In December 1625, without a military map carefully measured by professionals, Cheng Shao, the governor of Henan, took 4,000 "elite soldiers" and 8,000 "carefully selected" people, a total of 12,000 people, from Kaifeng Mansion to Wuchang Mansion.

Because there is no specialized military map, because there is no professional staff system. Therefore, the Henan army led by Cheng Shao could only pass through the prefectures and counties, and march to the south along the way from Kaifeng to Wuchang.

It's just that Cheng Shao, who has just left Kaifeng Mansion and is a complete idiot in military affairs, has also realized that it is very difficult to lead tens of thousands of troops to march in the cold winter months.

In the modern society of global warming, the minimum temperature in Henan Province in winter will not exceed minus 20 degrees. Generally speaking, it is about minus ten degrees. However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, at the peak of the Xiaoice climate, the winter temperature in Henan Province was not only below minus 20 degrees, but the entire winter in Henan Province was surrounded by various strong winds and heavy snow.

At minus 24 degrees Celsius, tens of thousands of Henan soldiers and Henan people, who were only dressed in tattered clothes, with rags and weeds wrapped around their feet, and weighed an average of about forty or fifty kilograms, walked in a snowstorm hungry.

It was only four or five miles out of Kaifeng Fucheng, and non-combat attrition began to occur among both the regular soldiers and the people.

Think about it too. I couldn't eat, I couldn't put on clothes, and I was walking with a lot of things on my back in the snow of more than 20 degrees below zero. Those serf soldiers and tenant farmers and poor peasants who were on the verge of death all the year round naturally had only one way to die.

If you think about it, it is more than minus 20 degrees, which is the average winter temperature in Heilongjiang Province, the northernmost province in northeastern China. In modern society, he is an ordinary beggar, and he also wears a thick cotton coat in the winter of Heilongjiang.

In Heilongjiang in modern society, no one dares to go out without wearing cotton clothes or down jackets. When modern people's physique is so good, and the warmth and nutritional intake are so sufficient, various seasonal diseases will also break out on a large scale in the winter of Heilongjiang Province.

When the troops arrived at Zhuxian Town after a day's arduous trek, military attachés at all levels reported to Cheng Shao after a simple and rough count that there were originally more than 12,000 troops, but now there are only more than 9,000 people left.

There were about 3,000 soldiers and civilians who either died on the road or disappeared (fled and lost) on the march. From small banners to hundreds of households, all of them disappeared in large numbers.

From Kaifeng Mansion to Zhuxian Town, the distance is only fifty miles at most. However, at such a distance of 50 miles, the original force of 12,000 men was reduced by about a quarter. Hearing the news, "the friends were stunned. ”

Cheng Shao, who had been sitting in a sedan chair for a day, knew that the road was not easy. Sitting in a sedan chair covered with thick cotton cloth, burning charcoal basins and foot stoves, Cheng Shao's day's trip was also quite "hard". But this kind of "hardship" has not made Cheng Shao want to continue to move forward.

In a gentry's house in Zhuxian Town, Cheng Shao was really speechless after listening to the report of the commander of the Henan Dusidu.

After a long time, Cheng Shaocai asked tentatively: "Have you ever encountered this kind of thing?" ”

It would have been a very simple question. However, neither the theoretical military chief of Henan Province, nor the military attachés at all levels in Henan, who are currently in charge of this army, can answer this question.

The fact is, let alone this kind of high-end military operation by Cheng Shaowen. The military attaches at all levels in Henan Province are very unskilled in riding horses. All the way, they marched in carriages. How many soldiers outside ran away, how many froze to death, how many starved to death, how many went missing, how many got lost, this group of wine bags and rice bags did not know.

Among this group of Henan military attachés, Huo Qigong, the commander of the highest-ranking Henan capital and the military champion in the Longqing period, had to fool Cheng Shao and said: "My lord, the winter march is a cold and snowy weather, and some personnel losses are still common. It's just that because the military rations are limited, the rations of the people are all brought by them. Those who died of cold and starvation were mainly those who were poorly prepared for rations. ”

"I think that when marching later, it is best to send troops to prepare military rations in advance for the counties along the way. Otherwise, with the current rate of personnel consumption, I am afraid that the next things will be difficult to do. ”

Cheng Shao is a pure military blind. For all aspects of military operations, he was a real idiot. Therefore, when he heard Huo Qigong, who he trusted, say this, Cheng Shao also believed it. As for what the facts were, and what was the actual situation of the soldiers who were still fleeing and dying outside, Governor Cheng was not prepared to care.

He waved off all the generals in the room, changed into a relaxed robe, and went to the local gentry's house for a banquet accompanied by several literati staff.

In fact, not only did the people die and flee in large numbers, but also the 4,000 serious soldiers who died and fled in large numbers.

Cold is different from hunger, it is a chronic process of depriving people of their vitality. It's not the same as running away to find food when you're hungry. The damage of cold to people is a slow, imperceptible process. Many soldiers and civilians were walking and walking on the march, and then suddenly fell to the ground and died quickly.

After the Henan Corps, which was less than 10,000 people, arrived in Zhuxian Town, the people of Zhuxian Town were unlucky.

In fact, not only did the people have no food rations in their hands, but they basically had no food. Even the regular soldiers, who are now less than 4,000, have no rations, and they can't eat much.

Cheng Shao scavenged the silver from the way of raising taxes in Henan Province, and he first passed it by himself, and intercepted about three-tenths of it. Subsequently, the senior civil and military attaches in Henan Province took their hands from this batch of military salaries. At the end of the day, at most, a tenth of the silver was left for military expenses.

After distributing half of the remaining one-tenth of the silver to the regular soldiers who participated in the war, the Henan Dusi only had a small amount of silver left to buy military rations for the regular soldiers. Therefore, the Henan soldiers who are currently on the expedition are eating the kind of hard cakes mixed with bran and beans as military rations every day. It is this kind of military ration that the landlord and the old rich man feed the livestock too roughly, and the Henan soldiers who went out on the expedition still can't eat enough.

In this case, the plundering of places has become not only the only way for soldiers and civilians to survive, but also a tacit behavior of officers at all levels.

Space-Time Gate 1619