It was a sleepless night, trembling footsteps, terrifying shouts and screams, and terrible screams were constantly hovering over Changsha City, and the city's rich businessmen and tycoons and poor people were all hiding in their respective homes and shivering, waiting for the long and difficult night to pass, no one knew what would happen in the next moment, and the uneasiness brought by fear at this time was equal.

In a house of ordinary people in the north of the city, a man in his thirties hugged his cousin (that is, his wife) tightly, and the woman held a baby waiting to be fed in his arms, the baby's cry was very loud, and the man was upset by the crying, and scolded: "Stinky mother-in-law, let the little baby stop crying, and if you cry again and attract the long-haired thief, you will die!" ”

The woman also began to cry: "The little baby is hungry, and I have no milk, so let me go and make some rice soup for him to drink." ”

The man said angrily: "There is only half a bag of rice left at home, and it is finally hidden, and now I go to turn it out, and I am bumped into by the hairy thief, and I am not robbed by them?" If we don't have food, we'll all starve to death. ”

The woman stopped talking, but cried with the baby, and the man couldn't listen to it, so he had to get up and say, "Count it as a hairball, I'll go and dig out the rice grain, and grab the rice to make a rice soup for this little ancestor to drink." ”

The man went to the stove, took off a bush of straw from the wall, took out a cloth bag from the slucco, reached in and was about to grab rice, when suddenly he heard a sound of Kala, and a black figure smashed through the door and fell straight into the house.

The man was startled, the woman held the child and shrunk by the wooden bed, and both mother and son stopped crying and looked at the dark shadow on the ground, and the darkness in the room could only tell that the black shadow was a person.

Suddenly, the fire at the door lit up, and a man with a red scarf on his head, a torch in one hand and a steel knife in the other, broke in, and the uniform on his chest was obviously different from that of the Qing army.

The man in the house was startled, and hurriedly stuffed the rice bag in his hand back, and the red turban man's torch shone on the ground, and the couple in the house saw clearly that it was a Qing soldier who was fighting on the ground, and his chest was blurred with flesh and blood, and a large piece of Yin Hong's blood seeped into the loess under him.

The man in the red scarf stepped forward and pedaled with his foot, but the Qing soldiers did not move, it seemed that they were really dead. Then he raised the torch and looked inside the house, when the torch shone on the faces of the couple, the husband and wife were as white as earth, looking at the steel knife in the hand of the man in the red scarf was still dripping with blood, and they were so frightened that they didn't dare to come out.

Suddenly, the child in the woman's arms began to cry again, and the man in the red scarf let out a sigh, and both of them were shocked.

"The little doll is not hungry, I have some bread, let's mix it with some hot soup for him." The man in the red scarf said in a Guangxi accent, and the little couple understood a little, only to see him take out half of the dough cake from his arms and put it on the wooden table, turn around and leave.

The man in the house was relieved to see the man in the red scarf leave, hurriedly stepped forward to block the wooden door that had been knocked open, then picked up the half of the bread and returned to the wooden bed, and said in a trembling voice: "Just now, that person was a long-haired thief." ”

The woman was so frightened that she couldn't speak, she just nodded, and the man breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Fortunately, I met a good long-haired man and didn't kill us." ”

Only then did the woman reluctantly tremble and say, "Master, you better remove the corpse, I am afraid." ”

The man scolded, "What is a dead man afraid of? As he spoke, his voice trembled, and he got up and took some thatch by the stove and barely covered the corpse, and drank a bowl of water, and then his mind settled down a little.

After taking a bowl of water, the man returned to the bedside, soaked the bread in water, mixed it into batter and handed it to the woman, "Give it to the little baby." The woman trembled and took it, and fed the child slowly, and when the child had eaten his fill, he fell into a deep sleep, but the husband and wife snuggled up, and neither of them slept, and there was another dead man in the house, and they were afraid that the dead man would suddenly rise up again, and their eyes were wide open, and they could not sleep at all. …,

The long night was finally over, and the day was getting brighter, and the man got up and moved his stiff body, tightened his coarse cloth belt, tied the short coat on his upper body tightly, and poured cold water into it, and the hunger in his belly subsided slightly, and he turned back to the woman and said, "Stay in bed and don't wander around, I'll get the corpse out." The woman snorted, and when the man saw that it was dawn, he dared to open the wooden door and drag the corpse out.

The alley was quiet, there were several corpses of Qing soldiers on the side of the bluestone paved road, the man dragged the corpse aside, and was about to turn around and go back to the house, several red turban soldiers at the mouth of the alley came over with gongs, and shouted as they walked: "The true mandate of heaven Taiping Youbi and the king of the army told the people of Changsha Quartet: Hu Nu stole China, the holy soldiers of the heavenly kingdom should be ordered by the heavenly father and the heavenly brother, and the heroic division went north to crusade, and now break Changsha, the four people do not need to panic, the people of heaven love the people if they are sons, the people do not kill, the wealth is not taken, and the women are not." If you become a subject of the kingdom of heaven, you will be blessed by your heavenly father and heavenly brother, and I will wait for them like brothers and sisters, and share happiness and peace. People from all walks of life can be stable as usual, all industries are open, and everything is as usual! ”

After the man listened to the shouting a few times in a row, he relaxed slightly, and after the Taiping soldiers marched, there was another group of Taiping soldiers escorting a group of Qing army prisoners over, and also pushing a few carts, and began to pack up the corpses along the way, the corpses of the long-haired thieves, and the corpses of the Qing army were carried into the car by the Qing army prisoners.

