Qin Official

"Zhao Tuo? A native of Zhao?"

Hearing that Hei Fu said that one of the 500 Lords of the Louchuan people was going to join their expedition with about ten ships, Hei Fu's 500 leaders became more energetic. When they heard that Zhao Tuo was the hometown of the Zhao Kingdom Hei Fu's younger brother, who is from Hengshan County, was surprised and asked, "Is it possible that he is related to the royal family of King Zhao?"

He has been a disciple in the school for the past three years. Not only did he learn the laws and regulations, but he also gained a lot of knowledge. .

Shi Anpu, the captain of Jingling County, who was a good friend of Heifu when he was the pavilion chief, shook his head and said: "There are not even ten thousand but several thousand people named Zhao in Zhaodi. How can they all be related to the royal family? Even if they are related, I'm afraid there will be a gap between me and the old man." It’s too far away, otherwise how can we achieve the Qin Army’s five hundred masters?”

However, he was curious about how a Zhao man from Hengshan County in the north managed to get into the Southern Ark Division of the Qin Army.

Heifu said: "It should be the rich family of the distant ancestors of the Zhao family. He himself said that his parents died at the hands of the traitor Guo Kai, so he has no nostalgia for the State of Zhao. After the Qin army defeated Zhao, Nasu got the title, and the Tu Duwei built in Zhang and He As a boat master, he started as the commander of the village and rose to the rank of five hundred master in a few years."

Zhao Tuo claimed to be slightly younger than Heifu. He was about 16 years old when Wang Jian destroyed Zhao six years ago.

"So, does this person really live for more than a hundred years..."

Hei Fu felt his scalp numb just thinking about it. He was over a hundred years old and still lived in a hot place like South Vietnam. He was really lucky. Maybe the food in Guangdong has been nourishing since ancient times.

No matter how ignorant he was, he had heard of the name "King Zhao Tuo of South Vietnam". Alas, the "Hero of Kaijiang" in this dimension met the "Hero of Kaiyue" in history. This was something Heifu never expected.

Heifu guessed that in a few years, the reason why Qin Shihuang would send Tu Sui and Zhao Tuo as the main force to attack Baiyue was because in the impression of northerners, the south is full of water and marshes, with only buildings. Only the people on the boat can make the most of it. Although the water network in the south is indeed intertwined, Guangdong and Guangxi are mostly virgin forests, and the navy is only used to transport food. Once it goes deep, it will not be of much use. This may also be a misunderstanding of the Central Plains people these days.

But no matter how developed we become in the future, we are all little Qin officials now, cadres appointed by Qin Shihuang to go south. However, a person like Zhao Tuo who can become the king of a state in the future must have the ability. Tu Sui really left Heifu a capable assistant. With this person's help, why worry about not being able to conquer Jiangxi?

Tu Sui asked Heifu to treat Zhao Tuo as his subordinate, but in fact, Zhao Tuo and his dozen or so large and small ships were only responsible for their transportation and food transfer. them.

At this time, Heifu took a look at everyone's bowls. They all had normal rice, rice, soup, and fish. Only Dongmen Leopard's plate was different. It was disgusting. It looked like eyeballs and became sticky after being cooked... …

"What is this?" Hei Fu looked disgusted and asked with a frown.

"It's tuo."

Ji Ying was the first to answer: "A Bao heard from one of his relatives that eating this food can give birth to a son, so he begged for some from the soldiers on the boat next to him who had hunted the giant fox."

When Dongmen Bao followed Heihu to the battlefield last year, his wife was pregnant again. However, when he came back, he found that the baby was still a daughter. So Dongmen Bao now has three thousand gold. Ji Ying joked every day that if someone married into his family My daughter will definitely make a lot of money if she inherits the family property of the official Bao in the future.

"What does it smell like?" Heifu asked him curiously.

Dongmen Baosheng raised his head helplessly and said, "It smells like earth, and it's rotten in the mouth."

