As night fell, Shen Chen was invited to Uncle Qi's house as a guest.
The seventh uncle's family has three children. The eldest son Shen Tao is eighteen years old and has become the mainstay of the family. The eldest daughter is sixteen years old and got married at the beginning of this year. The youngest son is twelve years old and is the child who was scolded by Shen Chen before.
Shen Tao was sent to call back Shen Chen's parents. Because they had not returned for a long time, they were afraid that the food would be cold and unpalatable, so Uncle Qi called to Shen Chen and said, "Ah Chen, eat first. You're welcome."
"Uncle Qi and I are not polite." Shen Chen smiled and said, "But Uncle Qi is the host and I am the guest. Uncle Qi eats first."
"Then let's eat first, Aying. Go put this bowl in the pot and heat it up, and leave it for them when the third brother comes back."
The seventh uncle, Shen Min, greeted his wife and asked her to heat up one of the bowls of cooked chicken.
When Aunt Seven came back, Uncle Seven, his wife, their youngest son, and Shen Chen began to use chopsticks first and eat rice cooked with corn, that is, millet.
At this moment, outside the Shen family ancestral hall in Lanshan Ju, about six miles away from Zhuanyang Ju, Shen Zhen had just passed the selection and officially became a clan member.
The Han people are relatively martial. During the Guanghe period, Shen Zhen was recruited by the imperial court to serve as border guards in Bingzhou, and he fought with Xianbei, who was at the height of his power at that time.
Although he had only fought small-scale battles in the rear at that time, and he had only killed one enemy so far. His experience as a soldier had always deeply affected him, and he often called himself a Han frontier soldier. .
This claim is quite worthy of bragging, because at that time, the Han Dynasty had three methods of recruiting soldiers, one was to recruit excommunicated soldiers composed of Xing Tu sinners, the second was to recruit mercenaries from border ethnic minorities, and the last was to recruit soldiers. It is to recruit good family members from the mainland.
According to the status, Liangjiazi had the highest status. After arriving at the border, he was often served as a low-level officer, such as a corps commander or a commander. Shen Zhen had been a commander at that time, commanding a team of ten people, and had a certain social status. .
After returning from the army and returning to his hometown, Shen Zhen was at least relatively high in prestige among the Shen family in Zhuoyang because of this experience.
Therefore, now that the tribesmen are moving south to form tribesmen, whether it is due to feelings or his own ideas, he must participate in it, and even hold certain positions, otherwise the villagers may gossip.
Shen Chen knew this, and he also knew that his mother might not be able to persuade him, but his father was stubborn, and if his mother couldn't persuade him, it would be impossible for him to do so.
After all, in this society where parents are greater than heaven, if a son goes against his father's wishes, it would be unfilial.
Once you are labeled as unfilial, in the Han Dynasty, when filial piety was used to govern the world, even the most important way to become an official was to "exercise filial piety and integrity", it meant that you would be unable to move forward and be abandoned by the entire society.
Therefore, Shen Chen had no way to dissuade Shen Zhen and could only rely on his own wishes.
But so far, Shen Zhen has not changed his mind. After Shen Chen's mother found him, she tried to dissuade him for a long time but remained unmoved.
Since it was getting late, my parents did not go back to Zhongyangju in the dark.
The clan organized clan soldier training and recruited a total of 100 people. Shen Zhen was appointed as the captain of 50 of them because of his previous experience. He arranged their residences uniformly and trained day and night to form combat effectiveness as soon as possible.
However, Shen Chen's eldest brother Shen Zhong lived in Lanshanju, and the couple did not go to the dormitory, but lived at Shen Zhong's house.
Shen Tao's journey was quite fast, and he had already arrived outside the Shen's ancestral hall before dark. However, after he arrived, he learned that the clan members had just dispersed, and that his third uncle, Shen Zhen, and his wife had gone to the home of his elder brother, Shen Zhong, in Lanshan.
If Shen Tao rushed back immediately at this time, he might be able to go home before sunset. But he was stubborn and his parents asked him to find the third uncle and his wife, so he had to obey and go find them.
So we went to Lanshan Reunion again. It happened that Shen Zhong's family also killed a chicken to entertain his parents. Seeing that it was getting late, Shen Zhong invited Shen Tao to have dinner at home.
Originally, Shen Tao still wanted to go back, but the third uncle, Shen Zhen, had always been dignified in the clan, so he stayed obediently with just one sentence.
After dinner, it was already dark, and the sound of howling wolves could be heard outside near Lanshan Mountain at night.
Shen Zhong and Shen Tao were one year apart. They grew up together and had a very good relationship. Seeing this, he told Shen Tao not to go back in the dark and stay at his house.
Shen Tao had no choice but to agree.
However, no one knew that after nightfall, a heavily armed army quietly came to Huangmen Pavilion.
The leader was none other than Cao Ren. Before Cao Cao left, he personally ordered him to get rid of Shen Chen.
Originally, Cao Ren planned to wait until Tao Qian's pursuers were defeated, then return with his carbine and lead the army all the way to Xiangben County.
According to Cao Ren's plan, most of the Xiangben people had returned by this time, and they were all slaughtered to scare Tao Qian away from causing trouble in Cao Cao's rear.
As a result, he never expected that when the pursuers came, they were first frightened off by Cao Ren's tactics, and then for some unknown reason, they pursued him again, killing all the troops behind him.
If Cao Ren hadn't been cautious and arranged for the front army to respond, the consequences would have been disastrous.
But even if he finally repelled the pursuers, Cao Ren suffered very heavy losses, especially as there were two fierce generals among the pursuers, who killed many of his soldiers during the charge, so that his morale was very low.
