There was still more than a hundred miles to go from Kelan City to the stone quarry located at the northern foot of Guanchuan Mountain and within Langu County. There were many mountainous roads along the way. Today's journey would definitely be too late, so everyone rushed directly to the post house to stay.
When Xu Huai and the others arrived at the post house, they just unloaded their carriages and horses, threw their luggage into the post house, and then wandered around the city. After going around in a long circle, they followed the secret sign left by Xu Wukun and walked in.
A restaurant.
The restaurant was not far from the post house and was the busiest place in the city. Xu Huai and the others went up to the third floor and asked for a small pavilion by the window to sit down. They opened the window and had a panoramic view of everything on the left and right.
There are quite a few stylish restaurants, tea shops, Goulan Courtyards, and prostitutes nearby. When I was wandering around the city just now, I saw many private brothels along the streets.
The Forbidden Army also implemented a recruitment system. After recruitment, people would have tattoos on their arms and cheeks, and they would serve as soldiers for life without special reasons. It was also common practice to capture thieves and refugees to supplement military service.
Although the generals of the Forbidden Army are not allowed to marry and their families are allowed to accompany the army, how many of the thieves and refugees who were captured and sent to the military camps can marry and have children?
This also made private kilns prosperous in places where the army was stationed.
Xu Wukun knocked on the door and walked into the small pavilion. According to the etiquette, he first saluted Wang Zhen: "I have met Wang Xianggong..."
"Hey, Uncle Wu Kun, why are you here in Lanzhou?" Wang Xuan didn't notice at all that when they entered the city, Xu Huai met Xu Wukun and Zheng Tu, and Xu Wukun even followed them all the time.
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"Zhufengtang has some business to do in Lanzhou. Let's come here first to set up an outpost," Xu Wukun said simply and perfunctorily, and then asked Wang Zhen, Lu Xiong, Xu Huai, Tang Pan, and Xu Xin'an to come to the side to talk, "You guys leave the post.
After a while, Zeng Run personally led people to the inn to look through your luggage, but he found nothing and left quickly."
Xu Huai and others traveled all the way, but Xu Wukun and Zheng Tu rushed to Lanzhou with their people in early March to collect information on Cai's troops in Lanzhou.
In addition to secretly purchasing a food shop in Kelan City as a contact point, they are also purchasing a farm at the northwest foot of Guanxun Mountain, on the mountains near the post road from Kelan City to Lanzhou Stone Field and Langu City.
As a foothold in Lanzhou.
Over the years, Xu Wukun had followed Xu Wufu in managing family business, managing the government, and was familiar with dealing with local officials and gentry. So by now he had figured out some basic situations, and had even started to fill the state post where officials were sent to.
Guo Zhongxiong was appointed as a servant, and the Privy Council sent him to Lanzhou on orders. Even though he was clearly a member of the Cai clan, he came mainly in accordance with the imperial decree to prepare for the joint attack on Yan.
Guo Zhongxiong, as a member of the main war faction who joined forces to defeat Yan, in terms of his personal will, also wanted to take this opportunity to make achievements, and it was impossible to devote too much energy to targeting Wang Zhen.
This is actually similar to Dong Cheng. If he had the opportunity to attack Wang Zhen and the remnants of Jing Sheng's army, he would definitely not mind pushing the situation along.
However, after Zheng Hui, Dong Qifeng and others were ambushed by Xu Huai and others, Dong Cheng returned to Biyang, and his subsequent energy was mainly focused on recruitment and other matters, and there has been no new movement towards Yuhuangling until now.
This is also normal. Whether Dong Cheng or Xiong Zhongxiong, they are members of the Cai family, but mainly because of their common political interests, they need to rely on Cai Qing's support or relationship with the Cai family for career advancement.
He is a good friend, but he is not a private official of Cai Mansion.
They will criticize and even create excuses to slander Wang Cun, intentionally or unintentionally creating unjust, false, and wrongful convictions, but this is only in the interest of party struggle.
