With a "whoosh" sound, a sharp arrow shot through the head of the leading man holding a stick, and then several Ye Bu bowed their bows left and right, and the chasing men were hit by arrows and flew away.
"Bang!" was heard, but it was the last man who kept his sights and fired a gun. As the smoke from his gun came out, a big hole was opened in the man's chest. He stepped back several steps, and finally stood upright. fell to the ground.
The battle between lightning and flint was over. The women running to the side seemed to be petrified, and they all collapsed on the ground. Two of them fainted when their vision went dark.
The woman who was missing her left hand took one look at the soldiers and threw herself on the ground in horror, screaming loudly: "Don't eat me..."
After saying that, the woman fell to the ground and started twitching continuously.
For several nights, he led people to search the deserted village to prevent anyone from hiding inside. Liu Yan rode over with Miao Shao, Xu Ming, Yue Ming, Xun Jingyun and Bao Xuezhen, and a group of guards also surrounded the place.
Bao Xuezhen did his duty and hurriedly got off his horse to check. He looked at the women one by one, then stood up with a pale face, and suddenly threw the medicine box in his hand to the ground.
"Worse than an animal! Worse than an animal!"
Liu Yan frowned, but did not speak to urge him. He waited until Bao Xuezhen finished venting, then came over and clasped his fists and said, "This subordinate is rude, please punish me."
Liu Yan said: "No one can remain indifferent to such a human tragedy. It doesn't matter. But, what happened to these women?"
Bao Xuezhen sighed and said: "Each of those women had more than twenty wounds, which were caused by being cut alive and eating meat. They had not eaten for a long time, and the wounds had not been treated. , has been bleeding, has become suppurative and infected, and after a lot of excitement, he has died."
Bao Xuezhen pointed at two of the women and said, "Those two women have died, and the remaining ones are probably only a matter of time and a half."
Everyone sighed.
Liu Yan pointed to the woman who was missing her left hand and asked, "What's her condition like?"
"well!"
Bao Xuezhen said: "She is a pregnant woman! Just now, my subordinates checked and found that the fetus was pulled out alive, and it was probably eaten..."
At this point, Bao Xuezhen couldn't bear it anymore and squatted down and cried bitterly. Miao Shao and Xu Ming were even more furious. They jumped off their horses, pulled out their sabers and went to chop the bodies of the men to vent their anger.
Liu Yan slowly closed his eyes, his heart twisting like a knife. This is a tragedy in the world. God is really going to destroy the Ming Dynasty!
That day, Liu Yan ordered several women who died one after another to be buried on the spot, and then the army continued to march. At noon, the army marched to the bank of an unknown river. Although the river here had almost dried up, there were streaks everywhere. There are cracks, but surprisingly, there are still some relatively clear pools in some low-lying places.
Liu Yan ordered each battalion of the New Army to rest and prepare meals here. After verifying that the water source was drinkable, the soldiers from all ministries went to fetch water in an orderly manner.
"It's so miserable. It's so miserable."
Liu Yan was eating dry food when Miao Shao came over with a pale face. It turned out that Miao Shao's men had inspected the ruins for a while, found the household registration records of several women, and learned that they were all local people.
"...After several severe droughts here, the price of rice has been rising all the way. Especially the merchants and wealthy households have closed the market. In the end, even if they have money, they can't buy food!"
Miao Shao said angrily: "Those women's bags are scattered in the deserted village. There are also receipts for buying rice. A pound of rice costs three hundred Wen! It's terrible!"
Liu Yan also lost his appetite after hearing this. According to the productivity level of the Ming Dynasty at this time, if prices were two or three times higher than usual, there would be a famine in various places, let alone if prices were as high as ten or even twenty times. Condition. The common people evolved from eating tree bark, eating grass roots, and eating tribulus, to eating earth and rocks. After eating these, they began to eat people.
Family, brothers, friends, neighbors eating from each other, these basic ethics and morals no longer exist. In the end, groups of strong men armed with sticks came to select women and children to attack, but no one dared to save them.
Along the way, I spent many nights hearing about the local and nearby cities. Except for the city and suburban passes, the people in the villages were either starving to death, or had become bandits, or even "cannibals". The remaining people were Everyone is in danger of becoming someone else's mouth.
At this time, Yue Ming sighed: "Since the Chongzhen year, there has been famine almost every year in Henan. There are as many bandits as cattle hair in the mountains. They eat all the grass roots and bark, so they use people as food. Parents eat their children, and children eat their parents. Before they become adults, they will be like children." Looking forward to not seeing you, wandering around every night, hearing the cry for help, it is all a traitor trying to bite people. This is so sad and sour, I can't bear to hear it..."
Xu Ming said loudly: "I think the officials and generals in Henan are still incompetent. There is also a severe drought in Shandong this year, but how come no one is starving to death in our Jimo camp? When a natural disaster comes, as long as the local civil servants and military generals are able, they can survive it. !”
Miao Shao also said: "Yes, I think that only under the leadership of adults can all injustices in the world be eliminated and the world restored to a bright future. It's a shame that those losers in the court have lived in temples for a long time, but their abilities are far inferior to those of adults!"
Everyone nodded in agreement, but Liu Yan closed his eyes and was speechless. Rare disasters occurred one after another, especially in Henan and the northwest. This is why bandits in Henan and the northwest are particularly prosperous. Suppressing bandits is a people's livelihood issue, not a military issue.
Thinking of this, Liu Yan was also a little worried about the outcome of this battle: What would happen even if Zhang Xianzhong was killed? As long as the people cannot survive, Wang Xianzhong and Liu Xianzhong will still appear, and the troubled times will never end!
At this time, Liu Yan's desire for power surged. Only when he controlled enough power to control the world could he truly end the troubled times and prevent human tragedies from happening again.
