Zhou Yisheng heard that someone told him to attack Liu Ba's encirclement, and he didn't understand what was going on for a while. He didn't even hear the questioning in his heart. This time back to his hometown, Zhou Yisheng's plan was just to take the people in his family to Fengtai to escape the disaster. If his parents and brothers had to bring any relatives and friends, he would also bring them all. Knowing that such a tragic situation had happened to his family, Zhou Yisheng was in pain. What he wants most now is to go back with the third brother to see the eldest sister's condition. The insurance regiment had a military doctor on board, and it was imperative for the doctor to treat my sister. As for breaking Liu Ba's encirclement, it is better to rebel and kill people. It is not in Liu Yisheng's consideration at all.

But it's clear that other folks don't think so. The middle-aged man asked several times in a row, but saw that Zhou Yisheng had no response. He simply grabbed Zhou Yisheng's brother Zhou Yizheng. "Sanwa, he doesn't listen to my little five, you talk to your brother. Everyone has to do it now, and if you can't survive today, how many people will starve to death. Sanwa, it's not that I don't sympathize with your brothers. Everyone took out the last thing and ate it, and tomorrow where will everyone have the strength to fight the fence? ”

Zhou Yizheng had also stopped crying at this time, not that he was not sad. It's the hunger in the past few months, and the pain of losing his loved ones has tormented Zhou Yizheng a little numb. He accepted these facts, even if he saw his younger brother, it was impossible to make Zhou Yizheng even more sad. Attacking Liu Ba's encirclement is something that everyone has already decided. Zhou Yizheng opened his mouth, but he couldn't say anything. It's a really strange state of mind. Before his younger brother came back, Zhou Yizheng was also full of indignation, and he had the courage to break the kettle in his heart. What he wants most is not food, but the medicine of the Zhou family. There was a doctor in the enclosure, and he asked the doctor to see the sick eldest sister who was only breathing and save the sister. This is Zhou Yizheng's most urgent thought.

Since the flood, the fence of Liu Ba's house has been closed and no one has been allowed to enter. It doesn't matter if it's pleading, it's pleading. The people in the fence didn't pay any attention to it. When my sister was sick, Zhou Yi was kneeling outside the fence all morning, shouting to the doctor until his voice was hoarse, but the result was the same as the other people who pleaded, and the family members patrolling the fence were silent. If there must be any change, it is that the original family members still had some pity on their faces more or less with the rabbit and the fox, but now even this expression is completely gone. Now there is nothing but disgust and disdain on the faces of the family.

"Sanwa, you are talking." The middle-aged man couldn't help but shake Zhou Yizheng's shoulder vigorously. "Xiao Wu is back, do you think you have a backer? Well? ”

The middle-aged man is an elder in the village, named Zhou Xingrui. Seeing the change in Zhou Yizheng's expression, he had already roughly guessed Zhou Yizheng's thoughts, and Zhou Xingrui couldn't help but reprimand angrily: "Xiao Wu, who is neatly dressed, doesn't seem to have come back on foot." The same is true for the people who came with him, do you think that Xiao Wu came back by boat, and you and Xiao Wu went home and took your sister away and pulled it down? ”

There is anxiety in these words, if it is a normal year, no one can say that Zhou Yizheng is doing something wrong. But now it is a disaster year, and the rain began to fall in the late spring, and after a few months, there was no surplus food in the house, and the grain planted in the ground was completely drowned. Everyone managed to survive the flood, and the disaster never ended. On the contrary, hunger and disease are raging more fiercely. If it was a drought, everyone could have escaped, but the boats were damaged in the flood. The caravan refused to come to the disaster area again. In a muddy swamp, there was nowhere to escape.

Everyone is struggling to survive, and people are dying almost every day. The people who have survived until now are completely hungry and weak, and the ground is barely able to walk, but they don't know how far they need to go to think of a place to eat. Occasionally, the outsiders who come here describe the same disaster situation as Liu's shop. In many places, people are starving to the point that they can't live without eating human flesh.

Zhou Xingrui has always been regarded as a very capable person in these villages, and in addition to farming, he also relies on waterways to eat. Although he is not very old, because of his high seniority, this Liu Jiapu is also a well-known figure. The mortality rate of the elderly and children in the disaster year is extremely high, and there is no one who is higher than Zhou Xingrui and older than Zhou Xingrui. Zhou Xingrui knew that in such a situation, if Zhou Yizheng and Zhou Yisheng were allowed to leave with the person who came with them, the affirmation of the villagers would be dispersed.

