Chapter 143 Before and After
Under the cover of night, Pang De led more than a hundred tired riders along East Gate Street into Huaili County.

The streets were empty as we were about to pass the small square on the central street.

Pang De saw the firelight shining on the wall of South Gate Street, and immediately raised his iron halberd horizontally and reined in his horse: "Whoa!"

The knights behind him also reined in their horses, and except for a dozen knights holding torches, the others began to prepare for battle.

These knights already knew Ma Teng's idea, and most of them supported his decision.

Even if they don't support it, they will choose to support it because of Ma Teng's status and prestige.

The sound of horse hooves gradually died down, and then a group of infantry and cavalry rushed out from South Gate Street, holding torches. More than a hundred people came to the small central square and blocked Pang De's way.

Ma Chao, wearing a silver-gilt red-lined iron armor, rode forward with a spear in hand, pointing the spear at Pang De, who was wearing a golden helmet and armor: "Pang Lingming, hand over the letter from the White Goose Thief, and I will let you go!"

"What does this mean, young master?"

Pang De did not dare to be careless. As he spoke, the knights on both sides expanded to both wings, drew their bows and aimed at Ma Chao.

Pang De rode forward seven or eight steps and asked loudly, "Your Excellency ordered me to befriend General Huya. Is your Excellency against your Excellency?"

Just as Ma Chao was about to yell, another army approached from behind with torches. Ma Chao turned around and saw Ma Tie reining in his horse, his armor reflecting the light of the torch. "Brother?"

There was another knight beside Ma Tie, his armor stripped off. It was Ma Dai, who looked at Ma Chao dejectedly: "Brother."

Ma Dai did not dare to speak loudly. Ma Tie whipped Ma Dai's mount with a whip. Ma Dai managed to control the horse and rein it in near Ma Chao.

Ma Chao said nothing, but tilted his head to look at Ma Tie.

Ma Tie raised his whip and swung it lightly. The accompanying infantry pushed more than a dozen carriages forward and pushed them not far in front of Ma Chao, then they retreated.

Ma Tie then rode forward and said, "This is what my father gave to my brother."

"What did he say?"

"Let brother go as soon as possible. Tomorrow morning, we will follow the order of the Sili Xiaowei Yamen to arrest brother."

Ma Tie had mixed emotions, he knew very well why his elder brother had become what he was now.

He was able to restrain himself at first, but after the reconciliation between Ma Teng and Han Sui was achieved through the lobbying and guarantee of Cao Cao, Zhong Yao, Wei Duan and the famous people in Guanlong, his brother went crazy.

In other words, the father and son have a deep affection and feel guilty. If it were me or other brothers, I might have been killed by my father long ago.

Ma Teng alone has bred a huge Ma clan. He has no shortage of descendants. If there are major hidden dangers among his descendants, Ma Teng doesn't mind wiping them out.

But it was really difficult for him to take action against Ma Chao.

The other sons were sons of Ma Teng, a general of the Han Dynasty; and Ma Chao was the son of Ma Teng, a woodcutter.

Ma Chao looked at the carts of wealth and property, and asked with a little hope: "Since father wants to unite with Zhong Yao and Black Bear, he must fight against the old thief! I want to stay!"

"It's too late to say anything now. Tomorrow morning, I will leave the city to hunt down my brother. Brother, hurry up and leave."

As Ma Tie spoke, he raised his spear in his right hand and swung it diagonally forward. The spearmen who formed an infantry square behind him stepped on the ground and began to advance.

Ma Chao shouted: "I want to go to Guandong! Please ask father to issue an official document so that I can pass Tongguan!"

The spear-wielding infantrymen marched forward in an orderly manner, stepping heavily and without stopping, bypassing the cavalry.

"Okay! I'm leaving!"

Ma Chao waved his hand, and a dozen infantrymen stepped forward to pull the reins. The horses pulling the cart calmed down and headed towards South Gate Street.

The other infantry and knights evacuated one after another.

Ma Chao was the only one guarding the rear, and the spearmen formation also stopped advancing.

Ma Chao thought about it, raised his hand, tore off a wolf tooth necklace from his neck, raised it in his hand, threw it at his feet, turned around and walked away with a sullen look on his face.

The spearmen gathered together to make way. Ma Tie rode his horse forward, jumped off his horse, picked up the wolf tooth necklace, wiped it on his cloak, put it into his waist bag and mounted his horse again.

