Just after the fifth month of leap, 800 deserters, that is, deserters, were finally sent to the front. Zhang Xiaowu thought that some deserters would send it, but he didn't expect that 800 would come at once, not to mention that the barracks were not enough to live in, and even the prison cells were not enough to live in. He hurriedly asked Su Yu for help, Su Yu happened to build the room of the epidemic camp had just ended, so he took pictures of the craftsmen along the way, and temporarily changed all the prisons placed outside into wooden houses, and the craftsmen worked day after day to build more than a dozen wooden houses, which finally gave the fugitives a place to stay.

A fugitive is different from a prisoner, who is simply violating military rules, while a fugitive is fleeing from battle and should be beheaded on the spot. The crown prince's intention was naturally to behead, but Gu Junshi knew that killing 800 fugitives at a time would cause a sudden change in the morale of the army, so he gave the fugitives a chance to live, and escorted them to the Mucheng epidemic camp, and after some transformation, they were transferred back to the front line of Yashan.

There are many reasons for the large number of deserters, but they are generally caused by the confrontation for too long and the discouragement of the army.

The crown prince Xuanyuan Zixun, who commanded the Yashan camp, did not have much experience in commanding the army, and the Qinglong Legion needed to rely on the military advisor Gu Yong and deputy marshal Li Cunyi to maintain everything, Gu Yong led the fifth regiment, the twenty-fifth regiment, the twenty-sixth regiment and the twenty-eighth regiment to garrison the Jincheng camp, and Li Cunyi and the crown prince Xuanyuan Zixun led the first regiment, the second regiment, the third regiment and the fourth regiment to garrison the Yashan battalion. The Jincheng camp and the Yashan camp are horns and support each other, and jointly protect the Yajin granary in between.

Gu Yong only thought of using confrontation and consumption to drag down the opponent, but ignored many factors such as the Han army's expeditionary sergeants not adapting to the climate, water and soil of the northern part of the country, and the mosquito bites in the northern part of the country spread the epidemic, and the number of sick soldiers gradually increased, and the longing for the Central Plains deepened day by day. However, the confrontation lasted more than a year, and the morale of the Han army gradually declined.

During this period, in order to regain morale, Li Cunyi personally led his troops to fight with foreign armies several times, and there were mutual victories and defeats, but Tucheng was broken and slaughtered, and the whole regiment of the 27th Regiment served the country loyally, which made the morale of the front-line soldiers fall greatly. Gu Yong regretted it, he never expected that a defeat would cause the morale of the main force of the 200,000 people of the Blue Dragon Army to decline.

Gu Yong, the military advisor, was like a tinker, in order to save the morale of the army, he established a plague camp, and knew that he could not stop the deserters by killing, so he placed the fugitives in one place.

The fugitives originally thought that they would definitely die, but when they learned that they had been pardoned, they were immediately grateful, and they thought about treating Gu Yong as a living bodhisattva. The fugitives also heard that the Sixth Regiment would basically not go to the front line to fight, and repeatedly expressed their willingness to stay in the Sixth Regiment and help the front line as much as they could. It happened that the epidemic camp was expanded, and a large number of soldiers were urgently needed to take care of the wounded soldiers, so some fugitives reacted to Zhang Xiaowu and were willing to repay Gu Junshi for saving people.

Zhang Xiaowu suddenly couldn't cry or laugh, all the fugitives must be afraid of war, but if they only took care of the disabled robes, they would not have the heart to be afraid. He reported to Su Yu, and Su Yu chose hundreds of honest people from the escaped soldiers to fill the epidemic camp.

The fugitives who were transferred to the epidemic camp were quickly qualified for their new jobs, taking good care of their disabled comrades-in-arms, and Guan Xiang also specially asked Zhang Xiaowu what methods he used to make these fugitives so morale-friendly.

Zhang Xiaowu said in his heart that I use no method, I have no use for anything, they are all a group of people who are greedy for life and afraid of death, and they naturally love life very much.