When it comes to assassinations, assassinations, and even eradication, this is obviously the work of private officials and secretly raised dead men. Dong Cheng and Xiong Zhongxiong will not dirty their hands with this due to their status and identity at this time.
At present, the direct official of the Cai Mansion in Lanzhou is Zeng Run. Before Xiong Zhongxiong went to Lanzhou, Cai Zheng recommended him to Xiong Zhongxiong as his staff - so Cai Zheng instructs the court officials to write letters to express their opinions.
, transferred Wang Zhen from Tongbai Mountain to Lanzhou to serve as the superintendent of the quarry. After Guo Zhongxiong arrived in Lanzhou, he assigned all matters related to the quarry to Zeng Run.
The number of private officials and dead men secretly cultivated by the Cai Mansion is not unlimited. After all, he was born as a scholar. When he was transferred back to the Central Committee as Privy Councilor, he had to give up his military power in Hexi. He had one or two hundred private officials in his hands.
If Shi can use it, it is already quite terrifying.
The Cai Mansion has a large number of farms under its name, and most of the people are ordinary tenants and farmers.
At present, Cai Ting is also focusing on joining forces to defeat Yan. Even if he wants to contact the generals and officials in the main battle in various places, he needs to use a large number of manpower to contact and move around.
Therefore, Xu Wukun also confirmed clearly that the number of people Zeng Run could directly mobilize in Lanzhou was actually only a dozen people. They were not even as capable and powerful as Zheng Hui and Dong Qifeng, let alone as secretly as they were in Lanzhou.
Manpower has been deployed.
For the time being, we are not worried that they will engage in assassination and assassination as they did before.
Currently there are two biggest problems they will face in Lanzhou:
First, the Cai Clan is already a dominant force in Lanzhou. As long as Wang Zhen, Xu Huai and others are exposed, Zeng Run can easily directly call on the people of the state, county and even the imperial army to suppress them, and he will even continue to use them.
The rules on the surface created all kinds of troubles for Wang Zhen; when he was in Tongbai Mountain, the local factions were all being cunning and wanted to stay out of the matter, so Zheng Hui could only use the influence of copycats to stir up trouble.
The second point is that after the Tongbai Mountain bandits were recruited, the ordinary thieves have been dispersed and organized into various forbidden armies. Their ties with Chen Zixiao, Zhong Changqing and other thieves chiefs are also weak, so don't expect ordinary thieves.
How much loyalty does everyone have to the thief chieftain?
However, after Chen Zixiao, Guo Junpan, Pan Chenghu and other bandit chiefs were recruited, more than one-third of them were assigned to serve as low-level generals in the Lanzhou Forbidden Army.
Xu Wukun and others arrived in Lanzhou more than two months in advance and noticed that Zeng Run frequently looked for opportunities to contact Chen Zixiao, Guo Junpan, Pan Chenghu and others in Lanzhou.
At present, Chen Zixiao, Guo Junpan, Pan Chenghu and others have just been transferred to the Lanzhou Army. As captured traitor generals, they will inevitably be rejected and suppressed by other generals. They will not have access to actual military power and will not be able to do anything for the time being.
But it cannot be ruled out that Zeng Run will use Guo Zhongxiong's relationship to bring these people together and help them gain some military power.
In that case, it is difficult to say that they will not pose a direct threat to this side by then.
Xu Wukun and others came here more than two months in advance, and their main focus was on investigating the movements of Cai's troops in Lanzhou. However, they did not pay much attention to the movements of the Khitan people in Lanzhou and Daizhou, which Wang Chen was currently concerned about.
, the king was disappointed, and said to Xu Huai: "Since you have secretly built a farm in Guanxi Mountain, Xuan'er can go with you to the farm. Lu Xiong and I went to the quarry to take up our posts, but we are not afraid that Zeng Run can make it happen."
What kind of means! If you want to wait and see the situation of Yue Yan and the Red Hu people, it is not appropriate to interfere in the quarry!"