Zhou Xingrui also went to the waterway to eat before the disaster, and when he looked at the clothes of Zhou Yisheng and the soldiers of the insurance regiment who came with him, he knew that these two people must have come by boat, and the boat was definitely not small. Everyone can't survive anymore, so they have to fight the fence. If you can see the slightest hope of live shrimp, you will definitely not risk being killed to attack the fence. The Zhou brothers are gone, and many people are afraid that they want to try their luck with the Zhou brothers. As soon as this person's heart is scattered, everyone has an idea in their hearts, where will they work again? Liu Bajia's enclosure is not easy to fight, and even if everyone works together, they may not be able to fight it. Not to mention that everyone doesn't have the idea of breaking the kettle in their hearts? Zhou Xingrui knew that he couldn't let the Zhou brothers choose to leave no matter what.

Seeing that Zhou Yizheng was silent, Zhou Xingrui grabbed Zhou Yisheng's shoulder. "Xiao Wu, what do you say about your grandfather and I on weekdays, how do you treat your family?" Although Zhou Xingrui is not much older than Zhou Yisheng, his seniority is much higher, "Everyone's life is in your hands now." You're talking. ”

Zhou Yisheng couldn't figure out what was going on at all now, and he didn't have the idea of figuring it out at all. He had stopped crying at this time, raised his head and said dizzily, "Master, I have to go home to see my sister first." I'm going to see my sister first. ”

"Bastard thing!" Zhou Xingrui slapped Zhou Yisheng in the face, "Xiao Wu, your sister's life is fate, but everyone's life is not fate?" ”

Zhou Xingrui has always been considered a very capable person in the village, and he has experience in relying on waterways to eat. He knew very well what it would be like when people's hearts were scattered. A moment of anger may allow the crowd to burst out of power for a short time. But as long as this power has the slightest other thought, it will disappear without a trace in an instant. Zhou Xingrui is not a person who is keen on violence. In this Liu family shop, people who are interested in violence are now under Liu Ba's hands. Liu Ba recruited thugs, and it was naturally impossible to choose those honest characters. And the characters who are too dishonest are either dead or run away. Now Zhou Xingrui is really the only one who can sustain the victims.

Zhou Xingrui didn't think that maybe Zhou Yisheng's people brought food with him, but he knew very well that the food was not enough to eat. The villagers are dying every day, and their bodies are getting weaker and weaker, so what can they do with that little food? Thinking of this, Zhou Xingrui couldn't help but clench his pistol, if Zhou Yisheng refused to live and die with everyone, even if he killed Zhou Yisheng and Zhou Yizheng's brothers here, he would have to break Liu Ba's enclosure with everyone. Only in the enclosure can hundreds of people survive the disaster year and replant the harvested grain next year.

Lu Zhengping has been watching from the sidelines, which is not to say that he is standing so stupidly. A few months ago, Lu Zhengping participated in the battle against Yue Zhangji as a scout of the insurance regiment. However, it was not the turn to personally participate in the battle to conquer Zhang Youliang's encirclement. This pick-up mission is a big deal, so the insurance team mobilized elite soldiers. The reconnaissance unit, which was already small in number, was almost dispatched. Lu Zhengping remembered that at the mobilization meeting of the insurance regiment before the dispatch, it was supposed to be the political commissar of the water detachment to carry out the pre-war mobilization, but it was temporarily changed to the regiment's political commissar He Zudao personally mobilized.

He Zudao did not emphasize discipline, if he only emphasized military discipline or ordinary ideological mobilization, he would not have used a political commissar of his level at all. At the mobilization meeting, He Zudao only talked about two issues. First, we must see a lot of tragic social realities during this outing, and comrades must be mentally prepared. The scouts didn't know what to say.

Although the reconnaissance unit is the elite of the insurance regiment, the scope of activities of the insurance regiment does not go too far beyond the boundaries of Fengtai County. Although everyone has some understanding of the surrounding situation, most of the landlords in 1906 had a characteristic, and few landlords owned land that crossed county borders. The government and the landlords are not completely in cahoots, and even from the point of view of the ruling class, there are still contradictions within the ruling class. Landlords own land that crosses county borders, which means more government jurisdiction. This blackmail will only be more. And because of poor infrastructure constraints, the land across counties is not actually a big farm at all. More land does not bring corresponding benefits.

The primary goal of the insurance regiment is to consolidate its rule in Fengtai County, so the reconnaissance unit is only operating within the scope of Fengtai County at this stage. Since it is active in the county, everyone is not completely unaware of the tragic situation in the outside world, but it is only a little known. He Zudao told everyone with a serious expression that there would be a lot of miserable situations, and the soldiers of the reconnaissance unit did not have much sensory understanding.

