Poor Taoist Qiu Chuji

Chapter 78 Escort Cavalry and the Boy

Clouds accompany the returning geese, and people feel homesick when they leave.

In the fading light of the early morning breeze, the Wei River was gurgling, and the shadows of twenty or thirty horsemen and horses were vaguely seen, surrounding a mule cart, galloping southward on a road covered with light grass.

Judging from the long banners held high, this was a group of escorts. The four porters in front stretched out their voices and shouted in heroic voices: "I am Wu Weiyang - I am Wu Weiyang! Please lend me the way, my friends in the martial arts world!"

On both sides of the Wei River, the mountains are as dark as dark green, but apart from the screams of crows and birds, there is no other response.

But the porters continued to shout loudly without stopping.

This is the money they earn. The escort agency is willing to pay them for their good voices.

Moreover, what they were delivering this time was a person, not some valuable commodity that would attract people's envy. With the reputation of Wuyang Escort Agency, they thought that if the people in the green forest knew about it, they would give them some face.

The original headquarters of Wuyang Escort Agency was located in Bianliang. After the migration of the rich and powerful to the south, the headquarters of Wuyang Escort Agency also gradually moved south. Now, there are only some manpower and headquarters in Shandong East Road and Hedong South Road, and the influence of the northern forces has been greatly reduced.

The bodyguard for this trip was Liao Bufan, the young leader of Wuyang Escort Agency.

Liao Bufan was born into a family of escorts. He started traveling around the world with his father and two uncles five years ago. Now he has become one of the pillars of the escort agency. Not only is he quite experienced in dealing with people, but he is also quite skilled in martial arts. His ancestors learned the left and right flower-piercing hands from the Shaolin Temple. After several generations of research in the Liao family, it has become a unique style and has been combined into a set of "Hundred Flowers Fist". It is very famous in the world and can be regarded as a top-notch martial art.

The mule cart was specially made of the finest pear wood and was covered with brocade mats inside, but it looked very simple and unostentatious.

The wheels rolled, rippling the curtains, allowing people to vaguely see that sitting in the car were a beautiful woman in her twenties and a child about seven or eight years old. They were leaning against each other, with a bit of nervousness and anxiety on their faces.

Rumble!
It was like the sound of the earth being crushed, roaring and spreading from afar.

The beautiful woman sitting in the carriage turned pale and shouted subconsciously: "Hurry! Run faster!"

The young chief escort Liao Bufan did not do as he was told, but clenched his fists.

All the escorts, including the porters, took out rattan shields from the horses' backs and carriage frames, and then formed a human wall around the mule cart.

Iron lotus seeds, darts and other hidden weapons were all in the hands of the escorts. These were good weapons to deal with cavalry... as long as the ones coming were not elite cavalry whose war horses were also covered with a layer of armor.

In less than a cup of tea, more than a hundred cavalrymen, led by a Jin official, surrounded the escort team.

The escorts looked at the armor plates hanging on the war horses and showed expressions of despair.

Their plan failed. To use the iron lotus seeds to hit the only exposed eye on the warhorse's face through the tiny hole was not a powerful skill that these ordinary escorts could possess.

"Madam Xin! Where are you taking the young master?" The Jin official sat arrogantly on the horse, looking down in the direction of the mule cart and smiling contemptuously.

The woman in the car bit her lip and didn't answer.

But the child in her arms said, "Golden Dog! Mother and I will not go back with you!"

The Jin official laughed when he heard this: "You call me a golden dog? But isn't your grandfather a dog for us Jin people?"

"Then what is he now?"

"Go! Bring Madam Xin and the young master back. As for the others... kill them all!"

As soon as he finished speaking, all the Jin cavalry began to charge with scimitars in hand.

If they dismounted, they might not be a match for the escorts, but on horseback, with the help of the power and speed of the horses, as well as the defensive capabilities of their armor, these Jin cavalrymen easily broke through the escorts' shield formation, and then slashed and killed with their swords at will.

This is simply an asymmetrical massacre.

In this massacre, more than half of the bodyguards who had seemed so majestic and impressive were killed or wounded in just a few breaths.

Liao Bufan used his lightness skills to move between different Jin soldiers. His best boxing skills could not penetrate the armor of these elite cavalrymen at all.

Seeing his brothers falling in a pool of blood one after another, Liao Bufan was so angry that he wanted to go crazy.

"Brother Liao! Take Qi Ji away quickly!" the beautiful woman shouted to Liao Bufan in the car.

Liao Bufan gritted his teeth, gave up the two cavalry opponents in front of him who he could not defeat at all, and flew towards the shaft of the carriage.

Boom!
Boom!
There were two sounds of bowstrings being pulled, and arrows flew towards him. Liao Bufan dodged one of the arrows, but the other arrow hit his calf. Liao Bufan, who had been able to dodge in the air with his lightness skill, fell directly to the ground and was about to be beheaded by the Jin man with a knife.

