On the channel of Furjaha River, the water has been completely frozen. There is heavy snow in the sky, and the howling north wind blows in the face along the northern foot of Sihet Mountain. The temperature at this moment has reached minus 30 degrees, and the cold wind on the face can make people choke and choke.
At this time, Serdan was leading a squad of reconnaissance teams, marching with difficulty in the valley of the Furjaha River. Their team has been traveling for ten days since their departure, and their goal is to investigate the Fuldan City area in the northwest. In order to avoid getting lost, Serdan led the team and went north along the mountain roads on both sides of the Furjaha Valley, climbing over the mountains and ridges.
On the snow-capped hills, the leaves have long since fallen bare. If you stand at a slightly higher place on a sunny day and there is no obstruction in front of you, you can see dozens of miles at a glance.
Zhao Xin slapped his head and opened his mouth. After the original investigation order was issued, Serdan found Zhao Xin. It is said that the land route from Beihai Town to Hunchun is at least a thousand miles, and it is impossible to walk in this kind of weather.
Upon hearing this, Zhao Xin knew that he had made a common-sense mistake again. He always unconsciously used the traffic from another time and space to test ancient maps, so he decided to only investigate Fuldan City.
Serdan led a maroon Mongolian horse, clearing a path through the waist-deep snow. The team members behind him led two heavy brown draft horses and a dozen Mongolian horses and lined up in a straight line behind him, while four dogs followed closely behind the queue.
Worried about encountering wolves in the wild, their eleven-man team carried 6,600 rounds of rifle ammunition, 3,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition and a Negev light machine gun; Zhao Xin gave the ammunition based on three base numbers. They were allotted. In addition, there are enough dry food for two months, animal fats, extra cold-proof clothing, sleeping bags, tents, axes, oil, and portable diesel heating stoves.
Seldan had never imagined that he would be equipped with so many things for a winter outing. After putting on goggles, scarves, warm socks and thick white cold-proof clothes, except that it was inconvenient to shoot arrows, I didn't feel cold at all. Especially the pair of off-white cold-proof boots on his feet, which are warmer than the animal skin boots stuffed with urala grass.
However, one advantage of traveling in this kind of weather is that you won’t encounter local border residents. Once the snow stops and the weather clears up, border mink hunters will go out in groups on horse-drawn sledges or dog-drawn sledges to look for traces of minks in the pine forests. The border residents relied on winter capture to pay the head tax to the government every year.
Serdan took off his goggles and looked at the sky, and then shouted loudly to the people behind him: "Climb the mountain in front and find a place to camp." After hearing this, the soldiers behind him conveyed it to them in turn.
Two hours later, the team reached the lee of a large rock. Except for the two sentries, everyone else tied up their horses, took the logging ax from the horse's back, started felling wood around them and built a wind shelter fence. After the fence is erected, the ground needs to be cleared and the tent set up. When the bonfire was blazing, the surroundings became a little warmer, and everyone began to heat dry food, toast socks, and feed the horses by the fire.
When horses perform heavy work in extremely cold weather, they need to supplement at least 50g-60g of salt every day. Although soybean nutrition seems to be comprehensive and rich in nutrients, if the horse eats too much, it will cause bloating and even poisoning. If the rescue is not timely, the horse will die quickly. Moreover, after horses eat raw soybeans, they need to strictly control their drinking water. Drinking too much water can easily cause acute gastric dilation, leading to gastric rupture and death.
At nightfall, the oiled wood made a "cracking" sound in the campfire. After eating the dry food, most of the soldiers got into the tents and slept. Serdan himself stayed in front of the bonfire, smoking dry tobacco and keeping vigil. At this time, apart from the sound of wind, there was only the howling of wolves in the distance. The soldiers in the reconnaissance team have long been accustomed to hearing this sound, and it does not affect their sleep at all.
Serdan counted the days and realized that the New Year would be celebrated the day after tomorrow, and this New Year would definitely be spent in the wild. At the current marching speed, we won't even be able to return on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.
I don’t know how long it took, but suddenly, a dozen horses began to become restless. They shook their heads from side to side, stamped their four hooves on the spot, and stuck their erect ears forward. Horses' hearing and sense of smell are much sharper than humans. As a former hunter, Serdan immediately understood something was going on from the horse's abnormality!
"Get up, there's a wolf!"
With Seldan's low shout, the soldiers in the tent were awakened.
Dots of green fluorescence were swimming on the snow dozens of meters away. Serdan knew that because of the bonfire in the camp, the wolves did not dare to approach.
As the soldiers emerged from the tent one by one, those green fluorescent lights still did not go away. Several wolves took small steps and ran crisscross in front of the camp along the diagonal line. Perhaps because they knew there were many people here, the cunning wolves ran almost without making any noise, and they acted as if they were not targeting the reconnaissance team; but Serdan knew that the wolves were using this method to complete the siege.
