The bow of the Anjiang gently pushed the river water away and continued its upward journey against the Yangtze River. The morning breeze blew www.biquge.info white sails, and also blew the green shirt on Zheng Sen, who was standing at the stern. At this time, although the eastern sky has shown a touch of crimson, but the sun has not yet come out, although it is already sunny and March, but at this time it is the period of the Xiaoice River, and it is still very cold in the early morning.

"What is Childe looking at?" A voice rang in Zheng Sen's ears, and at the same time, a bright red splendid cloak was gently draped over Zheng Sen's shoulders.

Zheng Sen didn't look back, just stretched out his hand and held the hand that was helping him tie his cloak and said, "I always get up early in the morning, and I don't have anything to do, so I come and wait for the sunrise." In the morning, the wind is strong on the river, and your hands are cold. What are you doing in the bow of the ship when you're not in the cabin? ”

Childe also knew that the river was cold, but he didn't even put on a cloak, so he ran to the bow of the boat. But it makes people ......"

Zheng Sen listened and said with a smile: "Xiangjun, my body is not comparable to you. You see, I didn't wear a cloak just now, but my hands were hotter than when you just came out of the cabin. Just looking at this, say that I just came out, and you have been standing here for a long time, it is more like something. ”

Zheng Sen said as he turned around. At this time, the first rays of light finally shone through, reflecting Li Xiangjun's little face and hastily combed sideburns slightly red. Seeing Li Xiangjun's hair swaying gently in the morning breeze, he let go of the hand holding her hand, stretched it over, stroked it gently, and said, "It's cold outside, let's go in first." ”

"Isn't Childe going to see the sunrise?" Li Xiangjun asked.

"The sunrise is not interesting to watch every day." Zheng Sen held Li Xiangjun's hand again and said, "Your hands seem to be a little cold again, let's go in, no matter which one of you and me on the road, if you are sick, it will be inconvenient." ”

Li Xiangjun didn't speak, just nodded. Zheng Sen took her hand and walked towards the cabin. At this time, he saw Huan'er holding a hand stove, and hurriedly came out of the cabin and said, "Miss, your hand stove." ”

"Huan'er, we're going in. You don't have to be in such a hurry. Zheng Sen smiled, but he didn't let go of Li Xiangjun's hand. A few people entered the cabin, and Zheng Sen said: "Xiangjun, let's go and sit in your cabin, just so you can ask Huan'er to brew the tea leaves that Mizhi gave us and give us a taste." ”

Li Xiangjun's cabin was next to Zheng Sen's cabin, separated only by a wooden plank. The Yasue was designed as an inland river warship, and the design was designed with more consideration for navigation and defensive performance, and relatively speaking, comfort had to be sacrificed. For example, making the cabin significantly higher than the side of the ship will increase the resistance, which is obviously not conducive to increasing the sailing speed, and opening large windows in the cabin is obviously not good for improving defense, plus the large living compartment obviously compresses the space for storing materials or something, so although the cabin provided to Zheng Sen and Li Xiangjun is the best cabin on the ship, if compared with the cabin of the painting boat that Li Xiangjun often rents on the Qinhuai River, the conditions are still one heaven and one underground.

For example, both cabins are half-buried below deck, and the windows are small, so it is always dark inside. Now the sun had risen from the stern, and the crimson sun was shining on the small windows in the cabin, illuminating the white window paper red, but it was still dark in the cabin. It wasn't until Huan'er lit the whale oil lamp that the cabin was a little brighter.

"Zheng Gongzi, miss, sit down and wait for me to see if the water is boiling." Huan'er said and walked out.

"This ship was originally not inhabited, but I was blindly greedy and chose this ship, but it is hard for you." Zheng Sen looked at Li Xiangjun and said.

Li Xiangjun sighed and said: "Son, you are the son of a daughter, but you can also take this boat, how can a slave not be able to take this boat." Besides, on this ship, no matter what, it is well fed and warm, and it can still be ...... Compared to those...... I really don't know how strong it is. Speaking of which, if I hadn't met my son and didn't come out for a walk, I really didn't know that the world had reached such a point...... In the past, I was only in Jinling, and I saw all kinds of prosperity every day, but I didn't know ......"

Zheng Sen knew what Li Xiangjun was talking about, since he left Tongcheng, returned to the boat, and went up the river, he saw a lot of homeless people along the way. Yesterday, Zheng Sen took out the Zheng family's homemade clairplane, originally to show Li Xiangjun the scenery, but he didn't want Li Xiangjun to look at the shore casually, and he could see corpses everywhere that no one buried, and most of the corpses were incomplete, obviously gnawed by wild dogs or something. was so frightened that Li Xiangjun lost her face and almost fell off the boat.

