Three days later, Fu Ji took three entourages out of Xinzhengmen and embarked on a long journey along the official road. By this time she had changed into a short dress, with a gown over her and her hair wrapped in a soft veil. If you don't look closely, he is a young scribe with a good face, but the sword hanging from the back of the saddle indicates that this one is not easy to mess with.

It's really hard to mess with the three men who are leading the donkey behind, their height is almost the same, all about 1.8 meters, no matter how old they are, they are all stout and powerful, and their expressions are slightly different from ordinary people, but they can't tell what is different.

The biggest difference is that each of them carries a black lacquer bow, which is not a folk thing at first glance, and the more mottled it is, the more it seems to have a story. On the donkey's back, there are also their own melee weapons, two simple knives and a short spear, which are not new, and are thicker than ordinary weapons.

"Shi Tong, can we be like merchants?" Fu Ji asked about the man closest to him, he was not young, he was about fifty years old, with gray hair, and a hat on his head, always with his head half-bowed. When he looked up, he found that his left eye was deflated, and there were deep scars on the upper and lower sockets, which were obviously cut by sharp weapons.

According to his own words, he joined the Xiaocai army at the age of 16, and went to Xizhou in the fourth year of Zhiping, and participated in a series of major battles under the command of Chongge and Han Jiang to attack Suizhou Weiming Mountain, Funing, and Luowucheng, and later was cut in the eye by the enemy in a small encounter, and retired five years ago.

In the Song Dynasty, the army was forbidden to recruit soldiers, and low-level officers and soldiers could retire until they were 60 years old, but they were not removed from the army, and the state paid half of them until they died. For disabled soldiers who will not be able to continue their service, the local government will give them houses and land, and they will be exempt from taxes until they die.

Regardless of whether this decree is implemented thoroughly or not, being a soldier in the Song Dynasty should be the happiest thing in all Chinese dynasties, stronger than later generations, so as not to let the front-line soldiers sweat and fight bloodily and return to their hometown to shed tears.

Shi Tong is an old family, and he also received subsidies from the imperial court, but the perennial war life made him not suitable for the life of a commoner, and he did not get along well with his neighbors.

A year ago, he injured someone because of a trivial matter, and as a result, he lost the only pension coffin. What's more, because of the disability, ordinary people don't dare to hire them, so they can only do odd jobs day by day, and their lives are very hard.

The other two are brothers, just in their early forties, and like Shi Tong, they both served in the Xiao Cavalry Army, but they were still the most dangerous scouts.

More than three years ago, when they were on a reconnaissance mission in the territory of Western Xia, the brothers encountered the Western Xia cavalry, the elder brother was shot by an arrow and injured his arm, and the younger brother fell off the horse and broke his left leg.

His life was saved, but one arm and one leg were all disabled, and his brother's left arm hurt when it rained on a cloudy day, and he couldn't use too much force; The younger brother simply became a cripple, but it did not affect the battle, but according to the standards of the forbidden army, he could no longer serve, and he needed to be transferred to the box army as a logistics unit.

The brothers' morale was quite high, and no one wanted to go to the Xiangjun, so they simply took the pension and retired home on the grounds of disability. But they have the same problem as Shi Tong, that is, they have been in the army for too long, and they are used to seeing life and death on the battlefield, and the stimulation may be a bit big, which is not suitable for living a peaceful life.

I don't know anything except fighting, I want to learn how to do business, but I like to do it before I finish three sentences when I encounter problems, and the business will soon be yellow, and the industry I have earned in exchange for my life has also been lost.

The two of them are worse than Shi Tong, Shi Tong is one person who is full and the whole family is not hungry, but they still have to feed their wives and children. With Fu Ji's salary, the family can live well for more than a year, or go to do a small business or something.

"Half a point not!" When the old man spoke, he was ruthless, stubborn and stubborn.

