1. Deadly Arrow
During the Song Dynasty, there were two famous carpenters in Mianzhou, one named Gongshu Neng and the other named Lu Han.
Three days ago, after Gongshu Neng received an expedited document sent from the northern battlefield, he suddenly locked himself in the study. He didn't want to eat, and he wrote hard day and night.
On this day, the servant Liu Ling suddenly came to report that the old man of Lu Mansion had returned to the west. When Gongshu heard the words, he wept bitterly: "Big brother..."
Gongshuneng's real name is Luneng, and he and Lu Han are brothers, both Gongshuneng, the descendants of Lu Ban. Lu Han has always believed that carpentry should be dedicated to developing new agricultural tools to help the common people improve their lives, but Luneng believes that new weapons should be developed to help the country resist foreign enemies. The two were at odds, and Lu Neng changed his name to Gongshuneng and moved out of Lu Mansion in anger. The two brothers regarded each other enemies and did not communicate for decades. Now that he suddenly learned of the death of his eldest brother, Gongshuneng was deeply saddened.
Gongshu Neng came down to Lu's mansion with the help of Liu Ling, and saw Lu Han's corpse lying in the coffin. When Gongshu Neng asked, he found that Lu Han was shot to death with an arrow. The Lu family had already reported to the official, and several headhunters came to ask for bribes and left without much investigation.
According to Lu Han's son-in-law Zhao Ming, ever since Lu Han's son died fighting against Jin soldiers three years ago, he had become a little foolish, and when he saw people, he would say that the other party was a spy of the Jin Kingdom. After his daughter died last year, he was even more devastated and locked up in the mountain villa all day long.
The day before yesterday, a domestic servant brought food to Lu Han, but found him lying on a rocking chair in the back garden with an arrow in his chest. He had been dead for a long time, and seven or eight arrows were scattered on the ground around him.
Gongshu Neng's heart froze and said to Zhao Ming, "Can I borrow the arrow for a look?" "Of course." Zhao Ming ordered someone to take out the arrow.
The material of this arrow is like wood but not wood, like bamboo but not bamboo. It is thinner, shorter and lighter than ordinary bows and arrows. The tail feathers are made of wood and are about a few inches long. Gongshu Neng's face was ashen in an instant.
"Master, did you find anything?" Liu Ling asked. Gongshu Neng remained silent and asked to take a look at the place where Lu Han was shot.
Zhujia Villa was built independently on a small clearing at the top of the mountain. There was only a broken temple on another mountain nearby, and there was a deep ravine more than 300 steps wide between the two mountains. This meant that the murderer's arrow could only be shot from the broken temple, but how could the villain shoot Lu Han 300 steps away?
After returning to the mansion, Gongshu Neng called Liu Ling to the study and said, "The expedited document three days ago was sent by Huo Yong."
Huo Yong was originally a disciple of Gongshu Neng. After the Jin Bing invaded the Song Dynasty, he resolutely joined the army and made many achievements. Now he is an anti-Jin general. But in recent battles, Jin Bing got a batch of strange stepping crossbows from somewhere. The range and precision are unprecedented. The only weakness of this crossbow is that the penetration is not strong, and the arrow cannot pierce the armor, but the strange thing is that as long as it is stabbed by this arrow, even if it does not hit the key, the injured will suffer from strange diseases and die a few days later. Huo Yong invited several poison masters to check the bows and arrows, but no traces of poison were detected in the arrows. The Song army was defeated one after another. Huo Yong wrote to inform his master about this, hoping that his master could come up with a way to break it.
"At present, I only know that the Golden Soldier's strong crossbow has ten firing slots, and can fire up to ten arrows at a time. The longest range is 340 steps, which is three or four times stronger than the ordinary crossbow. The bow and arrow used are short and thin, and the wooden feathers at the tail are vertical, which is conducive to pushing the bow and arrow to fly after the string is released."
"This..." Hearing this, Liu Ling seemed to have suddenly understood, "This is the same as the arrow that killed Master Lu!"
"That's right! But who would go to great lengths to find a powerful weapon dedicated to golden soldiers to kill a stupid old man?"
The two were puzzled and finally decided to visit the dilapidated temple first.
2. See you again
As they were about to reach the broken temple, it suddenly rained heavily in the sky without warning, and the two rushed into the temple in embarrassment. The rainstorm rushed into the mud like a flood, and suddenly they saw the corpses of countless small insects in the mud beside the temple flowing out with the turbid water. Liu Ling rushed out in the rain to check, dug out a crossbow under the mud, and picked up a few small insects before running back.