"Ready the machine gun." As soon as Serdan finished speaking, a soldier quickly loaded the drum and pulled the gun bolt.
Serdan no longer needed a bow and arrow. He took the rifle handed over by his subordinates and formed a fan shape behind the bonfire with the others. The two soldiers also moved their horses under the rocks behind the tent.
Serdan has been a hunter for so many years, but he has never seen dozens of wolves appear at the same time. He tried to calm himself down, stared at the green fluorescence and estimated that there were probably more than twenty wolves in this group.
Now, the wolves and the crowd were facing each other in a fan shape, with a bonfire in the middle. The wolves may have felt the danger of the weapons in the hands of the people on the opposite side, so they did not dare to cross the fire for the time being. A dozen wolves were scattered about ten meters away in front of everyone, and the others were a little further away, running back and forth with their tails hanging down, as if looking for a fighter plane.
"Don't shoot, take your fingers off the trigger. Stand up, don't squat!"
Because of Serdan's order, the nervous soldiers stood up one after another, holding their rifles and standing facing the wolves. Standing facing a wolf is a kind of oppression to the wolf. During the tense confrontation, Serdan kept trying to find the alpha wolf, but he couldn't find it in the pitch-black night.
The two sides were in a stalemate. The wolves neither attack nor retreat. Time passed by minute by second, and the night became darker and darker. No one knows how long this anxious situation will last.
Finally, a soldier couldn't bear it anymore. He unconsciously turned off the safety and pulled the trigger on the frontmost gray wolf. The crisp sound of gunfire instantly tore through the silence in the wilderness.
The gray wolf who was shot had a big hole in his head and fell to the snow before he could even scream. The wolves suddenly became restless, as if they did not expect the weapons in human hands to be so powerful.
Before Serdan had time to scold the soldier who opened fire without permission, other soldiers had already turned off the safety and sprayed bullets at the wolves with their rifles.
The wolves finally began to attack. Facing humans with live ammunition, they did not swarm forward, but launched attacks from the left and right wings. Cerdan understood that the target of the wolves was actually the horse.
"Protect the horses! Don't let the fire go out!"
The bursts of light machine gun fire sounded, and the soldiers operating the machine guns fired to stop the wolves from charging towards the horses. However, the movements of these wolves are extremely flexible and the impact speed is very fast. Therefore, every time a wolf is killed, at least two or three bursts are required.
"Cover each other and load bullets." Serdan never started to fight. He knew that once there was a gap for everyone to load bullets together, the wolves would swarm up and it would be too late.
In the interplay of light and shadow, a figure that was obviously larger than the other wolves jumped out of the darkness and rushed diagonally towards Seldan from the right.
"The alpha wolf!"
In the flash of lightning, he turned around quickly and fired two shots at the alpha wolf.
Late at night on the 29th of the twelfth lunar month, at the gate of Tianning Temple outside Yangzhou City. Today is the day we agreed to meet with Zhao Xin. Lu Shoushan and Xu Dayong arrived here the moment Zizheng was there. The two people wore cotton hats and put their hands in their sleeves, stomping their feet on the bridge in front of Tianning Temple, trying to drive away the cold.
Xu Dayong rushed back from Henan just the day before yesterday. What he saw and heard along the way shocked even a person who had experienced a major disaster. He didn't understand what happened to the Qing Dynasty. The salt merchants in Yangzhou City spend their days drinking, arrogant and extravagant. Why can't they spend some money to help the victims?
In particular, he saw the tragic scene in Shangqiu where a dozen victims froze to death in order to rush to the porridge factory as early as possible to beg for food before dawn, and were stripped of their clothes by the victims after they died. Since we can cook porridge for charity, why can't we donate two more pieces of clothes?
Xu Dayong was thinking wildly while staring at the door of Tianning Temple. After a long time, suddenly his eyes blurred, and a figure suddenly appeared a few meters away.
Lu Shoushan was looking away at this time. Xu Da raised his hand and rubbed his eyes vigorously to make sure that he was not dizzy. He quickly patted Lu Shoushan. When he and Lu Shoushan took two steps closer, they saw clearly that the person coming was really Zhao Xin.
"Sir, you are really here!" Xu Dayong said in surprise.
"Shh." Zhao Xin made a silent gesture, motioning the two of them to follow him into the shadows under the temple wall, and asked in a low voice: "How long have you been here?"
"Master, we'll be waiting here after midnight."
"How is the situation in Henan?"
"I came back from Henan just yesterday. You are right. Twenty counties were affected. It's so tragic!"
Zhao Xindao: "It will be even worse in the spring next year. You should be prepared."
Xu Dayong explained the matter between Wang Changsheng and Luo Jiao again. After hearing this, Zhao Xin praised: "Well done! Let Wang Changsheng continue to maintain this line. Is the money still enough?"
