It is not an easy task to transport 16 million yuan of salt tax to Beijing. The Jianghuai Transshipment Department used 800 large tank ships. Each tank ship can carry more than 1,000 tons of cargo, plus there are another 200 tank ships.
The grains also came to Beijing with them. There were a thousand large ships in total, stretching for more than twenty miles. The Yangzhou local army came out in full force, and all 2,000 soldiers boarded the ships to escort the fleet north.
The optical fiber husbands recruited more than 700 people. Although the scale was large, it was only average in the Sui and Tang Dynasties when water transportation was extremely developed. The Tang Dynasty was able to maintain for more than a hundred years after the Anshi Rebellion. The key was due to water transportation.
Various materials and wealth from the Jianghuai and Jiangnan areas are continuously transported to Chang'an.
In fact, the famous Kaiyuan era in history was also due to the development of water transportation, which enabled materials from the south of the Yangtze River and the Yangtze River to be transported to the north. Huge material wealth was transferred in Yangzhou, making Yangzhou the world's largest commercial city.
The Grand Canal built by Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty still plays a huge role today.
Guo Song accepted Liu Yan's entrustment and became the actual guardian of the salt tax going north. At the same time, Zangjiange sent more than forty warriors south to protect the salt tax as it entered Beijing. Yu Chaoen also sent hundreds of warriors. Under Yang Wanhua's
The leaders tried to fish in troubled waters.
Li Zhongchen and Tian Shenyu also took action after hearing the news, but neither of them dared to openly rob the court of salt tax. Instead, they sent their capable men to secretly intercept part of the salt tax.
For a time, all forces around this batch of salt taxes were ready to take action, and they all wanted to get a piece of it.
The large tank ship is a bit like today's cement ship. The ship is very high, with a wooden cover on it, and a bamboo shed behind it, which serves as a shelter for the crew on board. The large wooden box containing the tax money is placed on the wooden cover.
In the bottom hold below, because the wooden boxes were very heavy, it was impossible to steal the money. The only option was to steal the entire ship. To this end, the transshipment department locked the ship with thick iron chains.
Guo Song was also sitting on the boat. He carried ten pots of arrows. Not only him, Guo Song also asked every soldier to carry a crossbow. If anyone deliberately approached the water transport ship, he would immediately shoot him with arrows.
A thousand tank ships are sailing on the canal, and each ship is equipped with a red triangular official flag. All ships on the canal must give way when seeing the official flag. This is not only a rule, but also a warning. If not
If he obeyed the warning and tried to get close to the official ship intentionally, he would be shot dead and his death would be in vain.
This is a bloody rule established by countless boatmen at the cost of their lives.
During the day, everyone is alert and has good visibility. Generally, nothing happens during the day. The key is at night, when all kinds of dangers appear.
Early that morning, the ships began to enter the Huaihe River. After a night of vigilance, the soldiers were a little tired, and many of them got into bamboo shacks to sleep.
Guo Song was in the middle of the fleet. He asked Sun Xiaozhen to guard the stern with a dozen warriors, while Liu Yan was at the bow. There were also dozens of warriors from the Hidden Sword Pavilion on both sides of the strait on guard.
"Master Guo!"
Guo Song heard someone calling him. When he turned around, he saw Captain Luo Ziyu standing not far behind him.
"It turns out to be General Luo. Should we go to the stern of the ship?"
Luo Ziyu nodded, "I'm going to take a look around and see what happened last night."
"General Luo, you might as well take a seat!"
Luo Ziyu sat down next to Guo Song and asked with a smile: "I heard Liu Shijun said that this time when the young master returns to the capital, he will not come to Yangzhou again?"
Guo Song nodded, "My mission has been completed, and the follow-up matters must rely on Liu Shijun and General Luo."
Luo Ziyu was silent for a moment and asked: "I heard that a salt army might be formed?"
"Maybe! But it probably won't happen in the near future. If General Luo is interested, I can help you mention it to the emperor!"
"Thank you Mr. Guo!"
Guo Song smiled and asked casually: "I heard that General Luo turned out to be following General Chen Xuanli?"
"Yes! How many people were implicated in the Tennoji incident?"
"What's going on with Dou Xianlai?"
Guo Song simply went straight to the topic. Everyone, including Gongsun Aunt, was a little secretive about this person. Guo Song was not curious. He was likely to meet this person after returning to Beijing. He had to figure out the cause and effect. This Luo Ziyu also
Having participated in the Tennoji Incident, he should also know the inside story.
Luo Ziyu was silent for a moment, and after a while she said: "There are many reasons for the failure of the Tianwang Temple Incident. At that time, the emperor's throne was unstable, and all the generals adopted a neutral attitude. Yu Chaoen's power was at its peak. To put it simply,
, it is not enough to overthrow Yu Chaoen, but the direct reason for the failure of the Tianwang Temple incident was that Dou Xianlai betrayed the emperor, but why did he betray the emperor?"
"This is what I want to know too!" Guo Song said calmly.
"This may involve internal fighting among the Guanlong nobles, so I can only give a brief explanation."
"General Luo, please speak!"
Luo Ziyu thought for a while and said: "To put it simply, it is actually the conflict between the Dou family, the Yuan family and the Dugu family. The conflicts between these three families have been deep since the founding of the country. During the coup of the Supreme Emperor, the Yuan family and the Dugu family
The Dugu family all adopted a neutral attitude. Only Dou Yi, the right-guard general, played an important role in seizing the door. However, Dou Yi was single-handedly promoted by Emperor Suzong. He betrayed Emperor Suzong, which led to the emperor's opposition today.
