There are hundreds of large and small water coefficients in Panyu, but the two largest ones are the Lutou River and the Huangsha River, in fact, strictly speaking, these two rivers are the same river, but one is in the upper reaches and the other is in the downstream. The Huangsha River in the upper reaches flows through the entire Xiangshan, and flows into the Shiziyang in the east through the confluence of the Jiya Waterway and the Xiaolan Waterway in Panyu.

In the early years, Xiangshan and Panyu were originally not bordered, and there were more than ten miles of sea between the two counties in the Yuan Dynasty. Because of this, after the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, a large number of descendants of the Southern Song Dynasty royal family and officials settled in Xiangshan (Island) across the sea in Panyu, so there are many Zhaojia villages in Xiangshan now.

After receiving the information that the Qing army was about to attack Xiangshan on a large scale, Zhou Shixiang immediately carried out a large-scale mobilization, which was not only the mobilization of military forces, but also the mobilization of the people of Xiangshan.

In view of the consistent virtue of the Qing army, Zhou Shixiang did not dare to pin the safety of the 100,000 Xiangshan people on their kindness, so he must mobilize the people to move to safety, especially the people on the road that the Qing army must pass through on the northern front, and evacuate them no matter what, otherwise what awaits them will be a catastrophe.

Longyan Township in the northwest of Xiangshan is the only way for the Qing army on the right road, where the Taiping army resettled the most people in the rear camp, Zhou Shixiang asked Song Xianggong to personally go to Longyan Township to command the retreat action, and it is necessary to transport all the tens of thousands of people in this area safely across the river through the Xinhui Water Division.

The area of Liangzi Township is the necessary place for the Qing army on the middle road and the Qing army on the left, and the people in this area, Zhou Shixiang, instructed them to evacuate to Xiangshan County. If the rest of the scattered villages could not participate in the evacuation in time, they were evacuated to the nearest mountain.

Except for the people who were evacuated to Xinhui, for everyone else. Xiangshan is not really a safe place. The primary target of the Qing army is the county seat of Xiangshan, once the county is captured by the Qing army, the people in the city will be 100% bloodbathed by the Qing army. Therefore, the transfer of a large number of people to Xiangshan County is not to let them be safe to some extent, but to let them fall into a desperate situation, just like inviting the king into an urn. Even the front cottage far behind was not safe, because Xiangshan did not have enough depth to defend against the Qing army. Once the county seat is lost, the loss of the former cottage is inevitable, and what awaits the people of Xiangshan is bad luck.

Therefore, many people opposed the relocation of the people to the county seat. What they mentioned the most was to move the people to the county seat, and no one would be able to run away as soon as the Qing army came. If they do not move, the people will be scattered in various towns and villages, even if they will be slaughtered by the Qing army. In the end, a small part of it will survive. will not be killed, after all, the people are more familiar with the terrain around their homes than the Qing army. The Qing army is really here, how can they find a place to hide. All come to Xiangshan County, that is, if you want to hide, there is nowhere to hide.

Zhou Shixiang did not fail to consider this, but he still insisted on carrying out the evacuation operation despite public opinion.

There were 30,000 or 40,000 people concentrated in the north of Xiangshan, and almost all of the original Taiping army's rear camps were located in the north, so Zhou Shixiang had to move them, even if it was to an unsafe place. In this way, at least for the Taiping Army, he, the marshal, can explain it.

Imagine. No one cares about the safety of his wife and children, and his husband (father, son) in the army can work for him with peace of mind?

Regardless of whether it is asked, allowing the people in the north to be slaughtered by the Qing army will definitely be a serious blow to the morale of the Taiping army, and Zhou Shixiang cannot accept this kind of thing happening.

The three-way attack of the Qing army was the biggest crisis since the Taiping Army was formed, and it also determined whether the Taiping Army could really leap into the dragon gate, affect the overall situation of Guangdong, and then affect the overall situation of the entire anti-Qing Dynasty, and become an emerging force rising in Lingnan.

Therefore, this battle must be won, and before the battle begins, Zhou Shixiang needs his subordinates to maintain a high will and determination to fight, rather than worrying about his wife and children at home. For this reason, even if the transfer of the people involved a large amount of manpower and materials of the Taiping army, he had to take action, not for anything else, just so that the soldiers who were about to fight to the death with him and the Qing army could have no worries.

If the Taiping army can't win this war, whether it is transferred or not, the people of Xiangshan are doomed to a tragic end.

Moving everyone to one place and gathering them together may also be Zhou Shixiang's deliberate act, he took these people as hostages, so as to force his subordinates to fight to the death. Just like Xinhui, for the sake of their relatives in the city, men must fight to the death, and there is no choice to retreat!

Zhou Shixiang was also very conflicted about how to look at his behavior, but he knew that he had only one choice, and that was to fight to the death.

He is dead, the Taiping Army is over, the Taiping Army is over, the people of Xiangshan are over, and the Ming Dynasty is even more over!

It's all over.

If you want to stop all this from happening, you can only kill Hu'er, and you can only survive to the death

The evacuation of the township and public offices was intermittent under the influence of the typhoon, and by the 19th, more than 20,000 people had been resettled in Xiangshan County. Although from time to time, people dragged their families to the county seat with their families and people from the local village office, but the number of people is getting smaller and smaller. Many people were no longer able to escape, and were chased by the Qing army and killed thousands of corpses lying on the road.

As the wind stopped, the Huangsha River was quiet at night, and there were no waves at all.