Heifu was speechless and could only pat Dongmen Leopard and send him a message.

"If you work hard, God will not let you down!"

…

The next day, the fleet officially entered Penglize.

Peng means big; Li means gourd. In other words, this lowland lake is like a big gourd and gourd, integrating the rivers, Ganshui and other water systems into one.

At the beginning, the lake was calm and the boat was like sailing on a bronze mirror.

But the good weather came and went quickly. Not long after we set off, suddenly a northerly wind blew across the lake. The wind and clouds suddenly changed, and the waves crashed on the shore. These days, the performance and navigation skills of ships are very poor, and they dare not sail in bad weather. On the way, he hurriedly stopped at nearby Xunyi (now Jiujiang) and tied the cable.

A sudden rain and dark clouds passed by. The next day, the sky cleared again. Hei Fu and his three thousand men just transferred to the dozen or so ships under Zhao Tuo's charge and continued to move forward.

After they rowed deep into Penglikou, they looked around and saw no bounds. It was like "opening sail into the sky mirror". Compared with the vast water surface, Tu Sui's hundreds of warships were like a group of small fish floating on the water. In the water.

Only now did Hei Fu realize that Penglize was not quite the same as Poyang Lake in later generations. The main body of the lake was in the north of the Yangtze River, and it was long from east to west and short from north to south.

"Dagushan has arrived." The old piloting boatman loudly told them.

Heifu and others were blowing the lake breeze on the deck, and they saw a mountain peak in the lake. Looking from ten miles away, they were surrounded by the boundless lake, but there was a solitary green peak rising up into the sky, as if floating in the sky. Same on the water.

When they got closer, they discovered that on this solitary mountain, there were cracked rocks and various caves with strange shapes and bright and moist colors, which were different from other rocks. There is another huge stone not next to the main peak, rising tall and majestic from the ground, about a hundred feet high, with red vines and green vines covering it, like a screen inlaid with gems.

Zhao Tuo nodded: "Sure enough, it is hanging alone in the lake, surrounded by indistinct surroundings."

Then he sighed to Heifu: "If I hadn't come to the south, I wouldn't have been able to see these wonders."

It can be heard that this young Qin official, who is slightly younger than Hei Fu, seems to be full of curiosity about everything.

The lakes and mountains of Yunmengze and Penglize are indeed wonders for a Zhao native. Heifu secretly cursed: "I'm afraid you will have to go to the coast of the South China Sea in the future. When you stand by the tropical rain forest at the Pearl River Estuary , looking at the vast sea, the waves rushing onto the beach, I don’t know how I feel..."

By noon, when they arrived at the intersection of rivers and lakes, they saw that the rivers and lakes were clearly separated. The water in Pengli Lake was murky, but the water flowing into the lake was extremely clear...

Zhao Tuo opened a map that Tu Sui sent someone to check for water channel paintings, pointed to this tunnel and said: "This is the mouth of the lake, where Ganshui River, Fuhe River, Xinjiang River, Raohe River and Xiushui River all merge into the Nanjiang River (Poyang Lake). , Nanjiang River enters Pengli Ze from here."

Heifu suddenly realized that if he turned south at this turn, he would enter Poyang Lake in later generations. But at the moment, Poyang Lake has not yet taken shape. There is only a narrow stretch of water running from north to south, called "Nanjiang". When the water rises in spring, it is connected to Penglize and becomes a larger lake. Now that the water shrinks in autumn and winter, most of the water is The area is covered with yellow grass and white reeds, and is as open as a plain.

The water in Penglize is very turbid. Whenever Heifu and the others want to draw river water, they have to clarify it and wait one night before they can drink it. The water of Nanjiang River is very clear. The clear pool rises far away and the green waves are pure. The confluence with Pengli Lake is as if divided by a rope ruler and cannot be confused.

