Empress Wu, Di Gong? Luoshui was shocked

Hedong Road is south of Daizhou City, about twenty miles away.

A dangerous canyon with rugged rocks, towering cliffs, rugged roads, and narrow and difficult roads.

The local people, who are simple, honest, honest, and have little vision or cultural knowledge, adapted to local conditions and took the word literally, and just as the name suggests, they called this dangerous place the Rock Valley.

This is the rocky canyon clearly marked on the mountain and river geographical map of Daiju, Hedong Province.

It was mid-spring and the beginning of February.

This is supposed to be a solar term when the spring breeze blows, everything revives, the grass and leaves turn green, the water is warm, the sky is harmonious and the scenery is bright, and the rain is as moist as crisp.

However, a biting and unexpected late-spring cold wave is roaring and wreaking havoc among the high mountains, sloping valleys of northern Shanxi at this moment.

Above the gloomy and overwhelming sky, it can be said that there are thick clouds and a strong wind. Another heavy snowfall is about to hit Daizhou, Yanmen, and even Xinzhou, Shuozhou, and Yunzhou. In other places, Junzhoufu Town, which corresponds to the frontier fortress of the Great Wall, has made its debut.

Under such severe weather conditions, as long as the normal local people and villagers in northern Shanxi do not encounter the kind of emergency and major events that force them to go out to deal with it, the most important thing they need to do at this time is Pile enough firewood in your house and let the brazier burn brightly.

The whole family, young and old, all sat around the thatched kang in the big house. They brought all the bedding and bedding in the house that could keep out the cold and warm, covered themselves with it, and then hid inside to avoid the cold, keep warm, and enjoy the winter.

Which fool, 250, who is full of food, would go to such inaccessible barren mountains and wilderness in such a freezing and windy weather, and endure the bitter and howling cold wind? Suffering from the cold, eating the wind and drinking the earth?!

It is guaranteed that it will be picked up by leopards or wolves and other wild animals that are looking for food in the wilderness, and become their food in the mouth and belly, and then it will be a pile of wild animal excrement.……

……

And it was exactly like this, with the howling cold wind, the howling jackdaws, the withering of all things, and the approaching heavy snow. In this steep and rugged rocky canyon, there was a group of carriages and pedestrians, going through a difficult journey. We are trudging along the official road that winds northward.

This is a chariot and horse team composed of about a hundred people, either ordinary officials and subordinates in ordinary clothes, or cavalry soldiers in ordinary clothes. The ordinary mentioned here is only compared to , those local officials who are like countrymen, and the big-headed soldiers of the local military government.

These official servants and cavalry soldiers were all covered in cotton-padded clothes, cotton hakama, cotton-padded armor and cotton robes that were very effective in keeping warm. They were also covered with cowhide fur boots and a dark gray cotton jacket. Robe and cloak.

The mounts under his crotch are also tall and powerful Hexi horses, but if you take a quick look, you will know that these officials and knights are by no means ordinary high-end goods.

Whether they are official servants or cavalry soldiers, the only difference in their clothing is that on their heads, are they wearing felt hats or helmets?

Officials and subordinates all wore black dome-shaped felt hats on their heads. The inner layer of the felt hats was made of thickened warm kapok.

The dome-shaped felt hats worn by several officials with higher official ranks are made of animal skins corresponding to their official ranks.

The heads of the cavalry soldiers were covered with thick fur helmets. The only difference was that they had different ranks.

The commander-in-chief and the assistant generals naturally wore helmets made of sixth-grade gold fur, while those generals below seventh-grade wore helmets made of rhinoceros hide.

Well... if there is anything... different about them... it is that the faces of the cavalry soldiers are coated with a thick layer of butter to protect them from cold, frost, cracks and cracks. Outside, it is also wrapped with a layer of thick linen facecloth used to keep warm from the cold, wind and sand.

Only the eyes and mouth and nose have two holes and openings of the right size each to facilitate their observation, vigilance, and breathing.

As for the heads and faces of the officials and subordinates, except for a thick layer of butter fat that is used to prevent cold, frost, cracking and cracking, there is no other covering.

This also made them, the official officials, who had trudged for several days in the remote mountains of northern Shanxi, braved the howling and biting cold current, drank wind, eaten dirt, and suffered from cold and cold, The two of them had black faces that were hard from the cold, like freshly baked donkey dung eggs from a heap of coal dust and cinders. They were pitch black, dirty and pickled, and they looked like they were already Can't stand it anymore

……

In the center of the team of carriages and horses, several carriages drove slowly, surrounding a box-carriage with dark gray cloth.

The one at the front was a box-carriage pulled by two horses.

On the shaft of the carriage, sitting on the handlebars, was a capable man in his thirties who was holding a long whip and dressed in a half-length cotton-padded jacket and cotton hakama boots.

This capable man, who is obviously not a professional carriage driver, is like a stone sculpture that has never been afraid of the freezing cold. Facing the biting cold wind that is like a steel knife scraping bones, Sitting in the driver's seat calmly as usual.

If it weren't for his occasional light scolding of the horse; if it weren't for every ten breaths, there would be two white smoke pillars about more than a foot long and as thick as a tea cup, following his long and thin breathing. The words spit out from his nostrils.

