Dong Ce looked at this ruined fortified city, rode his horse forward slowly, and felt something in his heart.

He suddenly had an idea: "So many literati in the Ming Dynasty have read the books of sages all their lives, and they have all read them into the belly of a dog?" ”

Or is the real Shilin style long gone in them? Just use this as a ladder to climb up? changed the master, still became an official, and still took the imperial examination.

……

The new commander of the garrison of Hongci Fort, Lord Bai Tianfubai, personally led people out to greet him half a mile away.

Hongci Fort garrisoned, all here, dozens of soldiers guarded in the register, a nine-foot-high flagpole, on which the huge "white" character is written on the flag is fluttering in the wind.

The carriage rolled along without stopping.

In the distance, Bai Tianfu led everyone to kneel on the side of the road, Dong Ce waved his hand, and the rest of the family members came out one after another and scattered to the surrounding guards. In fact, this behavior is a bit redundant, after all, in your own territory, what else is there to worry about?

But Liu Ruozai's plan for this trip was not right, and what he did was wrong, so he naturally felt a little weak in his heart, and he was worried for no reason, so when he saw Dong Ce's behavior like this, he was a lot more down-to-earth in his heart, and nodded his head secretly in praise.

Xie Dingkun snatched Dong Ce for a while, hating it so much.

As the coachman threw out a loud and crisp whip, the carriage slowly stopped, and the whole procession stopped.

Liu Ruozai dismounted, he wore a five-grade civil official uniform, which was already quite cool outside, so he added a black coat, but it looked very old. Dong Ce and the others also hurriedly turned over and dismounted, and followed him to Bai Tianfu and the others.

Bai Tianfu said loudly: "The last general Yang Hewei commands the affairs, and the Hongci Fort garrisons Bai Tianfu, and knocks on the punishment according to the inspection of the soldiers and prepares the Dao!" ”

Liu Ruozai glanced down at him and said lightly: "Get up!" ”

Bai Tianfu thanked him and stood up.

Dong Ce stood behind Liu Ruozai and also looked at him carefully, this Bai Tianfu garrison was tall, very burly and strong, and his length was not bad, with a short beard, two sword eyebrows, and a heroic face. He is not very old, that is, about thirty years old, and it is the season when a man is most energetic and his body is at its peak.

He wore a dark copper-colored mountain armor, a huge heart guard on his chest, and two copper tiger heads the size of adult palms at the navel of his waist were extremely powerful and extremely hideous. This kind of armor originated in the Tang Dynasty, and the same name as the Mingguang armor, and it has become the armor of the generals' special armor in the Ming Dynasty, which is exquisite and gorgeous, but has a very strong defensive ability. The triangular armor leaves used are fine, tightly connected, and much lighter than ordinary iron armor, but the defense is still excessive.

Dong Ce looked at his mountain armor, and then at his iron valve armor, and suddenly felt that he was a bit of a village.

Behind him stood more than a dozen family members, who were also quite strong and elite, with excellent armor and weapons.

Liu Ruozai's first stop on this trip is here, which is naturally not unreasonable, but of course he will not tell Dong Ce. This needs to be speculated by yourself, fortunately, Dong Ce has always been very good at speculating on the meaning of Shangguan, and Dong Ce also collected a lot of information about this place before he came, and he understood a little bit in his heart.

Speaking of which, this white garrison is also an outlier in the Ming army at this time - when almost all the officers are afraid of the enemy like a tiger and only know how to oppress the people, a general who only fulfills his duty as a soldier to defend the country and guard his home has become an outlier.

He is born in the family of the generals in the north of the Jin Dynasty, generations are generals here, his ancestors have been with the Emperor Chengzu to raise troops to Jingjing, and later the official to the Datong Left Guard Commander, it can be said that it is the origin of the family, stretching for more than 200 years, and the country rests together. It's just that when all the wealthy families are in decline, those dukes and counts in the north and south capitals are still like this, let alone a family of commanders.

Especially in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, most of the guard officials such as commanders and envoys became false titles, only in charge of some military households, and there were almost no soldiers in their hands, so they were even more declining. For example, Qi Jiguang Qi Shaobao, at the age of seventeen, inherited the position of commander of Dengzhou Wei, but he still had to take the martial arts examination, and then he flew all the way.

When the Bai family arrived in Bai Tianfu's generation, they were idle for generations, but they still had some military households in their hands and embezzled some land in Weizhong, which was really not much different from ordinary squires.

Bai Tianfu is a person who is unwilling to live under the people, this time after the Hongci Fort was breached, officials had to be appointed, and as a result, none of the idle officials who were qualified to be sent by the whole Datong Town were stunned - after all, this was broken by Jiannu once, and the whole city was slaughtered, and the dead corpses of a city, not to mention the plague, this is also a very unlucky omen in the officialdom. Besides, after it was broken, the walls of Hongci Fort were already broken, and when Jiannu came again, I was afraid that I couldn't stop it at all, so I went there to die?

These officials are all clear in their hearts!

