There is a weak cicada chirping

On the winding narrow road between the low and unnamed mountains, a team with a lot of livestock was slowly marching, but the atmosphere that seemed lifeless was a little oppressive, and there was not much head-to-ear talk or shouting between the elongated and deformed queues.

Sitting on a bumpy ox cart, Zhou Huai'an was also slowly reminiscing about what had happened before, and it had been three days since their small team was hiding in Tibet and avoiding it when they rushed out of Shixiang Town.

At the beginning, taking advantage of the chaos of the nearby Xishan Wild Attack, he decisively decided to take away the righteous soldiers and men who were still willing to obey and follow him with the assistance and call of Lao Guan, and bring them back to the storage yard where they were staying;

Then, in the midst of panic and confusion, he tried to take most of the horses and mules on standby and some carts that had been packed, and then broke out of the melee in the other direction where he had not yet met the enemy.

Thinking of this, Zhou Huai'an couldn't help but glance at Lao Guan, who was also discouraged and unspeakably tired, and seemed to feel a little sympathetic; It seems that the friendship and tacit understanding of men who have carried the robbery together have inadvertently been inadvertently cultivated in the process of fighting side by side.

Then he couldn't help but sigh again, there were only one hundred and sixty-seven people left around him; Most of them were local recruits who were recruited one after another; The rest of the old soldiers and regular pawns were only a dozen or so soldiers who obeyed Lao Guan's orders at the beginning, plus most of the archers of the archery team directly under Deputy Lieutenant Lu.

It can be said that Zhou Huai'an, as the person in charge of the whole process of statistics, this time the Angry Wind Battalion came out of the sentry grain group after team of people, plus half of the number of miscellaneous servants, as well as the new soldiers recruited and supplemented along the way, there are more than 1,700 people, and only less than one-tenth of the survivors are left.

And being able to rush out of the chaotic Shixiang Town is only the beginning, after temporarily getting out of danger and crisis, soon some people continue to fall behind and slip away, especially those people and new pawns; After all, there is always a lack of people who feel good about themselves, feel that the goal of following the brigade is too obvious, and they have the confidence and confidence to escape back to safety.

Or they have other motives and purposes. For example, the fire captain of a sentinel team resolutely refused to believe that the situation in Sihui County had been speculated and judged, and insisted on going to rendezvous and looking for possible reinforcements to rescue these comrades who were trapped in Shixiang Town. Then I can only gather and scatter while scolding my mother in my heart, and on the other hand, I sincerely wish each other a safe journey and all my wishes come true.

However, just like the basic principles and metaphysical probabilities of some kind of good and not bad spirits,

Then in the chance encounter the next day, Zhou Huai'an saw these active detached people one after another, and hung upside down on the side of the road after being tortured and tortured, and the miserable corpses; Finally, it was nailed to a broken wall, and the eyes, nose, and ears of the leader were gone, leaving only a bloody outline of the head, which was still recognizable by the more familiar robe and physical features.

Therefore, the remaining miscellaneous people are the most staunch followers of Zhou Huai'an in a short period of time; And in the run-in of extreme events, a certain preliminary division of labor has been formed.

The equipment and baggage left in Shixiang Town were also lost, but most of the livestock and animal power, as well as a small number of high-value and portable items, were brought out in the chaos; Therefore, along the way, it was able to persist by relying on the surplus number of livestock to travel and carry it, which doubled as a supplement for meat.

However, before arriving at the first two stops in Shixiang Town, someone had already sent someone to escort away a batch of materials for the return journey, so the final loss this time did not exceed one-fourth to one-fifth of the expected; It's just that the incense medicine collected by Zhou Huai'an in the local area and the pharmaceutical plan prepared by Zhou Huai'an were completely ruined.

Not to mention that the materials that were easy to sort and sort out were lost, and only two of the more than 20 craftsmen recruited on the spot followed him to the end;

In contrast, the group of hunters and mountain people recruited along the way were more adaptable and performant, and no one was left behind and escaped, but they could also take turns to act as a peripheral observation and front sentry when everyone stopped to rest.

It can be said that under the pressure of survival and the atmosphere of collective survival, any expression of dissent and noise of different thoughts will be rejected and suppressed to a minimum by the majority of people. At least under Zhou Huai'an's leadership, their losses can be said to be a negligible result;

Thanks to the relative effectiveness of the preparatory measures, coupled with a certain ability to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages; Therefore, except for a few wounded who died of serious injuries and were hastily buried, there has been no further attrition of this exhausted team since the day before yesterday.

The only battle that could not be avoided was a temporary checkpoint set up by the barbarians on the way back to Guangzhou. Although it seemed that there was only a small leader with bird feathers on his head and a dozen unclothed native soldiers inside, it was on the top of a condescending slope that was quite good at the time.

As a result, after the initial approach, the first round of sneak attacks launched under the cover of bow and arrow shooting were killed or put into most of them in one shot; Then the remaining two passbooks did not flee on the spot or recklessly counterattack, but shouted and roared loudly on the spot.

Then the people who rushed up found that behind the slope, there was actually a group of barbarians who came out of the mountains and forests, so they had to rely on a few logs to form a simple level, turning the improvised sneak attack into a sudden positional battle.

In the end, the result and the price of breaking through this obstacle was the abandonment of some of the superfluous burdens, and the addition of twenty or so wounded places on the stretchers carried by donkeys and mules, as well as a large swarm of flies and insects that could not be buzzed and gathered.

Suddenly, there was a rapid sound of birds in front of me, indicating that the outpost spies had made a discovery; Immediately, Zhou Huai'an rode a mule to check,

The trail that winds between the hills seems to have come to an end here, and behind the scrub-covered mounds, a babbling river and large fields overgrown with weeds are revealed.

And not far from the field is a small ferry, Zhou Huai'an still vaguely remembers that this is the place they once passed, and even if their team crashed towards the southeast, they found a familiar way back again.

It's just that this ferry has been planted with ochre flags, and many people have crossed the river on bamboo rafts and wooden rafts, pulled by ropes.

Then, in the midst of the shrill chirping, I saw that among the dense reeds by the river, suddenly stood up a large number of armed men wearing the peculiar hats of the Tutuan soldiers, and while shooting arrows and waving weapons, shouting and roaring, they surrounded the narrow and cramped ferry.

"Go and call the team."

Zhou Huai'an's face couldn't help but change.

"Get ready, we're going to take it on the front."