Hundreds of people surrendered, but Dong Zhuo was not happy.
Although they are collectively called "Rangers", their qualifications vary greatly. They may be called Rangers in normal times, but if times change, they may become bandits or assassins.
Han Feizi once said that "Confucians use literature to disrupt the law, and chivalrous people use martial arts to violate the ban." The King of Qin greatly agreed. Later, he "burned books to trap Confucians" and "collected the soldiers of the world to cast twelve golden men". However, Qin destroyed Han Over the hundreds of years since its rise, Confucianism and the Rangers have resurrected together, and have become even more prosperous due to the resurgence of spiritual energy from the meteorite.
In Liang and the two prefectures, there were many people practicing martial arts, and the knight-errant spirit was very strong. Apart from being on the border and often having to fight against invading foreign tribes, it was also inspired by the deeds of a great hero.
This great hero's name was Wang Yue, a native of Liaodong. When he was young, he patrolled the Han border from north to west. A group of barbarians did not dare to attack him directly and retreated one after another.
At that time, there was a Qiang tribe leader who had many men. Before Wang Yue arrived, he led tens of thousands of Qiang and Hu to plunder Liangzhou and retreated into the Helan Mountains. When Wang Yue learned about it, he was furious and charged into the Helan Mountains alone with his sword. Take the leader's head from them, then kill the Qiang and Hu tribesmen, and rescue all the plundered soldiers and civilians.
From this incident, the Han people on the border not only marveled at Wang Yue's extraordinary martial arts, but also confirmed that the Hu people had no "unparalleled" qualifications at all. Therefore, everyone practiced martial arts and treated the rangers with courtesy. This is also why the Dong family father and son dared to use a mere six hundred The confidence of the mixed soldiers to attack a thousand cavalry.
In addition to the fact that most of these rangers are unusable, there is another thing that puzzles Dong Zhuo. That is, there are no casualties among the caravan guards of this caravan. It should be noted that from the time the scouts reported to the time when Dong's father led the army to arrive, they had more than a hundred people. With troops defending a thousand horse thieves for five or six hours, even if there are barriers of vehicles and obstacles, there should be no losses.
"It is quite hard for this leader to lead the guards to resist the horse thieves. If there are those who are seriously injured and unable to make the journey, we and other riders can bring them back to martial arts for training." After the simple banquet, Dong Zhuo found the leader of the caravan guard at the temporary station to show his concern. shape.
"There is no need to work for the young man from the Dong family," the leader of the caravan, although he was older, did not dare to look down on this sturdy young man. Hearing this, he replied: "Because we were caught off guard by the surprise attack, many of my brothers were indeed injured. , but they all recovered under the treatment of 'Taiping Taoist'."
"Oh? Taoist?" Dong Zhuo smiled: "Could it be that he uses incense and talisman water to treat diseases?"
"The young man from the Dong family knows things like a god." The leader of the guard nodded.
"..." Dong Zhuo was speechless for a moment.
"I know that the so-called 'talisman water cure' is a trick of a wild swindler, but those methods can only be used to deceive ignorant women with minor injuries and illnesses. At this critical moment, if he dares to cheat, he will only I was afraid that he would be torn apart by my subordinates, so I let him have a try." The guard leader added.
"Oh...then what's the result?" Dong Zhuo felt that things seemed to be out of control.
The leader praised: "Wonderful rejuvenation! This 'Taiping Dao' is indeed not a swindler!"
So that's it. Dong Zhuo nodded secretly. Many rangers responded to follow him, but the rescued caravan members showed no movement or gratitude at all. It was actually because of this incident: "Then, can the leader introduce this Taoist to me?"
"That's natural. Both of you are the benefactors of the rescue caravan. However, the Taoist priest seems to have lost his strength. After relieving the siege, he rested in the tent and asked the young man to come with me." The leader of the caravan knew that he had nothing to do, so he led Dong Zhuo.
Head to the campsite.
————
"Are you the 'Taoist of Taiping'?"
Dong Zhuo was quite disappointed when he saw the Taoist man in the tent.
Different from the expected appearance of the immortal Taoist or the game world, this Taoist is more like a businessman than an outsider, with a medium build, wearing a strange yellow Taoist robe, and his hair is randomly decorated with yellow silk
He stood up, with a relatively small bamboo box beside him. He was writing talismans on yellow paper with an oil lamp on a small table. When he saw Dong Zhuo coming in, he quickly stood up to greet him.
"No, I don't dare to use the word 'Taoist'," the man said: "The villain Zhang Niujiao is just a 'Taoist disciple of Taiping'."
"Oh," Dong Zhuo's evaluation of the "Taiping Road" was slightly improved: "Why did you come to Liangzhou? How did you go with the caravan?"
"The villain is here to sell talismans... no, he is preaching." Zhang Niujiao quickly changed his words mid-sentence: "I met a caravan preparing to set up camp, so I planned to stay one night and inquire about the situation in Liangzhou, but unexpectedly I was attacked by horse thieves."
As if he was indeed a businessman, Dong Zhuo looked at the talisman he was writing on: "Are you going to sell this thing? I heard that it is not a scam but really effective, but is that so?"
"Don't dare to deceive your lord." Zhang Niujiao took out a short scimitar and slashed his arm under Dong Zhuo's vigilant gaze. Blood gurgled out. Then he took out a talisman without changing his expression, brought it to the oil lamp and lit it.
Then mix it with tea on the table and drink it all in one gulp.
Dong Zhuo was still frowning at first, but when he saw the wound on the man's arm quickly stopped bleeding and scabbed, he couldn't help but look shocked.
