With a "whoosh", a sharp arrow pierced the head of the man with the stick at the head, and then several men who did not close their bows left and right opened their bows, and several men who chased after them were hit by arrows and flew out.

"Smack!" With the smoke of his handcuffs, a large hole was broken in the man's chest, and he retreated several steps in succession, and finally fell straight to the ground.

The battle between the lightning and flint was over, and the women who were running to the side seemed to be frightened, and they all collapsed on the ground, and two of them fainted directly in front of their eyes.

And the woman who was missing her left hand glanced at the soldiers of the army, and threw herself on the ground in horror, screaming loudly: "Don't eat my ......"

After saying that, the woman also fell to the ground, convulsing continuously.

For a few nights, he led people to search and advance into the deserted village to prevent anyone from hiding inside. Liu Yan brought Miao Shao, Xu Ming, Yue Ming, Xun Jingyun and Bao Xuezhen to ride horses, and a team of guards also surrounded the place.

Bao Xuezhen didn't give in, and hurriedly stepped forward to check, only to see that he checked the women one by one, and then stood up with a blue face, and suddenly slammed the medicine box in his hand to the ground.

"Beasts are inferior! Beasts are not as good as beasts! ”

Liu Yan frowned, but he didn't open his mouth to urge, and waited until Bao Xuezhen finished venting, then he came over and hugged his fists and said, "My subordinates are rude, please punish them." ”

Liu Yan said: "With such a human tragedy, no one will be indifferent, it doesn't matter." It's just, what happened to these women? ”

Bao Xuezhen sighed and said, "Each of those women has more than 20 wounds on their bodies, which were caused by being cut alive and eaten meat. They hadn't eaten for a long time, and their wounds had not been treated, they were bleeding all the time, and they had all been suppurated and infected. ”

Bao Xuezhen pointed to the two women and said, "Those two women are already out of breath, and the remaining few are estimated to be a matter of time and a half." ”

Everyone sighed.

Liu Yan pointed to the woman who was missing her left hand and asked, "Then how is her situation?" ”

"Alas!"

Bao Xuezhen said: "She is a pregnant woman! Just now, the subordinates found that the fetus was dragged alive by someone, and it is estimated that it was also eaten......"

Speaking of which, Bao Xuezhen couldn't stand it anymore, and directly squatted down and cried bitterly. Miao Shao and Xu Ming were even more furious, jumped off their horses suddenly, pulled out their waist knives and went to chop the corpses of those men, venting the anger in their hearts.

Liu Yan slowly closed his eyes, his heart was like a knife, this is a tragedy in the world, it is really a great death!

On the same day, Liu Yan ordered several women who had died to be buried on the spot, and then the army continued to march, and by noon, the army marched to the bank of an unknown river, although the river here had almost dried up, and there were cracks everywhere, but what was surprising was that in some low-lying places, there were still some relatively clear ponds.

Liu Yan ordered all battalions of the new army to rest and cook here, and after testing that the water source was drinkable, the officers and soldiers of all departments went to fetch water in an orderly manner.

"It's miserable, it's so miserable."

Liu Yan was eating dry food, and Miao Shao walked over with a pale face. It turned out that the few people under Miao Shao's command inspected the ruins and found the household posts of several women, and learned that they were all local people.

“…… After several major droughts here, the price of this rice rose all the way, especially the rich merchants closed the market, and finally they couldn't buy grain with silver! ”

Miao Shao said indignantly: "Those women's bags are scattered in the deserted village, and there are vouchers to buy rice, and a pound of rice costs 300 Wen!" Damn! ”

Liu Yan also lost his appetite when he heard this, according to the productivity level of the Ming Dynasty at this time, if the price was two or three times higher than usual, there would be a great famine in various places, not to mention that the price of goods was as high as ten times, or even twenty times. The people developed from eating tree bark, grass roots, and tribulus terrestris to eating earth and rocks, and after eating these, they began to eat people.

Family, brothers, friends, and neighbors eat each other, and these basic ethics no longer exist. In the end, there were groups of strong men armed with sticks, picking out those women and children, but no one dared to save them.

Along the way, many people who did not collect at night heard about the local and nearby cities, except for the cities and suburbs, the people in the villages around the country either starved to death, or had become bandits, or even "cannibals", and the rest of the people were in danger of becoming food for others.

At this time, Yue Ming sighed: "Since the year of Chongzhen, there has been a famine in Henan almost every year, and there are many thieves in the mountains and wilderness. Parents who eat their children, children who eat their parents, and minors who don't want to see each other, wander every night, hear the sound of crying for help, and all traitors use tricks to devour people. This sad and sour nose, I can't bear to smell it......"

Xu Ming said loudly: "I think the officials and generals in Henan are still incompetent, and Shandong is also in a big drought this year, but why is no one starving to death everywhere in our Jimo camp?" When a natural disaster comes, as long as the local civil officials and military generals are capable, they can also carry it! ”

Miao Shao also said: "That's right, I think that only under the leadership of adults can we sweep away all the injustices in the world and make a bright future." It's hateful that those wastes in the court have lived in the temple for a long time, but their ability is far inferior to that of adults! ”

Everyone nodded in agreement, but Liu Yan was speechless, rare disasters and famines one after another, especially in Henan and the northwest, which is why the Liukou in Henan and the northwest are particularly vigorous. Cracking down on criminals is a matter of people's livelihood, not a military issue.

Thinking of this, Liu Yan was also a little worried about the outcome of this battle: What if he killed Zhang Xianzhong? As long as the people can't survive, there will still be Wang Xianzhong and Liu Xianzhong, and the troubled times will not end!

At this time, Liu Yan's desire for authority surged, and only when the power he controlled was big enough to control the world could he truly end the troubled times and stop the tragedy in the world.

