At the beginning of November, the first snow in Hebei came, this snow was not big, just a moderate snow, smearing the mountains and woods with a faint layer of white, but this snow meant that winter in Hebei was coming. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

When winter comes, most of the rivers in Hebei begin to freeze, especially in the Youzhou area, and people and livestock can walk directly on the ice.

Huairong County, a small city located in the northwest of Zhuo County, welcomed its unprecedented liveliness for decades, in the past month or so, a fleet of ships transported a large amount of grain and war materials here, grain, hay, weapons, armor, bows, arrows and important trebuchet iron parts and other materials piled up in the county, and from all over Youzhou recruited sleigh wagons and their owners have also arrived in Huairong County, just a few days after the snow, tens of thousands of sleigh carriages arrived in this small city, making the county particularly lively.

A large camp covering an area of 1,000 acres has been set up in the open space close to the Sanggan River outside the county seat, and for this long-distance sleigh transportation, the Sui army invested 5,000 soldiers and set up more than 100 guide points along the way to help each sleigh carriage reach the end point smoothly.

When Zhang Xuan arrived in Huairong County, the sleigh transportation had already started for five days, and he saw thousands of sleigh wagons lined up in the open space by the river, each with two people, one waving a whip and the other controlling the direction, most of them fathers and sons or brothers.

"How's it going, did the transport go well?" Zhang Xuan asked with a smile.

The chief officer in charge of this transportation is Xiao Jinyong, the general of Huyalang, he is a general under Pei Xingyan, making a seventy-pound big knife, there is the courage of ten thousand people, he hurriedly said: "Back to the handsome, there is no problem with the sleigh itself, these people are veterans, have rich experience, the only difficulty is that they are not familiar with the road, many people are walking the Sanggan River for the first time, the first day of preparation is insufficient, there are dozens of horses frozen bad, and more than a dozen sleds on the road overturned, other problems are not." ”

Zhang Xuan nodded, walked to a sleigh that was loading, the sleigh is made of wood, the structure is very simple, two curved skid rods about one zhang long are very smooth, it looks like a pair of elephant tusks, in the middle is a grid made of ropes, used to place goods, pulled by a sturdy horse, Zhang Xuan has seen this kind of sled more than once, the cargo capacity is very large, this time to transport materials, a sleigh can transport at least twenty bags of grain at a time, each bag of grain weighs one stone, and can also be loaded with several large bales of hay, which is also the regulation of the Sui army, The delivery of food and armor must be accompanied by the delivery of hay, which is mainly used to keep the sleds warm.

The owner of the sleigh is a team of fathers and sons, the son is in charge of the direction, the father is in charge of the horses, and the son, who is in his early twenties, is tying hay on the sleigh while his father carefully wraps the horses' bellies.

"Where is my husband?" Jang Hyun walked up to the horses and asked with a smile.

"We are from Lulong County, Beiping County."

"Beiping County is not close!"

"Anyway, there's nothing to do at home, and you can earn ten times a lot of money on one trip, and this kind of opportunity to make money is not available every day."

Seeing that he was carefully wrapping the sheepskin on the horse's belly, Zhang Xuan smiled curiously and asked, "Do you actually want to wrap three layers of sheepskin?" ”

The old man didn't know Zhang Xuan, and thought he was an ordinary general, so he smiled while tying up sheepskin: "This is walking on the river, the cold is too big, how can you do it if you don't keep warm, this road has passed more than 300 miles, at least two days, don't talk about horses, people can't stand it, you must go ashore to rest on the road, otherwise even if you get to Shanyang County, the horse will not work." ”

"I heard that the first batch lost a lot of horses, is it because of inexperience?"

The old man sneered, "That's because they are greedy, they want to run a few more times to hit money, everyone is a snow sled, who doesn't know that driving on the river has to guard against the cold, and they want to make money, and finally lose their horses." ”

"Daddy! I'm all right. The young son said in the back.

"I'll wrap the horse's legs, and I'll be right away."

The old man took out a sheepskin to bandage the horse's legs, Zhang Xuan left the sleigh and walked towards the group of soldiers, hundreds of soldiers were helping the sleigh to set off, seeing Zhang Xuan coming, they all bowed and saluted, just now the old man was puzzled, so he asked a soldier next to him: "Little brother, who was that just now!" ”

"Who is it?"

