Chapter 780: The Road to the South (Part 2)

"What's going on?" Gongshu Feng was a little confused.

The news he had learned before was that although Princess Guangping openly rebelled, the traffic in Shenzhou was not cut off, at least the water and land trade had been going on, which was why he chose to go there by boat.

But the river lock didn't seem to be the case.

Gongshu Jin shook his head.

This was Qi State, which was completely different from the environment he was familiar with.

However, their "identities" were both innocent civilians, and they still had official passes on their bodies. As long as they didn't encounter rebels, they shouldn't get into any trouble.

Half an hour later, the ship owner brought bad news.

"What? This ship can't go south anymore?" Gongshu Feng frowned.

"It's not possible for the time being." The ship owner corrected, "I heard that Huiyang Prefecture is arresting rebels, and every ship going south needs to be searched in detail to ensure that there are no problems before it can be released."

"Then let them search!" Gongshu Feng was puzzled, "It will take at most half an hour to board the ship and walk once?"

The ship owner showed the same look as Mr. Mo before.

That look seemed to be asking whether you really didn't know or were pretending not to know.

This made Gongshu Feng subconsciously take a half step back.

"Fool, they want money." Another merchant on the same ship said directly, "Where did you come from, young masters, you don't even know this."

"Inspection takes time, especially when there are so many ships in line." The ship owner coughed twice, "If some ships carry seasonal goods, they will be more eager to pass customs. At this time, money is very important."

At this point, even Gongshu Feng completely understood what the other party meant.

Whoever gives more money will have the opportunity to get a faster inspection.

And the goods carried by this ship don't care about waiting for a while, so the ship owner plans to exchange time for extra expenses.

Gongshu Jin said with a pale face, "How long does it normally take to wait?"

"Not long, I asked, if everything goes well, it will be about ten days." The ship owner replied, "Of course, the food and drink expenses during this period will be borne by you."

Gongshu Feng's heart sank.

Half a month, this greatly exceeded the planned time. Jinxia City has mastered the new method of making instruments, and is accumulating a lot of experience every day, and is getting stronger every day. The longer the plan is delayed, the greater the gap between Gongshujia and Jinxia Machinery Bureau will be. Moreover, this is still a smooth situation. Who knows if Huiyang City will come up with something new in the next period of time?

After returning to their residence, the two brothers leaned against each other.

"How much money do we have left?"

"At most ten taels." Gongshu Jin took out the money bag and counted it, "It is definitely not enough to let the cargo ship pass through customs."

If it were normal, they would bring enough silver and money when they went out, and it would be no problem to take out a hundred taels of gold leaves, but as civilians who were in trouble at home, it was obviously impossible to bring so much cash to Jinxia City.

More importantly, even if they had money, it would be difficult for them to let Huiyang City let them go without telling the ship owner. As early as when they were in Shangyuan City, the two were told that Jinxia City's anti-spy force was quite strong, and even professional spies rarely succeeded in lurking. This forced the two to strictly guard their identities. From the moment they left Shangyuan, the disguise began. The ship owner was also an untrustworthy stranger to them.

"What should we do?" Gongshu Feng asked.

Waiting is absolutely unacceptable.

They have a mission and must rush to Jinxia City as soon as possible.

"If we can know which ship passes first..." Gongshu Jin said halfway and quickly rejected this idea, "No, unless we can get through the relationship of Huiyang Prefecture, we can't ask the real situation."

"What about the land route?"

"The border between Liu and Shen is blocked. If you want to rely on caravans to travel, you also need a certain amount of expenses."

This expense is either money or relationships.

For the first time, Gongshu Feng discovered that when a person falls to the bottom, even wanting to go to other places has become a difficult thing.

"Perhaps, we have another choice."

The younger brother suddenly said.

"What choice?"

Gongshu Feng noticed that the other party's eyes fell on the refugees on the shore.

"No way..."

"That's why we can't." Gongshu Jin whispered, "We can blend into the refugee group and then walk over there. Didn't those people say that we don't look like the lower class? In this way, no one should be able to find fault with us."

"But just walking..."

"We don't need to walk all the way from Huiyang City to Jinxia. You've heard from others that as long as we enter Shenzhou, we can immediately change to a carriage or ice boat and reach Jinxia within a day. The distance we have to walk is only the official road from Huiyang City to the border of Liuzhou." Gongshu Jin closed his eyes and thought carefully, "The two points are more than 130 miles apart in a straight line, and the actual distance should be about 200. If we speed up, we can complete this journey in four days at most, which is better than waiting for half a month anyway."

Gongshu Feng took a deep breath.

This is undoubtedly a difficult choice.

But the two of them are carrying the hope of the family, and rational thinking has pointed out the answer.

"Just do as you say."

...

Two days later, the two brothers were walking in the open countryside.

They did not encounter too many obstacles when leaving Huiyang City. The official pass played its due role - it seemed that as long as they were not "rebels" as the ship owner called them, the guards guarding the city did not care where they were going.

The plan to blend into the refugee group was also very smooth. No one questioned their identities, and no one minded that they came uninvited. Or when this group of people could not even save their own lives, they had no time to care about other things.

The reason for choosing to travel with the refugee group was also very simple. There might be robbers on the road. Ten people were easy to be robbed, but hundreds of people were different. Because it was safer to move with a large group of people, the two chose to chase the refugee group in front quickly during the day, slow down when it was almost night, and sleep outdoors with the nearest refugee group, so as to shorten the time on the road as much as possible.

However, it was just these two short days that made Gongshu Feng and Gongshu Jin more deeply understand what the real bottom people are.

They were numb to despair, and when they saw food, they would show a frightening look in their eyes.

Every time the camping ended and the crowd set off again, some of them would stay there forever, and there would be no breath anymore.

As for the crying at night, it never stopped.

Sometimes it was the crying of babies, and more often, it was the suppressed sobbing of adults.

After two days of traveling, the two brothers had less communication.

Especially Gongshu Jin, whose seasickness symptoms did not ease much after getting off the boat, but became more severe. Whenever he heard crying at night, Gongshu Feng could see his brother covering his mouth and retching.

The only thing he could do was to squeeze out a little of the remaining clean drinking water in the water bag and pass it to the other person's mouth.

After all, they had no chance to boil water on the road.

Just as the night fell on the third day, a burst of rapid horse hoof sounds broke the tranquility of the countryside.