The land is dying. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

It is the season of winter wheat sowing, but when you look up, you can see that everywhere is scorched, the fields are dry and cracked, and the four fields are lifeless.

This is the territory of Suzhou, on the edge of Suishui.

“…… Woo, brother, wake up......"

The young girl's cry came, her voice weak and helpless.

Not far from the embankment was a pond, half-dry, black and stench of disgusting mud in the sun. The pond was covered with weeds, and a dozen paces away were the corpses of hungry people, all of them with thin limbs, gray faces, and dry like skeleton monsters.

The sound of whimpering and crying came from the edge of the pond, but I saw a seventeen or eighteen-year-old boy lying on the weeds by the pond, the young man was pale, his eyes were closed at this time, and he looked unconscious, and only his rather handsome face could be faintly seen.

Seeing that the young man is a scholar, although he is wearing a green shirt, his sleeves are narrow, he wears a soft foot hood, a cloak on his body, a scabbard and a dagger are hidden at his waist, and a snowy chopping knife is inserted in the side, and he does not seem to be an ordinary scholar.

Beside the boy, two children, one older and one younger, were kneeling and crying, seeing that these two children were not very old, a man and a woman, both of whom were only five or six years old.

The boy seemed to be older, a little calm and sensible, he cried for a while, and then comforted the girl in turn: "Ying'er doesn't cry, my brother will wake up." ”

The girl just sobbed and cried: "I...... I want my brother ......"

As if hearing the cries of his younger siblings, the young man suddenly groaned, and his pale face was even more painful, and it seemed to contain strong anger and unwillingness, and even Junxiu's face was distorted.

The boy was pleasantly surprised: "Brother is waking up?" ”

At this moment, suddenly there was a movement next to him, and immediately the two children, one big and one young, looked at each other, and sure enough, the weeds in the pond parted from the side, and two men staggered out.

The two children looked at the two men in horror, and saw that they were carrying sticks in their hands, and they were wearing shabby cotton clothes, which were black and full of holes, and they walked flutteringly, and they were obviously very hungry. The faces of the two of them were swollen, and it was difficult to see what they looked like, but their eyes were shining green, like evil wolves.

This is a manifestation of eating human flesh, and Ma Maocai wrote in "Preparing for the Disaster and Sparseness" in the first year of Chongzhen: "Even more strange, children and lone wanderers are even more nowhere to be seen when they go out of the city." Later, I saw that the people outside the door cooked human bones for wages, and cooked human flesh for food, and I knew that the people before me were all eaten by them. And the cannibal man will not be swollen in a few days, and he will die of heat and dryness......"

This is the act of exterminating humanity in the years of famine, and cannibalism, especially women and children, are the first victims.

The two children may not know so much, but seeing the two strange middle-aged men with bright eyes and hurrying with wooden sticks, they both keenly felt the danger, and both of them began to cry, and the girl shook the young man's body and cried bitterly: "Brother, wake up, wake up." ”

The two men staggered over, one after the other, with meaningless syllables of "hehe" in their mouths, salivating and drooling as they walked.

The closer they got to the two children, the more their swollen faces distorted, and their expressions of cruelty and greed were full of cruelty and greed.

The girl's crying became more and more terrible, and the boy also cried in horror, and when he saw the two men approaching him, he gritted his teeth and was about to pull out the sword beside the young man.

At this time, a man was not far from the boy, he hurried a few steps, raised the stick, and raised it high at the boy's head, and the boy was frightened, and looked at the eyes in a daze, only the helpless cry of the girl remained.

"Poof", at this moment, a long knife stabbed in front of the cannibal man, and the figure flickered, and the long knife with the sound of penetrating the flesh and bones, blood leaked out of his back, bringing out the blood splash of the canopy.

The man let out a long scream, his whole body trembled, and the wooden stick in his hand fell to the ground weakly with a dull sound.

The latter cannibal man paused suddenly, he looked in horror, only to see a young man with a cold expression draw a long knife from the man in front of him, and then stabbed it again.

The sound of a long knife piercing through his body again, and the man in front of him screamed, his body shaking like chaff, and large strands of blood poured out of his mouth.

The young man calmly pulled out the long knife from the man in front of him, let him fall to the ground weakly, and then looked coldly.

The latter cannibal man screamed, dropped the stick and turned to run, but he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, he was frightened and couldn't help but look, but saw the young man hurrying after him, he held a knife in both hands, and his eyes were cold and sharp.

Seeing that the young man was about to catch up, as soon as he turned around, he opened his mouth to say something, but when he saw the flash of the knife, blood splattered out, and the man's throat was slit, and the bloody wound was exposed. He threw himself on the ground, clasping his neck with his hands, struggling and writhing desperately on the ground.