Whoosh!
Invisible and colorless sword energy shot out from several feet away.

Wherever the sword energy passed, the Jin cavalrymen who were not wearing masks had their foreheads pierced.

Several figures came over the waves from the other side of the Wei River and landed near the shaft of the carriage.

"Who are you? How dare you interfere with our business?" The Jin official shouted angrily and retreated behind several cavalrymen.

"Quanzhen, Qiu Chuji!"

With a loud roar, the heavy Hunyuan Tunlong Mace, like a thunderbolt, swept across the front and back of a dozen cavalrymen in an arc, sweeping them off their horses one after another. The armor on the chest and back of these Jin cavalrymen was dented.

"Qiu...Qiu Chuji?" The Jin official's heart sank. More than half a month had passed since they broke into the palace at night and abducted Qin Hui. The relevant news had already spread all over the country. Naturally, the officials and nobles of the Jin Dynasty also knew that there was such a strong man who could treat thousands of troops as nothing.

Although they looked down on the Song army, they still knew the equipment of the imperial guards.

With so many people wearing such good armor, they would generally be crushed to death.

To have such a result, either the Song army was too weak or Qiu Chuji was too strong.

"Master! Should we kill them all or keep some alive for questioning?" Qiu Chuji turned and asked Wang Chongyang.

When they showed up, the situation had already changed.

Wang Chongyang raised his hand and shot out two sword energies, answering with practical actions.

Then...the one-sided massacre began.

Wang Chongyang, Qiu Chuji, Duan Zhixing, Lin Chaoying, and Huang Yaoshi are all the world's top masters. In addition, they have been exchanging martial arts in recent times and have their own insights into the condensation of sword energy. Although using sword energy to penetrate iron armor to kill people consumes some true energy, the efficiency is indeed not low.

Among them, Wang Chongyang and Duan Zhixing, who had learned the Six Meridians Divine Sword, displayed killing abilities second only to Qiu Chuji, who used a long mace to perform the Hundred-Step Flying Sword.

The battle ended quickly. In less than a cup of tea, hundreds of Jin's elite cavalry were completely killed.

Only the war horses were left, still carrying corpses, running around aimlessly in circles.

Liao Bufan, who was dragging a lame leg, stood up with his long sword, and clasped his fists towards Qiu Chuji and others: "Liao Bufan of Wuyang Escort Agency, thanks all the heroes for your help. If you need my Wuyang Escort Agency in the future, just ask someone to tell me, I will go through mountains of swords and seas of fire without hesitation."

Wang Chongyang glanced in the direction of the mule cart, then said to Liao Bufan: "You're welcome. Can you tell me why the Jin people have mobilized such a large army to deal with you?" Under normal circumstances, Wang Chongyang is not the kind of person who would offend others like this, but the current situation is obviously unusual.

In his opinion, the mobilization of a small group of elite Jin soldiers was by no means a trivial matter.

Liao Bufan lowered his head in embarrassment.

You just said you would not hesitate to endure any hardships, but now you start hesitating?

"This matter is all because of me and my son. Please don't make things difficult for Brother Liao!" The beautiful woman got out of the car holding the boy and bowed to Qiu Chuji and others.

Then she began to explain the reason.

Speaking of which, it is still related to the assassination of a large number of middle and low-level officials of the Jin Dynasty some time ago.

After this incident, the Jin people used coercion and inducement to force many former Song court officials to continue serving in their posts and assist in managing the affairs of the Central Plains.

In this way, the Song people were governed by the Song people, which not only alleviated the shortage of middle and low-level officials, but also allowed the conflicts between the two ethnic groups to evolve into internal conflicts among the Song people.

The beautiful woman was the daughter-in-law of Xin Zan, a former Song official. Her husband, Xin Wenyu, was killed by Jin soldiers because he led his people to secretly train troops.

Now the Jin people threatened the lives of their mother and son, forcing their father-in-law Xin Zan to serve as an official in the Jin Kingdom.

Xin Zan was not only an official in the Song court, but also a descendant of scholars, and he had great prestige in the eastern Shandong area.

Although Xin Zan temporarily agreed to the offer out of concern for the lives of his daughter-in-law and grandson, he secretly contacted the escort agency to send the two to the south. Once he had no worries, he would fight the Jin people to the death.

"I see!"

"Senior Xin endured humiliation and Brother Wen Yu died bravely. I am not as good as them!" Wang Chongyang said with emotion.

Upon hearing this, the beautiful woman said to Wang Chongyang, "Master! Although I know this is not right, I have no choice but to ask you to take my son Qi Ji away. If he is fine, I will return to my hometown and die with my father. I will also have the face to meet Wen Yu in my grave."