"Ms. Wang, there is no way you can drive me away at this time..." Xu Huai said with a salivating smile.
Lu Xiong admired Wang Zhen, Tang Pan, Tang Qing and others regarded Wang Zhen as their teacher, but Xu Huai did not feel that he was shorter than Wang Zhen in front of him.
Therefore, Xu Huai had his own opinions on whether to go to the quarry to cause trouble, and how to spy on the Khitan people, or even go a thousand miles away to investigate the situation of the Chihu people, and there was no need to seek Wang Cun's consent.
What's more, he had no intention of mentioning his true life experience to Wang Zhen and Lu Xiong.
Wang Zhen smiled bitterly and shook his head.
How could he treat Xu Huai as a seventeen-year-old boy at this time?
He and Lu Xiong were lucky enough not to be buried in Tongbai Mountain, thanks to Xu Huai's frightening movements, and he didn't feel like he had the trouble to teach Xu Huai how to do things.
After meeting Xu Wukun, Xu Huai and Xu Wukun continued to lurk in Kelan City with Zheng Tu and the others, collecting as much information as possible on Chen Zixiao and others to recruit the thieves. They drank in a restaurant, pretended to be ignorant and returned to the inn.
, rested all night, and crossed the Fen River early the next day and headed for Langu County.
After entering Guanluishan Mountain and confirming that no one was following them, Xu Huai and the others followed the route Xu Wukun and the others had mentioned at the restaurant yesterday and rushed directly to the farm Xu Wukun and the others had secretly purchased in Guanluishan Mountain to spend the night.
The bandits in Tongbai Mountain were not all local criminals and desperate people, but also many outsiders like Chen Zixiao. During the war against bandits, many prisoners were captured, and there were also various kinds of trophies collected.
According to the genealogy, he was selected to pretend to be his identity and go to Lanzhou to buy a shop, a farm and a house. Unexpectedly, he would be discovered by private officials of the Cai Mansion.
The farm that Xu Wukun and his friends bought was located in a mountain col at the northeastern foothills of Guanxun Mountain.
The farm is not large in scale, with only thirty or forty houses and very little land. The old owner built this farm in the early years mainly to use the wider mountain pastures in the mountains to raise cattle and horses. However, in addition to Guanlui Mountain, there are also bandits.
, the Khitan people's scouting horses and sentries also crossed the border defense line from time to time and interspersed with activities in this area.
The old owner failed to herd cattle and horses, and was attacked several times and suffered heavy losses, so he abandoned this village. Now someone has come to take over. Of course, he has to sell it out quickly.
The villa is about four or five miles away from the post road. The terrain from the post road is hidden and dangerous, but behind the villa is the gentle slope of Guanxun Mountain spread out like wings.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Guanchuan Mountain had always been an extremely important official racecourse for the Central Plains regime. Qilian Lake, where the former site of Fenyang Palace is located, is the general name of a series of mountain lakes deep in Guanchuan Mountain. In the early years, it was also known as Mayinghai, which was related to Qilian Lake.
Related to the official racecourse.
It is a pity that Dai Viet has been in power for more than a hundred years, and the border with the Khitan people is on the north side of Guan Chuan Mountain. From time to time, the Dangxiang people broke through the Piantou Pass (Piantou Pass) in the northwest of Guan Chuan Mountain and invaded Fuzhou, threatening Guan Chuan Mountain.
The western foothills of Guanxun Mountain, therefore, have never been able to take advantage of the excellent mountain pastures of Guanlun Mountain to breed war horses.
Of course, Xu Huai and the others chose this place as their foothold. If necessary, everyone can retreat here first, then go southwest over Guanlui Mountain, enter Fuzhou, go south along the Yellow River, or directly cross the Yellow River and enter the Guanzhong area.
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At present, except for Xu Wukun and Zheng Tu who are lurking in Kelan City to spy on the news, Su Laochang is personally in charge of the farm...
