"Kou Zheng? Isn't that the first place in Hongde's sixteenth year examination?"
After reminiscing, Zhao Hongrun and Pan Ran came to their senses, his eyes flashed with a hint of surprise and surprise. He still remembered the top three on Hongde's gold medal list in the 16th year of the competition.
The third place is He Xinxian, the direct grandson of He Xiangxu, the former Zhongshu Ling, and a descendant of the famous He family in Daliang. He was once the closest friend and poetic friend of Zhao Hongzhao, who is currently the left prime minister of Qi.
At the same time, He Xinxian also ranked fourth in Hongde's 19th annual examination.
In fact, in Zhao Hongrun's view, among thousands of students, being able to win third place once and fourth place once is a good enough result, at least better than him, Zhao Hongrun. If he, Zhao Hongrun, were put into the imperial examination, he would not be able to get it.
I couldn't even pass the first test.
However, from the perspective of the He family, this result does not seem to be outstanding enough. Therefore, He Xinxian did not become a high-ranking official, but worked part-time in the Imperial Academy, becoming a relatively idle scribe with considerable humiliation.
Do you plan to continue to challenge Hongde's 22nd year, which is next year's imperial examination, after two failures that are not failures?
The second place is Luo Yao.
Even though Luo Yao, who was ranked in the front, was once disturbed by Zhou Min, who was ranked in the back, and once lost the trust of Zhao Hongli, the former prince of the East Palace, in Zhao Hongrun's eyes, Luo Yao was still a rare talent, and he was stable.
Loyalty is enough to entrust you with important tasks.
But unfortunately, it was precisely because Luo Yao was so loyal that he did his best after choosing to be loyal to Zhao Hongli without any second thoughts. As a result, even if Zhao Hongrun wanted to win over him for his own use, he had no chance.
The first place in the examination at that time was Kou Zheng.
But what is extremely shocking is that after Kou Zheng ranked first on the high school gold medal list, he neither had any intention of defecting to Zhao Hongli, the then crown prince of the East Palace, as a minister of the Dragon, nor did he intend to defect to King Yong or Prince Xiang as a minister of Qiandi. He even
Instead of staying in Daliang, he begged the court to allow him to serve as a local county magistrate - a small county in his hometown where he was born and raised.
Because of this, when the students of Luo Yao and Zhou Min gradually showed their prominence in Daliang, Kou Zheng, who was the top candidate in the examination that year, disappeared, and there was no news about him in Daliang from then on.
Unexpectedly, when he returned to Tianmen Pass today, Zhao Hongrun learned the news about this great sage from Lu Zhan. This really made him feel like "it takes no effort to find something after wearing iron shoes".
"Quickly, take me to that... what... Shang County, to Shang County!" Zhao Hongrun said rather eagerly.
Lu Zhan happily accepted the order, took dozens of Shangshui soldiers as guides, and took Zhao Hongrun to "Shang County".
Considering safety issues, Yan Mo placed 5,000 Yanling troops at Tianmen Pass and only took 200 Yanling troops with him.
Under the guidance of Lu Zhan, the group left Tianmen Pass and walked west along the mountain path.
During this period, Lu Zhan told Zhao Hongrun the story of "Kou Zhengshang County resisted the enemy".
It turned out that when Tianmen Pass guard Bao Yuan retreated southward, he left behind some Korean infantry and set fire to Tianmen Pass.
When these Korean soldiers were evacuating, they happened to encounter the army led by Pang Huan, the deputy general of Zhao Yuanzuo, the king of Nanliang. In order to survive, these Korean soldiers fled into the Taihang Mountains.
This group of Korean deserters was not large in number, only about two to three hundred people. In addition, Pang Huan, the deputy general of the Second North Army at the time, was so focused on the feat of recapturing Tianmen Pass that he ignored these Korean deserters.
Later, Lu Zhan of the Shang Shui Army led the army to Tianmen Pass. After hearing that there were still signs of Korean army remnants in the Taihang Mountains near Tianmen Pass, he had nothing to do, so he took two 500-man generals with him.
, led his soldiers to search all over the mountain, so that the Korean deserters did not dare to stay here, so they had to flee westward and accidentally discovered a mountain city - "Shang".
At that time, these Korean army deserters hid in the Taihang Mountains for an entire winter without food. During this period, an unknown number of people starved to death, and the remaining people were also hungry. Therefore, when they discovered the mountainous area to the west of Tianmen Pass,
When there was actually a small mountain city in the middle of the mountain, this group of Korean army deserters suddenly showed their ferocious side and tried to rob food from that mountain city.
At that time, Kou Zheng, the magistrate of the mountain city of Shang County, led the mountain people and hunters in the city to resist with all their might, and actually repelled the attacks of the Korean deserters three times, killing more than 150 enemies.
"At that time, the general followed the sound of fighting and took a look. It was unbelievable. A group of mountain people, hunters, actually used hunting crossbows, pitchforks, hoes, and bamboo poles to repel the hungry Korean deserters..."
Perhaps recalling the scene at that time, Lu Zhan had an incredible look on his face.
You must know that although the infantry of the Korean army is not as good as the infantry of the Wei state, they are not so weak that they cannot even defeat a group of mountain people. What's more, those Korean deserters were suffering from hunger at that time. In other words, these people were more ferocious than usual.
,horrible.
But even so, Kou Zheng still led a group of mountain people, the Orions, to repel these Korean deserters several times. This is really an incredible thing.
However, Yan Mo did not feel strange about this, and said strangely: "The Korean army was defeated and starved for a whole winter. The fighting was greatly reduced. There are only one county in Shang County, and there is a city wall for it."
