On June 14, Henan Province was in the territory of Guide Province.

The wilderness was dusty, there was no green everywhere, let alone crops, and the rivers along the way had dried up, leaving only cracked beds that seemed to speak of the waves of the past.

"You don't see it, the final army of the Han Dynasty, the weak crown is the captive, please Changying, you don't see it, Ban Dingyuan, the peerless light cavalry urges the battle clouds! The boy should be in serious danger, how can he let the Confucian crown miss this life? The situation is that the country is in danger, and the feather is constantly fighting! Abandon my old pen, follow my wartime jin, call more than 100,000 comrades, sing war songs and join the army. Qi joined the army, cleaned the dust, and swore to sweep away the slaves without regard for themselves! ”

Suddenly, a majestic war song came, and I saw a mighty ironclad army marching south in high spirits.

Outside the bright red military uniform, there is a sophisticated iron armor, and tens of thousands of elite soldiers march in a neat queue, like an invincible torrent, giving people a sense of indomitable.

There were a large number of cavalry in the army, either gathered behind the army, or patrolled to and from the left and right of the army, or rushed to the distance to be on guard. All the soldiers were fully armed, wearing armor, singing military songs all the way, and their morale was high.

Liu Yan also wore armor and rode his horse, and the commander of the personal guard battalion made Miao Shao and the town officer Xun Jingyun follow on the left and right.

This time, Liu Yan also brought Yue Ming, the money and grain officer, to be responsible for managing the money and food of the army, after all, the amount of money and food in the army this time is far from being comparable to before, and it must be managed by a special person.

Liu Yan looked at the sky, it was already afternoon at this time, but the weather was still very hot, the soldiers of the army were all sweating, and the water bladders they carried were almost finished.

"Pass the order, let the soldiers work harder, rush to Tuocheng County before sunset, the army will rest in Tuocheng County tonight, and they will be able to enter the territory of Kaifeng Mansion early tomorrow morning."

"Order!"

As the order was delivered, the battle flag of the Chinese army shook violently a few times, and the herald also blew the horn. Immediately afterward, a flurry of horns sounded from the front and rear of the ranks, and then the battle flags of each division began to shake one after another with the iron armor dragon, indicating that they had received orders.

"The soldiers are in good shape!"

Glancing back at the team behind him, Liu Yan showed a satisfied look on his face, he led the army to set off from the Lingshan Acropolis, basically maintaining a seventy-mile march every day. In just a few days, hundreds of miles were walked, and no one was left behind. Looking at the Ming Dynasty at this time, in terms of the marching speed of the new army, Liu Yan said that he was second, and no one dared to say first.

Moreover, in the army on this expedition, in addition to the part of the baggage carried by each battalion itself, there is also a huge amount of money and food, as well as more than 200 artillery pieces of various types in the artillery battalion, as well as a large amount of gunpowder and ammunition, plus the armor on the soldiers of each battalion, plus the rest of the weapons and equipment.

After walking hundreds of miles like this, the army at least ordinary people rely on walking, and the hardships can be imagined.

Fortunately, the armor of the new army is all improved, and the armor is stressed by the whole body, which largely offsets the weight of the armor. Moreover, the food of the new army is very good, and the supply of salt and meat is sufficient, so that the physical fitness of the officers and men of the new army is very good. In addition, after several months of arduous training in the army, the physique of all the officers and men has made a qualitative leap, and the long-distance march has not had a great impact on them.

On the way, Liu Yan asked Yue Ming about the consumption of grain and grass in the past few days, and then said: "Send Ye Bu to go to Tuocheng County first, and order the county order to prepare grain and grass, and tonight's rations and supplies will be sent out by Tuocheng County!" ”

"Yes!"

According to the physical exertion of soldiers during the war, the supply of meat is not timely, so the amount of food will become very large, so it is calculated that each soldier has to eat four catties of grain a day, and the war horse has to eat nearly ten catties of forage a day.

In this way, the more than 28,000 soldiers of the new army consumed 967 stone of grain a day, and the war horses and mules and horses consumed more than 660 stone of forage. With such a huge consumption, even if the money and food of the army are abundant, Liu Yan does not dare to squander it wantonly, he can take food on the spot everywhere, and his reserves are not moved as much as possible.

Moreover, every time Liu Yan passed through a city, he would take out a letter from the military department and ask the prefectures and counties along the way to supply at least a few days of grain and grass.

Even so, according to Yue Ming's statistics, the new army has also consumed more than 1,000 stones of grain and grass in the past few days, which makes Liu Yan feel distressed.

At present, the new army has just left the territory of Shandong, and Guide Mansion is still a place that has been less affected by the war, and some grain and grass can be replenished along the way, which makes Liu Yan worry that after the army enters Kaifeng Mansion and Runan Mansion, it is a place that has been repeatedly poisoned by the army of thieves.

Liu Yance immediately said: "Is there a reward for not collecting the night before the ministry? ”

Miao Shao said: "My lord, there are some returns, but the news is not complete, so I haven't reported it to my lord for the time being." ”

"Tell me about it."

Miao Shao said: "Lord Hui, according to the exploration of the past few days, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Luoyang, Suizhou, and Xiangyang in front of our army have been repeatedly ravaged by bandits, and the people's livelihood in various places has withered, and there are no people for hundreds of miles. The government everywhere is tired, and our army wants to collect grain on the spot, I am afraid it is not so easy. ”

However, Miao Shao then lowered his voice and said: "My lord, at present, there is a great drought in all parts of the Ming Dynasty, especially in Henan and other places, it is said that the rice has risen to a thousand yuan, or even ten thousand yuan, and only the rich squires in various places have grain in stock. I heard that in the past few months, the provinces of Huguang, Su, and Songzhu have been hit by heavy floods, and the rice there will cost 700 or 800 yuan, so that the neighborhoods have gone on strike and the villages have closed their homes. ”

"In such a situation, even if our army buys grain with those squires, it will cost a lot of money, so it is better to ......"

