Chapter 247 The so-called spy

A ridge in the Beiying area of ​​Mount Li.

Zhou Yu was dressed in a deerskin cloak over a white robe, with a long sword hanging from his waist, looking like a traveling scholar.

He looked at the Qingzhou military camp. Most of the Qingzhou soldiers were sent out and settled in various new immigrant settlements on the south bank of the Wei River.

With these Qingzhou soldiers serving as garrison commanders, the civilian settlements in Weinan were in good order.

During this period, some of the civilian settlements were used as bases to rebuild the hundred-household residences, and the transformation was completed almost overnight in all parts of Weinan.

At this moment, there are still more than 500 Qingzhou soldiers left in the Qingzhou barracks, as well as more than 2,000 young men who have been recruited.

Looking out over the camp, Zhou Yu could see square formations of a hundred men practicing back and forth.

These young recruits held wooden sticks and small shields, and under the supervision and training of Qingzhou soldiers, they practiced changes in the small square formation.

The young soldiers were either rescued teenagers, or poor teenagers from the three prefectures of Guanzhong, or selected from Chang'an University.

"It is said that these are the new recruits for the seventh year autumn class. After the spring plowing, more than 2,000 more people will be recruited, which are the new recruits for the eighth year spring class."

A man following Zhou Yu saw Zhou Yu looking at the young men in training, so Zhou Yu asked, "Do they train every day without stopping?"

"There are seven days in a week, six days of training and one day of rest. We only train for half a day, about an hour and a half, mainly in formation, and the rest of the time is for people to give lectures."

The person who told this information was called Ge Guang, also a scholar with a good family background.

Ge Guang was in his early thirties and patiently explained: "In addition to these young men in the camp, the more than 500 Qingzhou soldiers also need to study classics."

“Which meridian does it treat?”

"I don't know."

Ge Guang glanced at Zhou Yu and said, "I have been in Guanzhong for less than ten days. I have only heard that they are studying four classics. One of them is said to be a book of idioms and allusions compiled by Hei Zhenbei during his expedition to the north. It has eight hundred allusions. Now that I have some free time, I am adding more allusions."

"What else?"

"The second is the 'Taiping Shidao Jing'. I have only heard of it, but I don't know its content. It is said that this book records the conversations between the God of Heaven and the gods, and talks about the life scenes and customs of the people and officials in the land of peace and happiness. I have no idea how many chapters there are."

Seeing Zhou Yu's sneer, Ge Guang added, "I am very interested in this 'Taiping Shidao Jing'. After careful inquiry, I heard that this sutra is the same as the 'Eight Hundred Idioms and Allusions', both of which are written in secret. Ordinary people can decipher and learn more than a hundred words in three to five days! It's amazing!"

Zhou Yu turned his head and looked at Ge Guang carefully: "Are you serious?"

"That's just what I've heard. As far as I know, there should be six books, all written in secret. The other two in the camp are "Mathematical Classics" and "Nature". In addition, there are two books that military officers need to learn, "Martial Arts Exercises" and "Medical First Aids". The former was compiled by Hei Zhenbei, and the latter was compiled by Li Feng of Laozi Temple."

Zhou Yu's expression remained unchanged after hearing this, perhaps he was numb.

After thinking for a moment, he said to Ge Guang: "From this point of view, Chang'an University is just a name, this is the essence of the university. From what you said, Li Feng studied the secret code?"

"He should have learned the secret code. It is said that the secret code is easy to learn and master. However, after Hei Zhenbei withdrew his troops, he lived in seclusion in Zhongnan Valley, making it difficult for outsiders to approach him."

Ge Guang sighed with regret as he spoke. The only places in Guanzhong open to the outside world were Chang'an and the post stations along the Chidao Road; the next level of openness were the county towns.

As for garrison areas such as military camps and centurions' offices, they were not allowed to enter and leave at will.

Lishan Beiying is adjacent to Xinfeng City, so they can climb the mountain and observe from afar.

The Zhongnanshan area where Li Feng was heading was continuing to expand and relocate various hundred-household offices, so they were unable to enter.

Zhou Yu took a breath of fresh air and looked at the four or five hundred cattle and horses grazing in another ravine. He then shifted his gaze to the Weinan Road, where he saw herds of animals of varying sizes foraging for food in various places, near and far.

The winter snow melted, revealing much of last year's dead grass.

Not only were the animals foraging for food, but the civilian settlements and hundred-household offices were also harvesting dry grass and shrubs, bundling them up and transporting them back to the settlements to use as fuel.

There are busy people everywhere, and now regardless of whether they are boys, girls or children, they are all safe and are working hard to live around the garrison.

Zhou Yu was very interested in the so-called "secret code". He only knew that it was an extremely simplified form of writing. Because it was not circulated to the outside world, many people called it a secret code.