In a jungle on the shore, you can vaguely see many people and clothes lying there. In addition to people, there were more than a dozen wheelbarrows in the forest, and the carts were piled with clothes, bedding, pots and pans. This is a team of people who fled from Panyu to Xiangshan, they are all from Zhaojia Village, there were more than 200 people when they first ran out, but now there are less than half of them.

The leader of the team is a middle-aged man, his name is Zhao Dabiao, who has been working for a living for generations, and he is the 12th generation in his generation. According to the old people, Zhao Dabiao's ancestor was a great official who fled from Fujian with Emperor Duanzong of the Southern Song Dynasty, and after the first battle of Yashan, his ancestor and more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians threw themselves into the sea and died together. When he threw himself into the sea, he was reluctant to let his grandson, who was only a few years old, die with him, so he asked someone to take him away. Later, this grandson went to Xiangshan with those descendants of the Southern Song Dynasty royal family, and also changed his surname to Zhao, and since then there has been Zhao Dabiao. The specific ancestor of Zhao Dabiao who threw himself into the sea and died was the minister of the Southern Song Dynasty is now unavailable.

The team had been tormented since the day they fled the village, and they were twice discovered by the Qing army, only to lose half of them. The rest of the people were exhausted by the pursuit of the Qing soldiers and the invasion of wind and rain, but the county seat of Xiangshan was still far away. Both adults and children were too tired to do so, so they chose to rest overnight in the woods on the banks of the Huangsha River, so that they could regain some strength and continue their journey tomorrow.

Everyone had already fallen asleep, but Zhao Dabiao still had a strong spirit to patrol inside and outside the forest. He had a slay in his waist. The pig knife was brought from the butcher's house next door when he fled to defend himself, and on the way he used this knife to kill a Qing soldier who wanted to rob his daughter-in-law.

It was early autumn, and it had just rained heavily, so the temperature in the forest was very low and the ground was very wet. The villagers were reluctant to take out the clean quilt for fear of getting the quilt wet, so in order to keep out the cold, everyone leaned on each other to keep warm. Rao is like this, his body is also soaked with water, and when he wakes up tomorrow, he is afraid that many people will suffer from the cold.

Zhao Dabiao resisted the idea of making a fire to ward off the cold for everyone, inspected around, and found that there was no suspicious movement, so he yawned and felt the cart and lay down on the spot. He was so sleepy, his legs were swollen from days of escape, and the bottom of his feet was worn out a lot of skin, and it hurt to walk.

In a daze, Zhao Dabiao felt that something was covering his body, but when he opened his eyes, he found that it was his daughter-in-law Qiao'er who covered him with a sack.

Zhao Dabiao's heart swelled with warmth, and he looked at his daughter-in-law with some emotion, and asked her, "What about my mother?" ”

"Mother and third sister-in-law together."

Qiao'er stretched out her hand and pointed not far away. Zhao Dabiao supported his body with his arms and looked there, his mother really slept with the third sister-in-law and others. Listening to the snoring of the third sister-in-law, it seems that the old people are sleeping soundly.

Zhao Dabiao smiled and said to Qiao'er: "You can sleep too, you have to get up early tomorrow to hurry, this rain has stopped, if we don't go faster, the Tartars will catch up with us." ”

"Got it, I'll go to sleep."

Qiao'er nodded and agreed, Zhao Dabiao glanced around again, and then closed his eyes and continued to sleep, but this sleep quickly fell asleep. In his dream, he dreamed that Qiao'er was finally pregnant, and his old Zhao family finally had incense.

The forest was quiet, only the snoring sound was heard from time to time, and I don't know how long it took, suddenly a few figures moved on the ground, and then quietly stood up.

Looking at the place where his son and daughter-in-law were by the faint moonlight, Zhao showed a loving smile, and then sighed in his heart, squatted down and touched a small bench in his hand, and then pulled the third sister-in-law beside him to raise his legs and walk deep into the forest.

There were also several women who went with Zhao, all of whom were elderly people. They walked very slowly and lightly, for fear of being discovered. It wasn't until he walked the road in the dark in the forest that Zhao stopped under a big tree that several people couldn't hug.

"That's it, this tree is very strong, enough for a few of our old bones." Zhao said as he put the small bench on the ground.

The third sister-in-law asked the other people, "Do you think it's okay?" ”

"Okay, that's good."

As she spoke, the old women took out strips of cloth and threw them at the tree, tied the dead knots and pulled them up.

An old woman looked back at the woods and hesitated, "Let's just go?" ”

The third sister-in-law's eyes were red: "We have old arms and legs, we really can't walk, we can't affect the children anymore." ”

"The third sister-in-law is right, we have discussed it so as not to drag down the children, so these old sisters are companions on Huangquan Road. Well, there's nothing to think about, if the children find out that we're gone, we'll die. I'll go first. ”

An old woman stepped on the small stool brought by Zhao and put her head into the rope sleeve, and then kicked the stool over gently, and suddenly, her throat was tightly strangled by the rope sleeve, unable to breathe, she instinctively struggled a few times, and after a while, she never moved again.

The rest of the old women stared blankly at the old sister who had gone first. After the silence, Zhao suddenly said to the old woman beside him: "Her third sister-in-law, the appearance of hanging is really scary." ”

The third sister-in-law did not speak.

Zhao sighed, trembled and put her head on it, and kicked the bench where she had been sitting for decades.

After another moment of silence, the third sister-in-law also trembled and stepped on the stool, one, two, until the last one (to be continued.) )