Two days later, in the evening, the battalions of the New Army arrived in Hunan, and after setting up camp outside the city of Guizhou, Miao Shao took the official document of the military department as usual and went into the city to ask the prefect in the city for food.

Not long after, Miao Shao came back empty-handed, and he didn't get a bucket of food. It turned out that the prefect of Guizhou was unwilling to distribute food at all on the grounds that there was no food, and he did not want to let the battalions of the new army be stationed outside the city to rest and recuperate.

Liu Yan was furious, the army came all the way, and more than 3,000 stone of military rations were scattered along the way, although the trip brought a large amount of silver taels with the army, but the merchants and wealthy households were closed, and it was extremely difficult to buy grain. If you don't replenish grain and grass in the official warehouses of various states and counties, what should you do if the grain and grass in the army run out?

Liu Yan immediately shouted to Xu Ming: "Commander Xu, you take a general soldier into the city to arrest the prefect, I want to see if he dares not to give food in front of my army." ”

"My lord, what if someone stops me?"

"Engage in military law!"

A cold light flashed in Xu Ming's eyes, and he clasped his fists at Liu Yan and said, "The last general will take orders!" ”

There was a commotion outside the barracks, and then the noise sounded inside the city, and soon, Wang Chuan, the prefect of Guizhou City, was escorted to the big tent of the Chinese army by several soldiers of the new army.

To Liu Yan's surprise, Wang Chuan was very young, less than thirty years old, and he looked gentle and elegant. He was not panicked when he was escorted in by several new army soldiers, his eyes swept over everyone in the tent, and then he stared at Liu Yan.

Liu Yan glanced at him and asked, "My army was ordered to suppress thieves, and we have traveled thousands of miles here, and there is a military department here, why don't you give food?" ”

Wang Chuan smiled slightly and said, "I have long heard that General Liu's new army is strong in combat and has broken the army of slaves and thieves several times, but I didn't expect it to be so arrogant and rude!" ”

That Wang Chuan spoke with the accent of the South Zhili area, and the Ming Dynasty has always not allowed people from this province to be officials on the spot, especially when Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, the requirements were stricter, and even let "the southerners are in the north, and the northerners are in the south", but later it was not limited to the north and the south. However, except for academic officials, it is an iron law that people in this province are not allowed to serve as local officials. 33

Wang Chuan knew himself so well, which made Liu Yan a little surprised, he asked Wang Chuan to sit down, and asked him why he was unwilling to give food.

Wang Chuan suddenly laughed wildly, and said almost arrogantly: "When people die, there is naturally no food." ”

He laughed wildly for a while, and then said with a choked voice: "The general may not know that I returned to the original household registration of 57,835 households in Zhou City, but at the beginning of the year, 48,128 households have died. The original editor was 1325 ding, and there were 118,450 ding who escaped to death, which is still the statistics at the beginning of the year, and I don't know how many are left now. ”

"But even so, I still have to bear more than 124,000 taels of silver, more than 32,300 stones of rice, 82,533 stones of Liao rice beans, 3,688 stones of Linqing rice, and 1,842 stones of Lu rice. Let me ask the general, with the remaining population in the city now, how can we send food to it? ”

Wang Chuan's expression suddenly became resolute, and he said: "The disaster situation is embarrassing, and seeing that the city of Guizhou is about to be extinct, this official has decided to distribute all the grain and rice in the warehouse to the victims. ”

Liu Yan didn't expect things to be like this, so he asked, "Then how do you explain to the imperial court?" ”

Wang Chuan smiled strangely and said: "It's okay, the lower officials have already made up their minds to go back with the seal, and it's a big deal to return to their hometowns to live, but they will be left alive." ”

Liu Yan looked at him for a long time and sighed: "Governor Wang, go back, you have offended a lot." ”

Wang Chuan said: "I'm not busy, I just went to the camp and saw that there seems to be a lot of grain and grass in your army, for the sake of the people, I also asked the general to pull out a piece of grain and grass to help the lives of the people in Guizhou City." ”

Liu Yan was speechless for a long time when he heard this.

Early the next morning, Liu Yan led the army to leave Guizhou City, he was in a bad mood, not only did he not get grain, but instead pasted hundreds of stones of grain and grass.

However, these grains were used to help the victims, and Liu Yan felt better. Wang Chuan naturally thanked him for his kindness, praising Liu Yan as worthy of being the pillar of the country, and the battalions of the New Army as worthy of being the teacher of benevolence and righteousness, only Liu Yan had words of suffering.

"Today the road is full of birds and beasts, and the bones are full of wilderness. The yin wind is miserable, and the green of the forest is roaring. The small bones of the flank arm, in the road, every suburb, the feet on the top, the sound of the stalks, such as on the hemp straw......"

The army came all the way, every time it passed through a city, it was either a tragedy of cannibalism, or a riot of people, and when the army marched to the shore of Yishui, the whole army looked at the opposite side blankly, and there were dozens of people who committed suicide by throwing themselves into the river, they scrambled to be the first, as if they were rushing to some Elysium, and the shouts revealed a strong atmosphere of despair.

When Liu Yan saw this scene, he didn't let his subordinates go down to save people, because the hearts of those people were already dead and they couldn't be saved.

"My lord, there is a new assembly place ahead, Yang Sichang is in the area of Agate Mountain hundreds of miles ahead, and the army will arrive in more than ten days."

Liu Yan was furious in his heart at this time, and when he heard the three words Yang Sichang, he didn't know if his decision to lead his troops south was correct, and he immediately said angrily: "The whole army slows down its march, and after marching thirty miles every day, it will camp and rest to restore the physical strength of the soldiers." ”

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