Tiny drops of dew cut from the tips of the wet leaves, drop by drop, and fell on the damp mud, gently and softly revealing a finger-deep pit in the soft earth, and the crackling sound was quite abrupt in the quiet forest. Unexpectedly, a drop of dew hit the back of the neck, and the slippery coldness instantly pulled the dozing Lu Yue back to reality. He raised his head and looked around in confusion, the withered yellow leaves, the mixed vines, the occasional crow's chirping, everything in the forest was the slaughter of winter.

As his mind cleared, Lu Yue unconsciously became sour, and his swollen eyes surrounded by deep dark circles became moist, and his heart seemed to be stuffed with cotton, which was stuffy. He woke up again, and he wished he could be in Shicai's dreamless sleep and never wake up again. Or rather, he hopes that he is now experiencing a vivid nightmare, the end of the dream, and the hope of waking up.

He sat there for a moment, letting the back of his neck and the back of his lap be wet with the cold dew that came and went. A few dull crows chirped through the forest, followed by the chaos of birds flapping their wings and fluttering, Lu Yue's eyes were sluggish, staring at the ground in front of him, as if someone there was directing him to pull out the dagger from his waist.

"Uh-huh......"

The sharp blade cut a hole in the palm of his left hand, and immediately blood gushed like water, forming a red line. Lu Yue sat on the bluestone and leaned over to insert the dagger into the ground, slowly raised his left palm, and stared at the thin blood flowing down the edge of the palm like a snail and the gradual silting of the wound.

On the side of this new cut, there are two long cuts that have been scarred. Each one represents the death of one of Lu Yue's best friends in the Western Army.

Two plus one, three people who had spent time with him day and night, drinking and chatting, left him one after another, in this short period of two months. Three people, one died on the battlefield, and two committed suicide.

Lu Yue recalled the voices and smiles of his best friends, and the tears that he had been holding back for a long time instantly burst out uncontrollably, and they were wanton on his face. He is a dignified man in his forties, but now he is crying like a child. As soon as the thought turned, a face came to mind, and he was suddenly startled, and even tears came to an abrupt end at the same time. The owner of that face, Zhang Xianzhong, the commander of the Western Army, when he thought of him, Lu Yue would inevitably feel cold all over his body.

He felt that since the "Eight Kings of Xiying" was renamed "King of the West", Zhang Xianzhong, whom he admired in the past, was judged to be like two people.

No matter how depressed he was in the past, even when he was migrating in Jiangxi and Huguang, Zhang Xianzhong still gave him a feeling full of confidence and vitality. The ups and downs of life are commonplace, but at this moment, he can see that there is only the twilight of the end of the road around Zhang Xianzhong.

Zhang Xianzhong became more and more violent and cruel, and the strictness of the order and prohibition was far greater than before. Everyone sang the praises of Zhang Xianzhong's rigorous management of the army and his imminent comeback, but Lu Yue saw the weakness in his heart through Zhang Xianzhong's performance of opening his teeth and dancing claws.

In fact, when he was in Jiangxi, Lu Yue, who witnessed Zhang Xianzhong's hurried claim to the throne, faintly had worries, and the victory of successfully crossing Huguang into Sichuan and capturing Chongqing once made him think that his worries were superfluous, but he did not expect that the battle of Hejiang County was defeated, and then Zhang Xianzhong, who was trapped in the mountains and experienced miserable rains, made his worries completely come true.

Zhang Xianzhong, who was anxious to break through the shackles of southwest Sichuan after hibernation, changed his strategy of pacifying the people and surrendering since entering Sichuan, and solemnly ordered that from now on, every time he captures a place, he will plunder and kill at will regardless of his origin, until the army is transferred.

The strategy reversal is so much, Lu Yue was shocked when he heard it at the beginning, but he only said that there was a small trick to bewitch Zhang Xianzhong, but then he secretly inquired, only to know that Zhang Xianzhong thought that a lot of responsibility for the unfavorable war lay on the people of Sichuan.

After the defeat of Wang Shangli's Western Army, the soldiers and horses were scattered, except for Liu Jinzhong and Jin Tongwu, who gathered some remnants of the army to find the main force, most of the soldiers of the Western Army who entered Sichuan and were coerced to conquer were not heard from. Zhang Xianzhong was originally irritable, but when he was provoked again, he scolded "the Shu people are unrighteous", and he no longer trusted the soldiers from Sichuan.