The dispute between the Old Text Classics and the Modern Text Classics is that the characters in some chapters and paragraphs are variant characters, and the meanings of the variant characters have changed. In addition, there are missing and added characters, as well as different punctuation and interpretation methods, which make some viewpoints in the Old Text Classics and the Modern Text Classics conflict very fiercely.

The extreme simplification of the text will inevitably cause too many variant characters to disappear, coupled with the punctuation marks revealed in Black Bear's daily writing... This means that the secret text has higher administrative efficiency brought by handwriting and transcription, and will also fix the annotations of the scriptures.

When the Six Classics and their annotations were fixed, Zhou Yu instinctively felt that something would go wrong.

After thinking for a while, Zhou Yu asked: "Will the young soldiers in the camp go out? Can we send more people to the camp?"

"This camp is closed, and the stories in the camp were spread by the auxiliary soldiers who transported food and fodder."

Ge Guang said with two light coughs: "General Zhou, I was invited by Zhang Zibu and Gu Yuantan to come to Guanzhong to copy the books in Cai Gong's collection, not to serve Sun Kuaiji, nor do I intend to be a spy for Sun."

Looking at Zhou Yu, who was a few inches taller than himself, Ge Guang was not afraid at all: "I will not eat a penny or a rice from Sun Kuaiji. Please forgive me for saying goodbye."

Just tell him the information you know; Ge Guang doesn't want to implicate himself.

After saying that, Ge Guang stared at Zhou Yu with a bad face, retreated five or six steps and met up with his fellow villager Zhuge Jin and Yan Jun from Pengcheng. The three of them retreated a dozen steps cautiously to each other, walked down the ridge along the path, and then returned to Xinfeng along the wide road in the ravine.

Zhou Yu watched the three men leave and also let out a long sigh.

Ge Guang, Zhuge Jin and Yan Jun all moved to Jiangdong together due to the turmoil in the Central Plains during the Battle of Guandu.

During these two years, Ge Guang was known for his Confucianism, while Zhuge Jin and Yan Jun were highly recognized by the famous people in Jiangdong.

Unfortunately, Black Bear rose too quickly, especially the excavation and discovery of Cai Yong's posthumous writings, which made Gu Yong very anxious.

Gu Yong lobbied Zhang Zhao on behalf of the famous people in Jiangdong. Zhang Zhao invited his fellow townsman Yan Jun, as well as his friends Zhuge Jin and Ge Guang. The plan was formed with Jiangdong providing funding and Xuzhou sending people to Guanzhong to copy Cai Yong's collection of books.

When Cai Yong took refuge in Wu County, he taught Gu Yong music, and they formed a master-disciple relationship. One of them was named Bo Ji and the other was named Yuan Tan, so there was an obvious inheritance relationship between them.

With the investment from the famous people in Jiangdong and Gu Yong's handwritten letter, this group of people from Xuzhou passed through Jingzhou safely and arrived in Guanzhong with their property.

But they didn't expect that Zhou Yu, who had returned to the Jiangxia front line, would also come with them.

Zhou Yu also felt that it was a difficult situation. In this damn chaotic world, these young and middle-aged scholars in Xuzhou were all alone and took refuge in Jiangdong. Having seen the chaotic scenes in the Central Plains and the separation of wives and children, Ge Guang, who was in his early thirties, did not remarry. Zhuge Jin and Yan Jun also had no intention of marrying wives, concubines, or buying property.

Now that we have left Jiangdong with the money and property donated by the people of Jiangdong, how can we easily return to Jiangdong?
After all, the current situation is not good for Jiangdong.

Especially in Guanzhong, the powerful offensive capability demonstrated by the black bears allowed the frightened soldiers of Xuzhou to finally sleep peacefully.

Watching these Xuzhou scholars leave, Zhou Yu did not dare to be careless.

These Xuzhou people who had no wives, children or family businesses to worry about turned around and exposed him, leaving him with no place to cry.

He immediately led the guards off the ridge and joined the remaining team in the valley. More than a dozen people, all dressed as scholars, rode their horses and left quickly.

That night Zhou Yu returned to Lantian and lived in the official residence area in the city.

The bumpy ride made him feel even more uneasy. He really didn't expect that the honest men Ge Guang, Zhuge Jin and Yan Jun would dare to turn against him directly.

The reason why Zhang Zhao chose these people to come to Guanzhong to copy books was because he believed that these Xuzhou scholars would not take the money and run away, and he believed in their principles.

Zhang Zhao felt that Ge Guang and his fellow villagers were law-abiding, and Zhou Yu thought so too.

People who follow the rules will definitely follow them.

The rules for honest and upright people are very simple. Being honest and upright is just a strategy and attitude for dealing with the world and surviving.

