October has just entered, and the first snow falls on the grassland.
Although it hasn't snowed yet in Datong, the temperature has dropped, and pedestrians on the road are wearing thick clothes.
"Brother, this is Lingqiu, right?" The speaker was a man with a dirty face and wearing a tattered single coat.
There was a man beside him, holding a wooden stick in his hand. He looked up at the soot-covered official road in front of him, pursed his chapped lips, and said, "Third brother, do you think this is Lingqiu? How nice it is. land, and that kind of big waterwheel.”
The place where they were was near a farmland, and two waterwheels could be seen standing on the river bank in the distance.
"I see there is a village in front of me. Let's go over and ask if we can get anyone who stutters." The man who was called the third brother raised his finger and pointed ahead.
Just over two miles ahead of them, smoke curled up from the village.
"Dafeng, hold on for a little longer. When we reach Lingqiu, we will have a way to survive." The man holding a wooden stick in his hand said to the woman behind him.
The woman held two children in her arms. The children looked seven or eight years old and were sniffling.
In addition to their family, there were nearly a hundred people around, all with their families, but the largest number were young and strong men and women.
"Let's go! Let's go to the village ahead first." The man holding the wooden stick in his hand raised the stick and pointed forward, then walked forward.
His third brother and the woman each picked up a child and followed behind.
Others around him also walked forward together.
After walking for about a quarter of an hour, these people appeared at one end of the existence.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Suddenly the gong sounded in the village.
Along the way, these people heard too much gongs, and they would hear such gongs in a village almost every few days.
They fled from the Shaanxi-Gansu area and begged along the road. Sometimes before approaching the village, this warning gong or other warning sounds would sound.
"Third brother, let's stop. Someone should come out soon." The man holding a wooden stick in his hand said.
The man he called his third brother put down the child in his arms and stood outside the village entrance with his eldest brother.
There was more and more movement in the village, and figures began to move in the streets.
Not long after, dozens of men appeared at the entrance of the village with a manure fork, a wooden stick and other weapons in their hands, staring at the refugees who suddenly appeared at the village head with vigilance.
An old man who looked older than everyone else came out of the crowd in the village. He stood in front of the crowd, faced the refugees in front of him, and said, "You all came from the west, right?"
The man holding a wooden stick in his hand took two steps forward, bowed to the older man in front of him, and then said: "Our family suffered a disaster, the house was destroyed, the fields were also destroyed, there is no I have no choice but to come out. I heard people say that Datong is rich and that refugees like us can have a way to survive after escaping. I want to ask, is this Lingqiu?"
"This is Guangling. If you want to go to Lingqiu, walk more than thirty miles along the road you came from." The old man pointed at the official road where these refugees passed.
The man holding the wooden stick in his hand turned his head and glanced at the road pointed by the old man. After retracting his gaze, he saluted the old man in front of him again and said, "Thank you very much, fellow countryman. I heard that people like us came here to escape." , you can have enough to eat when you arrive at Lingqiu, is this true?"
"Yes, it's true. Many people who have escaped from your hometown have gone to Lingqiu. The people with the tiger flag there will take care of you and won't let you starve." The old man nodded.
The man holding the wooden stick in his hand breathed a sigh of relief, and his tense face felt a little relieved.
"Brother, it seems that man didn't lie to us. We won't have to suffer from cold and hunger anymore in Lingqiu." The man standing next to him shouted excitedly.
There were many refugees around who also heard this.
Many people's faces were no longer as heavy as before, and many women began to sob quietly.
On the way from Shaanxi and Gansu to Datong, countless people died. Even their team of about a hundred people was not the team that originally set out from home, but met together halfway.
They walked together with many people along the way, but people died on the road, scattered, and fled. In the end, only a hundred or so of them were left here alive.
The man holding a stick in his hand asked politely: "Can I ask, what is this tiger flag? Is it an official of the imperial court?"
"Tiger Character Banner is a business in Lingqiu. Their owner is a high official in Datong and is in charge of a city." The old man explained.
The man holding the stick in his hand suddenly realized and said: "It turns out to be the county master."
In his mind, the people who can manage a city are county officials, officials as big as the county officials in their county.
The old man didn't know quite how big an official the proprietor of the Tiger-Character Flag was. He only knew that he was a high-ranking official and was in charge of a city. Like the man in front of him, he felt that the proprietor of the Tiger-Character Flag was at least a county magistrate.
"Can I ask you for help, fellow villagers?" The man holding the wooden stick in his hand said to the old man in front of him with an embarrassed face.
However, his face was covered with dirt, and even if he was embarrassed, nothing could be seen from his face.
The old man said: "This journey has not been easy for you. If you have anything to say, I will definitely help you."
"Thank you in advance." The man with the wooden stick in his hand bent down and bowed. After straightening up, he continued, "We people have been walking for a day, can you let us rest here for one night? , I promise, we will only stay one night and leave tomorrow."
He promised the old man almost like an oath.
The old man waved his hand and said: "Don't worry, I can understand. There are old people and children here. You will definitely not be able to reach Lingqiu today. You can live here. But let me make it clear first, you can only live outside the village. You can’t enter the village.”
"I'm here to thank you, fellow man." The man holding the stick put down the stick and knelt on the ground. At the same time, he turned around and said to the people around him and behind him, "Third brother, Dafeng, and the two children, please kowtow quickly. .”
"I can't do it, I can't do it." The old man waved his hands repeatedly.
However, they still kowtowed three times before stopping.
The man who was called third brother helped the man who was holding a wooden stick up from the ground.
The old man turned around and said to the people in the village next to him: "Gou Sheng, Sha San, you two take a few people with you, set up a big pot at the end of the village, and cook some porridge for these fellow villagers."
Two men stood out from the crowd, handed the wooden sticks in their hands to others, and then ran towards the village.
The old man shouted to several other people: "And you guys, go and get all the quilts and straw mats, as well as those wooden sticks, and find a few more people to carry them to the entrance of the village."
Following the old man's instructions, some young people from the village ran towards the village.