The frustration of the army, the decline of the army, and the support of the Zhao Ying army, Zhang Xianzhong became more and more convinced that Sichuan was no longer a place to fall in love for a long time, and he had to choose another place.

To go to Yunnan or to Guizhou, there are many mountains in the western army, and there is no consensus. Zhang Xianzhong did not make a decision, so he carried out the preliminary preparations first, and ordered the newly recruited Sichuan soldiers and their families in the army to be cleaned up, leaving only the old brothers in Shaanxi, Jin, Henan and other places to form a pure horse army, so as to facilitate the flow of the army.

The Western Army recruited a large number of troops in Sichuan, which were eliminated overnight, and six or seven out of ten were lost. In order to completely solve the whereabouts of these Sichuan soldiers, especially to prevent them from being recruited by the Ming army, Zhang Xianzhong strung them in a row with thick ropes, whether they were old, weak, sick or disabled, and drove them to the river, and then bombarded them into the river with all kinds of artillery in the army. Countless swollen corpses floated on the surface of the river, which was as red as a sea of blood, blocking and cutting off the river.

This is not the end, because he was determined to completely abandon the plan to run Sichuan, Zhang Xianzhong reinstated the army to run the old business, fetch grain everywhere, and planned to leave Sichuan after the wall was cleared. Jiading Prefecture was hit hard, Qianwei, Rongxian, Weiyuan and other places were exploited back and forth, chickens and dogs were not left, if anyone dared to resist, immediately closed the door and executed.

When this series of measures is really implemented, it is far more severe than imagined. Even the generals of the Western Army are unbearable. Some people secretly connived at the people to be reported, and then they were subjected to military justice, and they and those involved were all chopped to death. Zhang Xianzhong wanted to use murder to establish authority, but there were still people who did not want to be slaughtered, so they simply absconded without permission, Zhang Xianzhong scattered the rangers to capture the deserters, and after they were caught, they were beaten half to death with a military stick, and then skinned to show the public. Under this high-pressure rule, many generals of the Western Army were mentally delirious, and later, some people "could not bear to be executed, and mostly passed by the road" and committed suicide to escape reality.

Lu Yue's two best friends died because of this. This morning, he and several soldiers searched the rocky beach by the river for the body of a close friend who had not been seen for two days. Even though he was mentally prepared, when he saw the stiff corpse of his best friend, his face was bruised, and his heart was still shaken.

He endured his emotions and brought his best friend's body back to the camp, and then made an excuse to touch the nearby mountains and old forests alone and meditate. It seems that only in this way can his torn heart be better.

The oozing blood slowly stopped at the wound, and Lu Yue picked up the dagger again and gently picked out a few protruding blood scabs.

The cold wind swept through the trees, and the thin grass and trees swayed, and he had just put the dagger back into his waist, when he heard someone walking on broken leaves. He held his breath and listened intently, and his footsteps stopped more than ten paces away. Then there was a long silence. Until the cold wind rose again, and a long howl ran through the gray forest, mourning and miserable.

"Ahh

"Ahh

"Ahh

Another man in the forest roared three times in a hoarse voice, but the simple tone was different each time, and his voice rose upward, as if driven by grief and anger, and was about to be pushed into the sky.

When Lu Yue heard this, suddenly a spirit jumped up, and hurried along the source of the sound. In the blink of an eye, in the open space among the bare lacquer trees, stood a man in armor, with one hand hanging empty, and the other holding a knife, the blade of which was lying across his neck.

"Lao Liu, what are you doing here!" Seeing this, Lu Yue rushed forward and snatched the knife with his hand.

The middle-aged man standing in front of him was Liu Jinzhong, the general of the Western Army.