Moreover, when the reconnaissance troops set out, a large number of displaced people had not yet poured into Fengtai County, and it was really unimaginable how much suffering the outside world could have for these capable comrades. Anyway, the fighters of the insurance regiment already feel that the current life is miserable. There is nothing else to do every day except work. It can be said that they have not worked so hard since they were young. One of the reasons for maintaining morale in such hard work is that the commissars always inform everyone of the significance of each job. Ditches were repaired, sand was dug, ploughed and the land was leveled. Like other peasants in 1906, the soldiers had never cultivated such a vast expanse of land as far as the eye could see. And those cadres and commissars who worked as hard as they did, convincing the vast number of soldiers, would always tell them that in this land, in the near future, a whole new world would be shown.

Although the fighters may not be puzzled by these propaganda, or may not believe it. But the food you eat every day is always real. The results of the day's work are always real. Since life can go on, everyone is slowly getting used to such days.

So seeing the tragic situation in Zhou Yisheng's hometown and the tragic situation of those thin people, in addition to the fact that their eyes are still turning, everyone reveals nothing but despair or despair. The work in Fengtai County is not unworkable, and the food is not good. But I didn't see anyone starving like that. Seeing the brothers of the Zhou family hugging their heads and crying, there were only three of the seven or eight people left in the family. Listening to that meaning, my sister who is still alive is also in the future. Fengtai County is not without population losses in the floods, but as long as it is within the sphere of influence of the insurance group, the population losses are not serious. Lu Zhengping's family actually died a younger brother. The death of his younger brother is a scene that Lu Zhengping can't forget, in a room filled with the smell of lime water, the doctor sighed, and said to Lu Zhengping's family who were anxiously gathered next to him, "Prepare for the future." "Then I went to look after other patients.

Lu Zhengping's younger brother had a high fever, a pale face, and scorched lips. The mother kept changing the strips of cloth to cool down, and fed the younger brother water in a well-washed and broken bowl. But the younger brother eventually died amid the cries of his relatives. There are weeping, and there are frugal mourning. The insurance team repeatedly told everyone about the fact that there was a pandemic after the catastrophe. Therefore, the corpses are cremated uniformly, and the ashes are stored in a simple urn and stored in a public mourning hall. The mother can even go to mourn every seven days. Such a normal separation of life and death still exists in Fengtai County.

It's just that out of Fengtai County, everything that should have been completely subverted. Lu Zhengping and Zhou Yizheng are not familiar with each other, and even spoke for the first time today. So Lu Zhengping didn't care much about Zhou Yizheng's sadness. The seemingly indifferent look on his face was just the result of shock. Why can Fengtai County be safe and sound, and why is it that the days in the countryside that are only three or four days away from Fengtai by boat are so terrible. He had also seen such sand-covered land in Fengtai, but tens of thousands of people had changed the appearance of such land in just ten days. Lu Zhengping even had a hallucination, this sandy land may be cursed, right?

When he heard that those people were going to break the fence, Lu Zhengping immediately recalled the scene of the insurance group breaking the fence back then. It was a team of six or seven hundred strong men, and that was a team of all men with weapons, to say the least, with almost two hundred firearms. The huge gap caused by the explosives that blew up Zhang Youliang's enclosure was seen on the spot by Lu Zhengping under the leadership of the troops. He was struck by the terrible power. The thick wall of several feet was blown open by a big opening. Don't say that there is no Hua Xiongmao and Xu Dian, who went in and caught Zhang Youliang. Even if it is a hard attack, Zhang Youliang's enclosure will definitely not be able to resist.

Looking at those people who are as thin as dry firewood, Lu Zhengping doesn't think that these people can lay the fence.

And He Zudao's voice asking the second question echoed in Lu Zhengping's mind. "Do you want to save these people? Everyone has compassion, but how can we save these people? I hope you can think about it. ”

How to save the people? It is absolutely impossible to take them to Fengtai. How many ships do these nearly 1,000 people have to transport? Although I don't know what the other places around me are, but after looking at this Liu's shop, Lu Zhengping knows that it will definitely not be much better. Even if the insurance group can transport these victims to Fengtai County by boat, how many people will have to be rescued along the Huai River alone? If Fengtai County really has so much food, everyone will definitely be able to eat better. The soldiers of the insurance regiment are only seventy percent full, where is there food for so many disaster victims?

And Lu Zhengping definitely doesn't want to do this. Why do you have to work hard to let these disaster victims who have nothing to do with the eight poles eat?