"His name is Xin Qiji?" Qiu Chuji asked from the side.

Before the beautiful woman answered, the little boy said, "I am Xin Qiji!"

"I just heard you call yourself Qiu Chuji. I have heard of your name. You are the hero who killed Qin Hui and avenged Grandpa Yue."

"Can I learn martial arts from you and kill treacherous officials and golden dogs when I grow up?"

Qiu Chuji squatted down, looked at the little boy who had a determined face at such a young age, and rubbed his hair with a smile.

"Okay! I like you... I'll teach you!"

In the five thousand years of Chinese history, if there is a name for a man who is both a scholar and a warrior, one of them must be "Xin Qiji".

Compared to the original story, in which Yang Kang, a disciple named Yin Zhiping or Zhen Zhibing, who was greedy for fame and fortune and betrayed his master and sworn brothers, accepted Xin Qiji as his first disciple, it seems to be countless times better.

It can even be said that if Qiu Chuji was still the same Qiu Chuji, he would not be qualified to be Xin Qiji's master.

"Thank you, Taoist priest!" the beautiful woman said happily immediately.

The Xin family has a long tradition of scholarship, so as a daughter-in-law, she must have an extraordinary background.

Not only had she witnessed the abilities of the master and disciple pair, Wang Chongyang and Qiu Chuji, but she had also heard a lot about them.

Xin Qiji's safety would naturally be guaranteed if he followed them.

"You don't have to go back. We are returning to Zhongnan Mountain this time. You can come with us. There is a sect in Zhongnan Mountain called the 'Ancient Tomb Sect'. The master of this sect is the female hero next to me. All the disciples in the sect are women. You can stay in the ancient tomb for a while without damaging your reputation." Wang Chongyang pointed at Lin Chaoying beside him and introduced her to the beautiful woman.

The beautiful woman was originally reluctant to part with her own son, and she was even happier when she heard that Wang Chongyang had made such a decision.

Lin Chaoying also stepped forward and held the beautiful woman's hand, giving her a sense of security and making her feel at ease.

While everyone was talking, Huang Yaoshi, Duan Zhixing, as well as the fishermen, woodcutters, farmers and scholars, had helped Liao Bufan to count the escorts and porters lying in a pool of blood. There were 27 of them, and except for Liao Bufan, only five were still alive, the rest were dead.

The five survivors were all severely injured and disabled. Even with Huang Yaoshi's medical skills, he was helpless under the current conditions. He could only barely save their lives. The broken limbs, arms and legs could definitely not be reattached. For them, survival would be a problem, let alone making a living in the martial arts world.

It was obviously not easy to go to Zhongnan Mountain with five or six disabled people, so they were escorted by fishermen, woodcutters, farmers and scholars, and taken in a horse-drawn carriage to the south to find a place to recuperate.

After cleaning up the battlefield, they set a fire and burned the bodies separately.

The sun was already setting, and the troops split into two groups, one team continued to head towards Mount Zhongnan, while the other team returned to the south.

With the addition of two more people, a woman and a child who had no martial arts skills, the group's progress slowed down a lot.

The journey that was originally planned to be completed in three days ended up taking five days.

When Qiu Chuji and others returned to Mount Zhongnan, the foot of the mountain seemed much more lively than before they left.

There were traces of fighting and slaughter everywhere, and some of the forests at the foot of the mountains had signs of being burned.

Fortunately, it was already spring and the rain was continuous, so the forest fire was prevented from starting.

When Wang Chongyang, Qiu Chuji and others returned to the mountain, the Quanzhen Taoist priests who had been guarding near the foot of the mountain immediately came out to greet them and informed them of what had recently happened.

It turned out that since the news of Qiu Chuji's plan to hold a heroes' conference in Zhongnan Mountain spread, heroes from all over the world came to Zhongnan Mountain.

Such large-scale movement and gathering of people in the underworld naturally provoked a reaction from the Jin people.

The encirclement and attack by the Jin soldiers had already occurred twice at this time.

When the Jin soldiers came, most of the people in the martial arts world would be led to the mountains by the Quanzhen Taoists and hide in the secluded and deep Zhongnan Mountain.

However, the Quanzhen Sect had only been established for a short time, and there was not much food available in the mountains, so most of these martial artists still had to fend for themselves.

This also makes it difficult for the wild animals in the mountains.

"How difficult is this? No matter how many people there are in the martial arts world, only a few thousand people can come."

"Taking care of thousands of mouths, isn't that easy?" Qiu Chuji said with a smile after hearing this.

Seeing everyone looking over, Qiu Chuji pointed in the direction of Chang'an and said, "We have thousands of brave and courageous heroes. With a little restraint, we can launch a surprise attack on Chang'an. There should be a granary where the Jin people store grain. If we rob it, it will be enough for us to eat for ten years."

(End of this chapter)