Three months ago, when Fang Yuanheng sent 30,000 soldiers and horses south, the Rong people immediately found out about the matter, but they didn't know whether they were afraid of Fang Yuanheng or had other plans, and the Rong soldiers did not attack the remaining troops of Fang Yuanheng who were stuck in Artemisia Lu from the east and west.

Not only that, but the 40,000 Zhezhe army in Lingzhou, which was originally guarding the west of Artemisia, transferred 20,000 soldiers and horses to the south to prevent the Qin army from Qingyang and Qingshui from going north.

After Fang Yuanheng's entire army retreated, the remaining 20,000 Rong troops followed into the three counties of Artemisia, Luoshui, and Tianyu a week later.

What Zhezhe didn't expect was that the Qin county, which was originally extremely prosperous in the eyes of the Rong people, had already been devastated and purgatory on earth.

Everywhere there were ruins, corpses everywhere, and ordinary people starving to death and freezing to death in the streets and alleys.

If it weren't for the cold winter and heavy snowfall, maybe the plague would have broken out in these three counties.

Quite different from other Rong generals, Zhezhe got along with Xiao Jinxing for a long time, and he had some mysterious reverence for this Qin person.

Whether in daily life or in combat, he is willing to imitate Xiao Jinxing's style, and he is even more meticulous in the execution of Xiao Jinxing's orders.

Seeing the tragic situation in the three counties, at first Zhezhe thought that it was caused by the soldiers of his tribe or the rebellion of the rebels, and in a fit of rage, he ordered to find the murderer of the city immediately.

But then when he knew that this was Fang Yuanheng's Qin army, Zhezhe was stunned in disbelief.

Without waiting for the herald soldiers who went to the tooth tent to return, Zhezhe immediately mobilized a large amount of grain and grass from the counties of Lingzhou to relieve the people of the three counties.

At the same time, he sent troops to clean up the corpses and build shacks with the surviving civilians.

When these things were about a week later, Shan Yuya finally replied, and at the same time sent 20,000 reinforcements to join Zhezhe's army two days after the messenger arrived.

Zhezhe was surprised to find that although these reinforcements were all Qin, some of them were children under the age of twenty, and there were even more than a thousand burly women.

Through inquiry, it was learned that most of these people were poor people from the five counties of eastern Qindong and Lanlu County, and they had voluntarily joined the Great Xia army in order to protect the land they had acquired.

Zhezhe knew that since he occupied the counties of Lingzhou, he had distributed the land to the poor people according to Shan Yu's order, and nearly 20,000 people in the counties had joined the Great Xia army, but all of them were young men who had not served in the military.

Therefore, in contrast to the two, he didn't understand until this moment that Qin Lanjun had been ravaged by the war to the point of losing his youth.

The general of the 20,000-strong army was a commander who originally followed Xiao Jinxing, and he immediately conveyed Shan Yu's military order to Zhezhe.

The 20,000 troops that had been harassing the Qin army's logistics near Wonsan would arrive in Sanxian a week later to join Zhezhe. At that time, General Shan Yu waited for an opportunity to issue a military order to Zhezhe to counterattack Fang Yuanheng's army.

Before that, Zhezhe must rescue the people of the three counties at all costs and let them survive this long winter as much as possible.

After Zhezhe got the order, he estimated slightly, counting the upcoming 20,000 reinforcements, he would have 60,000 troops, although there were only 10,000 soldiers among them, but Zhezhe understood that these Qin people were not as indiscriminate as the indiscriminate servants on the other side.

In war, they will not value their lives for the sake of their land.

Fang Yuanheng's headquarters soldiers and horses, as well as those nightmarish Xuanjia cavalry, which had once made the Rong people fear, have also lost a lot in the past three months.

In the past three months, he has fought several battles with Fang Yuanheng's army on the border of Lingzhou and Qinlan, although each time it ended in his own defeat, but those Qin soldiers could not go any further and ask for anything, so Zhezhe's soldiers were already not afraid of those elite Qin soldiers.

Moreover, there are still 20,000 or 30,000 troops in Lingzhou who are stepping up their training, and the new troops in each county are ready to join the team of Zhezhe's attack at any time.

......

When he was lifting a charred roof beam with a Ganrong person in front of him, Lin Xu saw the four people pressed under the roof beam, they had long been lifeless, because the four people who had been burned charcoal black were all rolled into bows, and they were unrecognizable.

Only the small corpse under the three people told Lin Xu that these people were still trying to protect their children when they were dying.

Lin Xu didn't dare to look at it more, but there was no sadness on his face, because there were enough tears that had been shed, and the tears in his heart had long since dried up.

At the beginning, after the Qin army recovered Luoshui County, someone soon caught Lin Xu, who was the only one who was working in the county government.

Just as the Qin army was about to correct it, the surviving nobles all pleaded for Lin Xu's life.

It turned out that when the Rong people occupied it, Lin Xu protected these remaining nobles quite well, so that they did not suffer other injuries after the Rong people raided their homes, let alone let them lose their lives.