The boy slowly approached his side, watching the cannibal man twitch incessantly, watching him scream silently, foaming blood spilling from his wounds.

After looking at it for a while, the young man stabbed down with a knife again, and stabbed in, the cannibal man raised his head violently and roared, his body shook violently, and he was stabbed in front and back, and then the long knife was pulled out, and the blood was sprinkled like a fountain.

The boy stabbed down again, he stabbed three times in a row, and the sound of flesh and bones being pierced was extremely penetrating, and finally the cannibal man remained motionless, and there was no more sound.

The boy turned his head, and there were some splatters of blood on his face, adding a bit of sharpness to his handsome face.

The two children had long been frozen, and all this was so cruel and sudden, that their young hearts could not bear it, and finally the two came back to their senses, and wept loudly, and threw themselves into the boy's arms.

The young man's expression turned soft, he also put the knife into the sheath, stretched out his hand to hug the two children, a man and a woman, tightly, and muttered in his mouth: "Ying'er, Qian'er, don't be afraid, my brother is here......"

……

Suishui originates from Henan, passes through Kaifeng Mansion, returns to Defu, flows through Nanzhili Fengyang Mansion, and finally flows into the Yellow River through Huai'an Prefecture Pizhou Suining County East.

At least before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the two banks of the river were still considered to be the anointed land of Fengyang Mansion, but after the Yellow River was full of water, the Yellow River frequently burst, and the downstream of Suishui was seriously silted. As a result of poor drainage, large areas of land along the river have become salinized.

This is the case with this section of the Sui River, especially on the north bank, which is lined with sand dunes, saline, and ponds and swamps.

The boy led the two children and walked on the bank of the river, and it can be seen that under the influence of the yellow flood, the terrain on both sides of the river is relatively high, especially the north bank is higher than the south bank.

It seems that in order to protect the river and the land on the south bank, the embankment on the other side of the river is completely closed.

The river bank that the young man walked at this time was not very far from the Fuli Bridge upstream, which was the main road to Suzhou, and it stands to reason that this area should be very prosperous, but when he looked at it, he was extremely desolate all around, and there was no village he saw that he did not give up.

Not only that, but there were also lodging starvations on the side of the riverbank path, each corpse was dry and thin, with deep eye sockets, and many of the dead bodies had been stripped of their clothes, revealing ribs and dry bodies.

The corpses that had been dead for a long time turned into yellow-black bones earlier, and all kinds of inexplicable bugs crawled in and out of the bones.

It's hell, it's shocking.

If it is placed in the future life, not to mention so many corpses, even a single lodging corpse will cause a huge shock.

"Since the eighth year, there have been many thieves and famines, and more than half of the people have died. In the eighth year of Chongzhen, the thieves were trapped in the capital, and tens of thousands of people were killed. Ten years, the thieves trapped Suining and attacked Xuzhou ......"

"In May and June of the 14th year, Henan Tukou Yuan Shizhong, gathered to 200,000 people, Jiangbei peeped at Fengsi, a group of thieves and ants attached, Governor Zhu Dadian defeated it, and the thieves abandoned the livestock and escaped. When Shandong was robbed, Shandong thieves Li Tingshi and Li Dingxuan fell into Gaotang Prefecture. ”

"In July, Lianggi, Shandong, Henan, Zhejiang, and Huhu were dry and rainless, and locusts covered the sky, and in August, Huizhou was in drought, and the price of rice was five taels of silver per stone. In September, Dongkou Yiblazing, Xu De thousands of miles, white bones are vertical and horizontal, and pedestrians are cut off. ”

These historical materials floated in the young man's heart, and every word was so shocking, this was the chaotic era at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the people were miserable.

There are many reasons for this, natural disasters are part of it, man-made disasters, bandits, bandits, and military rebellions, which have been raging on this land since the eighth year of Chongzhen.

It's just that the government doesn't care about the lives of the people, and even the officials force the people to rebel, and the rogues, warlords, and Tatars, what kind of goods are they?

Who is the real choice of the people?

"Brother, Ying'er is so hungry."

The girl's weak voice interrupted the boy's musings, and both children were well-behaved and starved as they walked downstream. However, the boy knew that he had to find something to eat for his younger siblings, otherwise they would definitely not be able to support him.

He picked up the girl and comforted her softly: "Ying'er, my brother will find you something to eat soon." ”

After comforting his sister, the boy looked around the wilderness, and everywhere was a withered yellow color, and the ground was full of cracks caused by drought, even the fields near the river.

The young man sighed, and an indescribable bitterness appeared on his face: "In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, my Yang He actually came to the Ming Dynasty in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, this is really a strange thing that has never been seen in the ages!" ”