At present, most of Cao Ren's rear army has been killed or wounded, and there are still about 2,000 combat-effective soldiers, more than 1,000 wounded soldiers, and nearly 800 people killed in battle.
At this time, it was impossible to lead troops and horses back, but the mission assigned by Cao Cao still had to be completed, so Cao Ren had to select 200 elite men to carry out the mission himself.
The original plan was to massacre the entire Xiangben County openly and complete the task, but now he could only sneak into the village, which was a bit frustrating.
However, Cao Ren was not a stickler for being mean or despicable. Cao Cao taught him that as long as things are done, it doesn't matter what the means are.
So even if it was a matter of regular troops sneaking into an ordinary village, Cao Ren could do it. After all, completing the mission was better than anything else.
In the night, the two hundred soldiers were all elites who did not suffer from night blindness and could see at night. The moonlight plus every torch, a total of twenty torches, was enough for them to find the direction and path in the dark.
"General, that's the house."
One of Cao Ren's soldiers pointed to the house by the creek at the foot of the mountain not far away and said.
That house with lights on was Shen Min's house.
Cao Ren had sent people here to investigate before. At that time, Cao Cao planned to send people to summon Shen Chen for questioning. However, because Shen Chen was hiding in Niqiu Mountain to avoid trouble, he just sent people to find the way and thought about it later. Come and find him.
In ancient times, the land was vast and sparsely populated, and the houses where villagers lived in rural areas were often scattered widely. However, Shen Zhen's house happened to be very close to Shen Min's house, with less than ten feet between them.
It was dark again at this time, and there were no lights on at Shen Zhen's house. As a result, the soldiers who knew the way pointed to the wrong house.
In fact, he couldn't point elsewhere, because Shen Zhen's house had no lights, and it was located at the foot of a hill. The moonlight was blocked by the shadows of the mountains and forests. It was so dark that he could only judge the direction by the little light from the main room of Shen Min's house.
At this time, Shen Chen had already eaten. Shen Min and his wife had been waiting for a long time and Shen Tao did not come back. They were a little worried. Shen Chen comforted them and said that it was probably because they were delayed on the road. As a result, Shen Tao and his parents stayed at Shen Zhong's house, telling them not to worry.
This was the case in the past. Everyone in the village knew each other. Not to mention that Shen Tao and Shen Zhong were brothers and childhood friends. In Huangmenting, most of the Deng and Shen families were acquaintances. It was getting late. It is not uncommon to go home and randomly knock on a relative or friend's house to stay overnight.
However, Shen Min and his wife were still afraid that Shen Tao would come back in the dark, so they kept the oil lamp on after eating. Waste is waste, but the family was about to move, and even hundreds of acres of farmland had to be given up. I don't care about this little lamp oil.
Cao Ren looked in the direction pointed by his men. They were on the post road to the north and south of Huangmen Pavilion. The village houses of Zhuanyangju were scattered on the east and west sides. To the west was a plain with more fields, and to the east was Niqiu Mountain extending out. There is a hilly area, probably no more than twenty or thirty feet high, and densely forested.
There is a small stream near the post road, which flows out of the mountain. Opposite the stream is the house at the foot of the mountain. The terrain is slightly higher. It is about a hundred feet away from the post road. There are some crisscrossing streets in the middle. Fields and a small pond with mulberry and bamboo.
Seeing this terrain through the moonlight, Cao Ren quickly made a quick consideration in his mind, looked at the small bridges on the east and west sides, and said: "Ten people will guard the small bridges on the east and west sides, and the rest will follow me. Go ten people from each household, leave no chickens or dogs behind, and then go twenty people to guard the back hill, and the rest will follow me."
On the east side of the road are not only the two residences of Shen Zhen and Shen Min's family, but there are about a hundred feet away from the creek at the foot of this hilly area. Along the way, many fields, vegetable fields, mulberry forests and small ponds have been cultivated near the creek. , the villagers mostly live at the foot of the mountain, with about ten households.
There are more than 30 households and more than 100 villagers in the entire Zhuanyang, of which 14 households live at the foot of the mountain to the east of the village, and 23 households live in the plain to the west of the village. They are scattered in the township. They have been ancestral for generations. Multiply and diligently take root in this land.
However, no one thought that there would be uninvited guests disturbing their peace. Even Shen Chen didn't know it, because he was not a divine strategist. He knew that Cao Cao already knew about his existence and wanted to strangle him in the cradle.
Cao Ren's men tiptoed into the village, passed through the fields and mulberry forests, and slowly approached the nearest house to the east of the village, which was less than twenty feet away.
At this moment, a sudden bark of a dog woke everyone up, followed by a second, third, and fourth sound.
“Woof woof woof woof woof!!!”
“Woof woof woof woof!!”
"Woof woof woof!"
"It's so noisy. Why is the dog at home barking again?"
"Maybe there are outsiders passing through the village."
"Why is there anyone else at this time?"
"Go and have a look."
The tranquility in the village was instantly broken, and the villagers who had been resting stood up one after another to see what was going on.
However, Cao Ren had long expected this situation. He had grown up in the countryside of the Cao clan since he was a child. He led thousands of young men to cross the Huai River, Surabaya and other places at the junction of Yuzhou and Xuzhou, often causing harm to the people everywhere. How could he not know that there were local farmers?
Is it a custom for dogs to guard homes and homes?
So almost as soon as the dog barked, he no longer concealed his traces, but quickly signaled to his soldiers, ordering them to act according to the previous deployment. Cao Ren himself led thirty people to directly raid Shen Min's house.