Seeing that Long Ji was still frightened, He Zhen smiled and said: "Old man, the opposite side is the barracks of the Qing army, and you suddenly came to me, but I misunderstood you as an undercover agent of the Qing army." Now it seems that you are not, and this is a misunderstanding. ”

When Long Ji heard this, he immediately said to He Zhen excitedly: "Don't worry, general, even if we starve to death, we won't help the Qing army, they are robbers, and they are man-eating demons." ”

He Zhen said: "Okay, I want to believe you now. But you have to tell me, who told you that you could exchange things with us? Long Ji was puzzled: "Why don't you know, general?" The Miao people on the side of Shiqian Mansion said that they could exchange a lot of things for the army of the Ming Dynasty, and salt could also be exchanged. ”

He Zhen was also a little puzzled, why was there still a Ming army on the side of Shiqian Mansion, and immediately asked: "You said that there is a Ming army on the side of Shiqian Mansion, and you also let everyone change things?" But there is no big road over there, how can there be a Ming army where to go? Do you know what the generals of the army over there are called? He Zhen thought that the defeated army on the Guizhou side had fled into Shiqian Mansion.

Long Ji said: "I don't know what the generals of the Ming army over there are called, and I don't know what they are doing there." Oh yes, you wait, one of us came with Longquan, and he also went to Shiqian Mansion to change the salt, he should know. As he spoke, he turned to a thirty-year-old man in the crowd and shouted, "Gu Wu, come over quickly, the general has something to ask you." ”

When the man saw Long Ji calling him, he hurriedly ran over and said to He Zhen: "General, what are you looking for me?" He Zhen looked at the people, and then asked in a calm tone: "Old man Longji said that you went to Shiqian to exchange things with the Ming army over there." Gu Wudao: "Yes, the general of the Ming army is very young, but he is very good to us Miao people, and many of us Miao people are willing to help him." ”

He Zhen said: "Then do you know where they came from and where they are going?" And what's the name of that general? Gu Wu said: "I don't know about this, I also heard that you can change things, and there is salt that can be exchanged." So I took the pheasants I had caught in the mountains to try my luck. As a result, when I went, they said that there were already a lot of things, and they couldn't take them with them, so they didn't ask for anything from me, and when they heard that I needed salt, they gave me some. ”

He Zhen was a little disappointed and said: "I don't know which general the Ming army is on this road, if we can let them come to this Wujiang Pass, we can firmly hold the Wujiang Pass and trap the Qing army in this Yunnan-Guizhou mountain and river." Seeing He Zhen say this, Gu Wu said: "General, although I don't know where they came from, I listened to their people chatting, as if they were looking for someone to lead the way to Duyun Mansion. It is also said that their general is called Hou Ye, and it is the idea of the Hou Ye to exchange things with the Miao people, as long as the Miao people are willing to help them lead the way to Duyun, they can also give the Miao people salt without food. ”

He Zhen suddenly came to his senses and said, "Did they say what the general's name is?" Gu Wu thought for a while and said, "I don't know what it means, it seems to be called Pingyuhou." He Zhen exclaimed, "What? Called Pingyuhou? Long Ji saw that He Zhen's expression was wrong, and said, "What's the matter, General, is there anything wrong with this Pingyu Hou?" Do you want me to help spread the word and ask the Miao people not to help them. ”

He Zhen hurriedly said: "No, the old man Longji, this Pingyu Marquis is our general, he took us to drive out the Qing army in Sichuan, although I don't know why he went to Duyun, but you can help them, I am very grateful, I will ask the soldiers to exchange for you what you want." ”

When Long Ji heard that He Zhen was willing to exchange things for them, he immediately said happily: "General, since they are with you, do you want us to help you send him a message and let them come over to help you?" He Zhen said: "No need, there must be more important things for them to go to Duyun." ”

When Long Ji heard this, he stopped talking, and then went to exchange things with everyone, but most of these Miao people were exchanged for salt. When they were about to leave in the end, He Zhen said: "Old man Longji, you tell everyone, everyone can come to exchange our things here, but we don't have much food and salt here, if you still want to change, go directly to Zunyi to change, I will let the defenders of Zunyi change it for you." ”

When Long Ji heard this, he immediately said: "Thank you to the generals of the Ming Dynasty, I will tell them not to come here again and cause trouble to the generals." With that, he took a group of Miao people away.