This only shows that these people will not take the initiative to do evil to harm others. When the life safety and future of others are endangered, these honest people will definitely kill them!
The only good news now is that honest people should pay attention to their individual image.

So these three people wanted to expose it immediately and let Black Bear kill them.

However, they would be concerned about their image in the eyes of other fellow countrymen and would not directly suggest killing someone.

But after losing contact with other partners, it is very likely that they will report to the police privately!

Sun Ce and Zhou Yu have never been honest people who follow the rules.

While Zhou Yu was thinking, one of the guards, Liu Xian, was on duty outside the door. He knocked on the door and said, "Guardian, Su Gongshi is back."

"Bring him to me."

"Here."

Liu Xian responded and went to the small courtyard to welcome Su Fang and several others. These people surrounded Su Fang and went to see Zhou Yu.

Guards like Liu Xian, who came from a powerful family in Jiangdong, could only be on guard duty in the outer corridor and could not get close to listen.

The lights in the living room were dim.

Su Fang recounted his meeting and conversation with Xuan Liang in a brisk tone: "This man is quite trusted by Hei Zhenbei. He was originally in charge of the Danshui Canal. Now he is asked to help supervise the construction of transport ships, and will be in charge of the Qin-Jin Canal in the future."

Chen Yang was in charge of resource collection and rough processing, and was also responsible for shipbuilding; but Xuan Liang was more suitable for supervising the construction of large ships, and temporarily took over the task of building large ships from Chen Yang.

When Zhou Yu heard the plan of exchanging two million shi of rice for three thousand horses, he couldn't help but feel a little distressed.

But the quality of the horses is acceptable, with shoulder height no less than five feet six inches... This is really much more conscientious than Cao Hong.

Cao Hong didn't have a stable of his own, and the horses he had sold to Jiangdong several times before were not only inflated in price, but also had various problems.

More than 600 dan of rice in exchange for a horse. According to the regular market price, these 600 dan of rice are worth at least 100,000 coins.

Can you buy a decent war horse with 100,000 coins from Cao Hong?

This batch of grain came from Jingnan, not from Jiangdong.

All Jiangdong paid was some money and promises.

The current Sun Quan is the General of Suppressing Rebellion and the Governor of Kuaiji County appointed by the Xudu court. The Xudu court has a strong influence in the four counties of southern Jing.

Even though Zhang Xian was defeated, the scholars in southern Jing still tried to get in touch with the imperial court through Jiangdong.

During this period, many scholars and wealthy merchants from Jingzhou went north to Guanzhong to participate in the procurement plan of 50,000 gold.

In order to prevent the tiger from causing trouble, it is a tacit consensus among the scholars in Jingzhou not to sell grain to Guanzhong...but this does not prevent them from reselling grain to Jiangdong at a low price.

Considering the wealth and reserves of Jingzhou, even if there was a disaster and production was reduced, how many scholars and powerful people would starve?
Therefore, Zhou Yu did not think there was anything wrong with squeezing out 2 million shi of grain from southern Jing.

Huang Zu defended Jiangxia to the death to resist the attack of the Jiangdong army. For Huang Zu, it was a matter of life and death and the safety of his clan; for Liu Biao, it meant the eastern gateway.

But for the people in southern Jing who were loyal to the imperial court, Jiangxia, controlled by Huang Zu, directly cut off the communication channels between the four counties in southern Jing and Xu Du.

If the Jiangdong army is severely damaged and occupies Jiangxia, the four counties in southern Jing will be able to communicate directly and quickly with the court in Xudu.

The cooperation between Jingnan and Jiangdong was mainly based on the Xudu court, and secondly on resisting and retaliating against the encroachment of Liu Biao and Huang Zu.

As for the virtues of Sun Jian, Marquis of Wucheng, the governor of Changsha County, these are just words and there is no need to believe them.

Zhou Yu thought for a moment and said, "You can take this opportunity to enter Guanzhong to serve as an official. I will work with you in the future. Now you just need to do a good job in the horse trade. After I report this matter to Sun Kuaiji, Sun Kuaiji will send someone to contact you."

As Zhou Yu spoke, he took out a four-outlet five-zhu coin minted during the reign of Emperor Ling and cut it into pieces with his sword in front of Su Fang.

He took out half of it and handed it to Su Fang: "This is the token."

Su Fang held the broken half of the coin in his hands, his face showing no emotion, and he sighed softly, "Here!"

After repeatedly instructing Su Fang a few more times, Zhou Yu sent Su Fang away and questioned Su Fang's companions one by one.

After being busy for most of the night, Zhou Yu took a quick nap in his robe.

When it got light and the city gates opened, Zhou Yu and his dozen riders took their luggage and rode out of the south gate.

(End of this chapter)