The insurance group could not save these people, and it seemed that there was only one road left. The middle-aged man who claimed to be Zhou Yisheng's grandfather said that he wanted to break the fence, and Lu Zhengping agreed in his heart. After breaking the fence of Zhang Youliang's house, the copied food was enough for tens of thousands of people to eat half a month of hunger. If you can break the encirclement of Liu Ba, who has never met before, even if the food is only half of Zhang Youliang's family, or even less. It can also make everyone live until next year. The middle-aged man who claims to be Zhou Yisheng's grandfather sees things very thoroughly.

Lu Zhengping suddenly thought of a problem that he had not thought about before, Brigade Commander Chen Ke has not moved other landlords until now, which does not mean that he will not move in the future, and when it comes to a critical moment, forcing them to take out food can also temporarily relieve their urgent needs. And the harvest of the insurance group is in sight, and everyone has a hope. Now the people need nothing more than food. The insurance regiment now has more than 8,000 troops, and tens of thousands of people who can be used by pulling out, and those landlords dare not refuse. As long as the people are led, absolutely no one can afford to provoke them.

Looking up at the emaciated victims of Liujiapu, Lu Zhengping felt that his idea might be wrong. If these people can organize themselves during the flood, what Liu Bajia's enclosure is not worth mentioning at all. But they didn't. If they can organize after the flood, they may also have the strength to fight. But they didn't. By the time these people had nothing to do but break the siege, they had no power.

As a soldier in the reconnaissance unit, Lu Zhengping received a lot of military training. The training of the insurance regiment is not just to keep the fighters fighting with their heads down. They also had to make the fighters understand how to fight. Lu Zhengping felt that there was no need for too much, as long as fifty soldiers of the insurance regiment were enough, it was easy enough to completely solve the nearly 1,000 victims. It doesn't matter how many guns these victims have.

Political Commissar He Zudao asked everyone how to save these victims. Lu Zhengping has now figured out the answer. As long as there is Brigade Commander Chen Ke, He Zudao Political Commissar, and Commander Hua Xiongmao, it is expected that the county magistrate will be ordered. As long as the People's Party and the Insurance Corps in Fengtai County can be copied, the people will be able to survive. Brigadier Chen Ke pinched these people together, and in this collective, everyone became more powerful. And the more people who join, the more powerful the collective becomes.

The people in front of Lu Zhengping are like the sand under his feet. There are many grains of sand, but they can't be kneaded together. If you step on it, it will collapse. Even if these people can break the siege, it is absolutely impossible for them to operate like an insurance group, nor can they be like the current Fengtai County, although the people play a small drum in their hearts, they can get through the difficulties together.

There is no strong leader, no organization that works. What if you are temporarily full? How much farm work the insurance group did with the people, Lu Zhengping saw with his own eyes. He now absolutely does not believe that these victims can do it. Even if the fence was broken, the people divided the grain, and immediately scattered in all directions. Trying to get them together again is basically unlikely. Lu Zhengping himself knows very well that even a person like himself, who is loyal to Brigade Commander Chen Ke and convinced of leaders at all levels, still does not like that heavy and endless work. If it weren't for the cadres at all levels who repeatedly told the meaning of these convicted work, and tried their best to let everyone see the results as quickly as possible each time, and gradually accumulated everyone's trust, such heavy labor would not have been able to last so long.

"If you want to save the people, you have to completely copy the new system in Fengtai County. Otherwise, the people would never have been truly saved. This is the last words of He Zudao political commissar, Lu Zhengping didn't understand it at the time, but he saw the reality of Liujiapu with his own eyes, and then recalled all kinds of things that have happened in Fengtai County in the past six months. Lu Zhengping felt that he understood. He finally understood that when Brigadier Chen Ke arrived in Fengtai County with the comrades of the People's Party, when the People's Party formed the army of the Insurance Corps, and when Brigadier Chen Ke told everyone that the Insurance Corps was a people's team and wanted to work for the welfare of the people. The people of Fengtai County were saved.

As long as Brigade Commander Chen Ke leads everyone to carry out the new system he has implemented, whether there are natural disasters or no natural disasters, the people are destined to live a good life. Although Lu Zhengping has not seen what the good days of Brigade Commander Chen Ke and Political Commissar He Zudao are like. But at this moment, he firmly believed that the huge and strange picture near Yue Zhangji depicted endless farmland, beautiful roads, canals everywhere, and neat big houses. The kind of life propagated by the comrades of the People's Party is destined to be realized.

Faced with a group of desperate victims, Lu Zhengping unexpectedly felt the hope of life. And I firmly believe that I can live a good life. He didn't feel how incongruous the external environment was with his inner vision. Lu Zhengping is not a psychologist, and he has never even heard of the term "psychology". If psychologists could know Lu Zhengping's thoughts at this time, they might explain it this way-it is because of the fear of the real world that human beings will redouble their longing for a better life.