Thinking about the cavalry soldiers walking side by side with him, they would really regard this middle-aged man, who is like a clay sculpture and stone sculpture, as Become a silent, silent, motionless accessory that is not afraid of the severe cold.

It's just... just, but when you see this capable man who can withstand the bitter cold, with every gesture and breath, and the twinkling light in his eyes from time to time, you should know that he is definitely a very skilled man. figure!

……

Inside the carriage of a boxcar.

Sitting on the couches on the left and right, facing each other, were two middle-aged men of distinguished status, although they were wearing casual clothes.

On their heads, they all wear a gray-brown lynx leather hat that symbolizes the fifth rank of official body. The tall and thin middle-aged man on the left is wearing a royal blue silk cotton robe, and the shorter and fatter middle-aged man on the right is The young man is wearing a gray-black robe, with a black cotton hakama underneath, and a pair of cowhide official boots.

The silk cotton robe is also covered with a dark gray cotton robe.

These two middle-aged men of distinguished status are none other than the Royal Chamberlain Provincial Internal Supervision Bureau, that is, the notorious Royal Chamberlain Yousi Yamen, with official rank and rank, both the fifth rank and the fifth rank, Zuo Neiji Shihuang Fu Xia, and Respect when giving things in your right hand.

They are both high-ranking royal guards and powerful officials, and they are also people from Yangzhou in the misty land of the south of the Yangtze River. Therefore, it is natural that Lao Xia and Lao Shi, a pair of brothers and sisters, also have an interest in northern Shanxi. In Daizhou, a deserted mountainous area where no one cares, this kind of cold spring weather, with raging cold currents and howling winds, makes me feel an unbearable headache and abhor it!

In addition, since the end of the first month, two internal servants of the royal inner court obeyed the order of the inner court and accepted this secret mission. They set out from the capital city of Chang'an. This journey was really like galloping. , non-stop every day.

After seven or eight days of continuous hurried driving, there was almost no decent opportunity to recharge and rest on horseback during the journey.

Therefore, these two royal guards, who have been in the palace for a long time, are well-dressed, well-fed, and pampered, have shown great power. Since three days ago, their group of chariots and horses arrived at Taiyuan Fucheng in Bingzhou, Hedong Road, and they have never been seen again. After a while, I realized that I wanted to ride any horse.

Instead, he wisely made the most correct choice: he jumped into this ordinary carriage, no matter how ordinary it was. He was unwilling to kill the two of them. The southerners simply couldn't bear the pain of such severe cold. The body is once again exposed to the bone-piercing howling cold wind……

……

Inside the carriage, which could only accommodate four adults who could barely sit upright, there were only large braziers filled with charcoal fire, one on each side, one on each side.

However, even with such luxurious heating facilities, they still cannot stop the two internal servants of the Royal Guards from personally feeling and experiencing the harsh and raging whistling mountain wind and the pervasive bone-penetrating ice all the time. cold.

As a last resort, the two eunuch Shangguan, who couldn't stand the cold at all, had to put a huge hot stove in their arms. Only then did they feel a little more stable. This pair The brothers and sisters from the land of fireworks and apricot rain in the south of the Yangtze River are afraid of the cold, and their faces change when they hear the wind.

The car is already sizzling with heat, and if it encounters a spark, it will burst into flames. At this moment, in addition to the two huge braziers, there is the occasional"beep" sound of the charcoal fire. Outside, you can hear the drop of a needle, and there is complete silence.

There is only the consistent, monotonous sound of the horse's hooves from the front, rear, and left sides of the carriage, and the"crunch" caused by the friction between the wheels and axles of the box carriage."、"

Squeaky"Squeaks" Stepping ears, and it is disturbing all the time. These two people in the car that is happy and boring. At this age, the powerful royal guard with a fair, round face and fine eyebrows finally opened his eyes that had been slightly closed for a long time. He first stretched out a big stretch, trying to take advantage of it. , to attract the attention of his companions, but... after seeing that this action did not have the effect he wanted, this guy used those sinister little ideas in other tricks.

If you pretend to be asleep for me, I'll use it for you. My old magic weapon, Xiao Mutter, let's see who the two of us are and who can survive?!

"Fifteen thousand shi of corn, 20,000 shi of millet, two hundred carts of linen, thirty thousand kilograms of tea, one hundred carts of fine iron...and two thousand fine iron pots, and sixty carts of sea salt. , forty carts of isinglass……"

The inner guard Xianhuan, with a fair round face and fine eyebrows, muttered these complicated and boring contents over and over again, seven to eight or ten times.

Moreover, while this guy was still mumbling these boring contents, he would roll his eyelids from time to time and take a look. Did the waiter Xianhuan opposite him have any different expressions?!

However... when he saw An An sitting opposite him again, a middle-aged eunuch who was about thirty-six or seventeen years old, with a dark complexion, a tall nose and big eyes, and was tall and thin, not only did he react to his deliberate muttering, He looked at it indifferently, indifferently, and until now, his thin face with a flat face still has a look of concentration with his eyes slightly closed, careful and indifferent, this inner guard with a fair, round face and fine eyebrows Xian Huan obviously couldn't stand it any longer.