The Dou family was a little dissatisfied, so the Yuan family got the position of prime minister, and Concubine Dugu became the de facto queen, but the Dou family got nothing, and Dou Yi was dismissed from the post of general because of drunkenness."
Guo Song nodded, "So Dou Xianlai's betrayal is actually the Dou family's betrayal. Is that what you mean?"
"Of course the Dou family will not admit it and insist that this is Dou Xianlai's own problem. Although Dou Xianlai's character is a bit withdrawn and cold, the emperor treats him well, but he betrayed the emperor at a critical moment. There must be something in this
The influence of the Dou family."
"How did he betray the emperor?" Guo Song asked again.
Luo Ziyu sneered, "Yu Chaoen was going to Tianwang Temple to accompany the Emperor to offer incense. Heavy troops were deployed in Tianwang Temple. However, when Yu Chaoen was about to arrive at Tianwang Temple, Dou Xianlai suddenly jumped out to assassinate him and was captured by mistake. Tianwang Temple was exposed at once.
The plan to capture and kill Yu Chaoen was planned. At that time, I saw Dou Xian coming to assassinate Yu Chaoen. It was very clumsy and he didn't look like a master at all."
At this moment, there was a sudden shout in the distance. Guo Song stood up and looked around. He saw a few miles behind, a large ship with at least two thousand stones approaching the fleet, with a Black Panther flag hanging on the mast of the ship.
.
Luo Ziyu's face changed, "It's the water thief Zhang Yan!"
Guo Song shook his head, "It may not be a water thief!"
He decisively said to Luo Ziyu: "General Luo, go to the bow of the ship quickly to prevent the other party from attacking in the east and west. I will handle the situation at the stern of the ship!"
Luo Ziyu nodded, turned around and ran towards the bow of the ship, while Guo Song ran towards the stern of the ship with two pots of arrows on his back and a strong bow in his hand.
The opponents were two large ships, apparently ambushing near the entrance of the Huaihe River. When the fleet entered the Huaihe River, the two ships came up to fight.
There were men in black on both ships, about a hundred of them, all of them strong and ferocious in appearance. Their goal was very clear, to cut off the iron chain of the fortieth ship at the stern and hijack the last forty tank ships.
, in fact, the two hundred tank ships that followed were transporting grain, not money.
The men in black seemed very organized. They were divided into three groups. One group rushed to the front to block the escort soldiers from coming to support, the other group rushed to the back to block the officers and soldiers at the stern, and the middle group jumped onto the target tank ship.
Two soldiers on board were chopped over and fell into the water.
A very burly man held a sharp ax and slashed hard at the iron chain. "Dang!" There was a loud sound, flames flew everywhere, and the iron chain and the ax blade were broken at the same time.
The big man raised his sharp ax high. At this moment, an arrow shot out with great force, hitting the big man's forehead. "Poof!" The arrow penetrated the big man's head. The big man died immediately and fell into the river.
Another big man rushed over, picked up the axe, and continued to chop at the iron chain, but before he could lift the axe, another arrow shot through the big man's forehead, causing him to fall into the water.
Only then did everyone notice that two boats away, a young man was standing on the bamboo shed holding a bow and arrow. Where the bow was drawn, the arrows were all fired, and one of them must have been hit.
The person on the bamboo shed was none other than Guo Song. He arrived in time. At the critical moment, he shot down the big man holding the axe with one arrow. Then he fired five arrows in a row, killing five very powerful water thieves.
The situation of fierce fighting began to reverse.
"You stupid pigs, use your shields to hold them back and cut off the iron ropes for me!"
Guo Song turned his eyes and saw the person shouting. He was a young man in his mid-twenties. He had just come out of the cabin and commanded the soldiers to seize the ship. This should be the opponent's general.
Guo Song made an immediate decision, drew an arrow, strung his bow, drew the bow to its full length, and shot out an arrow. The arrow was slightly to the left. He expected that the opponent would immediately get into the cabin.
Sure enough, after the opponent's general finished shouting, he was about to get into the cabin. The arrow hit him instantly. The opponent's general was unprepared and was shot through the back of his neck. The tip of the arrow came out from his throat, and the opponent's general choked him.
neck, and fell headlong into the cabin.
At this time, dozens of soldiers from the Tang Army arrived. They raised their crossbows and fired arrows together, causing the water thieves in black clothes on the other side's ship to fall down one after another.
Several water thieves used shields to cover themselves and tried to continue cutting off the iron chains, but this protection was of little significance. Guo Song fired two arrows in a row, and the first arrow hit the ankle of the shield holder. The shield holder screamed and fell down.
Without the protection of his shield, the man holding the ax was shot through the head by an arrow, and he and the ax fell into the Huaihe River.
More and more soldiers were being reinforced, and the men in black were being killed continuously. In addition, the general was dead, and the remaining thirty or so men in black had no intention of seizing the salt tax. They opened their sails and tried to escape, but were intercepted by Guo Song.
An arrow shot through the rope, and several soldiers fired rockets, igniting the sails. The fire burned the ship and drifted toward the shore.
The sneak attack ended in less than an hour. The escort soldiers suffered seven casualties, but the other party lost more than seventy people.
Guo Song threw the two captured men in black in front of Liu Yan and said coldly: "It's either Zhang Yan, a water thief, or Li Zhongchen, pretending to be a water thief to steal our tax money, and the person leading the army is his nephew Li Yuanjiang