"Dada-da-da!"

There was a sound of horses' hooves in the depths of the bamboo forest, and Wang Yuan and the others immediately became vigilant and reined in to observe the situation.

Suddenly, a ride came out of the bamboo forest, dressed in a turquoise uniform. The color of the clothes blends in with the bamboo forest, and if you dismount and sneak into the grass in the forest, you can easily hide your tracks, which is probably equivalent to the ancient camouflage costume.

"Uncle Friday!" Li Ying shouted happily.

"Phew!"

Uncle Friday suddenly whistled, and soon the sound of horses' hooves sounded again in the woods. He stood on horseback and asked, "Li Sanlang, why did you come here?" ”

Li Ying pointed at Song Ling'er: "I escorted the daughter of the Song family to Beiya." ”

"Confused!"

Uncle Friday said: "Go back quickly, Beiyazhai and Yunjinzhai have been surrounded by thieves." ”

Song Ling'er said nervously: "Is my father okay?" ”

"Master Song is fine, maybe he is drinking with his concubine in Beiya." Uncle Friday sneered disdainfully, obviously despising Fat Song.

"It's okay." Song Ling'er ignored the other party's attitude and tone.

Li Ying asked, "Uncle Friday, what's the situation in Beiya?" ”

Uncle Friday said: "There are at least tens of thousands of thieves, and half of them are fully armoured. They also captured the Song family's horse village, which now has a cavalry of 1,000 people. The Song family's troops in Beiyazhai and Yunjinzhai can have three or five thousand, and it is more than enough to defend the village, but they definitely dare not go out of the village to meet the enemy. ”

While he was talking, three more horsemen rushed in the bamboo forest, all of whom were spies sent out by the official army.

Uncle Friday said: "Li Sanlang, we are going back to report the military situation, you must not get too close to the north." ”

"I know, thank you Uncle Friday." Li Ying arched his hand.

Wang Yuan looked at the figure of the official and military spies in the distance, and said with emotion: "This guard house in Guizhou seems to be really abandoned." ”

Li Ying's face was embarrassed, and he forcibly excused himself: "Not only Guizhou, the entire Ming Dynasty's guards have been abolished." ”

The number of troops stationed in Guizhou City is 15,000, and there are several guards guarding the main roads nearby, adding up to more than 20,000 people in the front and back.

Even if only a tenth of the fighting force remains, it is two thousand.

And the two stockades of the Song family still have three to five thousand troops.

The Miao rebels besieging Beiya and Yunjin are said to have tens of thousands of troops, but they can really fight at most five or six thousand. Moreover, it is a rebel army that has just been revealed, and its morale may be very high, but the degree of organization is absolutely pitiful, and there are even many factions among each other.

If the general soldier Li in Guizhou City went out of the city with the elite to raid, and cooperated with the fat man of Beiya, he would definitely be able to kill the rebels.

It's a pity that General Li didn't dare to take the initiative to go out of the city to meet the enemy, and An Fatzi also hid in Beiya as a shrinking turtle, and let a group of rabble show off their power there.

Wang Yuan and the four of them marched forward on horseback again, and soon passed by a village.

This is a Han village, where all the families of the avant-garde military families in Guizhou are inhabited - the Daming Guardhouse system, which not only has military land for cultivation, but also often has private land for military families. Especially in the border areas, it is equivalent to the military tun and the people's tun working together, so that the military households can live and work in peace and contentment in the area where they are stationed.

Wang Yuan's father, Wang Quan, used to live in this village, but the Wang family's private land had been encroached upon by military officers.

This is a very nonsense thing, the officer and the Wang family are enemies, the Song family is an enemy with the Qingzhai family, it stands to reason that Wang Yuan should join the rebels.

Why not join the rebels?

Just look at what you see.

The houses in the village have been set on fire by the rebels. The villagers who didn't have time to flee were also slaughtered by the rebels, and many corpses could still be seen between them.

It's just that these rebels kill people for no reason, and they don't even know how to collect corpses, and they are not afraid of causing a plague or something.

Wang Yuan rode through the village on horseback, his whole face expressionless.

Not far in front of him, an old woman lay on her stomach with two huge wounds on her back. And under the old woman, the body of a child was hidden, and the neck was cut to a layer of skin that implicated the body.

Before the rebels rose up, they were exploited by the toast and were absolute victims; At the beginning of the rebel uprising, they belonged to the rebel army with a spirit of resistance, and there was no need to be harsh.