"I've heard a lot of people talk about this before." Zheng Sen said in a low voice, "Actually, I have also read Wei Wu's "Artemisia Lixing" before, 'The white bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no rooster crow for thousands of miles. The people are left behind, and the thought breaks people's intestines. I used to read it, but if I really want to say that I have seen it with my own eyes, it is the first time...... We are so desperate for warm and moist land...... For the first time, I felt that external expansion was so necessary and urgent...... Be sure to break this cycle......"

Li Xiangjun actually didn't understand what Zheng Sen said later, and she also knew that Zheng Sen's words were not actually said to her, he was just talking to himself.

At this time, the door opened gently, and Huan'er walked in with a tea tray: "Zheng Gongzi, Miss, please use tea." ”

Huan'er's appearance interrupted Zheng Sen's musings, and he smiled and picked up his teacup.

"Probably tomorrow at noon, we will be able to go to Wuchang. When I'm done, I'll accompany you to the Yellow Crane Tower. Zheng Sen said.

……

The cabin was always a little stuffy, so when it was almost noon, it gradually warmed up, and Zheng Sen and Li Xiangjun went up to the foredeck together. The foredeck was where the guns were to be installed, but now the guns are not installed, so it is relatively empty.

Li Xiangjun saw that Zheng Sen didn't seem to be in high spirits, and knew that it was because she accidentally mentioned the matter of those displaced people who died on the road in the morning. changed the topic and asked Zheng Sen about Tessie's music. To be honest, Zheng Sen doesn't know anything about real Tessie music, and the messy tunes in his head, even if they are really European tunes, are far from appearing at this time. Even Bach will not be born until a few decades later. But it's always a pleasure to listen to Li Xiangjun sing, at least for the time being, Zheng Sen can stop thinking about other messy things.

Li Xiangjun had just finished singing a song, but on the starboard side, there was a thick smoke rising in the distance, which was particularly conspicuous under the clear sky?

"What's that? Is it where the water goes? Li Xiangjun noticed that Zheng Sen had seen the thick smoke, so he asked.

"I don't know, maybe it's just burning." Zheng Sen said, "After a while, the boat will go around the woods, and you should be able to see it." ”

The Anjiang continued onward, bypassing the woods, and everyone immediately saw that the fire was not a wasteland, nor a house or two, but an entire village.

"Where's my telescope?" Zheng Sen said.

"Childe, here." Zheng Fu hurriedly handed over the binoculars.

"Let the boat get closer, and we'll see if we can help?" Zheng Sen said as he reached for the binoculars.

"Okay, Major General." Captain Cha also replied.

Zheng Sen raised the binoculars, and in the binoculars, he could see that there was no one to put out the fire in the burning village, as if the entire village was missing.

"Could it be that the whole village has fled the famine?" Zheng Sen thought this at first, but he immediately realized that the idea was unreliable. Because if there is no one in the village, how did the fire start? If there were people in the village, it might have been caused by careless use of fire, but if the whole village had fled, there would be no such thing. When people fleeing the famine leave, they always have the expectation or fantasy that they will return one day. So they will leave the house here, but will not light a fire themselves to burn it down. Along the way, Zheng Sen saw a lot of empty villages, and the houses in these villages collapsed a lot because no one took care of them, but he had never seen the whole village burn like this.

Zheng Sen took a closer look, and he found that the houses burned almost exactly the same at least where he could see clearly through his telescope. This means that the houses were on fire almost simultaneously, or at least from a dozen or so ignition points at the same time.

"It's arson! And it was a group of people who set fire almost at the same time! Zheng Sen immediately made such a judgment.

"Burning like this, this should be the result of a group of people setting fire to the village at the same time." Captain Cha spoke.

"Who would do that?" Li Xiangjun frowned.

"Who knows? Maybe it's the grass robber who occupies the mountain as the king, maybe it's the rogue coward, although Zhang Xianzhong seems to have just suffered a defeat and ran to Sichuan, but now there are rogue people all over the place, who knows if there are new rogue bandits flowing over. I've heard that one of the most common tactics used by the rogues to coerce the population is to burn down all the houses with a single fire. In this way, there is no place for people to live, so they can only follow them. Captain Cha said.

"Why are these rogues so vicious? It's hateful! Li Xiangjun couldn't help but say.

"In fact, it may be an official army." Zheng Sen put down the binoculars and said.

"Officers and soldiers? The officers and soldiers also ......" Huan'er was startled.

"It is true that it may also be the officials and soldiers, for example, if there are people in the village who are very rich, the officials and soldiers will sometimes kill them, and then rob them of the money, and then push these things to the rogue." Captain Cha said, "Moreover, it is likely that it refers to the officers and soldiers who did it." We were already very close, and in a moment I brought the boat closer to the shore and sent two men to take a look, and we will know. If it was just a burning house, and there were not many corpses in the village, it would be a rogue; If there are dead people everywhere, it is most likely the official army. ”