The more than 400 fugitives left behind were all the kind of cheaters who wanted to leave or were unruly, and a quarter of them were battlefield veterans. At this time, the old pawns knew that they would not die, so they began to make trouble.

In order to control the fugitive, Zhang Xiaowu incorporated the prisoners into the Houdu team, and promoted some of the more capable people among the prisoners to serve as officers. The soldiers and prisoners of the Houdu team have long been integrated, and they have been reorganized into the Houdu team at this time, and the process can be said to be not generally smooth, especially after having a new thorn opponent, the Houdu team is even more up.

Zhang Xiaowu quietly deliberately set a trap, so that some of the fugitives thought that the defense of the epidemic village was lax and could escape at any time. So, a few old soldiers discussed in the middle of the night and escaped from the epidemic village while the garrison was unprepared.

Unexpectedly, as soon as these eight old soldiers went out, they saw a rain of arrows falling from the sky, and the eight people had been shot dead in less than 50 steps from the epidemic village. The screams of the eight old soldiers resounded for the whole night, and the next morning they were all dead. Zhang Xiaowu ordered the corpse to be transported to the epidemic village to be dried for everyone to see, and then sneered and said: "If you enter the epidemic village, you will not die, but if you escape from the epidemic village, you will definitely die." I don't care what he did or what he wanted to do, but the scope of your activities is only within the plague village, and after you get out of the wall, you will be dead. ”

Zhang Xiaowu asked the sergeant to bury the bodies of the eight people in the sand not far from the epidemic village, and the next morning, everyone found that the eight corpses had been dug out of the sand by animals, and only bones were left after eating.

Zhang Xiaowu approached the local herdsman and asked if he knew what animal ate the carcass, and the old herdsman looked at the wound before saying, "It's a hyena." ”

"Not a grass wolf?"

"No, the grass wolf only eats the animals it hunts, and the hyena eats carrion, and eats all kinds of carrion." "But hyenas are timid and don't provoke humans, so you don't have to worry about them attacking your camp." ”

Zhang Xiaowu was relieved, and then five more fugitives fled in the middle of the night, still chased and killed by Zhang Xiaowu, and after the body was brought back to the epidemic village, it was buried under the sand. However, this time, in order to prevent the corpse from being eaten by hyenas, he asked people to dig deeper, but suddenly found that there were black stones five feet deep under the sand, and he jumped into the pit to find that there was actually an open-pit coal mine here.

Zhang Xiaowu dug up the coal mine and asked the local people if they knew each other, and the locals called this black stone smoky stone, although the smoky stone can be burned, it can produce thick smoke, and the smoke is poisonous, and the local people rarely use it.

The smoky stone is an inferior coal mine, Zhang Xiaowu said that God treats me well, and actually found an open-pit coal mine around the epidemic village, although it is inferior coal with high sulfur content, but with this thing, heating in winter can be guaranteed.

"This general, you need to be cautious when using smoke stones, many Han people use it to warm their homes in winter, but they are killed by poisonous smoke." The local herdsmen admonished.

Zhang Xiaowu said that it was okay, the local Han people designed the import of earthen stoves in the house, and the smoke would naturally smoke themselves when burning, especially this kind of inferior coal with more sulfur elements is the most likely to cause poisoning. However, if the conservatory is separated from the house and a row of warm walls are built in the middle, the smoke can be emitted without affecting the lives of the soldiers, but some soldiers are needed to guard the conservatory, and coal is added from time to time.

The weather was still warm, the warm wall was not in a hurry to be built, and he didn't know if he would give up in the future, so he just made a simple design drawing.

Wang Yijin saw him sketching the design on the paper, studied it carefully and said, "Lord Duwei, what kind of landscape are you painting?" This painting makes you draw...... It's kind of like what I drew when I was eight years old. ”

Zhang Xiaowu glared at him, and Wang Yijin was busy and didn't dare to say anything more.