But at this moment, the rebels have turned into tigers and wolves, leaving no chickens and dogs in their passes. They killed the young and the old, the young and the strong, robbed the women and the money and food, and discussed the law, reason, and feelings...... The rebels are damned!

In ancient times, never believe in any rebels. Before Zhu Yuanzhang captured Nanjing, he had been relying on grabbing grain to maintain the supply of the army, and the military discipline was good just that he didn't kill indiscriminately when grabbing grain, but if you robbed the people's grain, didn't others still starve to death? His hometown of Haozhou (Fengyang) was repeatedly tossed by the warlords, almost turned into a blank slate, and for several years he was in a state of ownerlessness, and even the thieves did not bother to occupy the state capital.

"This is war," Wang Yuan asked in a cold tone, "Do you still think about war all day long?" ”

Song Linger was silent, her romantic fantasy about the war was too different from the cruel reality, and she had lost her ability to think for a while.

Li Ying was also sulking in his stomach, he suddenly turned over and dismounted, and said to his scholar: "Ah Zhong, come down and collect their corpses!" ”

Wang Yuan and Song Ling'er also went to help, but they couldn't find a hoe to dig a pit, and it was estimated that the iron farm tools were all snatched by the rebels. They carried the corpses together, piled up firewood and burned them, and finally packed the ashes into broken clay pots, which may have been used by the villagers to store rice and grain, and were now scattered around the village.

This is not considered to be a frustration of bones and ashes, and cremation has already become popular in the Ming Dynasty.

The "Da Ming Law" stipulates: "If the descendants cannot be buried and burned in a distant place, they will obey their convenience." ”

When they die in other places, they are basically cremated, and then they take their ashes home for burial.

At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang also banned local cremation, and only allowed the deceased to be cremated in other places. But when Zhu Di came to power, he reported the local situation according to the imperial history, and there were no more than ten burials in Fujian. By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the frequent flow of population and the flourishing and spread of Buddhism, cremation has become popular at the bottom of society, and there is also a special corpse burning profession called "fire family".

It took two hours to collect the corpses of the villagers.

The four of them washed their hands and ate some dry food, and then continued to march towards Beiya.

They no longer dared to ride their horses, for fear that the sound of hooves would attract the attention of the rebels, so they only led their horses forward very cautiously.

Fortunately, there are bamboo forests everywhere in the wild, which is convenient for them to hide their tracks, and the horse's hooves will not make too much noise when they step on the bamboo leaves on the ground.

It is two or three miles away from Beiya, and the vicinity is full of farmland.

These are the clan fields of the Song family, which are usually handed over to serfs for farming, and there is even a house dedicated to serfs.

The houses had not been demolished, there were no killings, and most of the serfs had defected to the rebels. In the fields were the tents of the rebels, and the smoke rose from the cooking, and the rebels seemed to be cooking on a fire.

The four of them hid at the edge of the bamboo forest, and Wang Yuan observed for a while and said, "I can't get through, the passage into Beiya is full of thieves." ”

Li Ying sneered disdainfully: "These bandits don't know how to fight at all, they don't even cut down the bamboo forest near the camp, and they don't send light cavalry to cut off the Quartet. If I have a thousand soldiers and horses, I will ambush them here and attack them at night, and I will kill these bandits!" ”

"Third master, there shouldn't be tens of thousands of natives here." Li Ying's scholar said.

Wang Yuan, who had studied in Beiya for two years, was very familiar with this place, and explained: "Beiyazhai is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and in the mountains to the north, there is also a road leading to Yunjinzhai. If these thieves want to attack Beiyazhai, they must besiege Yunjin Village at the same time, and the division of troops is certain. Now that the Song family has gone all out, I am afraid that it will not be easy for twenty or thirty thousand people to break through. Let's go, Ling'er, your father is not in danger, let's not think about the past. ”

"Look over there!" Song Ling'er pointed to the foot of the mountain to the east.

There were many women looming there, escorted out by the rebels, with their hands tied and strung together. In addition, there are mules and horses, loaded with goods, walking ahead.

Wang Yuan guessed: "The thieves are estimated to be withdrawing from the siege, they are not stupid, although there are countless treasures and goods in Beiyazhai, they can't be defeated in a short period of time, it is better to transfer troops to capture other places." This is the transfer of the looted women and property in advance, and the whole army will be withdrawn tomorrow, at most the day after tomorrow. ”

Li Ying's eyes lit up suddenly, and he said excitedly: "I will go back to report to my father, set up an ambush in the mountains in advance, and I will definitely wipe out these thieves!" ”