Although Cao Keming didn't like Xu Ping's smelly and hard attitude, he didn't dare to joke about the affairs of the court after all, and he didn't go to Ruhe County, but he replaced the garrison in the county inspection village. Zhu Zongping was changed from the county's inspection to the inspection of the state, and moved to Jinchengyi in the north of Yongzhou City, where he was guarding the main road down from Kunlun Pass, and the task of inspecting business travelers was also heavy. Zhang Rong, who was originally stationed in Jinchengyi, was moved to He County, changed to a prefecture, and was no longer under the management of Ruhe County, and strengthened the military force around Ruhe County.

Zhang Rong's subordinates of more than 200 people, half of whom were in command, were not from Guangxi's main road army, but were transferred here from Fujian Road, and their combat effectiveness was much stronger. Since the Taizu era, the rules have been established, and the forbidden army has been changed every year, so that the soldiers can learn to work the road and maintain their combat strength. The forbidden army in the south was scarce, and many tasks were replaced by the box army, so there was a more box army, and the system was not much different from the forbidden army, but the imperial court was much cheaper to raise, and the scale was getting bigger and bigger. The soldiers of Yongzhou are basically from Fujian, the geographical environment of the two places is similar, the climate is similar, and the soldiers can adapt to it when they arrive here, so that they will not lose their combat effectiveness.

Xu Ping and Cao Keming were busy, Huang Chengxiang in Chungju did not move, and more than a month passed quietly, and the tense sugar squeezing season passed like this. The harvest was unexpected, and a total of more than 1.6 million catties of white sugar and more than 300,000 catties of brown sugar were produced, which was almost equivalent to one million pounds of goods. With such a large number of goods on the market, Xu Ping also knew that it would inevitably cause a sharp drop in prices, but that was for the future, as long as the production here rose and outpaced the price decline, it would not be a big deal for the state. However, the sugar industry in eastern Zhejiang and Sichuan and Shu will face a crisis, which is not what he cares about, and it is normal for the industry to concentrate in advantageous areas. Sugarcane is a carbon-four crop with strong photosynthesis, which is suitable for growing in hot tropical areas, but does not require high land fertility. Ninety percent of the nutrients required during the growth period come from light and water, and one percent is related to the barrenness of the land, which is suitable for the limestone terrain of Yongzhou's land fertility is not high. The land in the two Zhejiang and Sichuan and Shu regions is fertile, and it is still good to grow grain honestly.

One day in mid-November, Huang Laosan was in the mountains and forests, holding a small bow to find the small animals he could hunt. The morning dew poured down from the leaves on him, and in a few moments his clothes were soaked and tightened on his skin.

When Huang Laosan was concentrating on searching, the sound of horses riding suddenly came from the bottom of the mountain, and after a while, the chaotic voices of people followed, which seemed particularly abrupt in the empty mountains.

Pushing aside the branches, Huang Laosan poked his head out, and saw a team of people coming up on the road, sitting on the horse alone, in his forties, looking white and fat that is rare in the mountains. Behind him were a dozen knights, all with swords and bows, and muscular builds. Behind them, hundreds of people followed, some holding long knives and rattan cards, some carrying spears, shouting and marching quickly.

A knight looked around on his horse, and saw a figure flashing on the hill on the side of the road from a distance, taking an arrow and firing his bow, and shooting an arrow straight at Huang Laosan.

Huang Laosan was startled, threw himself on the ground, and ran away quickly through the dense woods to hide.

The knight took a sip: "I don't know what rats, dare to show us on the mountain!" ”

The white fat middle-aged man said: "Maybe which mountain people are hunting here, there are a lot of roe deer and deer in this mountain, and there are many hunters." I have to set up a rule when I go back, I can't enter the mountain without permission from the state, everything in the mountain is given to my family by the mountain god, and these slaves can't make offerings to them, so they are cheap. ”

As he spoke, the group moved on.

Huang Laosan ran more than a hundred steps before stopping, and let out a long breath and said to himself: "Isn't Huang Zhizhou riding a horse in front?" He really led people to Ruhe County, and Xu Guanren asked me to guard the road here, and I was really prescient, otherwise I might have to suffer Huang Zhizhou's loss. ”

Huang Laosan is a member of Huang Tianbiao's clan, and he has long been integrated into the governance of Ruhe County, separated from the identity of the mountain people, and also got rid of the control of the barbarian chief.

Although Huang Laosan's name has an old character, he is actually only in his twenties, which is not old at all, and that is just the custom of naming in their clan. Now in addition to planting sugarcane in the county, he was also drawn out to be a township soldier, and because he was familiar with the terrain, he was sent by Xu Ping to monitor the movements of Chungju. Since Cao Keming's warning, Xu Ping did not dare to slack off, in addition to organizing the training of township soldiers, he also arranged eyeliner on the road from Zhongzhou to Ruhe County.

Calming down, Huang Laosan carefully took out a bamboo pipe from his arms, pulled out the plug, took out the fire fold and blew it up, and put it on the exposed twist line.

As soon as the twist caught fire, it sneered and burned.

Huang Laosan stiffened his face, staring at the burning twisted thread, and his hand holding the bamboo tube kept shaking. Xu Guanren gave him this task, and when he found that the soldiers and horses of Zhongzhou sent out the bamboo tube, he didn't have to worry about other things, even if he was beaten to a sea of corpses and blood, it had nothing to do with him. Just such a trivial matter, he Huang Laosan firmly took the lead, and Xu Guanren promised to give him enough money consistently, how dare he be a little lazy.

