In this troubled world, people are productive forces, and grabbing land is not achieved to rob people. Ma Hong's strategy was mainly to plunder Cao Cao's people, and it would be interesting if the peasants in Cao Cao's territory kept fleeing.

Five days later, in Xu Du, a young scribe fidgeted and walked up and down the room, his nose covered with drops of sweat, and every now and then he would raise his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his nose. In the past two days, there has been news of peasant families fleeing to Jingzhou, which has made a cadre of Wenchen guarding Xuchang worry about it. There was incense in the room, and Xun Yu was sitting, his face was white, he was well-dressed, and he was holding a cup of hot tea.

Xun Yu silently watched Chen Qun take forty-eight steps and said, "Changwen, are you in a hurry?" ”

When Chen Qun saw his wife and father questioning him, he stopped walking around and said, "Yes." ”

Xun Yu smiled and said, "Don't worry, you send someone to ask for some heads from Xiahou Yuan and General Xiahou Yuan." ”

Chen Qun was stunned for a moment, he didn't know whose head he was going to ask for, what he wanted to do, so he asked, "Why?" ”

"Acting as the head of the fleeing farmers to intimidate the people." Xun Yu replied.

Chen Qun wiped the beads of sweat on the tip of his nose and asked, "How much?" ”

Xun Yu said: "The more the merrier, let the two generals send the heads to Xuchang before dawn tomorrow, and you send people to send the heads to various counties, and I don't need to teach you specific things." ”

Chen Qun answered yes, and first sent someone to Xiahou Yuan to ask for the head, and he himself led a team of people to go to Xiahou Yuan to ask for the head.

When Xiahoudun saw Chen Qun standing behind his tent, he opened his only remaining eye and asked, "Did Shangshu let you come?" ”

Chen Qun was furious by the wide-eyed Xiahoudun, and hurriedly saluted Xiahoudun: "Yes, come and ask for some heads." ”

Xiahoudun didn't ask what he wanted the head to do, but just asked, "How much?" ”

Chen Qun replied: "Shangshu said that the more the merrier. ”

Xiahoudun only said one sentence: "You wait." ”

Three hours later, Xiahoudun came back and brought back more than 500 heads.

Xiahoudun pointed to the dense number of human heads and said, "It's a total of five hundred and three human heads, you don't need to count them." ”

Chen Quntie blushed and said, "What the general says must be as much." ”

Chen Qun understood why his father-in-law (father-in-law, but after the Tang Dynasty, he was called father-in-law) didn't let himself ask for the head of the lord and other generals, and only from the Xiahou brothers. Because the wife and father don't want the lord to worry; Because only the Xiahou brothers will not ask what to do with the head; Because only the Xiahou brothers are absolutely loyal. After Chen Qun returned to Xuchang, he spent a day distributing 924 heads from Xiahoudun and Xiahouyuan to various county towns south of Xuchang.

It was the first time for Chen Qun to touch so many heads, and he vomited three times when he touched them, and his stomach was empty, but Chen Qun did not have a sense of hunger. On this day, Chen Qun did not enter the particles, and washed his hands no less than 20 times.

When the full moon climbed over the branches and sprinkled the light into Chen Qun's eyes, Chen Qun was looking up at the full moon, and he subconsciously touched his head to make sure that it was still on his neck. Chen Qun didn't want his head to be held in someone's hands or counted by someone else one day, because that was a sad thing. When Chen Qun dragged his tired body into his yard, Xiahoudun was standing straight in the courtyard, and Xiahoudun was holding a bunch of round things behind him. Chen Qun didn't have to think about it to know that those things were human heads, because he was already familiar with those things, even if he couldn't smell the smell of blood in the air, he could guess it.

"I have brought you two hundred heads, and if they are not enough, I will send someone to me." Xiahoudun patted Chen Qun on the shoulder and left with his subordinates.

Chen Qun stood motionless, and after a long time, he asked the family to send the head to the prison in Xuchang overnight, while he bathed and changed his clothes, changed into clean clothes, and sat in the study.

There is always a lot of powerlessness in life, there are some things you don't want to do, but you have to do them, when a person does something he doesn't like to do, his heart is lonely. The pen of the literati is based on the eyes to generate feelings, and they use the ink to sketch what they have seen and what they have not seen, what exists and what does not exist. But no literati like to write about despair, Chen Qun felt that his pen was drunk, because his pen could not write any words, no matter how thick the ink was, what he wrote was only chaos. Whose despair is in that chaos, not Chen Qun's, it is the despair of thousands of nameless heads, that chaos seems to be their eyes, people who have lost their lives have mouths on their heads, but their mouths can't speak, but their eyes will record despair, surprise, anger, and sadness before death......

The fire in the brazier was extinguished, the room fell into darkness, Chen Qun held his head on the desk, against the pine tabletop, Chen Qun said to himself: "It would be nice if I could put my head in the coffin after I die!"

The pine table top was cold and cold, this coldness gave Chen Qun's head a sense of existence, Chen Qun stretched out his tongue and licked the tabletop, the smell was a little astringent, mixed with the smell of time and ink. I don't know how many years this pine table has been used, Chen Qun decided that if he died one day, he would definitely let his relatives transform this pine table top into the bottom plate of the coffin, and he must lie on it. [Note: Xun Yu is Chen Qun's father-in-law, and in that era he should be called his father or father-in-law, because his father-in-law or father-in-law only existed after the Tang Dynasty, and interested book friends can Baidu on their own.] 】

In the evening, upstairs in Xinye Castle, Ma Hong squinted at the busy crowd in the city, and leaned lazily against the city wall with a pot of sake hooked in his right hand. I don't know when, Ma Hong liked to lean on the city wall, as if he would not be so lonely when he leaned on the city wall, maybe he could see the distance by leaning on the city wall, and Ma Hong felt that the whole city was his.

After taking Anzhongcheng, Ma Hong left Li Yan and Wei Yan behind in Anzhongcheng, and ordered them to lead cavalry to harass Cao Cao's border in disguise as bandits. Ma Hong returned to Xinye City to prepare for urban expansion, and built a large number of houses to take in the peasants who had fled from Cao Cao's territory. In the past ten days, Xinye City has successively accepted nearly 6,000 peasants, and all the peasants who fled into Liu Biao's territory, Ma Hong suggested that Liu Qi gather them in Xinye City, which is a good thing, Liu Qi was happy and did not sleep all night.

With 6,000 peasants, there are 6,000 pairs of hands, and Xinye City has the capital to expand. Fortunately, there was plenty of food in Shinno Castle, which was enough for 6,000 peasants to eat, and population was very important in this era of war.

Suddenly the wine jug fell to the ground, Ma Hong was not drunk, Ma Hong smiled, the smile was ugly, because he saw the fire, the granary in the north of the city was on fire, it was the grain accumulated in Xinye City for three years.

Ma Hong stumbled down the city tower and took the soldiers to the north of the city to put out the fire, and when Ma Hong arrived at the granary in the north of the city, the fire was burning, the people and soldiers were busy fighting the fire, and there were more than a dozen corpses of soldiers guarding the granary lying at the door of the granary. Liu Qi was standing in front of the granary in a daze and smiled bitterly, this fire was his hard work.

Ma Hong lowered his head and walked to Liu Qi's side and said, "Brother, I'm still too tender."

"It's not your fault, it's because we neglected to take precautions." Liu Qi said with a wry smile.