And among the fine snowflakes that began to flutter down, as the former deputy head of the Xishu Division, the commander of the Beichuan Metropolitan and the high pet of the Guannei Queen, accompanied by a small team of guards and messengers, passed through the rolling hills and valleys of the Luonan area, and embarked on the way to Pengcheng, Xuzhou to meet. Because, this time, he couldn't help but go in person.

In fact, when Huaizhen was quite generous, he expressed his willingness to accept the wounded and sick from Shangzhou and the entourage of a large number of people in Shannan, and continued to support and assist his team to gain a foothold in the Nanyang area; The hearts and morale of his subordinates have already undergone irreversible and huge changes, and there is no room for him to turn back.

After all, although this lone army has not yet reached the end of the road, it is not far away, and the vast majority of people are completely tired of this endless daily life, but they are still in the lack of food and clothing to continue to fight the enemy to the end with the superiority, just for a little hope and possibility.

And when this last bit of limited hope is completely shattered, even he can't stop the disintegration of the army's morale and morale, and only the help of Huaizhen near the depths can slightly redeem and remedy their imminent crisis and dilemma.

Despite this, there were still a small number of soldiers under his command, led by those generals who were still sincere in their hearts to the dynasty or had luck in their hearts, and chose to continue to go south to find a meeting of friendly forces, or to make a detour to the west and return to Shu, rather than joining Huaizhen, the banner of the rebel party in the north, like everyone else.

As for Gao Zhong himself, in a sense, he is already a dead man in terms of the country, so he doesn't have so much honor and disgrace to care about. So he went in person, more like some kind of gesture and disguised guarantee.

It was almost with this complicated and bumpy mood that he set foot on the land of Dugi Province, Henan.

The smell of desolation and decadence is almost everywhere here, full of ruined villages and market towns, as well as collapsed and abandoned county towns, and there are no relentless bones everywhere in the barren grass by the roadside; And this situation did not improve until they crossed Lushi County in the lower reaches of Xiluo Water, at the southwest foot of Bear's Ears Mountain, and saw the first military village and Suitai.

Although, in the wild, it was still cold and lonely and frightening, and there was only the whining of the cold wind and the whispering of crying; But at least the flocks of wild dogs and vultures that roamed and were barely afraid of people were gone, and instead there were new construction sites large and small along the roadside, and one field after another, which was not very coherent but was clearly neatly harvested.

The people who are vaguely working between these construction sites, although they hide their vegetables or inevitably have yellow and thin faces, and the fatigue and toil under heavy labor are also overflowing, but surprisingly there is hardly much depression and depression, and there is no anxiety about the future and a lack of about the future.

Because of their presence, the bumpy and undulating roads, which were originally muddy and undulating due to the war, began to gradually become dry, smooth and hard; Sections of old and new canals and patches of water-filled and pulped fields also continued to stretch out in all directions; Beacons, watchtowers and walled towers everywhere, as well as post stations, barracks, and tun enclosures, have also risen one after another.

To his surprise, among these construction sites that had begun to take shape, except for a small number of more important core projects undertaken by the Jiansheng Army from Huaidi, almost all of them were built and developed by the local military and civilians in Dugi Province, Henan; It can also be seen that Huaizhen's outstanding reputation and sufficient confidence in management and colonization are not groundless;

You must know that most of them have only been under the rule of Huaizhen for more than half a month, and they already have this obvious change in their mental outlook and weather.

Therefore, it is rare to have a certain kind of complicated mind, and even take the initiative to come to the kitchen of these construction sites after a moment of pause on the road, wanting to see something else that is more real under the relative side of these places;

For example, Gao Pet found that their daily diet was made of taro, radish and dried bean offal; Although there is hardly any oil, water and meat in it, it is cooked thick enough and the amount of each person is a small pot full of fill. If you need to work longer than six hours a day, or if you continue to work extra hours at night, there are even mixed noodle soup cakes and baked jicama.

Well, with this as a reference, he can confirm that if at least this newly occupied outlying place is used as a reference, the general standard of living and the standard of treatment in the army under Huai Zhen should not be any worse.

And after Gao Pet crossed the Heyang Bridge and entered Hebei, it was a different style. Because the river began to freeze and flow of ice to varying degrees, it was difficult to release boats down the river, and we had to make more detours by land.

Here, compared to the deserted Dugi Province in Henan, Hebei Province is undoubtedly much more popular, in the increasingly cold weather and the snow powder falling from time to time, there is still no lack of hot bridgeheads, intersections and ferry small markets, wild markets, as well as groups of pedestrians and horses of all colors. And the further you go east, the more lively and frequent it becomes.

Of course, there are some more obtrusive or less harmonious existences during this period; Some of the villages and market towns that were clearly just newly entered and burned in part or in full, the traces of the attack and smoke burned on the walls of the county town, and the many heads hung by long poles by the roadside, the corpses hanging under the walls at the gates, the unkempt and stinking prisoners wailing and weeping, or the figures of toil in the sludge of the moats;

All of them indicate that Huaizhen is in the newly occupied place, and it is not smooth sailing without hindrance and resistance. As a senior general who has participated in all kinds of counterinsurgency operations and Yanbian garrison development in the vast area outside the mountains for many years, he understands the basic principle that it is better to use heavy canons in the chaos than others; And since Huaizhen did not hesitate to use these iron-blooded violent methods in the newly occupied areas, it also meant an unprecedented determination and firm attitude to control chaos.

Therefore, after arriving at Liping City, the water and land transfer hub in Dezhou, and crossing the Huaibei Road where the Yellow River entered the hinterland, his original mood of some ups and downs has completely calmed down and settled down.

I also have a preliminary idea and idea of my next path and direction.

。。。。。。。。。。。。。。

meanwhile

The Iron Horse Autumn Wind Dispersed Pass, as the gateway to Guannan to enter Shu and Shannan West Road, has been once again trapped in dust, smoke and blood and fire.

And this time the speed of the fall was even much faster than the Western army entering Shu many years ago, and the rebuilt Guancheng did not even play any use, just when the Huangyuan Domain soldiers from the Qingtang Dynasty, known as the "Hengshan and Broken Water", competed to climb over the next drum and disappeared.

Because after successively losing most of the combat strength of the Western Shu Xingsi in the north, the land of Shuzhong, as the country of abundance, has basically no soldiers available, and only some old, weak, sick and disabled people and local newly recruited Tutuan and township soldiers are struggling to maintain the basic situation.

Since then, in the face of the frenzy of the Western Army that came in the face of the wind and snow, Xingzhou, Wenzhou, Longzhou, Lizhou, Langzhou, Yangzhou, and Bazhou have descended one after another, and with the surrender of Xingyuan Mansion (Hanzhong County) without a fight, it is impossible to open the last door of the hinterland of Shuzhong again.

The speed and momentum of the Western Army's attack this time was unexpected, and even the remnants of the officers and soldiers who were tired of running for their lives to suppress the endless civil uprisings and riots in the local area were unexpected.

(End of chapter)