Liu Jinzhong looked at Lu Yue in surprise, then lowered his head and quietly wiped away his tears. Lu Yue threw the knife more than ten steps away, and sighed: "Why, you can't think about it?" ”

"What can it be?" Liu Jinzhong raised his head and said with red eyes, "They are all brothers who were born and died with me, and if you say no, they will be gone." did not die in the battle formation, but they all died in the muzzle of their own people. ”

Although Liu Jinzhong was brave, he came out late in the Western Army, and Zhang Xianzhong rose very quickly after entering Sichuan, so he set up a new one-horse military camp called "Xiao Cavalry Battalion" outside the original elite cavalry battalion, and promoted Liu Jinzhong to be the main general. Most of the soldiers in this battalion are from Sichuan, and Liu Jinzhong, who was born in the Han Middle School of southern Shaanxi, is in Sichuan, so he is also half of Sichuan.

Zhang Xianzhong ordered the elimination of Sichuan soldiers in the army, and Liu Jinzhong had long lost the right to speak in the army because of the previous defeat in Hejiang County, and could only watch as many Sichuan officers and soldiers who were born and died with him were tied up like guinea sheep, and were crushed in the face of artillery in aggrieved ways, and fell into the surging river. If he imitated Lu Yue's behavior of drawing a hole with his best friend, Liu Jinzhong's fear would have been exhausted for the sake of his dead brothers.

"I ...... I really can't stand it......" Liu Jinzhong was a big man, and he couldn't cry when he landed, "Every time I close my eyes these days, I think of the looks of my brothers looking at me before they die, and they ...... They will be angry with me and hate me for being cowardly...... How can a person like me still lead troops in the future, and how can I still give promises to my brothers who follow me? Instead of being tortured like this, it is better to touch your neck and meet your brothers in Jiuquan, and it will not be in vain for your brothers! ”

Lu Yue was silent for a long time after listening to him. Liu Jinzhong said again: "This morning, I went to the big tent of the Chinese army to find the theory of the Western King...... Plead...... But when I got out of the tent, you said, "What did I see?" ”

"What?"

Liu Jinzhong's throat twitched, and his chest rose and fell: "I saw that the King of the West was slashing people with a knife, and the ones he cut were all his concubines in Sichuan. One by one, their feet were cut off, and they were piled up outside the tent door as if they were a bonfire, and the tent was full of flesh and blood, and the wailing was as terrible as a slaughterhouse. I didn't dare to say anything, so I just left. Alas...... Thinking about it now, it's still shocking. ”

"Crazy...... Lose your marbles...... King Xi is crazy......" Lu Yue closed his eyes and sighed. Although the discipline of the Western Army has always been poor, the generals in the army are all raised by their fathers and mothers, and they have some compassion. If we talk about killing, we mostly do it because of other things, and it is rare to see pure torture and killing. Zhang Xianzhong didn't mention killing the Sichuan soldiers, the Sichuan women who accompanied him were as soft as bones, where there would be any threat, but he still didn't let go, this kind of behavior is really not something normal people can do.

"Ever since the King of the West heard that Li Chuang was called king, something was wrong. Several drunken gaffes, they all shouted that Li Chuang looked down on him, others looked down on him, his self-proof heart was too serious, and the fashion was good, but now it has plummeted, and the gap in his heart must be irreparable, I am afraid that he will be sick because of this. Lu Yue opened his eyes and shook his head again and again.

Liu Jinzhong said gloomily: "Entering Sichuan is the last chance for our army, everyone is clamoring to go to Yunnan and Guizhou to resume a counteroffensive, but it can be called happy, and how many people really think they can succeed?" King Xi must also know that all this he is doing is just a trick for him to deceive himself. ”

The news that Zhao Ying had gathered more than 40,000 troops in Chengdu Mansion was well known to everyone in Xiying. The external situation is like this, and internally, Zhang Xianzhong's behavior is becoming more and more perverse, which can really be described as a dilemma at home and abroad.

"The King of the West is no longer the King of the West of the year." Liu Jinzhong sighed, full of loneliness, "I started from the army, and I am determined to die, and I am worthy of most of my life." ”

Lu Yue was silent for a long time, and said in a deep voice: "The King of the West has changed, but you and I have not changed." ”

At this time, a cold wind blew on his face, and the biting chill couldn't help but make Liu Jinzhong shiver for a while, and he inadvertently turned his head to look, but suddenly read a different meaning from Lu Yue's eyes.

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Note: The strategic diagram of the previous chapter and some previous operational diagrams have been uploaded to the Zongheng APP for reference.