One evening two days later, the new army battalions arrived in Hunan. After setting up camp outside Guizhou City, Miao Shao took the official documents from the Ministry of War as usual and went into the city to ask for food from the prefect in the city.
Not long after, Miao Shao came back empty-handed, without even asking for a bucket of food. It turned out that the prefect of Guizhou was unwilling to distribute food at all because of the lack of food, and was not willing to allow the new army battalions to be stationed outside the city for rest.
Liu Yan was furious. The army came all the way, and more than three thousand stones of military rations had been scattered along the way. Although he brought a large amount of silver with the army on this trip, the merchants and wealthy households were closed-minded, and it was extremely difficult to buy food. If we don’t replenish grain and grass in the official warehouses of various prefectures and counties, what will happen if the army runs out of grain and grass?
Liu Yan immediately shouted to Xu Ming: "Commander Xu, take a group of generals into the city and arrest the prefect. I want to see if he dares to deny food in front of my army."
"Sir, what should I do if someone blocks me?"
"Proceed with military law!"
A cold light flashed in Xu Ming's eyes, he cupped his fists at Liu Yan and said, "The last general will take your orders!"
There was a commotion outside the military camp, and then the noise reached the city. Soon, Wang Chuan, the prefect of Guizhou City, was twisted and escorted into the Chinese army's tent by several New Army soldiers.
To Liu Yan's expectation, Wang Chuan was very young, less than thirty years old, with a gentle and elegant appearance. He was not panicked when several new army officers were escorted in. He glanced at everyone in the tent and then focused on Liu Yan.
Liu Yan glanced at him and asked: "My army has been ordered to suppress bandits. It has traveled thousands of miles to get here, and there is a letter from the Ministry of War here. Why don't you give me food?"
Wang Chuan smiled slightly and said: "I have heard for a long time that General Liu's new army is very powerful and has defeated slave and bandit armies several times, but I never expected that it could be so arrogant and rude!"
Wang Chuan spoke with an accent from the southern Zhili area. The Ming Dynasty never allowed people from this province to serve as officials locally. Especially when Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the requirements were even stricter and even allowed "people from the south to be officials in the north, and people from the north to be officials in the south." , but later it was no longer limited to north and south. However, except for academic officials, it is an iron rule that people from the province are not allowed to serve as officials locally. 33
Liu Yan was a little surprised that Wang Chuan knew him so well. He asked Wang Chuan to sit down and asked him why he didn't want to give him food.
Wang Chuan suddenly lost his temper and laughed wildly, and said almost arrogantly: "If all the people are dead, there will naturally be no food."
He laughed wildly for a while, and then said with a choked voice: "The general may not know that my original household registration in Guizhou City was 57,835, but at the beginning of the year, I calculated that 48,120 of them had died. Eighteen households. The original population was 130,325, but there were 118,450 who escaped death. This was the statistics at the beginning of the year. I don’t know how many are left now.”
"But even so, I still have to bear three wages and more than 124,000 taels of silver in Guizhou City, more than 32,300 shi of rice, 82,53 shi of rice and beans from Liao, and 3,000 taels of Linqing warehouse rice. Six hundred and eighty-eight stones, Lumi one thousand eight hundred and forty-two stones. I would like to ask the general, with the remaining population in the city, how can we provide food supplies?"
Wang Chuan's expression suddenly became determined and he said: "The disaster situation is getting worse day by day. Seeing that Guizhou City is about to wipe out all the households, I have decided to distribute all the grain and rice in the warehouse to the victims."
Liu Yan didn't expect that things would be like this, so he asked: "Then how do you explain it to the court?"
Wang Chuan smiled strangely and said: "It doesn't matter, I have already decided to hang up my seal and go back. At worst, I will go back to my hometown to live out my life and end my life."
Liu Yan looked at him for a long time and sighed: "Prefect Wang, please go back. I have offended you a lot just now."
Wang Chuan said: "Don't be busy. I have just entered the camp and saw that your army seems to have a lot of food and grass. For the sake of the common people, I asked the general to pull out some of the food and grass to help the people of Guizhou City."
Liu Yan was speechless for a long time after hearing this.
Early the next morning, Liu Yan led his army and left Guizhou City. He was in a bad mood. Not only did he not ask for food, but he instead handed in hundreds of stones of food and grass.
However, these grains were used to provide relief to the victims, which made Liu Yan feel better. Wang Chuan was naturally grateful and praised Liu Yan as worthy of being the pillar of the country, and all the battalions of the New Army were worthy of being benevolent and righteous soldiers. Only Liu Yan had any words of sorrow.
"Nowadays, the roads are full of beasts, and their skeletons are everywhere. The ghosts and ghosts are green in the wind, and they are roaring in the green forest. The small bones of the side and arms are littered on the road. Every time I walk in the suburbs, my feet are on them, and there is a sound as if they are on the hemp straw. …”
The army came all the way. Every time they passed a city, there were either tragedies of cannibalism or riots. When the army marched to the bank of Yishui, the entire army stared blankly at the opposite side. There were dozens of people there. The people jumped into the river and committed suicide. They rushed to get there, as if rushing to some paradise, and their shouts revealed a strong atmosphere of despair.
When Liu Yan saw this scene, he did not ask his men to rescue the people, because the hearts of the people were already dead and they could not be saved.
"Sir, the new assembly point is ahead. Yang Sichang is several hundred miles away in the Agate Mountain area. The army will arrive in ten days."
Liu Yan was furious at this time. When he heard the words Yang Sichang, he didn't know whether his decision to lead his troops south was correct. He immediately said angrily: "Slow down the march of the whole army. We will set up camp after marching thirty miles a day." Rest and restore the strength of the soldiers."
Some people died, but not completely...