The man stood at his door and watched a few bloody carts pass in front of him, the Taiping Army and the Qing Army who collected the corpses just glanced at him, no one spoke and continued to walk forward, the car was rolling with blood stains on the ground, creaking and creaking, the legs and feet of a corpse in the car were hanging outside the car, and in the original fresh air, the thick smell of blood did not dissipate for a long time.

"It's all dead to be clean." The man muttered, and was about to turn around and enter the house, but saw several Taiping soldiers coming over again, one of them was in his thirties, and asked in a local Hunan dialect: "Brother, we are all Taiping holy soldiers, my name is Chen Zhiming, a native of Liling, originally from the Heaven and Earth Society, the Taiping of Bandaotou, we are recruiting people to work at this time, fifty yuan a day, are you willing to do it?" ”

The man was slightly stunned, touched Fang Kuo's head, and thought to himself, he was originally just a coolie in the city, and he used to earn 20 yuan a day after a hard day, and more than 600 yuan a month, which can be exchanged for three yuan of silver, and he and his mother-in-law have to eat three buckets and three liters of rice grain every month, 500 yuan is enough to buy rice, and the remaining 100 yuan is to buy some side dishes, coarse salt and food, and the life is already tight, and he gave birth to a son two months ago, so he can only tighten his belt to work, save some for his wife to eat, In this month, there was a long hair, the price of rice and silver rose, and I didn't receive a job for a few days in a row, and I saw that the family was about to be unable to open the pot. At this time, since Longhair asked for a job, it was still fifty yuan a day, and this money should be earned by him, who made Longhair so noisy that his family almost couldn't get by?

"Go, go and do what?" The man asked with some hesitation.

Chen Zhiming smiled and said, "It's just cleaning the streets or taking care of our injured brothers, it won't be a murderous thing anyway." ”

The man was even more moved, but he looked at Chen Zhiming's braids, his hair was scattered behind his head, and his temples and forehead were bare and only wrapped in a red scarf. ”

Chen Zhiming shook his head and smiled: "This is up to you, our King of the West said, if you don't want to cut it, it's okay not to cut it for the time being, but if the people of the city cut it in the future, will you cut it or not?" ”

The man hesitated for a moment and said, "If everyone cuts it, I'll cut it." ”…,

Chen Zhiming nodded and said, "Then it's decided, come with me, let's go to the barracks first, many injured brothers are still waiting to be taken care of." By the way, what's your name, brother? ”

The man replied: "My name is Li Tianxi, master, I will go back and talk to my cousin first, and I will come immediately." ”

Chen Zhiming smiled: "Don't call me the master, you can call me Chen Commander or a good person, in short, don't call me a demon, no matter how good it is, it's okay to be a brother, you should be a little faster." ”

In this way, Li Tianxi, a small citizen of Shengdou, followed Chen Zhiming to the original governor's yamen to work, and along the way, Chen Zhiming also recruited a lot of poor people who worked, not to mention one or two hundred people, all of whom were for the sake of eating, and the long hair seemed to be much more polite than the Qing army, so they all followed Chen Zhiming with the intention of giving it a try.

The Taiping army fought fiercely all night, there were always four or five hundred wounded soldiers, and the side hall, wing room, and gatehouse of the governor's yamen were all wounded soldiers, and there were always one or two hundred people here to recuperate, because the strength was limited, and there was really no manpower to take care of the wounded soldiers, so Xiao Yungui ordered someone to find helpers. Changsha City is broken, the people here don't seem to have much good impression of Changmao, it is important for the Taiping Army to gain a firm foothold here, Xiao Yungui is afraid that the people will be forced to help provoke the people, so he can only pay for helpers.

Seeing the arrival of the helpers, several doctors and life-saving officers who accompanied the army hurriedly stepped forward to grab people, divided each of them into thirty or forty people, explained some simple life-saving essentials, and asked Li Tianxi and them to follow and take care of the wounded soldiers in Taiping.

Boiling hot water, feeding, boiling medicine, washing and wrapping wounds, anyway, it is just some hands-on work, Li Tianxi can also cope with it, it is easier than doing coolies every day, but he is a little unhappy in his heart, he always thinks that these jobs should be done by women, and he knows that his mother-in-law will do it.

Just as Li Tianxi was working, he saw a group of murderous Taiping soldiers walking over surrounded by a big man wrapped in a yellow turban, this big man was wearing a red satin robe, and his clothes were very luxurious.

The Taiping life-saving officer who led Li Tianxi on the side saw it, hurriedly pulled Li Tianxi, and said in a low voice: "His Royal Highness the King of the West has come down, don't move, don't talk nonsense, be careful of being taken as a demon and a traitor." ”

Li Tianxi was startled, and hurriedly shrank to the side, not daring to raise his head, and not daring to breathe. I saw that the king of Naxi went everywhere to personally inspect the injuries of the wounded soldiers, and after saying a few words, those long-haired wounded soldiers were moved to tears, Li Tianxi thought to himself, this long-haired king of the west treats his soldiers with love.