"The shopkeeper has a good face, and no matter how he dresses, he doesn't look like a rough man who often walks outside. Our brothers have been stationed in Lanzhou, except for the wind and sand and the birds of the Tibetan tribe, there is not a single one, most of them are to transport grain and grass, and the people who sell goods are rare. Probably afraid that Shi Tong's words would not sound good and offend his employer, Jiang Dalang hurriedly took the conversation over and explained.

"Go to Yan'an Mansion first, maybe the three of you don't have to go to Lanzhou." Fu Ji thought very thoughtfully, and even changed her surname, and never mentioned what she was going to Lanzhou for, only saying that she was going to sell goods.

"Yan'an Mansion? Flower shopkeeper, we said that we would go to Lanzhou for 30 years, and just out of the city and changed places, it is difficult to fool my brother! ”

Don't look at Jiang Dalang who can speak better than Shi Tong, but he values this remuneration more than Shi Tong, the price of going to Lanzhou and going to Yan'an Mansion is definitely different, so he grabbed the donkey and didn't leave.

"Whether it's Yan'an Mansion or Lanzhou, saying that 30 is 30 is 30, and it depends on your luck to go more or less."

Fu Ji and the forbidden army can't say that they get along day and night, but they don't have less contact, and these military men have long understood their tempers, and they will not be frightened easily. Throwing down a sentence, his heel smacked the horse's belly and sped up his speed.

"Since then, our brother has always had a good life, and Erlang can run back with a limp! It's good to go to Yan'an Mansion, it's good to go to Yan'an Mansion! As soon as he heard that there was such a good thing, Jiang Dalang immediately laughed again.

"Hugh has to make noise, 30 times to Lanzhou, if you respond, you should respond, and you can't ruin our reputation. The flower lady is not waiting for idlers, the donkey is carrying books on its back, you can see the books shipped to the border to sell? ”

Don't look at Shi Tong, he only has one eye, but he is quite a thief, he felt that something was wrong when he saw this woman who claimed to be the shopkeeper. It is a bit unusual for a young woman to go out on a long journey, without family or servants, to find a veteran like herself to escort her.

And the goods she brought were even more peculiar, they were all books. After more than ten years of mixing in the border gates, I have seen a lot of traders in the Song Kingdom, the Xia Kingdom, and the Tibetan Kingdom, and there are few who sell books alone, let alone a woman who has traveled so far to sell goods.

"I haven't seen it, and it is said that the temple will not find a female guest to do such a thing......" Jiang Erlang walked at the end with a limp leg, he was also full of curiosity about this flower shopkeeper, but he didn't talk as much as his brother.

"Could it be a jumper! If she is caught by the border army, she will have to pay a hundred rods, her small body can't eat it, who will I ask for the wages I am waiting for? No, I'll ask for clarification! Jiang Dalang suddenly remembered something as soon as he was reminded by his younger brother, and the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he became, and he immediately had to catch up and go to the flower shopkeeper to talk.

"Don't be too troublesome, we only promised to send it to Lanzhou, and it doesn't matter to us if she can't get over the border. If it's really a jumper, I'd take a look at it. None of the people who can make a living here are fighting alone, and there must be a backer behind them. Let's go to Yan'an Mansion to see clearly, I don't care about your brother, and you don't care about my affairs. I don't want to live this nest for a long time, and the left and right are dead, so it's better to die on horseback, for fear that people will dislike and not accept this old bone. "Shi Tong is quite scary when he has no emotion, and with more expression, he is like a living ghost, and the faces on both sides of the scar are misplaced.

"......" Jiang Dalang was stunned for a moment when he heard Shi Tong's words, and then quickly turned around and exchanged glances with his younger brother. I don't know how they communicated, but the two of them nodded one after the other.

"Brother Tong, how about bringing our brother with you? You have seen a lot, you know a lot of people at the border, they are all brothers in the army, and it is easy to talk if you run into them. My brother doesn't dare to say that he can still go into battle and fight, but he is still good at dealing with those Tibetan tribes, why doesn't she want us! It was Jiang Dalang who came forward and affirmed Shi Tong's guess 100%, and also listed the advantages of the three of them.