Hearing this, Ma Biao controlled his hand, grabbed Man Gui's wrist and pulled him back.
Where the cold light flashed, what was unsheathed was indeed only half of the Yanling sword.
"I didn't trick you, did I?" Man Gui rolled his eyes and broke away from Ma Biao. He didn't care about his incomplete weapon and sat down opposite Ma Xianglin. "General Ma, I, Man Gui, want to ask you why you tricked us."
Brothers of the battalion?”
Ma Xianglin waved his hand and motioned for the other servants to leave, leaving only Ma Biao in the tent.
Ma Xianglin flipped the lamp twister and thought about the conversation tricks Zheng Haizhu had told him.
So he did not immediately respond directly to Man Gui's question. Instead, he picked up the broken knife that Ma Biao placed on the withered grass mat and asked calmly: "Where was this knife made? Judging from the condition of the fracture, not to mention Li Bai Steelmaking
Far from it, even the Tatar's sword is stronger than this."
Mangui snorted: "It was issued by the imperial court, so it naturally comes from Beijing."
Ma Xianglin has it all.
According to Zheng Haizhu, in the early Yuan Dynasty, Shanxi's smelting skills were by no means inferior to Zhenjiang in southern Zhili.
Therefore, although Mongolia, as a nomadic people on the grassland, had poor cold weapon casting skills, after Genghis Khan wiped out the gold and controlled Shanxi, it obtained a large number of Han craftsmen who could forge high-quality cold weapons, and its military strength was significantly improved. After the Yuan Dynasty fell, Ming Dynasty prospered, and Jiangshan
After returning to the hands of the Han people, many blacksmiths from the north were moved to Yingtian Mansion, and then returned to Beijing with Zhu Di's move to the capital. They were affiliated with the Bingzhan Bureau, Wang Gongchang and other yamen, and became hereditary craftsmen's households.
However, due to the corruption of officials, the livelihood of craftsmen is difficult, and the weapons produced and exported by Beijing are getting worse and worse. Many generals in Jiubian, whether they are eating empty pay to save money, or doing business to make profits, they are always in trouble.
Those who have plenty of money and can afford to support servants will recruit craftsmen in the town to make truly useful weapons for their direct servants.
A low-level officer like Man Gui was far from being the personal servants of the commander-in-chief Zhao Menglin, so what he was assigned were naturally rags from the capital.
Seeing Ma Xianglin pondering the broken knife thoughtfully, Mangui said impatiently: "What does the knife do? Let's talk about our fight. General Ma, I really don't understand that you people from the south have all the holes in your heart."
What? When you were sticking the gun today, you clearly felt that something was wrong with my knife, and you could just push it away with a flick of the gun. Why did you deliberately let go of the gun? Are you going to defeat me and let me work with you, or are you going to do it?
Let me win and put money on my face? Regardless of the former or the latter, I don't care."
The more Man Gui spoke, the more anxious he became, his eyes as sharp as lightning when he fired a single sword into a gun.
Ma Xianglin looked completely different from what he was in the evening, with no trace of murderous intent in his eyes.
"Brother Mangui," Ma Xianglin waited patiently for the brave man opposite him to finish, and sighed softly, "Ma is not deliberately trying to show off, he is just thinking that that man really knows the powerful players in the border army, but he is too conceited.
Kindhearted."
"who?"
"She can be regarded as a civil servant sent by the imperial court to patrol the border. She also has business in the Xuanda area of Ji Town, so she is familiar with this area. It was she who taught Ma that there was a Man Gui in the Xuanfu army who was a brave general. Ma Ruo
If you are willing to defend yourself from the enemy outside the pass, I would like to make you a comrade. However, she also said that if you are not willing to easily get along with foreign southern barbarians like us, I should not force you, but I might as well increase your prestige and reputation."
Mangui's face brightened a little as he listened, and when he heard the last sentence, the disdain on his lips came up again: "I fought the Tatars with my real ability, not with bragging."
Ma Xianglin smiled lightly and said: "In the border area, if you have real skills, you must have a good reputation. It is exactly what that person told me that Cui Jingrong, the governor of Xuanda, had a one-hundred-and-fifty-five punch at the edge of Ningxia Town.
He ordered his subordinates to carry a ten-pound iron sword, while he rode on a horse, carrying a wooden sword of the same size, and patrolled the grassland. The Beibei thought that even the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty were fierce men who mounted their horses and fought.
In the same way, what's wrong with making the Tatars think that there are many brave generals in Xuan's army who can defeat me, Ma Xianglin?"
Man Gui was choked by what he said, and remained silent for a moment. She turned her eyes away and looked at the flickering lights.
After a moment, he looked back at Ma Xianglin: "So, General Ma, no matter whether my sword will break or not today, you will show me a flaw to let me win?"
Ma Xianglin nodded: "Yes. However, with your skill, if the sword is not stopped, maybe Ma will really lose without having to show any flaws."
Man Gui felt relieved immediately.
This southern barbarian is quite good at speaking nice words.
Ma Xianglin winked at Ma Biao, who walked deep into the tent and opened a wooden box.
After the clanging sound of iron tools colliding, Ma Biao held out a weapon.
"Brother Man, please point me to my civil servant friend. I have a cloth armor and iron workshop in the south. The cotton armor on Ma's body was made by her. The ordinary lead hammers from Shenji Camp cannot be penetrated from thirty to fifty steps away.
This time, she also asked Ma to bring some good knives and swords, as well as gun heads, to Yehuling to give them to the good guarding man she respected. You are a swordsman, so that's great.
"
Ma Xianglin said, took the knife from Ma Biao, put his index finger and middle finger together, and gently stroked the blade like inspecting the head of a hook and sickle, and then picked up a piece of jute paper on the wooden pier to write a letter to his family, with a light wrist
Shake, throw into the air.
There was a soft and hoarse "hiss" sound, and where the sword passed, the jute paper was cut in half, falling slowly like autumn leaves.
Ma Xianglin sheathed the sword and pushed it in front of Man Gui. He said in a tone of Ning He: "Brother Man, civil servants in the court are not all mean and mean. There are also swordsmen, guns and people who despise our warriors. They are all on the road."
Ma will be going to Longmen Pass in the east soon. After Brother Man cannot take advantage of this new sword, we can fight and compete again. How about we compare, whose sword can kill more Tatars?"
Man Gui stared blankly at the person in front of him, and then at the knife in front of him.
For the first time in his adult life, he encountered such ups and downs of words, deeds, and ways of thinking, which made him go from being arrogant and disdainful, to blood boiling, to being surprised everywhere, to coming to the door to answer questions, to being excited, and finally,
I became confused and didn’t know how to deal with it.
The only thing I can be sure of right now is that I have a good knife.
It's not a reward, as people said, it's a gift. Yes, that's the word I learned from the scholar in town: a gift.
You can hear a needle drop in the tent.
Ma Biao stared at this scene in the shadows, and found it quite interesting. They were also face to face, and the fierce close combat with various moves at dusk turned into silent contemplation.
However, silence is better than sound.
When Ma Biao was wondering whether Mrs. Zheng and the young master could achieve their dreams, Man Gui stretched out his big hand and grasped the handle of the knife.
"General Ma, the frontier army needs one or two and a half taels of silver per month for food supply. I am a man from Guizhou, and I am not a country bumpkin who has never seen good things. This knife costs almost ten taels of silver. I will take some people and follow you to the east.
, you can just give Guankou food. I don’t want the money for more than half a year, which can be used to exchange for this knife. I am full of Gui, and I will never take the benefits of others in vain. If I kill the Tatars, I will be happy.