Pang De rode forward and asked, "My lord, are you all right?"

"Well, father is waiting for Lingming."

Ma Tie looked at Pang De's gilded Ming Guang armor. In the whole Guanzhong, only Ma Teng had a black Guang armor sent by Cao Cao.

Although the shape is the same, Black Bear is too extravagant and actually gilds the black light armor that was treated with black lacquer and rust prevention.

Whether painting, gilding or silvering, it is all to prevent the armor from rusting.

After just a quick look, Ma Tie said, "Go quickly, Lingming. I will see you out of the South Gate."

Ma Tie would not be able to sleep peacefully if he did not reinforce the guards at the four gates tonight.

Pang De bowed and saw him off, watching Ma Tie lead the cavalry and infantry to turn across the central square and advance along South Gate Street.

After all of Ma Tie's troops had passed, Pang De led his own 100 cavalrymen toward the west city area.

When Pang De arrived in front of the General's Office, Ma Teng's other son, Ma Xiu, was guarding the office with more than 300 armored infantrymen.

Pang De sent his men back to the camp, and under the leadership of Ma Xiu, he entered the Zhengbei Yamen and went straight to the backyard to meet Ma Teng.

Ma Teng was wearing a black light armor with his helmet placed aside. He was sitting on a beard bed, and his thick and luxuriant beard showed that he was not really old.

"My lord, I have fulfilled my mission."

Pang De bowed and handed over Black Bear's silk book with both hands.

Under the candlelight, Ma Teng took the silk book and read it, and his eyebrows raised.

He could naturally recognize simplified characters, which gave him a sense of simplicity and ease, and he simply regarded them as the development of another style of cursive writing.

In the letter, Black Bear agreed to Ma Teng's proposal and suggested to Ma Teng that he move to Wudang and run a tea plantation in Wudang; if he disliked Wudang's remoteness, he could move to Shangluo. Wuguan Road had abundant rainfall, so it was also possible to run a tea plantation. Anyway, the brick tea sold to Qianghu and Zahu did not require high raw materials.

At the same time, Black Bear suggested that Ma Teng build a villa and a manor in the Wangchuan River Valley, which is one of the valleys in Lantian. The "wang" in Wangchuan (Wang) is another name for the shaft of a vehicle, which is one of the parts of a vehicle.

This river valley is named Wangchuan, which obviously shows that it has been related to vehicle transportation since ancient times.

The Wangchuan River Valley may replace the current Wugu Road, and it is very likely that the two roads will run parallel to each other.

The river valleys and valleys in various parts of the Wuguan Road are much wider than imagined, because the Qinling Mountains are so large that the various valleys washed out by rain and mountain torrents are also wide.

Ma Teng was not unfamiliar with Wangchuan. During the years he was stationed in Guanzhong, the south bank of the Wei River was basically his private land.

There are traces of Ma Teng leading people hunting in the Qinling Mountains valleys, Shanglin Garden and other places.

It doesn't cost much to build a villa or a manor. You just need to invest some soldiers and family members to run the manor.

After its construction, it will cooperate with the tea estates south of Wuguan Road, which will be conducive to the subsequent sales of tea.

Ma Teng could probably guess what Black Bear meant. Wangchuan Villa would be his future retirement home so that he could be buried in the ancestral tomb in Maoling.

Perhaps it also means being a hostage nearby and being under surveillance.

This is not important. By the time he moves into Wangchuan Villa, the tea trade will have matured. By that time, even if Black Bear does not invite him, he will try to return to Guanzhong.

So at the moment, all he had to do was leave one son behind and take more than a hundred households of soldiers to Wangchuan to engage in civil engineering construction. Ma Teng had many sons, so he could just appoint one of them.

The contents of the letter were all trivial matters. The only important thing was the seal of the General Zhenbei stamped by Black Bear.

In terms of seal specifications, silver seals are larger than copper seals, and gold seals are larger than silver seals.

This seal of General Zhenbei is the same size as his seal of General Zhengbei, about two inches square.

Ma Teng frowned and said, "Ling Ming, what does this seal of the General Zhenbei mean?"