Liu Yan naturally knew what Miao Shao meant, that is, to forcibly requisition the money and grain of the squires and wealthy families along the way to supplement the military.

It's just that there are too many problems in this way, and the officers and soldiers of the new army will gradually lose the hearts of the army in the robbery again and again, for Liu Yan, the gains outweigh the losses, and he doesn't want to work hard to build the new army, and finally become a bandit army like an army of thieves.

So Liu Yan said: "Silver is not a problem, as long as you can buy grain and grass with silver, it doesn't hurt to spend more silver, spend money to buy it first." ”

"Yes."

But having said that, Liu Yan still sighed, you must know that in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, one tael of silver could buy rice and two stones. But now, more than ten or twenty taels of silver can't buy a stone of grain, how can these people live, no wonder Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong's generation can pull up hundreds of thousands of horses casually, and human life is not worth much!

As the sun gradually sank in the west, Liu Yan ordered the army to advance quickly, striving to reach Tuocheng County as soon as possible.

"The whole army has quickened its pace."

After Liu Yan passed on the order, the army significantly quickened its pace, and in the passionate singing, the battalions of the new army rolled forward.

In the county government of Tuocheng County, Liu Yan thought about his next plan.

"There are still more than 1,000 miles from Tuocheng County to Zhengzhou, Kaifeng and other places, and it is estimated that it will take another month to arrive. I wonder how the battle will develop in a month? ”

As soon as Liu Yan set off with his army, he received a letter sent by Yang Sichang, mentioning that Zhang Xianzhong had begun to concentrate his troops and there were signs of breaking through in the direction of Sichuan, and asked Liu Yan to lead the army to assist as soon as possible.

Now that he and more than 20,000 new troops have joined, the trend of history has deviated slightly, so Liu Yan is not sure whether Zhang Xianzhong will lead the army into Sichuan as he did in history.

"If Zhang Xianzhong leads the army into Sichuan, I don't know how long the war will be delayed, and the Shu Road of this era is difficult to exist in the blue sky!"

On the second day, the battalions of the new army set off, and the county commander of Tuocheng County led a group of squires and officials to send them ten miles away.

A few days later, the battalions of the New Army entered Zhenyang County in Runing Province.

Liu Yan rode his horse to a high ground, looked around, his heart surged one after another, and a sad air filled his chest.

The scenery around is like hell on earth, the land around is yellowish and white, there is not a trace of green, the leaves and bark of the trees are gone, and there are no blades of grass to be seen, because these things have been eaten by the hungry.

There was no bark, and the bare trees trembled in the yellow earth, and a gust of wind swept in the dust.

Liu Yan even had some delusions, did he take the wrong path and came to the Gobi Desert in the northwest?

There is no river to be seen around, because it has all dried up. The fields and riverbeds are full of cracks and fine lines, and the sky is full of "dark clouds" one after another, which is the effect of overwhelming locusts flying in.

Since the battalions of the New Army entered the southern part of Kaifeng Province and the territory of Runing Province, most of the towns and cities where the army passed were deserted, and everywhere were starving, skeletons strewn strewn, and corpses of all kinds were everywhere.

And the sporadic living people Liu Yan saw on the road were also with a pair of strange eyes, which was a sign of hunger and dizziness.

What Liu Yan couldn't bear the most was the hordes of hungry people, who had no scruples to cut the flesh of the dead corpses to eat, including many of their relatives. On both sides of the official road, abandoned dead babies can be seen everywhere, which makes people cry when they see it.

When he first entered Runing Mansion, Liu Yan was extremely angry when he saw the situation of eating the dead, and ordered the hungry people who ate the dead to be driven away, and then collected the bones in the wild, and distributed some military rations to those hungry people.

However, there are too many such scenes along the way, if the military rations run out, what will the soldiers of the new army eat?

Liu Yan couldn't help but sigh when he looked at such a country, and for the first time he felt powerless in his heart.

It was the first time for Yue Ming, the money and grain official, to see such a scene, and he was already in tears when he looked at the desolate scene along the way, and the generals such as Miao Shao and Xu Ming were also silent, and everyone's hearts were heavy.

The army continued to march, but the military songs of the soldiers could no longer be sung, and only neat footsteps were left around, and the atmosphere was very depressing.

At this time, the army had passed through Zhenyang County, and there was a deserted village in front of them, and there was no trace of living people in the village, only ruins and broken walls, and scattered white bones.

Suddenly, a terrible howl came from the ruins, it seemed to be a woman's voice, Liu Yan's face sank, Miao Shao reacted, and immediately shouted: "Go and see!" ”

After a few nights, he immediately crossed out of the crowd and rode his horse to that side.

After a few nights of not collecting, Liu Yan had seen several women appear in front of everyone like crazy, their steps staggered, the clothes on their bodies had long been gone, and they all ran out naked.

What made Liu Yan even more unbearable was that the bodies of those women were already in tatters, full of blood holes after being cut, one of the women's left hand had disappeared, and Bai Sensen's bones were exposed, and they were still bleeding!

Immediately afterward, several red-eyed men chased after each with wooden sticks, shouting loudly, but the sound was not like a human voice.

When the women saw that the night was not closed, they screamed and ran to the side, their voices desperate and miserable.

The woman who was missing a hand cried out loud in a local accent: "Master Jun, they ate my child, my child!" ”

Some people died, but not completely......