In the blink of an eye, in late February, the bandit 'Yidou Valley' did not come, and the atmosphere in Qili Village was relatively relaxed. After a while, the seeds can be sown, and in any case, as long as the grain is planted, people will have some confidence in their hearts, so that they will not feel panic and despair.

The field in the distant county king's house had been eaten up by locusts, and the tenant farmers there had fled, and at least until now, no one had been sent to manage the land, so the deep well there was for the time being. There is also a little south of the grange of the Zhou Wangfu, which was also eaten clean by locusts, and the harvest was certain, and the tenants also ran away. Although the small river there can only be flooded to the instep, there is still some water, and a few days ago, Li Yangang took people to silt a pond, and then store some water first. As for the downstream, when there is such a big drought, you can only take care of yourself first.

In the afternoon of that day, groups of hungry people began to appear on the road, helping the old and the young, and some of them were driving large carts with household belongings and ragged clothes heading north.

"Fellow, where are you from?" Wang Dejiang asked on the side of the road.

An old man sitting on the wheel replied, "Taikang's." ”

"You should always be a big family, why did you escape?" Wang Dejiang continued to ask.

The old man stopped the car and said helplessly: "Brother, give saliva to drink, along the way, water is as precious as food." ”

Wang Dejiang asked his son, who was with him, to get water, and then asked, "Are you going to Kaifeng?" ”

The old man nodded and replied, "The locusts cover the sky and the sun, and eat the winter wheat cleanly." Those hungry people who had no food borrowed food everywhere, and then began to rob it, and their homes were guarded day and night, but the courtyard walls were still opened. Alas, the family business that has been saved for generations, these things are left. As he spoke, he patted the cabinets, bedding, and boxes tied to the car. Then he said: "There is no choice, we can only escape." ”

"We've eaten up the locusts here," Wang Dejiang pointed to the bare fields and sighed: "If it weren't for Li Gongzi, we would have fled the famine just like my brother." ”

"Li Gongzi?" The old man asked.

Wang Dejiang pointed to Li Yan, who was wearing a cyan robe on the edge of the stockade, and said, "That's Li Gongzi." Without him, we would have died long ago. ”

"Good man. Then, can the old man meet Li Gongzi? The old man immediately asked. He felt that since Li Gongzi was a good person, he would have the opportunity to convince this good man and give his family a bite to eat, which was better than escaping the famine like this.

Wang Dejiang was not stupid, shook his head with a smile, and said, "Brother, drink some water quickly, so that you can hurry." Li Gongzi is now also a mud bodhisattva crossing the river - it is difficult to protect himself, even if he has the heart, he has no strength. We are greatly favored by Li Gongzi, so we can't cut off the flesh on Li Gongzi's body, right? ”

The old man understood the meaning of Wang Dejiang's words, although he was very unhappy, but he is now a phoenix that has fallen into the grass and is not as good as a chicken. I had to keep my mouth shut and start pouring water. After drinking enough, he filled a few gourds, bowed his hand to Wang Dejiang, and continued to follow the hungry people's team north.

Two days later, another group of hungry people came along the way, but this time the hungry people did not have the dignity of the previous two days, all of them were yellow and thin, and they were all carrying wooden sticks, slowly moving forward. But the two dozen or so people who dragged behind were all men, with sticks in their hands, but they were not used to walk, but as weapons.

A woman holding a child moved forward slowly, the child in her arms kept crying, and her voice was hoarse.

"Okay, okay, take my daughter, right?" The woman handed the child to a middle-aged woman standing on the side of the road and said weakly, "Just give me something to eat." ”

The middle-aged woman is Zhang's sister-in-law from Qilizhai, whose daughter was killed by bandits in infancy, and she was also robbed here. This child, who kept crying, reminded her of her daughter, so she took the child over in a daze.

"I'll go get food." Qiu Niang, who was beside Sister-in-law Zhang, said a word, and immediately ran back to get multigrain cakes.

The woman knelt down for Sister-in-law Zhang, kowtowed twice, and said, "Thank you, sister-in-law." My daughter will be a daughter to my sister-in-law. ”

Sister-in-law Zhang didn't answer, still looking at the baby with tears in her eyes. The child was still crying, obviously very hungry. She didn't speak, turned around and walked towards the village with the child in her arms, Wang Dejiang's second daughter-in-law was also breastfeeding the child, she went to find the daughter-in-law of the Wang family to breastfeed the child.

"Sister-in-law, you haven't given me anything to eat! Don't go! The woman shouted loudly and chased. Her shouts alarmed many people, including the two dozen men. One of the lean fellows seemed to be the leader, and with a shake of his head to the crowd, he slowly leaned in the direction of the woman.

"Don't worry, don't worry, the cake is here." Qiu Niang walked over with a few cakes, pickles and water, and shouted loudly.

The woman stopped, looked at the cake in Qiu Niang's arms and wanted to swallow, but there was not even a little saliva in her thirsty mouth. She quickly ran towards Qiu Niang, no longer caring about her daughter's whereabouts.

Qiu Niang handed the cake to the woman and said, "Here you go, you eat slowly, these are all yours." ”

The woman gobbled it up, choking and rolling her eyes. Qiu Niang patted her on the back and fed her water to drink.

By this time some of the hungry had already approached them. These hungry people stared at the cakes in their hands one by one, stumbling like walking corpses, but they walked towards Qiu Niang and them unstoppably.

"Quick, go, into the stockade." Qiu Niang saw the hungry people coming around, so she immediately dragged the woman who was still desperately stuffing the cake into her mouth and ran towards the village.

The gang of two dozen men suddenly rushed out from behind, pushing the stumbling hungry people down, and then they quickly chased after Qiu Niang and the others. These days, they rely on the strength of the people to snatch food from the mouths of the hungry people, so their physical strength is much better, and the speed is much faster than that of the hungry people who have been hungry for several meals.

Qiu Niang saw that she was about to be caught up by those people, so she shouted loudly: "Brothers, come and help!" I'm Qiu Niang. ”

The two soldiers standing guard at the gap in the trench had already seen what was happening there, but Li Yan's instructions to them were to guard the gate and not let the hungry people enter the stockade. Since the hungry people are outside, they don't have to care. Now that the people in their village are being chased by the hungry people, they have to go out and save people. They have also been hungry, and they know that if people are hungry, they can do anything.

But their mission was to guard the gates, and they could not leave their posts without permission, so one of the soldiers immediately began to ring the gong. This is a signal that the stockade is under attack, and as soon as the gong is sounded, the soldiers in the stockade will immediately come to reinforce it.