Pang De watched Black Bear stamp the seal with his own eyes. He had seen the golden seal and had asked about it before he set out. He explained, "I heard from the officers of the Tiger Teeth Army that Wang Zhenbei wanted to retreat to Jingzhou to rely on Liu Zhennan and his son, and sent an envoy to give the seal of General Zhenbei to Black Tiger Teeth. Therefore, Black Tiger Teeth now also holds the title of General Zhenbei."

"Wang Yi is so brave."

Ma Teng sighed softly, this was an act of completely breaking with Cao Cao and the court in Xudu; if Wang Yi was just caught by the black bear and handed over the golden seal to save his life, it would only be a topic of discussion among the scholars and people.

But now he is a good person, and he took the initiative to offer the golden seal to Black Bear. This is simply disrespectful to the imperial court. If he falls into the hands of the imperial court, he will definitely not have a good ending.

Unlike Wang Yi, Ma Teng did not intend to keep the general's seal. He would send an envoy to hand it over to Xu Du, or he could be lazy and hand it over to Xiahou Dun in Luoyang.

This incident made Ma Teng very curious. How much money had Wang Yi made from Hedong in the past ten years that he would abandon the court so decisively.

Think about it carefully. During the turbulent times for more than ten years, how could I, Han Sui, Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, and Lu Bu have any savings? Wang Yi, on the other hand, owns Hedong, holds the power alone, and lives a happy life.

There were those who attempted to dominate and fight for supremacy in the troubled times. Some persecuted wealthy merchants, some dug up graves, and there was no shortage of people who sold themselves to marry the daughters of wealthy merchant families. There was certainly no shortage of people who borrowed money to support their armies.

The phenomenon of being called a local hero but actually living in poverty is not an isolated case.

In recent years, the generals in Guanzhong have generally grown old, and Zhong Yao is in charge of supervising Guanzhong and mediating various disputes.

After the various meaningless military conflicts in Guanzhong were reduced, everyone was able to raise troops and gain assets. Otherwise, they would have to fight two battles a year, and the troops would have a hard life, with little to offer.

By this calculation, looking back over the past ten years or so, Wang Yi was simply a local emperor in troubled times, and he lived an extremely comfortable life.

If the Tiger Tooth Army had not interfered, Wang Yi would probably have been doomed this time.

The family fortune accumulated over the past decade or so was either used as Zhong Yao's military expenses or Yuan Tan's military expenses.

This means we seized the only precious opportunity and exited the situation safely through negotiation.

Ma Teng thought and compared seriously, and the resentment in his heart immediately dissipated.

Do you really think that commanding troops to fight does not require military pay and equipment?

All the leaders, big and small, under his command must be fed so that they can take the lead and fight hard. They must be treated equally and no one can be left out.

If I withdraw now, I won't earn as much as Wang Yi, but I will still earn more than Lu Bu, Zhang Yang, Zhang Miao, Tao Qian, Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shu.

Let’s look at the conflict between Hebei and Central Plains. If either of them loses, the whole family will die.

It is true that these are troubled times, but as long as we let go, we will have the opportunity to get ashore.

After reaching the shore and watching Han Sui struggling, perhaps it will be a kind of pleasure for the rest of my life.

After fighting with Han Sui for so many years, Ma Teng dared to conclude that Han Sui was a traitor to all his heart, and even if he was too old to eat meat, he would still think of all kinds of betrayal.

In fact, he was also tired of the disputes with Han Sui for so many years.

Han Sui's army was about to enter Guanzhong to join the war, and Ma Teng really had no way of grasping the true position of this army.

Anyway, Han Sui’s base camp is now in Liangzhou. No matter how unscrupulous the actions of this advance army are, Han Sui will not be punished for a while.

All his family, young and old, are in Guanzhong. He cannot lose, and cannot afford to lose.

It would be better to do as we do now and gamble on the credit of Black Bear and Liu Biao.

He ran to Nanxiang and waited for a few years. The Nanxiang County Magistrate Yi Ji was just a gangster, what could he do to him?
After waiting for a few years, he decided whether to go to Liu Biao or return to Wangchuan to retire.

As for Wang Yi's behavior of trusting Liu Biao and attacking the core area of ​​Jingzhou directly, Ma Teng just found it a little funny.

More than ten years of stable life in Hedong made Wang Yi too dull and seemed a little naive and cute.

Do you really think that Liu Biao, the General Zhennan and Governor of Jingzhou, is still one of the Eight Horses back then?

(End of this chapter)