After He Zhen saw these Miao people leaving, he said to the guards: "Send two people to Zunyi, let them pay attention to the fact that if there are Miao people or other people to exchange things for them in the future, we don't know why Pingyu Hou is important, but since he is doing it, he has his reason." There was also a request for Jiang Shangying to use his current garrison regiment as the basis, summon Minzhuang to immediately form a thousand households, and then rush to Wujiang Pass. ”

Just after He Zhen arranged these, there was a sudden scream before closing the door, and then many people were knocking on the door continuously, still shouting loudly. He Zhen hurriedly rushed to the wall of the pass to take a look, but it was the Miao people who had just come out of the pass, and now they were being chased and killed by the Qing army, and many Miao people were rushing to the pass to seek refuge.

Seeing this, He Zhen immediately called the defenders of the Restoration Army on the gate to shoot arrows and shot the Qing troops behind them back. The Ming army on the wall got the order and immediately shot arrows at the Qing army chasing behind, and more than a dozen Qing soldiers were shot to the ground in an instant. The Qing army saw that there were too many arrows on the pass, so they had to retreat.

Then He Zhen let these Miao people enter the pass, only to see that these Miao people were all injured, and Long Ji was no longer in the crowd. He Zhen saw Gu Wu who was talking to him before, and He Zhen hurriedly asked Gu Wu what happened. Gu Wu said excitedly: "Those damn Qing soldiers, when they saw that we exchanged food and salt in the pass, let us hand them all over, we all have to rely on this little thing to save our lives, how can we give them to them." ”

The other Miao people also scolded the Qing soldiers loudly, and from time to time they groaned in pain. He Zhen saw that he hurriedly asked Lang Zhong in the army to bandage these Miao people, and then asked Gu Wu about Longji's situation.

A thirty-year-old man in Guwu actually cried and said: "Long Ji went to beg the Qing soldiers to let us go, but the Qing soldiers hacked us to death on the spot. He Zhen was just about to comfort them a few words, when the defenders on the wall exclaimed, "You guys see what the soldiers are going to do?" They took all the bodies of the Miao back to the barracks. ”

He Zhen couldn't care less about listening to Gu Wu when he heard it, so he immediately ran up to the wall to take a look, and sure enough, he saw that the Qing army went out of the camp to bring back the corpses of the Miao people. Neither the Restoration Army nor the Miao people who fled into the pass knew what the Qing Army was doing when they brought the corpses of these Miao people back to the barracks.

He Zhen and the others looked at the wall for a while, and saw that the Qing army had no intention of attacking the city again, so they were about to go to other places to inspect it, and suddenly another soldier pointed to the Qing army camp and shouted: "What do you see that is?" Then the soldier seemed to think of something. screamed in horror, and then scolded the Qing army with red eyes.

He Zhen turned around to look, but did not see any movement of the Qing army, only to see a few puffs of smoke rising from the camp. He Zhen didn't pay attention to it first, and was about to scold the angry soldier, when he suddenly thought of the corpse of the Miao man who had just been brought back by the Qing soldiers, and then a cold air burst out from the soles of his feet and rushed straight to the Tianling Gai. He Zhen instantly felt goosebumps all over her body, her hair seemed to stand on end, and the whole person seemed to fall into an ice cave.

The Qing army was stationed outside Wujiang Pass for two days, and they had never seen the Qing army cook, and of course there was no cooking smoke. It was not that the Qing army could not eat, but that Zhao Tingchen came out of Guiyang in a hurry, and the Qing army only brought three days of dry food at that time. Then they waited for the rear to transport grain and grass. Now that Bian Sanyuan has returned to Guiyang, of course, there is no food to cook, so what is the Qing army cooking now?

He Zhen thought of it, the soldiers of the Restoration Army also thought of it, and the Miao people who had just returned to the pass after being injured also thought of it. Suddenly, the scolding on the Wujiang Pass continued, and all kinds of vicious language came out on the wall, but this could not make the anger in the hearts of the Fuming Army and Miao people on the Wujiang Pass reduce in the slightest.

Although He Zhen has also heard of eating human flesh, and in this troubled world, there are countless people who have eaten human flesh, but it is the first time to watch others eat in person. So He Zhen was very disgusted and angry, but he was very sober now, and no matter how angry he was, it would be useless.