Lu Shoushan said: "I have discussed with Dayong and want to buy some coastal wasteland in the Sheyang Lake area east of Funing. First, it is relatively close to Henan, and we can recruit people from Henan in the name of reclamation; second, You can get there by walking along the canal from Xuzhou to the Wusha River, and it’s very convenient to take the waterway.”
Zhao Xin nodded and said, "You two can discuss this matter. I just want a steady stream of people." After saying that, he took out a large kraft paper envelope from his backpack and handed it to Lu Shoushan. "This is a silver note of 150,000 taels. You can use it to buy land and a boat first. The sailor can ask Wang Changsheng to find someone from Luo Jiao."
He collected these banknotes from the home of salt merchant Wang Jinglong. Afterwards, he, Liu Sheng, and Wu Siyu carefully took stock of all the things they looted from the Wang family. There were a total of 300,000 taels of silver notes and 200,000 taels of cash. In addition, there are a large number of land deeds and loan notes. Now that the Wang family no longer has these IOUs, those who borrowed money are relieved because they don't have to pay them back at all.
After Lu Shoushan took the banknote, he said: "Sir, I'm old now, and no one is doing business now. Land and ship matters can't be done until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month."
Zhao Xin smiled and said in a low voice: "Let's have a good time this New Year first." But then his face changed and he warned: "Be careful and don't show off."
"Don't worry, Sir." Lu and Xu clasped their fists and bowed in salute. When he got up and looked again, Zhao Xin had disappeared.
Lu Shoushan and Xu Dayong opened their mouths wide, their chins wishing they could drag themselves to the ground, with shocked expressions on their faces! The two looked at each other, hurriedly knelt on the ground in the night, kowtowed three times to where Zhao Xin had just been standing, and then stood up and left quietly.
The day finally dawned, and the reconnaissance team, which had fought fiercely with the wolves all night, sat exhausted in front of the campfire, numbly biting the dry food in their hands. Among the bullet casings on the ground, the huge wolf king had been frozen solid. If this had happened before, Seldan would have desperately taken off the wolf's skin; but now, he was so tired that he no longer had the energy to even take a look. After everyone ate dry food, they all got into their sleeping bags to rest. It wasn't until noon that we packed up and continued on our way.
The atmosphere of this Lunar New Year festival in Beihai Town is very peaceful. Like last year, refugees from the island country braved the snow to go up the mountain to collect pine branches and hang them on their doors to welcome the New Year.
In order to avoid causing unrest prematurely, Zhao Xin specifically told Chen Qingsong and Liu Sheng not to issue a mobilization order until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month before leaving. Anyway, the Qing army cannot defeat them this season.
Liu Sheng and Wang Yuanfang have been busy formulating recruitment and training plans after the New Year every day during this period. They plan to transfer one platoon from each existing company to form a recruit training team.
Deng Fei and Ding Guofeng took Katsu Kaishu and Jiuzang back and forth between Ishinomaki Port and Beihai Town. Finally, before the Spring Festival, they took away 18,000 refugees from the island country and 200 strong people from the Ezo area. A strong Ainu.
The island country will soon enter the fifth year of dawn. The "dawn famine" that lasted for a year and a half showed no signs of easing, and the famine became more and more severe. In the Hachinohe Domain (20,000 stone high) in the Mutsu Aomori area alone, 30,000 people starved to death. From Mutsu to Edo, and from Edo to Osaka, one to two thousand people starved to death on the streets every day, and were later abandoned in ravines outside the city.
Many refugees heard that there was a way to survive in Sendai Domain, so the number of refugees gathered under Aoba Castle has reached tens of thousands, and the refugees outside Ishinomaki Town have even gathered into a sea of people. The whole Sendai clan was troubled by the influx of refugees. The elder Ishikawa Murafumi often scolded Tang Yi when he was alone.
This fall, the shogunate's elders, Nakatanuma Yiji and his son, coveted the family tree of a low-level samurai, so they lied about seeking an official position for the other party, and then defrauded the other party's original family tree. The junior warrior realized that he had been deceived and tried repeatedly to get it back, but to no avail. The angry samurai then sneaked into a meeting attended by Tanuma and his son. During the meeting, he suddenly drew a sword and stabbed Tanuma Ichi. However, he was stopped by his son Tanuma Ichi. But in the end, the samurai killed Tanuma Yiji. Tanuma Yiji, who lost his only son because of greed, became depressed day by day. The death knell of Tanuma's cabinet would soon ring.
In Xuanhua City, thousands of miles southwest of Beihai Town, in the study of Wang Zhefu, the former magistrate of Xuanhua, fifteen-year-old Wang Zhenyi put down the brush in his hand and smiled with satisfaction.
On the rice paper on the table, a long poem "A Picture of a Girl's Husband" has just been written.
". Who of the people in the picture can be the same? The husband's ambition is the talent's breast. Believe it or not, men and women are like women. Who says that children are not heroes?"
The third volume is finished.
(End of chapter)