He saw that the crossbow was three feet three in length and two feet five in string length, so small in size, but so powerful in lethality. Gongshu couldn't help but exclaim, "Wonderful! Wonderful! The material of this crossbow seems to be the same as that short arrow."
Liu Ling fiddled with the few bugs on the side, with a look of disbelief: "Master, these bugs' corpses moved!" It seems that these bugs were paralyzed and fainted by something, and now they are alive again. Gongshu Neng had a flash of inspiration, brought the crossbow close to his nose, and suddenly felt dizzy: "Could it be that there is really a dragon-tailed bamboo in this world?"
When Gongshu Neng was young, he heard his father mention that there was a kind of bamboo dragon tail near Mianzhou. When this bamboo was soaked, it would secrete a kind of toxin called dragon tail essence, which had a paralyzing effect. He didn't expect it to be true!
"The poison is in the arrow body, and General Huo naturally can't find traces of poison in the arrow, but even if the dragon-tailed bamboo is soaked in blood and secretes dragon-tail hormone, it can only cause the soldier's body to be paralyzed at most, how can it kill him?" Liu Ling frowned.
While he was talking, Gongshu could accidentally catch a glimpse of a dim yellow light in the Lu Family Villa on the opposite mountain peak. The two looked at each other in surprise. Lu Han was dead, how could there be lights in the house?
Without thinking too much, the two hurried down the mountain with bows and crossbows to the villa. In the villa, a woman rummaged through the cabinets in panic. When Liu Ling saw the woman's appearance, she couldn't help but exclaim, "Madam!" The woman was startled, and then two lines of tears rolled down, hugging Liu Ling and crying.
It turned out that this woman was Mrs. Liu Ling. Gold soldiers were rampant. Many years ago, when Liu Ling and the refugees abandoned their homes and fled for their lives, they encountered a group of gold soldiers. In panic, Liu Ling was separated from his wife and children. Liu Ling almost died, but was rescued by Gongshuneng who passed by. After his injury was healed, Gongshuneng made him a housekeeper. For many years, Liu Ling has been looking for his wife and children in various places, but there is no news.
When Madam Liu saw the crossbow in Gongshu's hands, she suddenly trembled and called out.
Gongshu was suspicious and asked, "Has Madam ever seen this crossbow?" Madam Liu shook her head hastily.
Gongshu Neng frowned: "Then may I ask why Madam trespassed in other people's houses?" Madam Liu hesitantly replied: "I... I passed by... it suddenly rained... came in to hide from the rain."
"Nonsense!" Gongshu Neng shouted, "Your clothes and pants are not wet, obviously you entered the house before it rained. Say, did you kill the old man because you coveted the property in the house?"
"No, it was Master Lu who begged me to kill him!" Madam Liu was eager to refute, crying and telling the whole story.
Back then, Mrs. Liu's mother and son were captured by Jin Bing. She was taken to a deep valley in Mianzhou to cut bamboo arrows, and her son was sent to the mining area to dig. Jin Bing asked them to cut bamboo that looked disabled and weak, and not to soak the bamboo.
A few days ago, Mrs. Liu escaped while the Jin soldiers were not well guarded. But when she went to report to the officials and hoped that the officers and soldiers would help her rescue her son, the yamen ignored her at all and asked her to pay two taels of silver first. She was in despair for a while, walking aimlessly on the road, and unknowingly came to a mountain and saw a villa on the mountain.
There was an old man in the villa who was studying the crossbow. The old man treated her very kindly and asked her what difficulties she had. Madam Liu couldn't help crying and told her the experience. After hearing this, the old man said in surprise, "Come and take a look, you cut this kind of bamboo?"
Madam Liu nodded at a glance. The old man suddenly fell to the ground: "Only the disabled and weak Dragon Tail Bamboo will secrete Dragon Tail Skin after being soaked. After a moment of reflection, he said, "Come back tomorrow at this time, and I will help you solve the silver problem."
The next day, when Mrs. Liu arrived again, the old man said sadly that he had originally advocated that carpenters should focus on developing new agricultural tools, but the sacrifice of his son three years ago made him understand the need to develop powerful weapons to defend against foreign enemies.
Therefore, he kept his door closed for a long time and developed a new type of tread crossbow with a range of more than 300 steps and high precision. Unfortunately, the penetration of this crossbow was too weak, so he thought of using the dragon-tailed bamboo unique to Mianzhou as an arrow. In this way, as long as the Golden Army was hit by an arrow, it would temporarily lose its ability to move, and the Song Army could take the opportunity to pursue it. However, this method has a fatal weakness. Once the Jin army learns of this, the Song army will be wiped out! Therefore, he has been slow to dedicate this crossbow to the court, but continues to think hard about improving the penetration of bows and arrows.