"I, the founder of the Taiping Dao, was favored by the immortals and was given three volumes of the Heavenly Book. There are many immortal methods to save people, and it implies the meaning of bringing peace to the world, so it is called the 'Taiping Dao'," Zhang Niujiao said: "However, the Heavenly Book is complicated.
It’s hard to understand. Currently, only this talismanic water saving technique can be used, and it is limited to injuries that will heal on their own if left alone. Therefore, I and other Taoist disciples are entrusted to go to the borders where wars are frequent to sell... and preach."
The so-called "receiving a heavenly book from an immortal" was mostly a boast. Dong Zhuo thought, it was probably some kind of special "unparalleled" person who had no fighting power but could save people.
"How much money do you need to buy this thing?" Dong Zhuo picked up a talisman. In addition to the decorative patterns around it, the four characters "Southern China Old Immortal" were written in the middle.
"A hundred coins each," Zhang Niujiao said: "The law should not be taught lightly. If it is sold for less than a hundred coins, it will be invalid."
The price is not expensive. A good fight of wine in a restaurant costs fifty gold. Ordinary weapons for ordinary soldiers are worth about five hundred to one thousand gold. As for the horses captured by the horse thieves, although most of them are pack horses rather than war horses, it is also
Worth thousands of dollars.
Because he wanted to upgrade his prison knife, he originally planned to return to Longxi to get the money he had saved over the years, but now he has captured a group of horse thieves. Even if he wants to share most of the harvest with the rangers, seeing that he will send out cavalry and his father when he gets married.
There is also a lot of face left for him.
Sure enough, robbing is the fastest way to make money.
However, I have never heard that drugs will become ineffective if they are sold at a low price. It is probably due to the limitations of the founder's own "unparalleled" characteristics, and is he specifically trying to prevent them from being robbed?
"Give me five more," Dong Zhuo handed Zhang Niujiao the five hundred silver coins his father had spent with him.
"Hey - please keep it." The Taoist took out five talismans, put them in a small bag, and handed them to Dong Zhuo: "Burn them before use, and mix them with tea to drink. But I have to say one more thing,
Even if it is used multiple times on the same wound, the effect will not be superimposed."
"Humph, I know it myself." Dong Zhuo confirmed that this man was just an unimportant merchant on Taiping Road, so he didn't want to ask any more questions, took the talisman and turned around to leave.
————
The next morning, the Cheng family cavalry and a group of rangers returned to Wuwei.
Not many people knew about it when they left, but when they returned it was quite loud. For no other reason than this group of people were embarrassed to the point of two people and one horse when they went out at night, but when they returned, there were at least one person and two horses, which made yesterday
The rangers who didn't get the news late or didn't go when they got the news stamped their feet and beat their chests.
The governor Cheng Cheng was originally dissatisfied with his brother's unauthorized use of private soldiers, but the gains and military exploits of a thousand horse thieves were enough to smooth it over, and the reputation of the Dong family and his son who commanded this battle also greatly increased.
The only ones who were dissatisfied were probably the horse dealers in the market. Nearly a thousand horses came in at once. Even if only half of the people were willing to sell, it would be enough to cause a serious impact on horse prices.
Dong Zhuo, who received the bounty and went to find the blacksmith Ma Su, naturally did not feel guilty and was quite proud when he passed by the chaotic horse dealers.
"I made a mistake." Ma Su was waiting for Dong Zhuo in the blacksmith shop, and the little boy Jia Xu was also there. He sighed in an old-fashioned way: "I can only see my current net worth but not my future prospects. It seems that I can't see the future."
Need exercise."
"What's the matter? Do you want to raise the price?" Dong Zhuo glared at him.
"No, I just came here today to try my luck," Jia Xu said: "Uncle Ma originally planned to strengthen your weapons early in the morning, but I stopped him and promised that if you didn't come before noon, I would continue without any delay.
, now it seems that what I expected was good - I must have got something good from those horse thieves?"
"I can't tell whether the things are good or not, but they don't match my personality," Dong Zhuo said, handing the five talismans to Ma Su and Jia Xu. After telling them their origins, he added: "Rather than speeding up the recovery of the wound, I would rather
Tends to leave enemy wounds difficult to heal."
"Hmm..." Jia Xu turned over and looked at the talisman: "It actually has the aura of 'warm jade'. If it is used to strengthen ordinary weapons, it can probably achieve the effect of 'gradually restoring physical strength over time in combat', but if it is combined with the fragments of flame jade,
Used simultaneously, the weaker one will be canceled out."
"What does your master do?" Dong Zhuo suddenly asked.
"In the precious jade business, those eldest young masters and second ladies don't bother to pick up pieces from the cracks in the bricks in the corner." Jia Xu glanced at him: "This is the Jia family you are thinking of."
Xiliang is a vast land with a sparse population. Many families only use the city as a trading center and usually live in their own forts. The Ma family, the Jia family, and the Han family are the most powerful families in Xiliang today - said
Is the kid who drank at Chengji Restaurant before getting up named "Han" Sui?
But if you are really good at it, all the people you meet are offshoots of the aristocratic family, Dong Zhuo laughed at himself.
"Well... because it can only be used once, it cannot be permanently strengthened." At this time, Ma Su's research also came to a conclusion, but a temporarily strengthened powder can be made and applied before the battle. It will be effective for about half an hour, so that
The wounds of the injured person are difficult to heal, but each talisman requires an additional cost of two hundred dollars."
So the cost of the powder that makes it difficult to heal wounds is three hundred dollars? Rather than spending this money, it would be easier to just hack the enemy to death directly.
Dong Zhuo was making calculations when he suddenly saw a certain "uncle" who had been lukewarm towards them and his son rushing in: "Nephew Dong Xian! Why are you still here? The governor will reward you for your merits and recruit you as a 'criminal against thieves'"