So He Zhen looked at the soldiers and Miao people who were still scolding, and immediately said to the guards: "Be optimistic about closing the door, no one is allowed to go out." Then he walked down the wall, and he really didn't want to think about that picture. At this time, Gu Wu and the others rushed over, surrounded He Zhen and said, "General, please send troops to kill those Qing soldiers, they are not people, they are beasts." ”

He Zhen looked at the Miao people in front of him, shook his head and said, "We can't send troops now, we don't have the ability now!" Gu Wu cried, "General, please, there is still the body of Long Ji in there." He Zhen blinked his eyes hard, thinking about the old man who was still talking in front of him just now, and said in a stiff voice: "You all get up, go through the door behind the pass, we can't fight the Qing army now, we don't have so many soldiers, now there are only seven hundred soldiers in this Wujiang Pass, we are a little reluctant to hold the Wujiang Pass, where can we go out of the pass to attack the Qing army." ”

The young Miao Dao before: "General, as long as you send troops to fight the Qing army, I am willing to join the army and go with you." Hearing this humane words, the Miao people all said: "Yes, general, as long as you go to fight the Qing soldiers, we will all join the army and go together." He Zhen looked at these Miao Daodao: "I know that everyone hates those Qing soldiers very much now, but even if we add you, we are only more than 900 people, can we beat the Qing soldiers?" There were more than 2,000 of them. ”

Gu Wu said: "The general can go out to fight the Qing army as many people as he wants, let's go find someone." He Zhen said: "I have asked Zunyi to recruit 2,000 people to guard the pass, and it is estimated that it will take seven or eight days." Gu Wu said: "Okay, general, let's go back to find someone, and then go with the general to fight the Qing soldiers," and then said to those Miao people: "Okay, everyone go back now, go back to your own village, and gather people to come over." The Qing soldiers killed our people and ate all their meat, and we will fight them to the end, and we will kill all these damned Qing soldiers. ”

Originally, after the Qing soldiers entered Guizhou, they also killed and looted grain everywhere, but no one was willing to come forward at that time. Now I heard that the army is also going to fight the Qing soldiers, since there are people taking the lead, these Miao people will dare to fight with the Qing soldiers, no matter how they will behave on the battlefield at that time, but at least in terms of numbers, it can look spectacular.

In the next few days, there was a spread among Miao villages everywhere, that is, the Qing soldiers wanted to kill all the Miao people, and they also had to eat all the corpses of the Miao people. This was passed from the Miao people on the Zunyi side, who saw the Qing soldiers eating the corpses of the Miao people. Then this incident became more and more powerful, and it has been spread that the Qing soldiers did not even let go of the dead ancestors of the Miao people, and they would dig up the bones of the ancestors of the Miao people from the ground as firewood, and then cook the meat of the Miao people to eat.

Zhao Tingchen didn't know about these things spread by the Miao people, and now he was stunned by Bian Sanyuan's matter. Guo Liai, who had retreated to Guiyang, killed Bian Sanyuan on the grounds that Bian Sanyuan had secretly communicated with the Ming army and wanted to collude with the Ming army to seize Guiyang. After Zhao Tingchen learned the news, he was first shocked, then angry, and finally cold.

What shocked him was that he didn't believe that Bian Sanyuan would secretly communicate with the Ming Army, this must have been planted by Guo Liai and nakedly framed. What was angry was that he asked Guo Liai to be stationed in Guiyang, and did not investigate the responsibility for Guo Liai's defeat, but Guo Liai in turn took his Guiyang, I am afraid that even Guo Liai was accused of collaborating with the enemy. Zhao Tingchen was cold because he was afraid, the Fuming Army blocked Wujiang Pass in front, and Guo Li Ai blocked it in the back, where should he go?

Shuixi Tusi Ankun is very loyal to the Qing Dynasty, but now there is not only Ankun in Shuixi, there are also a large number of defeated troops against the Ming Dynasty, if their own military strength is stronger, it would be better, now they only have two thousand troops, and they are still short of food army. I am afraid that once this news spreads, I will die in Shuixi without a place to be buried.

Zhao Tingchen thought about it for a while, and immediately decided to go east, through the Miao area in the east, where although there were many Miao people, but the Miao people were not organized, like a plate of scattered sand. I have a great deal of confidence in passing through, and then go to Pingyuewei, where can I get the food transported from Huguang, and if the road is not enough, I can directly snatch the food supplement of those Miao people.

As Zhao Tingchen's order spread, although the Qing army also complained, they still obeyed the military order, began to pack up their things, pulled out the camp and went east, and plunged into the area inhabited by the Miao people.