The soldier shook his head and smiled: "That's our commander, His Majesty the Emperor of the Northern Sui, who do you think it is?" ”

The old man was so frightened that he panicked, and he didn't care about tying the last leg of the horse, so he urged his son repeatedly, "Go quickly!" Come on! I was rude just now, and I'm afraid I'm going to get into trouble. ”

His son heard that the person just now was the king of Qi, and his heart was also a little uneasy, and he hurriedly stood on the sled, the old man waved the long whip, the horse pulled the sled, and walked slowly on the snow, several soldiers pushed it on the side, the start is extremely important, the start is good, the sled will go all the way steadily, so the soldiers must be on the side to help, the sled speed is not fast at the beginning, but with the inertia, the speed of the sled will become faster, and the horse will gradually ease down, but the person who controls the horse must have a high skill, otherwise the sled will hit the horse, causing serious consequences.

Zhang Xuan saw that the father and son had already set off just now, so he waved his hand to them, so frightened that the young son's body deviated, the sleigh almost lost its center of gravity and overturned, and the old man yelled, "Be careful! ”

He immediately pulled his horse and slowed down, so that the sleigh gradually stabilized, and finally disappeared at the end of the snow-covered Sangan River.

..........

Leaving Huairong County, Zhang Xuan and his entourage came to Zhending County of Hengshan County, which is one of the four temporary refuge settlements set up by the Northern Sui Dynasty, mainly to receive the refuge people from Loufan County and Taiyuan County, the residence covers a huge area, the Sui army built a large camp, which is the size of two Zhending counties, and the camp is like a big county, with vertical and horizontal roads, tens of thousands of tents are distributed, and basically one tent per household.

Some businessmen who were adept at seizing opportunities even opened grocery stores and taverns, which were conducive to stabilizing the hearts of the people, and with the support of the officials in charge, special tents were provided for them, so that more than a dozen small shops and taverns appeared in the camp.

Bands of soldiers patrol back and forth in the camp to maintain order in the camp.

For the wealthy families and wealthy families who came to flee, although the camp conditions were good, and they provided free food and lodging, they still did not look down on them, so they rented a house in Zhending County, enjoyed a normal life, and did not want to live with other fugitives.

Because before the negotiations, the Sui army implemented a large-scale evacuation plan, almost all the people of Loufan County retreated to Zhending County, and with the end of the negotiations, the Tang Dynasty no longer restricted the refuge of the people of Taiyuan County, so a large number of people of Taiyuan County began to flee through Jingcheng and fled to Hebei.

The refuge camp in Zhending County was in charge of Hengshan County Cheng Fang Youzhen, who assisted him in managing it, as well as more than 20 low-level officials, more than 100 Tai students, and 3,000 soldiers.

The arrival of Zhang Xuan, the king of Qi, made Fang Youzhen extremely nervous, and he put down all affairs and specially accompanied Zhang Xuan to inspect the camp.

It can be seen that Zhang Xuan is very satisfied with the neatness and spaciousness of the camp, especially the wide central axis avenue in the camp, which makes the camp look like a city.

"How many people are in the camp now?" Jang Hyun asked.

"Your Highness, there are about 128,000 people, less than 130,000 people, and nearly 30,000 households."

Zhang Xuan frowned slightly, this number was much smaller than he expected, he thought that there should be at least two or three hundred thousand people, Zhang Xuan asked again: "Have all the people in Lou Fu County withdrawn?" ”

"Your Royal Highness, all the people in Lou Fan County have withdrawn, a total of 110,000 people, and the remaining 20,000 people are evacuated from Taiyuan County, I heard that there are still a large number of people who have taken refuge on the road, all of them are from Taiyuan County, and there is no one in Lou Fan County."

Fang Xuanling, who was following Zhang Xuan to inspect next to him, understood the doubts in Zhang Xuan's heart, so he sighed and said: "Your Highness, Liu Wuzhou's ravages have brought a deep disaster to the three northern counties, and the population of the three northern counties is far less than we expected, the Yi County refuge camp is in charge of the two counties of Mayi and Yanmen, and the number is only more than 200,000, there were more than 300,000 people in Mayi County in the past, and the three northern counties should have a population of one million, otherwise the Great Wall will not be repaired, but now the three counties are only more than 300,000, which is very sad." ”

Zhang Xuan was speechless for a long time, he once walked through the Mayi Road to the grassland, and knew that the prosperity of the three northern counties at the beginning, there were more than 100 families in a small town, and it was really difficult for him to accept that it was so decaying.

After a long time, Zhang Xuan swallowed this anger, and asked Fang Youzhen again: "I see that the camp is basically full, but there are still a large number of Taiyuan fugitives coming over on the road, how do you settle them?" (To be continued.) )