Bai Tianfu was not afraid, and took the initiative to go to the General Military Mansion to ask for help, and wanted to come here to take office. If you like me, this matter will naturally be done much faster, and soon, as soon as the formalities and documents are completed, they will all be down.

Bai Tianfu brought his twenty family members to Hongci Fort to take office. Considering that Hongci Fort is already an empty city, the general army of Datong Town also drew 500 military households from various guards to come here, which can be regarded as a shelf.

For this reason, many people are unhappy.

Dong Ce used to think that this Bai Tianfu was for the sake of the official's life, and the characters who climbed up wholeheartedly now seem to be very heroic, and they are really not greedy for this official position.

"General Bai took the initiative to invite Ying to be a general here, and the official is very pleased, and you can also understand the painstaking efforts of the official by choosing this place as the first stop."

Liu Ruozai said lightly.

Bai Tianfu hurriedly thanked him and said with a smile: "My lord is painstaking, and the last general will feel five guilty, but this time has been ravaged by Jiannu, it is still dilapidated, all kinds of ruins are waiting to be rebuilt, everything is simple, the last general is not well prepared, and I ask my lord to atone for his sins." ”

"This official is not a person who is greedy for pleasure." Liu Ruozai looked at the sky, Bai Tianfu understood, stretched out his hand and said: "Is it the last general, it is getting late, and I invite you to enter the city, and the last general specially prepared a banquet." ”

Liu Ruozai nodded and got into the carriage again.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Bai Tianfu greeted Dong Ce and Xie Dingkun again and said a few polite words.

He is a family of generals, and his official rank is higher than Dong Ce and Xie Dingkun, but he has no shelf, perhaps because Dong Ce and the others are people around Liu Ruozai. also mentioned to Dong Ce that he attacked Jiannu at night, thanks to the Tang newspaper of Xu Ruji, Hou Jiawei, Liu Ruozai and others, now almost all officials with some identities in the north of Datong Town are clear about the details of that battle, and Bai Tianfu is naturally no exception. That was also Dong Ce's most brilliant battle so far, if it was someone else, he would be very happy to be scratched. Dong Ce didn't pay attention to these, and only smiled slightly.

But he knew exactly what he meant by his words—to mention to a man the one thing he was most proud of would undoubtedly mean to show affection.

Reciprocating the favor, Dong Ce's ability to talk about people and talk about ghosts should not be underestimated, and he has been talking and laughing with Bai Tianfu in a short time, as if he has been friends for many years.

Xie Dingkun was left to dry, and he was short of breath again.

The group entered the city, and the scenery in the city can only be described by four shocking words.

Hongci Fort Castle is surrounded by four miles and thirty-two steps, which is the largest of the seven big castles under the jurisdiction of the entire Hebei North Road, more than half of the second-level Zhenbian Fort and Zhenchuan Fort, and more than twice as large as the Zhenhe Fort where Liu Ruozai is stationed. As for the Zhenqiang Fort City, to which Dong Ce belongs, it is only one mile and seven minutes around, which is only one-tenth the size of Hongci Fort City.

However, this largest castle in North Hebei Province has experienced the plunder and ravages of Jiannu, and when these thieves left, they burned the city into a blank ground.

The city wall is still intact, but there are a few big openings, but inside the city, it is a scorched earth, and you can even see corpses that have been burned into a giant egg and curled up like a giant egg in the middle of the ruins.

It's charred black.

The only benefit may be that after killing someone, a fire will be burned, and the probability of the plague will be cut off as much as possible.

After the city was burned down, there was fly ash everywhere, and then it was washed away by the heavy rain behind the streets, and then the weather was dry again, and there were no sanitation workers or the like in these years, so of course, the streets of Hongcibao were naturally dusty. The crowd walked over, and the people trampled on the horses, and they all made their faces dirty.

On the ruins on both sides, the 500 military households relied on the ruins of the broken walls to settle down, and the shacks built by Dong Ce looked even more unbearable than the refugees and displaced people under his command.

All the way by, all the people I saw were yellow and thin, with vegetables on their faces, and their bodies were weak.

Both men and women, young and old.

However, it seems that other generals have long been accustomed to this scene.

Most of the people have always been afraid of the imperial court, and most of them are hiding in their homes, and only a few people are wandering in the streets, and they also kneel on the side of the road at this time.

When I arrived at Bai Tianfu's garrison yamen, there was finally something here, it could be seen that it had been renovated, the wall was tall, the gate was also quite magnificent, and the surrounding area was cleaned up.

Dong Ce's eyes were sharp, and he also saw that on the east side of the garrison yamen, there were two blacksmith workshops, both of which were open-style buildings, there was no anmen board on the gate, just a door hole, and the two sides of the workshop were said to be walls, but in fact, they were a wall less than a person's waist high, and a weighing pillar was erected, so that you could see the inside clearly from the outside.

The blacksmith workshops of the Ming Dynasty are generally like this, and no one knows how it was handed down at the earliest, but its benefits are obvious, one is that it can ventilate and dissipate heat, and the other is to prevent fire.