Looking at this place, Zhao Tuo seemed to have some thoughts: "The flow of rivers and streams flows north to Pengli Ze, and Hukou is where it loses. If a small town can be established here to control the waterway, it will open up a land thousands of miles away in Yuzhang." The entry and exit can be controlled!"

"Zhao Tuo's vision is quite accurate."

Heifu glanced at the future King of Nanyue. He had at least studied geography and knew that Akarin Province was surrounded by mountains in the east, west and south. The most convenient way to enter and exit the province was to enter the Yangtze River via Poyang Lake.

So Hei Fu said with a smile: "How about we set up a garrison here when we capture the entire territory of Yuzhang?"

The boat was traveling very fast, and two hours after crossing the lake mouth, they were already close to their destination, Pengze, a Chu city on the south bank of Penglize...

Looking from a distance, we can see that this city is a typical small town by the water. The city is two miles away from the water and there is a small dock on the shore. Suddenly seeing a huge fleet of boats appear on the water, the Chu people on the shore immediately ran away, but before escaping, they did not forget to burn the wooden pier.

Seeing a raging fire burning on the pier, Heifu asked Zhao Tuo how to anchor in this situation without knowing the depth of water on the shore.

"Sima can only reach the shore in a small boat."

Zhao Tuo smiled nonchalantly and said: "But I'm afraid the pier will have to be renovated later, otherwise we will have nowhere to anchor."

With countless oars, the centipede-like long boats were lowered into the water. Each boat could seat fifty people. Fortunately, most of Heifu's soldiers had been on boats. They followed the chants of the boatmen and started heading towards the shore. Row while rowing.

Fortunately, there were not many guards under Peng Zejun, so he did not dare to send anyone to stop them. As the paddles rose and fell, dozens of long boats boarded the ship smoothly.

The first batch of 500 Dongmen Leopards to land have already formed a square formation. The soldiers held shields and swords and watched the closed Xiaoyi city gate warily, waiting for Lixian, Gongao, Anpu, and others in the rear. After Man and Xiao Tao landed one after another, they moved forward one after another. It took half an hour to form a phalanx of 3,000 people on the shore, and then followed Heifu's military flag and the beating of waist drums. , walking towards the city with neat steps!

Someone was watching at the top of Pengzeyi City and saw that the river was full of Qin warships, all with hard sails spread out, like a cloud covering the lake, boundless, and there were probably tens of thousands of people on board. The three thousand warriors who landed were in neat formation and were fierce. They seemed to be just the vanguard of this army, and they couldn't help but feel frightened.

Heifu's soldiers stopped a mile away from the city, leaving a thousand men on guard, while the rest went to cut down trees or return to the shore to get tents and other materials for camping. Heifu had assigned them tasks yesterday. , so it was carried out in an orderly manner.

Heifu had made up his mind: "Tu Sui won't bluff for me for long, he will leave soon, so he will attack the city early tomorrow morning and we will capture the city within two days!"

His original plan was to fake the power of the tiger and frighten the city, so that it would be easier to attack. However, he did not expect that in the evening, before nightfall, before the forts outside the city were set up, the city suddenly burst into flames and a chaos broke out. Then the surrender flags were quickly erected at the top of the city, and the people on them shouted that they wanted to surrender to the Qin army, and also said that they would send people out to negotiate the surrender...

Heifu's men looked at each other in confusion, and couldn't help but think of the Battle of Yang that made them famous.

"Could it be a fake surrender?" The five hundred masters were a little worried. It was getting dark soon. The army was entering the city at this moment. What if they were ambushed.

"If it is true or false, let the surrendered people come out of the city and have a look."

Hei Fu was not in vain. He sat down on the mat and asked Ji Ying to shout for someone to come out from the city quickly.

Not long after, a scholar in his thirties climbed down the city wall less than two feet high by a rope, and was escorted by Gong Ao to Hei Fu.

Ten steps away, the scholar raised the bloody head in his hand and said:

"Xu Shu and the Xu family of Peng Ze have killed Peng Zejun and respectfully welcome the King of Qin!"