Risk, repelling the defeated troops is nothing, right?"
Hearing this, Lu Zhan glanced at Yan Mo with contempt and said mockingly: "When you get to Shang County, you will know how difficult it is for this mountain city to repel more than two hundred Korean troops."
After saying that, he saw Zhao Hongrun frowning slightly and looking at him, and he didn't care to be too pretentious, and said quickly: "Your Highness, I don't know, but in the eyes of the general, Shang County is just a mountain village, with only a few dozen households in the county..."
In fact, Zhao Hongrun didn't have any objection to Lu Zhan mocking Yan Mo. He was just thinking about Lu Zhan's words and didn't understand why Lu Zhan said such things. It wasn't until Lu Zhan revealed the truth that Zhao Hongrun suddenly realized.
After the sudden realization, he, like Yan Mo, was also a little stunned.
Shanxian County, with only a few dozen residents in the county, actually repelled the crazy attack of more than 200 defeated Korean troops? With hunting crossbows, pitchforks, hoes, and bamboo poles?
Are you kidding me? The mountain people and hunters of Shang County are stronger than the soldiers of any army in Wei!
The sect guards also looked at each other in confusion.
For half a day after that, Zhao Hongrun and his party walked with difficulty in the mountains.
The steepness of the road was secondary. The problem was the jackals, tigers, leopards, and poisonous snakes and insects in the mountains. I remember that on the way, a group of people encountered a leopard, which shocked the soldiers of King Su's army and drew their weapons.
No one dared to relax - as a soldier who had contributed to the surrender of South Korea and had not yet been rewarded by the court, it would be such an injustice to die in a place like this.
But the leopard was smarter. When he saw Zhao Hongrun and his group of nearly 300 people, he showed his face and ran away.
Later, although Zhao Hongrun and his party also encountered some jackals, tigers and leopards, these beasts did not dare to provoke so many humans.
Compared with these ferocious beasts, poisonous insects are a greater threat. One soldier was bitten by an insect on the back of his hand, and the back of his hand immediately swelled up and became unbearably itchy.
"Is there really a mountain city in a place like this?"
Zhao Hongrun frowned and thought.
This was the third time he saw a big hairy spider on a tree trunk. To him, this little poisonous thing was far more creepy than jackals, tigers and leopards.
At this moment, a figure flashed behind the tree in front of him.
"who?!"
Zongwei Chief Wei Jiao subconsciously drew his sword and shouted.
Perhaps because he recognized Wei Jiao's authentic Wei accent, a hunter walked out from behind the tree in front of him. He looked at Zhao Hongrun and his party in surprise and asked in Wei Yan with a local accent: "Where are you from?"
Before Zhao Hongrun and Wei Jiao could answer, they saw Lu Zhan take a few steps forward, waved and said, "Hey, who is that? It's me, me."
"General Lu?"
The hunter seemed to recognize Lu Zhan, and the vigilance in his eyes immediately dissipated. He slung the hunting crossbow on his back and walked over.
"Is General Lu still searching for those defeated Korean troops?" Orion asked with a smile.
Lu Zhan looked a little embarrassed when he heard this, because he had nothing to do before he led his troops to search for the defeated Korean troops. Unexpectedly, when he arrived in Shang County, he was warmly entertained by the local people, which made Lu Zhan embarrassed to tell the truth.
Say it.
Lu Zhan responded vaguely. He originally wanted to introduce Zhao Hongrun first, but after noticing Zhao Hongrun's eyes, he asked the hunter: "Kou Zheng, where is Magistrate Kou?"
"I'm building a road with my men. Let me lead the general over there." Orion said.
"Building roads?" Zhao Hongrun looked at Lu Zhan in confusion.
Seeing this, Lu Zhan explained in a low voice: "Your Highness, Shang County is a city in a mountain. The road down the mountain is inconvenient. Therefore, the Kou County Magistrate hopes to lead the villagers to build a mountain road."
"In this Taihang Mountains? Building roads?" Zhao Hongrun asked in surprise.
As far as he knew, the depth of the Taihang Mountains ranged from nearly a hundred miles to three to forty miles. Although Zhao Hongrun still didn't know exactly where the mountain city of "Shang County" was located, based on his estimation, these
At the very least, the villagers have to build a mountain road of more than ten or twenty miles.
In this steep Taihang Mountains, build a mountain road of more than ten or twenty miles?
Even if it was placed in the Ministry of Industry of the Imperial Court, this would still be a difficult project.
However, Shang County, which only has a few dozen households, is actually prepared to build this mountain road on its own?
With a feeling of doubt, Zhao Hongrun came to a cliff under the guidance of the hunter.
"Go down from here, and the rest of the road will be easy to walk." Orion said.
"..." Zhao Hongrun said nothing. He stood on the edge of the cliff and looked down. On the mountain ground under the cliff, he saw more than a hundred mountain people waving hoes and digging into the mountain in an attempt to repair a smooth road.
mountain road.
Among these people, there was one wearing the uniform of a county magistrate.
"Is that Kou Zheng, Kou County Magistrate?" Zhao Hongrun asked the hunter.
The hunter glanced at Zhao Hongrun strangely, nodded and said, "Exactly."
"..."
Zhao Hongrun's lips moved slightly and remained silent.
The dignified Hong De ranked first in the gold medal list in his sixteenth year. He could have stayed in Daliang and served as a high-ranking official, but Kou Zheng abandoned his bright future and resolutely returned to his hometown of Shang County.
This alone is enough to make Zhao Hongrun respect this person in awe.