Although these nobles hated the Rong people to the extreme, they only respected Lin Xu, and in the days of the Rong occupation, if Lin Xu had not distributed the grain and cloth that the Rong people rewarded him, they would have frozen to death and starved to death.

The two life-saving graces made these dozen nobles unable to repay them, and finally waited until Lin Xu was in trouble, so they went out and gathered together to ask for Lin Xu's life.

Fortunately, the original Qin army was still quite able to explain the reason, and after listening to these nobles tell Lin Xu what he had done, he immediately let Lin Xu go.

Lin Xu also seems to have returned to the way he was when the Rong army had just occupied Luoshui, and he only reads and writes at home every day to pass the time.

This quiet day didn't take long, on a snowy night, the whole city suddenly sounded noisy shouts, these shouts began from the fourth gate of the county town and spread to the vicinity of Lin Xu's house.

Could it be that the Rong people are fighting back?

Didn't they only attack the grain teams near Zichuan and Ningdao?

Could it be that the Rong people in the north have broken through Artemisia County?

It's impossible, that's where General Zuo is stationed himself.

With a feeling of anxiety, Lin Xu walked out of his courtyard gate, and he saw that the whole county was already on fire everywhere, shining red and bright on the snowy night.

He saw a group of Qin soldiers looting grain, grass and property from house to house, and the surrounding neighbors were all spared, and the slightest disobedience was a slashing and killing.

Lin Xu didn't believe his eyes, he stood under the snowy moon, watching these Qin troops gradually come to his front.

Lin Xu didn't know where he got the courage, so he pointed at the Qin soldiers who came to his door and scolded, but those Qin soldiers seemed to be tired of killing, or the first time they saw people who didn't come to beg for mercy but dared to scold themselves, they all laughed, but they didn't embarrass him.

Seeing that the Qin soldiers moved all the grain and grass from their homes, and at the same time set fire to their own houses, Lin Xu couldn't scold anymore.

He looked at these Qin soldiers in a daze, and couldn't believe that it was his own compatriots who did the burning, killing and looting.

He kept saying to those Qin soldiers: "Kill me, kill me."

But those Qin soldiers looked like fools, laughing and leaving their burning home.

Lin Xu stood in the heavy snow all night, he seemed to be able to hear the sound of the Qin army's violence all over the county, he closed his eyes, but these sounds seemed to never stop, and they continued to burrow into his ears until the sun rose on the second day.

In the early morning of the second day, he was dragged to the county government by several neighbors, and wanted to ask the nobles of the county government to administer justice, but who knew that what they saw was an empty government office, except for the plaque on the government office that read "Mirror hanging" can vaguely prove that this is indeed the government office, there is nothing in this office.

But at this time, Lin Xu suddenly seemed to go crazy, and ordered these neighbors to quickly collect the homeless, and this mansion happened to be a place where they could take refuge.

The neighbors immediately understood Lin Xu's thoughts, and went to collect the people who had been freezing all night according to Lin Xu's request.

At the same time, Lin Xu also led some people to find the wooden beams and rafters on the ruined walls, and lit a fire in the county office.

The Lin family had already done a lot of business, and Lin Xu was appointed by the Rong people as the temporary acting county commander during the occupation of the Rong people, so although he was still very young, the people in the county saw that it was his call, so they concentrated towards the government office according to Lin Xu's request.

After leaving the county seat, the Qin soldiers went to the surrounding villages to continue plundering.

In the days that followed, only these homeless people in Luoshui County snuggled up to each other in the cold wind.

When the county government was full, Lin Xu went with others to find a ruined house that could be lived in, but the ruined house could not be found, so Lin Xu used wood to build a small shack that could be used to shelter from the wind and snow.

In addition to arranging for the people to look for wood for fire every day, Lin Xu also constantly searched for edible things buried in the ruins that the Qin army had not found at the beginning.

He couldn't find it, so he went to the places where every house had stored grain and grass to find rat holes, and he knew that in those holes, he might be able to find some food, and besides, rats were also something to eat.

Thanks to his efforts, bits and pieces of grain were found and found every day, and although the amount of grain was not too much, under his centralized management, the lives of the vast majority of the people were saved.

However, the vast majority are not all of them, and a large number of old and weak women, children, young children and babies are still freezing to death and starving to death every day.

It wasn't until the burning Chiyang Banner of the Rong army was planted on the head of Luoshui County again, and until some of the Qin people in the Rong army who had worked with Lin Xu found him, Lin Xu could no longer endure the mental and physical torture, and fainted after crying.

When he woke up, he did not refrain from the Rong people's request to let him continue to be the county commander, and he personally went to the streets every day to help the people of Luoshui rebuild their homes together with these exotic barbarians.

On this day, after Lin Xu and the Rong people carried out the bodies of a family of four pressed under the roof beams, he watched numbly as the Rong people carried the corpses onto the carriage, and the carriage was full of such corpses, stacked on top of each other.

The bodies were to be transported outside the city for burial.

Seeing the deep ruts left by the thick snow that the carriage "creaked", Lin Xu took off the official hat on his head and wiped the sweat beads on his forehead with his hands.