Anliman was hired, and the destination was also strong, and it was decided to leave early tomorrow morning.

As soon as Xie Xinghua walked on his front foot, An Liman stroked his camel and grinned.

"Xiaohong, you look at these stupid Ming people, they like to bargain!"

……

Further west of Hami City, you will pass through a desert with a radius of more than 200 miles, and the morning in May in the Western Regions is quite cool, but the wind in the air has been extremely dry, and by noon people sitting on camels have begun to sweat.

"Brother, we've been walking for three days, how long will it take to get out of this desert?" The sun was very strong, and Gu Jia couldn't open his eyes a little.

Gu Jia is still very satisfied with the An Liman found by Xie Xinghua, this old man can always find Haizi before he is about to run out of drinking water, and he never gets lost in the desert.

"Phew, this is already the center, and it will take three days to walk." An Liman's nonchalant way.

"Brother, let's rest here for a while, eat something, and then let's go." Although Gu Jia is only in his forties, he is different from An Liman, who often runs in the desert, so he feels that his ass is unconscious.

The boss sent An Liman naturally had no opinion, and the group asked the camel to squat, took out the big naan and dried meat from the bag, and chewed it with water.

Tang Ruowang and Yu Le didn't dare to eat the big naan in the Western Regions, and asked Xie Xinghua for dried meat aggrievedly, Xie Xinghua took out two more pieces from his bag with a disgusted face, and said in his heart that these two foreign feudal people can really eat it.

The group chatted sentence by sentence, and a group of people rushed from afar while they were talking, and the sand and dust could be seen from afar.

Xie Xinghua, Wu Peng and the others glanced at each other, and Cang Langlang pulled out a knife from his waist.

The desert is deserted, and the chance of encountering another group of people here is not much greater than the chance of falling pie from the sky, and even if you can meet people, the probability of being robbers is greater.

The cavalry came from far and near, and the number of camel cavalry in that group must be at least twenty or thirty, Xie Xinghua tightened the battle knife in his hand, and motioned to several small flag officers to surround Gu Jia in the middle.

The eighteen Ming soldiers are all those who have followed Liu Hongjian on an expedition to Jiannu and fought the Rakshasa Mao Xiong, which is an officer corps, and most of the military positions are small flag officers or even chief flag officers of the border army.

Although there were more people than them, none of the eighteen Ming soldiers were timid, so they stood in the desert with their swords and looked directly at the cavalry team of unknown origin.

“@#%@#￥…&%#%@！ %" One of the camel cavalry leaders walked to a stop five steps away from Gu Jia's team, and muttered something that everyone couldn't understand.

Gu Jia and Xie Xinghua glanced at each other, they didn't know what this person was talking about, but looking at the outfits of these people, they all covered their faces with gray cloths, all gray and black clothes, and the knives on their waists were all the same, which looked more like the army somewhere.

“！ @#！ @￥%@#%@#…… ¥##" An Liman got up and walked over to the camel cavalry and said while touching the camel, it was obvious that An Liman could not only understand this man's words, but also seemed to know him.

The two talked for a long time in front of everyone, and the officer on the camel sometimes stared at Xie Xinghua and the others and smiled.

"They are soldiers from Turpan, they came here to patrol, and I told them that everything was peaceful in the east, and they went back to pay their errands." An Liman saw that Gu Jia and the others were looking at him suspiciously, and explained.

"Well, thanks to the old brother, otherwise we don't know the soldiers in Turpan and we might have a misunderstanding, along the way, thanks to the old brother." Gu Jia bowed his hand and saluted.

"Phew, yes, we're friends!" Anliman still said the same mantra and returned the salute with his hands crossed over his chest.

"The prince said that the more people talk about their friends and integrity, the more dishonest and cheating they are." Yu Liang, the little flag officer at the back of the team, muttered quietly.

Gu Jia did not doubt that there was him, and seeing that everyone had eaten, he proposed to continue on his way.

After walking for more than half a day, when it was close to dusk, the desert suddenly became windy, and a black line was faintly visible in the northwest of the desert, and Gu Jia's face turned black.

"It's a sandstorm!" A cold sweat suddenly broke out on Xie Xinghua's face.