After the twist was burned, a puff of black smoke suddenly came out of the bamboo tube, flew out of Huang Laosan's hand, and flew straight into the air and was out of sight, before it exploded. The sound of the explosion echoed far away in the valley, and a brilliant flower bloomed in the sky.

Huang Chengxiang, who was moving forward in the valley, stopped his horse and looked up at the sky, but the fireworks were long gone, only white clouds floating in the air.

"What's so loud? Could it be thunder in such good weather? ”

The knight who had shot the arrow earlier looked up, puzzled.

Huang Chengxiang said: "It must be that the mountain man who was hunting just now alarmed the mountain god and made a movement to scare him!" When I go back, I will set a rule, and I will never let them mess around in the mountains again! ”

After a discussion, several people couldn't say a clue, and the group continued to move forward.

I couldn't go far, but I heard another explosion in front of me, and then it was endless.

Although this primary rocket is the simplest application of gunpowder, it is still ahead of its time, how have these barbarians who have been hiding in the mountains for several lifetimes seen it, they are just suspicious and cautious.

It takes more than 20 miles of mountain road from Chungju to Ruhe County, and hundreds of people stop and go, and it takes at least half a day to get out of the mountains.

Inspecting the village, Zhang Rong was neatly draped, ordered his subordinates to meet the enemy on the wall, and said to the soldiers around him: "The two of you go to the county to inform Xu Tongju alone, don't follow the way of the barbarians." The other rode a fast horse to Guwanzhai and asked Peng Zhizhai there to send people here for reinforcements, so that the barbarians would not return! ”

The two pro-soldiers took the order.

Zhang Rong stood on the spot and thought in his heart, the Zhongzhou barbarians are said to have more than 500 Ding soldiers, and I don't know how many people they brought out this time. If there are few people, you can go out to meet the battle with more than 200 people under your own command, and if you catch the barbarian chieftain and come back, it will also be a great achievement. I'm afraid that there will be a lot of people coming, and it's not good to be frustrated.

Zhang Rong is different from Zhu Zongping, although they are both patrolling, Zhu Zongping is to maintain local law and order, and his main job is to check past business travel, prevent people from carrying contraband, and then deter the locality. Although Zhang Rong also belonged to the Xiang army sequence, he was a serious soldier of 800 soldiers, and he entered Yizhou many times to suppress the barbarians to make trouble, and he was also transferred to Jinghu and Jinghu to face the powerful Fushui Man and Meishan Man. As for the affairs of the barbarians, Zhu Zongping only thought about calming things down, but Zhang Rong's first reaction was to start a war, where did he get his military exploits if he didn't start a war, and what would he do if he didn't fight and transfer these people from Fujian. When he came, Cao Zhizhou also made it clear that there are now goods worth nearly one million yuan in Ruhe County, and no barbarians are allowed to enter the county, let alone a small Zhongzhou, even if the Jiaozhi army comes, it must be resisted. In front of money, no one dared to mention the word Fusui again.

What is the concept of a million? In recent years, the financial gap of the three central departments has basically been between 600,000 and 800,000 yuan, and for the sake of these hundreds of thousands of yuan, the three divisions have been cheeky to borrow money from the emperor every year. can fill this gap, the three envoys dare to stand up to all the rulers in the court, who dares to calm things down, and change the money first.

It is about 40 miles from Zhongzhou to the inspection village, all of which are mountain roads, and Ruhe County is only more than 20 miles to here, and there is a flat river.

Just after noon, Zhang Rong hadn't seen Huang Chengxiang's shadow yet, and Xu Ping had already arrived with someone.

Looking at the neat team of nearly 1,000 people behind Xu Ping, Zhang Rong on the inspection village took a breath. He knew that Ruhe County was fine, and almost all Ding Zhuang had been pulled out by thousands of people, but he really couldn't understand how Xu Tongju got to this point, and there were few places in the Great Song Dynasty that had this kind of mobilization efficiency.

Seeing Xu Pingping slowly swinging the line towards the mountain pass, Zhang Rong got down from the walled building and began to assemble the team. He had already seen that Xu Tongju was afraid that he was not ready to let Huang Chengxiang return to Zhongzhou.

Xu Ping rode on his horse, looked at the clouds and mist in front of him, and the valley where the two mountains confronted, and narrowed his eyes. Ruhe County had already made all preparations here, he originally thought that Huang Chengxiang would not come out to look for trouble, but he still underestimated the courage of this barbarian chief. What kind of environment must be for him to have such confidence that he dares to come out and blackmail in the face of a fully armored county.

In the past six months or so, Xu Ping has organized all the population under Ruhe County, formed a semi-militarized formation of teams, groups and semi-militarized formations like in his previous life, and formed a militia, which at this time was more commonly called township soldiers or native soldiers. All Ding Zhuang have undergone more than two months of military training, although the time is not concentrated, it also ensures that everyone has a minimum military literacy. Not to mention a small Chungzhou, none of the states under Yongzhou has the strength to attack Ruhe County, unless it is a combination of several states.

Beside Xu Ping, Duan Fang had a straight face, but there were tears flashing in his eyes. He gave up his future and endured nearly twenty years of loneliness, just to wait for someone here, for a hope that was so slim that it was almost impossible. Today, the man who caused all this walked out of the mountains on his own and stuck his head under his sword, can he seize this opportunity?