It was not until Mrs. Liu broke in yesterday that he realized that the divine crossbow he invented to deal with Jin Bing might have fallen into Jin Bing's hands! After thinking about it, only his son-in-law Zhao Ming could get the design of the divine crossbow. Last night, he angrily confronted Zhao Ming, and Zhao Ming admitted that he sold the design to Jin Guo at a high price.
Lu Han was furious and wanted to expose Zhao Ming for betraying the country. Zhao Ming sneered and said that he had played up the rumors of his insanity during Lu Han's retreat, and no one would believe what he said.
Lu Han had no choice, so he asked Mrs. Liu to help him. He said there was a broken temple on the opposite mountain, and he put a crossbow there, and the arrow was aimed at a rocking chair in the back garden. When he was lying on the rocking chair, Mrs. Liu just needed to start the crossbow.
Although Madam Liu was unwilling to do this, Lu Han was very determined. He wanted to use his death to attract the attention of the imperial court and find out about the Divine Crossbow! Unexpectedly, the officials were all zombies and ignored this matter at all.
3. Ambition is hard to reward
Knowing the reason, Gongshu Neng and Liu Ling are both infinitely sighed.
But this still didn't explain why Song Bing died of a strange disease after being shot. After a little discussion, the three decided to go to the military camp together to check. It was lunchtime when the three arrived, and Huo Yong hurriedly greeted them. Gongshu could see many green wild vegetables floating in the porridge that was as thin as water in the pot.
Huo Yong sighed and explained that the imperial court often failed to supply food in time, and the sergeants could only live by drinking porridge water for many years. Fortunately, there are many such unknown wild vegetables growing near the camp, which can be used to satisfy hunger. Gongshuneng's face suddenly changed, and he scooped up the wild vegetables and looked at them carefully. Seeing this, Huo Yong hurriedly asked, "What? Could it be that the wild vegetables are poisonous? Impossible, we have already found someone to test it before deciding to use it for cooking, and there is no problem."
Gongshunneng said, "This is called Amaranth, which is a Chinese herbal medicine that has the effect of accelerating the strengthening of other medicines. After the soldiers are shot, the dragon tail hormone is attached to their bodies, and they eat Amaranth for many years. Amaranth will greatly enhance the paralyzing effect of the dragon tail hormone, and eventually cause the injured to die."
Huo Yong was shocked, and hurriedly ordered everyone to stop eating vegetarian amaranth porridge immediately, and asked people to throw away all the amaranth in the camp. Gongshuneng and Liu Ling shouted at the same time, "Wait a minute!" Huo Yong was about to ask why, but then he thought that amaranth could turn Longwei Su into deadly poison, which is a good way to overcome the enemy. Since he know that amaranth can make good use of it?
Huo Yong chose dozens of elite soldiers disguised as civilians and rushed to Mianzhou overnight. According to Mrs. Liu's description: he found the location of the dragon-tailed bamboo forest, controlled the golden soldiers, and captured the dragon tails arrows. Liu Ling used Su Amaranth to process the dragon-tailed arrows into poisoned arrows. Song Junzhi killed the golden soldiers without any resistance.
Huo Yong took advantage of the victory and pursued it, and within two months he had already attacked the border and brought an iron mine that patented the use of refugees as coolies to provide weapons for the Golden Soldiers. This was the place where Liu Ling's son was trapped, and the Liu Ling family was able to reunite. Gongshu Neng was greatly relieved and could finally return home with peace of mind.
However, a few months later Gongshu, who was in Mizhou, received the bad news that Huo Yong and Yue Fei, a famous general, were both killed by Qin Hui on trumped-up charges. A month later, the Song Dynasty announced peace, and the Song and Jin dynasties were separated by the middle of the Huaishui River. Emperor Gaozong was venerated by the Jin Kingdom, guarding half the country and living in a corner.
Liu Ling was furious: "Seeing that victory is in sight, the emperor actually allowed the slanderers to slaughter the heroes, which is really stupid!" Gongshu Neng sneered sadly: "The emperor is not stupid. If Huo Yong and Yue Fei drive Jinbing out of the Song Realm, or even destroy the Jin Kingdom, then the second emperor Huiqin will return to the dynasty, and then the emperor of Gaozong will not be guaranteed?" Liu Ling listened and seemed to be enlightened.
Gong Neng was so disheartened that he soon moved to the mountains with Liu Ling's family to hide in seclusion.